republican senator johnny isakson of georgia ran a residential real estate company for 20 years.joins us in atlanta. senator, good to have you back. good morning. >> good to be with you, carl. thanks. >> a lot of people might say what's wrong with 20%. i paid 20%. walk us through why this is such a problem. >> historically in america, the down payment has been -- the insurance on down payment and quality has been a combination of private mortgage insurance or credit enhancement and down payment. 20% down is a large number for most americans. in fact, as you said, about 40% of the american buyers would be out of the market. and the worst thing is capital would shrink in terms of being attracted to the mortgage market. the whole reason this is a problem is the dodd/frank bill required a risk retention provision on mortgages. if the rule requires 20% down or else the bank has to hold 5% risk retention, that's going to shrink capital coming into the mortgage market. >> how are you trying to cut this off at the pass? >> we're trying to use the old definition which works just fine. tha

republican senator johnny isakson out of georgia. morning to you and thank you for your time here. >> good morning, bill. bill: can we now categorize this investigation as a cold case? >> well, certainly with the release of ali harz sigh, the lassus speck in custody -- harzi. the fact we didn't have investigators on the ground for two weeks until we acknowledged it was a terrorist attack, not a spontaneous attack. information like that goes cold pretty fast. there are questions secretary of state clinton must ask, must answer and john brennan too. why the information requesting for security never made it to the 7th floor of the state department and why it appears to be as the accountability review board investigation told us a culture of pushback from the state department on questions for more security. bill: you say that is the golden question for secretary clinton what she testifies what we believe about 2 1/2 weeks time? >> absolutely. they say it was a spontaneous attack for two weeks. susan rice went on tv blaming it on a movie

republican senator johnny isakson of georgia told tpm this afternoon, "the rules change doesn't reallyo a lot." well, how about that? harry reid knows that. and he tried to explain away his failure earlier today by telling the "washington post" wonkblog, "i'm not personally at this stage ready to get rid of the 60-vote fleshhold. with the history of the senate, we have to understand that the senate isn't and shouldn't be like the house." well, it's obvious that reid is more interested in protecting the senate tradition than moving the country forward. that's my read on it. he went on to say this -- "the only way we'll get rid of the filibuster is if it continues to be abused." hello. with over 380 filibusters in recent years it's shocking that reid would come back and trust republicans not to abuse the filibuster. he knows better. what's going on here? >> back in may harry reid apologized to senators jeff mercury and tom udall for blocking their original filibuster reform bill in twtd. >> if there were ever a time where tom udall and jeff americaly were prophetic it's tonight. these tw

johnny isakson is a republican senator from georgia, member of finance committee.or being with us. you have an extensive business background, something i wish were mandatory, actually, in congress. and you can agree that deciding whether to pay some bills but not others while you wait to scrape up enough cash to make payments isn't a sustainable way of doing business. would you agree with that? >> no question about it, ali. it's all wrong. you're exactly right. >> give. the principles that you stand for and that many in the republican party agree with and, in fact, some in the democratic party that we have to deal with our spending, how do you square that with this very specific debt ceiling problem that we have, that we have financial only gaegss that we've already made that need to be paid and we have a second debate going on about how we should spend our money? >> well, basically, ali, we're now at 100% leverage as a country at about $16.5 trillion in debt and the same in gdp. if we continue to borrow and spend beyond our limit, we're going to compound that debt

johnny isakson is a member of the senate finance committee. senator, thank you for being with us.u for quite some time. you have an extensive, extensive business background. and you can agree that deciding to pay some bills but not others while you wait to scrape up enough cash to make payments isn't a sustainable way of doing business. would you agree with that? >> no question about it. that is all wrong. you're exactly right. >> what are the principles that you stand for and many in the republican party agree with and some in the democratic party, that we do have to deal with our spending. how do you square that with this very specific debt ceiling problem that we have, that we have financial obligations that we've already made that need to be paid and we have a second debate going on about how we should spend our money? >> basically, ali, we have 100% leveraged. $16.5 trillion in debt. if we continue to borrow and spend beyond our limit, we're going to compound that debt and deficit and be on an us sustainable course for us to survive. we're at a point, we need to take the one

not likely to be the case, because we'll simply take an easier path when it -- >> but senator johnny isakson ronald reagan did this. he said when he was 39 the rules changed and he couldn't retire until he's 66. i do think if you want to do this gamely you have to push off some of these dates -- >> that's 25 years. so the question is what's the -- >> what's the right range? >> ten years, 20 years, 30 years? >> it's easier to do it for these long-term plans of entitlements than with anything else. >> right. >> you can actually do something with entitlements that look kind of permanent but still, nothing's really permanent sflp >> i don't see why people have to retire anyway? if you can't afford to retire, don't retire. people working and pay your way. >> or if you love your job. >> one extra year we got to wait 40 years. oh, gee -- >> look, people my age, i mean i don't expect social security. >> i'm going to be andy rooney. i'm going to 82. >> we're going to look great on air together. >> yeah, we are. >> no more hi def television, please. >> we are still waiting for the jobs report. we're l