joining me now, economist doug holtz-eakin who said this about trump's economic predictions. d baffling he would do this and also substantively wrong. there is no recession in site. doug is president of the american action forum. he was the top economic adviser to john mccain's 2008 campaign and he's a former member of the noncongressional budget office. let me start with this. donald trump said the real employment rate somewhere in the in the 20s. he says we're sitting on a financial bubble and a recession is in sight. that's his take on the economy. how would you describe the state of the american economy right now? >> well, i think everyone know it's not as strong as we would like it to be. there's been a lot of pain in the labor market during the recovery. but, look, you can't get a recession without having household spending, which is two-thirds of the economy, actually falling. and right now the combination of wage growth, job growth, and hours growth adds up to something that looks like almost 6 percentage point of growth per year in payrolls. that's the kind of income

douglas holtz-eakin, american action forum, former cbo director. dougeer number of regulation, he has whole another year and he is above what clinton or bush had. >> quite remarkable actually. if you look at total regulation, not just major regulations, turns out they're finalizing over one new regulation every day during his time in office. the total compliance costs for the business sector of those regulation is about $770 billion. that is $100 billion a year. david: wow. >> you know, you and i both know if we had $100 billion tax increase every year you would expect the economy to suffer. it is no surprising we had such a poor recovery, the economy, even though it's positive who knows, it may actually be negative, we assume it is positive, still growing minuscule amount. quantity of regulations but quality of regulations some of which are really draconian, wants to reduce carbon emissions 32% over next 20 years. that could have enormous cost in the future for our economy. >> and it hits the economy right now not like you say, we'll do the regulation

doug holtz-eakin on that. former congressional budget office director. do you buy that only citigroup is ready for this? even if it is, knowing what you know happened during the meltdown, all the capital in the world can't save you from a market going out from under you, right? >> citibank, didn't get so-called seal of approval. it was not not credible was very bizarre way you're doing okay. but key for those who failed, jpmorgan, was not they lacked capital. that they lacked executable plan. in some cases liquidity. those banks are not in bad shape. citigroup is not dramatically in better shape. they need executable plans when bad things happen. your point is the right one. if it goes south you can't save any of these large institutions. all you can do make sure they get themselves in trouble they don't transmit problems to something else. that is the purpose of living wills as they're called is supposed to accomplish. neil: many critics on this show particularly those on the left, this young woman hates capitalism what it wrought, saved a lot of it bank

chief economist jared bernstein, and also with us, the president of the american action forum, doug holtz eakinerica and politicians is higher than it's been in a normal campaign trail, not to mention what we saw from the treasury breaking up that $160 billion deal. why is this? you're right. you didn't mention the fact that bernie sanders went after ge by name suggesting that immelt and his company is hurting the moral fabric of america. i think immelt's response was robust, compelling, he has a right to defend himself. he did it well. let's not miss the point. at the end of jeff's op-ed he said bernie, you're missing the point. i think jeff is also missing the point. the bernie sanders campaign, this is not just a democratic thing, it's on the republican side as well, is that the game is rigged against the little guy. when you have a company like ge who pays a fractional tax rate on overseas earnings that offshores 60% of their jobs, it's not illegal. it's a typical multinational practice but underscores the problem that all their profits they're making are not reaching the middle class. >> d

now as jason furman and doug holtz-eakin spointed out and will talk about here today, our society pays an enormous material price for this. it creates an enormous amount of economic inefficiency. now as much as it pains me as an economist to admit it, however, this really isn't about the money. this is about the lives that we're throwing away. i want to take a few minutes here at the outset to remind myself and all of us that the economic case for reform is really just a proxy for something that is much deeper that we're talking about here today. my colleagues and i at aei are working with the best nonprofits in the country that have a visionary notion of how to use human lives, how to integrate our society better along all different strata of where people are, whether they are in cars rated or free or educated or not. and we've been working lately with a group in new york city called the dough fund. some of you may have heard it. it specializes in men who have all of the strikes against them. they are homeless, they've been incarcerated mostly, they've been addicted to substances in t