i'll ask his former chief of staff erskine bowles why president obama won't do it now by embracing simpson/bowles. ben bernanke warns congress we're hurtling towards a fiscal cliff, but bernanke did not pull the qe trigger. why didn't he? we'll debate. free market capitalism is the best path to prosperity. to the obama advisers know this? >>> all right. with this fiscal cliff quickly approaching, why is team obama unable to get anything accomplished with congress? why can't they make a deal on extending the bush tax cuts? president clinton was able to work out the deal. he balanced the budget he had tax cuts in that. president obama was a no-show even for his own fiscal commission called simpson/bowles. we have erskine bowles, chief of staff of president clinton and co-chair of president obama's own financial commission. i'm like one of your biggest supporters. >> thank you. >> you've got pockets of support everywhere in the senate and they're trying to cook up something again. but seems to me you can't put torque behind your program until the president fully embraces it, and i do not for

we have erskine bowles, but we ignored what they said who wants to vote f for something that will do away with the few jobs in their districts? we need to have something like it in the economic area where we agree beforehand we will either accepted or rejected, but we will not be able to change if at all. i do not see any other w to get there. we will not sit down and talk to each other. >> what happens? you say because of politics that approach will not happen. u say because of where we are now, it is the only approach that will work. what happens? >> maybe we could sit down and write a bill that says we will have a non-partisan commission outside of government make a recommendation of how we deal with the deficit and debt. they come back to us with the recommendation. we either voted up or down. there would be a big incentive to vote it up unless you think the sky is falling if you vote it down. that is the law. it will happen. the president has said he will veto any bill that tries to get around the sequester without making the necessary cuts of $1.2 billion. >> he says he would l

i have enormous respect for your period and my friend erskine bowles and i hope all you will will put partisanship above all and i think he does deserve a round of applause. think more yourself, decide for yourself. even if it's not popular or if it runs counter to the party line. if everyone in washington did that, our country would be a whole lot better off. and now -- the seventh and the final piece of advice i have is, in the game of life, when the final buzzer sounds, the only stat you carry with you is the number of assists you made. to help other people put some points on the board, or as dicky v. might say, don't are slow to dish the rock. there's nothing more rewarding than making a difference in the lives of others. i've learned that firsthand both through philanthropy and public service. give what you can. your time, your talents, your money. and i promise, you will never forget it. now, i know you've remembered every single word of that. but just in case i thought i would provide a summary of the seven in no particular order. teamwork is everything. assist others. risks ar

and call it erskine bowles 2.0, and we had a meeting last week, myself and erskine bowles, with, and there was great energy in the room and we're looking at trying to be a resource help move things along. i was impressed people took time to listen. >> senators from both parties? >> both parties across the political spectrum, some of the most progressive and conservative but what was impressive at one point we literally had about 40 senators listening, talking, exchanging ideas. that shows me there's great energy and when you think about the structure the president's campaign for re-election, romney's competing against, so they're not going to be able to reach agreement. the house has problems reaching agreement because everybody is so partisan and come from districts. the senate is where the action is. if we get governance it has to occur in the senate. it's not going to occur before the election. >> it's not going to occur before the election? from it can't. our system doesn't allow big things to happen prior to the election but they have to do something big because we're heade

durbin, a progressive democrat supported erskine bowles.ember, back in january of 2009. >> yes. >> he had a new hampshire senator, judd gregg, that was ready to go work for him as commerce secretary. and after two weeks of seeing how he was dealing with republicans, threw up his hands, said, okay, i'm not going to work this guy. this is not the hope and change guy. >> one final point. what was key about your period when you guys were working this thing was the idea that you worked towards consensus. and that's what we're asking folks. >> michael steele and lanny davis, thank you so much. great to have you on the show. >> thank you. >> still ahead, olympic swimming legend mark spitz joins us on-set. we're back in just a moment. ♪ man: there's a cattle guard, take a right. do you have any idea where you're going ? wherever the wind takes me. this is so off course. nature can surprise you sometimes... next time, you drive. next time, signal your turn. ...that's why we got a subaru. love wherever the road takes you. our cloud is made of bedrock

we had the president's fiscal commission, erskine bowles and alan simpson, they told us -- quote -- we're facing the most predictable financial crisis in our nation's history, close quote. both of them signed a statement to the budget committee just last year to that effect, and they said we could have an economic crisis in as little as two years. so we have not had a budget here in the senate, the republican house has produced a budget, but the senate democrats have determinedly refused to bring a budget up in committee or to bring one on the floor. we are now three years without a budget. while we have trips to las vegas and conferences and tax credit loopholes for children of illegal aliens, children who don't even live in the united states are getting a thousand dollar tax credit from uncle sam, and we can't get that fixed. that seems to be too hard to do, costing $4 billion a year. so these are the kind of things that americans need to be aware of, need to be focused on. if we do so, there are a number of options that would allow us to get the country on a sound path, and we do some

john kasich was picking up the phone, calling people like erskine bowles and they were saying, listenthere was that mind-set, to make sure that the transportation bill is passed, to make sure that the economy kept running. we're missing that now. and i'm not exactly sure why. >> well, first of all, let me say -- well, first -- let me back up. one, after we passed -- the reason we passed that balanced budget is the voters had a clear mandate, we had to get going. and we did. and once the president was re-elected, i think your party settled in and said, okay, he's here for four years, let's get something done. and there was a productivity period of time. we did have the impeachment that came. i don't it consider it as one of the more productive things for american politics. we continue to do the work of the people. now, that said, i think between now and the election, you're in a season, i don't think there's going to be much out of washington. after the election, i think the president wins. i think the republicans are going to sit down and say, okay, he's here for four years, let's get

i have enormous respect for your former president and my friend, erskine bowles, because he's alwaysput hypnotism ahead of partisanship and i hope all of you will do exactly that. he does deserve a round of applause. [applause] think for yourself. decide for yourself, even if it's not popular or if it runs the county line. and now, the seventh and final piece of advice i have is in the game of life on the final buzzer sounds, the only stat you carry with you is the number of the made to help other people put some points on the board or a speakeasy might say, don't be slow to ditch the rock. there is nothing more reporting than making a difference in the lives of others. i have learned that firsthand, both through philanthropy and public service. give what you can. your time, your talents, your money and i promise you'll never forget it. now, i know u.s. remembered every single word of that, but just in case, i thought i would provide a summary of the seven in no particular order. teamwork is everything. assist others. risks are necessary. the first three letters of those words are t.

at the lack of respect i show for highly-respected people, i think he uses that phrase, like erskine bowlesnd alan simpson. and, um, and there's a phrase i picked up -- i don't know, is duncan black here? i don't know. but anyway, there's a phrase i picked up from duncan black, aka atrios that i love and use, you know, applies to everything which is very serious people. and what we've had is we've been living under the tyranny of the very serious people who are partly defending class interests and partly just plain getting it wrong. just going with their prejudices instead of what we know. what we know from textbook economics, what we know from 80 years of his to have cag experience -- historical experience and are messing this up. and we could solve this. solving this depression is not fundamentally an economic problem, it's a political problem. it's a problem of getting the, if you like, getting those very serious people out of the way and doing what we actually already know which is -- [applause] why gatherings like this are important. thank you all. thanks. [applause] >> so i just have

>> i think eric's right, that bowles-simpson is a good start, if you talk to the two guys who did it, erskineell thaw they kept away from certain things because they just didn't think it was politically possible. would you take that as compared to where we are today, yeah, sure. i mean, we have a problem that is actually relatively simple to explain. historically we've taken in 18% of gdp in taxes and we've spent 20. today we're taking in 16 and we're spending 25. this is completely unsustainable, and we're wracking up deficits of about $1 trillion a year on roughly a $14.5 trillion economy. if you keep doing this, something terrible is going to happen. >> greece. we become greece. >> something terrible will happen to us. >> and yet debt is apparently cheaper than ever. >> well, that's only because the alternatives of where you leave your money may be more risky and people believe that the u.s. can solve their problems, and the reason they believe that is that the u.s. can solve their problems. it's not so hard, and the debate is over mechanisms to get you back to 18 or get you to 20 or some