Video: Budget battles loom

>>> the house and senate are expected to debate dooling federal budget plans offered by democrats and republicans. we saw the debate rage yesterday on "meet the press."

>> i disagree with what the democrats are doing. you try to build as much debt as you can take until you topple the entire economy.

>> there budget is built on a hoax. on the one handled they say it balances in ten years. on the other hand they say they repeal obama care. but they keep the savings in obama care. if you would repeal obama care today, their budget would not be in balance.

>> you saw him there, the democratic congressman, the top democrat on the committee. good to see you.

>> good to be with you.

>> in the past hour, you announced what you're calling a house democratic budget alternative. first of all, what is it and how is it different from the previous plan offered by the senate ?

>> well, it is similar to the senate plan. in other words, we also focus on job creation and accelerating the economy right now. then we address the long term budget deficit in a balanced way where we ask for shared responsibility as opposed to the republican plan which provides another tax break wind fall to very wealthy people at the end of everybody else. the expense of the middle class , the expense of commitments to seniors. so our focus right now is to number one, do no harm to the economy. number two, invest in a jobs plan that will help put people back to work. whether building roads or bridges or infrastructure or other things important to our economy.

>> why will it take until 2040 to balance the budget under your plan?

>> well, if you actually look at the past 40 years, we've only had four balanced budgets . those were during the clinton years and once leaning over to the bush years and then they squandered that balance. so the reason we do that is our focus is on jobs, craig. our focus is on meeting our commitments to seniors. we will not balance the budget on the backs of our kids' education or on the backs of our commitments to seniors. whether it is under medicare or medicaid. what we do is immediately begin to reduce the deficit so they're growing much slower than the economy. which is the important measure. and then we gradually get the balance in the year round 2040 . which by the way is the same year that the republican balance last year, the budget last year came into balance before they changed their priority. their priority now is balance at all costs. and our approach is focus on jobs in the economy and get the deficit down in a smart way.

>> let's talk about the sequester for just a moment. what's the likelihood at this point that the sequester stays in place for the rest of the year? the fiscal year?

>> well, it would be a big mistake for it to stay in place. that's why we propose in our budget to replace it so you can get the same deficit reduction benefit but over a longer period of time.

>> but political feasibility. what's the likelihood it stays in place?

>> well, political feasibility depends on whether or not republicans will come around on this issue. right now as you know, they're dug in. they're saying no. in fact we've asked four times now for simply a vote on the floor of the house to replace the sequester. they've said no. to give you an idea how damaging it will become and increasingly so over time , the professionals around here, the nonpartisan congressional budget office says we will have 750,000 fewer jobs. i just got yesterday a letter from the head of the big biotech company in my district saying they were imposing a hiring freeze right now because of the sequester. so that means fewer people hired to do important work now.

>> before we go, i do want to ask but the ongoing power struggle between congress and the united states postal service . congress seems poised to try to force the post office to continue saturday mail delivery as part of a government spending bill. the house has passed that bill. the senate is expected to follow suit. perhaps as early as tomorrow. walk us through the thinking here. what is the thinking?

>> well, the thinking is that one of the things that attracts people to use in the use postal service is that they have had good service. the concern is if you begin to erode the qual of the service, you will see a downward spiral. they will be able to less to compete as a result of that. what we should do is change some of the requirements we've imposed that aren't imposed on any other entity. public or private entity. for example, we require that they prefund 75 years of their health care . there's no private sector company that is required to do that. and no other part of the u.s. government is doing that. they would actually have been in surplus last year. this is postal service . had it not been for that requirement that only they pay. so there are things we can do to give them more flexibility without it being the flexibility to reduce needed services. again, these are choices we'll have to decide as we go along.

>> maryland congressman, chris van hollen . good to see you. let's bring in the political panel. the white house report he for politico and democratic strategist and msnbc contributor, jimmy williams , good to see both of you. this warring ten-year budget plan. these plans that will come before the house and the senate this week. what can we speck to happen in.

>> i think we'll see the plans pass each chamber. but they're sharply at odds. so it is not the struggle they'll face within each chamber. it is what happens when paul ryan and patty murray tried to reconcile the two. and there will certainly be an attempt to do that. because these are the two packages, or this is the vehicle that the president is looking to to try to get something larger on the debt and deficit. because there are very few remaining paths for the president to try to get a grand bargain. one is the budget process that is commencing simultaneously in each chamber for the first time in a good number of years. so this is an unusual circumstance and one that provides an opportunity for the president, however, like i said, very, very different plans.

>> let's talk about that. you wrote a piece that i really enjoy. in that piece you wrote, you called the budget process as we now know it, a sham of sorts. how so?

>> well interesting budget doesn't have a force of law. it isn't signed by the president of the united states . we didn't have a budget from 1789 to 1921 . until that time, the congress just passed appropriations bills, funded wars, civil wars , the end of slavery, et cetera , et cetera . and we went through the great depression. all these things happened and we never had a budget . in 1921 , a republican house, a republican senate gave warren harding republican president the ability for the first time in the history of the country to submit a budget to the congress. guess what has happened every time since then? nothing. the point is the budget process is a sham. the only point is to tell the appropriate ators how much they can spend. she said something interesting. she said for the first time in a long time, they'll use this small micro budget process to hopefully get a big deal . and that is a good thing. we like that idea that washington would come together in a bipartisan way and come one a big deal . is not it ironic for the last four years, the democrats haven't done a budget . the republicans didn't do three budgets and the world still keeps spinning on its axis. it is a big huge sham. maybe this time they can turn it into something positive.

>> i'll take your soap box for a second. let's talk about the likelihood that we get this so-called grand bargain or medium size bargain or small bargain, any sort of bargain. what are the chances best we can gather?

>> i honestly think there's a lot of pessimism. you've heard yesterday on the sunday talk shows , both speaker boehner and kevin mccarthy saying, another republican leader saying we're done with revenue. and you saw in response, dan pfeiffer, i'm sorry, now senior adviser in the white house tweeting out that unless republicans talk about revenue, this is going nowhere. i've been hearing that out of the white house . what does this charm offensive last week, where is this leading? what is the white house looking to do with this to see whether there is a grand bargain that's possible. the response i keep getting is republicans have to accept forward on revenue. with the exception of senator corker yesterday, you're not seeing a lot of movement there. i think that's why this process, this regular order process that we're seeing moving in the senate might provide some sort of hope for at least a process to get people talking. people aren't. the president isn't talking with the leaders in any sort of intensive fashion. and even though people are all saying the right thing, there is not a lot of movement toward brass tacks negotiating.

>> one of the things that strikes me, on both sides, you have parties saying that we like, some saying we like to close some of these loopholes. we like to limit deductions. the devil in the details seems to be when they start talking about what to do with that new revenue. to pay down the debtor is it used as tax revenue ?

>> well, that's always been the debate. that was the debate we had in 1986 when we did the '86 tax bill toward the end of reagan's second term. that was supposed to be a revenue neutral bill. it did nothing but expand the number of loopholes for corporate america . that's how they got the bill passed. they bought off every entity and gave them a special provision. that's how you got it done. it died about 5,000 times until bob packwood got it over the line . let's be clear about what this is all about. the real key here is march 27th . the reason it is is because we have a continuing resolution to fund that building in the entire federal government . that expires on march 27th . until the senate can pass a bill the next week or so, and the house just swallowed it. the government will shut down. that's the thing that no one is talking about. that's the biggest problem. the tax reform , that's way down the road.

>> thanks to both of you.

Source: http://video.msnbc.msn.com/newsnation/51229302/

la riots new jersey devils torn acl derrick rose injury st louis news utah jazz lawrence of arabia