appearance to talk about the relationship he had with ted kennedy. the bills they worked on including children's health insurance and a whole host of other things. now he doesn't talk about that anymore. of course, the reason is, he remembers what happened to his colleague bob bennett, who by his voting record was one of the five most conservative republicans in the senate and wasn't even able to win the ability to run in a primary for his nomination. hatch was able to do that because he had collaborated with democrats and because he voted for the bush-driven t.a.r.p. plan. so hatch now is a different hatch than he has been for the last 15 years, because the ground is shifted beneath his feet. dick lugar is often called a moderate. he's a conservative. when he came to the senate he was one of the most conservative people. he hasn't moved. the republican party has shifted. that's a good part of the focus of the book. >> minneapolis, minnesota, richard, republican line.

>> caller: good morning. i'd like to agree with mr. ornstein. did nothing but prop up state, county, and municipal unions that private business cannot compete with the government on wages and benefits, plus the debt went way too high because of that. my solution is let the bush tax cuts expire for everyone, all tax ranges. i agreed with the auto bailout. i could sort this guy out. you guys are so partisan, we'll never get anything done and i really think you're full of bologna. >> i'm not sure where to take that one. one thing i would say, if you look at what's happened with job growth over the last two years, it's been stroernger. private sector has been robust, especially coming out of recession caused by enormous amounts of debt. the problem has been in the

public sector. while the stimulus did provide money for the state and local budgets, had to because of the budget amendments, go against the cycle of politics and economics and slashed their budget. so we kept teachers and firefighters and policeman in the workforce. there has still been a hemorrhaging of public sector jobs and that's been a big problem for us. it may get worse in significant part because one of the things that is being talked about in both -- particularly mitt romney's tax plan, he wants to cut tax rates to 25%, maximum rate, with unspecified plugging of loopholes. he did say to a private group overheard by a group of reporters, the one thing he would do is eliminate state and local taxes. they will get a big blow if those plans come to fruition.

>> from greenville, mississippi, robert on the democrats line for our guest. >> caller: good afternoon, gentlemen, how are you? >> just fine. >> caller: well, basically in a nut shell i can tell you how we can balance our budget. all right? you guys ready? >> we're ready. >> caller: here we go, we need to pull our troops out of iraq. that way we can top spending billions and billions and billions of dollars. then we can start taxing the rich, people who make more than a million dollars a year. i guarantee you, i guarantee you our budget will balance. so finally there we go, hot dog, amen, thank you. >> how do you base your guarantee, i'm curious? >> caller: guarantee? >> how do you know for sure? >> caller: well, this country is a $75 billion a year company itself. so how much is the deficit right now? a couple trillion dollars.

give it 15 years, bam, right there. >> mr. mann. >> i wish it were so, robert. but in fact, budget projections over time, which have deficits and debt increasing built in, having our troops out of iraq and afghanistan, yes, it's a help but it's already factored in. we assume that it happened for the most part in iraq already. and we're on track to do the same thing in afghanistan. the gain from that is not insignificant but it's a fraction of the deficit. frankly there just aren't enough rich people to garner enough new revenues. we get some from them but it's going to take a whole lot more. just remember one of our previous callers on the republican line, richard said we

ought to let the bush tax cuts expire across the board. that would give us the clinton tax rates. and it's worth pointing out the economy grew at a very healthy pace under those tax rates. so while it would be a mistake to do it immediately, given the sluggish economic recovery, working toward that end is one of the things that's going to be required to balance the budget. >> from massachusetts, ft. myers, massachusetts, independent line, jay, hello. >> caller: yes. how are you doing? i just want to start off by saying that people often say what this country needs is for people in washington to stop fighting and get the job done. we need more bipartisanship. however, i don't agree. two sets of parties with bad ideas result in -- the result of that is not a good policy but policy that is extremely bad.

people keep talking about taxes and taxes this, doing this with taxes and doing that with taxes, i think we need to start with government spending, overseas and in this country. i also believe we spent $11 billion a day, abolish a lot of things to stop spending so much money and also reform our taxes. it's not just taxes and not just spending. >> goes back to spending, even though he said not just taxes and not just spending. >> certainly what we know from almost every group that's looked at this is we're going to have to restrain growth in spending in almost every area. jake talked about two parties with bad ideas can result in bad policy. there's good bipartisanship and bad bipartisanship. there's no question you can have

bipartisanship where you take the worst and pull them together but collaboration that tries to look in a clearheaded way at where the money is, what problems there are and how you can solve them, which is what we had with the simpson-bowles commission, an outside group, what we had was the group that did exactly the same thing and in many ways had more innovation in it, and an inside with the gang of six, republicans, two moths moderates and liberal democrats. they came up with balanced ideas in the same template that almost any rational group looking at the reality of where the spending is, not much of it. wars are one thing. spending we do on things like diplomacy and foreign aid is less than 1% of the budget. we're not going to make it with that and not going to do it without revenues. everybody knows the problems when we get in the toxic atmosphere now of this intensely

polarized area. >> from kansas, republican line, phil. >> caller: good morning, gentlemen, how are you? >> just fine. >> you know, when i hear a lot in washington, the idea it's the other guy being unreasonable when they have these debates. i don't know where reason lies in the whole thing. that's generally what i hear. i understand there are polar extremes, far right and far left. but seems to me any time something happens in washington or some author comes up with the idea we're gridlocked, it's the other guy's fault. i have nothing to do with it. i'm reasonable alternative in this debate. i don't know how we solve it. as a citizen what i see is that -- maybe i'm being unreasonable. i see debt mounting up, deficits mounting up. i hear talk we've got to stop the rate of increase. in other words, keep on increasing spending, get along

with the rate. i ask this, i'm a citizen, i'm a free man, at least hopefully i am. as i see it, the bigger government gets, the smaller i get. that's where i see this heading. i suppose i'm unreasonable. seems to me the only alternative being offered is the idea that maybe we just have one party rule. that will take care and take the unreasonableness out of the whole debate. >> i understand phil's frustration with all of this. but i would urge him to think back. it wasn't so long ago, 2001 we had budget surpluses. the chairman of the federal reserve alan greenspan was worried we pay down our entire national debt and then have to buy interest in private

enterprise. that would ab terrible thing. it was a result of policies. tax cuts, wars unpaid for. it was an economic collapse in which deficits and debt automatically increased because of a falloff in economic activity on which taxes are paid. that is the underlying reality. there is no inexorable growth of government right now except that results from health care cost increases. so if you want to deal with deficits and debt, you need to get our taxes up to a level that we've prospered with for a long time. and you need to figure out a way to slow the growth of health care. the rest of government now is not growing. >> you've highlighted a problem, given solutions, one is expanding electorate.

how do you expand it? what's the point? >> we're worried at this point we have politics driven by the activist extreme bases, ones who turn out for primaries and tend to dominate in political election. political consultants make a lot of money trying to excite their own base or frighten them to death and then suppress the other side. what we want to do is change the dialogue and create more of a way for voters in the middle, if we could do it. our preference would be australian way, since 1925, you don't have to show up. if you pass the ballot, you're subject to a fine of $25, which you can get out of by explaining you're sick or traveling. in district of columbia, a 5% tax on bags provided an enormous incentive for people to walk out

with cans balancing or bring their own bags. that fine has meant australia has never had an election since 1925 with a turnout below 90%. the average is 95, about 2 or 3% vote for none of the above. it's not just that people turn out. not just that you bring a lot of people not interested in politics. what australian politicians will say they don't cater to the bases. they know their side will be there, the other side's base will be there, they focus on the middle. they don't focus on issues like gays, guns. they look at economy, jobs, bigger things like education. they don't use inflammatory language in their election campaigns that would turn off those voters in the middle. this is a tough sell, the mandatory thing. we don't like mandatory things. so our alternative is a mega lottery. do mega millions where your ticket is your vote stub. given we have people waiting in line for two nights to get a

ticket to the last mega millions lottery, that alone might get our turnout up enough that we could have that broad base and change the dialogue. >> you also turned your opinion to campaign finance reform. >> we do, indeed. the system of money and politics has exploded. we're back to the wild west, stated nature on the heels of citizens united decision and then a subsequent d.c. circuit court decision and actions by the s.e.c. it's now possible for any individual or corporation or union to take out of their pocket any amount of money. it could be a million, could be 10 million, could be 50 million. give it to a so-called super pac. they can have an affiliated, nonprofit 501 c 4 which keeps

them from disclosing the donor and intervene in any campaign spending billions of dollars. we need to improve the transparency of these contributions. we need to ensure there's genuine independence, including the parties they are trying to help. and we need to create incentives for more ordinary folks in the country to make small donations to balance these mega donations from billionaires. >> i want both of you to briefly respond to this because you turned your attention to the media as well in your book. you say this, "we've been struck by failure of the media, editor, reporters, expert commentator after real drivers of these disturbing developments and futility of efforts by nonpartisan and bipartisan groups to counter much less overcome them. >> what we say is the media

obsession with balance that you report both sides of the story equivalent here is not what we're looking for. a balanced treatment of an unbalanced phenomenon doesn't give you the truth. what journalists are supposed to do is give an unvarnished treatment portrait of what's actually going on. the same as saying we're going to report both sides. the holocaust and i or the holocaust victim are equal. the hit-and-run driver and hit-and-run victim will each get equal time and be viewed in the same way. that's what happened with our politics. the message that has gone out to voters is everybody is to blame. no wonder the approval rating of congress is at 9% or thereabouts, but doesn't give people a sense of which party is the outliar with a sense of when to rein them in. we have a media culpable, they have a value that doesn't focus

on actually reporting where one side or one individual is more to blame than others. >> i think norm is exactly ri t right. we have enormous respect for serious journalism. a lot of people tried to the best job they can. but it becomes very difficult if you're main objective is to avoid being charged with partisan bias. there's groups out there watching every move and will jump on you. the effect is not to get the underlying reality to the citizens who are the only ones who can displain behavior proving to be destructive. we need some serious conversations in newsrooms about can we do something better than he said, she said. >> these are principles and more laid out in their book, "it's even worse than it looks, how the american constitutional

system collided. california, helen, democrats' line. >> caller: good morning, c-span. thank you for c-span. i totally agree with the two gentlemen you have on. and what i have found is that people are too busy going about their daily lives. they have become frustrated and disheartened with politics in general. until november comes around, then they listen to the talking points of the party and decide -- make their decisions based on talking points rather than facts. >> i think helen is absolutely right. people are busy. these are tough times, holding

onto a job, earning a decent living, taking care of family, being engaged in community activities, most people just don't read all those newspapers you have on your desk. and so they pick up little bits and pieces. frankly the bits and pieces they pick up are pure spin. and all of our jobs, and what we do at think tanks and news organizations try to get underneath not just to facilitate the trading of spin but help people understand what the underlying problems and the choices are. the more we keep doing what we're doing, the more we disarm and demobilize the public and ensure that the current dysfunctional system is. >> gentlemen, for better or worse, the parliament's

revolting party system of europe, the ruling party can and does govern. >> we really point out in the book, we're not only not parliamentary system we don't have a parliamentary culture. in a parliamentary system it's acceptable the majority acts and the actions are legitimate. here if they act, half the system says illegitimate, dry to delegitimatize repeal and keep from implementing programs, there you have an election it's quite clear where the accountability lies. here we have different elections at different levels and voting in different offices at different times, it's much harder to develop that sense of accountability. i should add, getting to the point that helen was making, it's not just talking points now. in the post citizens united world anthony kennedy has given us, we're going to have this huge flood of money coming in

from undisclosed, outside groups that don't have a disclaimer at the end saying i stand by this men but instead not connected with any campaign or candidate it's going to be a flood of vicious, negative messages that will enrage voters more and take us further away from an opportunity to solve problems. >> hartford, connecticut. fred, independent line. >> caller: yes, good morning. hi. you know, we folks out in the hinterlands here by the seman c semantics of those in d.c., we find it astounding. cutting spending, actually an increase in spending and tax cuts, same thing. not allowing taxes to increase. the fella that left the country to avoid taxes, i believe he fulfilled all his tax responsibilities before he left. no different than people moving from one state to another to

avoid state income taxes. the filibuster, mr. mann,en careful what you wish for. the republicans control both houses and the executive lp you be. now, i'm willing -- i bet if i'm willing to say that president w. bush was despicable in putting us in a war and for the fiscal irresponsibility that his administration demonstrated, i'll venture a guess that your guess today will not say, admit that obama's behavior by sending our troops into other countries and the fiscal irresponsibility of his administration is also despicable. >> fred's making assumptions about us that simply aren't accurate. our judgments about filibuster reform are designed to imply to both parties, whichever party happens to be in the majority. we don't do away with it, but

we, in our recommendations, put the burden on those who would insist on denying the ability to bring a nomination or a piece of legislation to the floor and kill it. so safety valve for major issues ought to be retained in the senate, and if -- if republicans control the government and the sort of beneficiaries of then of a reformed filibuster, that's just fine. i think the system will be working better. as far as the euphemisms that exist, yeah, we do say cut the rate of increase, because increases happen in budgets as the population grows, as inflation wracks up additional costs. that's a reality. that's a reality, and, therefore, if our concern is with our overall budget

stability and viability, that's precisely the way one should talk about it. >> this may seen rhetorical in nature, mr. ornstein, cindy asks, will gop gridlock go away if a gop president were elected? >> depends not only if a president is elected or which side has a president, but what happens inside congress. we might get something akin to a parliamentary model if we get a romney presidency and republican majorities in both houses, but those would almost certainly be extraordinarily narrow margins. very possibly a tied senate, and there, if you move towards implementing pretty dramatic policy changes, you're going to end up with the same kind of maybe even deeper divisions and no real opportunity to get out of it. it would be interesting to see what would happen with a mitt romney in a divided government situation. whether he would, in fact, find

many occasions when he might have more sympathy on the democratic side for some of the things he wanted to do than on the republican side, but i suspect, given the kind of campaign that romney has run, where now he has a position on immigration that is the same as russe russell pierce and sheriff arpaio where john mccain was four years ago, that he would be pushed further to the right and probably away from any bipartisanship, if he were president. >> there might be one area in which gridlock disappears, and that's with what could be a megareconciliation bim that is the provision under the budget law that allows a simple majority in the senate to -- to approve such a megabill, and in it could be a whole host of tax

cuts, changes in social security, medicare, medicaid, a range of things. that's the pledge. that's part of the ryan budget, and, i mean, the public ought to be prepared for that. they may yearn for gridlock if they don't like what's included in that package. >> joe from twitter asks, think about it as we take the last call. what do you guys suggest we do? think about that a second. caller from atlanta, georgia. we're almost out of time. go ahead. >> caller: yes, sir. i'll be quick. the problem in washington is people are just too hard-headed. they won't admit they've got a bad idea and change their mind on it, because they're worried about being accused of flip-flopping. all right? and ap good example is the health care system. the government mandated health care. everybody said it's a bad idea. states are trying to sue the federal government. drop it.

don't go there. nobody wants it. >> with that in mind, final thoughts, mr. ornstein? >> well, what we have with the health care plan, let me just go back as i mentioned earlier. this is not a public option or a government mandate. it's basically a fine if you don't get health insurance. >> now a couple of studies in massachusetts where we have the romney plan that initially hemmaged a lot of mon e e ed he controls. 2% of people in massachusetts are uninsured and widespread public satisfaction with it. so i'm not at all sure that you can make a strong case that this is a bad idea. even if it's an unpopular one. >> and about what to do as far as suggested going forward? >> we have a whole, half of our book is about both what not to do, bad things, like term limits or a balanced budget constitutional amendment at the federal level or a third party, but a lot of things that involve changes in the voting system.

we've talked about expanding the electorate. move to weekend voting, whytuesday.org is a place to go. changes inside congress itself. we talk about ways of altering the election system and making sure that are we can have a system that operates better, and, also, changing the culture. moving towards a better public square. >> mr. mann? >> public square. public shame. new norms operating within the press to go along with the institutional reforms. a big part of our book is what to do about it. not just complaining, but trying to fix it. >> our guests, thomas mann, robert ornstein, the co-authors of "it's even worse than it loo looks." thank you very much. the senate is in session today. a number of hearings going on on capitol hill, and news this afternoon that facebook's initial public offering last week may get a look from a senate committee. this amid allegations that the bank handles the ipo may have

provided select clients with a negative assessment of the company. the associated press reports that a democratic aide to the senate banking committee says the panel want to learn more about the ipo. the committee seeks briefings with representatives of facebook, regulatory agencies and others. no word on a possible hearing. there was hearing earlier today with the senate homeland security and governmental affairs committee. they heard testimony today about the investigation into the secret service incident involving prostitutes in colombia. the director of the secret service was among those testifying. we're show that hearing tonight leading off primetime on c-span at 8:00 p.m. eastern. and coming up friday night, a debate between candidates running in wisconsin recall election. republican incumbent governor scott walker challenged by tom barrett, the democrat. watch friday at nine p.m. eastern also on c-span. commodity futures trading commission chairman gary gensler and securities and exchange commission chairman mary shhero

to shapiro, they found out $2 billion worth through media reports. the fbi, cftc and fcc are all conducting investigations into what happened and shapiro added the scp is focusing whether jpmorgan's reporting was accurate. the hearing from yesterday is two hours.