al greenspan at the time called him a republican alice rivlin. and he behaved that way. that his company b came in and he pretty much resource passionate reinforce the things she said. once that happened and then bob reischauer was the next director followed him and he pretty much the same things. in their sort of off and running in the sense that once you create a culture, you sustain it over 10 or 15 years, you know, now you know it's pretty well ingrained. >> professor joyce, has the cbo been used as a political football in the past? >> absolutely. the one thing you can say about organizations that produce information is that they cannot make anybody use that information. they can't even make anybody interpret the information accurately. so whoever it is might be a supporter or an opponent of a particular policy can clearly use a cbo cost estimate, for example, to say that this is a bad policy or a good policy. that certain happened with the clinton health care reform in 1993 and 1994. the cbo came up with an estimate that said that the clinton health care reform, rat

alan greenspan of the time called him a republican alice rivlin and he behaved that way. that is he came in and he pretty much reinforced the things she had said and once that happened then the next director that followed him and did pretty much the same things they were sort of off and running in the sense that once you create a culture you sustain it over ten or 15 years. now, you know, it is pretty well ingrained. >> professor joyce, has it been used as a political football in the past? >> absolutely. the one thing you can say about organizations that produce the information is they can't beat anybody interpret that information accurately. so whoever it is might be a supporter or an opponent of a particular policy can clearly use a cbo cost estimate for example to say this is a bad policy or good policy that's happened with the clinton health care reform in 1993 and 1994 cbo came up with an estimate that said the clinton health care reform rather than saving money which the clinton administration said would actually cause the money that was one of only many aspects peo

>>> back with alice rivlin, douglas holtz-eakin and ron brownstein.round hog day" should have been written as an ode to congress. we are back with the budget battle and it always has do with taxes and spending. any chance anything gets done in the middle of this election cycle? >> hard to imagine right now. you did have a situation in 1996 where ultimately congressional republicans decided they had to make some deals with the democratic president because they needed tomorrow accomplishments to go back to the voters. they thought democratic president bill clinton was going to win. this time they think they have a very good shot at beating obama. one of the reasons it's been so difficult to get anything done is republicans believe in 2013 they'll have unified control of the house, senate and white house and they can impose their solution of a cuts-only approac approach without accepting tax increases democrats want to go with that. i think for a lot of reasons they are overestimating their ability to do that on a party-line basis. for example, to conver

. >>> and the reality and politics of a drop in unemployment with alice rivlin, douglas holtz-eakin and ron brownstein. >>> i'm candy crowley. and this is "state of the union." >>> the iowa caucuses are curious things, places where a guy named "jimmy who" began his journey to become president carter. places where inevitable winners like hillary clinton and howard dean lost. places where somebody could rewrite the story that this republican race has come down to mitt versus newt. somebody like ron paul. >> newt gingrich has been on both sides of a long list of issues. sometimes in the same week. >> it's wrong to go around and adopt radically different positions. because then people have to ask themselves what will you tell me next time? >>> ron paul hit newt gingrich pretty hard this week and he's got the money to keep at it. $3.6 million in cash. even better, he's got the army, "time" magazine reports paul insiders claim to have hard pledges from 20,000 caucusgoers, a record 120,000 iowans showed up in the 2008 republican caucuses. and one more number. 30. congressman paul joins me now

throw out the simpson-bowles or throw out dominici and rivlin throw it out and say okay sense of the senate, up or down, throw three out and see what will happen. i don't think harry reid or mcconnell will go for it but it will be interesting. and then you have a plan. it is a plan. the only reason they are not messing with france and germany and great britain, they have a plan. >>neil: you would put them on record. for or against. not a bad idea. >>guest: and then the aarp and the special interest groups will see their tax spend tears -- expenditures going down the tubes. >>neil: and you lose your early dining card at dennys. >>guest: i have people in the streets patrolling my home. >>neil: in all seriousness you have done a lot god for the country and at least forced people to wake up. exit is a giant stink bomb in the garden party, and the peculiar odor is the bill because it is very specific. >>neil: always good to have you on. civil raising cain on the stump, you heard herman say it is not over so why is the media saying he is over? [ nadine ] buzzzz, bzzzz, bzzzz, bzzzz, you kn

investigator larry rivlin learns that a second vehicle has left the target house. a second police unit pulls that car over and finds even more bundles of cash. >> we need to go back to the house because there will be quite a bit more. >> time is of the essence. >> jamie, we need a couple of uniforms over here. >> tell them we're moving in. we're moving in. >> i can't see anything. >> here he comes. >> hi. how are you, sir? open the door, please. >> it just looked to us like the individual lived that wasn't the main guy or anywhere hooked up to be one of the main guys. the guy is living there with his wife and kids. it's a family. it looks like a regular home. that's probably how most of the spots are. they're sdrishgs spots. sdrigs spots. distribution spots. he's just a mechanic, they'll bring their cars to get fixed. but you see how the money was packaged. the money is back there. he did give consent to search. we will be searching the inside with dogs. we have a helicopter to search the backyard. >> there's a creek that runs behind the house. allegedly they were

there was a miniscandal in one of the early years because director rivlin had been driving staff from the cbo building which is a little bit off of capitol hill up to capitol hill using her private automobile, and one year ceo asked for a car and it sort of came out in the press that bush wo one was a chauffeur limousine, and it created a great brouhaha in the press. but the truth was that there never was a chauffeur limousine. and four, i think, 20 years after that there was language in cbo appropriation bill that said no money could be used for the purchase of a passenger vehicle. and that was all coming out of that particular event. >> but any bad numbers that maybe got cooked a little bit or anything like that? >> i mean, there's no, there certainly are numbers that people didn't like, and certainly people argue whenever the are numbers that people don't like, that those numbers were cooked. i was not able in researching my book to find any evidence of numbers that were actually cooked as opposed to ones that were just wrong, which is a different story entirely. i mean, cbo will t

i met with alice rivlin one week ago, five or six of us. i talked to p diminishing by phone about the proposal -- another senator by phone about the proposal. you need to deal with these big entitlements if you are really going to get our fiscal house in order. the numbers are so large when you talk about a $15 trillion debt. you borrow $4 billion a day. the numbers are so large. we are borrowing $3 million every minute to keep up with the spending. >> do you think there is any possibility of a big deal or a mini deal in 2012? >> this past year would have been the year to do it. you had a bipartisan control going back to the ronald reagan, tip o'neil days. you could at had an agreement. i am sorry it did not get done. the sooner we do it, the sooner we send a message to the world that our fiscal house is in order. >> polls suggest that the democratic argument they started the year with and have stuck with relentlessly -- that the rich need to contribute more to the financial situation -- has got some traction in the polls. are you hearing a

struggling economy, raising additional revenues in that time frame has bowles-simpson and domenici and rivlin said is not good policy and would not propose them and has not been proposed, as the gentleman knows. but i will tell my friend that paying for things, and as the gentleman knows, one of the reasons we've gotten into this problem was we didn't pay for things in the last decade. we bought a lot of stuff and we didn't pay for it. we asked our chirp to pay for it because it's -- children to pay for it because it's a delayed effect. we didn't pay for the wars. we didn't pay for the prescription drug bill, and we didn't pay for the tax cuts. simply giving up revenue, voting for tax cuts and continuing to buy things is frankly i think not only not courageous but it is a disservice to this generation and generations yet to come and i yield to my friend. mr. cantor: i thank the gentleman, and the gentleman asks what regulations that we put forward or bills removing impediments and the regulatory process. i mean, the keystone pipeline, look at that bill. that bill says we'll create 12,000 cons

alice rivlin, democrats will have a hard time going after republicans for trying to end medicare whenm-minded democrats are proposing much the same thing as the two leading republican presidential candidates. megyn? megyn: it's very interesting, jim, because, you know, the white house through the spokesman came out and said they're concerned about this proposal, they think it will undermine rather than strengthen medicare and goes on from there. but can they make that argument against republicans now, that they have, you know, a democratic senator joining in the proposal to do something about the medicare reform and in a way that they say will preserve medicare? i'll ask ron paul about that in about 20 minutes right here. jangle, thank you. >> reporter: yes, ma'am. megyn: this is going to become an issue in this campaign, folks. medicare is, obviously, one of the main so-called into it almosts that they talk about, and now we've got a bipartisan plan that's got both a democratic and republican signature on it, and so we'll see how much of a political football they can make out of this

many folks on this panel has served on other commissions and we've got simpson-bowles, rivlin to managing, and a common thread running through all of those other commissions was that if we're going to tackle our budget and is serious, credible, and balanced way, we have to look at all sides of the budget equation. ultimately, we can have a good budget process, but unlike stop signs and speed bumps which are enforced by a cop on the street, congressional rules are enforced by members of congress and there are only as strong as members of congress are willing to back them up and enforce them. which means that at the end of the day, it does come down to political will in making the tough budget decisions. i hope that this congress will be able to do that. i was disappointed that the super committee was unable to accomplish that goal. but i hope some of the information and ideas that you presented they can help guide us in the right direction. such that you all very much for being here. again, thanks to the phaup peterson-pew -- organizations for bringing this together today. >> thank you for

struggling economy, raising additional revenues in that time frame has bowles-simpson and domenici and rivlin said is not good policy and would not propose them and has not been proposed, as the gentleman knows. but i will tell my friend that paying for things, and as the gentleman knows, one of the reasons we've gotten into this problem was we didn't pay for things in the last decade. we bought a lot of stuff and we didn't pay for it. we asked our chirp to pay for it because it's -- children to pay for it because it's a delayed effect. we didn't pay for the wars. we didn't pay for the prescription drug bill, and we didn't pay for the tax cuts. simply giving up revenue, voting for tax cuts and continuing to buy things is frankly i think not only not courageous but it is a disservice to this generation and generations yet to come and i yield to my friend. mr. cantor: i thank the gentleman, and the gentleman asks what regulations that we put forward or bills removing impediments and the regulatory process. i mean, the keystone pipeline, look at that bill. that bill says we'll create 12,000 cons

struggling economy, raising additional revenues in that time frame has bowles-simpson and domenici and rivlin said is not good policy and would not propose them and has not been proposed, as the gentleman knows. but i will tell my friend that paying for things, and as the gentleman knows, one of the reasons we've gotten into this problem was we didn't pay for things in the last decade. we bought a lot of stuff and we didn't pay for it. we asked our chirp to pay for it because it's -- children to pay for it because it's a delayed effect. we didn't pay for the wars. we didn't pay for the prescription drug bill, and we didn't pay for the tax cuts. simply giving up revenue, voting for tax cuts and continuing to buy things is frankly i think not only not courageous but it is a disservice to this generation and generations yet to come and i yield to my friend. mr. cantor: i thank the gentleman, and the gentleman asks what regulations that we put forward or bills removing impediments and the regulatory process. i mean, the keystone pipeline, look at that bill. that bill says we'll create 12,000 cons