with more on this, grover nor qis, douglas holtz-eakin, and a former cbo director and steve forbes, chairmannd editor in chief of forbes media, starting with you, sir. surprise that we're still here? that western civilization continues as we know it? >> oh, absolutely, and i think they've got all the apocalypse talk because if you do a small cult, we lived with it, why not do more, and so we saw in new jersey, we have a budget today rith thgover, will spending. spending. somebody goes left the other goes east it is hard tog agree. we have to work through regular order with the president signing bills.s the action is a democrat-controlled senate.h republicans and house passing legislation but 20 democrats are up for reelection in 2014. they are hiding in haven't done a budget in four years. [laughter] we should shine a light to see what those people are doing. gerri: that is their legal obligation. i don't understand it. listen to this statement from the president about blame. >> put forth a plan that calls for serious spending cuts and serious and have unreformed that is at the heart of the

with more on this, grover nor qis, douglas holtz-eakin, and a former cbo director and steve forbes, chairmannd editor in chief of forbes media, starting with you, sir. surprise that we're still here? that western civilization continues as we know it? >> oh, absolutely, and i think they've got all the apocalypse talk because if you do a small cult, we lived with it, why not do more, and so we saw in new jersey, we have a budget today with the governor, governor christie, lower than it was five years ago. the sun still comes up in the morning in new jersey, we have occasional storms, but we survive. gerri: absolutely. grover to you. look at it. we have the payroll tax increase for so many working americans at the beginning of the year. isn't it only fair that the federal government goes on a bit of a diet, too? >> well, one of the challenges, of course, is the federal government's been on a binge, and just beginning to bring it back obama thinks that makes the world collapse. we could absorb a lot more budget restraint if it was done through reform in government. the republican budget, the rya

douglas holtz-eakin, president of the and former cbo director. great to talk to you. was shocked to hear about the fee, $63, nobody knew it was coming, $63 p employee, so for a company like boeing, that's $10 million just for the fee alone. what is it for, and why didn't we hear about this before? >> well, i mean, certainly the latter part is easier. again, we're finding out that you have to read the bill to know what's in it, no one read it before it was passed, and there's quite literally a trillion dollars worth of taxes in the affordable care act. it's underappreciated, there's a tax increase on the economy to turn into big job growth impacts and turn into big cost of insurance impacts, and that's what the fee is for, it's there to get the startup of the new exchanges going and to ensure the high cost paicialghts are covered into the insurance products. gerri: what's interesting because there's a lot of people asking for exclusns already, and am i surprised that thedownon representing auto workers doesn't want to pay this. boeing, as i mentioned before, they are a

douglas holtz-eakin, former director of the congressional budget office.testified before congress on the dire need to reduce the debt and balance the budget. great to have you on show, doug. >> thank you. melissa: anything going to come from the hearing today? >> we can hope the wakeup call will be listened to. the committee will not issue legislation. we're beginning the debates over the budget in the house and senate. my biggest hope the white house will get serious about this. the president will take on some leadership and put out a budget that shows coming to balance like the house has. it isn't just a political slogan like we see in the senate. melissa: i only hope some people are persuaded by your math because you guys really got out there today and you did a quantitative analysis why this is such a big problem. i don't think you can convince the president but maybe you can convince, you know, some other congressman and women around the edges. one of the things you put out there that is really compelling that when the ratio of debt-to-gdp exceed 90%

if the 90% match goes down even further which i think it will and cbo former directors like douglas holtz-eakiney will pay even more greater share in the future. melissa: they still incur costs. if you don't take the federal money and don't put them onto the federal health payroll so to speak, they still go to emergency rooms and incur costs that are not paid. it is not like they're not racking up bills if they're not in the system, right? >> that's true. a florida study looked at that, assumed in whatever scenario there will be uncompensated care. president obama promised we would get the new bill through his affordable care act and we would take care of the issue of uncompensated scare care in any scenario we're still facing uncompensated care across the country. melissa: if you had to advise them, what would you advise them. >> most choice the republicans governor are saying no to state exchanges and saying yes to medicaid expansion. what i argued for they should ban together and create leverage, not going governor by governor. here there are 30 republican governors. we should stand together

one of them was douglas holtz-eakin, former director of the congressional budget office.testimony, when the debt-to-gdp ratio exceeds 90% you sacrifice one point of growth off gdp. did you believe that testimony? did it have impact on people that were listening? >> yeah. it is empirical. the study of countries that got themselves deep in debt. global competitors find themselves in the same situation, their economy slows. like in your business when all your money is going to debt and credit cards and interest payments and not to reinvesting in your company, your growth slows. same in america. but the impacts is that you've got one-third slower growth, for the country for the future. big impact on people's seeking jobs. you've got also a loss over time of 93 trillion dollars of federal revenues. that is bigger than all, to put it in perspective, bigger than all of our unfunded liabilities on social security, medicare and pensions. melissa: that companies from lost tax revenue because the economy is smaller? is that where you're getting the number from. >> yes. a mere 1% gro

douglas holtz-eakin, former director of the congressional budget office noted that the level and projected growth of federal debt are is a threat to future prosperity. the nation, he said, despite claims to the contrary, remains on a damaging debt pathway. dr. holtz-eakin countered arguments that reducing the debt is not urgent because the crisis is a distant threat by pointing out that "the u.s. is already paying an economic price for the excessive federal debt in terms of slow job creation and growth." he went ton say, "the obvious colleagues is that additional deficit reduction is needed to avoid debt-driven economic stagnation." and he called for a strategy that shifts the focus of spending control to the feed entitlement reforels an shifts the debate on taxes away from harmful higher marginal tax rates in terms of favor pro-growth tax reform. alice rivlin, the first director of the congressional budget office and cochair of the debt-reduction task force for the bipartisan policy center, as well as a number of other distinguished positions that she's held, as well as as also being a fo

. >> douglas holtz-eakin, thank you very much. tom brokaw, thank you.n? >> doug is back! >> you just can't shake him! >> smart, smart, smart. thank you so much. >>> on tomorrow's show, we have the secretary of health and human services kathleen sebelius with join us. >>> coming up here on "morning joe," how do can you tell if a novel is worth reading when it gets a movie deal before it even hits the shelves. we will talk to best seller harlan coppen about his best novel in six years. do we have a mower? no. a trimmer? no. we got nothing. we just bought our first house, we're on a budget. we're not ready for spring. well let's get you ready. very nice. you see these various colors. we got workshops every saturday. yes, maybe a little bit over here. this spring, take on more lawn for less. not bad for our first spring. more saving. more doing. that's the power of the home depot. get ortho home defense, a special buy at just $6.88. thto fight chronic. osteoarthritis pain. to fight chronic low back pain. to take action. to take the next step. today, you wil