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companies and more, including cox. >> koolen devries syndrome is very rare but friends don't have to be. >> this is jo. >> when you're connected, you're not alone. >> cox supports c-span as a public svice along with these other television providers, giving you a front row seat to democracy. host: welcome back. we're joined by the president of the committee for a responsible budget to talk about the u.s. debt. maya, welcome to the program. guest: thank you. host: let's start with what is the organization, the crsb and what position you take on the federal budget. host: ok. absolutely. it's the organization with the worst acronym. the committee responsible for the federal budget. bipartisan, i'm a political independent, the president of the committee, first of all.

i've been with them for 20 years. we have a board of directors who are folks that run the budget committees, the congressional budget office, office of budget management, people who have really been in the trenches working on the budget. the main effort is fiscal responsibility. and what fiscal responsibility means is it's not balancing the budget every year, it's not big buck government or small government but basically means we need to think about how we borrow money based on good economics, like during covid it makes sense to borrow when you have high inflation or economy strong, itoesn't make sense to borrow. but when we are strong is not make sense to borrow. we are neutral on the political alignment. we have diverse staff. host: how is your organization funded? guest: foundation and small

donors. we get checks for 25, $50. we have small donors but mainly big foundations are where we get our funding. host: i want to put up on the screen, the findings of the cbo who said the deficit will grow from 1.6 trillion in 2024 to 2.6 trillion. overall, your reaction to those numbers? guest: he will be testifying about this update in the budget they put out.

this is the greatest document on the budget. is what i read to learn about the budget deficit. projections on how that, deficit , spending and revenue for the government. is impartial and a great way to learn about the topic. the news index report is not good. there has been so much volatility in the economy. we have things to worry about on every fiscal metric. this year's deficit is lower-than-expected. last year congress passed the fiscal responsibility act. it is not going to fix the big problems of the budget.

it saved over one trillion which is a great first start. there is a lot of bad news. we have deficits of over 20 trillion. they will be in record territory, the highest amount of borrowing per share of gdp that we haven't seen outside of an emergency. it already costs more than we spend on children at the federal level. it will be larger than medicare, the second largest item in the budget. our debt is the highest it has ever been in for years. the bad news goes on throughout the report.

i encourage people to read up at the summary is, we are in trouble. we are borrowing way too much. we are we from a national security level as well. how do we get politicians to take this seriously and make some of the hard choices about how to borrow less and pay for the things that we choose to do in this country. host: starting at 10:00 a.m. over on c-span two we will have the testimony from the congressional budget office philip swigel. before the house budget committee. we will have live coverage beginning at 10:00 a.m. maia,

explain the difference between debt and deficit. guest: dead is how much we borrow compared to how much we spend and normally, you are expected to borrow during bad times. but during the good times you want your budget deficits to come down. the debt is the result of all of that borrowing over the years. every year that you borrow, it issues vehicles that we buy and our funds by and use that money to pay for revenues. you can look at the dead as the accumulation of all the deficits over the years.

there is nothing wrong with debt. but what you don't want your debt relative to economy to go to quickly and are dead is going faster than our economy which is unsustainable. almost were troubling is the fact that it is expected to keep going and we have no plans to bring her spending revenues back into alignment. there are times you really need to borrow. covid, it was a huge emergency. recession to cover for the weak economy. there are reasons you will want to borrow but reese's not to

borrow his to do a big spending program but don't want to borrow for it. if they don't want to raise taxes but pay for spending it weakens our economy. we need that to be prepared for when we do need to borrow and becomes a national security threat and it's unfair to the next generation that will be saddled with these debts. host: if you would like to join the conversation to talk about the u.s. debt you could do it by party for republicans (202) 748-8001, for democrats (202) 748-8000, for independents, or text at (202) 748-8003. just yesterday the inflation was reported to hold at 3.1%.

can you explain the relationship between inflation and the effort to control debt? guest: it is very complicated. the reason why we have inflation. that is higher inflation than we were hoping for. it is not yet at the 2% goal that the fed has for inflation to be at the right level. more needs to be done. to make sure that inflation comes down. when the government borrows too much and puts too much money into the economy and you have more demand than supply that leads to higher prices. we got hit with the trifecta. we had a response to covid, the

american rescue plan which was too large and put too much money into the government. people had more money, the government had more money. that pushed up inflation. then there were two more factors . we had supply chain problems and that led to inflation and other sectors of the economy. with the russian invasion of ukraine. that got to inflation levels we haven't seen for 14 years. that inflation has come down. but there is still a mismatch. supply-side problems are better, supply chains have improved but we have people with more money in their pockets and government demand for goods pushing the demand of.

many times is the sign of an economy being strong but once it is too strong and inflation becomes anger. people demand for higher wages but that gives them more money that creates more demand they keeps inflation's going up. one of the best way to control inflation is if wages don't go up at that creates hardship. fighting inflation is not a pleasant experience. everyone is seeing it at the grocery store and you feel the pain of inflation. host: in a recent setting, janet

yellen gave her description of the path the federal government is on. [video clip] >> i believe we need to reduce deficits and stay on a fiscally sustainable path. thus far, in real terms the interest burden has remained below historical norms in the president's budget substantial reduction would keep us like comfortable levels. but we need to work together to try to achieve those things. host: what do you think? guest: the secretary's concern

about the debt trajectory. focus on those interest numbers i am struck by this number that we will spend more on interest payments then defense. she is correct that the president's budget last year put out a plan that would reduce the deficit because of trillions in tax increases. i give credit for them to put out a plan to reduce the deficit you haven't heard the white house talk about it. he doesn't own the economy. the president can't be accountable for all of them but how much does the president talk about the issue and push to put it on the agenda? after a responsible budget heavy

on the tax side increase. they did not talk about it again or bring together leaders of congress on how to fix the problem. instead one of the things we have heard from the president and president trump's promising things they will not do. the president has said he will not touch social security and that is a big problem. if we don't make changes that will become insolvent in the decade. in the white house has said they will not raise taxes on anyone making less than 400,000. many republicans said they won't raise taxes at all but that does not align with the physical reality.

these are not messages that anyone likes. but in order to fix the economy, this is a huge national security threat. if we are going to face these issues we will have to raise taxes and not just on millionaires. we are going to have to cut spending more than we have and we will have to make changes to social security and medicare. as long as we have politicians promising not to do anything we are at all was with the truth and weakens our ability to have a real discussion. there is no one right way.

we cannot go the way we are going and as the secretary talked about interests payments they are rising to record levels. that is only one of the warning lights from the cbo document. host: let's go to valerie in saginaw, michigan. caller: good morning. listen. things get so complicated when it comes to the deficit, budget. mainly when democrat presidents are in. mainly to raise taxes. we are bigger, more populated. we can't budget like we did in the 70's. the population has increased.

we have one president at a time. she is referring to trump as president trump. he has should not be given as much weight as you guys are giving him. we have a president named joe biden. if the republicans would stop running interference, making things worse. they always want to mess with the poor and working-class. they never want to start at the top. yes, we need more taxes. we need to make medicare for all. it's not about no intelligence, no money. it's about trying to keep a certain amount of people down struggling.

they don't like the middle class. host: you brought up a lot of topics there. what would you like to talk about? guest: it is an incredibly partisan time, worse than i've ever seen. i worry about it because i am a political independent and having two camps, us or them makes it harder to govern. the minority problem is less cooperative in order to help win the next election. when they think about the political outlook rather then we need to fix these problems and cooperate to get things done. i agree we need to raise taxes because our situation is too bad to fix it on one side of the budget alone.

if you look at the 10 year projections, spending is projected to grow much higher than historical averages and revenue is also expected to grow. the growth of spending comes from retirement, health care and interest. there are a lot of areas. i will say we did passive very large infrastructure bill. i look at the budget and think too much of it is on consumption and not enough on investment. we will all have different takes on it but where we need to start . it doesn't have funding in place, the funding will run out for the fiscal year where one

third through. the senate budget committee never put out a budget last year. i hope the budget committees will put out a budget this year. the house budget committee did put one out at the end of the year. we need to put a budget in place. the budget needs to have a physical objective. it can't be we are going to borrow 20 trillion. and that's assuming the tax cuts will retire. those numbers may well be worse. we need to compromise. revenues have to go up. social security has to be fixed. if we do nothing there will be a

benefit cut of 23% for every person. the billionaire and the person who needs it for everything. we have these interactive tools on our website. you could fix it with taxes. rather than just lifting the payroll tax. or raising the retirement age or slow the growth of benefits for people who don't need them as much. what we really can't do as a country's top president biden and former president trump both promise not to do anything. it's important that we should

have a policy on social security. no political leader should be ok with that as a solution and we need to quickly figure out where those fixes and social security are. one final thing, every politician i have talked about this with, the one thing they are adamant about is not touching benefits for current retirees. people try to scare citizens but we need to protect retirees so in 10 years, they don't have their benefits cut as well. every politician i talked to says we will not cut benefits for current retirees. host: let's talk to raymond in

seminole, florida on the line for democrats. caller: i just want to know, you are a breath of fresh air. there is no political tilt and i love that. i am a business person and what you are saying, everything makes sense. i want to push back on a few things. when you are talking about the overall deficit one of the main reasons, peoples credit card debt. you make an example to say instead of passing a trillion dollar bill and wait a few years. we need to really plan and we could've waited for the infrastructure bill.

you can't make those compromises in the same year. we are setting up a bad precedent for our young people. inflation has not come down. that is based off of last year, that 3.1%. now you have a baseline. now we have 3%. like i said i just want to be clear, is not the six or 7% but that doesn't mean the eight, 9% we have accumulated as gone away. jerome powell, his 1970 strategy is not working. not cutting interest rates,

people can't buy homes. forget about it. it. his stop working. you are not pushing down labor. none of that stuff is going to work. tell me what you think. guest: thank you so much there is a lot there and i hope i do it justice. about credit card debt. i read a book called hamilton's blessing about national debt. one of the things i thought about with the history of debt is that our approach to debt is change. i think a lot has to do with credit cards in the 70's and 80's. before that, people would say for things. you couldn't buy a car or a

refrigerator without saving first. credit cards has changed that. we don't take the need to save as seriously as we do. there are huge problems with affordability. wages have not grown enough to where people can save efficiently. and that has contributed to people being more lackadaisical and they don't worry about saving. it makes sense to save -- or spend for consumption and it makes sense to borrow for public or private investment. you invest when it will generate something with a high return.

our federal budget is all consumption. 80 5% consumption, 15% investment. we should shift that with more of our money going into investment. it would make sense to borrow for investment if we paid for consumption. your final point, it's good to think about spreading out the cost of borrowing for things. there are a lot of bipartisan bills in the infrastructure act. there is a big stimulus from fiscal policy at a time where we should bring deficits down to fight inflation. i have a much more positive view of how the fed has responded but the fiscal policy has made it

difficult for monetary policy to be effective. it can have adverse effects on people trying to buy houses or borrow for other things. i worry about that. host: i was going to say. we will move to bill in columbia, maryland. guest: good morning ms. macguineas. i am someone who has looked at the projection put out by the cbo. they represented members and billions is so what i did was added to zero so it could be

represented in hundreds of millions. so i could get my head around it and the numbers for 2023 would be an income of 44,000 with expenditures, and a debt on your credit card of 324,000. those are scary numbers. if i'm making 40,000 a year and i owe 324,000 on my credit cards , i am not sleeping at night. when you go out 10 years, are these numbers reflect the unfunded liabilities for social security and medicare?

on the cbo reported says these are the numbers of laws remain the same. i'm assuming these 20 84 numbers don't reflect a hundred 50 trillion going out in the next five years. are these numbers reflective of the unfunded liabilities? guest: that is a great question. they are very sophisticated and i love that you are doing these numbers you should come with us and look at our numbers. on baseline day where running around with all of our numbers and you sound like you belong right there. there are two things in your question. unfunded liability is the federal value of how much money

would we need to put away today in order to pay all the benefits we have promised? those are those huge numbers we are talking about. it is the present value of something. you could look at those big annual reports from the treasury. the second point is what cbo is directed to do, it assumes those benefits will be continued to be paid after the program part a even if legally they will not be paid. they don't believe it's realistic to say there are all these because and nobody gets these benefits. they decided the most sensible reflection is in the baseline in the next 10 years. those benefits will still go out

the door. one other thing to related to, the other way this cbo makes its budget is current law based on policy. if there are attacks because that will expire, many of which will expire in 2025. they assume those tax cuts will expire. that is probably not realistic. they are almost always extended, who knows what happens this time. but there is something someone can look at that assumes those policies will continue. the dead and share of gdp will go to 116% of gdp under a law

based line but if all of those policies were extended it will be a hundred 30%. there are many assumption that makes estimates based on the conventions they are directed to use. speaking of playing with budget numbers. i have the same problem. i can't wrap my head around 20 trillion none of us can grasp what that is. we have a number interactive tool and i encourage people to look at them. one of them is called is it worth it? it breaks down every spending program, every revenue item in

the share of household paying individual. so you could look at household as set of just the overall cost and billions and i think that is a useful tool. we have a debt thermometer that tracks how much new policies. congress passed 1.3 trillion in savings. that came from the federal responsibility act. if you go back to past years you could look at who borrowed. we have to try borrowing each year. so far, nothing.

the interactive tools where you could fix the dead, vic social security, how old he will be when it hits his insolvency. i hope they are helpful and i find them an easier way to conceptualize these massive trillions of dollars. host: michael and plainville, illinois. caller: you are describing the symptoms of our broken system in which 50% of people can lay their hands on $400 in an emergency and 50% of the population has a negative net worth. why don't we talk about solutions? number one, single-payer health

care. we have to have it. the next one is a net worth tax. the people who have be nefitted from society's they need to pay for it. half of the population is dependent upon these programs to survive. unless we go after those who have profited from the system. you could cut all you want but it will lead to social disruption. guest: thank you for calling in with solutions. i hope that spreads to congress. although people disagree, and

people who agree but that is fine. we are entitled to have different versions of how the government looks. but as someone trying to fix the problem rather than deny it or make it worse, i appreciate that and i hope we have more of that. you hit two big ones, health care and revenue. we have to do a lot to cut the cost of health care. there have been places we have seen bipartisan support. things that would make the prices more transparent and bring down the cost of the overall health care system. i like elements of competition being a part of that. there is also medicare for all and on revenues, if you want a wealth tax.

there are a lot of people who support that. there is upwards of 2 trillion a year and uncollected revenues because of tax expenditures. tax deductions and exclusion. they are a poor way to do policy. when you think of areas where the cost of growth is the fastest, they are all subsidized through the tax code and when we do that, it doesn't make them more affordable it drives up the cost. we need to look at affordability . across the board, changing our tax expenditures.

almost all of them are concentrated to 10% of earners. it would also change the tax code, transparency. and i am a big supporter of a carbon tax. i think it would have many benefits and raise a lot of revenue. you can use that revenue to offset costs. i think they are critically important but they won't fix this problem alone. we have to look at spending as well. if you are worried about income distribution, one place to start is to reduce the benefits of social security for people who do not need it. it's important that program is strong and secure for the many people, 50% depend on it for a

large part of their income. if you worked your full life and paid into social security you should be guaranteed not to live in poverty. you have to look at other approaches also. one approach is to reduce the benefits of people who don't need them to protect those who do. people will agree and disagree and i encourage them to put forth ideas and rather than shooting other people's ideas, create an environment where we have to make changes. they all have trade-offs. raising taxes and cutting spending is never fun but we are causing ourselves vulnerability and weaknesses if we don't honestly discuss this. we are a very diverse country and in order to function we have

to compromise on those things. it is not all or nothing. that is what politicians are supposed to do for us. we need to address this quickly because if we are hit with another emergency or geopolitical tensions rise we are in a week in position to respond to these needs because we are borrowing for things we should not have. host: maya macguineas president the speaker pro tempore: the house will be in order. pursuant to clause 8 of rule 20, the chair will postpone further proceedings today on motions to suspend the rules on which a recorded vote or the yeas and nays are ordered or votes object je