really came from the outside. when i worked there, i wanted to give it some time but i didn't start writing the book right away. i waited a number because i wanted to have enough distance that i thought i could be more objective. but nobody had written a book on cbo, and i knew a lot of the people and i was pre-sure that i could get the ex-directors to talk to me. but moreover, i just thought it was a story that needed to be told. there something like four books on omb for books on gao and i thought it sort of a travesty. some level that there was not a book on cbo. it became easier actually to convince publishers who are important to book enterprises, that such a thing was perhaps an important thing to do. once cbo was so heavily involved in the obama health care reform because it was a whole sort of

beginning part of the pitch, which is why should anybody care, that i really didn't have to make at that point. >> i think i read in your book, and hopefully i'm going it correctly, that congressional budget office is where legislation goes to die. >> that with senator wyden said that from oregon, said actually that the history of health care reform is that bills go to the congressional budget office to die. now, this irony here is that actually there was a health care reform after that point that was enacted, but what he had in mind i think mostly was the clinton health care reform of 1994 where it certainly became part of the lower that it was the cbo cost estimate and report on that particular legislation that killed it. i think there are a lot of things that killed it, and i think that was certainly one of them. but i think anybody who lived through that episode certainly

came away with the perception that cbo was a very powerful organization that could kill something if it was something that could be killed on the basis of an economic or budget announcement. >> and newt gingrich recently said last month that cbo is a reactionary socialist institution. >> he did say that. given to statements that can be extreme from to time. i think that one of the most interesting things about that to me is that when i talked to people within the cbo website of close contact with him during the time that he was speaker of the house, what they said to me was that the things that actually made him be the angriest wood that periodically he would have bills that would add particular procedures to medicare, to have been covered by medicare, and that cbo would

score those as costing money. and his argument was well, these will save lives, how can they cost money? and they can be true simultaneously that something costs the federal budget money and also can save lives. the other thing that some republicans, and i don't know if this is what he had in mind, often turn to and upsets them about cbo is that cbo is not so consistently believe that cutting taxes necessarily will pay for itself. that is, when you lower tax rates it doesn't necessarily lead to so much economic growth, that it's not a loss in revenue. and i think also the fact that cbo said that the obama health care reform would actually make things a little better in terms of the overall budget outlook, it's an article of faith among many in the republican party that the obama health care reform made things worse as

opposed to making things better. it could be a legitimate difference of opinion, but that was not the conclusion of cbo. >> have there been any scandals in the cbo history? >> it depends on what you mean by a scandal. i am not aware at any scandals that actually involve cbo staff. there was a miniscandal in one of the early years because director rivlin had been driving staff from the cbo building which is a little bit off of capitol hill up to capitol hill using her private automobile, and one year ceo asked for a car and it sort of came out in the press that bush wo one was a chauffeur limousine, and it created a great brouhaha in the press. but the truth was that there never was a chauffeur limousine. and four, i think, 20 years after that there was language in cbo appropriation bill that said

no money could be used for the purchase of a passenger vehicle. and that was all coming out of that particular event. >> but any bad numbers that maybe got cooked a little bit or anything like that? >> i mean, there's no, there certainly are numbers that people didn't like, and certainly people argue whenever the are numbers that people don't like, that those numbers were cooked. i was not able in researching my book to find any evidence of numbers that were actually cooked as opposed to ones that were just wrong, which is a different story entirely. i mean, cbo will tell you that the only thing that they know about their budget projections, for example, is that they are wrong. they just don't know by what amount and they don't know in what direction. because they are inherently, you know, fraught with error. there's just so many things that could make them wrong. >> we begin this conversation by

talking about whether or not cbo was successful. what makes them unique in the information that they provide? >> i think what makes them unique is that people actually believe at this point that they are trying to provide that information without political spin. i often have difficulty convincing people that this is actually true, because they think that what i'm really arguing is that these people are somehow purer than the rest of us, you know, that they don't have opinions but it's not that that they don't have opinions, it's that they do not view it as their job to have their opinion sort of entering into their official work. and i think the main reason for that is because cbo directors and also cbo staff figured out at a particular point in time that if they became viewed as just one more partisan voice in washington nobody would pay

attention to them. and no, but relaxed work on analytical institution that no one pays any attention to. so i think that what makes them different is that they are viewed as nonpartisan and i think that's what gives them their influence. and the minute they became viewed as just another partisan voice in washington, i think people would start listening. >> we are at the university of maryland and we've been talking with professor philip joyce, a professor of management and finance who has also written this book, "the congressional budget office: honest numbers, power, and policymaking." it's published by georgetown university press. >> thanks very much. >> recently "the new york times" released their top 10 best books of 2011. here are the five nonfiction titles.

>> more from the university of maryland. carol graham talk to booktv about her latest book, "the pursuit of happiness."

"the pursuit of happiness" is the name of the book and university of maryland professor and workings institution fellow, carol graham, is the author. dr. graham, is happiness public-policy? >> that's a big question these days. when i start working on this about 10 years ago, people thought the few posts that were doing it were pretty loopy, or nuts. but actually it's become a new science, a way of measuring well being in a broader way than just income can measure well being and quality of life. and right now the british government and the united nations, the chinese government, the brazilian government, and i could name more, are very interested in implementing wielding metrics, or happiness metrics in their policy. in fact, the british government just completed its first round survey where it concluded

happiness metrics in its national statistics speak what is a happiness metrics? >> is a measure of, we measure well being more generally. happiness is a colloquial term, but we take measures of how people, how satisfied people are with their lives in general, how they experience the day before. in other words, much shorter term daily experience kind of measure, and in how people evaluate their lives as a whole. ..

that doesn't mean growth is an import to the long run, but rapid growth and that china and brazil kind of setting can be very unsettling for people because there's a lot of uncertainty, a lot of inequality. we also find that income matters very much to people's happiness and well-being. but other things matter as much or more. still partnerships, fulfilling work. those are all very important to people's well-being. and so were able to quantify those different elements of peoples lives and how much they matter to their well-being and complement income measures. they cannot have her example how much does commuting time matter to happiness? is it good or bad? with another funny thing stirs up writing things like cigarette taxes make smokers happier in canada and the obese are less happy than the nonobese. if the consumption choices of

obese or optimal income-based choices, why is there on happening associate with them? >> host: can use when the smoke cigarette tax thing? >> guest: at similar to obesity findings and that the zoom all choices are optimal rational choice is the economic models do, then anybody purchasing a box of cigarettes is doing so to enhance their welfare. but all of us know that's not exactly what's going on. if you assume some of what is going on is his self-control or addiction problem than people are trying to stop smoking, you can see why cigarette tax to enhance the well-being of people trying to stop. postcode dr. graham, does the u.s. in any way measure happiness or well-being or quality-of-life? >> guest: at this but we certainly measure informally. a u.s.-based firm gallup organization is probably the biggest provider of well-being data, not just in the u.s., but

around the world through the gallup world poll. that's a private polling firm as we know. there is that serious discussion out in a new national economy finds the panel of well-being that checks, which will be assessing whether or not we should be including some of these measures and to our senses and other statistical gathering data. postcode if you are to include it? to and we're going to use the word happiness, how could you phrase it? >> guest: i would include at least three questions, hopefully four to capture these different components. one captures how do you experience yesterday at how happy were you yesterday? some question along those lines. the short-term fluctuations in people's well-being, how they live their daily lives. then i include how satisfied are you with your life as a whole? or come a question that life purpose. your purpose or meaning in your life? your different dimensions and people may value them differently. and finally possible i would

also include another question, which is how does your life compared to the best possible life? sort of a relative sense. it's how people compare themselves and i think in terms of a broader reference. all of those questions give us different components of well-being. >> host: so when the bread measure happiness and the brazilians measure happiness, what did they find for national average? is there such a thing? >> guest: there is a national average. the brazilians are thinking of doing are taking metrics within their own country and they've just gone to the field. the british finance which i saw that in accord around the world, across countries around the world. and that's basically the same things matter to british people's happiness around the world. income matters that only so much. health matters a great deal.

still partnerships. the low point being in the middle 40s or so and the british and foreigncome as two and studies we've done. >> host: why is that? >> guest: there's lots of reasons. you can imagine the middle-age years are often a double burden of child rearing and also dependent parents. a lot of financial burdens. it's about the time people thought orations align with their realities. if you don't know it should be when you grow up a mid-40s, you probably should. and after that, as people get older, as far as they are healthy and in a stable partnership they get happier. it could be people get more appreciative of life and aware that a short period aspirations align reality and financial burdens even as people age typically. on average anyway. >> host: how did you get interested in this topic? >> guest: i fell into it by mistake and i've loved it ever

since. i was actually studying people's income trajectories, moving in and out of poverty and fast-growing developing countries and peru weren't i'm from and also russia china. and most of the people that it made the most progress escaping poverty reported their economic situation to be worse than it was before. and carol graham disentangle listing to be contradictory findings and an objective income data and reported well-being data, i started to get into what was done in literature that combines psychology and economics in understanding how people assess their well-being, quality-of-life. >> host: professor graham, is it possible to legislate happiness? tesco now, i don't think that's something we should get into doing. measuring or taking stock of our nation's well-being and using that information to inform policy decisions is a contribution. i don't think we can legislate

happiness, nor do i think we can set up happiness to be a policy object is. >> host: well, we are guaranteed the pursuit of happiness are we? >> guest: that's an opportunity to lead a fulfilling life. i detailed that in my book. that's the most important thing the government should be thinking about. >> host: what do you teach at the university of maryland? >> guest: i teach quantitative message for phd students in the include a knot of new survey research methods and other methods to get at some of the more difficult concepts and policy problems. >> host: what department are you an? >> guest: school of public policy. >> host: what is your role at brookings institution? >> guest: and cfo and charles robinson share. i spent most of my time at the brookings institution and i'm involved in studying well-being and all kinds of dimensions and setting up a new initiative on well-being there. >> host: carol graham is the author of this book, "the

pursuit of happiness: an economy of well-being" this is her second book on happiness. her first, happiness around the world. professor graham, thanks for being on booktv. >> guest: inks for having me. >> actor robert cummings written several topics on books during the civil war. what interested you in this topic? >> guest: my interest in the civil war is among the serious to me. if you told me many years ago when i was a girl this is what is going to study, i would've said i hate you. i hate war, hate guns. i don't like any of this. i don't like this topic at all. but when i was a graduate student in american history, happened to take a class on the civil war and something about it just clicked with me. in that topic decided the

complete absence of women -- comments on women in the classes women didn't have anything to do with the civil war in a class. i determined i would be my life work that i would write about women in the civil war. but of course i british on many other things, but that is where i started. >> host: who is joseph holt? >> guest: joseph lozito said judge advocate general. people remember him today, they particularly remember to ask who was after lincoln's assassination responsible for prosecuting the conspirators who had worked with john wilkes booth. however, he is a much larger figure than that. he was 67 years old by the time he got to washington by the time he became licensed judge advocate general he had a very long life and lived on until 1894. he's a much bigger figure than not. do we know him best as for his years as lincoln judge at the

good general. >> host: you titled this "lincoln's forgotten ally." what you choose this is a title? >> guest: because of his importance to lincolns. because of the steep devotion to lincoln and his policies and therefore he is lincolns ally. but he is someone whom we simply doubt remember and historical records except in terms of a tiny slice of what roles he played over the course of his life. as a professional. certainly one of the most important members of lincolns administration. and yet he has dropped off the historical map, except for certain tiny parts of his life. and that is what i find among the most fascinating. >> host: why do you feel it was so over the din history? >> guest: one of the reasons he was overlooked was because we like our historical figures to be very simple and easy to understand. and he's an immensely complicated person to

understand. so he takes a lot of work to think about. and i think that is one reason. he also was involved in ways at the end of the civil war with complicated issues and tax stance is that a lot of people feel prevented giving hateful towards the south, when really the nation should just be peaceably reconciled. so i think he's been not just forgotten, but also dispensed. another thing i say is that he was a kentuckian. he was a southern slaveholder he spent the first half of his life in kentucky and because kentucky remained a union state throughout the war. but after the worse there is a postwar confederate state. because of a strong union stance, kentucky south had no way to remember him. one of the most fascinating experience of doing research of him was to go to kentucky couple years ago and asked people if they've ever heard of him.

the people who have heard of them could be counted on one hand, maybe to you. so there's many reasons why. >> host: you just touched on it briefly and used in your to popular opinion of holt is misrepresented the americans collect and historical memory. so explain what you mean by this inhabits that the trail of him differed from that in your book? >> guest: i think i.t. is -- the way he's remembered as misrepresenting because when he is he is remembered at all, first light is mostly not remembered and he's a very figure to the civil war era right up to 1894. so that's a misrepresentation. when he's remembered, he's remembered as this relief and to figure he simply wanted to punch the south and in particular the reason for the conspirators suggests bold character there is obviously out to get various iraq, the one woman involved in

he's completely amoral and so on. so this image is also a misrepresentation and treats them as if he was a corrupt judge and he wasn't. but i try to do in this book is first of all breaking out of the dark menace. so it's a different representation because there's a representation and it's a big representation. the long, full biography. it also tries to put the things people to remember about him anyways they see him in a larger context of the work he did, what he believes, why he believed what he believes and why he may choice she made as a professional. >> host: what is holt perl and lincolns administration? >> guest: he was basically the overseer of all military justice. so he had to supervise all of the other judge advocates across the field. he was in charge of overseeing capital cases. he had to make sure the of military justice is running

properly. he was the head of the division of the war department had worked closely in stanton with whom he was very distressed. so you as a major, major figure. he dealt with thousands and thousands of important marshals encases every single year. >> host: you read a lot about lincolns.sun holds and holds actions. how did she go about doing research on this? >> guest: well, one of the most things that is so fascinating about holt been forgotten as he didn't have to be forgotten. there's a tremendous amount of archival material in the library of congress, also at the huntington library pasadena and actually there are descendents of his siblings still alive who has many family records that they can offer. so i think it is interesting that he has not been studied in this way. but as he began to dip into these materials coming you can see what his relationship to lincoln li