we are going to hear from pete domenici and alice rivlin. we hope you can stay with us and we will have q&a for all of you. let me introduce and give alice a very brief introduction. many people, everybody knows alice. she's a senior fellow of the economic studies program at perkins commented professor of public policy institute at georgetown university. alice rivlin served as vice chair of the federal reserve board, since 1996, she was director of the white house office of management and budget. in february 2010 commissioners named by president obama to the commission on fiscal responsibility and reform. she also cochaired with pete domenici, the bipartisan policy center's task force on debt reduction. did i say to you that you also had a studio at one time? we are delighted to have unp you and pete and we will have questions for all four of you. >> thank you very much, senator, excuse me one moment. >> you all don't know what a fortunate man i have been here in my age -- to be asked to join with alice rivlin in forming a task force to atte

thank you to pete domenici if are your leadership.'s tough to make -- one foot on the brake and the accelerator. now the brakes are burning up. it's tough enough under the best of circumstances. but, you know, in that environment, coupled with the campaign environment money in the political system, 24 media cycle, nobody seem the to be free to make decisions. the incentive for leadership are really difficult, and so but it's not all bleak and, you know, it struck me that when you look at great institutions that worked well from great companies to academic institutions, there is a kind of symbol of a high performance team, teamwork is part of making the institutions work. so you look at fortunate 500 company, you look at europe start-ups, you look at academics and labor union an ngo. the ones that work are based on team work from the top down. they are part of a team. they work together. we have great trouble in our country now being a team. a high perform team. and i think that makes it more difficult for us to address the very seriou

we solved the budget and will senator domenici finally this? i don't know which will be first but until i leave you i will continue to work on this and see what we can do. so thank you, sam. literally millions of words have been spent on this topic during the past two years. when you and i, senator negron were still innocent we heard our colleagues under millions of words on the need for fiscal wisdom. you are not and are then colleagues work together to forge budgets to try to balance government spending with revenues. we had colleagues on the left and the right, we expect, except for a handful of their extreme were partners in our work. even after your retirement, senator, congress and president work together despite partisan rancor that may been there in their prior life. indeed, after negotiations between president clinton and congress we were able to create more consecutive years of balanced budgets. many watching this event today may forget the drama, the tension surrounding these negotiations. we had our ideologues then, just like now. h

and she said not any republican, the gdp to domenici to do it, and look at there. we were far away and we agreed that this should be the committee. so from that time on, we have had innumerable meetings. i am pleased to tell you that the plans are pretty close together. i will say i think that unlike our tax reform better, although i like their rates better but we can't get them down that low. and the rest of it, i like our approach to health care and health delivery increases. like ours better because we do insist that entitlement per se get reduced, get changed, get modified, and we have a system to do it. and so with that if you would let her explain some of the details, i think you understand where we have been working the last two years. >> thank you very much, pete. and doctor alice rivlin, we will hear from you. >> thank you, mr. chairman, and thank you, pete. i'm honored to be the cleanup out in this extraordinary lineup of experienced and dedicated players. who care deeply about the future of the country. i don't think the problems facing us is mysterious

we're going hear from pete domenici and alice rivlin. we hope erskine bowles you and allen can stay with us. we have questions and answers for all of you. pete has been well introduced. let me give alice a brief introduction. many people, everybody who followed the budget for the last twenty knows alice. she's a senior -- public policy at georgetown university. before returning to brookings, she serves as vice chair of the federal reserve board, 1996, 1999, she was directer of the white house office of management budget in the first clinton administration, in february of 2010, alice was named by president obama to the commission on fiscal responsibility and reform, she also co-chaired with former senator pete domenici the bipartisan policy centers task force on debt reduction. and alice, did i say that you also have cbo at one time? you have done so many things. alice is a well-known commentators on an awful lot of business programs. so we're delighted to have you. i don't know who is going lead off. we'll be delighted to have you and pe

we have seen the nuggets of a plan that has been out there -- whether it is the minute she -- domenici, simpson-bowles. van hollen. we should be staying in congress until we put everybody back to work and resolve all lot of these artificial issues like the debt ceiling, something naira -- neither president reagan, president bush the younger, president clinton, or george w. bush had to deal with because congress understood implicitly that that was an important thing to do to make sure we honored our debt and had very little to do with the current debt. we saw this last summer. that has got to be avoided. i believe -- >> on that point -- >> i believe we will come together during this lame duck session because they recognize the magnitude of this. some will be leaving congress. some will be leaving because they are going to retire. others in voluntarily. i hope they understand the magnitude of what we're dealing with here. >> patty murray indicated that democrats are willing to go off the fiscal cliff to get republicans to been on raising taxes. is that your position as congress is schedu

where did it go on domenici and rivlin, down 26% or something, you're going to get democrats to agreeocrats would love to tackle the tax expenditures if they could get a big package, where the democrats have problems is on the entitlement side and there it has to be entitlement approach in the same package. >> i don't know historically what the lowest marginal rate top bracket we've ever had was, do you know? there's no way it was anywhere near 28% and they're already talking about the eisenhower years, we did 90, they're already talking about historically this is way too low. i don't see any of the things simpson-bowles ever being pal e palatable to both sides. >> they're moving sides. if you're missing the rate you miss the tax expenditure pieces. >> the grand bargain, everybody has to get something they want. >> just because they talk about it that way doesn't mean we should. >> david you said your biggest concern with this idea would be that this is just another thing, another can that gets kicked down the road in six months. how do we make them sick to this one if they're not goi

i think that view is incorporated pretty well both in simpson-bowles and in the domenici proposal.one thing i do know is a broad bipartisan agreement is going to be necessary if we are going to be able to stabilize our debt. we cannot continue to move forward with a debt to gdp of over 100% for as far as the eye can see. a grand bargain is going to has re some thingthing that become a dirty word up there in disneyland on the potomac and that is compromise. i will not go into the domestic consequences that i think would be associated if we just continue on our current path except to say i think they would be catastrophic. as a former treasury secretary, let me focus on the international aspects of this debt problem before mentioning a few of the elements i think should be part of any grand bargain in. right now, we are enjoying a period of low interest rates so therefore we have manageable debt service. this will not continue indefinitely. in a real sense, this debt problem of ours is a ticking time bomb because as the world economy recovers and the u.s. economy recovers, interest r

moreover, as pete has pointed out, the simpson-bowles and domenici-rivlin plans are very similar. and that's not because we colluded. it's because the arithmetic drives in a bipartisan group using realistic projections to the same conclusion. bringing the debt under control without derailing the economy must involve a combination of three elements. entitlement reform, reducing the rate of growth of medicare and medicaid i delivering health care more efficiently and effectively, and putting social security on a firm foundation for future retirees. that part, the entitlement reform, it's a hard part for democrats but it's absolutely necessary. you can't solve this problem without it him although entitlement reform won't help very much in the near term. second part is tax reform, that raises additional revenues from a tax code that is simpler and less of a drag on economic growth and remains at least as progressive as the one we have now. that's the part, the more revenue, that's the part that is hard for republicans, but it's absolutely necessary. we can't solve this problem without

chapter five is not david wessel's version of bowles-simpson or rivlin-domenici.but the role in the journalist is to say look, this isn't so complicated, let's break it down. it is hard to understand because it's so big that instructions at the white house and set to agencies to tell them how to submit requests for the president's budget runs 972 pages. the budget itself, for printed volumes, you can read them free online, 2238 pages last year. and content each one of those pages is a whole nother set of explanations. my favorite is the department of homeland security which submitted to congress 3134 pages to justify their budget, one for every $12.6 million they wanted to spend. the budget is big, $3.6 trillion a year, $400 billion a day, $70 million an hour. dave barry was a humor columnist be used to write for "the miami herald," is really good at this stuff, once said the problem, the reason people don't understand the federal budget is it's in millions billions and trillions sounds too much like. if we just call them golf balls, watermelons and how to bless i

that $4 trillion figure reflects in rough figures what simpson-bowles was looking at, and rivlin-domenici and others, as what was necessary to begin to get our fiscal house in order. and that's why the president had a plan that reflected that. and remember, it was built on the principles of his fiscal commission, the principles that some folks celebrate without knowing what they're talking about, because simpson-bowles not just -- not only did simpson-bowles include revenue, it includes substantially more revenue the president has asked for and put in his plan. not only did it include defense cuts, it included significantly deeper defense cuts than the president believes are prudent and wise and therefore his proposals have less reduction in defense spending. so when you hear republicans try to get through a discussion in a roundtable or something and cite the merits of simpson- bowles, and then you ask them, well, do you actually support eliminating carried interest? do you support revenues the size that simpson-bowles put on the table? do you support not just all of the provisions, but

senator domenici put a hold on former congressman nussle even being named the head of the o.m.b. until he promised he was going to give out loans to the nuclear industry. that's the history of this program. nuclear, nuclear, nuclear. last year the republicans in control of the house and the senate, what did they do? well, in the loan guarantee program they left in $32 billion for nuclear and coal, and cut out the $17 in loan guarantees for wind and solar. got the picture? nuclear, coal, they like it. wind and solar, they hate it. or to be more clear about it, the nuclear and the coal industry hate it. because wind and solar are taking off across this country. 12,000 new megawatts of wind this year, ,200 megawatts of solar this year. it is taking off as these other two industries are going down. this level playing field was just too much, too much for the republicans. adam smith is spinning in his grave so quickly that he would qualify for a new tax break under the republican program. that's how crazy all of this is. and get to the bottom line. i made an amendment in the committee

the task force that was headed by a was rivlin and pete domenici, a democrat and republican. also said that with regard to medicare we need to do something about the op east and smokers and they have a proposal which was more complicated than ours for restricting spending on end of life care. by the way, these are difficult, painful decisions, but we are going to have to face them. >>> and now the american security project holds a discussion on the prospects of passing the comprehensive test ban treaty. the u.s. has observed a moratorium on the nuclear testing for the past 20 years but have still ratify the treaty. this is about 45 minutes. >> ladies and gentlemen, i am steve chaney, ceo of the american security project and welcome to asp. if you're not familiar with asp we are a 501c3 non-profit and take on national-security issues from a non-partisan perspective. we were founded in 2006 by senator hagel, senator kerry, heart and governor christine todd whitman who will remain on the board today. and one of the points they raised them and it's still pertinent today was a lot

they will be cochaired by sam nunn and former senator pete domenici.5 former members of congress on a bipartisan basis to look at these key issues of what we do about health care, taxes, how we look at this as a national security issue, because it is. if we are running huge deficits and have to go to the rest of the world to borrow money to finance them, and if we have to cut defense spending by huge sums, then it becomes a national security issue as well as an economic issue. i am encouraged that there are a lot of groups in town that are taking up this challenge on a bipartisan basis. i think the public is willing to do it, to. a lot of it gets back to what you said. people where about are we facing insolvency and what does that mean for future generations. host: connie on our democrats' line. caller: good morning. they say that medicare and social security -- host: keep going, connie. caller: that social security and medicare is the big problem. no matter how little money you make, you have to -- host: you have to what? caller: no matter how little

they will be cochaired by sam nunn and former senator pete domenici. we are recruiting 35 former members of congress on a bipartisan basis to look at these key issues of what we do about health care, taxes, how we look at this as a national security issue, because it is. if we are running huge deficits and have to go to the rest of the world to borrow money to finance them, and if we have to cut defense spending by huge sums, then it becomes a national security issue as well as an economic issue. i am encouraged that there are a lot of groups in town that are taking up this challenge on a bipartisan basis. i think the public is willing to do it, to. a lot of it gets back to what you said. people where about are we facing insolvency and what does that mean for future durations -- generations. host: connie on our democrats' line. caller: good morning. they say that medicare and social security -- host: keep going, connie. caller: that social security and medicare is the big problem. no matter how much money you make, you have to -- host: you have to what

other bipartisan commissions and so forth to a task force that was said about alice rivlin and pete domenici, democrat and our republican. also said that with regard to medicare we need to do something about the obese and smokers and also had a proposal which was more complicated than ours for restricting the spending on end-of-life care. by the way, these are difficult, handful decisions are but we're going to have to face them spent fixing the economy sunday at 8 p.m. on c-span's q. and a. >> next a form on the 2012 elections focusing on demographics, the economy and a center for american progress report on how the presidential candidates can get the electoral votes they need to win. we wished as much of the hour and have even as we can until our live coverage at nine eastern. >> good afternoon, everyone. my name is daniella gibbs leger and i'm vice president for american values and newt gingrich are at the center for american progress. i want to thank you for joining us. for the past, rogue demographics, economics and voter registration, voter ideology in the 2012 election. and i want to

duck session do our responsibility to america and to our constituents in reaching a bowles-simpson-domenici, gang of six, almost every economist that has spoken to this issue has said you need a balanced plan. and if we simply have sold our soul, mr. speaker, to grover norquist on asking people to help bring this debt and deficit down, mr. speaker, we will not succeed. but if we summons the turge and the will to solve this problem, we can do it, mr. speaker. i'm hopeful that my friend, the majority leader, and i, will work together over the next number of weeks between now and november 6 to establish the preface for acting in the lame duck session in a responsible, cooperative, consensus seeking fashion to get this country on a fiscally sustainable, credible path. if we do that, if we do that, we could redeem this congress' performance. i hope we'll do that. i don't know whether the majority leader wants to make a comment or not. mr. cantor: i thank the gentleman. i'm going to try and make sure that i don't bring on even more because i know our colleagues are waiting to speak. i would say t

duck session do our responsibility to america and to our constituents in reaching a bowles-simpson-domenici, gang of six, almost every economist that has spoken to this issue has said you need a balanced plan. and if we simply have sold our soul, mr. speaker, to grover norquist on asking people to help bring this debt and deficit down, mr. speaker, we will not succeed. but if we summons the turge and the will to solve this problem, we can do it, mr. speaker. i'm hopeful that my friend, the majority leader, and i, will work together over the next number of weeks between now and november 6 to establish the preface for acting in the lame duck session in a responsible, cooperative, consensus seeking fashion to get this country on a fiscally sustainable, credible path. if we do that, if we do that, we could redeem this congress' performance. i hope we'll do that. i don't know whether the majority leader wants to make a comment or not. mr. cantor: i thank the gentleman. i'm going to try and make sure that i don't bring on even more because i know our colleagues are waiting to speak. i would say t

the task force headed by alice rivlin and pete domenici, democrat and republican also said with regardedicare we need to do something about the obese smokers and they also had a proposal more complicated than ours for research into spending on end-of-life care. either way, these are difficult, painful decision. but we are going to have a face them. >> friday on "washington journal" can we talk to cnbc host, maria bartiromo, about wall street's view of the economy. this is 50 minutes. >> well, joining us from our new york studio is a familiar face to anyone who has ever turned on cnbc, maria bartiromo, the anchor of "closing bell" on that channel. maria bartiromo, want to start by asking about two headlines this morning "the wall street journal" site eyesight. numbers auger trouble ahead about the drop in durable goods that was reported yesterday and the headline next to it is obama trumpets revise job data, saying we are adding jobs. how would you describe our economy today? >> guest: well, i think right now the economy has worsening. you've got jobs problem pretty severe and persisten

there have been bipartisan commission and task forces, that was headed by alice rivlin and pete domenici, also said with regard to medicare we need to do something about the obese and smokers and they also had a proposal which was more complicated than ours for restricting the spending on end of life care. by the way, these are difficult, painful decisions. but we're going to have to face them. >> fixing the economy, tonight at 8:00 on q span's q & -- on c-span's q & a. host: we are continuing with a look at third party presidential candidates, virgil goode is a nominee for the constitutional party. thank you very much for being with us. guest: good to be with you this morning. host: let's go to the basics. how many states are on the ballot and what's your message to voters in 2012? guest: we're on the ballot with the democrats and republicans in 26 or 27 states, we're on the states that have write-in ballots. not all states have that. on approximately 10-12 more. so we are high 30s or low 40s in the total number of states people can vote for us and we're still working to be like on the

the task force headed by alice rivlin and pete domenici, democrat and a republican, also said with regardto medicare, we need to do something about the obese and the smokers and they also had a proposal which was more complicated than ours for restricting the spending on end-of-life care. by the way these are difficult, painful decisions but we are going to have to face them. >> fixing the economy sunday at 8:00 on c-span's q&a. >> the reason i like that is simply its unbiased.??? there are no ads. that? is arguably the biggest reason. i'm a firm believer it is one of the most, i would say one of the most historical archives thereo are so i primarily watch the "washington journal", the house of representatives and c-span2 for the u.s. senate. >> congress is in recess until after the november elections and will meet only in pro forma sessions and tell until then. democratic congressman chris van hollen and henry waxman spoke briefly at today's session and later called to congress to resume its legislative work in comments to reporters. >> we tried on the house floor to raise the fact

the task force headed by alice rivlin and pete domenici also said with regard to medicare we need to do something about the appease and smokers, and they had a proposal for restricting the spending on end-of-life care. these are difficult, painful decisions, but we are going to have to face them. >> fixing the economy, sunday "q&a."0 on c-span's >> from the annenberg policy center, this is an hour and a half. >> good morning. i direct the annenberg public policy center at the university of pennsylvania. welcome to our session. these sessions will try to address the question, what is the role of journalism in holding campaigns accountable? to set a friend for our discussion, we are releasing the results of a survey of 1522 adults. we will offer the conclusion that the public still has a lot to learn from the race, and we will say that those who seek out fact checking on the internet no more. let me offer specifics. next slide. a sizable portion of the public failed to understand the plans and records of major presidential candidates. we know when people watch debates their level of kn

it was also the recommendation of the domenici-rivlin panel, another bipartisan panel. both would have recommended -- or did recommend a more logical, more equitable, more growth-oriented tax code. why, we may ask, is tax reform so urgent? earlier in month, the world economic forum released its new global competitiveness report. america is not alone in trying to create jobs and grow our economy. we're competing with other economies, other countries around the world. as recent as 2508, the united states was ranked the most competitive country on the planet. in the latest index, we felt we were heading in the wrong direction when it comes to competing in the global economy for the jobs so that americans can work and provide for their families and put food on their tables and gain the dignity that goes along with working and providing for your family. harvard business school also recently surveyed 10,000 of its alumni to find out their views of american competitiveness. harvard business school, one of the premier business schools in the country. alarmingly, 71% of those re

it was also something that was advocated by the rivlin-domenici task force that looked at our fiscal cliff situation and when it came to the idea of the notion of how to reform medicare, premium support was something put forward was something that could save the taxpayers money, introduce competition in the same way that the medicare part d program has introduced competition and actually saved money over what it was proposed to cost. it's not a new idea, it is an idea that has been tried with medicare part d was adopted, the premium support concept was included as part of that, and you can see the results of that have led to lower cost, more lower cost than predicted. frankly, mr. president, that's because it introduced the idea, the element of competition into the whole way that we deliver health care services under medicare. well, that's something that was proposed and built upon, developed as part of the budget passed in the house of representatives. but, again, it's something that's not new around here. it's had lots of support in the past from democrats. it seems to me at least

these other bipartisan commission's fiscal fourth headed by owls rosslyn and pete domenici with regard to medicare we need to do something about the obese and smokers and they also have a proposal which is more complicated than ours for the restricted spending one end of life care. these are difficult, painful decisions. but we are going to have to face them. >>> up next george washington university health the discussion on oil and gas production in the persian gulf. we will hear about the challenges iraq faces after the country has yet to finalize a law dictating the use of oil profits. tension continues to rise over the oil rights in the government of baghdad and the kurdish region. this is about an hour and a half. >> thank you for the policy event of the fall semester and i would just mention in the way that advertisement we will be having our next program on october 23rd and we will get a notice but it will be on jordan. i think i put a title belt there in the crosshairs and we are very fortunate to have dr. washer who is the vice president for studies of the carnegie endowment fo

other bipartisan commissions and so forth of the task force that was headed by alice rivlin and pete domenici with regard to medicare we need to do something about the op east smokers and they also had a proposal which was more complicated than ours restricting the spending on the end of life care. but we are going to have to face them. >> next peck texas politicians debate the economy, the deficit on immigration and other issues at the annual texas tradition festival in austin. the democratic mayor of san antonio and the keynote speaker at this year's democratic national convention. ted cruce is the republican candidate for the u.s. senate. he won the primary race by beating the texas lt. governor david dewhurst to read this event runs about an hour. >> i think you know the drill today we have a long day of debates and discussions and the. conversations i hope you will enjoy as many of those as you can troubling the venues and among them you see the great program and we have in store for you today. if you have a phone and you are not going to be trading around not goin this eveg nt please tu