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you'll get this free information kit... and guide to understanding medicare, to help you choose the plan that's right for you. as with all medicare supplement plans, you can keep your own doctor and hospital that accepts medicare, get help paying for what medicare doesn't... and save up to thousands of dollars. call this toll-free number now. the debt battle has been an ugly spectacle of the democrats battling republicans anp republicans battling democrats and republicans battling republicans and democrats battling democrats. and is the tea party a big winner in all of this? joining me is connie mack, and you voted on a deal with

bipartisan support and saved america from going into catastrophic default and i only assume that you are quite happy for the country to go into catastrophic default? >> well, then you would have assumed wrong obviously. my point is this, that we now have over about $14.5 trillion of debt. and with this bill that passed today, we are assured to have over $17 trillion in debt, and none of the cuts in the bills are cuts off of real numbers. they are all cuts off of increases in spending, and what i have heard over and over again from my constituents, people around the state, and all over the country that have been calling my office, they are saying enough is enough. we want a solution, and we don't want a deal or a compromise. we want to solve the problem. so my vote was for solving the problem. and this bill did not do that. >> the problem is that any sensible economist around the world says that you cannot get america out of this catastrophic

debt is now in without raising taxation, and you are implaque bli opposed to this? >> well, again, i am saying that if all economists, and i don't believe that is correct, because there are plenty of economists who say if you raise taxes right now, you would kill any growth that we might be having. look, we have a problem in the country -- >> and you don't have any? >> and why is because of too much overregulation and too much taxation. so we should lower taxes and make sure we cut spending.

i don't know who the e con milss are that you are talking to, but most people would agree that if you want the businesses to create jobs -- >> well, let's start with, congressman start with -- >> and wait a second, businesses want to create jobs, because that is how they make more money. and if they want to do that you don't tax them more, but you tax them lez. >> i am sure you have heard of paul krugman for example and he won a nobel prize for economics. >> well, i'm sure that there are a lot of other economists on the other side, but are you telling me that you think that america that we should raise taxes, and in a time when an economic turndown? i don't think that most people would think that raising taxes at a time right now, and in fact, the president has said so, and the vice president has said so, and democrats and republicans have said, this is not a time to raise taxes. so, those economists are on the outside looking in, and the rest of us are saying, how do we create jobs? and the way we create jobs is by cutting regulations, and cutting taxes, and then we have got to get the fiscal house in order here in washington. with this bill that passed today, we are looking at over $20 trillion after ten years of debt, if the federal government was an individual, that individual couldn't get a credit card because their debt to income ratio is so out of whack.

>> well, the real problem, congressman, is that actually the reality is that the american people are watching these farcical scenes in washington and believe it is a complete disconnect between the politicians today in america, and all of the ordinary members of the public, because what they have seen over the last 11, 12 years is a dysfunctional series of administrations taking the economy in this country into the cart. >> i agree with you 100%, and that is why for up until now all we have een doing is spending more and taxing more, and that is not the way for ward. the only way forward is to cut spending. right now we spend 7.5% more a year every year? so, if you try to take that from 7.5% to say 6.0%, that is considered a cut in washington. no one back home would believe that if they got an increase year after year, and if the you took a little bit from that, that would be a cut.

we need to get serious, and the people out in america are saying, tell us the truth, give us a solution. let's not have some deal or bargain in washington. let's have a solution to the problem which is the debt and the deficit. >> finally, congressman, presumably, you believe that speaker boehner should now resign given that he has authorized this terrible deal? >> of course, i don't believe that. i think that the speaker has done as good a job he has done considering the circumstances. he had a president unwilling or unable to sit down at the table and put up his own plan. he had to work with senate that had no plan and no idea of its own, and then he had to work through the different factions of the conference, and i think

that the speaker has done a job i support, and i think that is what happens all of the time in washington. >> if you think he has done such a great job, why did you stab him in the back? >> come on, don't be ridiculous like that because you are just making your show a joke? >> for what? >> for saying things like that, piers. >> well, i don't agree, because i believe that this was such an important deal, and the american people were so desperate for a deal to be done with bipartisan support that the continual reluctance of the characters like you from the tea party side feel you have had your fun and turned the debt ceiling issue into a scandal that never should have been a scandal and brought the country to economic knees by having done so and the right thing now is to take one for the team and move along in a bipartisan way and not the try to stop this process going ahead, and that is not my show being a joke -- >> well, when you say things like stabbing the speaker in the back, and i don't see that is helping the show. >> and the -- excuse me.

>> well, the real scandal here is that year after year after year we have been spending more money than we bring in, and to continue to let washington whether it is republicans or democrats to spend more than they bring in to rack up $14, $17, or $20 trillion in debt with no way to stop the spending, that is the problem. so, all of these other things that they pale in comparison to what are we going the do about controlling the debt and the deficit. >> but, when you are a few hours away from the first-ever default in american history, and the disaster that would bring not just to america's economy, but to the world's and your leader does a deal with the democrats which has massive wide

bipartisan support, and you still refuse to sign up to it, you are stabbing him in the back, metaphorically, and not really, and not doing wit a knife, but effectively, that is what you are doing. >> in fact, what i am doing is to fight for what i believe is right, and i think that the american people recognize that what we need to be doing is cutting spending. now you might not agree with that and others may not agree with that, but that is what i believe and most americans believe that the way we move this country forward is by getting the debt and deficit under control. we can't have $20 trillion of debt, and no way that the country can continue with that kind of debt. we need a which to cut it. i have put forward a plan and done something that the president and the democrats didn't do in the senate, i put a plan out there and presented it to the conference and the country, and so, you know, i think that i'm speaking here with a little bit of authority that i'm not just saying no, i am offering ideas as well. >> congressman mack, thank you very much. >> thank you. >> president obama is facing fierce criticism from the base and coming up, i will ask arianna huffington why she believes this whole thing is a my name is marjorie reyes. i'm a chief warrant officer.

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breakdown of the political arianna huffington has called the debt battle a breakdown of the political system and she joins me now. why do you say that? >> i say that, piers, because here we have a major crisis in the country, a growth crisis. and which means that the jobs crisis and a debt crisis, we do not have a debt ceiling crisis and that is a completely

manufactured crisis that we spent an enormous amount of time and energy trying to resolve. and in the process, we have made the economy worse, because we have reduced demand at a time when the economy is so fragile and last quarter we grew by 1.3%, and the unemployment at 9.2%, and almost 29 million people unemployed or underemploy and nothing in the deal that makes the economy any better, and absolutely nothing at all. that is a truly dysfunctional system if after all of the debate, if after all of the effort, that is what we have ended with. >> what is extraordinary is that nancy pelosi said earlier it was a satan sandwich with satan fries on the side to describe the deal, and what kind of deal is that for goodness sake? why should the american people

have to put up with a satan sandwich with satan fries. >> i thought it was another congressman who said that and did nancy pelosi say that, too? >> apparently, yeah. >> well, that is surprising because she is careful and circumspect in what she says. well, there are a enormous amount of people in the country, republicans and democrats, who do not believe that this is making the economy better. it is like we have a stalled car, the economy and instead of trying to start it with jumper cables we are taking out the gas tank, and that what we are doing. and the president wasted precious time and i listened to valerie jarrett trying to defend him, but the bottom of the line is that he wasted all of the time instead of using the bully pulpit to convince the american people that it would not grow the economy and never resolve the debt crisis, and instead, he adopted the republican and the tea party framework that makes the american people believe that the only solution to our problems is spending cuts in the middle of what could become a double-dip recession. >> apparently, it was congressman cleaver, emanuel

cleaver, who apparently first said the satan sandwich line, and it was nancy pelosi who repeated it so it is the same. and now let's come to the winners and the losers here, arianna, because the real winners are the tea party members who inflamed this into a huge scandal when you say as the debt ceiling issue comes up all of the time without any problem normally, and they have had control over the speaker john boehner, haven't they, because they have pushed him back on the original vote, so that the tea party, really, they have been calling the shots with both sides? >> well, the tea party was allowed to call the shots. there was a vacuum of leadership, and into that vacuum stands the tea party who without any economic theory to back up the solutions they were offering. but if it had been real leadership on the other side, this would not have happened. i really liked what bill clinton suggested president obama should have done which is basically appeal to the 14th amendment, the constitutional option, and raise the debt ceiling and

refuse to be held hostage, and more important refuse to allow the economy and the lives of the american people to be held hostage by a party that simply does not understand economics. >> on your splendid website you are launching today huffpostwomen and huffpostparents, and get real here, what is the deal that the house passed today and the senate will pass tomorrow will do for families in america? >> well, that is the problem, piers. it is going to make their lives harder, and that is why we launched with a powerful and moving story with amanda fairbanks about how many college students right now who cannot afford the pay their debts are actually resorting to prostitution, and literally selling themselves in order to pay their college debts. and the stories are so moving and powerful, and you read about the african-american student from college who takes a train to greenwich to sleep with a guy who is helping her to pay her college loan, and the reality is that the average college debt

for a student graduating in 2011 is $22,000, and when you come out of college and you can't find a job, and that is a bleak future that so many of the young people are facing right now, and that is the american dream that we are betraying. as an immigrant into the country, i feel that, that's the ultimate betrayal. >> arianna, obviously, you are greek, and you were born in athens, and greece has been through a complete financial collapse, and do you fear that america, despite all of the protestations to the contrary that america could go through the same thing that greece has been through? >> well, i'm ultimately an optimist, and i believe that as we saw with the congresswoman giffords today, there is an

incredible resilience to american spirit, and we can overcome all obstacles, but we actually do need to come together, and not just to talk about shared sacrifice, but to actually en dullge in some shared sacrifice that we make the lives of average americans better. >> arianna huffington, as always, a great pleasure. thank you very much. >> thank you so much. next, one of the country's leading ceos and would he have accepted higher taxation, and later what you need to know about the debt deal and your money. i will ask dave ramsey.

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the art of compromise is a deal that washington hates.

on opposite sides of the battle is mark zuckerman and grover norquist. what do you believe about the tax increases? >> well, there should have been tax increases if only for a political matter, because everybody in the country seems to have to be participating in what i call shared sacrifice and that is how to get it done and also a bipartisan deal, and if anything gets done, both parties have to assume responsibility for it. that was lost. there was a moment there when boehner came to the president had $800 billion in tax, the elimination of what i would call tax expenditures or whatever you want to call it, all of the special deals built into the tax code that so distort the economy, and that money was going to go to rationalize the tax code, and i think that would

have been a real stimulus to the economy, but the president frankly introduced another $400 billion request for tax increases and blew the deal out of the water. so lousy leadership on both sides as far as i'm concerned. >> grover norquist, you have won the day, you are implacably opposed to any tax increases, and many of the republicans signed up to that, and you have got what you wanted. here's the question for you, if i get you back on the show in a month's time, are you absolutely certain that this no taxation at any cost policy of yours will mean that the economy will have recovered? >> well, it moves us at least in the right direction. certainly, we didn't get as much spending restraint as republicans wanted. there was a tremendous amount of compromise, and the republican budget passed through house. it was a $6 trillion cut in obama's planned spending, the ryan plan, but what we got was $2.5 trillion which is a lot of give on the part of the republicans. but what republicans were not willing to do was to raise taxes rather than cut spending. mort zuckerman said that the reason he wanted a tax increase is because you had to do that to get the spending cuts, and that is the reasoning of 1982, and the reasoning of 1990, but both failed budget deals where the tax increases were real, and the spending cuts were phony. what we learned in this, and that's the good news is that you don't have to raise taxes as part of some deal. what you can do is to focus on the problem. too much spending. and that's exactly what we did. it was bipartisan, and you saw quite a number of democrats in the house vote for it, and the president says he is for it, and he is a big democrat, and democrats in the senate will vote for it. we have a bipartisan spending cut. >> and here is the thing, grover. i have listened to you espousing this for a few weeks and you have had a good day today.

and my point is both presidents reagan and clinton raised taxes in slow economies and went on the have good economies and nothing this principle intrinsically wrong with it, and my issue with your implacable position is at what point does it stop being implacable, and at what point with the economy continuing, and the markets have responded badly to the deal, and assume that the economy continues to tank in america, and assume that the rating is downgraded and assume it gets worse before any sign of improvement here, and at what point do you and the republicans who agree with your position on taxation stop and think actually we have to consider it? >> i don't think that putting leaches on a patient is ever a good idea. i don't care how sick the patient gets or how well the patient gets, but putting leaches on the patient is not a good idea. raising taxes does not help the economy, and as a matter of fact the two cases you talked about is the reasoning of 1982, and the reasoning of 1990, but both failed budget deals where the tax increases were real, and the spending cuts were phony. what we learned in this, and that's the good news is that you don't have to raise taxes as part of some deal. what you can do is to focus on the problem. too much spending. and that's exactly what we did. it was bipartisan, and you saw quite a number of democrats in the house vote for it, and the president says he is for it, and he is a big democrat, and democrats in the senate will vote for it. we have a bipartisan spending cut. >> and here is the thing, grover. i have listened to you espousing this for a few weeks and you have had a good day today. and my point is both presidents reagan and clinton raised taxes

in slow economies and went on the have good economies and nothing this principle intrinsically wrong with it, and my issue with your implacable position is at what point does it stop being implacable, and at what point with the economy continuing, and the markets have responded badly to the deal, and assume that the economy continues to tank in america, and assume that the rating is downgraded and assume it gets worse before any sign of improvement here, and at what point do you and the republicans who agree with your position on taxation stop and think actually we have to consider it? >> i don't think that putting leaches on a patient is ever a good idea. i don't care how sick the patient gets or how well the patient gets, but putting leaches on the patient is not a good idea. raising taxes does not help the economy, and as a matter of fact the two cases you talked about reagan had a significant rate reduction and then some tax increases, the tax cuts are what helped grow the economy. with clinton, what happened is that the economy didn't turn around until the republicans captured the house and the senate and they also cut the capital gains tax. so those are -- >> well, let me bring in mort zuckerman who is smiling wryly at the description of leaches here. mort, over to you. >> well, let me say that there is a fundamental issue that we all have to face which is that our expenditures as a country way exceed the income, and as erkin bowles said, this is the most predictable crisis in the country's history and we have to

do something about it, but it is a political process as well as economic process and with all due respect, i believe, a, we should have had much more in the expenditure cuts because of the weak economy, but over the next several years larger cuts in expenditures and if it took a modest amount of tax increases reduction and then some tax increases, the tax cuts are what helped grow the economy. with clinton, what happened is that the economy didn't turn around until the republicans captured the house and the senate and they also cut the capital gains tax. so those are -- >> well, let me bring in mort zuckerman who is smiling wryly at the description of leaches here. mort, over to you. >> well, let me say that there is a fundamental issue that we all have to face which is that our expenditures as a country way exceed the income, and as erkin bowles said, this is the most predictable crisis in the country's history and we have to do something about it, but it is a political process as well as economic process and with all due respect, i believe, a, we should have had much more in the expenditure cuts because of the weak economy, but over the next several years larger cuts in expenditures and if it took a modest amount of tax increases to get that done, i would have supported it. i do agree that we absolutely must do something about this deficit, because otherwise, we are going to break the fiscal side of this economy and break the economy. we cannot support the kinds of deficits that we have incurred, and there is no question about that.

and any frankly, any reasonable economist would say that. >> gentlemen, thank you both very much coming up, what the $2.4 trillion deal means to you. dave ramsey is here to explain. ♪ there's another way to minimize litter box odor: purina tidy cats. tidy cats premium line of litters now works harder to help neutralize odors in multiple-cat homes. and our improved formula also helps eliminate dust. so it's easier than ever to keep your house smelling just the way you want it. purina tidy cats.

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