tweet about sports or show sports that we have. networks, other cable etworks, i think everybody understands they're quite valuable. >> more of what's happening in today's cable industry from this year's annual cable show with leaders of two of the country's companies.mmunication the communicators, monday night at 8:00 eastern on c-span 2. levine, k, yuval national affairs editor on public ssays and thought. your wikipedia site has in the second sentence, "he had quote, probably the

most influential concerted era."lectual of the obama what does that mean? >> that's a good question? >> jonathan chate. the course of criticizing me. >> practical questions to deeper currents, theoretical or philosophical currents. an intellectual is someone who the world into a series or image b he has. so if you take a broader view of a notion that an intellectual tries to connect theory and practice, then maybe that's right. that's certainly part of what my work tries to do. >> the information on your doing so many you things, what's the number one thing you do for a living. national editor of

affair which is is a quarterly public of essays on policy and i'm the fellow of the washington. re in >> what do you do? editing, means editing. academic academics, think tank individuals we might say again. how do we fix social security? we fix it. american principles, the ideals, the challenges of this moment. my job is to find the writers, find them write for us, edit it's read make sure to get it noticed. as a think tank scholar, my job questions, toublic write about them, to try to influence the public debate in various ways. my work on that front is in the area of health care and budget questions. work some on,y to

again, deeper philosophical questions, questions about how relates to theory in american politics. >> where did this all start for you. well, where did it really start? o i started in washington as a college student. i came to washington to go to university. and in the course of studying in american university, studying i worked in ence, capitol hill really on the first eek of my -- of my freshman year as a college student. >> who did you work for? >> bob frank, a wonderful member congress. remember, the house of inning -- new jersey and passed away this year after a long cancer.ith a wonderful member of congress and on the budget committee. i worked for him for a year and half. i worked for the budget committee because of him after that and then to newt gingrich, speaker oh it was house, the last year or so. >> what do you take away from gingrich experience?

>> you know, working in congress extraordinary n thing for a young person who's interested in politics. i recommend it to everybody. an open place, much more so than you would imagine. time i spent in washington, the less cynical i become about it. believe conspiracy theories when you actually work in washington. happens here, peop people, human beings, all the down trying to advance the good of the country as they understand it, it's complicated that's what human beings are. are. it's an open process. incredibly hard for people trying to do the right thing. matters what happens in politics. changes the at it course of the country. gingrich was a problematic speaker. i learned a lot of respect

for people in public life. it's very, very difficult. to be a it like conservative today? >> this is a challenging time be a conservative. we have a democratic -- a liberal democratic president, elected putting in ed after projects that are wrong headed. the public had a chance to think they did re-elect him. it's challenging. it's an exciting time if what trying to do is as a -- i'd say i try to do and many trying to do is bringize conservatism and in line what we face now and help conservatives and therefore the rest of the country think about how to confront the in the 21st century. neither side doing a good job of that. opportunity for thinking about what america and

to changeentury needs about the way it governs itself to get back to economic growth, and toback to prosperity get back to the cultural revival that we need. so it's challenging but it's exciting. >> go back to before american university? yeah. >> you came to this country from israel? >> i did. i was born in israel in the city of haifa in the northwest of israel. when i washe country 8 years old. my family came because of economic reasons mostly. really my y because father was always drawn to merican culture, to the american dream. he owned a small construction israel. in in the early '80s, the israeli was in trouble. it was time to make a change. my father was an american born in the wrong place and kind of

home. he's one of the most american as a i know which i mean compliment. he came here as a small child. new jersey. became interested in politics arlier than i can remember, i guess. but it was something i wanted to and obably in high school saw in college that maybe it was. >> can you remember when you had views, st strong political views, and why? in a sense, i was always a conservative. it had to do with my father a conservative. also, as a very young person, was of what appealed to me it's countercultural. it was unexpected. i'm jewish. up in new jersey. i'm an immigrant. not supposed to be a conservative. something about the way of me.nking that appealed to

there's the idea of freedom, understood in the american way that appealed to me. say you come what you become. drawn to the intellectual side of conservatism probably in high school. good friend of called e me a book "snake craft is soul craft" which i probably would have been 16 or so. too much to say it changed my life. it opened me up to a way of that i about politics didn't quite know i was searching for. and, you know, i never stopped book. that >> have you told george will that? >> i did tell him that. he doesn't agree with everything in that book anymore which you can kind of see in his writing too. but, you know, more than just the specific arguments of the with moreough i agree than he does these days, the way f thinking, the way of a way hing politics in

grounded in philosophy and history that takes politics seriously as a human endeavor that's about finding the truth and the best way of life, it appealed to me enormously. >> what did you do for george w. bush? >> i was a member of the domestic policy staff in the grounded in philosophy and history that takes politics seriously as a human endeavor that's about i went to graduate school in an interdisciplinary graduate rogram combining theory with economics with classics, literature. and it helps you form your own study.of one of my teachers there is leon 2001, when president bush was elected became chairman of the ethics commission. some cause i had washington experience, he brought me back to washington with him. i worked there. he staff director of the council for a while. from there, went to the bush white house. so from the bush white house, i a member of the domestic policy staff, i worked on health

care mostly. bioethic s? >> it's a branch of ethics that philosophy.of it's thinking about the moral implications of biotechnology, less.r so today that off means stem cells. originally means meant more so the ethics of medicine, the relationship and patient of the place of medicine in our social life and cultural life. it's a branch of philosophy that thinks about modern science. give us in a nutshell of what you think about obama care. >> i say say it's reckless. issues on health care on the hill too. an encapsulation of the liberal way of thinking of health care. they'veething like what been trying to do for a long time.

t's wrong headed because it embodies the notion that what's wrong is a lack of centralized control, lack of order. silly idea. the basic challenge in health care is really how you control costs. problem we have presents itself on the face of things in people can t enough afford insurance and we have uninsured in america and the federal , the government is going broke paying for health care, medicare and medicaid. two two things pull in different directions. on one hand, we need to spend more on insurance so we have uninsured. on the other hand, we're going broke spending money on insurance. the reason they happen at the health insurance costs too much. the question is for people who seriously think about it on the right is how do you control the costs? what it reveals is a deep division between the left and right. a familiar division. the left says the reason costs system is ause the disorderly, chaotic, a lot of

afferent interests pulling in lot of different directions and no one is looking out for the interest, getting the people a lower cost. the onservative answer is system is opaque. no crisis, no one pays for their coverage.or no one knows what anything costs. came home to me in the bush white house. we tried for a period of several a factoid igure out for the state of the union add dress. what's the average cost of a hip replacement surgery in america as a way of talking about health care costs. no answered there was to that question. there are no prices in american health care, not really. and conservatives think that the reason the costs go up so quickly is there are no economic incentives, all directed towards inflating costs because no one what they're getting. so everyone has an incentive to spend more and more and more. is a system eed that's more market oriented.

and in that sense, it's less orderly, more chaotic. the ironic proof, the of terintuitive truth capitalism is that chaos produces efficiency. there's a real deep difference of opinion between left and right about that. care, but out health the difference of opinion about economics for a long time. obama care is the embodiment of the liberal view of this. it's a mistake. >> the liberal publications have n interesting time writing about you. are you surprised about that? >> yeah, some. it's always a little surprising to sit in front of a computer and write about subjects that anyone would take an interest. kristol.adline, baby editor of "national affairs," levine has acquired conservative movement's great intellectual hope.

higher hopesre are than that. that thing is flattering. it's he other quote, basically use in the service of criticizing me. that's fine too. >> he calls you a pop yue loseever. what does that mean? >> i'm not sure. populizer means in hat is i try to make it accessible to readers, politicians, anybody who cares to take an interest. about health care, you try to start at a place where people understand, speaks to experience. and draw them from there to the deeper questions of the questions, the philosophical questions. pop yue t say i'm a of today's agenda, it needs to be changed and focused on the working families which is

now.ng if i make policy questions more understandable, that's what we in national affairs, for example. people work e the and make it accessible to the world. the >> what does it cost to buy affairs" for a year? >> $27.95. for free.t is on-line we want readers to have access o these ideas and to these proposals. a fair amount of it. it's worth reading and paying because you get electronic access to the rest of it. it's sold in bookstores and country and the you can subscribe and get it in the mail every quarter. >> how do you pay for it? how do we pay for it? n some part from subscribers but a large part from donors. a nonprofit organization. so donations from foundations

of our work. --can you tell us >> the bradley foundation, the as foundation which does well. nd from some individual donors to get the intellectual efforts like paul singer. >> what does it mean you got the bradley prize and a $250,000 check. >> it's nice. he bradley prize is a annual award given by the bradley foundation which is a based hropic foundation in wisconsin that the award is to people who is the selection committee that the oundation chooses thinks has advanced the cause of protecting american institutions or strengthening american institutions. they've been giving it now for ten years, given to four people each year. i'm one of the four this year.

kass.o leon uh you started with him? >> i started with him. said.re's what he >> i've been working on these for years. strained chemistry in biochemistry. but it struck me there were important moral and human and social questions aised by biomet call advance that the powers that were equired to intervene in the human body and mind, powers the cluttering for humanitarian purposes for curing disease and human suffering are powers that alter human nature and what it means to be a and if we're not us down the lead road of "a brand new world," i laboratory e of the to worry about the discoveries

and written and thought about these things. the president of the united states said, look, these are important questions. i'm serious about this. like for you to lead a group of scholars on these matters and try to help me with help me ons and education the public is what no. -- one cannot say >> what did the council do in our opinion while you were there. how long were you with george bush? > i worked at the council and worked at the white house domestic policy staff for three years. i served six of the eight years administration. the council was called together president on bioethical issues. embryonic t funding stem cell research. in 2001 before september 11, one big issues that the new resident faced is the question of whether and how the federal government should fund the embryo research. involved the destruction of human embryos which means the

human life to a lot of us. the question of it was moral given the promise of it, the potential, to spend that money on the research. the president made the decision that you could spend money on cells that existed at that point but not on new ones o you wouldn't use federal dollars to further the embryos.on of human these issues would stay with us. 18 scholars. almost all of them academics. from universities who would come together several times a year, consider bioethical question that has some kind of policy implications and provide advice the administration and really to the country in the form of reports.ons and the they wrote a report on cloning and stem cell research. on wrote a report enhancement technologies, ways

human abilities. they wrote reports on caring for the aging, dementia, other issues. think the council did important work. t's important work in the long run. it's direct effect on public policy is very hard to judge. called that council together after they made the stem cell decision. they didn't shape that decision. their work was useful in a in certain ys particular junctures where those kinds of questions were central, more important lasting influences in the report stagings. >> what has this president done in the same area. >> this president undid bush's stem cell policy and allowed the funding of new lines -- the creation of cells.es of he doesn't believe that the destruction of the human embryo tantamount to taking of a

human life. spending it's worth public money on it. >> in some ways, you two are in country.part of the you spent a lot of your life in the university of chicago? lot of my life. i was present there for three and wrote a doctoral did mostly in d.c. against obama before most people did. i voted for the other guy who ran against him. he was my state senator. >> did you know him? >> in, i didn't know him. i don't think i ever really encountered him. he was teaching part time in the in the law hen but school. i wasn't aware of them. >> what's your sense of why, you stem cell ome to the issue this way and he comes to it that way. where did that come from? yeah, its's a challenging question. come to the conclusion -- i because i issue

think all men were created equal. that's true. it's a fact of american life. the fact that calls us to be the bestselves. when we think of human life, at the beginning, can't needs,to us of its pains, wants. we have to work to understand that is a human being. that's how all human beings begin. that's where human life begins. fact, we have to limit what we do. what we do to a human being. it's useful to us to use that human person as less of a human person. we should restrain ourselves and other ways, there are other ways to advance the medical

that.rch without doing the president does not think that what he -- what he endorses the taking of a human life. he wouldn't endorse it if he did. ow he gets to that point, it seems to me, and, of course, i start out from a different place. to be critical of his way of thinking. it seems to me he gets to that end and not from the beginning thinking first of how useful it would be to use reasons or r other thinking first about on the question of abortion, for instance, about thinking first the freedom of the adult about the er than eeds and exigencies of the young person. he persuades himself that human life begins later. birth, viability, we can invent all kinds of things. nonarbitrary place to set that point of the beginning than the beginning, conception, a new comes into being. as a biological matter, there's

there's ation of when new human being that didn't exist before. to me, we have certain minimal, but at least the obligation not to take on life of that human being person. >> another thing you said to why did george will change his way of thinking since he read the book that had an impact on you. more of a libertarian now than he was. that book presents a kind of of unity-centered vision conservatism. what ues for an idea of that ment can achieve understands first and foremost, community, a rich notion of community. he argued then and believed this enthat government has an role to play, a limited and important role to that n that sphere governments help to shape citizens. one of the things that helped to of the e character american citizen is the nature of america's government.

he takes that to be less he's more ow or worried about the down side of government. it's understandable. down side about the of the government as well. any conservative today would be. ways mericans in various are. continue to think there's no escaping the fact that the government shapes who we are as citizens. e take an approach to government, seriously, hold it in high regard. in order to hold it in high sure , we have to make that it's the government that works well in the sphere that t's supposed to work in, to be respected, it has to be respectable. and our government has some respectable around here. >> i want to ask you to help of ne the nuances conservatism. 2005 several years ago. late paul wyrick was in the chair there. he said this. this?hat you think of our culture is continuing to

decline decline. working on a marriage amendment, something i that t was self-evident marriage was between a man and a woman. having difficulty trying to get this passed. not succeeding in changing return to a time values mattered. they're less and less important in society. done, ll is said and doesn't matter if you have a minimum wage or not or a trade if, in fact, ve, the moral fabric of the society has disintegrated. >> what about the morals, the

values? definition of his values might be different from today? > well, let me -- let me start in a general way. -- ink conservatism is the the difference between conservatives and liberals, a rofound difference, is that conservatives begin from a and limited notion expectations of what human beings can achieve, what human knowledge or power can achieve. of those expectation, they value highly the achievements that we have in our society, the things that work. to preserve them. they want to save the preconditions for those things continuing to work. liberals tend to begin from higher expectations, the notion greater perfectibility in the human being, higher expectations of human knowledge and power. for that reason, they start out with a sense of outrage about what's failing. do a lot we can better. they don't appreciate by

appreciating what's best. by trying to undo and root out what is worse. both things are valuable, important, and necessary. but they're quite different. if you start looking at a world both good things and bad things and the first grateful for be the good, to build on it. or you start with the world and bad and the first instinct is to be outraged worse root out what is based on an idea of what could best, an idea of perfectibility. you approach politics. part is a sense that what works about our society has to be protected rare, because it's enormously valuable, and because it could be lost very easily. conservatives care a lot about culture because culture is the things, theain those work about our society. any human society is always under constant barrage by new member, people who are born without all of the great

progressive notions of what we can do. we're all born barbarians and we have to be trained to become people.ed the culture is what does that. turn a it possible to newborn human being to conservatism. easily.sn't happen one of the most important things that any society has to do at preserve time is to that. to worry about the culture in the way in which it can train he next generation to the footsteps. so culture matters ap enormous amount to conservatives. granted it's being there and we have to build n it, it has to constantly be nourished. >> someone out there today that you've seen in public life that do, what youhat you think would possibly have a get elected? >> getting elected president? >> president. perfectly. no one represents you perfectly. a great public life. paul ryan, an impressive figure

that's become best known on issues. the chairman of the house budget committee. but also deeper questions. talking more and more about the problem of community. >> a relationship with him? with him a ork little bit. i'm very impressed with him. e's one of the more intellectually serious members of congress and an impressive one. rubio is impressive. he's a interesting conservative figure.al a biography that's very different than most. like most of at's the democratic politicians and makes them understand the ways don't naturally disagree with them think in a way that's very important. bobby jindal, the governor of louisiana is a lot of ways, chris christie, the governor of impressive in a lot of ways. >> what about this guy? easy for us as conservatives to look at the election, to look at

exultant, unabashed embrace to the left and have moments to spare. let me say, this room is critical to preventing that to happen. "national review" has a long history of standing at the door history and yelling, "halt." can stop this. we can turn it around. am, right now, incredibly, incredibly theyistic that together as say, it's always darkest before on the , that we are verge of a rebirth of conservatism. >> he and marco rubio have a different approach. they're both cuban-americans. yeah. >> which one do you think will be the most appealing?

it remains to be seen. >> yeah. a new senatorz is from texas. a very impressive guy. he's held a lot of impressive positions, including in the bush administration. to be more of a populist conservative than marco rubio. he sees himself more of representing a kind of tea party anxiety. marco rubio thought of as a tea party guy too, in a lot of ways is. think the distinction between hem is about the connection of rhetoric and policy. so the criticism i have about republican politicians now is they're not turning their rhetoric into policy. there's a lot of talk. lot of it is very constructive talk and very useful talk. trying to use lessons from the last elections in ways that are important. but it needs to be turned into a policy agenda.

there's a sense people i agree lot of ways and people whose rhetoric i find myself nodding my head to. they tend to think that conservatism means in practice is just less, less of the same. what it has to mean in practice is a transformation of the way we think about government in america. reform agenda. reform of our governing nstitutions, and conservatism, if it's going be an electable has to be a governable majority. it has to think about how we govern the country. marco rubio is trying do that. you can disagree or agree about trying to do it, but he's trying to translate the that you r concern hear from ted cruz about the direction he's taking to the years is translate to to a different direction. you're not seeing that enough. fellow who is governing now. in that chair 5 didn't define conservatism.

this?o you think of >> i think labels come as a result of the political philosophy. case, your voting record. if you look at my voting record, and if you look at my political it's conservative. i have one of the most in ervative voting records the united states senate. suppose some people are perplexed by that because i challenge my republican administration on the war and issues and detainee issues. but i -- i -- i do what i think s right and i say what i think is right. and i don't ever worry about is that republican or democrat or a conservative or mott rate thing to do. that's the way i've done life. ing in my >> how does a conservative like chuck hagel end up in that district? i think he agrees with obama a lot of tion with things.

it was his choice for the secretary. he knew 2 president when they senators together and they got along well. i disagree. you're it matters that part of a party and a movement. spirited truly public person has to see himself as part of the team in politics. when a person says he's simply independent, he calls things as sees them, everybody calls things as he sees them. there aren't people, at least in my experience of politicians in washington, there aren't a lot of people who simply do what the party says. but they work with the party because the only way to really make your political ideas matter to work with other people who basically agree with you. agree %, no two people entirely about everything, but i do think it's important to make party work. to make a political movement work. common effort. it's inevitably a common effort.

a person who holds himself above saying well, i'm just me, calling the shots that i need them, is both not showing respect for the people in the arena. they're all calling shots as they see them. being serious about making his political ideas real. through to be done party. partnership doesn't deserve the reputation. it's a way of moderating people's views and a way of making people more practical. it's a way of making democratic politics more possible. man that talks about neoconservatism, charles krauthammer. >> they started out as liberal. and the -- the dean of irving christal once said, was mugged by reality evolved in time to

conservatism. number one. if you asked a conservative in 1968, a seminole year, he'd say lyndon johnson. lyndon he would say johnson. and a conservative would say goldwater. that's one distinction. are you a neoconservative? >> i was born in 1977. people he's talking about had mostly made their move by then. just means the term a little less than it used to. it's come to be understand, a foreign policy. that happened through the 1980s and became a much more prominent really in the last decade. but i do identify with a lot of neoconservatives. they did not moving from left to right and the reason they moved from left to right is they tried to apply -- they tried to apply

politics in a to led them to conservatism. they tried to be liberal, concrete, and constructive. were a little less theoretical and more engaged in olitics than the earlier generations of conservatives. i'm drawn to that. politicst matters that be practical. they need to answer the needs of it country at the moment and matters that it be policy oriented. respect, i look up to irving crystal as a great intellectual model. people in my generation do -- i don't think that istinguishes conservatives and neoconservatives anymore. it doesn't mean as much from learned from ho the two strands together and have combined this emin their thinking and practice. younger conservatives are not

ivided in the same lines as older ones. there's not the same division etween libertarians and conservatives as there used to be. it still does. in the hesis attempt 1950s and succeeded in the 1980s we grew up in. so it's a bigger tent to begin with. most admire in history. know you're doing a book on edmond burke and thomas paine, what book do you have on your to ves that you go to first define your views? is a man i rke admire enormously. practice d theory and and politics or philosophy and and politic in a way that's constructive. his conservatism is a way to s a guide, not always, not every respect. a lot.have changed edmond burke was an irish-born

the 18th litician in century. he was born in 1879 and died in 1797. and was very important in a very british period in politics. the era of the french revolution, the american great regeneral city crisis. nd burke was a voice for a new kind of reform-minded conservatism. >> how long was he a member of british peril. [. >> for 32 years. arena.s his great he only read one book before he politics. wrote a lot of pamphlets, gave a a lot of great speeches. he connected his practice to ideas. al >> why did you combine him with thomas paine? >> well, the idea is that really debate -- the argument is the burke and payne first real entrance that emerge

the french and american revolutions. brooke and payne were contemporaries. each other. they exchanged letters. great english debate was centered around burke and payne. staunch opponent of the french revolution. book. a kind of a pamphlet called "reflections of the revolution and friends." payne was a champion of the french revolution. he was in paris and he wrote a of man" "the rights was a direct answer to burke. burke answered them. debate got an enormous amount of attention. the book later this year, in the debate of the and the world on deeds they laid out in general over decades of political life, embodied what became the left and the right. they were liberals, classical liberals. advanced the vision of

government that we would quite a kind of angulo american vision and they came at hem at different places and thought about it in different ways. this distinction you start out what works teful of or angry about what doesn't work. isrything that flows from it evident and powerfully evidence writing. it's useful to think about the left and the right for all they credibilitiry. >> when will we see that book? >> the book will be out in december. the extension in some ways of my academic work of the wrote to get my phd. in the university of chicago. refined.ered and it tells the story of their debate. breaks it down to the ideas they argue about. meaning of nature and politics, the meaning of choice and obligation and of rights and of reason. power of human knowledge or limits of it.

they use the arguments because ath were engaged in politics the same time they were theoretically minded, to use their arguments to think about left and the right are, or at least what they were to begin with. another name attached to you. roger herring to, how does that work? roger hertog is it a donor to causes.tive made he's a financier, he a lot of money on wall street nd given a lot to intellectual efforts on the right -- mostly on the right. new s involved in the republic can for a while. he supports intellectual work. me s the donor who supports at the other two economic policy centers. supports a lot of important intellectua intellectuals. hertog do you think roger spent money. >> a great and wonderful mystery

in my world. do it as a see it in my country. it's a cause they believe in. it happens on the left and on the right. are not s that political at all too. medical research and other things. themselves a lot of money and feel like they ought to give something to the country. what's ways to advance most important to them. and if what's most important to life ofthe intellectual the country, they give to intellectual causes. exist, how think tanks in general work in function. and so a lot of the life depends to he willingness of people support such work. >> who's your favorite liberal? favorite liberal? my favorite liberal thinker? liberals y favorite work at the brookings institution which is a centrist liberal place.

o big golfson, he thinks of things 234 ways that are useful. of liberal critics that i read. a lot of liberal politicians who are too. of 've got another left center magazine. >> washington monthly. how do you define this magazine? to the left.azine it publishes a lot of serious serious things to say. i read it, subscribe to it. magazine. ious >> ryan cooper wrote an article that brought you to our may-june in the edition. it's called reformish conservatives. that u came out on top of and we'll show on the screen you had -- there where they

raited all of the conservatives. finished fluence, you with the highest number, ten, the most influence in the republican world. the reformish score is low. >>'work on that. >> it's funny, my friend who's on the reformish score and i said about it. anything that the two of oh us disagree. so it's hard to say i know one of what they mean by us being more inclined to reform conservatism. not.s, i'm more influential. but it's hard to say what that means. things i argued for are not currently in the republican officer holders. it's not easy to say what it

means. it profile didn't define either. but what i argue for and a lot profiled who wither there, a way of applying onservative ideas about what government ought to do, what the economy ought to be like, to today's problems, to the problems of working families who are facing higher health care costs, higher education costs. a lot of what the conservative policy agenda is still directed to in some ways are problems of early 1980s. if you thought that hyperinflation and high marginal tax rates were the main problems today, then you'd be very happy ith the conservative policy agenda or the things that the governor romney ran on in the election. those aren't really the may job prosecutors we have. think of how conservatives in the earlier decades got to the agendas, that i ought to begin there. hat are the country's problems and how are our ideas applying

to those problems? that with we did reference to today's problems, we come out with a different agenda. > david stock more was here recently. he's a conservative. has strong things to say about conservatives he who love ronald reagan will probably disagree. let's watch. > i think the success that's been attributed to reaganomics is totally unwarranted. had the greatest keynesian 1981 to the from year mgs. first bush those years were all really the reagan program. that rebounded volcker killed inflation. they established a precedent for continuous chronic massive peacetime deficits and put the party, the old gates, of the treasury

into the position that cheney so ineloquently expressed, deficits don't matter. of that was the beginning the end. if there's not a conservative is defending the reasury, the taxpayers, you're going to have a free lunch competition between tax cultevers, the republicans, and democrats. he >> what do you think? >> i think that's much too options we w of the have. reagan wouldn't have agreed to sense, he saw the economy not in terms of taxing and spending but in terms of growth.r fail your to and what the reagan revolution and economic policy achieved was resurgence of growth, of economic growth. growth, really, is the only way deficit trap d of we're in. with those that there was a failure in the reagan

years to in the bush contain federal spending. >> why was it? >> its's difficult to contain federal spending. if it's not tonight priority, it's difficult to make sure that easier to ause it's achieve other important things. >> you're scared to death of the debt? >> scared to death of the debt? i think debt is a big problem. of healthe trajectory care spending, which is distinct it, the deficit related to is a big problem. that becomes impossible to contain in the coming decade. if it glows at rates that are lower than what they were in decade. health care spending has slowed some. trajectory of medicare and medicaid spenting is not sustainable. a huge problem. of ink the size and scope the depth we have now is not sustainable because interest uncontrollable and interest costs cannot be

legislated away. you owe them.hem, i think debt is a huge problem. but the way to get out of that out of that problem foremost, first and economic growth. important to reduce federal spending in ways, but that's part of the solution. what to goat is get at growth. and n retained inflation brought growth back. that really did succeed in making possible the other thing that happened in that period, the '80s and the which was extraordinarily strong economic growth. that made it possible for the economy to rebound. there's no question that should aroundant that we turned and reduced federal spending. the economic growth we had did balanced budget for a short time in the '90s.

growth stopped. the choice is continuing on the state or lfare austerity. i think two things are the same thing. they're two sides of the same coin. austerity is what happens if we continue down that path. it becomes their only option.

economic llowing growth. reducing spending is a big part of that. cutting spending the the essence of the goals we should have. remember when the iraq war was about to start. think it was paul wolfowitz that said it would cost us about $60 million. larry lindsey, economic advisor at the time said it's going to cost $200 billion and he lost his job. yeah. >> it's now cost, what, $1 trillion. >> more than that. larry left his job. it probably had something to do with it. very expensive. nd the war in afghanistan was expensive as well. national defense is the first priority. f the leaders decide that's what's to be done, we spend

money on that. f that was the right decision or not, people on that side may side.been on the wrong i don't think thinking about iraq through the fiscal lens is think about it. deficits were low and then came the crash. he iraq war is not the reason we're facing large deficit. the failure of growth is the reason we're facing large and we're poorly sput suited to getting back to growth today. we're poorly suited for a lot of ways. the government lumbers along our welfare state that's very inefficie inefficient. education system is not well suited to creating the welfare workers withe need in the future. regulations are targeted to consolidating the economy rather it to grow.g economic growth is a function of

two things. postworld war ii period, we went through an explosion of the labor markets. boomers entered the workforce. women entered the workforce. nd we had the productivity explosions. one after the other, the technological advances allowed to become more productive. the workforce is not growing that way anymore. be. not going to the baby-boomers are leaving the workforce, retiring. that kind way to have of growth again, even through immigration and anything else we imagine right now. solidarity matters. we have to care for people who harmed by the social and cultural effects of the welfare state, globalization. other forces that are hard to control. the collapse of marriage, the

collapse of the family among the poor. we also have to worry about productivity growth at the same time. national that our leaders in the coming decades are going to have difficult to face.s neither party at this point is how to think about it. barack obama?rate he's not a very good president. think that he -- i disagree with the agenda he's trying to extent that he succeeded in advancing is not good for the country. agenda of the consolidation of the economy rather than growth. it's an agenda of the the health n of sector rather than growth. very poorly thought out economic stimulus, fairly poorly thought regulations.l i've been opposed to a lot of hat's happened under president obama. he's not well suited to being

the chief executive of the federal government. doesn't like the management side of his job. he doesn't particularly like the political side of his job. he's not all that good at bringing people together. the leader we needed in this period. to do with ething our sluggish recovery. 50 who are you the biggest fan of? >> the president? yeah. >> in a way, it's an easy question. abraham lincoln. lincoln saved the union and same time, y at the which seemed like it would be impossible to do at the same time. was impossible. incoln is an impossible figure between his intellectual prowess, rhetoric, statesmanship, his achievement.

extraordinary president. needed at that moment in this country. amazing he was there. george washington similarly was an indispensable man as a lot of people have called him an impressive figure. huge fan of ronald reagan. us out of a get moral slump. he helped to give us our when ence back at a time we really needed it and he helped in a concrete way to get growing and, of course, to end the cold war. i have to admire franklin domestic whose policies i disagreed with in a ways, he was an xtraordinary figure when we needed one. > he's the editor of "national affair's" quarterly and a lot of other things.

we thank you. >> thank you. british prime minister david cameron takes questions from the house of common sense. then the house of common sense members are briefed on the g-8 northern ireland. after that,

jonathan alter talks about his latest book "the center holds" and the president's second term agenda. david gruber from the healthcare industry group looks at how hospitals that have a large percentage of uninsured patients may be hurt financially by the healthcare law. we will have a conversation with the founder of the witness protection program. "washington journal lowe's quote live at 7:00 a.m. eastern on c-span. -- "washington journal" live at 7:00 a.m. eastern on c-span.