douglas holtz-eakin?uest: first of all, i think it the big difference is between us and the next generation and the fundamental injustices we are about to leave them. we have a fundamental choice to make. we cannot support the spending programs of the currently have by simply taxing the wealthy. there is simply not enough money there. the nonpartisan entity in washington said that the top tax rates would have to be 90% and 80% to balance it over the next couple of years. that just is not feasible. if we want to have an enormous government, the middle class can pay a lot more taxes. i have done calculations that showed that if we are going to look like europe, the middle class and europe pay a lot more taxes. the middle class has to pick up the burden of an enormous state. we could try to go down that route. i would argue that it would impinge economic growth and we would regret it. or we can get realistic about spending and raise the revenue in a sensible fashion. host: on the keynesian philosophy, here's

you gotta taste this soup. >>> we are back with alice rivlin, douglas holtz-aiken and ronald brownsteint to ask you all, when you look at this year, where is the point or what could you see that would make you think, the recovery's for real? >> i would like to see strong employment growth continue, gdp growth continue, but most of all, i would like to see the republican and the democrats in the congress get together with the president and solve the long-run debt problem. gridlock is the greatest threat, much greater than anything else that could happen to our economy. >> because it undermines consumer confidence, basically. >> well, more than that, if we do nothing, as we said in the last segment, the default position is that we have a big tax increase and a big mindless spending cut. and that would be bad for the economy. we have to avoid that. >> i'd look at the housing market. and if there's one thing that says success, it says builders build houses. and we get up to something like 900,000 housing starts. they don't do that unless there are customers. and we don't get that kind of cu

gregg: douglas holtz-eakin. thanks very much for being with us. >> thank you. martha: you wonder why the cost of health care is rising so quickly? there is a very alarming report that is coming out this morning that shows billions of dollars in health care fraud and waste in america. it is a very disturbing look who is cheating the system and for how much. i have copd. if you have it, you know how hard it can be to breathe and what that feels like. copd includes chronic bronchitis and emphysema. spiriva helps control my copd symptoms... by keeping my airways open a full 24 hours. plus, it reduces copd flare-ups. spiriva is the only once-daily inhaled copd maintenance treatment that does both. and it's steroid-free. spiriva does not replace fast-acting inhalers f sudden symptoms. tell your doctor if you have kidney problems, glaucoma, trouble urinating, or an enlarged prostate. these may worsen with spiriva. discuss all medicines you take, even eye drops. stop taking spiriva and seek immediate medical help if your breathing suddenly worsens, your throat or tongu

in the democrats' corner jared bern steen and in the gop corner douglas holtz-eakin.g the bell on the budget debate up next. ( laces? really? slip-on's the way to go. more people do that, security would be like -- there's no charge for the bag. thanks. i know a quiet little place where we can get some work done. there's a three-prong plug. i have club passes. [ male announcer ] now there's a mileage card that offers special perks on united, like a free checked bag, united club passes, and priority boarding. thanks. ♪ okay. what's your secret? ♪ [ male announcer ] the new united mileageplus explorer card. get it and you're in. >>> welcome back on this monday morning. we've got some green arrows across the board looking ahead to the market opening. the dow jones up 81 points higher. s&p 500 higher around ten points, nasdaq around 20 points higher, off the back of the austerity plans in greece. making headlines this morning and some sad news to bring you, roger aaron has died after an illness at the age of 69. he was the head of the corporate law practice at skadden and

former congressional budget office director douglas holtz akin assumes as many as 35 million additional people will wind up in the taxpayers subsidize exchanges, as a result of the incentives for them to be dumped from the employer plan into exchanges, and we can have a whole other conversation about exchanges, but do we really very like a windup in coverage that is not going to look a lot different than medicaid does today. and medicaid does today, and what we know is that medicaid pays doctors and hospitals so little and especially private physician, but they just can't afford to see physicians. four in new york, some visit is $7 for an offices. they can't possibly pay their nurses or pay the overhead for that. and yet that's the program that we are expecting people to go into. so the president wants us to think that it's just the small stuff, 26 year old, free preventive care, and this whole tsunami is coming at us that is, that the president is reelected, if this law stays in place, even if the individual mandate is a drop down, there are huge, huge problems with this for our econom

we will speak with douglas told reagan, former cbo director during the bush years -- douglas holtz eagan. president obama and most of his $5 million wealth from books. i want to show you how the gop candidates were able to me their money according to this "time" magazine piece. romney made a living turning around struggling economies at bain capital. newt gingrich made $7 million after 20 years in congress, turned into a consulting and the novel writing d public speaking. we will get back to the question about whether wealth or property impacts your vote. we have a correspondenfor the wall street journal joining us. let's talk about the president's goal and what does it mean for his agenda for 2012 and is this also campaign tactic? >> this is mostly a political document. i think everybody would knowledge that the chans of any of this becoming law are very slim except for perhaps on the margins. he's doing a statement of values, what is going to run on for reelection and what he would do if he won a second term. host: laura, you said it's probably not going to pass. why do you say that? r

former cbo director douglas holtz-eakin said the president health care law will be more expensive thanhat the congressional budget office projected. his remarks are part of a conference hosted by the national association of health underwriters, looking at the future of our health care system. this is just over 20 minutes. [applause] >> no standing ovation? [laughter] wow, my people. i want to thank everyone for the chance to be here today and to spend a little time talking about the costs associated with the affordable care act and close with a little bit of speculation about its likely future and how it might evolve over time and then answer a few questions that the audience might have. i will warn you in advance that discussing the cost of the affordable care act is not really suitable for polite company and i am also the former director of the congressional budget office and it's my job to stand up and talk about apocalyptic things so this'll been entirely depressing presentation. there are four kinds of costs associated with the back. the first or the budget cost and i won't walk t