people responsible. this is the market at work. this is how it's supposed to happen. why does government need to play a role? >> to some extent that's true and i take credit for it. it's because played a role. when jpmorgan lost $2 billion, i think you would have seen much more panic in the economy, much more concern. what we did in the legislation we passed and through other things was to require the financial institutions to be much better capitalized. so one of the things that's as a result of the government telling them, you have to have more capital than you would have had otherwise, that helped give people reinsurance. >> on c-span's newsmakers congressman barney frank spoke about the $2 billion loss for jpmorgan, dodd/frank, gay marriage. watch his comments online at the c-span video library pref next

in this morning's washington journal, the new book, state of partisanship in policymaking. >> two gentlemen who wrote a book taking a look at congress and its activities, "it's enworse than it looks, how the american constitutional system collided with the new politics of extremism." joining us the authors. resident scholar at american enterprise snuns thomas mann, and also senior fellow. >> happy to be with you. >> the simple question, if it's even worse than it looks, what exactly is worse? >> we are now in a situation which we have a fundamental mismatch between our political parties, which become intensely polarized and operate much like parties in a parliamentary system. vehemently optional, no

collaboration, drawing the line. but they are operating in a separation of power system in which our founders anticipated genuine engagement, collaboration, negotiation, compromise and action so that the two coming together produce governmental dysfunction across the board. >> you open the chapters with taking a look at debates over the debt ceiling. we're back to a current discussion about the debt ceiling and what changed in that pros. >> actually we did a presentation, which i thank richard murdoch, the man who beach richard lugger for the nomination for the senate in louisia louisiana, compromise, my way or the highway. we got our title in a way from two things.

one, the system always looks rambunctio rambunctious, that's how it was set up. now we have something different because it hits fundamentals where you can't solve basic problems by compromise. the second part is tom and i have been in washington immersed in our politics, from that end of capitol hill to the other end of pennsylvania avenue for 42 years and rehaven't seen it this bad. we've seen debt ceiling disputes, more than 80 votes since the 1960s. some of that were politically ridiculous. everybody posturing and playing games and flipping sides from one to the other. everybody knew in the end they were going to have the votes to make sure the full faith and credit of the united states was not challenged. now it's a regular hostage taking mechanism. at the time of a weak economy that's unacceptable. >> is this because of the influence of freshmen republicans, particularly those supported by and support two-party principles? >> they have certainly reinforced and exacerbated the

position and strategy of the republicans. one of the rather controversial conclusions of our book is that the polarization between the parties is not symmetrical. one of our political parties, namely the republican party has veered off the tracks not just in its ideological policy ambitions, which is to reconsider really 100 years of policy but in terms of process being willing to engage in a campaign every day on every issue, even if that means in the midst of an economic crisis having a strategy of unified opposition to whatever a democrat proposes and unwigness, even if he offers proposals they have embraced themselves only a

few years ago to discuss any of that. it's sort of my way, you do what we say, or we're going to defeat you at the next election period. >> what role do democrats play in this process, then? >> let me get to that. let me also say, i think it would be unfair to blame the tea party for all of this. you've got a lot of people who come in 2010 under that guys. but you've got many more members, senior members and leaders who have led the way on this. the republican study committee back in 1973 when it was formed, the first staff director had been a colleague of ours as congressional fellows. congress was a small fringe group, sort of the right wing caucus of republicans. now they have 80% of the members. we know from robert draper's book on the tea party group that it was a group of leaders and senior members who gathered on inauguration eve for barack

obama, at the capital grill, a few blocks away from here, a strategy to vote against everything he was for because he was for it, so it's more than that. turning to the democrats, they are no angels here. we're not suggesting you have a good party and a bad party. democrats have in the past done plenty of things that were optional like a parliamentary party or that were designed more to stomp on the neck of a republican president when he was down. but what we believe is the democrats have generally stayed somewhere within the boundaries of what's been our normal rambunctious politics. this is different. when george w. bush was president he came in under the worst circumstances imaginable for the president. a week after the most bitter, contentious election not decided for 36 days afterwards, democrats could have voted against everything he wanted and destroyed his presidency right from the beginning. liberal democrat, ted kennedy, george miller, gave him a huge victory with no child left

behind. it may have been policies they were perfectly comfortable with but the stimulus had 40% of it in tax cuts. there were plenty of things that that would have made republicans comfortable. democrats were willing to give him a big victory that gave him a boost at the beginning of his presidency because they were willing to cut deals. now it's different. >> both gentlemen are with us scheduled for an hour. if you want to ask them questions about their book and philosophies how congress works. the numbers are on the screen. democrats, republicans, and i understand. and independents. if you want to join us on twitter, c-span twj. our first call this morning chatsworth, illinois. this is on our democrats' line. steve, good morning. steve from chatsworth, illinois. >> caller: my name is steve and

i'm a vet. numerous things happened between the bush and obama administration. i'm upset with allowing the housing bubble to happen. i'm upset with obama's cabinet members, with the stimulus package, p & g energy i think it was yesterday it was i saw it on c-span giving billions of dollars to these energy companies and creating 700 jobs between ohio and arizona and 1600 jobs to malaysia. it's frustrating the way the cabinets, the department of energy, gsa, and all these people spend our tax dollars

with no concern about the american people. [ inaudible ] >> caller, you're breaking up. we'll leave it there. has the discussion changed as far as working together because of the focus on spending issues? >> listen, we are at a situation now where republicans are insisting that the huge deficits that we face now are because of this ramp up in spending by the obama administration. they believe immediate cuts and discretionary programs are what will help the economy. democrats are saying that's insane, that, in fact, what we need is a balance package of spending in the short-term to bolster demand, to get the economy growing. we still have very high levels of unemployment.

but at the same time putting in place cuts over the intermediate long-term which means dealing with our health care cost increases and setting in motion policies to increase revenues. they are 15% of gdp, traditionally around 20. given the demographic changing, the aging of the population, they are probably going to have to go 22, 23%, whatever. so the stimulus that president obama put in place may, as the caller suggests, not in every case operate in the way he would have liked. but the consensus from cbo and every economic forecaster is that it helped. it probably wasn't enough. but compared to europe, our growth rate looks pretty good. >> that cbo right now saying if we let tax cuts expire and spending cuts happen we have a potential recession in 2013.

so the nature of ideas as far as spending and taxing, those haven't stayed the same. now we see potential results and that's why republicans are reacting. >> it's another part of what alarms us, though. we not only have big problems in the short and long-term that can't be resolved with the political system operating the way this one is, but if you think about that moment in december, at the end of december, all the bush tax cuts expire. the deal we had with the payroll tax cut, fix in doc pay for medicare, unemployment benefits expires, we'll probably have a potential government shutdown because we're not going to resolve appropriations for the year that begins october 1 at this point because house republicans decided to throw out the very delicate deal in law, not just a budget resolution that they reached with the last debacle. we may have the debt limit breached again. that's what we're talking about earlier with john boehner saying

we'll bring it down unless we get what we want. we have all these sequesters taking affect january 1, mindless across the board cuts. in the short-term if that happens, it's disastrous. in the long run enough revenues to solve the budget problem and may not be alive along the way. if we end up with my way or highway at that point, god help us. that's our problem. another part of our problem reflected in steve's call, what they are saying, a widespread public misunderstanding of the stimulus. we didn't have a typical recession. when you rebound quickly, it's one caused by a financial crisis. we are doing so much better than other countries. the stimulus -- without the stimulus, we would be possibly close to a depression right now. we know close to the forecast millions of jobs and economic growth created by them but people don't see it. there's an understandable unhappiness with government, unemployment remains stubbornly high and it's a toxic stew we

have. >> joe on the independent line. >> caller: hello, how are you doing this morning? i have one question and a comment. the comment is during the bush administration, the debt was doubled, that's twice. during obama's administration it's half as much. so they don't say that much. my question to you is why don't you ever have problems that could speak about one of the biggest problems with our budget, kind of the holy grail, pass it by voice vote. that is the military related budget, a little over a trillion dollars. in fact, all the voice are by voice vote. they never have a debate over it. please ask the gentlemen there or someone to have a program that speaks in terms of the tremendous military budget including over 700 bases overseas. >> mr. ornstein, do you want to

take anything from that? >> sure. a couple of points. one is we do know as we parse out what's causing the debt problem ahead and what's gotten us the mess we're in now where we move from projected $5.6 in surpluses in 2000 to now projections of huge debt down the road, that the tax cuts of 2001 and 2003 were the single greatest cause. two wars cost trls unpaid for have come right behind. the stimulus and programs in the last couple years were temporary and now begun to fade out of any long-term projection from that cost. that gets back to the point tom made about the need for revenues. on defense, joe has a point. it's a point, that of course, they took up with the debt limit agreement that we reached the last time. it's why half the sequesters, hit and hit hard.

the reason appropriations october punted until december, even though they agreed on the deal, half from discretionary domestic spending and half from defense, $1.2 trillion over the years, republicans are saying we're going to protect every dime of defense, that's what's in the ryan budget that passed almost unanimously among republicans and we're going to take additional amount and more out of disease area domestic spending. every group from simpson-bowles to the gang of six with tom coburn over to dick durbin have said we're not going to solve our debt problem unless we do something about defense, about government spending in general, about the programs like social security, medicare and medicaid, and also about revenues. if you don't put all of those things on the table, there will be no bargain. >> our guests are co-authors of the book, "it's even worse than it looks, how american constitutional system collided."

this is pittsburgh, pennsylvania, harry, republican line. hi. >> caller: hey, good morning. both sides of the fence are playing against each other, but the last two weeks, it's sort of like a comedy show. i see schumer and casey, this guy got this money from facebook, he's leaving the country. they have been attacking rich people four years. you go back, some of these politicians, harry reid, nancy pelosi they have been doing it forever. they are crying about it. i watch joe biden, they don't get us. he's worth over $5 million, lives in a $2 million. puts skin in the game, gets a pension, salary for being vice president and charges secret service $23,000 a year. when i watch this, republican or democrat, i used to be a democrat, then i changed, this has turned into a joke. you see speeches with obama.

bush raised taxes $4.9 trillion in eight years, he's over $5 trillion going to be $6, he called bush unpatriotic. using that kind of system, i would think obama would be treated like benedict arnold. thanks for hearing me out. bye-bye. >> harry has strong views, but at times they don't relate to the underlying facts. obama has cut taxes, hasn't raised taxes. we'll probably be better off in the long run if we put in place some tax increases. all obama is proposed to do is to allow the bush tax cuts to expire for those households earning more than $250,000. we're going to have to raise a lot more revenues than that if we're ever going to balance our budget. you know, yeah, there's a lot of

rhetoric on both sides. here is the underlying reality. in recent years to the extent we've had economic growth, the benefits of that growth overwhelmingly have gone to the top 1% of households in america. 93% of the benefits of growth enjoyed by 1%. that's a reality, whatever you say. that doesn't mean you have to be against rich people, but it's not unreasonable to make sure they pay their fair share of taxes. when someone is willing to give up his citizenship so he doesn't have to pay capital gains taxes on a windfall from an early investment, that sends the wrong signal. >> how much of this is related to procedure in the house and senate. i'm particularly on the senate side --

>> obstacle moving the president and democrats preferred program through is the filibuster. it's gone from a seldom used device, to highlight differences of the public to absolutely routine, normal requirement of a 60-vote threshold. the framers never had that in mind but it's a new parliamentary. when you have that they are willing to use it on everything. only if you have in the majority a reliable 60 votes for cloture can you get anything done. >> on the house side how are they doing with house republicans. >> speaker boehner has a tough

job. as he said he's got to keep 213 frogs in the wheelbarrow. that's the new animal analogy. used to be herding cats, gone from cats to frogs. i'm not sure what's next. that's a tough job. we know when we were doing delicate negotiation to reach a grand bargain, a vote that he and his other leaders eric canter were at odds. that made

they had to pair a democrat and republican. we got an appeals court judge through without even a filibuster, more than the 60 votes required. and we're seeing some agreement on things like fda bill to expedite drug approval. here and there you find something. it's a delicate place, the senate. you're trying to find a way in which the two parties can work together now with an underlying strategy by mitch mcconnell to, as he said, not have our fingerprints on anything significant because then president obama might get credit for it. but also where you've got a lot of other members who want to solve problems. they have veered off very dangerously in the bad territory with the filibuster. it may be the next time the house is going to be a bigger problem, the senate may provide a few glimmers of hope. >> washington, d.c. on the democrats' line. john. >> caller: hi, how are you doing today?

i want to start off by saying i make about $30,000 a year. and i really don't have any problem paying more in taxes, but i do want to say that the bush tax cuts, it was the first time in history we had two wars going on that we had tax cuts. the republicans can talk and talk and talk, but there's absolutely -- absolutely zero percent that you can balance a budget and cut taxes and history has shown that. republicans keep saying they want to cut taxes. somebody has got to pay for these wars. i mean, it's $9 billion a month on this afghanistan. it was billions and billions on the -- i would just like, because i don't think the press really does a very good job of

pressing republicans and saying, hey, how are we going to specifically fight these two wars, cut taxes, and balance the budget. >> the president all of this as far as the negotiator role. >> john is just absolutely right. we in an unprecedented fashion engaged in two long -- decade-long war, very costly, without asking the american people who were not engaged in the fighting to contribute. we told them to go shopping instead of raising taxes to pay for this. no obstacle to solving our immediate long-term problems is greater than grover norquist tax player pledge with virtually every republican official in the house and senate committed, never to increasing taxes but in

fact to cut taxes, we will never solve our problem. it's impossible to unless we eliminate government. i think john, like the president who has said as simpson-bowles and every other commission, bipartisan commission, it has to be a balanced package. you have to increase revenues and you have to cut spending over time. that includes major health programs like medicare and medicaid. >> let me -- john mentioned he makes $30,000 and he'd be happy to pay a little bit more. i think president obama made a mistake early on in not calling for sacrifice on the part of everybody. and by pledging that he wouldn't touch the tax cuts for all of those making under $250,000 a year. it is the fact that the 1% has made enormous amounts. the obtuseness of people at that level. we note in the book steve

schwartzman, the billionaire who headed up one of the major investment firms in the country, when talking about raising his tax rate from 15% to what others pay likened it to hitler invading poland. it's unrealistic to think we'll resolve this problem just on the backs of millionaires and billionaires. everybody is going to have to pull a little weight here. i think it was a mistake not to make that call for sacrifice early on. if that had happened some of what harry was saying about the rich and the rest of the country might have a little bit less of an edge to it. >> silver springs, maryland, john, independent line. hi. >> caller: hi. when president obama was elected president, he's a very strong man. i think that's one of the reasons why a lot of people admired him. when he came into the presidency, he came in on the

wave of huge expectations, expectations he himself ramped up during the campaign. so when he was elected, the first thing he went to was health care. do you think one of the big reasons -- this is coming from the standpoint of someone who is not an expert on politics and policy but seems to me as an average citizen when you look at how things went on the heck reform law, president obama went in with all these expectations and he had to get something done. essentially what i saw happening was he and the democratic majority he had going for him strong armed their way through the health care reform law, and that made a lot of republicans essentially feel like they were being walked all over. that's one of the big sources. in the beginning of the presidency, the republicans felt like they had nothing and they were without -- >> if we go back and look at what actually happened in the health care debate, there's a

couple of things that stand out. the first is instead of ramming this through in the first few months of the obama administration, everybody basically treaded water while a group, another gang of six in the sent, led by a democrat and chuck grassley, a republican, including mike insley and olympia snowe, two other republicans, worked for seven or eight months to pull together a consensus bill. what we know is fairly early on insley and grassley were basically told by the republican leadership of the senate that if they reached a compromise that wasn't accepted by 70% or more of the republicans in the senate, that would be the end of it for their careers. at that point acceptable for 70% or more of the senate was total capitulation. the ideas they were debating, most of which ended up in the affordable care acts were republican ideas.

this bill is basically the republican alternative from 1993 to the clinton health care plan, which was written not only by the late senator from long island but grassley and orrin hatch, who embraced the idea of a mandate embraced the idea of exchanges, didn't have a public option in it. then you throw in some of the elements of the romney plan and you have what's in the affordable care act. it's simply a mistake to believe this was rammed through without any attempt to get republicans or involved some kind of socialist plan. if that's the case, chuck grassley and orrin hatch just a few years ago were closet socialists. >> norm is exactly right but john also said this is the first thing president obama turned to. that's not accurate. the first thing he turned to before he was inaugurated is the economic recovery plan. the focus was on avoiding

financial meltdown and getting the economy growing once again. so it was the stimulus bill and in all the efforts of the department of treasury to get the economy to freeze up and get it to move up. >> from the "new york times" taking a look at his re-election campaign, is there anything from this campaign, especially running against him, that relates to ideas of changes you've seen over the years in congress. >> of course. the piece in the "times" is a fascinating one, because it points out he was the radical insurgent when he tried to run the senate, what was then a moderate republican party sharply to the right. now he's trying to get to the right of candidates where it's almost impossible to do so. in this primary, of course. when orrin hatch came to the senate, he was and is a conservative by most standards, but he also became a problem solver. he would never fail at any