erskine bowles and senator alan simpson. >> thank you, richard. even though it's snowing outside and sleeting outside, i'm glad we can give you that warm dallas welcome. alan simpson, you're a republican, erskine bowles, you're a democrat. in the time we've been here today i have not noticed a single cross word between the two of you. why are you two so different from everybody else in washington? >> when you're associated with someone and especially in a time of tension and trauma, you learn about friendship. when we started this, this was a suicide mission, still is, and erskine finally said one day, you know, what are you doing in here? how did you get in this? i said, biden called and said, i got a real deal for you, al. i said, thanks, joe.

erskine bowles and senator alan simpson? [applause] kine bowles. >> even though it is snowing outside, i am happy to give you >> alan simpson you are a republican and erskine bowles you are a democrat and i have not noticed a single crossword between you. why are you to go so different for everyone in washington? >> when you are associated with someone especially in a time of tension and trauma, you learn about friendship. when we started this, this was a suicide mission and it still is [laughter] erskine bowles said what am i doing here? i said joe biden called. thanks, joe. erskine bowles is the co-chair of the first call i received was from bob and elizabeth dole defeated -- elisabeth defeated erskine bowles in north carolina i was bob's assistant for 10 years. this is the finest person we have ever known. that is good enough for me. it took us three months to establish that centrust in our commission. -- that same trust and our commission. trust is the coin of the roman politics. it is very tarnished now in washington. o

erskine bowles and alan simpson in their "the washington post" op ed piece. utica, new york. what about the prospect of a shutdown? would you support it? caller: i think they should. i think there should be some type of -- if they do shut down the government, that all of these positions should come back up for reelection, like the term limit. it is for current people that are serving, be them republican, democrat, or independent, should end their rain. eost: what is thei problem? who is the cause, if you can lay blame? caller: if you're going to point the finger, you have to put it at the two-party system. the republican answer for the last two years has no. these people have forgotten who they work for. they talk about republican and democrats like they are from the two different countries. they forget they are americans unless something happens. host: what would a different viewpoint, a different party, a different political vantage point mean to all this? caller: this is where the tea party came from. when they rein in their favorite daughters and sons, you get a new one.

disappointment about what we have heard so far, that he is really not taking of some of the erskine bowles-alan simpsonommission. they put a lot of really tough issues on the table. yes, they're tough on discretionary spending in the short term because you have to be. particularly they focused attention on the long-term problem we have the structural mismatch and that means getting into tax reform and getting it to social security reform, medicare-medicaid reform and that is the debate we ought to be having not whether or not to cut $100 billion from this year's budget. it is narrowly focused on a very small part of the budget. host: bob bixby has spent more than two decades with the concord coalition. from ohio, good morning. go ahead, please. one more time for bill. in massachusetts. there is a slight delay, sauterne the volume down on your television set. -- sauternes down the volume. caller: some agencies really need to bring closure to their activities. let's take to the dea. how long will it take before they bring closure to some of the things like they're doing like eradicating whenever they do?

senator alan simpson appointed 20 or 30 years ago, so he isn't a guy we would look to to come up with a balanced plan and the plan was and rebalanced. similarly people were singing to has to be on the commission. we've already got them about the membership of the commission or the co-chairs. [inaudible] secondly but we are talking about here is the consensus in washington. the only people who think the social security problem should be solved by cutting benefits me to be on the editorial board of the post and "the new york times," and they are many people beyond the panel were from around in washington or in congress and it is an elite position, and when you ask the american people what do they want the say don't raise the retirement age, don't cut benefits, by a wide margin even a multi-party people and independent and republicans and democrats. the vast majority are actually willing to pay more taxes if that's what it takes. so you have a populist that is trying out for the security of social security. we will even pay more for it and for medicare by the way. and you have a leadersh

senator alan simpson appointed 20 or 30 years ago, so he isn't a guy we would look to to come up with a balanced plan and the plan was and rebalanced. similarly people were singing to has to be on the commission. we've already got them about the membership of the commission or the co-chairs. [inaudible] secondly but we are talking about here is the consensus in washington. the only people who think the social security problem should be solved by cutting benefits me to be on the editorial board of the post and "the new york times," and they are many people beyond the panel were from around in washington or in congress and it is an elite position, and when you ask the american people what do they want the say don't raise the retirement age, don't cut benefits, by a wide margin even a multi-party people and independent and republicans and democrats. the vast majority are actually willing to pay more taxes if that's what it takes. so you have a populist that is trying out for the security of social security. we will even pay more for it and for medicare by the way. and you have a leadersh

and with erskine bowles, a former chief counsel to the president, alan simpson, former colleague in thete, our bipartisan commission studied it for months and came up with a proposal that we should deal with this budget deficit in a sensible way. and one of the things that they suggested, and i agreed with, was let's not cut too soon. if you cut too soon in some areas, you're going to spoil the recovery. you're going to slow down the recovery. you've got to make sure that the investmentses are there that will help build jobs. the republicans see it differently. they called for cuts in spending and trumped with their own membership to raise the cuts to $100 billion. among the things which the house republicans want to cut are among the following, $74 million from the small business admission at a sometime when small businesses are turning to the s.b.a. for loans so they can stay in business an hire more people. $1.4 billion from the clean resolving water fund that local communities use for basic infrastructure so they have good drinking water for the families in their communities. $600 m

that's going on while the commission is meeting and somehow terrific credit to erskine bowles and alan simpson managed to hold the commission together to have constructive meetings in terms of looking at the problem and various options and hearing from people like maya testify before the commission and so forth. what the commission delivered in the end was a couple of things that i think are very important. the first was it got the country focused on the debt problem. erskine bowles has been -- i have forgotten his exact words. but he's been very clear and very blunt about the fact we have to tackle this problem or it's going to tackle us. the next thing it did, it put forward great reforms. it has discretionary caps which we've been advocating on discretionary spending. that's 40% of the budget. not a huge piece and social security proposal that made the program solvent over the long run. it had a blind spot to me which is completely understandable. it had a blind spot on health care reform. this was the president's commission on health care and while it's meeting the president is doing every

our disappointment, the president appointed two well known haters of social security, senator alan simpson you know, coined the term greedy geezers 20 or 30 years ago. so he is not a guy who we would look to to come up with a balanced plan, and the plan was not very balanced. and similarly, erskine bowles, people were saying, well, there's got to be a blue dog on the commission. i said, we've already got him, it's erskine bowles. the left did not control the membership of the commission or especially the co-chairs. and there would have been a lot -- [inaudible] if it had not been such a surprise as to who they were. secondly, what we're talking about here is the consensus in washington. the only people who really think that the social security problem is solved by cutting benefits seem to be on the editorial boards of washington post or "the new york times". and the rest of them are, you know, many of the people of the type who would be running around washington or in congress. it's really an elite position. and when you ask the american people what do they want, they say don't raise the r