joining us is peter orszag, currently vice chairman of global banking at citigroup. >> great to be here. >> you've done this work, you've sat in the oval office, if you sat down there and the president said we need to get spending to 17% of gdp, could you do it? >> virtually impossible. in 2020 or so spending is projected to be 25% of the economy, to get it down to 17% of the economy, is beyond -- you can make the numbers work but would require such massive reductions, especially if you're leaving defense untouched, i am becomes implausible. >> you've called for all the bush tax cuts to expire in a bloomberg column, the obama administration has not gone that far. under their proposal where the revenue numbers are higher, do you think in the long run you can fund the government at that level, that is a plausible revenue base? >> i think unfortunately not. i think both sides are locking in revenue bases that are inadequate for what the government needs to run on. at least though the administration's budget is proposing a revenue increase of about a percent of gdp, romney, as you mentioned

peter orszag. he speaks to executives at the>> earlier this week, president obama's budget director peter orszag gave comments on the future of the u.s. economy at the executives club of chicago. he serves as head of global banking for citigroup and talks about the economic downturn. this is about an hour. >> you are people that matter very much to the financial times. thank you for having me. it is my great honor today to introduce peter orszag, the man who president barack obama called his propeller head. propeller heads i have always thought of as a funny complement. i am sure you will agree with me that it is not an aspersion on his good looks. instead, it all makes sense when you realize the propeller is inside his agile and compendious frame and spins around fast. this is a man who matched equations with larry summers in the white house. he has the resume and economic advisers, founder of the fantastic hamilton project now by chairman of global banking at citigroup. but that misses is the amb

. >> well, it's something i'm borrowing a tag from, peter orszag, who i was on the congressional budgetffice advisory committee when he was at the congressional budget office and his use he's really into long term covered deficit reduction, but near term, you don't want naked stimulus. you don't want to just put out stimulus without thinking about how we're going to pay for things down the road. i think that's important. there's an opportunity and a severe challenge at the end of the year, the trifecta of the tax cuts expiring from the bush-era tax cuts, payroll tax cuts they barely were able to agree upon to extend and the sequestration coming through and on the other side we could likely hit another debt limit which if we don't deal with these things in tandem during the lame duck congress we could get downgraded again in our nation's country and in our credit rating which brings up this political instability that mohammed refers to that can be the thread that unravels much of the progress we've made at weaving a more sustainable recovery going forward. >> peter, i have to say, i'm gl

please welcome me in the -- help me in welcoming peter orszag. [applause] >> thank you, robin.hank you for joining us this afternoon, i am delighted to be here with you. i was like to talk to you about a few overarching things that are affecting the u.s. economy. i hope to use an empirical basis to connect some dots. even when i tried to be empirical, the world does not always turn out as i expect. the most compelling affect of that is after having been confirmed in record time as the director of office and management and budget, assembling talked advisers to join me, i almost said the white house on fire since the war of 1812 -- on fire for the first time since the war of 1812. imagine this, it is a labyrinth in quite draftee. i was working the first weekend in office. it was cold and no way to adjust the thermostat. so i noticed there was, in the llout barrette office, a fireplace in which there was a fire screen at the next to it were some fire tools. and next to that, some logs. that suggested an operational fireplace. [laughter] being empirical, i decided t test the propos

[cheers and applause] ♪ ♪♪ >> next, peter orszag on the economic outlook. that, former senator alan simpson. then the house debate on the payroll tax cut extension. >> hello. i had of the lcv project. the purpose is to collect programming from outside washington d.c. staff each one of these with one person with a small video camera and a laptop editor so they are able to roll, produce, and added things from the road. we want to get out of washington, d.c. and collect programming for all of our networks. we are doing it and lcv city store. one will do historic programs and the other will do book-tv programs. the other one does community relations events. the last thing important to know is that all this not only goes on the air, but it gets archived on our web site, the c-span video library. we are also doing extensive social media. he will see us on facebook. you will see four square which is location based and tell people where we are going. you will see us on twitter as well. it is a chance to get -- a chance to see as online and through social media as w

please welcome me in the -- help me in welcoming peter orszag. [applause] >> thank you robin.hank you for joining us this afternoon, i am delighted to be here with you. i was like to talk to you about a few overarching things that are affecting the u.s. economy. i hope to use an empirical basis to connect some dots. even when i tried to be empirical, the world does not always turn out as i expect. the most compelling affect of that is after having been confirmed in record time as the director of office and management and budget, assembling talked advisers to join me, i almost said the white house on fire since the war of 1812 -- on fire for the first time since the war of 1812. imagine this, it is a labyrinth in quite draftee. i was working the first weekend in office. it was cold and no way to adjust the thermostat. so i noticed there wa,s, in the sellout barrette office, a fireplace in which there was a fire screen at the next to it were some fire tools. and next to that, some logs. that suggested an operational fireplace. [laughter] being empirical, i decided to test the pr

former office of management and budget director peter orszag on the u.s. economic outlook. >> i had a hunch one of them might have been addicted. i'm going to ask each one a simple question. we will see what their response is. nicotine is not addictive, yes. cigarettes and nicotine clearly do not make the classic definitions of addiction. >> we take that as a note. >> i do not believe nicotine is addictive. >> they had a program in the 1970's were they wanted to remove nicotine from cigarettes and replace it with a drug that was equally addictive. it would not cause heart problems. they had all of these molecules the intended but the way to test them. that was my job. to find a molecule that iraq's brain would say i like it. -- a rat's brain would say, i like it. >> former scientist and producer at 8:00 p.m. eastern and pacific on c-span. president obama concluded his three day west coast trip in washington with the tour of the boeing production plant. he spoke to employees about his plan to stimulate job creation and manufacturing. elements of his plan in