was it two years ago, three years ago, erskine bowles told a great story, and many of you may have been in the audience that heard it, but you had a republican majority leader in the senate, you had a republican speaker of the house by the name of newt gingrich, and you had a democratic president by the name of bill clinton, and the clinton since erskine bowles, his chief of staff, over to the leadership to sit down and start talking about how to we attack the national debt, had we attack annual deficits in an effort to get to the national debt, and for several weeks, according to erskine, nothing happened because everybody was waiting for somebody to run to the press, beat their chest, disclose, try to gain points, and after a few weeks when they all kind of realized that they were all serious and nobody was trying to take lyric would vanish, they got serious. the end result of those that we hads was three years worth of surpluses that approached one third of $1 trillion. billion annual surpluses. some suggest that at that trend continued for a few more years, we would not have had a n

was it two years ago, three years ago, erskine bowles told a great story, and many of you may have been in the audience that heard it, but you had a republican majority leader in the senate, trent lott,, you had a republican speaker of the house by the name of newt gingrich, and you had a democratic president by the name of bill clinton, and erskine bowles, his chief of staff, over to the leadership to sit down and start talking about how to we attack the national debt, had we attack annual deficits in an effort to get to the national debt, and for several weeks, according to erskine, nothing happened because everybody was waiting for somebody to run to the press, beat their chest, disclose, try to gain points and after a few weeks when they all kind of realized that they were all serious and nobody was trying to take political advantage, they got serious. the end result of those conversations was that we had three years worth of surpluses that approached one third of $1 trillion. $340 billion annual surpluses. some suggest that at that trend continued for a few more years we would not

. >>> coming up, erskine bowles wants to fix the debt literally.avorite budget buster says we're writing checks that our children and grandchildren can't cash. what we have to do to change that problem and change it fast. that's coming up. we'll be right back. >>> good morning and welcome back to "squawk box" right here on cnbc, i'm andrew ross sorkin along with becky quick. joe kernen has the day off. see how things are setting themselves up the day after the super bowl. doug cass says there's a super bowl ohman on this whole situation. because the seahawks won, it's a little confusing, it looks like we could have a bullish year. the ten-year, take a look at what's going on there, 2.669, that's the number to watch. and then let's get you through some of the other morning headlines. "the wall street journal" saying that the department of justice is investigating banks, private equity firms and hedge funds that may have violated anti-bribery laws in their dealings with libya's government-run investment fund. jpmorgan, socgen is on the list. the sepa

you feel used, senator, that, you know, with great expectation and great fanfare when you and erskine bowlesd at the white house as the guys who were finally going to get to the bottom of this debt mess. you offered a number of ver solid, impactful ideas. some liked them, some hated them, but that's the measure of great ideas. not everyone's going to love 'em. and then e president kind of leaves you at the altar. >> well, he did, and erskine and i if you look at that report again said, you know, once they qu laughing at what we were doing and saw that it was beginning to take some traction, we said lok at these guys, these interest groups will come down like the harpists from the cliffs along the rhine, and they will tear us to bits. well, brothers a sisrs, they're having a bl. neil: do you think there is some truth to what some of these gutless politicians is say, that the public is for getting this under control but not when it comes to the specifics, espeally if it hits them, if it hits their entitlement, if it hitstheir benefit? so many now are getting these goodies and entitlements and

you feel used, senator, that, you know, with great expectation and great fanfare when you and erskine bowlesented at the white house as the guys who were finally going to get to the bottom of this debt mess. you offered a number of very solid, impactl ideas. some liked them, some hated them, but that's the measure of great ideas. not everyone' going to love 'em. and then the president kind of leaves you at the altar. >> well, he did, and erskine and i if you look at that report again said, you know, once they quit laughing at what we were doing and saw that it was beginning to take some traction, we said look at these guys, these interest grps will come down like the harpists from the cliffs along the rhine, and they will tear us to bits. well, brothers and sisters, they're ving a ball. neil: do you think there is some truth to what some of these gutless politicians is say, that the public is for getting this under control but not when it comes to the specifics, especially if hits them, if it hi their entitlement, if it hits their benefit? so many now are getting these goodies and entitlemen

you feel used, senator, that, you know, with great expectation and great fanfare when you and erskine bowlesd at the white house as the guys who were finally going to get to the bottom of this debt mess. you offered a number of very solid, impactful ideas. some liked them, some hated them, but that's the measure of great ideas. to love 'em. and then the president kind of leaves you at the altar. >> well, he did, and erskine and i if you look at that report again said, you know, once they quit laughing at what we were doing and saw that it was beginning to take some traction, we said look at these guys, these interest groups will come down like the harpists from the cliffs along the rhine, and they will tear us to bits. well, brothers and sisters, they're having a ball. neil: do you think there is some truth to what some of these gutless politicians is say, that the public is for getting this under control but not when it comes to the specifics, especially if it hits them, if it hits their entitlement, if it hits their benefit? so many now are getting these goodies and entitlements and benefi

. >> look, if we had a clinton presidency, if we had erskine bowles, chief staff of the white house ore united states, i think we would have fixed this fiscal mess by now. that's not the kind of presidency we're dealing with right now. >> wow. they're going to have to quit clinton. the love-hate use of the clintons over the past couple of years is coming back to haunt them. state the rebirth of hillary clinton." nbc's andrea mitchell, show "andrea mitchell reports" on nbc will air at a new time, noon. international news and all the news, in fact, she gives it to you straight. you've been watching this like i have. what's fascinating is the uses to which the conservatives and republicans use of the clintons. they use them as oh they were so much better than obama and now i've noticed they're creeping back to the more familiar mode of attitude. >> i think they're a little flummoxed, haven't figured out how to go after hillary clinton. karl rove suggested don't go after the past scandals, talk about the lack of future plan for being president. that's his perspective. and others like reinc

. >> if we had a clinton presid t presidency, if we had erskine bowles, chief of staff of the white housee would have fix this had mess by now. that's not the kind of presidency we're dealing with right now. >> the republicans put bill clinton on a pedestal in an effort to tear down obama and now they find themselves in a bind. their praise made him an unusually campaign trail advocate and now poised to hit the trail again for the midterms. maybe you've heard the rumbles that hillary clinton might run for president in 2016. so what's the right to do? we may be starting to see it. last week the conservative website the washington freebee con published journal entries from the 1990s kept by a close confidant of the clintons. diane blair had with hillary clinton about the monica lewinsky affair, sexual assault made by other women. so this week kathleen willey who accused bill clinton of sexual assault on "60 minutes" in 1998 was back on tv attacking bill and hillary clinton. >> we're talking about the president of the united states and what he did, lack of judgment. he dishonored the office.

brief moment early in his first term when he pretended to care about deficits and appointed by erskine bowles's commission and ignore their findings. he is really saying he wants to drive spending to $3.9 trillion a year and i think basically having run four straight years of trillion dollar deficit a lot of people in washington think they deserve a pat on the back, the deficit is only half a trillion dollars a year so the spending party continues. connell: what are the odds of how much of this -- won't spend on education -- as i said a moment ago a lot of stuff we have been talking about seems like a replay of many of those issues. whatever the odds of is getting done? >> it won't get all of it. can't be that optimistic if you are a taxpayer. the sequester is over and holding spending in check for a couple years. republicans agreed that eventually he will get rid of that. spending is going up and that means taxes are going up. peter talk about higher corporate taxes and international taxes especially hitting tech companies. pharmaceutical companies and if you are a higher income person you hav

you have erskine bowls saying that's happening right now. >> how do you solve the problem for an agingf here. you can't get people to go younger. you can't get people to say, hey, take some testosterone or some sort of steroid -- >> donnie does temperature he's on human growth hormones. >> makes him look great in baby gap. >> you're doing it the way you always do it. i'm the guy that says you have to trim the entitlement programs for the next 15, 20 years but just subtracting is not the way to grow the economy. we've got to integrate. >> the good thing about the u.s., you have to integrate more. you have a liar level production. >> we're a bloated nation. we're just not hungry. what comes with getting older is the need to proceed versus the need to produce. starting with heck, that is the care yesterday thing in the there's tough choices that come in the out years, and it funny that but it pops back up because of the aging generation. those choices have been presented to the political system and largely been buffed. there is this huge brouhaha over this idea of rationing health care, s