The following is a rush transcript of the November 20, 2011, edition of "Fox News Sunday With Chris Wallace." This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.

CHRIS WALLACE, HOST: I'm Chris Wallace.

It's three days and counting for the congressional super committee.

Can they make a deal or will the old political obstacles derail the latest attempt to cut our national debt? We'll hear from two members of the community: Republican co-chair Jeb Hensarling and Democratic Xavier Becerra, only on "Fox News Sunday."

Then, what would a stalemate mean for the financial market? And would the U.S. credit rating get another downgrade? We'll ask Mark Zandi of Moody's Analytics, who's been a top economic adviser to both parties.

Plus, Newt Gingrich rises to the most dangerous place in politics, the top of the Republican field. We'll ask our Sunday panel if the former speaker can hold on where others have failed.

And as we approach Thanksgiving, our power player of the week takes me dancing with turkeys.

All right now on "Fox News Sunday."

And hello again from Fox News in Washington.

Well, after months of secret talks and public posturing, we are now in the end game for the super committee. Will they make a deal by Wednesday to cut the deficit by $1.2 trillion over the next decade?

In a moment, we'll talk with the key Democrat on the committee. But, first, the Republican co-chair Jeb Hensarling.

Congressman, welcome back to "Fox News Sunday."

REP. JEB HENSARLING, R-TEXAS: Good morning.

WALLACE: Simple question -- is this thing dead?

HENSARLING: Nobody wants to give up hope. Reality, to some extent, starting to overtake hope. There were 12 good people who invested a lot in this and trying to find common ground to achieve the goal of this committee. So talks have that taken place over the weekend and they will continue to take place.

But the reality is, we need to come to an agreement. We have to get it drafted. It has to be estimated by the Congressional Budget Office by the end of Monday. So, it's a daunting challenge, no doubt about it.

WALLACE: Is there any sign that either Republicans are going to make a big concession or Democrats are going to make a big decision, because as you say, you really got a little over 24 hours to make a concession that will somehow break the logjam.

HENSARLING: You know, Chris, we're not going to give up hope. Talks are continuing and we are not giving up hope.

WALLACE: But --

HENSARLING: But we're not going to give up hope.

WALLACE: This is a big missed opportunity, Congressman.

HENSARLING: I agree. It's a huge missed opportunity. The nation is facing a debt crisis. It's facing a jobs crisis. And the two are interrelated.

And we all know -- I mean, even the president will admit the great drivers of our debt are Medicare, Medicaid and health care, and nothing else comes close. And he's right. I give him an A for courage for stating that.

But, unfortunately, what we haven't seen in these talks from the other side is any Democrats willing to put a proposal on the table that actually solves the problems.

And so, unfortunately, what we have -- particularly in Medicare, there is a program that seniors are going to see forms of rationing. Seniors like my parents. It's going to be around for my 9 year old daughter and my 8 year old son. And it's driving the country bankrupt.

And so, here was an opportunity. Republicans put forth a plan that was in our budget. It was rejected by Democrats. We went and then we gave them the bipartisan plan, the Rivlin-Domenici Medicare plan, which was principally drafted by the Democrat Alice Rivlin, who was the director of the Office in Management and Budget in the Clinton administration -- preserves an option for fee for service Medicare. That was rejected, too.

Now, to their credit some of the Democrats were willing to put some aspects of health care on the table. But at best, it would just kick the can down the road. And, frankly, part of the challenge we have, I think it was on your show last week, where Congressman Jim Clyburn said the Democrats hadn't coalesced around a position. And so, it's a little hard for us to negotiate with them when they're still negotiating with themselves.

WALLACE: I want to get to this -- follow up on what you just said in there. But I just want to make it clear. At this point, is there any effort or going to be a final, last-ditch Republican plan? A new offer?

HENSARLING: Chris, there are multiple offers that are on the table now.

WALLACE: I mean, a new offer.

HENSARLING: There is frameworks that are out there now, and if we have an opportunity to work on one of those frameworks, the answer is yes. There are multiple frameworks. Now, only one came to the attention of the media but there are multiple frameworks out there. So, again, we know that the time is very late when one or two strokes before midnight and we understand that. But we haven't given up hope. Again, there is a jobs crisis.

We also hope and we thought maybe there could be some common ground for fundamental tax reform that could help create jobs and make the tax code fairer, simpler and more competitive, broaden the base, bring down everybody's rate, keep current levels of progressivity. So, people, defending on their income bracket, would pay the same percentage of taxes.

There's been studies by the National Bureau Economics Research that that could help create, you know, over half a trillion dollars of pro-growth revenues. Some show it could create a million jobs.

WALLACE: Excuse me -- are you saying that this is all the Democrats' fault?

HENSARLING: I am not saying anybody's fault. I'm saying you got people have very different views, frankly, of what it means to produce -- what it takes to produce jobs and what it takes to produce economic growth. It's not assigning blame.

But we are unaware of any Democrat offer that didn't include at least $1 trillion tax increase on the American economy. Now, again, it's not a matter of blame going on here. It's just a matter of fact. We believe that's bad for the economy. We don't want to do that.

WALLACE: But let me pick up on that and we are going to talk with Congressman Becerra in a moment about entitlements and what they were and not willing to do. The fact is, Republicans -- at least they say, Republicans wouldn't agree to a sizable increase in taxes especially on the wealthy, because even the Toomey plan, yes, it was going to do away with the deductions. But it was going to actually have a 20 percent reduction in the tax rate. Not only would the Bush tax cuts be extended, but you'd see a 20 percent reduction, to 28 percent. And they say the result of that was going to be is a huge tax windfall for the wealthy.

HENSARLING: Well, I disagree. I mean, this is exactly the same approach that every other bipartisan plan put on the table, be it Simpson-Bowles, be it Rivlin-Domenici. And again, the idea is we have over $1 trillion of so-called tax expenditures in the tax code. We want to take out all the different loopholes and special interest provisions.

And so, again, you are broadening the base. And as I said earlier, you keep the current rates of progressivity. So, by definition, you can't have a tax cut for the wealthy. I mean, that's not just what happens.