newt, i'm sorry that it has come to this, but i'm glad we're on the verge of a deal. there's a report out earlier today by an economic forecasting make rho economic advisers that these self-inflicted wounds, cause crises in washington, has cost the country about 900,000 jobs. >> first of all, it's a pity the president hasn't shown leadership and tried to bring people together, but, hey, anybody who thinks john boehner has been bypassed continues to misread the constitution. if the senate doesn't pass something that boehner can pass in the house, it's just a press conference. but second, after all the week you and i have been here, debating about whether or not the president should negotiate, the number one things happening today is they're negotiating. now, i think that's good for america. i'm delighted that finally we are seeing some negotiation, and i hope they will in the next 24 hours get a deal. >> you know why?

it's not all other nothing. it's not, let's let the country default unless we can cut spending by report levels. >> clearly we're going to disagree this evening, but we have help in disagrees, because in the crossfire tonight, austan goolsbee, who used to chair president obama's council of economic advisers, and carly fiorina. welcome to both of you. doesn't it trouble you as an economist to see a country with $17 trillion in debt, artificially low interest rates, because the interest rates are low and almost nothing being done to fix it. >> that sounds like a trick question. after the love-in, the thing is the long run fiscal challenge

we've known about a long time. and the growth of health care costs. the congressional budget office report is saying our debt to gdp ratio is shall rimpgs. the deficit are falling faster than they have either ever fallen and the debt to gdp ratio, our debt level is not going to return for more than a decade. shutting down the government and threatening that we might have to default on either domestic obligations or on the bonds is a total cull one to craze noun. that's going to tank the economy

at best. >> that's another quick question. >> i'm just curious. he offered a six-week extension with all he was requesting to negotiate. >> here's my fear. the guy from u.p.s., brings the package to your health. he has the ability to run over your package, throw it away, whatever. we should be negotiating about all of those issue that face the country.

you like revenue versus cuts, things like that. but i think it's misleading to say that's what boehner was doing, because he was asking to negotiate on the debt ceiling. nothing, you know, says have a substantive debate like a tea party really with sarah palin, ted cruz an the conphet rat flag. so this entire crisis that ted cruz led us down, hundreds of thousands of people not getting a paycheck, that's not even counting the many small businesses that are dependent upon government across the country. you have consumer confidence at an all-time low this year, and you have a new "the washington post"/abc poll out that shows

republicans at a record low, handling a budget negotiations, republicans are at 21%, so 1 out of 5 americans approve of what republicans are doing. so that means they're even losing republicans. so if you were in the senate and you were advising mitch mcconnell, what would you tell hem to do here? >> so first i've been public in saying that the tactic of trying to link a continuing resolution for the government with defunding obama care was foolish. it was inevitably going to fail. however, the american people think it's reasonable to associate a discussion to an increase in the debt ceiling. the reason they think that is because they understand what credit means. if you're an american with a credit card, and you have a limit of $2,000 and you want to spend $3,000 next month? you go to your bank and say would you increase my credit

limit. okay? that's different than defaulting on your payments. what we're talking about here is raising the debt ceiling for the government and 70-plus percent of americans think it's common sense to associate a debt ceiling increase with a substantive discussion about lowering federal spend. the problem that republicans have, i would argue the problem the country has, the demonstrable lack of leadership on behalf of this president. remember simp sony bowles? there has not been a single substantive proposal by this at mrgs on tax perform, a key component of simpson bowles, and now you have a continues resolution shouldn't include lower squser limits? one of the reasons the ratio is lower is because republicans succeeded in lowering the overall spending by government

through the sequester. >> you want to respond? >> carly and i are friends and we've debated many times. i thought for a second, wait, is it april fool's day? that's completely not true. since simpson bowles, the president's budget is the only budget put forward by either of the parties which proposed both new revenues and entitlement cuts, and brought the deficit to a level that would stabilize debt to gdp. >> that's why his own party rejected it, and it didn't push forward any reasonable debate. >> the president put forward these proposals. let us remember what happened? when the president said here as part of a grand bargain, i'm willing to put the following things of medicare on the table, the republicans turned around and began condemning them. >> and when the republicans put $900 billion of additional tax revenue on the table and the president accepted it, it was

like what have you done for me lately? there hasn't been simpson an bowles, if they were both sitting here today would tell you how disappointed they are that there's not been a single substantive commissioned discussion about how to reduce spending, get entitlements reforms and get tax reform going which this economic desperately needs. if there is a deal tonight, which i desperately hope there's a deal. it's a content-free deal, extend the limits, fine, but let's at least have a process for having a substantive discussion about these substantive issue. in that regarding, the president must lead. >> do you think that republicans should also lead, you know, what has shut down many of these talks is not the unwillingness of the president or democrats to talk about entitlement reform. it's been republicans talking about revenue. they're still drawing a line on revenue. you can't have a balanced

deficit reduction -- >> that's the thing -- >> i find that so fascinating. >> so -- >> -- so the increase in tax revenues that the republicans put on the table and agreed to, which is a distraction. >> which has been ten months ago. >> doesn't count. >> do you think they should do it way? i want my own view is lower every rate, close every loophole, that's different than raising rates. we'll come back in a minute, but first of all, i want to suggest what we are watching here is something between a meltdown and pathetic. i'll explain why in a minute. >> i would agree with that.

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welcome back to "crossfire." we're here with president obama's former economic adviser austan goolsbee, and former ceo carly fiorina. washington and the country are awaiting some kind of debt limit deal. however, there is zero possibility that senators harry reid and mish mcconnell will achieve anything significant fblgt what we are watching here is something between a meltdown and pathetic. the meltdown would be a default. but what's pathetic is simple. for years, and we were just discussing it on the first segment on a bipartisan basis, this city has failed to deal with the big problems facing america, and the world is

noticing. i found it chilling today that china's government-owned news agency is now pointing to our continuing crisis and basically saying, the u.s. fiscal failure warrants a de-americanized world. now, other countries are saying similar things. i think we should take that as a serious warning that in fact we need to get or how in order in order to remain the leading countries in world and we have to stop the self-inflicted wounds. what they are really saying is don't shut down the government over defunding your health care plan. don't threaten default because you're not getting what president. these are things that shouldn't be a hostage-taking situation. these are bills that congress has racked up. they have a responsible to fund the federal government, not hold it hostage to some political agenda. so that's china's propaganda agency -- >> but i don't think they're responding to this week.

>> i think we're agreeing on how the world sees us, just not agrees on how we got there. >> i agree we look foolish to the world. it's clear the rest of the world is saying, what are we doing? and for a moment, if we can, to take it out of the immediate term and the partisan bickering in washington, i think the reality is that people are worried, whether it's business people or consumers, or observers overseas are worried that the issue is not time, and the issue is not deadlines. in other words, it's not that our government, or congress people, our admission don't have enough time. it's not that we're up against a deadlines. it's that we don't have the will, we don't have the processes to come together and find reasonable solutions. the reality is when our credit rating was dropped for the first time in our history, they

weren't just talking about a failure to immediate a deadline. they were talking about an unsustainable debt to gdp ratio and no observable process in how that was ever going to get solved. that hand changed. >> if you look at the downgrade, granted they made an accounting -- but they quite specifically said the reason they were downgrading it was not based on an unsustainable debt to gdp, but unsustainable politics, that they didn't think the political system could do anything. >> it hasn't changed. >> if you look at simpson bowles, we as a country, part think through good fortune, partly from sequester, partly from new revenues, we've done almost three quarters of the amount of deficit reduction that simp sony bowles said we need to do do, and the government

spending and deficit levels are shall rimpging at the fasters they have had runk in something like 670 years, so the question is why is it you think the most important thing to do right now is go figure out how to cut the deficit even farther. i think what we need to do is grow. we need to stop with this. this is crazy. >> are you arguing this country is on a sound, economic footing? you and i can agree the most important thing is growth here. we might disagree on how to get growth. i would argue -- >> threatening default doesn't seem to be -- >> i totally agree. i don'tening that anyone -- but i think the point is without more robust economic growth, without tax reform, which is part of growth, without entitlement reform, without regulatory reform to get government off the back of small business, we're not on a sustainable economic footing. i actually think democrats and

republicans both gra el with that. what's dispiriting to consumers and business people and the rest of the world is why can't they sit down and talk about this? ivities i think the polls is quite clear on what america is dissatisfied with, and that is they view -- even republicans, independents and democrats overwhelmingly view that some segment of the republican party has -- i don't president to use the inflammatory language of hijacking or whatever. they feel that a small group of republicans has taken there so a heavily confrontational way that's deeply undermining of the economy, and almost the majority of republicans think that. >> that's this week's poll at this moment. >> but it's based on the truth. this was a planned thing. they spent the summer announcing that they intended to try to extract concessions by threatening to hit the debt

limit, and they wanted the defunding of obama care. they wanted the cutting of short-term spending, they wanted to put in cuts on medicare. how is that reasonable? i don't understand what you're saying. >> after weeks of your party screaming about hostage-taking. >> over the weekend senator harry reid walks out and says, i want to change the sequester rules, and i won't move a bill unless it changes now. isn't reid now hostage-taking? 6. >> i don't think so. that was in private. my understanding was that was an argument about what date would the government restart? if you restarted it on a certain date, then technically it would would not abide by -- i think that was a small technical thing. >> but i think what harry reid absolutely did do this weekend, here you have susan collins, not exactly a tea party flamethrower, who comes together with six republicans and six democrats, and puts forward a

proposal. a compromise proposal that had broad bipartisan support and harry reid rejects it out of hand. let's get off the immediate term for a second. i think that was exceedingly i think i have over and over again. let's stipulate that threatening to defund obama care and shutting down the government is a poor thing and let's move on and say this, i negotiate a lot of deals in my life. i'm sure you have. i'm sure all of you have. when you are actually wanting to make progress, you have to empower your opponent. when president obama, we talked about all the things republicans have done wrong. president obama is the leader of the free world. his party controls washington

right now, no matter what the house republicans are trying to do. when the leader of the free world over and over and over at every opportunity castigates republicans, tells them that they are poorly motivated, that they don't care about america, et cetera, et cetera, and then declares over and over and over i will not negotiate. i will not negotiate. i will not negotiate, he is empowering the flamethrowers. it's bad negotiating strategy. it's not good leadership. and unless he steps forward and says i want to reach a resolution on tax reform, here is my proposal on entitle reform, a serious proposal that could actually gain bipartisan support, it isn't going to happen. >> okay, all i would say are, i would make two points. the first is, he stated from the beginning the totally reasonable position that we cannot commence negotiating over the debt

ceiling. that we do not -- >> other presidents have. >> no, they haven't. >> they absolutely have. over 70% of americans do think we should negotiate. that's what a poll says. >> you may be a good economist. you're a terrible historian. >> they attach debt ceiling increases to budgets. but there was never a time. mr. speaker, you, i know you like to stir it up. but you never threatened, if you do not give me what i want i will default the government. that's totally irresponsible. >> republicans, there has never been a negotiation over the increase in the debt ceiling. >> that's what republicans are doing today. >> traditional republicans. if they are coming together with the unanimous democrats to get us away from a thing in which we're going to negotiate about

the debt ceiling. >> susan kocollins -- >> wait a second. starting in 1953, under dwight eisenhower, we have consistently used the debt ceiling pt we have attached conditions to the debt ceiling. when i was in congress we did it routinely. this is one of those things that the white house has invented, that you guys repeat mindlessly. >> i'm not repeating mindlessly. name to me ever a single democratic congress person who has ever said if you do not give us x we will -- >> you changed the argument. you said there's never been a. >> over the debt ceiling. >> all right. >> barack obama and senator reid both vote against raising the debt ceiling. >> that's different. okay. we've got to go to break. we've got to go to break.

>> oh, a showboat. >> they should be able to have it. threatening to shut down the government to get what you want is another thing. >> not defaulting on the debt. you as an economist know the difference. >> we're going to talk about this when we come back from break. i want you both to stay here. we'll see if there's anything you two can agree on. and we want you to weigh in on today's fire back question. are you optimistic that a deal will pass congress this week? vote now. we'll have the results after the break. when we made our commitment to the gulf, bp had two big goals: help the gulf recover and learn from what happened so we could be a better, safer energy company. i can tell you - safety is at the heart of everything we do. we've added cutting-edge technology, like a new deepwater well cap and a state-of-the-art monitoring center, where experts watch over all drilling activity twenty-four-seven.

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we're back. now we're going to call a cease-fire. is there anything that you two can agree on? i think i know the answer to that, but -- >> i think frequently we agree on a lot of things. i would say we probably agree that growth is the most important thing, and, you know, we might differ on some of them, or we might say hey, let's make a package of a lot of, whether it's regulatory tax, investment in skills, education, infrastructure. >> i think we agree growth is the most important thing. i think we agree that a substantive conversation that includes regulatory reform and tax reform is necessary for growth. and there may be other things as well that we wouldn't agree on.

and so i think, whatever deal comes through this week, and i believe there will be a deal, it will be pretty content free, it will kick the can down the road. but whatever deal comes this week, i hope that we can step back from the blame game on both sides and have the adults get in a room and say, can we finally have a substantive conversation about how to get this country on a sound fiscal footing that encourages growth and stop being the laughingstock of the world. >> i do agree with that. >> well, that sounds good to me. what do you think? >> i think it does. the only thing i would suggest because of the way our system does work, a lot of that conversation has to be in public. the american people have to buy into it. it's very hard to get very large change in the american people don't understand. >> i agree request that. go to facebook or twitter to weigh in on our fire back question. are you optimistic that a deal will pass congress this week.

right now 39% of you say yes. 61% say no. the debate continues online at cnn.com/crossfire. from the left, i'm stephanie cutter. >> from the right, i'm newt gingrich. join us tomorrow for another edition of crossfire. erin burnett out front starts right now. out front next, on the verge of a deal. but is the president on board? plus patient dumping for years considered an urban legend. and a teenage girl raped by a high school football player. she says the community turned against her and her mother. let's go out front. and good evening, everyone. out front tonight. deal or no deal? tonight it appears,