focuses on the economic trends among young adults and you can watch that live starting at noon eastern on c-span 2. a little bit later, a house foreign affairs subcommittee and we will hear testimony about combating malaria at 3:00 eastern on cspan 3. >> tonight, a look ahead federal spectrum policy. we will discuss the choices facing broadcasters, telecoms, congress, the president, and the fcc tonight at 8:00 p.m. eastern on c-span 2. >> the republican governors association held its annual meeting in orlando late last month. the first plenary session focused on the 2012 political outlook with 11 states holding government raises and 33 u.s. senate seats being contested. these were discussed by two republican governors and two republican pollsters.

this event last about one hour, 20 minutes. this event took place before herman cain decided to suspend his campaign this past weekend. >> lower taxes, balance the budget, -- a balanced budget, and a laser-like focus on jobs. >> how can you say you were for the crees and jobs? >> vs. higher taxes, record deficits, and uncertainty and in decision on the other. in 2012, the republican governors association'impacts grow even larger. republicans will have a governor

or election for governor in all but one of 2012's critical swing states and the rga will be on offense can eight of the 11 states. of those 11 states with governors' races next year, nine of them will also be holding a u.s. senate race. given the strong correlation between electing a republican governor and picking up a u.s. senate seat, it will not only beat democratic governor candidates that governorthe rga. from the states, no organization has a greater influence on our nation's politics than the republican governors association. >> hearing your state capitol, republican governors are reading the act -- leading the effort to cut spending and keep taxes low and get our economy back on track by making our state more competitive. ♪

>> ladies and gentlemen, please welcome governor haley barbour. [applause] >> good afternoon, y'all. welcome to our first plenary session where we will talk about politics of all things. i am joined by two great professionals in the politics business. frank luntz possibly the greatest a focus group conductor since mozart or some kind of conduct. [laughter] gunn bolger who has done tremendous work for the rga. he works for what the premier polling firms. thank you for the poll you

presented this morning to the governors. maybe you can tell us something about politics. bobby jindal was held to 66% of the vote in his reelection campaign. you might think 66% and the other guy got 34% -- the person -- the person who finished second finished 48 points behind bobby. i think you will enjoy hearing from each one of them. i will not let them have an opening statement. we'll go straight to having a little bit of a discussion. i will start off with you because of the survey you did this morning. the 2010 election was the biggest impact on presidential policy in a midterm election possibly an american history. it was almost exclusively about jobs, the economy, taxes, spending, the deficit and debt -- what about the 2012 election? >> those will be the same issues

along with health care, obama care, to your list of issues. this is a situation where the president's approval rating -- presidents tend to have an approval rating in the mid-50's. when they lose, it is around 40% this president's rating is 43% right now. he is about where jimmy carter was when he ran for reelection. obama is 25 points lower than where ronald reagan was. he has real problems with the economy and how people feel about him overall. one of his strengths is he has a rock-solid bass, african- american voters are strong

behind him, he does well with hispanics and other minorities as well. demographically, that is his best hope of getting reelected. he is running into headwinds similar to what jimmy carter had in 1980. >> can obama run for reelection on his record and win? >> none on his record but on attributes. i have tried to get political people to move away from the traditional issues of budget and taxes, education, transportation and focus on the attributes, accountability, personal responsibility. i will give you examples. if the fight is over the middle class which is still an attribute, not really an issue, democrats will win. they have spent the last 30 years fighting over the middle class to try to demonstrate they represent them and they have an edge. with what is happening in the

economy and wall street, they could win on that one. they cannot win if the fight is on hard-working taxpayers. we can safely defend the middle class and the public will say they are not sure but defending hard-working taxpayers, the republicans have the advantage. a second example is over the tax cut for the rich and the battle that the different governors are having now in dealing with tax policy. if you talk about raising taxes on the rich, a majority of americans including almost half of republicans, support the tax increase but if you talk about government taking money from hard-working americans, the public says now. the public will say yes to taxes, taking, the public will say no. my challenge is to see whether the people in this room are so precise about the people they use that it changes the dynamic that obama cannot win. >> when you look at the issues

or what will the election be about? in louisiana, is it all economy? is energy a big part of it? >> our economy has done better than the national economy like everywhere else, jobs as part of the economy is absolutely the top concern and has been so for 25 years. we were exporting our kids for a while and you're starting to move back. people are worried about the lingering affects of the moratorium. we have 11 oil rigs gone from the gulf international employment rate is lower than the national average but there are more people that could be working if we produce energy at home. look at the ongoing impact of obama care which is unpopular in louisiana. you have said this before that this may be the most important

election in terms of the direction of our country. whoever the republican will be, it is hard to remember in the last few election cycles a wider ideological divide between our and their. this election is not about who the best speaker is. four years ago when the president was running, i believe he did a good job presenting himself to independence as more competent and less ideological. this election is about the direction of our country. it is about $15 trillion of debt and a federal government spending 24% of gdp and obama care were the federal government is getting more involved in running health care and the federal government is more involved in running private sector companies. this election should not be about personalities or who is the best speaker or looks the best in a suit. it is about a vision for this

country. do we want to go the way of european socialist democracy or do we want to preserve being an aspirational society. the president and ran a different type of campaign last time -- hope and change. i think -- i don't think he can run on his record when it comes the unemployment rate, the stimulus, obama care. i think he will focus largely on tearing down the republican. i think it will be a different kind of campaign then we saw four years ago. >> one promise obama capped is that he would change the tone in washington. he did. he made it worse, a lot worse. issues and policy verses attributes or something else. it brings me back to the idea

that obama cannot run for reelection on his policies. he has to try to tear down the republican. >> you are saying what he did to mid romney. that four minute and had an impact in what people thought about romney. it was done with humor rather than anger. there is so much advertising already out there that is so vicious in town and we are one year away from the collection and the people this -- and the people are saying no. if you use humor, you can connect to them. everyone talks about jobs. what to this -- by a show of hands among the people on the outside, would you rather have a job or career? one of the other? raise your hands if you want a job. now raise your hands if you want a career. why are we talking about jobs?

have faithessarily that the republicans will get it. we have known each other for a while and i have been poking for awhile. i think they are better than they have been. i don't know if they really feel it or not. >> it is interesting that we try to talk to voters about children and grandchildren staying in mississippi and have careers. i'm not sure how that applies to the presidential election but it clearly is better burbidge. >> we should be asking questions and talking to people rather than pushing them. are you better off than your parents were when they were your age? everybody said yes. how many of you out there truly believe that your children will be better off than you? how many of you believe that

children will be better off than you when they get to your age, raise your hands. we have one governor. he is from kansas [laughter] that as such a powerful -- he's got five kids. three of your five kids will be better off. i will let you choose which three. >> he probably already knows. >> that is the power of questions. will your kids be better off than you is that human question. obama cannot answer that question. >> what do you think about the issues set for nenext year? do you think that will become something different or will it be about policy?

it may turn out to be a campaign that focuses on something other than policy and the results of those policies. >> obama has to run a very negative, destructive campaign. he has to turn it against whoever the republican is. -- republican is. if he runs on his own record, that is not much to run on. look at health care, before it passed and it was unpopular, it will be more popular after it passed and that did not work. then they said wait till people get to know more about it. wait till people hear about it. the more people know about it, the more they don't like it. they said wait till some of it goes into effect and they will really like it. i have not seen any change in the data on that. that is why he has to run a

destructive campaign. from an issue standpoint, it will be overwhelmingly about jobs and the economy. the supreme court will make sure that health care is a major part of the debate as well. it will be about spending and the debt and deficit. can something happened from a foreign affairs standpoint? yes. but you never can assume that something major will happen on that level. the issue agenda is pretty well defined right now and that is not always the case going into a presidential election. there is no sign this economy will turn around anytime soon. i am not an economist but you see most of the signs and there is encouraging news from the economic standpoint a little bit but for the most part, there is too much uncertainty. you hear from businesses, they just don't know they can trust

what the administration will do. >> i was ended in glebn's research today -- the most popular republican position that you tested for voter approval was and all of the above energy policy. more abundant american, affordable energy. >> i think that is exactly right. i am a conservative. i think the federal government is doing too many things and spending too much of our money and i believe it should -- it should not be as big as it is. we've got to translate why that is important to everyday people. in louisiana, we convince people to make tough choices about cutting spending and making big changes in our ethics clause.

the reason we could do that as we connected to the welfare of their children. lsu had done a survey and tied for first place for why businesses were not investing was the sense that the perception that there was so much corruption in louisiana was more important. we did our first special session on ethics and went from the bottom to the top of these lists. they said we could never change those laws. we did not just want to be number one and a bunch of good list but people were tired of seeing their children and grandchildren leave the state. you talk to voters and they said they had thanksgiving, how many times do you have to get on a plane or how many times to use your grandchildren per year? are you seeing them twice a year? got that got people's attention.

maybe we do need better ethics laws. the same thing is true national scene. government as a percentage of gdp or $15 trillion but we have to translate that into what that means. does it mean higher interest rates but that means that your children and grandchildren and not have the same chance of the american dream that we inherited. every generation has more opportunities for their children than we inherited from our parents. we will be the first generation to spend our children's inheritance. my state is a starkly divided between oil and gas. with a new company that will hire 600 people. we have a company hiring 1000 people to build a modular components for nuclear energy in southwest louisiana.

we have the first refinery that builds nuclear energy from waste products. we have a clean coal facility in west louisiana. we are for and all the above strategy. we want to provide energy to the rest of the country and we believe in renewals and oil and gas and nuclear and conservation. i bent the problem in washington is they put ideology ahead of practicality. you have a moratorium in the gulf coast and you have uncertainty about fracking and comments about coal mining. you add that all of that means more of our dollars are going overseas, higher energy prices at the pump, but even as important, another reason for our manufacturing base to go overseas -- we see billions of dollars of capital investment come back to america and louisiana in part because now you have affordable natural gas.

last week, we had a company that moved 90 jobs from china back to louisiana. they were able to get some of these high-paying manufacturing jobs to come back to america. this administration could drive those jobs overseas with their ideology over practicality when it comes to energy. >> the strongest family relationship all our grandparents and grand kids because they both have the same anime. [laughter] -- the same animal. -- the sameenemy. it is a joke but it is true. when you talk about energy, talk to the middle east. when you talk abut jobs, talk about china because these are specific places that people relate to. we talk about domestic energy. it is american energy. sometimes we are the biggest offenders and you have business

people sitting around the corner who are the ones who should be responsible for providing the best language because they are trying to defend what they are doing. i am so scared of this anti-wall street effort. i am frightened to death. they should occupy a job and take it back. but man, they are having an impact on what the american people think of capitalism. the public now believes that capitalism -- they still prefer capitalism to socialism but they think that capitalism is immoral. if we're seen as defenders of wall street, we have a problem >> you also have a situation where the news media has tried to make this a much bigger story than if it was any other group of protesters for any other subjects. .

you said obama has to run a negative campaign. he has already started, as you have all looted. the romney spot is the third- spot they published on romney. they did what in arizona and some are else. can the president get reelected purely by saying -- to describe -- by disqualifying his opponent. >> john kerry did that. it does not work. john kerry looks like the trees that travels at dorothy and the wizard of oz. [laughter] he was going to run into as an aide when a kid comes up to him and screaming and the police, and the kid yells out, "don't taser may bro." the kid went straight down.

he was the first electrified for may john kerry speech. [laughter] it is not enough to tell people what you are against barry you have to explain to them what you are for. to ask whether he deserves four more years is the wrong question to ask obama. to ask whether his record deserves eight years is a better question. four years seems like a short amount of time based upon the failure with jobs, filled with the economy, his failure with virtually everything. does that record deserve and 80- year presidency? -- an 8-your presidency? >> how much does the governor's races affect the president? >> having a republican governor

in a state helps key swing states like florida and ohio and winning in north carolina. and having one in virginia. that makes it easier for the .epublican nominee people don't wake up on election day and they say they like the job that bob mcdonnell is doing so i will vote for the republic nominee for president. that does not happen. bob mcdonnell has a good organization in virginia, he is able to put it to work and up the turnout in the key areas and make it easier for the presidential to raise funds in the state among key donors and those things add up incrementally. in a close race -- -- 2012 because of the demographics and the challenges that obama faces with the economy is

shaping up to be another 2000/2004 where it is really close. this is not 2006-2008. voters are much more evenly divided again and independence are leading our way but they are not quite there yet there is almost one year to go. those incremental things inclose key races, strong campaign in north carolina, those things will add up and make a difference in a close race. >> bobby, your state like mine, [unintelligible] you had a great election this year. what are your numbers for the legislature now? >> just to give you a sense of how far we have moved -- you go

back eight years ago, there are seven non-federal statewide election. we had one republican out of 78 years ago and today we have seven out of seven. there was not a credible democratic candidate in any one of those seven elections. in the house and the senate for the first time, we have got majorities toward the end of my first term. this is the first time we have elected a majority to both chambers. we have 58 in the house and 24 in the senate out of 105. the most important result -- we were proud of our numbers and carried all 64 parishes and new orleans the first time. we carried 66% which is a record in the primary but the number that is most important is we said that after the election, our top priority is we elect a statewide education board.

we said k-12 education would be our top priority in the first year. people were split against that. after this election cycle, it is now 10-1. we endorsed in six races and won five of numb. we beat three entrenched incumbents that most consistently opposed what we're trying to do. there was a group comprised of the teacher unions and a bunch of others and it was a coalition of the status quo, i call them. we did not just win in republican-friendly districts. we one across party lines and racial lines, running on a bold agenda for improving education in our state. my take away was that you could make the tough decisions.

you look at your experience in mississippi and its daniels in indiana and some of the governors that came before me who made some tough decisions. you had some republicans during the recession saying maybe you should raise taxes instead of cutting government. you guys got zero overwhelmingly elected. you got great second terms and all over.vernor's you have a bunch of great reformers. they make tough choices and tackle in the policies they got elected to do. i predict there will be reported by their voters. the take away from the louisiana election results is that if you do the right thing, you will see the difference in the economy and better schools and better health care.

when republicans, when we have lost elections, we lost the majority and the u.s. house and senate and we did not lose it for being conservative. we lose elections for not communicating our principles. when we are to our principles and show competent government, we will be rewarded. that is the first time since reconstruction you have elected a republican to succeed another republican as governor. that is what you see across the state that you lose elections when republicans support building a bridge to nowhere. >> everyone knew about that in 2006 and the conservatives abandoned the gop aide. it is not about government spending. it is about waste. we can argue over the definition of ways. that is the were the public uses. one focus on that? mitch daniels is a great

communicator. he has the ability to communicate the reforms. if you don't explain what you do and there are some governors now that are pushing really hard that are not exploiting the context behind it. they are not talking about the results. they are talking about the situation now but not with the outcome will be. they will face a problem. you can do great things as you have done in louisiana and you have done in mississippi but you guys are sitting between two of the best communicators that we have. there are people here that have not explained to voters what they are doing and why. there will not get credit for it. >> when i was chairman of the wety back in the 1990's, tended to talk in a certain way. you need to say what you are for, why you are for, and how it will help their families and

communities. if you keep that simple thing in mind, usually you can get to the point of it is the right policy. you are right and bobby is right -- when we lose, it is not because people change their mind about the policy they want. it is because they change their mind and decide we are not adhering to what they thought they had voted for. >> and they don't personalize. i am fat now so i cannot do this as well. when you wake up in the morning and have your first cup of coffee, you go out and pay an automobile tax, at work to pay an income tax, you pay electricity tax, you pay water tax and you put turn on your tv and you pay electricity tax and an airport tax when you fly from the airport. you pay a cell phone tax, you pay clothing attacks even though you don't wear soft [laughter]

you really are poor in mississippi. his shoes cost more than everything i own [laughter] where taxed from the morning -- from the moment we wake of the morning to the moment we go to sleep that night. hardworking america is one of break and we want to give it to them. it is day-to-day ended its work. >> you talked about what it is you want to do and how it will help them. i pay a feefrank but i get to moderate focus groups, too. in the virginia governor's race of was doing the mcdonald polling and we did focus group once a week in northern virginia figuring if we did okay in northern virginia we would win statewide. one question i would ask before testing the eds is -- what is

bob mcdonnell trying to say about him to voters about why you should vote for him and people would give reasons one of which was all the above energy. one i c aboutree deeds, people did not know what he was talking about they could not think of anything and they would laugh nervously. these were swing voters. it is not just -- being against somebody are giving them reason to vote against somebody. you have to have a reason to vote for somebody particularly for an executive office like president turgut. you have to be able to communicate what you will do in the job and why you should be hired for that job. i think that is one of the key things the democrats have forgotten and they are rushed to make republicans look so extreme and they attacked.

they have forgotten that they need to be for something. >> glen said obama has no choice but to run a very negative campaign. can the incumbent president be reelected if he has to resort to just running a negative campaign and cannot run on his record? what this g strategylen described for obama, can it work. ? >> his likability is still quite high. i look at 2004 because -- 1984 -- when people did not support ronald reagan's policies but they like him as a person and walter mondale was disagreeable.

they like obama and they believe that he is trying. that is key to the governors here. if your intent is not quite as gordon as your results but it is pretty darn important and they still believe that his intent is good. if he stays so negative, it will destroy that intent, destroy his personal favorability, and undercut the one thing that is holding about now. when you ask about the specific job-related attributes, he fails miserably. i would not be delivering a negative messages on the campaign trail. it is ok and advertising but negative words -- if i was obama, i would not let - 4 command of my mac -- my mouth. i will let joe biden do that. let him go out and be the-god. --the negative guy,.

if he stays-, i believe he will not get reelected. he's a balance. >> bobby, you go all over the country campaigning for people. what do you see is the difference between states like ours and those overwhelmingly republican up and down the ticket and where we get people in the midwest or the west coast? what do you think the issues are that make the georgia-texas swing so much safer or the farm states that are so loyally republican? what we have going for us that they don't have going for them?

>> louisiana was one of the last southern states -- they talk about the deep south -- louisiana still has a democratic senator and until recently did not have a republican majority in either chamber. they voted for bill clinton twice. a lot of voters in the south are still registered democrat and would vote republican national it. our numbers are increasing and the numbers are decreasing but were still half the size of the democratic party in louisiana. it is interesting to look at this states that have been read verses blue but also the states that are changing. blues -- louisiana's moving toward red and west virginia is as well. there was talk about the western states becoming more purple.

there is that famous line about ronald reagan not leaving the democratic party but the democratic party leaving him. many voters in louisiana stayed pretty much where they were in their beliefs and i felt like the party has moved around them. their fathers and grandfathers and all the family have always been democrat. one party official said you have to register as a democrat or you don't get to vote. that is been that way for years. you had a lot of people that would tell me i'm the first republican that i voted for. there's a strong cultural identification with the party and overtime, they saw the party did not consistently nominate campaigns are step for ideas.

-- or stand-up for ideas. you got michigan, wisconsin, pennsylvania, ohio, a whole lot of states that have elected republican governors to succeed and in some cases to oust democratic governors. those governors are showing that republican candidates can win. i don't think there are prominent republican or democrat states. i think you have to earn that. they want to show irrelevant message with a good leader who can connect that message to people's lives. we can win. the governor from rhode island is very successful. we had a governor in vermont with several terms of their. we can win in those states that are called blue states or red states. i don't think there is anything

in our dna that makes us red states or blue states. what tends to happen in some states, the parties that a been there awhile to get to build up. over time, they start building up a local volunteers and donors and people who are not normally party people. many people in louisiana had never voted republican because there never was a republican candidate for sheriff or the board of education. the takeaway message and what is great about therga is that we support candidates all over the country and many of the new governors are sitting here because the rga got involved in some of those states. i'm a big believer that we have to expand the map. to president obama's credit four years ago, he won in so-called red states. i don't think he can win those

states this time. it is up to us to recruit a candidate and get the message out that we will compete in those states like the northwest. i think we can be very competitive and some of these areas where we have not run -- one statewide elections. >> we have elected so many lieutenant governors. the states are very hard for us, for the president, if we think about the u.s. senate, and we think we have this great chance to win the senate, 33 c top, only 10 republican seats up. i am sure it is that easy. what do you think the prospects are that we will win a majority in the senate? if obama is reelected, what the chances we will win a majority in the senate? >> in terms of the opportunities for pickups, the governors are

really solid. on the senate level, i would be shocked and disappointed if we did not at least to get the 50 seats in the senate. when you look at where the best opportunities are, those are seats that republicans will run well in. you have that synergy. senate races tend to break one way. a lot will depend on what happens on the presidential level. the close races either go republican or democratic even if the rest of the country looks more evenly divided. we will face a huge, tipping point in states like missouri where you've got contested races for governor and senate. how well they run as a team -- not as a team -- if they run a

coordinated effort, that can really make a big difference. >> frank will take a passive that question and then we will of questions from the audience and the governor's. s. moammar khaddafi had a 15% approval rating among the people who killed [laughter] him] i told the judge to republican senators and they did not laugh. the opportunity is so amazing for challengers regardless of what political party you are. it is not an anti-republican or anti-democratic movement. it is an anti-incumbent, anti- establishment, anti-elitist,

anti status quo. it is a rejection of those things that got as to what ever point we are now and they are rejecting it for the future. the message for the governor's is that if you look and sound like the status quo, you are done. had you govern in a situation like that? i know this is not your question. i think the gop has a 50-50 chance of getting the senate. you are getting out but i feel sorry for you guys. how could you cover one people cannot sit in the same room and talk with you. how can you have a civil dialogue with your opponents when they will stand up and oppose you? there was a debate out in iowa 10 days ago and i had to take time at the beginning to give a protester two minutes with the microphones of bacon speakes also would not get disrupted. eric cantor had to cancel a

speech at the university of pennsylvania. it is a great school but the occupied wall street people had taken the first wanted tickets and going to protest to the whole time. i know how you governors do it. in addition to what we do politically, some of boston is from have to figure out what we do out of respect and decency and civility. if we lose the ability to talk to each other and disagree with each other without destroying each other, we will have an awful next 30 years in this country. >> can i get some house lights? we will see =- >> thank you, i enjoyed your presentation, all of a fr. ank, you touched on a question i have had for a long time and this is the does functionality of washington. i think governors are more collegial. we have different agreements and different approaches. they're based on a set of

principles. governors have to go back after we have discussion and actually do something. congress can take it down the road for a while. you have written a book"words matter." what about compromise? can we ever use that again? the founding fathers may work ok. can we use the word compromise anymore in washington? no >>, because if you talk about it, they say you are selling out. your side does not want you to compromise. you replace the board with a cooperation. and means the same thing. cooperation means you could stick to your principles and still get the job done. compromise says you are selling out those principles. >> in my state where i have a democratic legislation for seven years at a democratic house for 80 years, we felt pretty hard on

some stuff. -- for8 years. there are some jurors were we can sit down and may not agree but we can deal with each and washington strikes me as being far worse than most state gaps. >> one of the reasons and this is a fact of computers and politics today -- the fewer competitive seats there are, the more the members of congress are worried about primaries than they are about competitive general elections. it goes back to the fact of the ads that you are selling, giving in to their side. one of the frustrations the republicans have both -- have had over the year in washington as when democrats talk about compromise, that means you do things our way. that is what they mean. that is another reason is a

dirty word. the fewer competitive races there are at the congressional level -- level, but few of the less likely there is to be compromises. >> don't ask people to sacrifice because there is not an american today who have not already sacrifice. if you tell them you want them to sacrifice, they will be angry. talk about being in this together. we either succeed together or fail to get there. you preach the universality of it. sacrifice is personal and nobody feels they can afford to give any more. we are all in this together is the universality of it and people are than willing to do what you want if they believe that everyone is engaged in this process. >> governor fowl. guest: >> when i first ran for

office in 1990 and campaigned in a legislative seat, a i hadc knowards -- i had cards in a tin box and we did a lot of mailers. we did not have a social media things we have now. now we have 24/7 news, facebook, e-mails, those things have changed the political landscape for everyone on issues. it is difficult when you have people who are attacking new and it is immediate response versus getting a peek -- a piece out my mail. talk about how social media and the internet and the news that we see affects the policies and issues of a campaign? >> the biggest challenge that

you touched on is you have to react right away. a candidate makes a mistake now, you have to deal with it forthrightly and up front immediately. that hardly gives you time to think about what is the grain of truth. a c look at the ain campaign for president -- cai at then lo --ok at the herman cain campaign. he went from the front runner to where he is right now not because of the detail but because they could not get their stories straight. it is a 24/7 news cycle and you have the internet which amplifies everything. everybody in this room regardless of what you do should assume you are being taped. whether it is a cell phone or whatever. you make a mistake, it will show up on the internet.

if you everything right, it will not show up on the internet. to do it right, there will be so much credit to go around that it won't is when you make a mistake and this would become immediately famous and that is not what you want. you have to presume that whatever issue you are doing, somebody is taping you or willtweet about it. you don't have to put your knee- jerk reaction of twitter. it is better to be smart and think through what it is you are trying to communicate and what you are trying to get across and stay sextant. su --ccinct. >> one thing we can all do is learn to use the tools. learn to use it as something that advances our campaign.

all the bad things you have had to deal with and will have to learn how to be agile or be more agile but at a minimum, learn how to use those tools so they take the place to t of yourin box and get it to something you can use. >> many people talk about the negative income -- implications but to have a much more engaged voter. the population has more civic activities. i remember being an intern and working for a louisiana congressman. a lot of that as research and writing back and drafting responses to correspondents. generally, you would get in terms in august when it was slow and you get these letters about things that happened weeks before and you draft a response and a few days later a staffer looks at it and people world --

were thrilled congressman wrote them back about an issue. today, i think it is from our state legislature, if there is a hot or controversial issue, you want legislators to go to the microphone and say they are voting differently because a get a certain amount of e-mails within minutes about a bill coming up. voters are now able to get that information more quickly and respond more quickly. you have seen a big difference in malls of congress but also state legislatures. >> your office should have a mission for every issue you will deal with, probably 30-35 missions. you don't want a mission statement is that is political. it should be three or four sentences and two or three statistics that you will quote again and again and underneath that, you will have a set of words or phrases. every issue as a single page and whoever is responsible for social media keep going back to that same thing.

i know enough people here that there are half of us in government to still have not done that. they are always behind the eightball because they are always responding to rather than engaging in preventative communications or assertive communications because they have not created a message -- the message that goes with the policy. you know both of you always do good at both. this guy's a policy genius over here but he knows the language behind it at the same time. you cannot separate the two and expect to succeed. because of social media, you don't have the time. if you don't have that briefing book already prepared, you'll do that over the next five or 10 days. everyone knows what needs to go a t out onwitter and facebook and the social media sites. >> i think you are right about the message of occupy wall street that resonates with people.

i think it has potential and people don't necessarily identify with the occupiers but the messages easy. is there any ability to change the conversation to why the gap is spreading? >> absolutely, it goes to the focus of policy. we are in orlando, florida. we're close to disney property. if you are wearing a suit and tie, a stand-up. don't be shy. [laughter] this is what is wrong. [laughter] it is symbolic. i'm not saying you want to look like hippies from the late '60s "when they see people like us,

any politician because they are not happy with the democrats, they think -- i get it. if you ask me republican or democrat the first three words they used to address them is "i get it." i get that you are angry at uc inequality and you want to fix the system. you are pretty conservative but i think you understand what is causing people to be so mad. if you acknowledge that anchor, you can take step two and that is he should be occupying washington. you should occupy the white house. the policies are the last three years have created this problem. if you don't begin a "with" get it and all you do is insult them, it is a great line for that debate room but a cause an awful lot of damage across america. >> my old granddad used to tell

us to never underestimate the natural animosity of a cool man to a richman. that is just a good starting place for their side. and frankt some facts has made the right point. this administration's policies have been to push all the money to wall street and there is no recovery on main street. the biggest difference in my lifetime between the real economy and the stock market, between main street and wall street. i have never seen anything that compares with this. huge businesses are making money up billion yen. >> let's start with the term class warfare. it is ideological and it is not just on college campuses and the town's political part of the

public resents it politician that divides america. in the end, we are the united states of america. there is more that unites us than divides us. the public believes and will reject those politicians who try to pick rich and poor against each other in favor of those who try to find common ground. it is not a compromise of philosophy or ideology. if you divide us, you weaken us. that is the best response. >> one of the biggest issues that i have been seeing back home in the boston/new york papers in our state is the whole issue of big business is sitting on big cash. it goes to the question of wording. - hoearding. the policies have been bad and the administration's policies

have been helping wall street on main street and the people on wall street are sitting on the cash. a lot of the 99% people are saying that's the problem. they are getting all the money and that is the problem. jobs are not being created, what is their rebuttal? >> keep in mind that when you talk about the 99%, they are republicans, a lot of them. the 1%, they give to democrats. they give to obama and a vote that way. what i always say is that i am part of the 53% that pays income taxes. the uncertainty that this administration has treated for businesses is why we need to

push this administration with a more pro-main street at ministration. it would be one where people can feel like businesses can take a risk and can spend some money and not have the rug pulled out from underneath them by some crazy regulation. crazy regulations. obviously, there is a different way to say that. but when you communicate that, that is when people are nodding their heads, saying, ok, i understand, i get it. >> as a party, we talked a lot about excessive regulation, and we talked this morning about the message of more effective regulation at the local level. when you translate that into specific examples, and i will give you a couple examples in louisiana. we had a large steel project that was ready to break ground over two years ago. jobs and a big salary. a big project in an important

local community. they delayed breaking ground in part because of their concerns about the uncertainty about cap and trade rules coming out of washington, d.c. they were also thinking about going overseas. and there was a large japanese company wanting to make a $120 billion investment. they're not thinking about making that investment overseas because of the uncertainty of regulations coming out of washington, d.c. during the moratorium, we're fighting this fight against the obama administration about shutting down this activity and sending this money to other countries into the middle east. one of the things i was very effective was, this was not about a big company. whenever you get big in front of your name, that is not a good sign. whenever they want to demonize you, they say big -- whatever,

fill in the blank. the multi-national companies are going to be hurt by this, but they will do fine. they're going to redeploy capital and equipment and make their money. but we were able to highlight small mom-and-pop businesses were somebody borrow this money to start this catering company or somebody mortgaged their homes to expand the service company, and they were going to be heard. because those people began to lose their homes and had to declare bankruptcy in off people. i think we can point to specific examples were companies want to create jobs in america. they want to hire people and invest their capital. but excessive or unpredictable regulations are stopping them from doing that. it is important to show that it is not just big companies. these are companies of all sizes. they may be your neighbors. they may be a small business in your community that want to make money and want to hire americans but cannot do it with that unpredictability. >> language that the americans

want you to use for this is small business owners and job- creators. they're less interested in job innovators and entrepreneurs. and those are the ones who create apple and microsoft and dell and nike and companies like that. but to the american ears, a small-business owner and a job- creator is what needs to be defended over every other title that can be used. by the way, when you give somebody a bonus, i would strike the word on this side of your lexicon. you get out a christmas bonus at a time of economic hardships, you're going to make people angry. it is pay-for-performance. people will support performance pay. they will not support a bonus. >> i hate to punctuate this, but i do think the great thing about the question that you pose is that the answer is totally on our side. why would people sit on their money? well, when obama says he wants to put the largest tax increase

in american history on job- create tores, how are they are going -- howard they going to say, well, then, i am going to create more jobs, spend more money, when i am facing a $2 charlie tax increase. obamacare, i do not know what you will cost for new employees? how can a job-creator make a decision to hire more people? this is an administration that has made his policy to drive up the cost of energy. so people will use less. biggest their energy policy is environmental policy. it is not just terrible for the south. it is terrible for maine. the good thing here is, the actual, factual argument is almost totally on our side. i know i tend to be a little wonky, but i think people want to hear that.

they're prepared to hear the facts and patient enough to listen to them. >> haley, i will not put you and bobby on the spot, but i did not my putting frank and glen on the spot for a moment. in five weeks, the republican presidential primaries will test the first votes in the iowa caucus, followed by new hampshire, south carolina, and florida. with the two of you predict for us what is going to happen to give us some insight? >> glen? [laughter] >> a couple observations but a first of all, my business partner is doing mitt romney's campaign, so i am is a little biased. secondly, it is not my position because i have not done anything on the campaign, so it is not my position to comment on the race. i will say this, look, when you look at recent presidential

primaries, a lot happens. even iowa and new hampshire are not necessarily determined to give -- and determinative. with the rule changes word is no longer winner-take-all, delegates until the end of march for stakes, you are in for a pretty wild ride. >> the initial debates were absolutely horrific, when the candidates were just pounding each other. and it hurt the gop. it hurt the leadership. mitt romney's numbers went down. you can actually show romney falling and link it to the three debates with the people on stage. on him the most. why? because when republicans go after the republicans, they do not like it. but they still hear what is being said. i never ducked a question, as you know. i cannot answer it. because every fiber of my being would have said that newt gingrich would not even have made it to five weeks from now

six months ago. i have never known anyone to start a campaign from a boat in south greece. and, yet, the guy is absolutely positively in there, and that is because of his intellect. this is someone who is unprecedented in his capability to deal with issues in a broadway, in its focus away. he has no money. he has no organization. he had such a negative image, and yet, he is actually winning. who would have thought? but there is a lesson there. which is that, i think you said this, more americans are paying attention now than ever. anything you say can and will be used against you. everything you do will be held up to scrutiny. in 2012, we're going to end up all wishing that this election cycle was over. governors are the only institution in america that will have the chance to cut through

the clutter with your constituents and prove to them that government still works. the only people that have the opportunity to demonstrate that results can still happen. do not miss that opportunity, because it is on your success that we will rebuild a political system that is going to be destroyed over the next 11 months. >> i will put my cards on the table. i think everybody knows i supported rick sometime ago, governor of a neighboring state. i do not think i can tell people that he is been a great leader here. obama -- in terms of what is going to happen five weeks from now, i would echo what frank just said. five weeks is an eternity in this presidential cycle. he is right, who, five weeks ago, would have predicted correctly that newt gingrich would be running ahead in many

of these polls? who would have foreseen what happened with herman cain's poll numbers? gounod's who will go up and go down in the next five weeks. i believe that it has been somewhat more exacerbated this cycle. you compare it to previous cycles, you were a little bit sick for a few weeks out saying who is likely to win iowa and do well in new hampshire but but i would caution us to get too far out there. i remember when, four years ago, the smart greeted the resource saying hillary clinton is absolutely going to beat the democratic nominee. eight years ago, it was howard dean was going to be the nominee going to iowa, cannot be stopped. before president obama got elected, some on our side said that he is the guy we want to run against in mccain will be it. look how popular he was after he was sworn in. after the midterm elections, it was obvious he was a one-term. i just think that five weeks is an eternity in this political cycle. i have no way of being able to

know who is going to be up or down peter it is amazing. the one thing you can predict is there's going to be a lot of change. every day, there is a new twist in this election. areoday's headlines tomorrow's fish rappers. that is what we used to say. that is back when people read newspapers. people do not understand what that means anymore. but, anyway, i am like them. what have it yesterday or last week may not have a thing in the world with what is going to be the result in a week or two weeks or five weeks. it is the most fluid thing that i have ever been around for our side or the democrat side, for that matter. i think that is all the governors. got time for one from the field. i see a hand. hold on. we're going to get you a

microphone. >> what are your thoughts on -- remember seeing rick santorum a couple weeks ago talking about economic mobility and that the republicans should be talking about that and sometimes forget about it, emphasizing manufacturing and the return of manufacturing to the united states. do you have any thoughts on that or on the comments on economic mobility? >> we, in mississippi, have not given up on manufacturing, and we have brought in a lot of advanced manufacturing and advanced materials over the past eight years. that is not unique to us, certainly not among the states in the south. then you have states like indiana that do exactly the same thing. economic mobility, i think, is something we do not talk about enough, because there is this idea that the top 20% are the same people year-in, year-out,

decade-in, decade-out. i do think that the data may show that in the current recession, that is a little more static than in normally carries. but you go back over the last 30 years and people are moving all up and down with a net income level, as you might expect. depending on what age you are, you make a lot less money when you're younger, and then you finally get a job and start making some money. once you get to be older than i am -- i am 64, most people's incomes go down, because they do not work as much or do not work at all. so there is a lot of economic mobility in the united states, an unusually large amount compared to most of the advanced world. and i can see rick's point in that we should talk about that. i personally think we have a conversation among governors and

a different group yesterday that is even more important than that. a lot of income inequality has to do the education. i went to yazoo city high school and every one of life four years, some guy would come make a speech and say if you graduate from high school, you'll make x more than if you do not graduate from high school. and if you graduate from college, you'll make y more than if you do not. that guy knew what he was talking about. today, much income inequality is purely a function of lack of education. i am not necessarily saying a degree. it may be skills that you have developed, that you have learned, but there is a huge element of income inequality that has got to do people who dropped out, people who did not take school seriously, people who just, for maybe no fault of their own, do not have the skills or the education in an

economy that values of those much more than ever before in world history, not just in american history. we talked about -- we should talk about economic mobility, but we should also talk about the powerful importance of education. we need our children and grandchildren to really realize that is on the up-and-up, that is for real. >> economic mobility is less support than economic honesty. as the concluding comment, but they're looking from you is to be straight with the american people and the people you represent. no more budget gimmicks. no more accounting tricks, no more empty promises. you have the right to know the facts about the budget, and we have the responsibility to tell you about the budget or about the economy. waiting for an elected official

to stand up and tell them what they will not do, which is those three points, and then acknowledged that the have the right to know the truth and tell them the truth. points,uild on haley's and i absolutely agree -- in terms of the importance of economic mobility, and i did not see the senator's comments, but i absolutely agree, as a party, we do need to be talking about the american dream. which is it your kids were carting the grade education, they should be able to do even better than you did. quite frankly, it is one of the core reasons i am a republican. we all have these stories in our family histories. i heard the story every growing up, and i appreciated now that i am a father. my father was one of those, you know, one of nine kids, the only one to pass the fifth grade, walked up hill, a decaddown hill that stuff. the reality is that he chose to come to america with his

pregnant wife to start all over, and one of the things that brought him here with the opportunity -- it does not matter what your last name is. it does not matter how much money you have got. there's no limit to what you can do in this free society. he literally opened up a phone book and started calling companies until somebody would hire him. that is how he got his first job here. there were not looking for a handout. they were looking for an opportunity. as a party, we have to remind folks and voters that what we stand for is for every child to have that same opportunity. does not matter whether they were born in rockefeller or not, they should be able to have the opportunity to get it grade education and have a better career and have that kind of upward mobility. but secondly, this is very important. i think is in on trade to get to an initiative that is important -- i know a lot of the governor sitting here, which is improving education in the united states. if we want our kids and the better quality of life, they will have to have the skills.

the states, the country will do better in this economy. we have cut back in louisiana. but the reality is we know we have to have the most skilled, productive workers to confine the work of the competition as china and brazil. not just mississippi and louisiana any market is in china, brazil, and countries all over this world. and now many governors, listening to these governors around this table and others that are going to policies like awarding excellent teaching, not just the number of years in the classroom. they're looking at more choice for parents. it should not matter what zip code you grow up in committee should be able to get accreditation. truly providing the tools that kids need to have that upward mobility. in manufacturing, like a lot of these governors, we're bringing manufacturing jobs back, and we're growing not only new companies but old companies. i think that goes back to republican policies -- policies. lower taxes, fair regulatory environment, skilled workers.

if we're serious about a manufacturing-based economy, you have to have that supply. let's be honest, the power -- the powerful example of the steel company in louisiana is, what good does it do to the american economy, environment, whatever, to send those jobs to brazil? it is not the these jobs disappear. they're going to other countries. they will be other people's children getting those good paying jobs. absolutely, we as a party should be comfortable talking about we are the -- why we are the party of opportunity, the party that stands up for it -- however you want to talk about it. we want to stand up for the average american, their children, grandchildren. >> look, americans are an aspirational people, and the republican party is the aspiration party. let you have to do when you're talking about our policies is to connect them to the american dream. whether you specifically used that phrase -- you do not want to just talk about the policies. i would say you do not just want

to lead voters to water, you have to force them to drink it. you have to connect the dots for them so that the understand that you're not just a technocrat but that you have a broader vision for what it is that you want to do for the state, the people, or what have you. people understanding economic mobility is often self-driven. in other words, somebody like the governor and his parents, you know, they were much more likely to provide economic mobility because they wanted it and understood the importance of education. but what you have to do is say, our policies are trying to improve the opportunities. >> thank you all. a couple things i have to say. governors get paid to solve problems. to me, it has always been remarkable how much closer we governors, no matter where you are from, whether you're a

democrat or republican, how much closer we're to the results. and we are held to accountability for those results, then say, a president is or that anybody in washington is. one thing i hope that you'll take away from here, because i do not think there's anybody who is more conservative than i am, but we are results-oriented. and the public likes that. learn to tell the truth, even when it it is not going to be happy talk. that is something else the public is ready for. they are sick of happy talk. they know the reality, and do not be afraid to be the one that looks them in the in tells them the truth. they can take it. the last thing is, there are solutions. there are ways to get good results. and you just got to be the guy who stands up there and does not give in to what is popular.

and i would say to all of you all whose companies are so generous or whose organizations are so generous, that is what i hope you feel like we have to offer. results-oriented, truth-telling, trying to get to solutions for real problems. if you feel like that is what you are supporting, then we are doing our job. thank you all. i do not know what the next session is. [applause] [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2011] >> ladies and gentlemen, our governor's parlors will begin in 15 minutes on the ground floor of the conference center. please follow the signs to the right of the ballroom. thank you. >> some campaign in 2012 road to the white house news for you. former republican house speaker newt gingrich has scheduled a

briefing for today in new york city. live coverage of that gets underway at 1:45 p.m. eastern, and it will be on c-span3. the house and senate both in session today. the house gaveling in for speeches in about 40 minutes, legislative work getting under way at 2:00 p.m. several land bills on the calendar in the house today with no votes expected. the senate begins at 2:00 p.m. also. they will vote for judicial nominations of 530 p m. you can watch the house live right here on c-span, the senate on c-span2. more live programming coming up, the center for american progress today is hosting a discussion on the state of young america. the focus is the economic trends among young people. you can watch a live at noon eastern on c-span2. later, a house foreign affairs subcommittee will hear testimony about combating malaria. you can watch that at 3:00 p.m. eastern on c-span3. >> tonight on the "the communicators," ehrlick of

federal spectrum policy with a member of the commerce department's spectrum management advisory committee. he will discuss the choices facing broadcasters, telecoms, congress, the president, and the fcc. tonight at 8:00 p.m. eastern on c-span2. >> again, the house gavels in at noon eastern today. until then, a discussion on congressional efforts were addressing the federal deficit from this morning's "washington journal." guest: i am a disappointed that the supercommittee felt, because it was a terrific opportunity to do what we all know we have to do, which is put in place a plan to deal with the countries' deficits and debt. by the not being of a come to agreement, and it is not

surprising. it is a hard task. we know we have to find savings of trillions of dollars, which is difficult politically. but the fact that there were not able to, one, leaves us more vulnerable to markets, been concerned about our own ability to put in place a reasonable plan and fix the problem and bring our debt levels down. two, it continues to leave in place concerns about our political ability to come together and do hard things. if you think about how we got here, it has been 10 years of tax cuts and spending increases. we know how to do that. but in a highly partisan and bernie, can they come together and make difficult policy choices? there's concern that we're not contract for those forces in place and get things done that we no need to get done. host: how to watch the clock over the next year? we look to the presidential election in 2012. house seats and senate seats are up. ifyou see a deadline, they do not get it done by certain time frame leading up to

the presidential election, it will get to close and nothing will happen? guest: conventional wisdom is that you cannot do hard things in election years. i think it is actually no current -- an open opportunity to make tough choices. we will see so many reminders that this is inevitable. so there will be skittish markets, like we have over what is going on in your. the discussion of europe, we know it is because there were not able to get ahead of the market -- that of a problem. beyond that, i think will have constant reminders when the congressional budget office puts out its projections or the president has to submit a new budget. each and every one of those that happens will be a reminder that we have debt levels that we cannot handle, that leave us a very vulnerable to market's turning against us in helmand -- and harming our economy just at the time when we're trying to get out of recession, and that these choices are the same whether we make them now or wait until later, except when push by the markets, they become more difficult. there will be regular in constant reminders that we have

to do a budget deal at some point. even though the conventional wisdom is that in an election year, it is difficult. but i think they're members of congress that are sick and tired of congress looking at the same problem and not fixing it. they actually came here to fix the problem. they have very different opinions about what government should look like a but i do nothing there many people now who would say we do not have to descend about deficits and debt. wsip growing interest in a bipartisan way between the house and senate to get together and put to the other some kind of compromise plan. it is not a done deal that we will get a deal done this year, but i think there is a good chance. i know that people say both parties listen to politicians or political advice and say wait until after an election and you can do it in your own terms. it will not get easier. it will get more difficult to do have one party with more power having to make these tough choices without the bipartisan cover that makes this doable. i do not think there's a single argument for waiting, other than

the political cunning willingness to face up. host: maya macguineas serves as the fiscal policy program director at the new america foundation. here are the numbers to call if you like to join the conversation -- host: maya macguineas, you were involved with the supercommittee. tell us about your role. >> while the supercommittee was doing its work, i run a nonpartisan budget group. when we were doing was trying to encourage them to go big, if you will. which is, this supercommittee was tasked assigning $1.50 trillion in savings in over 10 years. there was a question of how much we would have to lift the debt ceiling. the concern that our organization and many others have is that even if you save that much, it is not nearly enough to get on top of the problem, and we know you need savings of two to three times that much just to stabilize the

debt. so it is not growing faster than the economy. you can think about your credit card bill not growing faster than during come. we urge them to come up with a big deal, because both, economically, it is unnecessary, but politically, it actually seems easier. it is very difficult for democrats -- they are not going to say we're doing another bill that is all spending cuts. and republicans are not willing to talk about new revenues unless they're tied with significant reforms and entitlements. and so when we look at what kind of deal might work, it seemed that putting everything on the table and fixing the problem as much as possible is more likely to succeed in these incremental changes. so we urged them to go big. i think a lot of them wanted to. i think if we continue to pursue that, to try to put in place a real deal to fix the problem, we have more chance of succeeding. difficult bites, but still the deadline is a huge debt problem remains.

funds.et's get to the independent line, tennessee. welcome. caller: yes, i think they should cut back on this foreign spending. not only that, a bunch of the wasteful spending that do in nascar drag racing and all that stuff, and give it to the poor people like me. i draw $1,000 a month. by the time i pay my bills, i may have $300 left to live on a month. and i just do not think it is right. thank you. host: thank you for your call. let me start by what is a misrepresentation of the budget. guest: i understand your take that we spend too much on foreign aid, but you have to have a starting point to know that we spend a tiny fraction of our budget on foreign aid. generally, is in no more than 2 %. i believe it is less than that right now.

there's a sense read it that if we just get rid of some of those things that easy to argue against for some people, foreign aid, targeted tax breaks, whether it is for jets are nascar, we can fix the budget situation. let me start by saying we need to go through every part of the budget. we need to save so much money that it will take looking at every piece of the budget. the things that you talked about not come close to fixing the budget. the biggest programs we have our spending on defense, social security, health care. and they're not the little ones that are easy for politicians to say we want to get rid of those. they're the big fundamental government. what we need to do, in addition to going through the budget line-by-line, and figuring out what is working and what is and what our top priorities are, we need to say we need to deal with some of these core questions. do we want to pay for 20% of our budget on health care, 25% on retirement? how do we want to allocate our resources? after we make the decision, we need to be willing to pay for

them. if you want to spend, you need to raise revenues. i applaud you for sort of having a specific thing you want to change, but the bottom line is that foreign aid is a very, very small piece of the budget. we will have to look at the big budget items to really get a handle on the situation. host: here is a question on twitter. can you break it down? guest: it is difficult to say what the spike was, because so many things played into it. what happened was we were running a deficit when the economy was strong. you might need to bring the budget into surplus when the economy is strong and save money. there is the capacity to have the deficits, which can double best we run big deficits when the economy is weak. so we were running deficits going into the downturn, and i came for many things. war spending, the prescription

drug plan we put in place without playing for, and multiple rounds of tax cuts. we cut taxes. we spent lots of money. and the notion of paying for it was kind of put aside for quite some time. with the economic downturn, we really got hurt badly. that was the result in the decline in revenues and the additional spending that you have in the recession and the measures that we took to help combat that recession. after that, we have always know that we might be hit by the aging population and by growing health-care costs, all these things that politicians knew were out there but they're difficult to change. they kept putting them off. we know we need to fix social security. maybe we'll talk about it next year. now we're getting hit with all of those things at once. not paying for the wars, multiple rounds of tax cuts, which has since been extended, the growing cost of health care in our budget, social security growing faster than other parts of the budget.

what has not contributed is probably a better question, because it is kind of been a case of having it all, not paying for, not dealing with what the budget is, which is trade-offs. we got ourselves in this huge fiscal hold, and it will take looking at all the parts of the budget to fix it. host: this comes from the "washington post." you can see the increases in the national debt. the red line is the debt ceiling. 2000, this is in trillions of dollars. about $6 trillion. 2010, about $14 trillion. then we look to the projected numbers, hitting all the way above $20 trillion. guest: and that is the problem. if you look at where our debt levels are car research seems to indicate it is already a drag on the economy. if you are carrying moderate debt levels, you can handle it, particularly if you're barring that money to spend it on productive investments, it can be a good thing to do.

but we borrow all this money to consume. the budget is on a consumption- oriented programs, not investments. the ones that keep us from growing more. with these high debt levels that are already a drag on the economy, but beyond that, it is where we're headed. we're on track to add in the neighborhood at $10 trillion over a decade of we're not careful. that is putting a sign some kind of debt spiral. looking forward, things get increasingly bleak because all the automatic berth in the budget could of their ongoing problems and they continued unwillingness to the changes in place to deal with it. host: stephen joined us from houston on the republicans line. welcome. caller: good morning. how are you? i am curious if anyone thinks the very people who created the problem are going to solve it? it is is simple question.

over decades, these people have brought power to social programs and maintain their power by destroying the american concept as it was once known. and there's a whole section of people supporting barack obama. i would like to know how many of those people -- [unintelligible] guest: those are two questions. i will take the one about how you can expect the people who created the problem to solve them, how you look at the political class and how it can fix the problem. it is interesting, because you are also seeing this going on. you look at europe and how they're trying to resolve the problems. in some ways, use it, do the countries have to leave themselves more tightly together and get away sovereign power? in the u.s., we started to

knowledge actually the politicians have not been very good as solving the problem. we keep doing things like say, well, let's outsource this to a committee could there's the president's own commission on fiscal responsibility, which in my mind came up with the perfect road map to get us started to fix this problem, and it is a shame that we have not moved further along using that to lay out the overall fixes and hopefully get some of those changes in place. more recently with the supercommittee, we keep saying, well, the normal process cover regular order, is not working to fix these things, so how can we help move the tough decisions along? i think that is right, politicians and the incentives to do all the fun stuff again, tax cuts, spending increases. because we, the voters, reward them for doing that. part of the responsibility falls back on us. we need to say somebody, if we want to spend more, how do we want to pay for it? if you want to cut taxes, what spending are you going to put in place that offsets that? overall, i do not think there

should be a single politician, certainly not a person running for president, that does not have a plan that they live for the american public saying here is how i would save $4 trillion or whatever amount they think it should be. i would say $4 drilling is probably the minimum bid of but we also have responsibility to say we will support people make those tough choices. there are interest groups say i cannot believe you're going to touch that program or you can never touched taxes or lay off. we're not going to come to a solution. politicians need to be more brave. the need to work together. i cannot say enough times how important it is to do this in a bipartisan way. neither party can do these tough choices on iran. there will be clobbered. we know the sources have to be made. bipartisanship is critical. but voter support for the tough choices is also critical. i think it falls down to all of us working on this. i think you are right, we have seen that it was a lot easier to

create the problem, and politicians working together to come up with a solution has not gotten any traction. host: here is an e-mail from nebraska. guest: absolutely right. there's a lot of built-in growth and to the federal budget. there is automatic berth in many, many programs called entitlements or mandatory spending. they grow faster than the economy and faster than the budget as a whole. if you really bring that spending down so it is growing not quite as much faster than the economy or the budget, that is coined a cut. budget speech is different than normal speed. in our own household, we think of it as cutting something in the budget, and that is not true. there are huge divide on this, and i understand both perspectives. but on the right, i think that is part of the frustration, were you see something is coined as a

cut, when it is really saying is going to grow slightly less than the economy and still leaves you on an unsustainable growth rate. spending has been growing as a share of the economy quite significantly in the past years, but as a result of the downturn and the economy where we spend more on programs that help people, and that is appropriate during the downturn also from growth in health care and other parts of the budget. we need to decide, there is no right or wrong side of the budget. we need to decide whether or not we want to pay for those programs of the government is going to grow. when we talk about cuts, there are things we should actually cut, things we should eliminate. that goes back to this notion of going through the budget line- by-line. one senator says it remarkably, a church, coburn has gone through the budget in immense detail and said this is a program we do not need. this is an outdated program be that difficult exercise is going to have to be part of this, because every billion in savings

is going to count. in the end, it will come back to the core programs, entitlements, and the spending we do through the tax codes. there is $1 trillion a year that we lose in revenues because of targeted tax breaks. everything from the nascar program that was brought up before to the home mortgage interest deduction, health care exclusion. a lot of spending goes through the tax code. we need to look at that. c-span3 maya macguineas is president at the committee for responsible federal budget. she's also fiscal policy director at the new america fund as gen. she has worked at the brookings institution in maastricht issues of political independence and has advised numerous candidates for office for both parties but to works regularly with members of congress on issues ranging from health, the economy, taxes, and budget policy. let's hear from carl in chicago, illinois. caller: yes, i want to take issue with some of your initial comments.

a lot of your comments are about spending. i think in 2000, we had a plan that was working. and we had a surplus to pay down debt. it was working. it was not the entitlements or anything like that. it did not get assigned this problem. i will concede, health care will grow, because we have a health care system that is based on profits. but this country, despite of all of our debt, we're the wealthiest country in the world, nd we have the most well saoty potential in the world. we can afford health care. some might suggest that this issue of spending -- when the recession took place, that caused almost overnight in a

loss of trillions of dollars to our economy. host: let's get a response from our guest. guest: gosh, it pains me to remember what great track we were on with those budget surpluses. we made some of the tough budget choices. back then, they were not nearly as big as the ones we're confronted with now. the economy was growing, some of it albeit through bubbles in the market. but we had budget surpluses, and we were on track to start preparing for some of the big choices we're facing. it is a huge shame that we may policy choices that squander those surpluses. and cutting taxes and increasing spending -- spending growth during that time was quite high as well, before we reformed the entitlement programs, put aside money to help pay for the aging baby boomers and the growing health care costs was just so shortsighted. in my mind, it reflects one of the bigger problems that we have, which is government is shortsighted. most are on a two-year cycle.

the immediate gratification chance to pay off more than long-term investments. we build a budget on short-term priorities. rarely do we think about what we need to be longer term. policies that brought the economy, public investment, fiscal responsibility. that is why i think our budget is upside down in many ways. i agree that we were on track back then. nonetheless, if you look forward, what deviates from where we have been historically is that spending is on track to be much, much higher than historical averages. revenues are below historical averages. there soon to come back, assuming the economy grows bit and also not saying the government should or should not grow. there is no right answer. there are a lot of arguments why it probably will grow, because the aging population and the fact that health care costs are growing. one reason is because we have new innovations that we all want, the technological advances in health care are expensive, and we want them. we probably will decide the the government will grow, but we

need to and knowledge that spending has grown all along and revenues, which came down, and i do not think we should have cut taxes when we did, and i didn't think it was the right long-term policy and we should think about how to get revenues of higher now in a way that it's good for the economy. i would argue we should grow revenues by reforming the tax code. you can broaden the base, lower rates, and take some of that savings and use it on the deficit. it that is the right policy. but you want to and knowledge that you cannot do this without looking at both sides of the budget and that spending has been growing and is projected to grow much higher than historical averages. revenues will grow to be on historical averages as well. if they're going to grow farther, which at the bishop, we should do it in a way that is good for the economy. host: "new york times" has this image of federal spending on medicare and medicaid, big items. you can see here from the congressional budget office, the projected spending for medicare and medicaid and medicare is in the light green. guest: it does not get any more

problematic than that. our health care programs are on track to consume an ever-growing piece of the budget. and it is really difficult. because something like social security, we know how to fix the problem. we know what levers there are. whether it is retirement age or benefits for people who do not need them. we know how to fix it. when it comes to health care, we do not have all the answers. and it is probably going to be multiple rounds of health care reforms that we are going to have to keep going back and making tough choices. and there are large differences about how we should approach this. we know we will be some structural changes that should help keep health care spending within the budget, but they're very big dividends is on the right and left on how we should meet that budget. not only do we not know all the answers, we have a huge political standoff. but if we do not fix health care, nothing else is going to fix the problem. you cannot fix the problem without addressing this large problems in medicare and medicaid, which will affect

growth in overall medicare spending. we need to look at health care as a whole part of the economy. host: image in social security. this came from twitter. social security is the toughest one to talk about. people feel strongly about one where the other. what happened with social security is that we wisely built in a principal of try to pre fund the system, but some money aside in advance of when it would be needed, because we needed to baby boom generation and more money in the out years than in the past. the problem is that the mechanism for saving the money did not prove to be effective because of government trust funds, were we had put all the money and it is legally all there, did not actually keep the government from borrowing that money and spending it. the but $1 and the trust fund, it goes through the government treasury, which is of the

government borrows. the government has that $1 and spins it on all the things we're not paying for. defense, education, tax cuts. so the money gets put to other uses, and there is still the obligation to repay the social security trust fund. we are about the difference and difficult choices. there's an awful lot of money owed to social security trust funds that we do not have the means to pay for. so to go through sorting of mr. and obligations in our budget, social security has a unique claim and resources in the future but a but it does not help us at the ability to pay for it. the same people who will be collecting benefits down the road -- my father, i always like to pick on him, are the same people who had lower taxes in the past couple decades because their payroll taxes were paying for the parts of government and their tax rates were lower. so we are going to have to figure this out. it is a tough issue, because people say, well, i put my money into social security, i should get it out. that is absolutely fair.

but we have to remember that that money that was put in went to lower the rest of the taxes that people were paying or the increases in spending because it was paid out in other forms of government. nobody's fault, but a mechanism that to not end up saving the money in a way that was effective. host: our guest is maya macguineas issue recently wrote, unlike some who cannot find a job, the debt is more like a quiet cancer on the economy coming eating away at our well- being from a number of less visible ankles. let's go to illinois, independent line. caller: how does, like a person on disability -- i have been waiting and all the red tape a person has to go through, how does that fall into it, a person trying to get disability and the red tape and all that? thank you.

guest: this brief to the important point of the disability trust funds will run out of assets in a couple years. it is another reminder why we need to be making a forum for social security, both retirement and disability, as quickly as possible. waiting until the last minute to put these changes in place is that policy and not helpful for people who need to plan accordingly. it takes away the kind of stability that you want to have of knowing how a program is going to work. in terms of the bureaucracy or red tape, that is not part of the program design. in the end, that is because the processing needs and trying to individualize the program and have rules that affect everybody. so it is one of the realities of big programs, and it is frustrating. when it is disability, this is something people need critically. there are so many reforms to the disability program we need to consider, both because of the finances and because of the quality of the program. the point i actually think is

that it will be very difficult to do all the things that the government needs to do in coming years. there will be this ongoing fiscal pressure. one of the upside would be if we use that pressure, like when you have a tight budget, you have to figure out how to spend resources best, if we use the pressure to think about how to improve the quality of what we are getting, to use more matricide government spending, to make sure we're using our dollars on the best program. and those that are not as a born, we reform that you become entrenched. i have been doing my job the same way for years, and you continue to do it. this may be what we're going to go through with this budget. it will be tough, but it might be an opportunity to think about how we do these things in government and give them some useful makers and improve the quality. there are many complaints about how difficult it is to get disability benefits. host: let's look at a couple of e-mails.

host: and here is another e- mail. guest: i like both those questions. i completely agree. the way we're going to go big and fix the problem is to look at every part of the budget. but also, a reminder that it is not cutting or raising taxes for the sake of it. not reducing the debt for the sake of it. it is part of an economic growth strategy. in order to grow the economy, we need to bring our debt levels down, but we also need to prioritize things so that we are spending and taxing in ways that promote growth the most. on the spending side, i believe that means protecting the public investment. there many ways we have been shortchanged for years and moving our budget to an

investment-oriented budget. on the revenue side, we will need more revenue. there's no way we can close the gap on one side of the budget alone. but when we raise revenues, you can do it in the way that hurts your economy, bring the marginal tax rate speed of that is damaging and causes that incentives for work and savings. or you can bring rates down and get rid of the trillion dollars of tax breaks we had each year, many of them, and generate savings to help close the deficit. i think go it also means the best go big in deficit reduction also means to go smart and go long. think about the long-term effects of all these programs this again part of that, does washington have the will to actually do that? i look at this as two different answers. there are an amazing group of policy makers coming together in the past year, working so hard, tirelessly, on this issue. it is the one thing giving me in washington. i am from washington, but i have

spent a couple years thinking we have got to get out of here, because it feels broken. but there are a lot of members or changing that right now, and they're working really hard. there was a gang of six that was looking at a real plan. that has expanded to 45 members in the senate who are working together to come up with solutions and 100 members in the house. i think a lot of people thinks that the house does not work and a bipartisan way to that is not the case. a lot of people want to solve this problem. most people want to solve the problem. a lot of them are now willing to cross the aisle and say i'm not in my first vote. i might be really conservative or progressive, but i know budget that reflects only my values will not pass. so how will it work to preserve the most important parts of my conservative or progressive values a compromise where we can? scene that has encouraged me. what has not encourage me though is that i think a lot of people are whispering to the more politically-oriented and the

party, saying it will be better to wait until after the election. do not worry about delaying. ok, worrying about dealing is a huge risk. markets can lose at any moment. i find it so cynical and dangerous to say we could get some political gain by delaying and we're willing to take the risk that the markets turn and guest -- turn against us. that concerns me greatly. i do not think that is the majority of the folks up on capitol hill. it the majority of people here have come to accept that this problem is huge, that they might have their ideal way of fixing it but will not get that, and it is more important to come up with a deal for the country. it is not an exaggeration to say that we will taint the country if we fail to do something about our deficits and debt in a timely manner. -- that we will tank the country if we fail to do something about our deficits. overall, i think we're in a

better place than we have been before, because there's so many members on the help your focus on this. it is on the national agenda now right away and never was. there's not a single discussion that will not have fiscal ramifications as a big part of that discussion. it will be here tuesday, setting the oxygen out of every other issue until we come up with a fixed -- it will be here to stay. i think there's a good chance we will come up with something and the coming months, even though some people would argue that waiting is the right thing to do. i think they are wrong. host: 11, colorado, republican line. caller: thank you. i am interested in the new america foundation and what it is all about. i have to confess, i am a registered republican, but i have been voting democrat for the last few years. i was wondering what you think about a tax on financial transactions, if you want to

make money on wall street, there's no reason why you cannot pay a small transaction fee. people pay their brokers and burger houses all kinds of fees, and maybe those could be put toward reducing the deficit. i kind of resent the term entitlements. and makes us all sound like we are on welfare. in fact, all these programs are insurance programs that we all paid into all of our working lives. so i can see why people are upset about that, as omi. i know that we cannot cut enough with the revenues coming in to offset all of this. it always seems to get lost in the conversation -- i guess it is because grover norquist. i guess we will never escape this man until the next election. i would also like to know, i saw a little bit about the new america foundation, and who backs it and that sort of thing. thank you so much for all your wonderful information. guest: thank you for all your

questions to the new america foundation is a non-partisan think tank that started a little over a decade ago. i went there after it had been around for one year. i think it is a neat thing to hang for a couple reasons. it is politically-independent. as an independent, i wanted a place where did not feel like it was one political agenda or another. that is great. we have republicans, democrats, and independents working there. at the time, it was also about bringing younger people into the policy does course, people who were not as established. oftentimes you stay there for one year, get a fellowship for one year, and then got into something else. i ended up one of those people staying in a lot longer, because it was the perfect place to work. i was focusing on taxes and retirement. one of the neat things about the foundation is it brings a lot of journalists in. i am not a journalist, but it brings a lot of journalists in to spend a year or so working on policy issues and go back out into journalism.

it also helps us to kind of write about these things in the more popular press. a lot of us right op-eds or articles. i wrote articles there instead of the journal articles you would normally write at a think tank. no partisan agenda there at all. www.naf.org. there's a lot of incredible work that is coming out of there. in terms of your question, at transaction tax. i do not think the transaction tax is the right way to go. it is getting a lot of new interest, and i understand why. the arguments against it have been that it would harm liquidity and slow down how quickly we can make trades. after the huge crisis we just went through, that is not necessarily selling such a bad thing. but i also think that these taxes like that have affected people cannot understand. remember the bulk of the people

who would be taxed are those who are saving in their pension funds, and this would bring down the return and increase the cost of saving that way. it is not my preferred tax, but i will tell you, i think what it reflects is a growing sense of unease about income inequality in this country. and i share that. what really needs to go into the discussion right now is some thoughtful policy ideas about -- the heated rhetoric on the class warfare stuff, i do not think is the right way to talk about it. with acknowledgement that incoming quality -- income inequality is wrong is important. you have to make shirt -- >> just a couple minutes of in this segment you can see it on our website at c-span.org. you can see "washington journal" every morning at 7:00 a.m. eastern. the house is about to dabble in the live coverage of the capitol right there. the house will be starting today with general speeches. memb