we find ourselves not focusing on that one thing that should be a top priority. >> this year, brian kamoie made an impact. it crux of started with an inside of what is it like to be that. what can i share with them that either i wish i had done a long the wait or they will remember when they leave washington which as you have mentioned is a very intense rapid -- cracks the

same day jeb bush commented that ronald reagan would be criticized for doing the things he did. is the republican party -- we will hear from stephen hey would hand norman or stained. they discussed the state of the republican party, and the deficit reduction plans on capitol hill. this is about one hour. >> good afternoon. i am a senior fellow here and i would like to welcome all of you to this american enterprise debate. is the republican party to extreme? one thing i learned was the

institute's mission statement, 10 simple words. with the slogan he did not simply mean we value the competition among various institutions. of course, we do. he championed as his successor is spirited debates within the family. they have differed on the wisdom of organ donations. scholars have publicly sparred over the merits of the carbon tax. there were disagreements about the a rock or. in the fall they will publish a

book on competing views of china's rise. scholars have differed about the merits of -- the debates have always been vigorous and always simple. our debate on but the republican party is too extreme is keeping with that history. i would like to acknowledge the work of those who have made this a success. it is available to you on the web site. his columns are must resign capitol hill. steve hayward is the fellow at aei and a regular blocker. we are fortunate to have him as our moderator tonight.

he writes about this twice a week for roll call always with an even-handed town perfect for our moderator. [applause] >> thank you. pleasure to be here for this interesting debate. i feel like -- you will have to look it up. try wikipedia. i am here to give you the rules and then i will leave it to these gentlemen. i will be back for the q and a. is pretty simple. we will begin with 8 minute opening statements. that is followed by five men rebuttals by each. a 27 minute -- is not 26 or 28. it will be 27 minutes of two and

a or a free for all or what ever followed by 5 minute closing statements by each gentleman. we will be taking questions via e-mail and twitter. for those of be so inclined, the twitter handle is #aeidebates. at the end of each round there will be a boxer or a bell or that which will sounded the end of the round it. i will be back in a bit too moderate questions. eight minutes each opening rounds followed by five minutes rebuttals. again, norm. >> thank you so much. ok.

thank you. thank you you all for coming. this was really precipitated by washington post outlook piece of michael author and i did to our new book, it even is worse than it looks that makes a great holiday gift. i want to start by a tea why -- by thanking my friend. i want to give a few thanks to jeb bush to said ronald reagan and his father would have a difficult time getting nominated by the republican party, commenting as he did on an orthodoxy that does not allow for disagreement are finding some common ground. thank you for your impeccable timing.

thank you for the republicans to sign the note tax pledge. i am tempted to do a sally field and say, you like me. you really like me. surveying this audience, no. because i have a lot of things my son who did policy debate where you blurt things out. i will not be saying. i would not say one party is good and the other is evil. partisanship and hardball politics are normal and both parties will a job by was not say all republicans are extreme. many, including some strong republicans -- conservatives

want to find common ground. i will not say conservatism is extreme. there are plenty conservatives who are not extreme. a party can be extreme in three ways. i will discuss each. taxes, ideology, and rhetoric. first tactics. tactics depend on context. the gop has adopted non pilot -- non pont - non-parlimentary tactics. they defined the adversary as the enemy and hold positions because of who the -- who is supporting them not because of what is in them. the first evidence comes from the filibuster. let me put up a charge. it is being applied in a fashion unseen in the previous history. i do not have time to go over

the filibuster. much of it is in the book. let me say that in the past, filibusters were used rarely for issues of great national moment by a minority feeling intensely about them and willing to stop everything and throw themselves into making their point. now it is used routinely as a weapon of obstruction. cloture motions were three a month in the 1980's. now there are two or more in a week. the minority has a point. many of the cloture motions are filed prematurity -- prematurely. they are designed to close off debate. it does not explain multiple filibusters on bills and

nominations that garner unanimous and near unanimous support. the workers and business assistance act passed 98-0. the credit card holders bill of rights 95, seven days of floor time. recovery act on mortgage and securities fraud, six days of floor time. all done to stretch out the time frame and take out the most precious commodity of the senate and block things from happening. the same has been true of nominations. the most prominent being the court of appeals judge. 99 desk 0 on cloture votes. filibuster is used for the new nullification are also unprecedented, blocking people or by a considered even by those

opposing them as being fully qualified and passing every vetting spent her but blocked for things like the consumer protection bureau, medicare and medicaid services because the people blocking them don't like clause that had been legally and constitutional and acted and want to keep them from being implemented. if i had a lot of time, i could talk about the debt limit used as a hostage to non-negotiable demands and fulfilling the mitch mcconnell predictions. two other examples of extreme tactics -- but greg conrad fiscal commission where people supported it voted against their own bill because they did not want to give a victory to the other side and the same with the benefit widen health reform bill. these are not simply benefited -- these tactics are not simply don in washington. immemorial bridge was adopted and governor court refused to

sign at as he expected other comparable bills because it was introduced by a democrat. these tactics have been successfully defined by richard murdock who beat richard lugar in the senate. i said by partisanship should -- i said bipartisan should consist of democrats coming to the republican side is what he said. public opinion surveys show that the two parties in congress -- let me put up a couple of charts that show what has happened over time in congress -- the voting records for the house and senate. you will see clearly the

republicans in congress are the most conservative that they have been in our lifetimes and, indeed, perhaps more conservative than in a century. the democratic party, especially as a loss to southern democrats, moved some went to the left but nowhere near as much. let me quote the most prominent and respected conservative intellectual -- calvin coolidge, a conservative favorite. or even ronald reagan who favored large-scale government research be on the missile defense. that recognizes "that came from steve hayward. the party in congress voted to kill the census bureau's survey and economic census which has been used by businesses for a variety of vital purposes to establish different purposes. representative daniel webster who sponsored it said it is not scientific, it is a random survey. you can see why he is not on the intelligence committee. i've got lots of other examples

and examples on rhetoric that start with allen west and move to many others which we will have to discuss during the bottle or other times. that's my eight minutes. >> i want to begin by thanking the senator that said dick cheney should be convicted of war crimes. when conquering roman generals would return to their victory parades in rome, they would place a slave behind him to

whisper in his ear that all glory is fleeting. norm is our slave at aei. does he have a naked pictures of arthur brooks? that wouldn't work because arthur worked out. norm is a very valuable presence around our hallways and keeps us on our game and promises not to confuse ideology with partisanship. it is quite useful to have someone around to point out the inconsistencies and blind spots and petty hypocrisies. norm makes all this better and sharper in our work even if we mutter about his latest provocation. i admire much of his work seeing that his interest in the

congress stems from a deep affection of the first branch. his grief is sincere and the worry about the future is well- founded. his work on the continuity of government project urging us to take respective remedies against the worst case terror strike as of the highest value. in contrast to the continuity of a government project, and less enamored of what i think to be his continuity of liberalism project. i read his book and it is worse than it looks. [laughter] it makes a good holiday gift, i will agree with that [laughter] we live in a time of heightened polarization making the task of governing mentally difficult. a very distinguished political science said this --"democrats and republicans are swaggering and on certain, secure and paranoid, each side is confidence in its own domain.

party is fearful that will make a mistake and lose its own empire not just for one term but for decades and the site is hopeful that confined to capture its rightful complete majority by forcing the other to make a fatal mistake. the result is passive aggressive politics, politics avoiding blame greedy side is so concerned about avoiding a mistake that taking risks to make better policy is increasingly uncommon." i think that is a good anecdotal description. it correctly perceives the symmetry of the two parties and rightly assigning equal blame to both parties. this assessment comes from norm ornstein writing back in 1990. what happens to that guy? i miss him. by the way, the title of the article was "the permanent

democratic congress." that seems like a golden age. he said republicans or the chicago cubs of american politics. according to his hypothesis, things have changed such that to insurgent out liar in american politics. they fear polarization has become asymmetric or it is the republicans' fault. his tricycle one of the political parties and outline what happens to be at its highest level in terms of elected officials nationwide in 70 years unless you are prepared to take the next that does suggest the american people have taken leave of their senses. that does not appear in norma's book. you hardly notice the election of 2010 took place.

the republicans did not win majorities until they turned to the extremists of. some people never got over the 1994 election. i want to lay down a couple of markers. his book contains a catalog of genuine republic embarrassments and hypocrisies. i thank that as susceptible but is it true that the partisanship of republicans today is different in character than the kind of partisanship of to both male -- of tip o'neill or the same position taken by democrats against george bush? his republican harassment fundamentally different than the way democrats use the oversight process to harass or

reagan appointees? that extended to eliminate budget appropriations or cutting program funds for long- established programs. we could waste a lot of time debating whose political calipers are more finely tune but it is ultimately quite futile to argue in this maupertuis can dispense with the balance sheet and go directly to the sneaky presumption that whether into nothingness when the village torn away. take the view that the democratic party is more it illogically and diverse -- ideologically diverse and perfect -- and protective of the government role as it has developed over the course of last century. it seems to make it does not take an extremist to say that is precisely the problem. the democratic party is the

status quo party until they get the opportunity to ratchet up the state in a big way which has been the story of most of the last century after which they sit back and protect the status quo and republicans are supposed to be fine with this? this would astound rickey henderson. they say the ideological center of the republican party must change to regain national health. there could be returned to the kind of accommodation that the principal use of moderate republicans is to shoot the wounded after the battle is over. i suspect that idea of good government would be president david gergin. is the republican party extreme? i certainly hope so. the republican party began its life as an extremist party

dedicated to the purpose of a bolling -- abolishing barbarism. the supreme court declared the republican party's platform to be unconstitutional. there is little reason or purpose for the republican party unless it acts with a new determination to call it the size of all to the and thus ratcheting expansion of centralized government power and reckless spending. gains prominent positions in "the post," but all glory is fleeting. [laughter] >> i don't disagree with a finger first minute and a half. [laughter] let me next say that i don't

know which is meant more disorienting, appearing naked pictures of arthur brooks or david gergan as president. they are on the same park. let me move on to some of your arguments. when i wrote that piece in 1990 and i noted that what would likely end the democratic majority that was moving toward 38 years would be a democratic president and a counterpoint that would take place but things have changed since 1990. indeed, many of the arguments i would make here, and i want to go back to where i started, neither party is an angel. votes have often crossed lines and done things that are deplorable. the democrats or the way they handled the bork supreme court nomination, blocking estrada statements by people like allen west and cynthia mckinney. we singled out allen west who

said that between 79 and 81 democrats in the house are members of the communist party. he asked about cynthia mckinney. i went back and looked. we have a faulty timers. i got a whole bunch of newspaper clippings. there are differences here on that front. more significantly, so much of this is a matter of degree and not kind but the unprecedented things i have mentioned. look at blogging nominations and i can show you a chart after chart of the number of nominations blocked compared to the reagan years and the swiftness with which the executive and judicial

appointments went through. if you want to talk about cooperating with the president, i look at two points of comparison -- when george w. bush came into the white house, in a white house that was in tatters almost. you have the most controversial election at least in our lifetime if not an american history. you had a president who had no coattails, 36 days to come in, facing an adversarial environment. it would have been easy for democrats to hold a dinner meeting on inaugural even say the way that we can regain power is to stomp on his neck and lever led up. we can vote against everything he wants his presidency will die. instead, they cooperated immediately on no child left behind. that gave him a victory that established the legitimacy of his presidency.

democratic votes provided the margin for the tax cuts. that was a hallmark of the bush presidency. democrats say the vote on the tarp program which saved the bush presidency. contrast that with another book about the meeting that took place with top republican leaders on inaugural even 2009. the president came in on a landslide with a 70% approval in the worst economy since the great depression. i think that is the difference and when you look at things like blocking nominations that are widely acceptable because you don't want bill to be implemented, that is the difference. let me address the argument that you made that tom and i have lost our marbles and how can a party be extremely good wins elections? let's think of some examples in

history of parties that were extreme and won the elections. peter is old enough to remember the 1930's. he is very, very old. 1 he is perhaps our oldest colleague. [laughter] i can give you some examples -- parties win elections when people are unhappy. in our system, elections get one and lost far more often because they are referendums on what is going on -- that economies bring about elections. republicans have learned from 1994 and 2010 is that if you make the process looks awful, worse than it usually is, make it even worse than it looks, you may well win elections if people rebel against what they see as the party in power. that is a good thing if you want to win elections. it is not a good thing if you want to solve problems in government. i think that is what is behind jeb bush -- no raving liberals being upset about the direction in which his party is going. >> the bush family has not

gotten over from losing to renaldus magnus in 1980. a lot has changed since 19 '90s. there was a question of debate this year about taxes. why was that answer given by the field? it was because the history of the last 30 years or so since politics became closer is that these deals never work for republicans. they have seen this before. how many times has the republican charlie brown fallen for the lucy and the football trick. this explains why you see the rise of the tea party which is

the republican analogue to the anti-war movement three or four years ago. it is a disruptive force and might tear the party apart. you mentioned the greg comrade commission. we can play tennis like this all day. there is a piece of evidence was a fundamental problem that the republican party has not gotten over the prison and that they want to be the permit relief party in america. this explains the symmetry of the ferocity of the competition.

maybe the best example is the 2004 election. republicans extended their majority. tom daschle was defeated, the majority leader, in part because of the argument that he is an obstructionist to nominees. terry reid comes in and joe biden was asked to come into said this -- he said majority leader's have not filled that role. dianne feinstein said that if we keep going on this way, we will be a minority party. this kind of presumption made perfect sense in 1955 or 1965 or 1985. it does not make sense after the 1990's.

you see this subtext often. there's something unnatural about republican majority? this adds to the ferocity of the republicans who say it will not kick the football again. >> thanks, gentlemen. that was very civil, wasn't it? [laughter] i'm supposed to take some questions but i thought i would each of you one quick question. norm, how would you respond to a political party that is about to nominate mitt romney as its presidential nominee and four years earlier, nominated john mccain as its presidential

nominee? alice that fit with your idea that this is a bunch of -- how does that fit with your idea that this is a bunch of crazy radicals? steve, i thought i would ask you to address the following point -- what might make the republicans radical in this day and age is their understanding or maybe there miss understanding of the legislative process. the nature of the legislature involved in a give-and-take and compromise and if you listen to many republicans these days, compromise is a dirty word and they seem unwilling to compromise. if that is how they approach the nature of legislative process, it undermines the institution -- the fundamental nature of the institution. norm, you can start. >> the best way to answer that

is to look at what john mccain and mitt romney had to do to win nominations and where they are. i worked a lot with john mccain who has been for much of his career very conservative and a problem solver, somebody who looks for solutions on immigration, climate change, campaign finance, and other areas. he abandoned all of those positions as he moves forward to win a republican nomination. i look at mitt romney who has taken a position on immigration that has made sure that he has a position outside the bounds of our normal politics, a candidate to openly embrace as donald trump will even george will calls a blow creating big around as but who has gone over the line in terms of some of the things he has said. other litmus test that had to be taken -- when i talked to jon huntsman who could not even

get traction in the presidential contest partly because of his own missteps about litmus tests, candidates have to take those positions and you all to them. i don't -- i view mitt romney as somebody who is not just the etch a sketch a guide but the chameleon. that does not matter. he will move into office if he assumes the presidency and the bound to what he has promised in the past but also to a legislature that has moved far enough outside and that includes budget and tax positions that go very far from what we have seen in the past that would leave him at the edges whatever his internal beliefs are. >> i actually think there's quite a bit to be said that the

republican party is not very good at the legislative process. the republican party atrophied during those years when they were out of power. during that time, republicans succeeded in electing presidents starting with eisenhower. even before that, the two parties had a slightly different character. republicans became the executive-minded party and the democrats became better at the legislative process. had there been a way to organize the tea party, it would have happened earlier. tom delay said we cannot possibly cut spending any more. there was nothing left of any principle core of republicanism in congress. they were not any better than the democratic party from a conservative point of view.

they used bill clinton as a foil and got things done. they have yet to prove that they can actually govern as the majority party in a parliamentary sense for any other and that will be a big task that happen to win the election. >> we will go to questions by want to remind people that they can still either e-mail their questions to aeidebates or twitter. we have a question -- let's start off with this one -- what is the role of the tea party and is it the reason or how much of the reason at all that you think the republicans are extreme and how do you think the tea party fits into the republican party and the

question of extremas and? >> i think it is the first time -- it is a pretty substantial populist movement of the right. getting into the rallies was unprecedented. >> there were all at country clubs. [laughter] >> there's got to be a good joke about a country club riot. just as the new left and the anti-war movement and associated parts push the democratic party to the left in the 1960's and 1970's to the ruination of johnson and mcgovern, the tea party is problematic to republicans.

i happen to like to them. they are my kind of peeps. one of my ironic criticism no ofrm's book is that it does not take this it to -- the thesis seriously enough. the republicans may fracture in two. there is talk of a tea party candidate this year. they would run independently. it would look something like the wallace candidacy in 1968. at that point, i predict n thatorm - norm will look back on with on this on ralph nader. >> can you comment on the occupy wall street movement and with the regard that? >> the tea party movement is a populist movement said o as

theccupy movement this period rose during a time of economic turmoil, as it usually does. it was an attack on leadership and establishment leadership but i think we often use tea party as a kind of shorthand that simplifies things too much. the headaches for john boehner -- mitch mcconnell has been very cold-blooded in his strategy in a way the john boehner has not -- it was in the house for more than the freshman tea party members, the members of the republican study committee including longtime veterans like jim jordan of ohio

and mike: pants and a number of others who posed a much deeper challenge. it's part of the problem was there is a natural tendency when you have this movement emerging and people who are energized to write to that tiger and exploited as much as you can. once you have taken them past the finish line, you can call up to them. you can change the animal metaphor. if you cultivate a hungry rottweiler and it scares everybody in the neighborhood, that can be fabulous until you have to go outside. then it may not recognize to the master really is. it has been frustrating for john boehner who is a legislator and problem solver that he cannot control his troops. that is a part of what is going on here. what is also true is that the tea party people coming in as freshmen viewed themselves as different from the 1994 class.

we share a lot of ideology but they went washington. if you think the 1994 gingrich republicans went washington and they compromised, that tells you something about where we are. the occupy movement emerged from the same routes but it tells you the tribal differences between the two parties. the tea party movement was leaderless but they organized and ran candidates and moved into the political process to have an impact and they did at. he occupy movement is sitting there waiting for something to happen. they have had an impact in changing the dialogue, the 1% and a 99% that is out there and

the fact that you had the published "her of the manchester union leader" saying he was going to endorse newt gingrich and not mitt romney because mitt romney is a nice guy but embodied the 1%, tells you the impact they have had. have they had an impact on our politics or the legislative process- no, find me one candidate who was recruited a an as occupy wall street candidate to run for office. it gets back to why will rogers said heineman member -- said i'm not a member of any organized party. i am a democrat. >> a number of questions, our combatants have already taken a shot at. it has been part of their earlier comments. i think this is a very direct question and let's start with norm. doesn't it seem like democrats are unwilling to meet the gop

halfway? it seems the republicans went more than halfway for much of the last century. they went 80% of the way or more and now the republicans are sticking up for republican principles while democrats the new gilded age is upon us. this leaves the pa with someuse. if you look at the trajectory of discretionary domestic spending which is most of government as we know it, it has been leveled off and declined significantly. we've talked about how those deals were bad and republicans have been screwed repeatedly. i'll go back to my friend jenna bush who noted the 1990 budget agreement where you got some very significant restraint with tax increases and as a group --

bruce bartlett says that when you cut taxes, you don't cut spending and when you raise taxes you do and that is where we have seen those dynamics. i think you see some significant opportunity here to do more than meet halfway with the gang of six plan. steve mentioned the simpson balls commission. when president obama said positive things about the gang of six planned an said this is a framework from which we can work. that killed it for republicans because they were against it. we are not saying that the amount play out. >> this is way too fun. obama saying positive things about the gang of six deal -- i have a more cynical take on that. that was his way of killing it. the quickest way for obama to kill a deal he doesn't like is to praise it. i've actually toured with the idea that maybe we should raise

the taxes on the 1% because many vote for obama and they deserve it. the more serious part of the theory is if you want people to want less government, mabel they will pay for the government

they're getting and they will want less of it. under obama, we have seen the federal government's share of gdp go from a historic range of 23% in peacetime to 27%. we have already had this wretched with obama care and the stimulus. we're told meet us halfway. they are open to higher revenues but not necessarily higher tax

rates but obama does not want to have that are given. he believes in punitive liberalism to tax the rich. people will have to move off of that if there will be in a move on the republican side to. >> do you want to respond? >> i get a fairly robust response to that. that spending has gone down. the morn 0.10 -- the more important move is that it is more cynical. he has said he is responsive of a plan that includes cuts to medicare, social security, and medicaid which is what the gang of six plan did. you'll have a hard time backing away from that and you have laid down a marker that is very different that republicans rather than john boehner have laid down. as soon as they got to negotiations, erick kanter walked out. -- eric cantor walked out.

we have a population that is aging and living longer. however you want to deal with it, we will have some increases in entitlement although we can curb that rate of growth. when you have taxes at the lowest level of gdp since the 1950's, the idea that cutting them further will enable you to deal with the deficit and the debt, i find that just bizarre. >> the next question. i get this one all the time. this is a classic question of any speaker. we have members of the media here. this is a terrific opportunity to beat up on somebody.

how much does the media make the republican party look more extreme than there really are? is the media a factor here or not? >> there was a saying that went around in the 2004 election that the media was worth 15 points to john kerry. that's wrong. they seem to be able to win despite media criticism, hostility, what ever. also, what's really fun these days is i just watched robert rice giving a speech talking about the good old days when they all watched the same network news. people get their news from all over the place now. the go back and let at this, does not happen as much anymore. i do not tend to play that game usually. >> tom and i have written a lot

about this and i think there is substantial liberal bias back in the 1960's. of course, i think the media environment has changed radically. we have a partisan press that is back to the future than it with much more immediacy. this is not like william randolph hearst which has added to the complications. if you talk about the media, you have to start with that. you live in a world where the self identified members believe the president is not legitimate, it tells you something about the way the media dynamic is working. that has left the mainstream press with a bit of a dilemma.

they have done that by falling back that your report on both sides of the story. your report on both sides of the story. that means there is a holocaust denier and a holocaust victim, you want to give them equal say. i do not think it works. among other things, i think it helps to enable some of the disfunction we have now. go back to the filibuster. when you get news stories that say bills died in the senate when they got a majority of support and died only because of filibuster but you do not mention the filibuster, that seems to me to be an inaccurate way of reporting. >> as may be uncomfortable, but try to imagine romney is elected president and republicans when the senate by picking up six seats or something. should we expect the democrats in opposition to behave just like the republicans are behaving now? do you expect them to be

magnanimous? will they really behave so differently? >> it will be interesting to watch and i think democrats will say, "you did it to us, we'll do it to you." whether they can work together remains to be seen. let me give you a compare bull scenario. imagine in democrat told the senate and romney becomes president. do i think at that point that they will say "screw you" and they will block everything in hold hostage? i think romney will go to democrats in the senate for more frequently than he will the

republicans and say, "please, help me out here." why would that a considerable amount to -- not $10,000, but he would find plenty of democrats willing to cut deals with him. >> one problem they correctly identified in the book is that both parties are subject to enormous pressures. the group's -- i'm trying to think of an example. there's not a formal pledge pe thing. with all of the ways that these political organizations are established, there is another domain on political reform in

general. richard lugar may have a seat you had the old robust separate party organizations that had been undermined by various schemes and so forth that have diminished the power of organizations and increase the power of these other organizations. they cannot come to the rescue of the moderate or long-term serving members. >> we have a problem lead time for one or two more before closing statements. let me start with you. somebody asked was the debt ceiling debate an example of extremism?

or do you think it was inappropriate tool to constrain government? >> i would answer it this way. the fight over the debt ceiling represents the new moment we are in. enough is enough. it is a dangerous thing to do. i'm not very impressed by credit ratings. it the downgrade does not get me terribly excited. the optimists in me thinks that, however this turns out, that the first run of the debt ceiling agenda is a bit of a train wreck. this turned out to be the key moment when people came back and said there would have to see their way through it. we can play lots of games about a lame duck session depending on election results, but i will

stop there. >> is this a modern version of the game of chicken and they play a better than the republicans -- than the democrats? >> on appaled what has happened. you do not play chicken with the full faith and credit of the united states. it's true. we're one of only two countries that does and you are ratifying previous debts and it has been a political football ever since we have done this. it is almost funny as you look at them exchanging scripps with each other. the level of hypocrisy as a stand up and vote against the debt limit that you will stand firm for fiscal responsibility. then you take the script from the other guy.

the fact is every time in the past, the leaders know it was a game and they were not actually going to endanger the full faith and credit of the united states. i view standard and poor as both standard and poor. the politics of this leave us with no confluence that you'll be able to manage the future. these of the political equivalent of "the avengers" but they can't act. the does to me we're operating on dangerous ground here. we can get away with it a long

as there's no other reserve currency and other systems are doing worse than we are but it's not a game i believe we should be playing. we were discussing his position on raising the debt ceiling. would you really push hard enough. it is reasonably bright and articulate. yes, everyone would know it would be a technical default. it would just be a technical default.

i do not know if that is radical or different. closing statements and then a brief conclusion. apparently we're beginning with steve, a five minute closing statement on whether the republican party now is too extreme. >> ok. let me start my time. it's in the cannot conclude that there are too extreme when you begin with the odd premise that democrats and liberals are merely pragmatic problem solvers. it seemed to be extreme and rolling back the clock. this seems to be avoiding the issue very clearly and is distortion test. we have talked about some of the

reforms that norm suggests about the filibuster, voting forms, and so forth, which i think would make very little difference. you can find this at newcriterion.com and they make it challenging argument.