but put in place credible medium term plan and bowles simpson is a pretty good prototype. put that in place. >> i agree with everything that has been said with one exception, bill's idea of a national development bank. we see that, we see it kfw and germany. we see the gynea development-- chyna development bank, an instrument of quasi fiscal inacvity. i n't think is very effective policy mechanism. i grant you, i worked project administration could have, was useful in the 30s, maybe useful again but development bank is something that i wouldn't endorse. but you don't make-- somebody doesn't page-- s&p doesn't make policy recommendations but you need a fiscal plan, it is about 7% of gdp and if you don't get that, there is just going to be less room to maneuver next time we have a crisis. >> thank you all, a pleasure to you have on the broadcast. back in a moment. stay with us. new developments emerged today in the controversial phone hacking sndal which has rupert murdoch's media empire called news corp. under sooej. rebekah brooms of news corporate international resigned a

>> well, we do use the bowles-simpson template, if you will. so if you're familiar with the bowles-simpson template,hat is the basic foundatn from where we are building. but what we are doing is going into each issue-- from social security to the health care system, entitlements, all of the entitlements, to discretionary spending to defense spending and to the revenue issues- and we are finding... i guess what i would say is creative solutions that maintain the objective of achieving deficit reduction in each o those areas but still allow the competing ideologies to find success me the process. in other words, we are finding ways that help us bridge those gaps and develop win-win solutions. it's not easy. that's why it's taken so long. but we are making that progress. >> can i just add one thing all of us have really operad i think in enormously good faith. senator coburn took a sabbatical we're hopeful he may come back. there's lot ofenators that are very interested and it's really been challenging. but whate've done th the bowles-simpson appr

with respect to bowles-simpson, it would not have happened had i not set up the structure for it. as you recall, this was originally bipartisan legislation that some of the republican supporters of decided to vote against it when i said i supported it. that seems to be a pattern i am still puzzled by. so we set -- set it up, and they issued a report. this provides an important framework to begin discussions, but there were aspects of bit that -- of it is it that i said early on were not the approach would take. i will give you an example. on defense spending, a huge amount of savings on the discretionary side came from defense spending. as commander-in-chief, active make sure we are cutting ticket -- we are cutting it in a way that recognizes we are still in the middle of a war. we are winding down another war, and we have a lot of veterans we have to care for as they come home. what we have said is, a lot of the components of rolle simpson -- bowles-simpson, a lot of the recommendations we have taken. others, like on offense, we have taken some but not of the recommendations. --

. >> greta: we had the bowles simpson committee. the american people think fine, but you didn't pay attention to the last one. >> this would have an up and down vote on recommendations and tackle this issue of entitlement reform. i think it is something we need to get done. it has to include that process or it going to be difficult to get republicans onboard. having said that, in april the president wanted a clean debt limit vote. he has come a long way. i think that's because republicans have driven him there to address the real problem which is the debt. >> greta: senator thank you. david plouffe joins us. why did the president want to speak to the american people tonight? >> first of all, eight days from now, if congress doesn't act the nation would default for the first time that would cause huge economic catastrophy. so i think it is important to let the country know we are getting close to that. most importantly, we are at a moment in washington where both parties seem to be committed to deficit reduction. a lot agree on the s

bowles-you simpson set the standard.he next ten years. the paul ryan plan that you remember got to about the same amount of deficit reduction, $4 trillion. the obama plan is $2.5 trillion of deficit reduction and now what i call the biden talks they are at zero they have talked about a trillion dollars of spending use. they are a long way from the number that we've seen from others. even if the bowles-simpson plan were adopted we would have $6 trillion more debt than we have now. let's look quickly at where the cuts come from. bowles-. simpson would cut spending. ryan would cut taxes by 4.6 trillion. obama 1.7 trillion. biden at maybe a trillion. if you look at revenue increase, bowlesh simpson had 1.2 billion revenue enmeant. obama had 750 billion of tax increase an bid inis at zero for all the reasons we've been debating. very quickly lastly if you look at where is the deficit reduction coming from, under bowles-simpson, 30%. ryan is minus 15. biden is at zero. the president is playing the game from his 30-yard line. t

. >> greta: we had the bowles simpson committee. the american people think fine, but you didn't pay attention to the last one. >> this would have an up and down vote on recommendations and tackle this issue of entitlement reform. i think it is something we need to get done. it has to include that process or it is going to be difficult to get republicans onboard. having said that, in april the president wanted a clean debt limit vote. he has come a long way. i think that's because republicans have driven him there to address the real problem which is the debt. >> greta: senator thank you. david plouffe joins us. why did the president want to speak to the american people tonight? >> first of all, eight days from now, if congress doesn't act the nation would default for the first time that would cause huge economic catastrophy. so i think it is important to let the country know we are getting close to that. most importantly, we are at a moment in washington where both parties seem to be committed to deficit reduction. a lot agree on th

is it based on the bowles-simpson plan.lashing $3.7 trillion at least in ten years, reduce publicly held debt by 70% by 2021, reduce marginal tax rate and apolish the a.m.t. and discretionary spending tax through 2015. those are a blue print. a trillion of the slashed money comes from the tax revenue, but the overall tax rate is lower and i mentioned the a.m.t. would be removed. what about this and where we are on the debt ceiling debate two weeks from tonight? panel, steve hayes, for "weekly standard." karen tomelte, "washington post." and sindcated columnist charles krauthammer. karen? >> a few weeks ago if i recall correctly we were sitting around the table writing the epitath for the gang of sick. i think it exciting news and a sign that government can still work. face it, there are a lot of details to be worked out in the plan. a lot of the work would have to be done by individual legislative committees. they are given targets in plan. how they would get to the targets is still very much in question. finally, this is n

we had simpson-bowles. all president obama had to do was come out and say let's just do all we can on the simpson and bowles and put it back out here. those people, both of them erskine and senator simpson, spent along with the rest of their colleagues an immense amount of time talking about the real pain and the real way to address it. and yet we passed it and we're going to pass something on to another commission. i do think and hope that we will take that out. i perceive it just as dangerous as putting up a balanced budget endment and telling me, mr. chairman, that we're going to have one day to look at something that we don't know what it is and we have been in this room many times. and you on that side and you were on the other side and we've talked about not having an opportunity to see everything. when we hit the wall, whatever that wall is, at some magical hour, a whole lot of stuff wl come over here, however it is that the agreement is being struck. and we won't know many of us that our rank and fil

they did see simpson bowles. is that enough? that this would sort of solve that problem?to see more of the details, were ut having served on a presidential commission back in 2005, president bush's bipartisan tax refor commission, i know how hard it is to end up way bold plan when dealing with bipartisan reform. i think wall street was disenchantsed it was tossed aside. to see that back on the table and teed up as the basis for the plan is a great thing. >> when wall street looks at plan like this, what primarily are think looking for? what of the benchmarks? >> i think the split, assumptions made by economic growth. that's the real key to pulling us out of this. you mentioned in a piece to this, the ratings agencies. i think maybe the ratings agency was erring on the side of progressiveness in light of they didn't do so well during the subprime crisis. think how much it priced off treasuries and the notion of credit, one of the biggest issues with what wall street was dealing as it retted to this deal. so i think if we can stem the tide of rating, a great piece in the sh

with respect to bowles-simpson, it would not have happened had i not set up the structure for it. as you recall, this was originally bipartisan legislation that some of the republican supporters of decided to vote against it when i said i supported it. that seems to be a pattern i am still puzzled by. so we set it up, and they issued a report. this provides an important framework to begin discussions, but there were aspects of it that i said early on were not the approach would take. i will give you an example. on defense spending, a huge amount of savings on the discretionary side came from defense spending. as commander-in-chief, i have to make sure we are cutting it in a way that recognizes we are still in the middle of a war. we are winding down another war, and we have a lot of veterans we have to care for as they come home. what we have said is, a lot of the components of bowles- simpson, a lot of the recommendations we have taken. others, like on defense, we have taken some but not all of the recommendations. it's important to be consistent with our defense and security nee

i think, with respect to bowles-simpson, it was important for us -- bowles-simpson wouldn't have happenedstructure for it. as you will recall, this was originally bipartisan legislation that some of the republican supporters of decided to vote against when i said i supported it. that seems to be a pattern that i'm still puzzled by. and so we set it up. they issued a report and what i said was this provides us an important framework to begin discussions. but there were aspects of bowles-simpson that i said from very early on, you know, were not the approach that i would take. i'll give you an example. on defense spending, a huge amount of their savings on the discretionary side came out of defense spending. i think we need to cut defense, but as commander in chief, i've got to make sure that we're cutting it in a way that recognizes we're still in the middle of a war, we're winding down another war, and we've got a whole bunch of vetetans that we've got to care for as they come home. and so what we've said is a lot of the components of bowles-simpson we are willing to embrace, for example,

>> chris, i don't know about more than ten years, but certainly as you know, simpson bowles, senator simpson and former chief of staff erskine bowles, in their report they proposed making substantial cuts, raising revenues and across the board with all items of expansion. but they said in the near term, meaning the next year of so, we need to be very careful that we did not have the opposite effect by dampening down the struggling economy, obviously, as we saw today, which will decrease revenues and make the problem worse, not better. so in the short term, i agree with the bowles/simpson suggestion that we be very careful in the short term. there's no doubt, however, in the white house yesterday, or thursday -- yesterday -- there was a clear agreement that this was a serious, serious challenge that confronted us and it demanded at all of us try to come together and reach an agreement whereby we will certainly over the next 10 years and 20 years bring this deficit town and bring the debt down because it's not sustainable. >> do most of the members in your caucus agree that this is an u

and so you have bowles-simpson saying this is the way to do it, you have a fair number of republican economists, not just marty but greg man cue and others saying this is a good way to do it. you, it seems, have the white house on board with this deal but it will not happen if the house of representatives refuses to raise any additional revenue through the closing of loopholes. that's the first barrier. if we don't get beyond that we're not going to have a deal this tim and then i think what we're looking at is the next big chance for major deficit reductiothat involves revenue is the potential expiration of the bush tax cuts in which if obama is reected which is highly uncertain-- but ihe is elected you have a standoff between the republicans in congress and obama in which they're not willing to go for his extsion ofnly the so-called middle-class tax cuts and then all of the bush tax cuts expire and you have rates going up. economically it would be worse than this loophole closing thing. but it would start to get us some serious reductioof the deficit annot just through spending cut

and secondly, enact a comprehensive and bipartisan $4 trillion plan based on the simpsons-bowles deficit reduction recommendation so we get our fiscal house in in in or for generations of americans to come but for those of us here today as well. if you look back at this, this in some ways was unpopular. folks on the far right and the far left began to sow seeds of division in order to prevent a compromise. people in our party, madam president, objected to spending cuts and entitlement reforms while republican purists like grover norquist complained about increased revenues. that brings us to the events of the last several weeks. those of us who support a commonsense middle ground and who believe our country's biggest national security threat is our growing national debt know that both sides need to compromise. and that we need a long-term, comprehensive, bipartisan -- bipartisan plan to truly heal the fiscal illnesses that have beset us. this is obvious just looking at the numbers. but it became even clearer when our creditors and u.s. rating agencies began to question whether america wa

would seen sooem that regardless of what comes out of the house and to the president's desk, to simpson bowls i come back to the point and say if simpson bowles couldn't get through how does this climate get through, richard? >> maybe that's the silver lining. remember it was a republican idea which republicans voted against, democrats voted against it too. the president had to put it into action himself and they he backed off it. maybe the politics of all this will change. on the other hand, it is an election year and maybe nothing the change. >> what do you see in the next 48 hours, u general? >> oh, thanks. in the next 48 hours. well, in the next four or five hours, i see assuming that boehner gets the bill through right now, i see harry reid figuring out what mechanism he will use to get a bill ready for tonight, so he can get the ball rolling tomorrow, and maybe they can make a tuesday deadline. if you think that u.s. senate can move that fast. even in your dreams. >> we need those who intervene in the nfl situation. i think to come to washington and square this away. >> we need captain

he kind of endorsed the bowles simpson plan which he stl has never fully endorsed but the goals of it, he did endorse in the last couple of weeks so they didn't quite expect that, the republicans in that sense and then that's when they started to retreat from retreat on could up history of '95, think mitc certainly looks at that is bill clinton want to be a looks at 95 i more with was good republicans then. been good, possibly could for house the day he votes to get >> rose: boehner at that to newt >> tt's right. he was in leadership at the think he sees know, the figured it out won. republicans won. is the guy is ying to here and i different set. he was of a different mindset. >> hans, do you agree with this is the political take plac 2012, that presidentas sense of the resignation. >> well, it's not all resignation implies sort of and don't way to alter forward. i think what you have seen in the last weeks, there is the essentially for comes, happens. you get biden deal deal or would be the $4 trillion those out trillion pretty now, the way them. saying they the what happens recrimi

. >> he's never taken it seriously, in not in his budget, not in his budget state, know when bowl simpson came city. not when they wanted a clean debt limit increase. so that he is winning a debate over the fiscal future of the country is astonishing! and. >> but he's keeping something else off page one! what is it? >> this is a genuine. >> the unemployment problem? it doesn't even figure in this. >> could not keep unemployment off the front page. it doesn't have to be on the front page. people are living it in this country every day this. ongoing impasse does not help barack obama in terms of how people feel about the economy. he's got to get past it. he wants a buying deal. it would be good for his re- election. i believe john boehner wants to dot right thing but he can't -- >> i don't see how he changed from a deal that -- >> john, let me ask rich a question. >> what is that? >> i want to ask rich a question. if boehner had gone with the revenue increases of 400 billion, do you not agree that obama would have come forward with his big deal and gone ahead with it? i think he would have!

it is modeled after the bipartisan simpson-bowles proposal. it's not every detail but it says we'll get $3 in spending cuts for every dollar of revenue increased. and we all know the republicans want to move away from the table. as chairman larson said because they refused to allow 1 penny of revenue imposing a special interest tax loophole to go for the purpose of deficit reduction. that is their position. the american people want a balanced approach. so do we. let's get on with the business of the country. >> time for a few questions and then we're on our way. >> thank you very much. >> congressman, what is the level of sentiment of the approach from senators mcconnell? is that an acceptable alternative? >> i would say right now that that is unfolding. we don't have all the details on it. i will say, i will say this. i think that our film was about an adult moment. i think from the standpoint of recognizing, even with opposition from people here in the house, mitch mcconnell is trying to get to a point where we don't default on our credit. h

what we are doing is building on the bowles-simpson approach which changed the paradigm, if you will, of how we deal with tax policy. tin said the of the age-old battle over whether we're going to rage tax race or lower tax rates or whether we're going raise rates on the middle-class or what have you, we are approaching in the a different way. yes we are looking at the tax expenditures and loopholes, if you will, at will be discussed in the last few days. but we are talking about that the context of fundental tax reform, redusing... broaden the base, reducing the rates, not increasing the rates but reducing the rates and generating a powerful economic stimulus that will generate the kind of revenue we need to have in order to deal with the revenue side of the equation. >> hunt: but you still would add net revenue which is senator mcconnell says is a non-starter. >> well, i can't speak for anyone other than myself but i think it's very important to understand the difference between raising taxes and raising revenues. i don't think you will a lot of opposition to funmental tax reform th

i think with respect to bowles-simpson, it was important for us -- bowles-simpson wouldn't have happened if i hadn't set up the structure. that is bipartisan legislation that some of the republican supporters decided to vote against when i said i supported it. that seems to be a pattern that i'm still puzzled by. so we set it up, they issued a report, and what i said was this provides us an important framework to begin discussions. but there were aspects of bowles-simpson that i said from very early on, you know, we're not the approach that i would take. i'll give you an example. on defense spending. a huge amount of the savings obvious the discretionary side came out of defense. i think we need to cut defense. as commander in chief, i've got to make sure that we are cutting it in a way that recognized that we are still in the middle of a war. we're winding down another war. and we've got a whole bunch of veterans that we've got to care for as they come home. and so what we've said is a lot of the components of bowles-simpson we are willing to embrace, for example, the domestic spending

i think there waa ance for the congress and the white house to do it after the simpson-bowles reportcame out in december. i think both punted. obama justifiably gets criticized for not rising to the occasion, but neither did paul ryan or house republicans. i think there was another opportunity a couple weeks ago with these deliberations between boehner and obama. they've fallen through. i'm not sure why there's grounds for optimism. looking ahead, charlie, there may indeed -- some of the ratings agencies have said, even with the debt ceiling increase, there may be a downgrading of u.s. credit, because we're not optimistic about that long-term outlook. >> i mean, the only thing that would gi anybody any sense of optimism, if they pass something that does have some kind of a coission in it of members of congress with some very hard triggers or targets, that sort of thg, then perhaps that would do it. but i think given everything we've seen over the last weeks and months, you would have to say that is an unlikely outcome that we will look back on this and say this is the moment when the

he chose erskine bowles, who was former chief of staff to president clinton. he chose alan simpson, former republican senator. they submit ad -- submitted a statement to the budget committee. that statement was this country faces the most predictable economic crisis in its history. we've got to act, they told us. and they said when could this crisis happen? mr. bowles said it could happen within two years. not our children and grandchildren. he said two years, maybe a little sooner, maybe a little later, and alan simpson popped up as cochairman of the committee and he said i think it could be one year. in other words, some sort of economic crisis like we had in 2007-2008 or something that could put our economy in a tailspin. it's that serious. and the debt trajectory path we're on is unsustainable, and tomorrow i have to say tomorrow will mark the 800th day that this senate has not had a budget we're spending -- we're borrowing 40 cents out of every dollar we spend and we have gone this long without a budget. there is no plan apparently to present one. a chairman of the budget comm

ia can't we start, as the bowls simpson commission proposed, eliminating many of the subsidies and loopholesand special deals in our tax code that total something over $1 trillion? that's a great place to start. if you follow that with tax reform, lower rates for corporations and businesses, that's an even bigger step that we could taifnlgt i think there's broader agreement in the chamber, at least certain any our conversations, wi people across the country who represent their states. those are some commonsense steps forward. mr. bennet: we will, i completely agree. and why we wouldn't want to look at ouratory code. i hear about that from the other side. i share their view. listen, i was a school sciewpt for almost four years. if you think i don't understendd well-intentioned legislation from washington, d.c., that by the time it get to a school or classroom makes no cent all, believe me, i lived it ev single day. why wouldn't we look at our tax code and regulatory code and ask ourselves, are these things more or less likely to drive innovation in the united states? are they more or less lik

incidentally, for the record, former senator allan simpson on the bowles simpson commission said, "ronald 11 times in his administration. i was here. i was here. i knew him better than anybody in the room. he was a dear friend and a total realist as to politics." mr. president, i yield the floor. >> could i just remind the senator from illinois that in retrospect the one thing that president reagan said he

. >> the gang of six proposal which is essentially a reworked bowles simpson proposal will probably become the basis of a deal between obama, mcconnell, the republican leader in the senate, harry reid. and then they will go to boehner the speaker of the house and beg and plead and arm trust and he will say no, no, no, no, no. >> bill: let's recap the proposal by these guys. $3.7 trillion in cuts, correct? >> and $1 trillion in additional money. i think that -- >> bill: it isn't defined on how the 1 trillion south dakota be raised?going to >> it is the bowles condition. they will cut or elimb national the mortgage interest deduction and charitable deduction. >> bill: it will be what they call loopholes plugged, not a higher income tax. >> won't be things like corporate jets and two martini lunches. the two main deductions americans use. >> bill: one or two taken away. >> all three i think. >> they will have to vote on that. >> they will present this deal to boehner and he will resist and resist and resist and get certain concessions and make it more house friendly and lower the revenues and

they said no to simpson bowls, and they said no to the -- >> to be fair, there were parts of simpson also said no to. we get down to that. because our time with you is short i want to move on a little about that let's say you are more or less optimistic that we will get the debt ceiling done and move on to a different subject? >> i am neither. this is the first time in 19 years that i feel that something that can be done simply is being held hostage for a very high stakes game. >> you have a new bill you call the respect for marriage act, which would undo the defensive marriage act which defines marriage between a man and a woman and disallows same-sex couples from having federal benefits. >> that's right. >> and people will point out that 39 states have banned same-sex marriage. why is this the time to do this? >> six states plus the district of columbia now support same-sex marriage. marriage is also a creature of the state for legal reasons, all family matters are done by state law. what the defensive marriage act did was in 1993 or 1994, it was passed and it said you can have none

i've set through a year and a half dealing with this whole deficit crisis, both at the bowles/simpson commission and the gang of five, both bipartisan commissions, and i can tell you the president has put on the table a reasonable list of alternatives that can bring us to $4 trillion in deficit reduction, and we don't have to wait for the states to ratify a constitutional amendment. let's get our job done now. >> senator demint, what's going on here? i mean, so many people i talk to are, frankly, disgusted with washington. you know, you have on the one side people saying that republicans are just crazy, that they won't negotiate, that they're being unreasonable, that they're denying the prospect of a default. michele bachmann saying it's a misnomer when the fed chief says it would be economic calamity. and on the other side, you know, you've got republicans saying, look, somebody's got to draw a line in the sand here. it's the democrats who have run up the debt since president obama got into office, but the reality is, nobody is really willing to compromise and to make a deal. >> well

he supported the recommendation of the bowles-simpson the commission, which included within tax reformng, you lower the rate, you eliminate the loophole so you raise the revenue with the loophole. you return the revenue to the ordinary citizen in tax cuts. republicans who are responsive will have supported that. coburn has the right idea. their only opposition is that all he wants to do is raise the revenue through the tax loopholes. you have to pair that. then you get the 1986, a deal between reagan and tip o'neil with a quarter century of almost uninterrupted expansion. >> bret: bowles was in the sound bite that you heard about the 2 trillion number. next up, latest on the 2012 th, i know pleasing fans is a top priority, 'cause without the fans, there'd be no nascar. just like if it weren't for customers, there'd be no nationwide. that's why they serve their customers' needs, not shareholder profits. because as a mutual, nationwide doesn't report to wall street, they report to their customers. and that's just one more reason why the earnhardt family has trusted nationwide for more th