shut down the government over defunding the nation's health care law because it would have been too easy for the senate to decouple the defunding of the nation's health care law from the funding of the government. the new plan is to make it impossible for the senate to decouple the defunding of the nation's health care law from the funding of the government so that the senate is given no option but to throw out that whole plan entirely. the logic here seems to be take a workable plan and make it totally unworkable. congratulations, republicans. for a party that seemed well over the cliff of ridiculous, you have proved there is still a little more ground beneath your feet. meanwhile, the rest of the country, including the president, eagerly awaits the finale of this preposterous exercise. >> there are significant differences still between republicans and democrats when it comes to the budget, but it is going to be important for all of you, i think, over the next several weeks to understand what's at stake. i think this is the time for us

to say once and for all we can't afford these kinds of things. i know the american people are tired of it. i'm tired of it, and i suspect you're tired of it too. >> i'm tired of it too. joining me today, washington bureau chief david corn, "washington post's," ezra cline, and sam stein. sam, earlier today you sent out a tweet that said, this month is going to suck. i retweeted it because it is going to suck. >> sophisticated political analysis. >> this is going to be great. >> real talk, sam. what do you make of the latest plan? >> first of all, i'm paid per twitter character. i should have tweeted more. what do i make of it? i think we're sort of overblowing it a tiny bit. i think we're going to end up in the same exact place we were going to end up, which is some sort of clean resolution to fund the government. but the house republican caucus

has to go through the motions first, apparently. the leadership, it can't, i guess, speak sternly to some of the conservative members about political realities. i mean, keep in mind it was, you know, a couple weeks ago that some of the top-ranking officials in the republican party called this strategy that they're now pursuing stupid. >> a suicide strategy. >> now it is the party's strategy for better or worse. so, you know, this is kabuki theater. this is a process that i guess the house republicans have to work out amongst themselves. but it adds an element of unnecessary drama that everyone is sort of tired with at this juncture. >> ezra, you said this morning, i think, that the best way to understand the plight of the modern gop is that the party leadership is no longer powerful enough to solve its collective action problems. >> you're going to let me explain collective action problems. >> yes, please do. >> this is a basic work of party leadership. political parties constantly in these situations where you have something that would be very good for the political party to do. pass a bill, cut a deal.

each individual politician in that party has an incentive to go the other way. they have incentive to demagogue the issue, to vote against it, to say they're going to shut down the government because they're truly, really, for real against obama care. what they've always done is solve these problems, right. they use a mixture of threats, of encouragement, of fundraising, of committee assignments, of keeping you from getting a primary nomination in your districts, of running a primary person against you, earmarks is another great one to get enough members to vote in the party's best interest. what you're seeing now is the complete collapse of the republican party leadership's ability to do that. not only have they not been able to bring this faction of the party to heel to do what is best for the party, they are now having to pretend to be part of the problem themselves. they're now having to follow their individual incentives as opposed to the party incentives and say they're on board with something they completely and clearly and publicly believe is a suicide strategy. >> go ahead, david. >> this is so crazy that even

the conservatives in "the wall street journal" editorial page have been pleading, no, please don't do this. this is bad for all republicans and conservatives. in the movie "groundhog day," bill murray actually became a better person. it took hundreds of those days, but we've got through five, six -- >> this is reverse "groundhog day." >> we've gone through five or six of these budget showdowns since the republicans got control of the house. again and again and again they do manage to get it worked out at the last minute, but the republicans always end up paying the higher political price. obama doesn't always look good, but he always comes out ahead in these face-offs as bill clinton came out ahead when he went up against newt gingrich in the '90s over the government shutdown. still, they don't learn that very basic lesson, and they want to throw that switch. they want to take that dive off the cliff. >> beyond just being bad party politics, sam, i think that

there's something more insidious here, which is a perpetuation of an illusion that is really a -- it's bad for the country. it's bad for republicans to think that this stuff even has a fighting chance. it's like rewarding a child for bad behavior. there's a tendency on the right -- i don't know if it's solution or a subtle psychological operation -- to speak as if republicans control the house by a wide majority and that bills supported by 218 republicans will be viable in the senate and possibly signed by the president. there is no chance this is going to pass. >> obviously there's no chance it will pass the senate, but i don't think it's utterly delusional. the reason why, let's keep in mind that in 2011 they did try this. to a large extent t did work. we ended up with a debt reduction deal. we ended up with sequestration, both of which are largely conservative ideological policies. we had a conversation, a political conversation for two years that basically centered around debt and deficit

reduction rather than whether or not more stimulus was needed to spur job creation. so, yeah, hostage taking did work. it didn't get the whole hostage. >> but this is, i think -- it's such an interesting thing. i agree with what you said there. this is why you see such a different strategy from the white house. in 2011, they were actually dealing with boehner and mcconnell and cantor. you had a united republican party. the white house believed the republican party had a political mandate to pursue the same kind of concessions they ultimately got. they don't believe that. what's amazing about the situation is boehner and cantor and mcconnell don't believe it. who do you go to now to cut a deal? >> where does the president go from here? >> this is what's interesting. at the end of the day, who did they go to? they went to mitch mcconnell. on every single one of these things in the last 24, 48 hours, he and biden sat down with the president's approval and hammered something out. mcconnell can't do that now.

why not? he faces a primary challenge from the tea party guy who's associated or close to rand paul, the rand paul forces in kentucky. the argument against mcconnell is he does these things. >> but i wouldn't say it's helpless. keep in mind in the early summer there was the threat of the nuclear option on judges. they went to john mccain and he built a coalition to do something. they went around mitch mcconnell, very conspicuously. . >> i think this is different than sort of -- we're not talking about sequestration yet. the thing they have planted their flag in is defunding obama care. the president is not going to give anything on obama care. >> correct, but they could do something like -- you can see the contras of a deal that would upset both parties but palatable. something like in exchange for changes to social security payments, cpi. you could get a reprieve from sequestration. something like that along the lines where both parties are like, well, we don't really want to do it, but in the sake of making sure we pay our bills --

that's why the republicans keep going there. they know obama care defunding isn't going to happen, but there are other hostages. >> why does president obama come to the table at all? >> i think that's a kind of deal they would come to the table on. they would consider that a deal over sequestration. i'm not sure if they would do that exact deal, but the two deals they won't do are the ones the republicans want. they don't want that sequestration deal. they want an obama care deal or a debt ceiling deal. they won't come to the table on those. one interesting wrinkle is this might be in certain ways bad for the republican narrative on obama care. imagine the government shuts down, as i think now there's a real chance it will on september 30th. we're at the beginning of obama care. all the sudden, there are going to be givelitches, bad stories about things that go on.

this is a big deal. the reason they're going wrong is the government is shutting down and they don't have any money. the thing republicans could have used to rally support will now be blamed on them again. >> it's self-defeating, but in some ways they can't help themselves. there are 40, 50, 60 republicans since they've come in after the 2010 elections. they want chaos. they're like the joker. they like chaos. they want to destroy. they may call it creative construction, but they want to shut down the government. they want to bring the president to his knees. they'll go down fighting for this. boehner cannot keep this bottled up forever. it just keeps coming back whenever there's an opportunity. so this time around, obama, unlike 2011, is not negotiating on a lot of these fronts, so they may get their wish. >> and there's a question of who he would negotiate with to begin with, given the fact that basically the house republican caucus has thrown eric cantor

and john boehner overboard and so far rejected their proposal of last week on the cr. it's hard to determine who could be a good mouthpiece for the entire house republican caucus. >> i think they're going to have to have a shutdown and see if boehner and maybe mcconnell can be the adults and cut a deal and make things go forward. >> denial ain't just a river in egypt. okay. after the break, in the wake of monday's mass shooting at the washington navy yard, members of congress shifted their focus to mental health reform, but will their plans go the way of gun safety legislation? we'll discuss when congressman steve cohen joins us next on "now." ♪

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back in april after the senate fell six votes short of approving a bill that would strengthen background check, an angry president obama scolded law make elsemakers for not doid promised not to let up. >> all in all, this was a pretty shameful day for washington. this effort is not over. i want to make it clear to the american people, we can still bring about meaningful changes that reduce gun violence so long as the american people don't give up on it. >> on monday, following the seventh mass shooting of his presidency, one in which a navy contractor with a history of mental illness killed 12 people at washington's navy yard, the president seemed resigned to the status quo. >> i do get concerned that this becomes a ritual that we go through every three, four months where we have these horrific mass shootings, everybody

expresses understandable horror, we all embrace the families and obviously our thoughts and prayers are with those families right now as they're absorbing this incredible loss. yet, we're not willing to take some basic actions. >> in congress, harry reid tempered enthusiasm among some in his caucus to revisit the gun safety debate by acknowledging the stark political reality. >> we're going to move this up as quickly as we can, but we've got to have the votes first. we don't have the votes. i hope to get them, but we don't have them now. >> of course, that stark political reality is based in large part on fear of the gun lobby. >> the thing that bothers me is a number of republicans say, yeah, we know you're right, but we can't do anything about it. >> the ruthless efficiency of the nra was on display last week in colorado where two state senators who voted for basic gun safety measures were ousted in recall elections. last night state senators john

morris and angela heron said lobbying efforts in the state had made a mockery of democracy. >> the gun lobby, they bought the signatures to force the election in the first place. they sent fliers even before the signatures were gathered. they paid for television advertisements. they did all kinds of misinformation and disinformation very deliberately. >> it is no longer a gun owner's organization. it's a manufacturer's organization. that's how they're benefitting. if you look at their board members, they're all manufacturers. they're all making money. >> right now newtown families are on capitol hill meeting with nancy pelosi to mark the ninth anniversary of the elementary school massacre that killed 20 children and six adults. but with the nra's power as yet unchecked, it is unclear how many more anniversaries the newtown parents will be forced to commemorate before congress makes any steps towards meaningful change. joining us now from capitol hill is democratic congressman from tennessee's ninth district steve cohen. congressman, thanks for joining

us. >> nice to be with you, alex. >> congressman, shortly after the shooting at the navy yard, you tweeted out a cartoon, i think, an editorial cartoon. we have it up on the screen right now. some folks on the right said you were blaming the national rifle association for the violence at the navy yard. what did you mean to communicate by that tweet and with that image? >> well, bill day is one of the great cartoonists and one of my friends and constituents. he's been doing a series on gun violence and how it's affected america. this was part of his series. the truth is, the nra has control of the process here with contributions and more than that just with the grip on a lot of people who are one-issue people. the second amendment is the most important issue to them. i wanted to show we have gun violence, gun culture. we need to respond to it. we'd like to get the debate going. there are going to be more killings. we need to do something if it's only a mental health bill. but i wanted to get bill day's

cartoon out there in the marketplace of ideas, and i think there definitely is a connection between the nra and the continuing gun culture that we have that needs to be limited to protect americans. >> congressman, what do you make of harry reid's almost dismissal of the idea of getting anything done, saying we just don't have the votes on capitol hill? >> well, it's sad, but it's part of the 60-vote problem in the senate. you can't get 60. i know that this issue is such a hot issue it would be difficult. the republicans shy away from it. i got the vitriol on the twitter from all these people that opposed that cartoon. they are hard-core republicans. this means more to them. i think their guns are next there to their bibles. i'm not sure which they find more important to them. >> congressman, david corn from mother jones had a question for you. >> thanks, congressman. that raises to my mind the whole question we had a few years ago when barack obama got into a

little trouble when he said some people were clinging to their guns and their religion. is this a cultural matter that can't really be broken by simple politics? >> well, it's been that way for a while, and it certainly is in the republican kau kaus. these people are afraid to get primaried, which they would. you see lamar alexander, who's a reasonable republican, now has a right-wing opponent in his primary in my state. mitch mcconnell has one in kentucky. richard luger, one of the stars of the senate, was defeated by a right winger. so it's around and it's difficult. it is guns and the bible. >> but democrats, too, you know, after '94, a lot of democrats ran away from gun control after the '94 elections, democrats in the house. >> well, it's a tough issue. i've been strong on it and some democrats have, but in certain districts, the gun lobby and the gun individuals that make guns their number one issue can be a decisive force in an election. people vote their guns.

>> you know, congressman, i want to ask you this and also open it up to our panel. a mental health bill is being introduced that was originally an amendment to the background checks bill that passed in the senate. it's a stand-alone piece of legislation. harry reid has said you can't decouple the two. where do you stand on the two? do you think that's a good idea to at least get something done, or do you think that is basically taking -- deincentivizing anyone in congress from passing meaningful gun safety reform? >> i'd like to see strong background checks. i think if you can at least do mental health, that's important. i passed the right to carry bill in tennessee back in the '90s. it was a reasonable bill. mental health was part of it. the nra doesn't want any limitations. i think mental health is something we've seen is a problem. the nra raises that along with video games as their answer. so if that's one of their answers, let them get on board

and help us with mental health background checks. the mansion/toomey bill had part of that in it and talked about not having privilege for communications and allowing mental health histories to be sent through ncsi for background checks. i think that if we can do something and if they come up with a bill, i'm all for it. i'd be happy to be a sponsor. >> congressman, i'm going to open this up to our folks in new york. sam, it's interesting to me that two of the things the republicans are pushing for right now, better mental health services, which conveniently are included as part of obama care, and curbing video game violence. there is so much talk about the nanny state and knowing what, you know, the government -- deciding what is good for us or what we can or cannot have. it's ironic to me those two planks are actually things that probably some liberals and progressives support. >> yeah, i mean, it's tough to know where this debate will end. i get the mental health push. i understand why people think video games are a concern. although, the argument they have the same video games around the world but not the same gun

violence is pretty persuasive. the problem i think that we fail to recognize is that while these instances of mass homicide are horrific and they deserve a legislative response, the vast majority of gun violence in this country is not mass homicide. they are handgun shootings. we have not really incorporated that statistic into this broader debate. i mean, we respond politically to these very graphic, awful instances and rightfully so. but this is a much more complex matter than just that. and i just want to point out, there was a ridiculous comment from senator mark kirk about why we shouldn't do anything on gun control in the wake of this. he said something to the effect of we can't legislate after every mass shooting. we haven't legislated after any mass shooting. >> maybe just do it once and see how it goes. >> we just haven't done anything. for anyone who's optimistic about gun control, and i don't think i've met anyone who is, you shouldn't be. that's just the facts. we had a shooting of 20 first graders. we had a congresswoman shot in the head and nothing happened.

i don't understand why anyone would think anything would happen after this. i hate to be such a cynic, but it's the political reality. >> and i think it was born out by the president's sort of stance in the hours while this was unfolding, which was, you know, we've had another mass shooting and he continues en route with his economic message. i think obviously there are a lot of folks that think that's sensitive and ill timed. i think it's a gross bastardization of democracy that such an overwhelming number of americans support better gun safety measures and yet congress is very transparentally behold on to the nra and says there's nothing we can do about it. >> to be fair to democracy, this could all end in the next election if people who cared about gun safety voted out members of congress who stood in its way. there are clear, you know, individuals in congress who lead the efforts to stop any gun control laws from passing. they could be voted out of office. they will be up for re-election. the expectation, and i think, like sam -- i call it a re

realistic perspective, not pessimistic. there is a very clear vehicle for the american people to make their voices heard. if that happened and if it happened to be the reverse of 1994, so much of this belief in congress that you can't touch guns comes from the belief in a lot of pollsters believe it is mistaken. if that was reversed, if it was believed a big part of the republicans lost was because they stopped these gun safety control legislation from going through, that would be the end of the nra's power in congress. >> and on that note, congressman, the results in colorado, i don't think, were that heartening given how the nra mobilized its folks. they were almost voter suppression efforts. i guess i ask you, you were a quarter can of a mile away, i believe, from the shooting on monday.

what was the reaction in congress as that unfolded? was there a sense of, okay, we've got to do something, or was it sort of congress people throwing their hands up in the air saying, here we go again? >> it was no newtown. you know, people i think are almost aneuroedded to it because they've seen what happened in the senate and the votes couldn't be cop ld together. on the judiciary committee, which i sit on, that's murderer's row. they all like their guns. in fact, there was a proposal there to have handgun permits from each state be honored by another state, even if they were less restrictive, and it overrode states' rights, which is supposed to be like the 11th commandment of the republicans, yet guns trumped the states' rights. they passed a federal law in the house to say all state handgun permits would be honored in another state regardless of the fact the other state might have more restrictive limits. so the guns -- i think guns trump bibles on that side of the

aisle. >> wow. congressman steve cohen, thanks for your time. thanks for joining the program. >> you're welcome. nice to be with all of you. four of my favorite people. >> coming up, he brought us "oops," gold's going to be good, and an encyclopedia's worth of anti-government rhetoric. now in the aftermath of monday's navy yard shooting, rick perry is really outdoing himself by visiting a gun factory just miles from the site of the tragedy. that's next.

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your door to more. ♪ after the tragic washington shooting spree that left 12 victims dead, today we see the tale of two responses. on the one hand, there is texas governor rick perry. at some unspecified moment that has already happened or will happen later today, perry will

be in maryland touring the headquarters of gun manufacturers baretta, which sits 25 miles south of the washington navy yard, the site of monday's massacre. perry is on a poaching mission, trying to lure gun makers away from states that are putting in place stronger gun safety laws like maryland. the governor also visited connecticut gun maker six months after the newtown massacre and has launched efforts in california, illinois, missouri, and new york. perry's trip to baretta was announced before the d.c. shooting, but he's made no changes in his schedule in the wake of massacre. on the other end of the response is starbucks. in a message last night, howard schultz, the ceo of the coffee giant, announced starbucks appreciation days, an initiative where gun owners bring their weapons to local starbucks in an effort to tweak the progressively minded company. starbucks has always respected local open carry laws, and while schultz didn't reverse the policy on the coffee house

weaponry, he wrote, we are respectfully requesting customers no longer bring firearms into our stores or outdoor seating areas, even in states where open carry is permitted. please respect that starbucks stores are places where everyone should feel relaxed and comfortable. the presence of a weapon in our stores is unsettling and upsetting for many of our customers. after the break, nearly a year's worth of rain in just one week. we will look at colorado's biblical flooding and the recovery yet to come live from boulder. that's next. good job! still running in the morning? yeah. getting your vegetables every day? when i can. [ bop ] [ male announcer ] could've had a v8. two full servings of vegetables for only 50 delicious calories. you raise her spirits. we tackled your shoulder pain. you make him rookie of the year. we took care of your cold symptoms.

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the skies of northern colorado finally cleared yesterday after the state experienced almost a year's worth of rain in one week. with over 19,000 homes damaged or destroyed, the military evacuated 3,000 displaced residents. colorado officials estimate that 581 people are still missing.

the death toll so far stands at six, though the number is expected to increase as crews continue to search through flooded areas. over the weekend, president obama made emergency and major disaster declarations for the state, freeing up millions of dollars in federal aid authorized as part of the hurricane sandy relief package last year. joining us from boulder, colorado, is the weather channel's chris warren. thanks for joining us. what is the latest on the situation on the ground in colorado? >> reporter: well, it's definitely recovery mode right now and still rescues going on. there's still a little more than 300 people that are either missing or unaccounted for. could just be unaccounted for because some of these communities that are essentially cut off because of no electricity, no phone lines, no internet. so some people missing, some people just not able possibly to check in. where we are right now, not too far away from downtown boulder. this is boulder creek. now, the water flowing right now would be more typical, i understand, from something you would see in the springtime when

you're getting the melt, the runoff from the rockies, not something you would see in september. this, what i'm told, is kids could come play in this normally, in a normal year. it's not flowing that fast and it's much smaller. even a few days ago, it was much, much higher than it is now. we can come down and take a look at this tree right here. there's a little bit of a root or something from another plant up to here. this bark is also a bit roughed up, which tells us the water was about here with the debris hitting that bark and scuffing it up. as we go across here, come over to this fence and we can see as we come across where there's more of the debris along the fence. so last week when the water was up here with that amazing amount of rain, about a foot and a half of rain, once all that water settled, you end up with this sand. and this is a path. this is boulder. so if you don't commute with a car, this is like the highway for bikes and walking. and this is normally what people

would be riding on. so instead, you have all of this sand. this is the cleanup that's going on right now here in boulder. but it's some of the outlying areas that have absolutely been devastated. again, as you mentioned, 19,000 homes damaged, alex, or destroyed. we understand it's about 1500 of those homes have been destroyed. it's going to be years before things return to normal here throughout parts of colorado. >> a dramatic and catastrophic amount of rain oncoming during what is boulder's driest month typically. thanks for your time and explanation, chris. coming up, a new analysis shows last year a food stamps helped lift a record number of people out of poverty. naturally, house republicans are trying to cut billions from the very same program. we'll look at the gop's snap judgments and one ceo's snap challenge. that's next. or more on car insurance. yep, everybody knows that.

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anxious, resentful, and demoralizing. those are the emotions described by the founder of panera bread during his snap challenge based on the program formerly known as food stamps. in order to raise awareness about the reality of living on government food assistance, he's subsisting for a week on the federal government allotment, $4.50 a day. he writes, i have had a glimpse into how detrimental and all-consuming hunger can be and i'm barely halfway through my merely seven-day challenge. his experience emphasizes that snap is an emergency measure to provide food security for 47 million americans. it's a program of last resort. analyzing scene ining census da snap lifted 20 million people out of poverty. for the tens of millions of other recipients who were not pushed above the poverty line, they at least became less poor.

meanwhile, the cost of snap is shrinking. in just four years, the cost of snap as a share of gdp is expected to call to levels not seen since 1995. what has been the response from the right? tomorrow house republicans will hold a vote to gut $39 billion from the program over the next decade. that is correct. when faced with a government program that is lifting millions of americans out of poverty and becoming cheaper at the same time, the response from it the right flank is defund it. after the break, sticker shock, diploma debt, whatever you want to call it. the cost of a higher education is too damn high. ezra klein will explain coming up next. mom, dad told me that cheerios is good for your heart,

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our children can't afford to live anywhere, nowhere. there's nowhere to go.

once again, why? you said it. the rent is too damn high. >> that was 2010. this is now. but this time around it is the college tuition, the cost of higher education that is too damn high. over the past a years, the cost of a college education in the u.s. has skyrocketed, growing two to three times the rate of inflation. in 1965, the average annual tuition fees and room and board at a public university was $6,500. these day, it's over $13,000, a 100% increase. and it is worsen en ifor priva schools where yearly costs from risen from $13,000 in 1965 to $31,000, a 137% increase. between 1950 and 1970, sending someone to a public university cost about 4% of an american family's average income. 40 years later in 2010, it accounted for about 11% or nearly three times more. but despite the rising tuition,

more people are going to college than ever because it is still worth it. on average, college graduates earn 40% more than high school graduates, and the rate of return on a college education is about 15%, which makes it a better bet than the stock market. the cost caveat is a big one, and it means that student loan debt sits at over $1 trillion with the average student in debt over $26,000. the tuition is too damn high may not be a political party quite yet, but it has inspired a new 12-part series by "the washington post," which figures out where all the money is, why, and what can be done about it. ezra, i know you and some of your partners, your confidants have been leading the charge on this. i wonder what your conclusions are about why the tuition is so damn high. >> first, i should give credit. this is really the project of dylan matthews, an education genius. the big conclusion here -- there are two things worth saying that

he's come to. one is that we have this continuous conversation over student loan interest rates. the big thing about that is that's a band-aid. putting more money into subsidizing student loans, which we've been doing for a long time, it's an important thing to do while costs are going high. at some point, we need to stop costs from rising so quickly, or we're never going to be able to afford this. the other thing, and this is the other piece, there are different stories for different kinds of colleges. one thing that happens a lot in the media conversation is people begin talking about harvard or they're talking about uc berkeley and michigan. they talk about these really good four-year research universities accepting everyone. that is just not where most students are going. that's not really where the crisis we have to worry about is. community colleges serve many, many, many more people than four-year research universities. what you see there is a completely different problem. they have seen cost per student spending going down. they've been spending less, but they're getting so much less money from states that they have

to raise tuition in order to make up the difference. research universities are spending more. they've been getting more from the federal government because of the student loans. yet, they're having to make up more with tuition because they've wanted to increase spending so much. >> and state budget cuts are a huge piece. >> they're a huge piece of this. they're not the only piece, but they're a huge, huge piece. that's particularly true at the community college level, at the sort of four-year, nonresearch university level. you're seeing really big problems there. and it's not being offset because a lot of the kids who go to those schools are not that wealthy, up at the top level of income brackets. you've seen fairly large tuition increases on richer students in order to offset a lot of student aid. so that's not a great solution, but it is some kind of a solution. but you can't play that game, really, at community colleges, which serve a less advantaged slice of the population. so just more of that is going into direct tuition increase. >> we are at somewhat of a global disadvantage. in many societies that we

compete with economically, they have this view that education goes from kindergarten through college, that college isn't sort of optional. you get whatever degree of federal state support there is. it carries you often through college. there are state schools and even sometimes subsidies for private schools. here we say, okay, we'll get you up through high school, then you're kind of on your own. we have these programs. we fund community colleges. one of the great things in dylan's series was talking about expanding community college. two-year programs to full four-year bachelor programs. it's like, we'll give you a student loan, but you're on your own. student loans are subsidizing this higher education industry, which gets the benefit of these taxes. one thing that obama's done that's been good is to try to say, listen, let's get the banks and the middlemen out of this, which is what the republicans keep fighting over, which keeps costs high when it comes to servicing the loans. our general attitude towards

college is a lot different than other nations. that's a fundamental problem. >> i would add that the economy plays -- well, i guess this is anecdotal. i would add the state of the economy is playing a role here in that a lot of people are going to graduate school simply to prolong getting into the job market. you know, that just -- it's a worthwhile investment. i'm not going to say it's not. >> it often is not. i will say that. >> as a grad school graduate, i have to say it because i want to feel good about myself. >> sometimes, yes. often, not. >> at the same time, it adds to the debt. obama has made a point of this, and i can speak because my wife is in law school. law school being three years long is insane. you can cram that stuff into two years. what ends up happening is people feel insecure about the fact they aren't going to grad school, they decide it's something they should do to pursue a higher career, and then they end up incurring more debt. >> but there's also the cascade effect of -- having a lot of debt is not just bad. if you're young and not entering the work force, you're accruing

debt, you're not going to buy a house, you're not going to buy a car. this has long-term implications for the american economy. >> it's particularly true with a lot of that grad school debt which you don't get under as advantageous terms. this gets into the big thing, which is one of the really interest projects the obama administration has begun to embark is saying, okay, we know we're going to be pumping billions and billions of dollars into subsidizing kids to go do college. that money should be tied to something. we shouldn't just give it to any college for any reason. they're trying to build a set of quality metrics. and this is very tough to do. a question of how you decide what it means for a college to be high quality and high value, you've got to figure out how poor the kids who are going there, who are they helping, how much are they learning. it's very, very difficult. they're embarking on that. they don't need congress to do that. the hope is that come around 2018, they'll be able to convince congress to begin tying the massive student loans that

congress helps, which gives huge leverage over the aid industry to these quality measures. basically, you'd get more out of your pell grant if you went to a high-value college than if you went to one where we weren't able to verify they were giving good education. >> this is much like the problem you cover on the health care system. >> it's obama care for higher education. >> don't call it that. >> obama education. >> you just blew it. no, but that's the problem. how do you guarantee in these kind of private systems by and large. the government is subsidizing. medicare subsidize health care to a large degree. yet, there are no -- you know, there's no guarantee outcomes. there's no way of measuring. if you start doing that, often what you find from the right is leave my medicare alone. we already see on the right this whole bug a boo about the federal government getting more

involved in education. >> wouldn't conservatives be in favor of more streamlined loan process an mother deliverables as it were from taxpayers? >> there are conservatives who have been highly constructive on this. for instance, you have a really good belt that's trying to get a fair amount of data that colleges currently keep locked up about what students make after college and try to unlock that data so kids have it. i'd make one more point on the health care thing. health care and education suffer from similar problems. they've both grown at way faster than the rate of inflation. the thing they really share that i think is important is these are basically two kinds of products that people don't feel able to say no to. they don't feel able to say no to health care for their spouse or children. they don't feel able to say no to college costs for their kid because otherwise they're told, and it's often true, that they're setting their kid up for a lifetime of at least comparative failure. and that gives in both those

areas the producers in health care, the people who are giving you health care, and in college, that gives them enormous level to increase prices on consumers because they can't say no. they'll mortgage their home. they'll go into debt. they'll do whatever they need to do to pay that off. >> independent of the measures you've outlined thus far, the president -- or there's also -- there are models where the president and the white house and the administration are looking at it, including the pay it forward model, which is in place in oregon, which is where students attend without paying tuition and participating students have to send a percentage of their income back to the state for 24 years. >> these are interesting models. again, one thing i do think they're smart to be thinking about is there are a lot of ways to make the way we deliver student aid better, but at some point if this is going to be affordable in the long run, you need to make the cost of -- >> what i'm getting from you is republicans should defund the obama education bill as part of the government shutdown. >> and your grad school diploma should be flushed down the

toilet. it was a waste of money. >> i should have burned the money. >> you should have sent it to me instead. on that note, it is a great series. it's 12 parts. you guys just wrapped it up recently. dylan has done a great job. >> search the tuition is too damn high in googlgoogle. you'll find it. >> okay. that's all for us. thank you to david, ezra, and sam. that's all for now. see you back here tomorrow at noon eastern when -- "andrea mitchell reports" is coming up next. [ male announcer ] now, taking care of things at home is just a tap away. ♪ introducing at&t digital life... ♪ ...personalized home security and automation... [ lock clicks ] ...that lets you be closer to home. that's so cool. [ male announcer ] get $100 in instant savings when you order digital life smart security. limited availability in select markets. ♪

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right now on andrea michl reports, after so many red flags, why would the navy yard shooter be granted clearance? today chuck hagel announce ed fl reviews of the process that allowed him to fall through the cracks. >> where there are gaps, we will close them. where there are inadequacies, we

will address them. and where there are failures, we will correct them. we owe the victims, their families, and all our people nothing less. >> aaron alexis' mother breaks her silence today, apologizing to the victims of monday's rampage. >> to the families of the victims, i am so, so very sorry that this has happened. my heart is broken. >> and families of the victims paint a picture of the 12 lives they lost in monday's rampage. >> such a tragedy because he didn't know sylvia. if he talked to sylvia that morning, sylvia would have been his greatest ally. she would have listened. he never gave