democracy whether it would be better served with term limits. [laughter] >> well i don't think we need term limits and i think they are a bad@@@@@@@@x@ @ rrkb@ @ @ @ @ >> if you go back 12 years or more ago, it is pretty small. it may not appear that there is much but there actually is. my view is always that if voters are dissatisfied, they can vote out people they do not like. i think it is a mistake to arbitrarily, and i do not think it will do anything to change that polarize asian and partisanship. there is no reason to think that. nor do i think other institutional tinkering, people

talk about redistricting reform or having runoff elections. there was just an op ed suggesting that. it does not deal with the underlying causes. those are the divisions in the country. politicians are reflecting those divisions. there are not creating them. that of there. . . nd large most scientists are not big fans of term limits. i would point out a few factor in five forthcoming retirement last in all probability a couple of income and losses you're really going to have been 20 years 82, 84% of the senate replaced. that is a substantial turnover.

and the price you pay, we know and the price you pay, we know it from the s term limits are fairly short the cost and expertise to make the legislature work as we have had a lesson in the last few weeks it's difficult to make these legislature's work and that loss of expertise is probably far more serious than what you gain with some freshness. >> the only center that will still be in the senate will be robert byrd. [laughter] >> and other question. >> you told us what's happened over the last 50 years. is there any hope of an forward -- where are you? [laughter]

>> come tomorrow. i don't think it is all that. my view is that polarization has very positive consequences. it gives clear choices. we know we have a much better idea as opposed to 40 or 50 years ago when we had these conservative democrats and moderate to liberal republicans and party lines were not as clear, now we have a better idea what the choices are come and the result is actually that of rather than turn of the electorate it's also energized the electorate. we have had higher turnout, not only higher turnout but more people participating in other ways, more people talking about politics and putting your signs and making phone calls. so in some ways it is really beneficial. i think obviously there are some problems translating that into the policy outcomes that have to do with the fact there are this type of ideological politics

that we have today. but i do think there are positive things to come from it. >> very quickly on that and say that there was an election in november, 2008 that had a very strong results differ take joe lieberman 50 votes in the u.s. senate and overwhelming majority in the u.s. house. and it strikes me that that election should have had some consequence. and i think in the last few weeks with obama, pelosi, harry reid what ever how come i think what you're really seeing is a manifestation of what happened in november of 2008. and if things don't work out you know who to blame.

there is no ambiguity. so again, i think that with that kind of electoral results to overwhelm the senate obstructionism the electorate deserved it seemed to be a kind of response. and they got one. >> [inaudible] >> i would agree with burt there is the policy change, not as much as some people would have expected in 2008 but now with the health care that i did change as the general scorecard on that. i would say a couple things. i would say i disagree a little bit with alan in terms of the positive view of the polarization in terms of political system sitting there is a difference between intends policy disagreement and policy

disagreements that are of the people in office. the fundamental legitimacy of the president and other people that life in case something that's happened before in american politics. if you saw it before the civil war. we saw it during the 1930's and 40's but i don't think that is common and i do think that is something to be worried about and i don't think viewing that as reflecting popular -- it is a reflection of a small fraction of the public and one of the public is more polarized than it was in the past is not the case that the average voter, the median voter in these districts is as polarized as the eletes are. so i think that to depart a little on the problem in terms of governance and i see this coming from california which as

i see it every day is can you have -- california has polarized parties, democratic majority but not a two-thirds majority and state constitution this is to pass the budget you need two-thirds and what they found is the parties of polarized nobody can pass a budget, nobody is responsible. nobody's accountable. nobody knows who to blame and there is an intense cynicism in the state. and the danger is take this polarization and of the senate and congress and added 60 vote requirement and voters will have a very difficult time knowing to hold accountable when you get the grid lock in favor and that is a recipe for the problems down the road. and i'm not sure whether they will solve it or not. but that is the core issue i think. >> i agree with the first point by the way. i think it can get carried too far. although i'm not sure how small minority it is necessarily and questions the legitimacy.

i think it is a fairly large minority on certain questions. >> and a note of hope for history we've had period of extreme polarization and the nation's past and they have passed and new collections and issues will come along and for my and i don't think this is by any means permanent. we have a question in the back i believe. >> since the 60's we have had a revolution in the south and i wonder, one of you have a loaded to the polarization of the party is based on race. it seems to me that you haven't addressed sufficiently the effect that race has had particularly in the house but also in the senate. >> when strom thurmond switched parties and jesse helms can along lee atwater can along and the republicans to go for the leadership of the congress and

whether you agree or not they had a complex set -- complicity racial appeal and that has had a major impact it seems to me in this whole issue of polarization. and it shows in the party basis. >> absolutely. and i wanted to make -- to emphasize the point i'd the changing racial composition of the party coalitions with the democratic coalition and non-whites becoming a very large share the democratic party is heavily dependent on non-white votes and there has been a regional realignment where the south has become the most republican region of the country. and even though obama made inroads it is still by far the most republican region of the country and whereas the northeast which 50 years ago when bob dole was first elected to the senate to the northeast was the most republican region of the country and now it's by

far notwithstanding scott brown is the most by far the most space region of the countries we have seen the regional realignment but again it reflects this underlying ideological limit. race is an important component. though that's not the only issue that has produced that. but jack, i mean, that's -- living in georgia believing i'm well aware of that. >> -- i believe we have time for a final question. right there. >> the voters now six months later respond by electing as the house minority leader of the house bill. the health bill he said would be repealed. i cannot believe that the -- i would like to ask each of you this result will be in terms of seats in the house. >> the results of the campaign

for repeal? >> yes. >> first of all i think the democrats are certain to lose seats in congress and both certainly in the house and almost certainly in the senate and they could suffer large losses. but i don't personally think the health care bill is going to be the most important factor in that. i think that a big factor is structural. it's a midterm election the president's party almost always loses seats in the midterm election regardless what else is going on and sick and the democrats are at a high water plant right now. they've gained over 50 seats in the last two elections. they have democrats sitting in a lot of republican leaning districts so they are bound to take some pretty big losses were likely to take a pretty big losses in any even and i think secondly the economy is likely to do when a much more important factor than the health care bill. now health care will definitely be a big issue in the midterm elections but my guess it is not going to produce a big shift one way or another because again,

health care is an issue that divides along with existing party lines. it divides republicans and democrats so it is likely to reinforce the divisions that exist within the electorate. but yes there may be certain individual, a number of individual races where it could make a difference one way or the other where you have some of the democrats and republican districts. would be interesting to see whether how they voted, how democrats voted on the health care bill ultimately makes a difference in the outcome of the individual races. >> let's not forget that president obama will still be president and it is hard to imagine the gained by the house or senate republicans that would lead to the to third in either chamber watch less -- >> repeal is not going to happen. >> but you notice they've already started to say immediately against the republican leaders retial and replace. something has to get done. so i think that softened

already. see what the polls look like and we are just the beginning of this. >> i would like to thank again the speakers, the dole center and a final round of applause here. [applause] and i invite you all back to mauro for the sessions tomorrow as well. >> yeah, tomorrow, there's more to marlo. [laughter] step we are the warm-up act. [laughter] host [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2010] >> the minute the wall street

firms were in business of harvesting americans for home equity value and making loans against it, there was a natural risk of abuse. >> sunday, michael lewis on the subprime mortgage crisis. his latest is "the big short." michael lewis, 8 p.m. eastern and pacific on c-span. >> this weekend, john dean is our guest on "in depth," author of 10 books. sunday, live at 12:00 eastern on cspan-2's "booktv." >> flexible policies make

employees more productive. in stead of spending time about what is happening about home, employees have peace of mind to concentrate on work. >> on the new video library, you can click it, watch it, and share it. every c-span program since 1987. the c-span video library, cable's latest gift to america. >> now, a discussion on economic issues in the u.s. from today's "washington journal," this is about 45 minutes. for a long time at "newsweek" and "the washington post." what does a nation like greece

with 11 million people, and once supported by the european common market, has to tell us about the perils of a financial market? guest: @ think the message is sort of a mixed political and financial message. that is, that if the government, if a society continues to overspend year after year, decade after decade, at some point there is a reckoning. and greece, like many other modern advanced democracies basically spent more than it is taxed. huge deficits and huge debt and now the financial markets are increasingly skeptical and less willing to lend to greece. so greece now is put in a position that they have to cut back either on spending or raise taxes and do both, and these are not small adjustments -- they are wrenching social adjustments. and the same thing may await us

if we did not bring the commitment to the government has made, and our willingness to pay taxes to pay for the commitments, into better balance. we have been hearing a song for decades. we have done very little about it. but the message from greece is sooner or later the reckoning does come. host: what is your assessment of how washington has been responding officially? the president who has occupied the seat on pennsylvania avenue in this building behind me, this increasing concern? we seem to continue to spend, although we keep hearing about the perils of building up our debt. so what is happening politically that the response has been what it has? guest: the response has been entirely consistent -- which is, let us put it off. it is republicans, it is democrats. the republicans like to cut taxes but they don't want to cut spending. the democrats would increase spending but they don't want to increase taxes. you basically have a consensus

even though there is an awful lot of rhetoric, but a consensus among practical politicians that they don't want to do anything unpleasant for their constituencies. it is understandable but the point is sooner or later, if you do so -- to much of that, evade these problems too long, there will be a reckoning and it will be imposed by the financial markets that become less willing to lend to you so your interest rates go up and the budget situation deteriorates even more. host: staying with politics, other than a reckoning, what could change the balance politically? would it take a particular strong later -- legal or public asking for change? guest: the public and very asks for change but they really don't want it. they want the deficit reduced but they don't want spending cuts of the taxes. i think the politics on both parties reflect the underlying public opinion. my on have a conclusion after rating for this for a long time, as he puts it, is that it

probably will take a genuine crisis to force major changes but in the midst of a genuine crisis, the changes will not be pleasant and they will have to be fairly abrupt. host: we welcome your telephone calls, e-mail and tweakets for a columnist robert samuelson, about what is in store for our nation in terms of financial status of its -- status and lifestyle. his book is called "the great inflation & its aftermath." what is your thesis? guest: in the last 50 years, the most important economic event is the rise and fall of double- digit inflation. for those of you listeners who do not remember, we went from a society who basically had no inflation in the early 1960's and by the end of the 1970's we had double-digit -- 12, 13, 14, 15%. at the beginning of the 1980's, paul volcker, then chairman of

the federal reserve board under president reagan, essentially put this country through a crushing recession, unemployment got to 10.8% but it did purge of the society from inflationary psychology and you had a gradual decline of inflation and gradual decline of interest rates that triggered a boom in the stock market and triggered really two decades of prolonged prosperity. and most of that, in my view, stemmed from the triumph over double digit inflation, which stabilized the economy and, like a set, led to much higher stock prices and home prices, but ultimately that prolonged and -- that prolonged prosperity gave rise to the plan into a crisis that broke in 2007 because people got complacent and careless. host: you continued this theme in a recent column march 22 in "the washington post." alan greenspan potts a flawed analysis of the financial crisis.

guest: greenspan is an interesting figure because when he retired in our early 2006, he was praised lavishly across the political spectrum by most professional eat communist, by milton friedman, who is a conservative who has been a longstanding critic of the fed, alan blinder, a liberal at princeton who has been vice- chairman of the federal reserve board -- really having been the most successful unreserve leader in the history of the federal reserve system. now flash forward three years and greenspan is made to be one of the fall guys for the financial crisis, for keeping credit to easy for too long. you really can't blame greenspan, you can't blame the bankers by themselves in

isolation. all of these people were conditioned by the experience in the last two decades, when it became conventional wisdom that we had gone into a kind of new era of, is not perfect prosperity, but a kind of underlying indestructible prosperity. we only had two minor recessions in the 1990's and this decade. the recession of 1990-1991, 2001, mild increase in unemployment, 7.8%, the economists call the great moderation. a if you think you live and in less risky world, which that is the conclusion, you begin taking more risk because you are not times. that is the underlying assumption. so, banks started making stallone's, people borrowed more than they could. the regulators were blinded to the dangers. greenspan probably kept monetary

policy to lose for two long parrot but all of this contributed and these things that on each other and the underlying cause was the great past -- prosperity that was created. i think the conclusion i draw from is and maybe others will draw ultimately, is that the view that we had, that we outlawed sort of the boom and bust cycles of the 19th century -- well, we haven't. we are not as smart as we thought we were and not as much control over the economy as we thought we did. host: not surprising the phones are off the hook. before we do, speaking of the current fed, it seems bent on a low -- keeping interest rates low. they have been signaling that will be their policy for the foreseeable future. what do you think of that? guest: it is going to end at some point. we don't know when. there really is a division of opinion among economists whether

it will end this year or next year. i think that given this a very weak state of the economy, it is certainly justified right now. a what they do face a dilemma if they keep it in place to long -- but they do face a dilemma, if they keep in place to long they do face inflation. it is not an imminent problem but it is a problem down the road. they are aware of it. i think they are doing the right thing now but i would not want to be in their shoes to decide when to stop doing what they're doing now. host: what about the nation's seniors who are so affected because so many people have money and money markets and other safe instruments, that their own income has been crimped by the low rate system? -- well, they would be in worse shape, it seems to me, if the economy would be declining because the stock market would be recline it -- declining, the stock market would be going down more. you have kind of a trade off between low interest rates and a

weaker economy. it is worth pointing out that although people who have the money in money-market funds or short-term deposits are earning hardly anything at all, inflation is very low, so the prices are not going up so much. so they are not losing that much in real value. >host: related to this, it seems as though the nation is saving more. is that a good thing? guest: one of the problems of the valuation -- prosperity that began in the 1980's was, people felt well clear because the stock market was going up, housing prices going up -- and they borrowed. up to a point it was okay but now we are well beyond the point. up to -- going to the budget deficits, we are having a reckoning with what their own balance sheets. americans collectively decided they borrowed too much, lenders are less willing to lend on easy terms so there is a kind of retrenchment where they are

borrowing less, prepaying the borrowing and saving more out of the current incomes. that is a drag on the economy and will continue for some time. it is one reason the fed is keeping interest rates low. host: if this is pessimism and this is optimism about the economic future, where are you? guest: i am more pessimistic than we used -- i used to be. because it seems the problems we had could have been salt and address, but we continue to procrastinate and put it off. that is what makes me pessimistic. host: baltimore. republican line. caller: good morning, mr. samuelson. how are you? i just bought a question on government spending. you get a sense anecdotally from listening that it is not as effective as you might hope. it occurred to me that the act of spending is a two-part deal. the person who spend and purchases goods or services benefits from the receipt of those goods or services, where

the person who is paid for them also benefits. and when the government does the spending, it seems like it cuts that equation in half at least. you have any thoughts on that? guest: in theory, the equation you put forward ought to apply to government spending as well. if the political process is working right or correctly, the things that the government wants to spend money on art to be the things people want the government to spend money on. . it's hard to curb spending. even though circumstances change, people who receive the money feel entitled to it,

that's where the term comes from, and even without public support, spending may continue, because if congress tries to cut it off, there will be reaction from the affected interest group. host: mike is on the independent line. caller: i just happened to finish an article entitled "america under martial law." it basically goes on to state the central banks are counting on a popular uprising against the banks in order to enact martial law in this country. it goes on to state that an

entrepreneur said u.s. citizens will be enslaved by the fiscal overlords, starting with the health care bill. it has more to do with controlling every aspect of the americans' lives than it does with american treatment. host: let me interrupt. we understand the direction of your article. does it reflect your point of view? caller: yes, i believe central bank's barclay, all of criminals that need to bring down the middle class in order to run the government. as this man says, you cannot have a government after government --he