dr. amy gutmann, dr. dennis thompson, and our thanks to all of you. as you know, there'll be a signing upstairs. [applause] .. look for these titles in bookstores this coming week and watch for the authors in the near future on booktv and on booktv.org. >> now on booktv gary weiss explore the political and social ideologies of ayn rand author of the fountain head and atlas shrugged. this is about 50 minutes. [applause] >> thank you for that warm and flattering introduction. it is interesting if you listen carefully to margaret's introduction, you will notice you might ask yourself why did i write a book about ayn rand. after all i am not a philosophy professor. nor am i an economist. these are the areas ayn rand was best known. she was a philosopher and she heavily influenced economic and political thought. my background is writing about wall street. in particular the underside of wall street. what got me interested in ayn rand was the 2008 financial crisis. i was writing an article on -- to wasn't alan greenspan it was timothy geithner, one of his ma

dr. gutmann, talk about the year of the pledge and how that ties people's hands. >> so a majority of members of the house and 41 senators have taken the grover norquist pledge which is they will not support any tax increases. and somebody like alan simpson rightly says that that's crazy to do in politics, to promise that you're never going to do x and stand on principle. why is it? because you don't, you can't govern, you can't sit down at the table and make any deals. and i think you all remember when the republican primary candidates -- when there was still many of them -- were asked, okay, would you agree to $1 in increased taxes for revenues for $10 of cuts in government spending, and not one of them would agree to that. they had all taken the norquist pledge. and that just really blocks not just compromise, it blocks governing. so why do they do it? well, the dream of every partisan -- and democrats, imagine -- if you're republican, imagine democrats taking the same pledge, we will not agree to $1 in benefits cuts. not $3 -- not $1 to medicare, medicaid, any entitlement cuts. and why do