state capitol saturday. most opposed to the budget plan but also some supporters. public employees offered to pay more for pensions and health benefits if any he can keep their collective bargaining rights and senate democrats remain in hiding out of state so no vote can be taken. joining us now the man pushing the changes governor scott walker who comes to us from madison, wisconsin. governor, welcome to "fox news sunday." >> good to be with you, chris. >> chris: the 14 democrats who fled wisconsin to avoid -- to block a vote in the state senate say they will come back if you will sit down with them and work out a compromise and the deal would be that the unions agree on the money issues but they keep their collective bar gaining rights. are you willing to do that? >> they must realize if you want to participate in democracy you have to be in the arena here in madison,

wisconsin. not hiding out in rockford or chicago, illinois. they failed to do that. they are walking out on their job. they are doing what is contrast to the many thousands, almost 300,000 state workers across the state of wisconsin, most showed up and did their job that they were paid to do. we have a budget deficit. we are broke. it is about time that somebody stood up and told the truth and the only way to budget the balance at the state level or at the local level is to make sure that we give the local governments the tools they need to balance the budget and that is what we are proposing. >> chris: i don't understand. if it is a money issue and balancing the budget and they are willing to concede on the money issues why isn't that enough? why do you also have to take back some of their collective bargaining rights? >> they aren't because in the end they can say that but that is really a red herring. the same groups back in december tried to ram through

in a session employee contracts that would have locked things in before i got there. they are not really interested. more critically, i was an account executive, elected official in milwaukee county, a county that never elected republicans before, i was there for three different elections because we tried to tackle the same issues. what stood in the way time and time again is collective bargaining. a thousand municipalities, 472 school districts, 72 counties in the state which need to be able to offset the power of what is going to happen in wisconsin and that is cutting billions of dollars from local governments. the difference is unlike the local states i want to give the local governments the tools they need to balance the budget now and in the future and they can't do that with the current state. >> chris: how long are you willing to let the standoff go on and what would you think of the legislature voteing that

the senate democrats are in contempt and therefore what they are doing is a crime? >> my hope is that cooler minds will prevail and sometime earlier this coming week they will show up for their job. the best way to motivate senators to come back is the constituents in their districts regardless of how they feel about the budget repair bill is to we will look at every option out there. i'm realistic about the challenges but optimistic about the solutions. i believe we have a path to have everybody come back and vote and make their case and their argument aah democracy is about showing up here in the capital and making the case here. we are willing to take as long as it takes. in the end we are doing the right thing. we are doing the right thing for wisconsin and leading the way as we did in the past in wisconsin on reform. we are leading the way again when it comes to budget erie form and for us we have to do this. we had for decades we had

leaders, republicans and democrats alike who pushed off the problems. there is no place to push them off to. two years ago my predecessor and many of the same majority democrats who are now hiding out first drew a budget that took $2 billion of one time federal stem lucian stimulus md it to balance the budget. they didn't make the tough decisions then but we will do it now because we have to to get our budget balanced. >> chris: president obama stepped into this controversy this week. let's listen to what he said. >> some of what i heard coming out of wisconsin where you are just making it harder for public employees to collectively bar gip generally seems like more of an assault on unions. >> you said that the president should focus on balancing his own budget. do you think that his stepping into a state collective bargaining issue is inappropriate and what do you think of his political arm organizing for america taking a role in mobilizing some of the

opposition? >> i think you are right. the president ultimately should stay focused on fixing the federal budget because they have a huge deficit and they full inir hands null washington. in a larger context the thousands of protesters have every right to be heard at least those from wisconsin. as you just ainclude a alludede are more and more coming in from wisconsin. there are over 3,000 state and local workers who werent here and who are doing their job they are paid to do. there are 5.5 million people in the state, taxpayers by and large sacrificing in their own jobs in the private sector paying much more than the 5.8% for pension and 6.8% for healthcare i'm asking for. many times two or three times that amount. they make sacrifices to balance the budgets in their communities and homes and businesses and i think it is

realistic that we make sure that as loud as the voices are in the capital we don't let them overpower the voices of the taxpayers i was elected to represent and we need to balance this budget. >> chris: you say this is not about the unions, this is about balancing the budget but the opposition says this is about union busting. let's take a look at what is in your plan because beyond making public workers pay more for benefits, here is what your plan would do. it would allow unions to negotiate only over wages, not benefits or work rules. the state would no longer collect union dues and unions would have to win an election every year to keep representing workers. isn't that union busting? >> no, absolutely not. our belief is that we are going to ask more for healthcare and more for pension contribution which is, by the way, very realistic. my brother is a it typical middle class family, a catering manager, his wife works for sears and they have two

beautiful girls. a typical, wisconsin middle class family. he told me last week, he said i'm paying almost $800 a month to pay for healthcare and to set aside the little bit i put in terms of my 401(k). he would love to have the deal we are putting on the table for our state and local government. >> chris: but governor i want to talk about the specific things about collective bargaining and saying that unions have to hold elections every year and that is what your critics say is union busting not the argument about the money issues. >> the two go hand in hand. if we are going to ask our state and local workers to pay a little more to sacrifice to help to balance the budget we should give them the flexibility saying that for those workers who don't want to be a part of the union and don't want that deduction each month out of the pay check should be able to get that five, six or in some cases a thousand dollars back that they can apply toward their healthcare and pension contribution.

for us if you want to have democracy and the american way which is allowing people to have a choice that is what we are allowing there. people can continue to vote to certify the union and continue to voluntarily have the union dues and write the check out and give it to the union to maybe the case but they shouldn't be forced to be he a part of this if that is not what they want to do. and chris, one other quick thing on this. the other thing that is important to remember. they talk about worker rights. wisconsin, several generations before collective bargaining was legal here in the state of wisconsin we passed the strongest civil service protections in the country. there is no state that has a better civil service system in terms of protections. that does not change in this. worker rights will be maintained even after our bill passes. >> chris: this gets to a bigger question and that is whether or not you think there is structural here that the way the system has developed over the years public employees and public employee unions have the upper hand when it comes to

negotiation with state and local governments. do you think that the public worker unions have gotten too powerful? >> absolutely. there is no doubt about it. like i said, for eight years i was a local and county official. i saw first hand for every school district, every city, town board out there and they have been asking for this. this didn't just come up after republicans took thele majorities last november. for decades, local government officials have been asking for these sorts of controls to balance the budgets. the counter is and i saw this at the local level that they would try to force us to do this and say go ahead, lay five or six hundred people off, we don't care, you can't touch our benefits. if we don't do it in wisconsin, it is five to six thousand state government workers laid off and in a state that has a 7.5 unemployment rate which is better than the national level bastille to high to be acceptable in wisconsin.

i can't have anybody laid off. that is why this is a much better alternative than losing jobs. >> chris: the same kind of thing, the idea of trying to make unions give up some of their collective bargaining rights is going on in ohio, in indiana, in tennessee and a bunch of other states. some people are say that what you are involved in right now is a watershed. this is a ronald reagan in the air controllers moment. is it a test case for the power of government versus the power of the public employee unions? >> i do think it has large ramifications and i'm proud of the fact that wisconsin who led the way with welfare reform and education reform under my friend tomorro tommy thompson e 90s could be leading the way this reform 86 spent 8 years as an account executive trying to do the same thing. i talked about it in the campaign and in the transition and talked about it since i took office. if we are going to be in this together our $3.6 billion

budget deficit is going to take a whole lot more than just employee contributions when it comes to pension and healthcare but u it has to be a piece of the puzzle. as i saw at the local level it is like a virus that eats up more and more of the budget if you don't get it under control. this it about balancing not only the next budget but the budgets two, four, six years into the future. right now, people expect us to make tough decisions to make sure we don't pass the buck on to our kids and grand kids and that is what we are doing here in wisconsin. >> chris: less than 30 seconds left. you told meow have been talking to the other governors like in ohio. what are they saying to you, hang in there. in. >> absolutely. whether it is him or chris cristie, tim pawlenty, theying saying hang in there. i got 19,000 e-mails. the overwhelming majority

saying stay the right course, you are doing the right thing. >> chris: governor walker thank you so much for joining us today. we very much appreciate it and we will stay on top of the story. up next, the fight over government spending here in washington. the house approved huge cuts saturday morning. we will ask two key senators what happens next. curtis: welcome back to geico gecko: caller steve, go right ahead. steve: yeah, um, i just got a free rate quote on geico.com,

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>> chris: now, that the house

approve admeasure with deep cuts to keep the federal government in business until the fall attention turns to the senate and we are joined by two senators who will be key players. in muskogee oklahoma, republican tom coburn and from st. louis, clare mccass kill. passed a budget that would cut current spending by $61 billion and let's look at the key provisions. it would ban all funding to implement healthcare reform and ban all funding for planned parenthood and cut spending for the national institutes of health by $1.6 billion and job training by $2 billion. senator mccasskill does the house bill stand a chance in the senate or is it dead on arrival? >> well, i wouldn't call it dead. i think the democrats in the senate and i think the white house are committed to making cuts. i think cuts have to happen. the question is what are the priorities here. are we going to take a weed

whacker to education funding in this country while we let millionaires continue to deduct interest on their second home? that doesn't seem to be the right priority. i hope everyone is willing to compromise. i think -- i hope everyone is going to sit down and work this out. i'm a little worried that the republicans in the house are so anxious to threaten shutting down the government. >> chris: if you say that you are willing to cut, all right, and there is certainly an argument to be made about what you are going to cut. they want $61 billion from current spending. how much are you willing to cut from current spending? >> i think certainly there is on the table a 41l $41 billion. >> chris: wait, wait, senator, that is a phoney cut because that is $41 billion from the president's budget which hasn't ever been enacted. it would actually not cut at all from current spending. they want to cut $61 billion from current spending. how much are you willing to cut? >> i think -- i can't speak for the entire senate, chris.

i can tell you i'm willing to cut. i have been working on trying to get the federal government spending reined in for over a year. there are a lot of us that are willing to cut. and we are willing to sit down and negotiate. we might want different cuts than the ones in education that the house has done. i for one am not happy about the cuts in border security. for gosh sakes we had everybody talking about secure the border, secure the borders, secure the borders and then instead of making reasonable adjustments in checks we write the oil companies they are cutting border security. i think we need to look at the priorities. >> chris: let me bring in senator coburn. do you support the overall level of $61 billion in cuts from current spending and what about senator mccasskill saying we need to argue about what we cut? >> i don't think that is a severe cut. the federal government in terms of discretionary spending is 93% bigger than it was in 2001.

we are essentially cutting in terms of inflation adjusted dollars 5% of that growth over the last nine and a half years. what seems big in washington when you lay it out for the american people is small. there is so much waste in the federal government that it will be easy. there is no question there is going to be controversy about what the house has done. we can easily cut $6 billion. we should be cutting $100 billion and we should be reforming other major programs and i would just say clare mccasskill has agreed to work on a lot of the issues when some of her colleagues haven't because she are recognizes that we are going to make the cuts, chris, sooner or later. we can say they are extraordinary. we will be make them or we willle be told to make them by the people that own our bonds. >> chris: what we are talking about here is a measure that

would extend the continuing resolution which funds the government which runs out on march 4th. let's take a look at the calendar because this becomes all important now. the continuing resolution as i say runs out march 4, a week from friday but the senate in our infinite wisdom is on recess all this week until next monday, february be 28 which means you will have only four days before the cr expires. senator mccasskill is the senate going to be able to pass a new budget plan and work out a deal with the house in four days or are you going to need an extension of the continuing resolution? >> i think we are serious about making cuts. i think we are serious about negotiating. i think we can sit down immediately and begin working on that. we may need to extend slightly the current situation for a few days to get a compromise that works for the american people. you know, keep in mind, chris, that the cuts have come in a very small part of the budget. give tom coburn credit. as a member of the fiscal

commission he stepped up along with democrats durbin and conrad and said we have got to look at the entire budget not just 18% of the budget. we have got to look at the whole shabank and i hope that we do this in a comprehensive way and not just take a weed whacker to the domestic budget while letting the pentagon off free. >> chris: what you said is we probably will need an extension of the cr for a period of time before we work out o a deal. speaker bohhner said if there is an extension there has to be real cuts in it. >> i'm not going to move any short-term cr at current levels. when we say they are going to cut spending read my lips, we are going to cut spending. >> chris: senator coburn, will there have to be cuts in any extension of the cr and if not are we headed for a government

shutdown? >> i don't think we are. i think nobody wants that to happen and i think everybody realizes that we have to make some significant cuts. you can't play the waitingy game saying we don't want to agree with this now, give us a month and we will figure it out next month, the fact is we will still spend $61 billion this year that we don't need to spend. it is good for political rhetoric to talk about a government shutdown but i don't know anybody that wants that to happen and i think cooler heads if in fact everybody says hey, we have to do this and we have to accomplish this that hopefully we will have some leadership. >> chris: but senator -- >> on both sides of the aisle that will do that. >> chris: one of two things are going to happen. either the democrats and republicans in the white house have to agree to some cuts to get an extension or boehner is

going to have to back off what you just heard him say. which is it. in. >> i can't answer that question for you but i can tell you that 75% of the american public wants us to cut the size and scope of the federal government and that is democrat and fingerprint. that is libertarian and conservative and liberal. if you deny the american people what they know to be true is that we cannot continue living beyond our means and we are getting ready to collapse in terms of our financial financing of our debt it is ridiculous to say that the children in washington can't come together in cuts and spending. >> let me put this to you, senator mccaskill are you willing to agree to some cuts or are the democrats going to say we won't do that and we will have a government shutdown? >> i'm going to be optimistic that everyone behaves like adults. but the person who brought up a republican shutdown was john

boehner and the house companies. >> he just says he wants to have cuts. he is not calling for a government shutdown. he says i want cuts. >> we all want cuts. he is the one that is saying that he won't even do a week or two days or four days. is it is silly. we all want cuts. we can find a compromise and make serious and significant cuts in the government with some wasteful programs without going out at the heart of education funding. without cutting border security. we can do that. now, if we don't want to make political points and if we are not posturing for the extreme elements of our party we can all sit down and find the compromises and that is what bed oehner out to be emphasizing. he should be saying let's negotiate and make some cuts. >> chris: what we have been talking about so far it the budget for the next seven months of this year and then we have to deal with 2012 that starts in october and there are

reports that you, senator coburn, are working with a bipartisan group, senators from both parties to try to put the debt commission for trillions of dollars in cuts into effect. you would set targets for cuts in spending, in entitlements, in tax deduckse deduction beesu don't reach them they would be automatic triggers. how is that going? >> we are working on it. you hear a lot of stuff in the press that isn't actually true. there is intellectual honesty in the room and recognizing what some of the political realities are. i think a large number of people are committed to do it. everything has to be on the table from social security to the defense department. i'm convinced there is $50 billion a year of waste in the defense department. there is billions of dollars of waste across a ton of the government programs and we can go get it.

i think we will try to get something done. whether we will, downtown know. the mandate on us is do we want to make these decisions or areselves, chris or ultimately the people who own our debt tell us what we are going to do. i would much rather be in the process of making those decisions ourselves. >> chris: senator mccaskill you have become something of a deficit hog but republicans note that you voted for the stimulus plan. you voted for the obama healthcare plan. are you now willing to cut entitlements including social security which some of your top democratic leaders say off the table. are you willing to cut those and is it as the gop claims because you face a tough reelection fight in 2012? >> i decided that ear mark, was not for this former auditor on the day i got there, chris. i started to try to rein in government spending the day i got there.

tom coburn and i have worked on that for every day i have been in the senate. i voted for big things when the economy was in a crisis but always had an eye to get toot serious work of cutting spending on looking long-term at entitlements. we have to cut social security long-term. i agree that we have to look at egg and be responsible and intellectally honest. the american people are ready for us to be honest with them about the fact that our debt is too high and we have to get a handle on it. >> chris: a minute left. i want you both to be on hest with me about this. it is amazing the president unveiled his three plus trillion dollars budget and we are just getting to it now and one of the reasons it has been widely dismissed on capitol hill is while he says it would would cut the spending by a trillion dollars the fact is it would add $7 trillion to the debt. let me ask you both and start with you, senator coburn, was the president's budget a

failure of presidential leadership? >> i think so. the savings in that budget won't even pay the interest costs of the deficits of the first three years of the budget. that budget puts us in a tremendously greater hole than where we are today. it is a failure. it is dead. everybody knows it is dead. the question is, is can congress come up with one or are we going to run the next year under a continuing resolution? >> senator mccaskill you say you want to be honest. i know it will step on some democrat's toes, is the president's budget a failure in leadership? >> he laid down a starter mark and we have a lot more work to do. >> chris: do you think that is t addresses the problem? >> no matter what budget the president laid down it was going to be attacked. i think he laid down significant cuts and we have a lot more work to do and i'm willing to get at the table and get it done.

>> chris: we have to leave it there. thank you both so much for talking with us and both of you please come back. >> all right, chris, see you. >> thank you. >> up next, protests across the middle east and authorities using lethal force to contain the uprising. an update from the region and ask our sunday group to explain what is going on. a tool where people can enter the terms of the refinance offer they got from their mortgage guy, and know instantly if they're getting bamboozled. and i will start after lunch...tomorrow.

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>> chris: that was the scene in

bahrain saturday as thousands of protesters move back into the central square when riot police retreated. before we we bring in our panel let's get the latest from fox news candidate davi corresponde who is now in bahrain. >> protesters have retaken the scare. many have spent the night here and say they will not leave until their demands for reform are met and they call for the removal of the royal family. the government says a dialogue is underway with the protesters but did not elaborate. attacks in the second largest city where the protesters are steadily gaining momentum.

in yemen one protester was shot dead. demonstrators are calling for the remove allege of yes, men's president who has been in office now for more than three decades. u.s. officials closely monitoring developments in the middle east and most especially here in bahrain which is home to the navy's fifth fleet and u.s. military operations here support activities by the military in both iraq and afghanistan. chris? >> chris: david lee miller reporting from bahrain. thanks for that. and now our sunday group. bill kristol of the weekly standard. mara liasson from national public radio. former state department official liz cheney anded fox news political analyst juan williams. well, let's look at a map of the region and it is changing dramatically by the moment from morocco and algeria and iran

and bahrain. mossivmassive protests. many are turning violent. >> i think the protests are peaceful but the regimes are cracking down violently. i think it is a big moment in the middle east and a moment we have to shape and not wish it weren't happening. bahrain is a friendly nation and advanced one. we are putting pressure on them and working with the crown prince who was educated over here and is a young more progressive perpetrato person e constitutional adjustments. everybody in power there seems to have been in decades which is why we are having this problem. other countries like libya are terrible tara anie tyrannies. i think we need to try to shape it and not just fear what is happening. >> i think that the administration got lucky in egypt and got the outcome it

wanted with very little antiu.s. and antiisrael sentiment. there is a sliver of foo good s in bahrain. the military decided all of a sud ton retreat for the moment. under the administration for which he should get credit from all sides. now, that they are in negotiations if they can get to some kind of a negotiated nonviolent peaceful settlement that will allow reforms to happen then maybe some of these other countries can follow suit. >> chris: liz, let's not talk at least that the point about the obama administratio adam ad the u.s. role. in libya you see the forces firing on mourners leaving the funeral of protesters. at least 15 killed in that incident and some reports of human rightstivists, that

hundreds have been killed. in iran the mullas using brutal force to stop the demonstrators. is there a lesson that you can use force to bell the protests? >> i think that the lesson is the power of the media. in fact, i would imagine the violence is probably much worse in a place like libya where we don't have the kind of preps on o the ground that -- kind presence on the ground that we had in cairo. you have government forces now frankly watching twitter. so the protesters when they put out the tweets and say gather here at the square or gather here at 12:00 you have the government following. i think that at the end of the day what we are seeing is a perspective potentially is what we saw in eastern europe in 1989 and 1990. no one knows where this will end up. i think at the end of the day all of us need to be hoping for

and woking for more freedom, more opportunity, more democracy. from the perspective of the obama administration one of the hallel lengths is as bill said -- challenges is as bill said to recognize that these countries are different. i was concern to see the white house put a statement out of libya and bahrain all together. i think there is potential in bahrain for the monarchy to be able to come up with the kinds of reforms and kind of agreement with the protesters that in fact would not result in a crisis or catastrophe. >> chris: you don't want to see a huge upheaval in bahrain it is the home of the navy fifth fleet and they have been an important western ally. >> i think there is an important significance between totalitarian regimes. in bahrain there is a

suggestion that you could have an influence. we have the administration everyone wants to support what is going on in terms of the green movement inside iran. the question is how do you do that and support that without putting people in a tenable position where the crackdown would be violence. and violence that would kill a large amount of people. they are willing to use violence. it is no the going to suppress the uprisings because i think the internet and al-jazeera a, all of this is throughout the middle east and they are not going to be able to suppress the notion of freedom of expression and democracy in the middle east. at what point does the ussr any obligation to support people and use its influence to put money into it. >> chris: the "wall street journal" had an interesting editorial that in effect said that obama should pull a regan and meet openly with dissidents

from libya and syria and iran and do everything he can to smuggle equipment and money into iran to back general strikes, to back protests, that this idea of just very even handed diplomatic statements isn't enough and in effect he should do wha ronald reagan in afghanistan. good idea? >> absolutely. the iranians are doing it. we are on the side of the people in most all of these cases. i think it is absolutely the right thing to do both morally and strategically. >> you know, there was another point about that. i mean the president was reluctant in the 2009 iranian protests to do that because he felt that it would give the regime a chance to say look, this is just an american controlled effort. now, i think there is a better opportunity to do that now that this is sweeping the entire region. and he did go out of his way at the press conference to say something about iran. and i think they are edging up

very cautiously to something that approaches more of that stand. >> chris: they are a long way away from that. >> a long way away but getting tougher in the rhetoric. >> i would like to see them get tougher in their actions a little sooner here. >> chris: would you like to see him openly support the freedom fighters, the protesters in iran? >> absolutely. he should have done it last june. ed he done it in june of 2009 we might have a different iran today. i think you have a situation here where the administration is constantly playing catchup and one of the things that they clearly are going to be doing now is adding more money to the democracy programs. they need to be held to account. not a single taxpayer penny should go not muslim brotherhood. the administration refused to declare opposition to that. the muslim brotherhood is not democratic and support the imposition of sharia law in

egypt. >> chris: we have to take a break here. when we come back, the wisconsin showdown between the governor and the state's public workers. what does it mean for other states? and the fight in washington over spending. ♪

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>> stay tuned. our panel will be right back.

we are united to protect the freedom of every working woman and every working man in america to join together in unions and bargain for a better life and for dignity. >> chris: that was afl-cio president raising the stakes beyond, wisconsin, for public employee unions and we are back now with the panel. so what is going on in wisconsin? is this just about balancing the budget, juan, or is government walker -- governor walker trying to take back the

powers of the public employee unions? >> rich says this is a bogus crisis and it is dreamed up. the reality is wisconsin does have a budget crisis and it is looming and the public service workers have a very generous pension plan. the requests in terms of negotiating about how much they contribute or the fact that they don't contribute anything in some cases is totally legitimate. this was a reasonable thing for the governor to be doing. but once you come to the idea that he has to take away collective bar gaining especially from teachers i think that lots of people say wait a second, if you want to negotiate, negotiate. let's to this in a kind of shared sacrifice way but you can't just bully people around. that is why you see the people rushing to the square and the 14 democrats disappear from the legislature to try to stop walker. the teachers right now are in trouble across wisconsin and i think across the country.

the public support for unions is on a historic low and i think it is in large part because what people have seen with teachers and the problems with big city schools around the country. milwaukee schools, their black kids there have the lowest median test scores in the whole country. >> chris: i want to get back to the position about governor walker and others are taking about trying to drawback the rights of the unions as bullying or whether there is a structural imbalance and if you are going to deal with the budget now and in the future that you have to take back some of the powers of the public unions. >> it is a much needed reform. in the private sector it is a real bargain. here they elect a republican governor and then jim doyle has generous contract and doesn't give them the bust in wages, he

gives them the huge wages health insurance in the other years. it is a corrupt system and can't be sustained and i think governor walker is right to say you can't just take a one shot adjustment to this, we need to change. >> private sector workers have over time they have bargained over benefits because they have given up wage hikes to get better benefit packages and i think right now, where the public is supportive of the roll backs on public sector workers is on the financial side. it is unclear yet whether there is a lot of public support for actually changing the bargain and saying you can't even negotiate on your benefits, only on your wages and i think the -- they apparently according to reports out of wisconsin the public sector unions already accepted the wage cuts and benefits. if, you know, the firefighters and policemen supported

democrats they would probably be under the gun, too, but they are not. this is big power politics between the democratic interest groups and the republican governor. >> i think on the issue of the it is morebargaining it are than power politics because the governor is going to be asking for massive budget cuts and when does that what he is saying what he said to you this morning, chris, is those localities and the counties across wisconsin the elected officials there need the ability to be able to make cuts that hurt people the least and when you have got collective bargaining in place and when you have the benefits that are basically sealed in and no ability by the local officials to touch those or affect them, it reduces their ability to actually manage their own budget. i also would say in terms of public support for this when you have schools in milwaukee closed because the teachers are sitting in wisconsin in madison protesting i think it is clear where the public will come out on this.

>> chris: we have a budget battle in washington. the house saturday morning promisede budget that prom $6 billion in cuts in current spending, the budget, the continuing resolution funding the government runs out a week friday and the senate comes back a week from monday. where does it all stand, juan, and what are the chances we will see a government shutdown? >> i think the chances are increasing by the moment. although republicans. >> under stand it is not in their best interest to have a shutdown. everybody ref reps what happened in '96 with bill clinton. the fact is john boehner the new speaker of the house in the first six weeks has not been able to rein the tea party element saying we want more cuts, more cuts. the people in the leadership of republicans in the house wanted a reasonable cut in the neighborhood of $30 billion and hall rogers the head of the appropriations said this is

$180 billion indiscriminate, heavy handed. this will not come to any reasonable end. it will not lead to negotiations with the democrats. just making the democrats more fixed in their opposition. >> chris: i know you want to respond to that. we are running out of time. this will come down to a decision on march 3, boehner put a marker wayent to se markl cuts in spending. >> i think there will be real cuts. that is what the voters wanted and i think they will compromise on that. the idea this is draconian budget cuts back to 2008 levels or god forbid, 2007 levels, oh, that is brutal, that's ridiculous. and under paul ryan economied to entitlement reform. they are doing the right thing and not just cuts to the specialty spending. entitlement reform. governor walker in wisconsin is trying to reform the public

employee union system. wisconsin is paul ryan and walker -- >> they just have to give up the ten electoral votes. >> wisconsin having a fight. the fight song, on wisconsin, on, wisconsin. it would be great. >> there is a number of -- >> chris: let meza you a specific question. juan says look what happened in '95 with gingrich and clinton. would that necessarily be true this time if this is a shutdown? >> i don't know. i don't think there will be a shutdown. i think there is a number that the senate and the white house will accept of cuts in the current year's budget. we don't know what the number it but the problem is the calendar and that they have hardly any time to get this done before march 4. >> chris: that is why you need an extension. check out panel plus where our group will pick up with this discussion on our website "fox

news sunday" .com and we will post the video before noon eastern time. up next, our power player of the week.

host: could switching to geico really save you 15% or more on car insurance? host: does it take two to tango? ♪ ♪ anncr: geico. 15 minutes could save you 15% or more on car insurance. >> chris: he is the most respected military leader of our times but his wife has also served the country for the last 36 years. and now, she is our power player of the week.

>> i think it is always better if you have something to occupy you while they are gone and for me to do something positive like work for military families is a real plus. >> chris: holly petraeus is the wife of general petraeus. while he is serving overseas she has her own mission. >> just some of the things you need to think about before you retire. >> chris: she is setting up the office of service member affairs to protect military consumers. >> the mill tare i have is a targeted group. >> chris: there are a lot of young people with guaranteed pay checks on their own for the first time. >> ad all the factors together and it makes them easy pickings. >> reporter: like auto dealers selling cars at high prices or electronic stores offering expensive financing or military loans on the internet.

>> outright scams or very expensive loans. >> reporter: as part of the new consumer protection bureau should be able to help military familys. >> a power to enforce the laws on the book books and also to e rules. >> chris: holly petraeus comes from a distinguished military family. >> how did you omit your husband? >> he was a cadet at westpoint. >> and what did you think? >> obviously we liked each other. >> chris: so much they married nine months later since then she made 23 moves in 26 years. his husband was named head of u.s. central command based in tampa. >> chris: did you think the days on the frontlines were over? >> i didn't expect the late deployment, that is for sure.

>> until last june. >> he is setting an extraordinary example of patriotism by assuming this difficult post. >> he was not able to reach me before he went out to the rose garden and made the announcement so i saw it on the news with everybody else. >> chris: petraeus has only seen her husband twice since last summer. she knows that is more than most families but knows one thing that won't be in her future. >> how would you feel if he were to run for office? >> he doesn't want it and i don't want it for him. >> chris: meanwhile, she is helping on the home front. >> i had a young one who heard me speak and i was talking about a secret shopper scam and he said you just saved us $3,000. when you hear something like that it makes you feel it is all worth while. >> chris: military families and the rest of us can visit a website at consumer finance.gov

to register complaints against financial companies. have a great week and we'll see captioned by closed captioning services, inc.

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