the city has really fallen down on the job by pandering to crackpot ideas like all tax ideas and silly things like that. if if you tried to cut spending by itself, you were never going to get anywhere because the people who like spending will be too powerful. so the trick was, well, let's just cut spending and not worry about spending, and when the revenues are reduced and the deficit is increased, then all the people who worry about deficits will have no choice lelele@@ will have no choice

are convinced that to this is the key to financial plus or whatever. it's just a bit really. >> robert from maryland, good morning and go ahead and. >> hi there. one with with the job's been the issue would be the problem of with the tax cuts on businesses? like newt gingrich has been talking about, knocking down the corporate tax lois and the other country in the world. eliminating capital gains taxes and at least eliminating for a while the payroll taxes so that businesses would be moved back into the country who have laughed and that of a chorus of lloyd won the upcoming -- avoided the upcoming capt. training and which was really making it kind of staten for

businesses. what you think about that as an alternative to stimulating in getting jobs back? >> guest: i don't think any of those proposals will work because i think the basic problem we have in our economy today is in the costs are rising but rather that there is no demand. what most companies were a great many companies anywhere are losing money, tax cuts might not do them any good. what they really need is an increase in people buying their products and i don't see how tax cuts on business are going to do any good, i don't see how any tax cuts will do any good under current economic circumstances. keep in mind that in the fiscal year that just ended fiscal year 2009 federal revenues were 14.9% of gdp. that's the lowest level since 1950. we have the historical post war level of taxes as 18% of gdp so

we already have a three percentage point cut in taxes of the share of gdp that is clearly not done any good to revive the economy. it's just throwing more tax cuts out there that have we have no reason whatsoever to think we'll have any impact, it's just dogma. it doesn't have any relationship to reality in my opinion. >> host: 15 governance with bruce bartlett in his new book, the new american economy, this is john on a republican line. >> caller: did morning. infrastructure is something, can to wrap my hand -- mind around white people seem to oppose or think it's going to go poorly. we have been talking for years now, i'm a construction engineer and we have been talking about the deficiencies in the faa in

new and attacking aircraft flights in this country, we've been talking about bridges. in detroit and we just found out recently there is a number of over the water bridges that haven't been looked at as they were supposed to be in a 06, 07 and 08 and also the bridges that goes over to windsor maybe you heard about, i don't know, but it is in some questionable state. i looked at the number of bridges in this country and i believe it's in the 500,000 range and you think that if we only were to look at those bridges and investigate to what state they are in except the ones receiving a routine maintenance, just the bridges along if you were to initiate engineering contracts to have them investigated and looked at, that's going to more and then -- it would have to spread out into heavy equipment and other

contracts which would lead to a suppliers. maybe that simplistic but this seems to me that would be the case and also separating source systems, improving waste treatment and water to implants and all the things in this country. if we can put that much money into iraq that we have lost we don't know what we have exxonmobil got something out . >> host: i will add to his comments on senator.com, our economic the future lies not in the real-estate by decentralizing energy systems and trading explosion in employment. calling for government spending in the infrastructure area and the energy area but in the end to get back to the problem of the mounting debt of the country. >> guest: you have to wonder -- is a short run long run a problem. right at the moment the problem is we have to stimulate growth and increase jobs and i think the caller was exactly right that there is a great deal that could have been down in terms of

public works spending, there's clearly a great need to fix up other bridges and roads and things like that. my only point i was making was that people underestimate the time lags, the time that it takes to let contracts and higher -- have plans drawn up and things of this sort to be for meaningful amount of work is being done by people in the construction industry and that is being done. it's just been down much more slowly than people thought was necessary. i think they have this notion like i said earlier that all you needed was two have it checked and the next day people would be at odds with pickaxes and things and it doesn't work like that. it's a very long drawn out process but i think that's going forward what i am optimistic economically because i think a lot of that money that was appropriated back in february will still be coming on-line

this year and will add some stimulus to growth. >> host: why did the the fiscal stimulus work during the fdr years? ansel to work out? >> guest: it didn't work at all during the fdr years and that is the whole problem is that all the right wingers are complaining about how big results deficits were but the problem is they were nearly big enough and then at the point which the deficits were starting to have a good impact roosevelt got talked into balancing the budget in the federal budget from a deficit of 5.5% of gdp in 1936, into a complete balance budget in fiscal year 1938. so we took 5.5% of gdp and out of the economy that would have otherwise been stimulus of and as a result wasn't until world war ii that the depression really ended. >> host: to make -- arizona, andy on are democrats line.

>> caller: good morning. i am looking at the kind of economists that the republicans in washington and groups like the u.s. chamber of commerce are trying to support, the lassiez-fare tax cuts and trying to say that tax cuts create jobs and i've never seen any evidence of that in my lifetime. i'm also wondering what you think about increasing stimulus and actually going out and spending more money to create some more of demand out there. >> guest: well, at this point i think it would probably be not a good idea to have a second stimulus package for this reason. if you look at the economy there's an awful lot of evidence that we really turned the corner, that we're past the bottom and at least in terms of gdp things are turning up words in the stock market's rise evidence because it tends to

rise in in france of changes in the real economy and you got a growing number of economists were predicting what is called the be shaped recovery which would be a quite rapid increase. any number of economists are predicting 4 percent growth the next. things of that sort. the problem is, the real problem is there is a disconnect between gdp and jobs. we used to now it gdp went up x% then you would get some other percentage increase in the number of jobs, they tended to move together. now it appears there are not. instead what businesses are doing is they are investing heavily in labor saving equipment, they are doing whatever they can to get by with their existingt( labor force and avoiding and all cost of hiring new workers and that's more of what is called a microeconomic problem that i think we have to come up with creative solutions

for dealing with because that's the problem has going to be there even when we reached the point where gdp growth is at the point where we all agree the recession is over with. >> host: how would you advise president obama and the unemployment problem? >> guest: that's a tough nut to crack. there's a lot of talk these days about some sort of tax credits or new high. -- newly hired workers. >> host: that would go to businesses. >> guest: but the problem is it's hard to tell who is a new worker so you have a tendency to give rewards to businesses that happen to be expanding forever reason and to get people gaming the system, you lay off some guy one guy and then hire the same guy back the next day, it a tax credits -- and these kind of things have made it very hard. we've tried this in the past and it didn't work for a while. i think we're probably going to have to come up with a package

of things. i think there was a bad idea to raise the minimum wage in july, is quite clear that you had an instantaneous increase in the number of teenagers that are unemployed. we have to be more creative and i haven't really heard any good ideas in that area. >> host: michigan is with us, this is keith, independent line. >> caller: i would just like to say john mccain discredited himself because he endorsed announce the economic policy. >> guest: that's not true. >> caller: listen to what i'm telling you. he said why he was trying to figure out the problems with unemployment adolf hitler had salted so basically we all know how -- that's the economic policy ended, but our economy is so centralized and the politicians have made it to where we're going to have a

service economy instead of industrial economy. you can see that our tax code is set up to penalize industry so what they want us to do is fix the products in china and other countries make while we are just not making anything. if we don't start back in the industrial society and get all of these whacko environmental quote and of the way we're going to really be heard in this country. >> host: tribal get a response from mr. bartlett. >> guest: i think it was clear that a lot of countries in the 1930's were experiencing with what we came to call keynesian ideas, government spending and public works and things of that sort and certainly the germans were among them, the swedes were doing a lot of this stuff as well and i think it's irresponsible to make it seem like keynes was a nazi because some other country implemented some of his policies. out as far as china is concerned the real problem there has

nothing to do with taxes and everything to do with the exchange rate that they simply refuse to allow their currencies to rise which gives them a competitive advantage that makes it cheaper for us to buy goods from them than to produce them are souse but nevertheless the u.s. is still the largest manufacturing country in the world and the largest exporter and i think sometimes we forgetn when actually we're still in pretty good shape. >> host: there is a story this morning about china pledging more aid to african nations after a conference this weekend. what are the challenges of a country like china going into places like africa were the u.s. is already but china becomes competitor as a developer in a developing nation in these countries? >> guest: i think basically in everybody's interest certainly to see africa am become more developed and i think the chinese view africa as an untapped resource for raw

materials that they need to fuel their financial -- manufacturing sector. and so i think it is a challenge but i don't think it's a problem. i think it's really makes a lot of sense for everybody. >> host: georgia on a republican line will. >> caller: hi, i wonder if our guest has ever lived economic basic economics by thomas o. walther ribbon and as far as i'm concerned the federal reserve is keynesian and also the thing that he criticized about the drug deals is keynesian and i would like to ask a question, does he think economics is an art or science? i think it is a science. the same way the court of engineers can determine how water will flow when they determine where to put a dam. human nature is in the absolute that can be used to determine what economics this.

>> host: in all your years in economics have you figured out whether it is an art or science? >> guest: is clearly more an art than science, it's not really very scientific at all except in the superstructure. we've got mathematics that look scientific. but when you peel away all the layers like on an onion in get down to the middle, with a lot of it is just pure judgment calls, people make their theories fit what ever they happen to believe forever philosophical reasons they believe in big government, smaller government, libertarians, socialist whatever and it took up serious that are supporting where there are already coming from. but i certainly don't think that in ie knee-jerk free-market appointive use such as tom sola and walter williams represent, tells us much useful if anything at this moment in time. >> host: how much is your new book, and volunteer previous

book, imposter, of how george bush betrayed the reagan legacy this bank as a follow-up, more nearly focused but there was a lot in there that got me thinking about some of these issues such as why is it that all these tax cut during the 2000's and they didn't do any good at all and i think is because the riss design have been because who for partisan reasons a lot of people talked themselves into believing that tax credits which were essentially the same as governance spending were somehow different and it was okay to have tax credits and not have tax rate reductions and they just talked themselves into believing whenever the white house wanted was good for the economy and there was -- i say use the bs word. >> host: one more keyword and juan -- e-mail who -- one is a bad tax that made more sense in the 1970's when we had a much

more large in manufacturing sector? >> guest: it is a tax on sales on consumption and ideally you would want it to be as broad as possible to include services as well as manufacturing. one of the virtues is it applies equally to imports and is rebated at the border on exports and so i chile it gives you in new benefit in terms of the international trade so it is really a very good tax one. >> narrow technical point of view and i really think that the people who oppose it are just dogmatic that we opposed to all taxes and don't really know what they're talking about in most cases. >> host: one more call from st. louis to the volume on the democrats' line. >> caller: i hope i can get this question in your, first of all, i find it hard to believe that most people say in their tax rebates and will the last time we had that thought.

the only people in that would save the tax rebate would be the wealthy. the and the thing i want to mention was to people won't really believe this economic problem? that we have. at the present time can be solved in nine months. in the third question and the last question was was of the stimulus someone -- was it supposed to stop it -- was that supposed to make things better over a time when for years? wamp -- in the obama administration. >> host: thank you, we will get a response. >> guest: the wealthy were much more likely to save their rebates and then pour in some 30% or so of the rebate was, in fact, spent. the point is that it was very poorly targeted, the money went to everybody.

perhaps of a have some more targeted sort of rebate that went to the poor to people who were living from hand to mouth that they would have been forced to spend more money but you probably couldn't have pass something like that through the congress. the main thing to me as republicans are just so dogmatic about tax cuts that anything that is called the tax cut is a poor whether it really is or not and in case of the rebate they called a tax rebate but actually is just government money, just a check mailed out. and so i don't really see how that has anything to do with taxes. certainly the administration was expecting to see some impact, someone in power from the stimulus and they have seen but i think they always understood there was going to take years before we got back to where rework before the recession. i don't remember what his last question was. >> host: he asked about tax rebates and also talked about bad mortgages but we will .

>> host: >> bruce. >> -- this is the language was the capital of czechloslovakia, in 1950's and today is very colorful city because it is full of tourists but at that time it was very much bleak, and not

very colorful. as a child you can't control really what country you are born in or what politics you are born into or situation so i was born just after the communist takeover of the speech to appear in i tried to move the picture. the family house. this is the family house, it's interesting because this picture was taken just before 1989. maybe even in september of '89 and this is why prague, i grew up and looking like this, it was falling apart and gray and i think what as try to trade in the picture. so you see it is very bleak. if you come to prague now this is the main street leading to the cafes and shops so it is completely different. when i was a little child i was told that i like to draw and so

this is how i started with a baby when so you're talented since you're in town and i said necessarily. there was no television or computer so sometimes the appearance of the child to be quiet they would give them a pencil and let him sit somewhere and draw. and i don't think it happened when i was like that but i need to start a book so this is the reason. [laughter] what i was raised by a loving family, and as a contrast what happened to public and private life because the family both parents are artists and they encouraged us to draw and do things and, of course, nothing about politics outside where the world situation would come to our mind because we were living in this sort of family harmony at least as i remember. the strange thing happened because my father was a filmmaker who was drafted into the czech army and because he was a filmmaker he was sent one

want to china because of the chinese government asked the czech government as a fraternity in communist country since filming is to teach and how to make the also my father was 27 year-old man who was sent to china and i am dealing with that in my book in it "tibet through the red box" and now we know what is happening in china but at that time it was a friendly country to us. it was so far away and took many weeks to get on the plane to russia and really knew that chinese people ate with chopsticks and my father sort of disappeared. i thought he was gone for many years and has installed and tested he was caught only 19 months but as a child i thought he was gone for ever and this is a picture because u.s. adventuress. when he probably borrowed a costume to look to bentsen and he met the dalai lama who was 19 years old. in that way i lost to a great

friend and supporter and somebody who was making fun so that as a pitcher with my sister. i drew maps, this is not imad, this is a map of my daughter. one and i wanted to discover the world and i think my father with his trip to tibet was important because he is directly told me when he came with it was much bigger than i was told as school. this is a picture when i went to school, the middle of the last century. for the first time. this is when the problem started because of a sudden we were expoto the political side and school, we were told this than at home and the was wondering how it was that the parents would tell us not to talk about certain things and then we start to make sense out of things because it wasn't first grade when we were exposed to all the propaganda to become

leaders and at home and and said excitedly that this is what everybody should do in an appearance couldn't tell us how it was. this is the picture of of the influences what i am being confused pioneer walking in the streets and this was all the sort of mix of propaganda. not only stalin and lenin and khrushchev but the very daring books, the pilot perrine in moscow it's interesting because i speak to people from east germany and russia today and everybody has the same references to all the things we read about. all these things we were exposed to in the same a ways. this is dealing with the things which happen in the world about exactly the same all the time.

what is important is that the hungarian uprising, the berlin wall with, the cuban missile crisis which came much later, president kennedy, the brennan wall, his assassination in dallas, the vietnam war, this was interesting because i did and now it was common where my life that we found out that we both were hiding under the tables in fear of a nuclear war. because it was the solution at that time the students would be heading into the table like it would solve anything. i think i didn't like prague, what was happening outside the was a dark place. that was not as much fun doing out so at that time i painted everything in our house, a psychiatrist said it was probably because i was afraid my father would leave but i.p. did

these light switches and that i brown and these old chair so animated these chairs for people who i wanted to be my friends said this was somebody who was a famous circus artists, a famous soccer player so even in these because you played in so it is read but at that time nobody knew that i would become an artist in my life. let's face it, as an old person i can. them. this chair was in quite dry when my friends came to visit. one and to my shock and see my paintings leaving through the door. at that time it was an appreciative that all. i was drawing a lot at school so this was at a later time, i have a big gaps in physics and math just because i was doing all the time and i'm just using it to

showcase, not to do because i think people don't own any mark, i think they went on facebook probably. i did all these pictures at that time of people flying summer it and getting over the borders but i didn't understand the concept would be something wrong with the government telling me you can't go from this place to that place because it was just part of our life and nobody was questioning that. so i was dealing with all kinds, i wanted to be a painter, i wanted to be a rock-and-roll musician and so this is getting into 68 and this is alexander speaking to people in prague in 1958 and this was the best of my life because i was young and all a sudden we could travel, we could hitchhike all over europe. we started to play rock music, hear about people so these came the same time and we thought the world was opening up and it

wouldn't. i remember going hitchhiking to belgium and england and argue with somebody who was thought in the army at britain and they said they cannot do it because with the world say about it. it was a big shock of 1968 when the russians came and, of course, i was in london on the 21st of august when the russian army came in and went to denmark for a month and it took me two months to come back to prague but in my book i took the liberty to not explain that because it would be, too difficult. it was difficult today if i was in prague and the russian tanks and planes came and probably i would have left right there and would spend another 15 years or something trying to reroute where i should be living. >> this was a portion of a booktv program. you can do the entire program and many other booktv programs online. go to booktv did word from a type the name of the