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ers to the president? my next guest has done it and lived to tell the story. austan goolsbee was chairman of president obama's council of economic visors for two years now he's an economics professor at the university of chicago's booth school of business. but more importantly at the white house correspondents dinner this past april i asked him for a prediction for the next jobs report. even after a drink or two, he nailed it. austan, i hope your numbers are always that good. thanks for your time tonight. >> they are. i appreciate you remembering that. >> eliot: i wouldn't have minded if you were wrong but you have everybody's respect as an economic wizard. what is it like to walk into the oval office and say mr. president, here are the numbers, and sometimes they're not so good. >> well, it feels better when they're good than bad, but before me the tradition somewhat was if the numbers were good,

they wanted to give it themselves. and if they were bad, they would send one of the staffers to deliver it. i changed that. either way i would go tell it like it was. it's usually--if they're bad it's usually grim. if they're good, sometimes i like to mess with the president a little asand, do you want the good news or the bad news. and then he would say, what is it with you economists, the good news and bad news. then i would say i'm messing with you there is no bad news. >> eliot: maybe because you left all the bad news after you left. >> my heart couldn't take it. >> eliot: you lived through a tough, tough stretch. brought us back from the edge of economic cataclysm and i think everyone is indebted for what you did during this period and for that contribution. i want to turn serious. the jobs numbers were ambiguous what is your take on where we are right now? >> well, the first thing and i

used to say when the numbers are good or bad, no matter what the numbers are, you never take one month's numbers as meaning anything because it's highly variable. the payroll numbers plus or minus 100,000. so it gives you an idea of what the margin of error is. the unemployment rate was 8.253%. and so that was rounded up to 8.3. the 163,000 was actually pretty solid. that was encouraging. you got to see more months like that before you are going to say, hey we're starting to turn a corner. but that was about double what was expected. it was well more than what i thought it would be. i thought that overall it was a pretty good month. >> eliot: look, if you look back at six- to nine-month time period, it's not something that you can draw a trendline, but you have about 150,000 net jobs per month, which is okay, but it isn't make a real dent in terms

of the unemployment rate which is hovering above 8%. you walk into the oval office and do one thing or two things and really begin job creation, what would they be? what is left in the arrest arsenal and what levers can be pushed? >> on the policies levers there is not much that you can do right now we know that. there is no secret to the jobs numbers. they're tied to how fast the economy overall is growing. we saw the unemployment rate come down at a pretty significant clip at the ending of last year and beginning of this year, we grew about 3.5%, and then slowed down because of events in europe predominantly and so the jobs numbers get bad. hopefully this is a sign that we're getting the growth rate up. i think everything that you can do to transition the economy

away from bubble-based growthers which is what we had. consumer spending and housing construction, which is not con stainable, and shift it to manufacturing exports investment led growth which we can sustain, that's what we got to do. that takes time. that's why this has not been the shape. because unlike other deep recessions we can't go back to doing what we were doing before the resayings began. >> eliot: you're talking about is much more fundamental transformation rather than using monitory policy to boost construction or spending. you're talking about something much more difficult. if you look at mitt romney's tax proposal and strategy, critique it for us? will it lead to the transformation that you're talking about? >> no, it's ridiculous. it's quite literally designed by the same people who designed george bush's tax and economic policies when he came into office and it's the same policy. it's huge tax cuts for high

income people and companies and counting on that to trickle down an increase to growth rate. you may seen the romney campaign is claiming that their tax policy will increase the number of jobs by 12 million. but i just remind people the last time they did that exact policy, we lost 1 million jobs over the president george bush's first term. it was more than 1 million less than the job creation that has been in the private sector under president obama. >> eliot: but austan, i'm confused. mitt romney keeps talking to me about job creators. don't we need to lower their marginal rates? they're not going to invest if we don't give them a negative tax rate? >> you're on exactly the point that just makes no sense. if these were jack magic bean stalk beans, what happened in 2000 why did we have myselfly

growth followed by a giant economic collapse? there is no evidence. if high-income people after tax income goes up and tax cuts to the top were job creating, we should have been a wash in jobs. after the 2000 we cut their taxes more than they ever have been cut. >> eliot: they don't want to stoit history, these guys are out to lunch and they don't get it. our gdp is back to where it was before the cataclysm of '08, yet we have 5 million fewer jobs. which means that productivityity productivity is up, efficiency is up. but we're not bringing jobs back because efficient is and productiveity is up. how do we get the productiveity reflected in wages and trigger triggering companies who are doing everything but hiring workers right now. >> you've identified the

problem. that's the fundamental--not a puzzle but a challenge that we face. how do we translate what has been dramatic product dramatic productivity growth how do we translate that into more hiring? i think the thing that has slowed down the hiring has been people are just nervous. there is not demand. they see china slowing down. they see the events going on in europe and the possibilities of financial catastrophe there and they hesitate. let's wait. now there is a mild optimism in that. if we could get past the uncertainty about the fiscal cliff, if we could get past the uncertainties of europe and china, i think there is money to be invested, and the product i the productty has gonefully in their favor. i think educating and improving the skill base of our workforce is important.

but partly we've just got to get the overall world economy back growing at a steady pace so people feel like there is not a chance that the floor could fall open and everyone will fall in the ocean again. >> eliot: real quick. i only have a couple of seconds left. back to politics in the white house with the number 8.3 it's rounded from 8.2 and change, they got to appreciate the likelihood of getting below 8% before election day is pretty slim. is that a blow to the white house? >> you know, it might be a little bit. as i say in 2009 the official forecast of the u.s. government in the fall of 2009 was that the unemployment rate in the fall of 2012 would be 8.2%. so i think on some broad level we're basically where they thought we would be. it would certainly--it would have been nicer if they could get it down to below 8%, but it does seem like unlikely at this point. >> eliot: austan goolsbee proving that his predictions are

on the mark, council of economic advisers now economics proffer at the university of chicago's booth school of business. thank you for your insights and predictions. viewfinder next.

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>> eliot: coming up, progressives have the right values for america. now if we can only convince voters. but first olympic spoilers alerts, will ferrell's favorite entertainment and the fifth beetle? with when it doesn't fit anywhere else, we put it the view finder. >> u.s. women's gymnastic team? >> boom, boom, boom, they nailed it. they left the china and russians in tears and they clinched the gold which they haven't had since 199. it was pretty amazing stuff. >> it was so great to see those little russian girls crying.

[ . >> what? >> oh, my god, i was just laughing so hard. >> you hear, and you think of the beatles that's going through my head. >> i do actually when you say that. the beatles won the gold? >> the results are out there. nbc, they make a lot of money to air those things. >> this is olympic spoiler alert. >> the spoiler fest going on out there. >> now is the time to turn away for just a moment okay, okay. >> then they go, the tv is muted, and-- >> is there some way we can find out which kids are worth investing in instead of just spraying kids with cash like a hose? that's wasteful. but we want all the kids to win the race. >> i like the idea of racing children. you raise money. >> i don't think that-- >> put them in harnesses and

have even smaller children race them. >> as you know by now, senator wreathed claims an unnamed source at bain capital told him romney hadn't paid taxes for ten years. >> i heard from a guy who said that he didn't do it. >> the word is out that for the past ten years harry reid has been beating his wife. >> i have an unnamed source in kenya who says that obama was born in kenya. >> people can say whatever they want and before you know it it's mainstream news because opinion double checks and gets two sources any more. people can say what they want about people. presidential candidates or not and it's news. >> if you weren't born in this country, you cannot be president. >> you think he wasn't born in this country? >> i am really concerned. >> eliot: donald's concern. that does not concern me. how can progressives sell their ideas better? we'll get some help coming up.

>> we talk a lot about the influence of money in politics. it is the defining issue of this era. the candidate with the most money does win. this is a national crisis.

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your throat or tongue swells you get hives, vision changes or eye pain, or problems passing urine. other side effects include dry mouth and constipation. nothing can reverse copd. spiriva helps me breathe better. does breathing with copd weigh you down? ask your doctor if spiriva can help. >> eliot: progressives have better ideas better policies and better plan for america than conservatives. the problem however, as always been communicating these ideas in a way that appeals to voters values. simply put conservatives are better at this than we are. but to help us is a form in of a new book explaining exactly how progressives can communicate their crawls in a clear and forceful manner. in the world of fox news and conservative radio dominating political discourse "the little

blue book: the essential guide to thinking and talking democratic"." george lake-off and elizabeth v veling is more necessary than ever. >> this is something that democrats need to read, anyone who is talking to their friends and neighbor. >> eliot: if you want to tell your neighbor why healthcare is good you will learn how to do it. explain why this is so important and what it means in communication. >> first any political leader who will tell what you to do does it because it's right not because it's wrong or because it doesn't matter. it's assumed that it's right bus they have different ideas about what is right. conservatives and progressives just have different moral systems. those moral systems lie behind every policy idea, and that's

crucial. unfortunately, conservatives are bitter at talking to their moral views than progressives are, and they need to do that. progressives have deep moral views. they view democracy come from the idea that all citizens care about each other and act responsibly on that care. how, by having government that protects everyone, and the idea of public. the public provides things that everybody needs whether it's roads and bridges but also educational systems health systems, communication systems transportation systems parks all sorts of public facilities record keeping and so on. you can't have a decent private life or any kind of private enterprise without that, and you can't have freedom without all of that. >> eliot: one of your critical points in the book is every policy, every fact has to be put into that moral structure for it to be per persuasive and

progressives simply don't do that. >> that's right, and conservatives do. they have a different moral system. they believe democracy gives them the liberty to pursue their own interests and well-being without any responsibility to the interest or well-being of anybody else. that's entirely opposed to the history of this country and it's opposed to what most people actually believe. if you ask people do you believe that you care about your fellow citizens? do you care about your community? your country? people will say, of course. the question is, how do you act on that. >> eliot: i want to pivot away this larger issue of private sector and government spending to healthcare in particular where clearly the president who has succeeded in passing an incredibly important piece of legislation never quite broke through in making the public care. what did i do wrong? >> the president could very well have presented this as a moral case. and in fact, he could have used

the same moral principles. say this is a matter of freedom and of life. you are not free. if you have cancer and you do not have health insurance, you are going to die under knows circumstances. you can live if you have appropriate health insurance. this is what we're giving you. he could have made the case morally from the beginning with all the same provisions but always making the same case. >> eliot: you have honed in on what has become a central theme of this political campaign, presidential campaign, not surprisingly the president talks about the need for community public purpose public support and elizabeth warren did it first. in order to protect the private sector where you say liberty and is thematic that the republican party comes back to, let's look at president obama trying to make this point and discuss

whether he succeeded failed and what followed from it. >> obama: somebody helped to create this unbelievable american system that allowed you to thrive. somebody invested in roads and bridges. if you have a business, you didn't build that, somebody else made that happen. >> eliot: of course, the outtake you didn't build that has become the sort of entry point for the republican attack saying he doesn't believe in the private sector whereas you make the much more sophisticateed and clearly correct argument the synergy of the public and private. where did the president go wrong? >> first of all an ambiguous sentence. saying you didn't build that referred back to all the things that the public provided. but the conservatives clipped it out and it sounds like "that" means the business when he didn't mean that at all. >> eliot: he created the ambiguity that they len latched on to to found an entire

national campaign. they've been running around the country with the banner you didn't build that getting small businesses and big businesses thee readcally to jump on this bandwagon and say see the president doesn't appreciate it. how should the president have made the point and is there someone out there doing it better. >> well, elizabeth warren is doing it better. and he should have said it straightforwardly pointing out the country from the begin has had public provisions for everyone. from the beginning it had roads and bridges public education. from the begining if had public buildings, public records a patent service from the beginning. if you list all these things there from the beginning and that have been added to like funding for research, for example. you know funding for universities, funding for public parks and monuments and things like that. all of those things that we need transportation systems communication systems all of those things that make

individual life meaningful and possible that give you the freedom to take carry this out. he should have talked about the freedom to build a business, work hard and do all those things, but you can't do it without the freedom to do it, and the public provides that. >> eliot: look, i hope that the president doesn't get pushed back off this thematic by the republican response. i think he should double down, go right at it, embrace it, do what he has done best throughout his political career, which is to write the brilliant speech defining and articulating exactly what you said and deliver it in a way to make the republican perspective to seem so narrow, as it is. if he does that, he wins the debate and that that would be important for what he's trying to accomplish. author of the little blue book, mr. lake-off thank you for being with us tonight.

>> pleasure to be here. >> eliot: john fugelsang gives us perspective coming up. mix. >>now it's your turn at the only online forum with a direct line to eliot spitzer. >>join the debate now. hershey's chocolate syrup. stir up a smile.

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politics collide. >> will your next doctor be a robot. gavin newsom probes for answers on "the gavin newsom show." only on current tv. >> eliot: so imagine showing up to work late a couple of months in a row not doing what your boss asks you to do, and then waltzing in and asking to make a five-week vacation paid. that's exactly what is happening in washington, d.c. even lawmakers like my good friend congresswoman louise slaughter realize it. >> no other american leaves work with jobs half done, and neither should we. >> eliot: look, i hate to add to the long litany of congress isn't doing its job tirade, but it really does force you to look at this in a whole new way. look at congress, bills to provide tax relief for works and businesses, take care of first respond e repeal oil tax

subsidies. help students in debt, bring transparency to spending and deliver jobs outsourceed overseas back home all killed in the senate by a g.o.p. minority to the death of filibusters. just the past few days congress failed to move on a cybersecurity bill supported by both parties. they failed to pass an agriculture bill desperately needed to help the agriculture sector being destroyed by a horrific drought. they did nothing on the approaching expiration of tax cuts on the middle class punting appropriation bills by kicking the can down the roads for the next six months. what to do? throw all the bums out is the simplicity answer. throwing out all the right wing tea party answers, they like grover norquist and jim demint

has led to polarization that defies the views of the public and defies compromise that is needed in a legislative body. we often disagree with the compromises that emerge when legislative bodies work but at least those compromises are designed to address those issues facing us as a society. now the rapid fact defying lodge avoiding tea party is stymieing congress. that's my view.

>> and you think it doesn't affect you? think again.

>> eliot: why did the fanatic cross the road? to get a chick-fil-a sandwich on intolerance appreciation day. i'm glad to have someone here to laugh. mitt romney wants to raise taxes on everyone, other than the top 5% or as they're known his best friends. how come romney is so happy to be back in america? there will be no more moments like this. >> governor romney, do you feel that your gaffes have overshadowed your foreign trips. >> we haven't had a chance to ask questions. >> this is a holy site for the pole lib people. >> eliot: joining me now to have fun with the week that was, john fugelsang, one-third of the hugely popular stephanie miller sexy liberal come comedy tour which just announced it's shows in october with tickets going on

sale today. john, thank you so much for being here. >> thank you governor. >> eliot: i understand you got a permanent job. >> yes my parole officer signed off on me doing a show with current tv. >> eliot: i wasn't aware you had a parole officer but do you have to have one when you work here. >> no, i just had one already. but i'll be joining your lineup here at current tv and i'm thrilled to be your neighbor. >> eliot: every is excited. you are so funny but with hugely important political under tone, overtone, i don't know which one to put it on, but it will be great to have you here. >> i love this channel. i love what you're trying to do and it's a great piece of real estate. >> eliot: you always give us an oversight with what has happened this week. romney had a good trip overseas. >> it depends on your definition of good. i think he went to put the tax thing out of the way and harry reid put it right back in his lap. we talked about israel and governor romney said everything but saying this wailing wall is

just the right height. >> eliot: one of the more bizarre statements. >> it's gait that his great that his horse can do the electric slide but then go to israel and belittle palestine. take my land, please. to talk about israel's healthcare system is a model for down own pb netanyahu just raised taxes and the mandates, you can look at three or four health choices that you want. >> eliot: you're looking at something fact based in mitt romney's political views. >> i'm not looking for logic. the second this gets logical my job gets harder. >> eliot: my recollection he was an union guy. >> a wee little bit.

and you bring mr. management who is always right in there and it's not always the best mix. >> eliot: what do you make of his tax plan? you're for it? you have a permanent job, do you want taxes to go down? >> the first time i made it to that tax bracket was under president clinton. i was honored and i felt honored to be paying that percentage. it doesn't add up. and this is the argument that obama needs to bring to conservatives to bring them over to his side. >> eliot: i hate to be mockish, but you referred to eisenhower rates. when fdr was president up in the 90s. >> eliot: yes. >> eliot: people forget, the rates being down in the 30s for the rich americans is a modern-- >> derivative. it's herbert hoover numbers, and eisenhower had such a rosy glow in the 50s because of the high tax rate on the wealthy and

those gi bills and the interstate highway plan. >> eliot: general eisenhower spent money on building things. >> infrastructure, what a concept. >> eliot: oh my goodness, shocking. >> this is why i think that the president's burden is to wake up our republican friends to the fact that the romney agenda does not help them. tea party is an acronym for total economic amnesia prevents republican trick trickle down y'all. >> eliot: that's something we never learned. i don't think most folks ever appreciated how much government involvement there was. wasn't it said once, you didn't build that. >> yes, elizabeth warren said that and the president tried to. >> eliot: chick-fil-a, you a big fan of chicken sandwiches. >> i'm half southern, so i can

enjoy a chicken sandwich. i won't be eating there again. >> eliot: neither will i. >> and dan cathy has every right to be a bigot. and those who say its free speech that's rubbish. these are the same folks who bigoted j.c. penney over an ad. he can be as bigoted as he wants. but he can't hide behind the bible doing that. he's relying on leviticus and leviticus. >> eliot: these are books-- >> yes. >> eliot: i just want to make sure. >> the book of leviticus that says you shall not lie with a man, that's an abomination. that's where they all hang this one passage because they can't use jesus to justify. but the same book says bans eating shell fish. we talked about last week it bans eating fork and they do have a bacon egg and cheese

biscuit, dan you're breaking your bible laws. >> eliot: i may get you dan cat cathy's phone number. he may not have read about that part of park. he may change his menu after hearing that suggestion. >> in the long run they'll be fine. they'll do goodbyes every week on bigot tuesday or whatever it's going to be. jesus said if you want to do my work, feed the poor. people say if you want to do jesus' work, feed yourself in a long line. >> eliot: they want to have their views. they're entitled tosn't mean we need to support them with our dollars. we'll find another place for a chicken sandwich. >> the best thing will be in 20 years they bough to lgbt day. >> eliot: last thing quickly. tea party, you have a new acronym. cruise, is--cruz is he the real deal? >> he's a boon for comedians. he's the latest step for the tea party on going mission to

marginalize the republican party as much as possible. >> there is a different of this guy. some are easy to mock. this guy has a good resumé. >> yeah, he does. god bless the tea party. liberals can take a page out of their book. you can hold them to a higher standard. but the flip side they're narrowing the republican party more and more. as the party becomes narrower and americans become more diverse, you'll see more and more of our republicans trying to stop seniors and minorities from voting. this is not an unexpected phenomenon. they're panicking. >> eliot: mitt romney everybody else pay taxes but only he votes. >> it's not the trickle down, it's the gush up. >> eliot: john fugelsang, newest member of the current family. thank