regulations, clean air, clean water, public safety, public education, public health medicare, medicaid social security. medicare they said should wither on the vine, social security has no place in a free society. let's go back to the 2010 ewilkes, that was largely about nine and a half percent unemployment and that's a very hard obstacle to overcome for an incouple went. thank god the president wasn't on the ballot, 9 1/2% unemployment. even though you would say with the measures we took and the president initiated we would, for those who had 15% unemployment, nobody wants to hear that. if they don't have a job. >> right. >> and so, when that barrier is there, you can't discuss climate, you can't discuss health care, you can't discuss anything else. people just want to know why don't i have a job. >> and that is the block, and that's the only thing that-- >> so, i think with an improvement in the economy, certainly nothing to our satisfaction, but nonetheless, going down the right path that the contrast that we need to make will be a clear one. and again, the caliber of our candidates, they are just

food safety, public safety, public transportation, public education, public health, medicare, medicaid, social security. you've heard me say that before, and if there is no public role, or enforcement of regulations in that regard, it's very lard har come to common ground to say you want none. we can't agree with that. but that's what they call common ground. so we'll take a look at the particulars there, but i don't -- i don't really know enough about anything beyond the statement i made to you. yes, ma'am? >> cyber security, [ inaudible ] said that the privacy changes that the white house wants are a non-starter with internet companies, quite often cyber attacks. we're wondering what you think of the bill and whether you are going to vote for it or you share the white house's concerns? >> well, i don't -- again, with all due respect to each of you when you make a contention that somebody said whatever, i'd have to see what his statement was on the subject. but i do know this, because i spent many years on the intelligence committee. the threat of a cyber attack is a real one to our country. the respo

publish and are responsible for the us the fact of the matter is that between the stones medicare medicaid social security and general welfare programs you have a socially seventy five percent approximately of our spending when you look at the rest discretionary budget is it is actually quite small and ex-military it's even smaller so you have. one commenter was saying you know this building back here and all these people work at it you can take all the people washington d.c. and fire them in your significant day if you have the total picture of the government's budget so we need to actually look at where the money used going it where it's coming installed it and say ok what is it that we want to do this culture as a government and everything else is left to the private and israel quicker than a time a lot of people kind of bring up that old idea of the flat tax and simple it's fair why do you think it hasn't taken hold. well the flat tax is yours to tax all in coal and if you're going to try to a lawyer to go on with the success of the economy you more so you don't use it is broader based and so would ev

you don't have a stable currency and then there's the unfunded liabilities including medicare medicaid social security they exceed sixty trillion dollars according to some estimates are sixty of those football field dollars tax you see there and others such as laurence kotlikoff of boston university professor who was also a senior economist in the wreckage administration he puts that number much higher at more than two hundred trillion dollars or. two hundred of those football fields when you factor in things like defense now should we be worried about our future our monetary system running out of those we've been so so here to walk us through some possible scenarios is john butler he's founder of and for a capital and author of this book the golden revolution how to prepare for the coming global gold standard now i should also mention he was an interest rate forex and commodities strategist and managing director at deutsche bank as well as lehman brothers so we're really lucky to have him today and i have a copy of his book hot off the presses or at least on my mailbox today i just received it so tha

whole of the budget you start to get to some pretty serious issues we always talk about medicare medicaid social security the three tripwires but in reality there's an awful lot of other this so-called discretionary spending that goes through incredibly vital programs that really maintain the social safety net nationally you know what why are the republicans playing it out this way is this because john boehner lost control of the party in which he party has run amok or as paul ryan now become the default leader of the tea party and you know being an animated by there goes to. the and ryan rand. in many ways i think you're right of both fronts and there's no doubt that john boehner has lost control of the party he has he's merely a figurehead who you know kind of stays around because they can't agree on anybody else paul ryan is the dominant player and intriguingly enough he has sort of this love relationship with mitt romney they've they've gotten very very close politically and so that puts new pressure on all sorts of republican players if romney really is bought into the ryan budget and if romney's go

country's in trouble conveniently he leaves out defense in his charts and i you know medicare medicaid social security here that we've been developing. increases the fund spending even more so republicans over a ten year period so it's the unreality of budget discussions. are less than one of them are right. how about having sex with peter thanks larry. their ruling makes it unconstitutional to keep an eighteen year old from having consensual sex with whoever they want it may not be illegal anymore but teachers can still be punished by the department of education if someone files a complaint a teacher can lose their license if they have sex with a consenting eighteen year old student. so i guess the law used to be that you were twenty one or had to be twenty one or to have sex i now if you're eighteen or older you're a consenting adult so that means we're talking about. more of the time in small town ohio so you. have a blanket right to make jokes about the fast to your country i mean that's very interesting and you know that just means that your teacher is going to have and. i don't agree with that b

ground on issues like clean air, clean water, food safety, public safety, public health, medicare, medicaid, social security, because they don't believe in a public role there. they think medicare should wither on the vine, by their own statements. their budget breaks the medicare guarantee. so if you don't believe in the public role, it's hard to find common ground. that wasn't the way it used to be. i just had the privilege of speaking at texas a&m at the invitation of president george herbert walker bush. >> rose: his library is there. >> his library is there. on president's day. i was honored to receive his invitation and we talked at that time about civility and how we've... we're at a different place on the spectrum on some issues and could find common ground. but the vitriol that was injected later into the process is just very harmful and i praised him. kinder gentler nation, thousand points of light. a gentleman and a statesman. but things had gotten different, as you know, later in the' 940s when the republicans took control of the congress. so, again, if we can reduce the role of money, that suff

we told the american people what we want to do with medicare, medicaid, social security, the tax codeen't done it. so when you asked paul ryan, are you willing to negotiate, negotiate with what? >> chrystia, everyone points to the debt creting showdown last summer and they whether or not how close they really came to achieving a grand bargain, but to stephens' point, what blame does president obama have for doing things like that, for presenting budgets and ideas that ennis are nonstarters and you've got paul ryan starting ideas that are nonstarters. what do we do about this? >> so i think, first, americans need to have an election. because i actually don't think that this is a technocratic issue at the moment. i don't think that if you just had a dwrup of smart economists in the room, they could come up with a solution that would suit everybody. i think that this is now a profoundly ideological question. you can have left-wing governments with big welfare states that have balanced budgets. let's talk about germany or sweden or even our own canada that have, you know, generous welfare

medicare. when you consider that social security, medicare, medicaid, and the defense budget are a 70%-75% of the whole picture, there has to be reaction taken. this is a good time to consider the medicare situation. i agree completely that obamacare should be repealed so we do not have interlocking problems with the rest of that. we then move toward the markets. we move toward insurance that can be offered across state lines in a much more competitive insurance market. these are important situations that lie before us. we can move on this much more rapidly. >> do you have a rebuttal? >> i would like to add a couple of things. i have talked to dozens of doctors. the thing i hear is how the regulatory environment is keeping them from seeing patients. sure theneed to make electronic data base that let the most private health care records of every american go into a national data base, that must never go into a database. >> i am very hopeful in addition to all of that that we will begin to think about preventable -- preventative medicine and exercise and quality of life that makes a big difference i

bipartisan fiscal commission during his twenty ten state of the union speech the cost of medicare medicaid and social security will continue to skyrocket that's right call for a bipartisan fiscal commission modeled on a proposal by republican judd gregg and democratic incumbent. yesterday the senate blocked a bill that would have created this commission. sole issue an executive order that will allow us to go forward because i refuse to pass this problem on to another generation of the. obama knows best people now look we can keep rattling off examples but i think you get the point the president has had no problem flexing is executive muscles but for some reason when faced with an order to ensure the elegy between federal employees are treated as equals they decided draw some sort of line in the sand what gives killing an american citizen with no due process bringing the us into a war those weren't executive power but they'll leave this issue to be dealt with in congress i call b.s. inconsistency is never becoming and if the obama administration wants to use executive powers at least use them equally don't hid

if you watch, i have this chart that cbo puts out that shows how three programs, medicare, medicaid and social security eventually just consume 100% of revenues. you throw interest on top, which you have to pay interest, they consume 100% of revenues by 2025. and it's not an insidious plan by one party over the other. it's just demographics and health inflation. it's both parties made a lot of promises to people that the government can't keep. a gao says it's about $100 trillion worth of promises being made that the government is shy of covering. and so the sooner we acknowledge that, the better off we're all going to be. the more we can convert these empty promises into, you know, made promises instead of broken promises, that's what we're proposing. the two words you hear are balance and end medicare as we know it. well, politicfact.org said the end medicare as you know it charge was the lie of the year of 2000. why is that? because what we're saying is, preserve the current medicare system as it's known today for current seniors and people nearing retirement. and then for people who are younger, 54

what about medicare, medicaid and social security that is gobbling up america's fortune? >> that is an hour of the day. what about the other 23 hours of the day? >> the social security hour? what is this man talking about? >> i am talking about taking and caring and loving and living. tlc, baby. bruce, they are taking all of our money, the old people. >> don't go chasing water will fas, tom. >> don't confuse him #w* lisa "left eye" lopez. >> this is the half time report. it is very serious. >> bill, you were wondering about bmi. you know it stands for body mass index. do you have it hand ?e? >> it is a three. >> that sounds impressive. >> i have no idea. it is all bunk anyway. >> you were wondering in the body mass index was valid. i checked my go to internet source for all of the health related news. the bmi is a valid index. >> douda vied it by something? >> i didn't check that. >> i wanted to see if live strong is on there. >> my bmi is past and i learned that on the website live drunk. >> you did you get a wrist band for that? >> no, that is just a cut. >> live strong

message and women are particularly sensitive and supportive of entitlement programs, medicare, medicaid, social securitythis issue which ultimately could bring them to victory in december. martha: this is the most essential issue of this discussion. should augusta allow women to be members. >> absolutely. i think it's high time that augusta have women, sure. martha: mary catherine, what do you believe? >> i can't believe we are talking about it. it's a private club in augusta, georgia. martha: absolutely, i'm on board too. sign up augusta women at augusta. obviously it's up to augusta to decide whether they want to admit women. i think it makes them look silly not not have women members. bill: as sure as the dog woods bloom in early april. martha: i didn't hear you say what you think so. bill: i think augusta can do what it wants. if the members want to change it they can change it, and if they want to drop their membership they can. look, if i were a member at augusta i would gladly invite you to be my playing partner. martha: let in a girl. isn't that nice of you. i didn't hear you say i would be a me

you were bob, you're just making her point, bob, about health care, whatever it is, medicare, medicaid, social security, they all went bust. >> they haven't gone bust. bill the point this guy makes is that the medicaid costs in this health care plan is what's blowing the budget andrea. >> that's right. and the biggest point, too, bill, and remember, kathleen sebelius, health and human services secretary, admitted this, democrats counted the medicare savings of omabacare, $500 billion, twice. you can't do that. this was all smoke and mirrors to create the illusion that somehow omabacare, that expands this huge new entitlement, would save us $850 billion. that's not true, bill. calls are going to go out. forget the burke administration study, bob. let's put that to the side. let's look at what the federal government is saying and just last spring, the federal government said obama's own actuary, the federal health care costs would increase $200 billion a year under omabacare. >> with all due respect, pal, listen, i've been listening to you guys rant on this health care bill from the beginning. here's the

they associate him with assaults on medicare, medicaid and social security. if he was chosen as a vice presidential candidate, mitt romney would be attached to that agenda. i think it's true. that would be a dream ticket for the obama white house to run against. >> steve kornacki, the right wing social engineering is what newt gingrich first referred to it as. we have all that video. the obama campaign has all the video to play. this is also an untested possibility for the vice president. as much as we feel like we know this member of the house of representatives because we're covering them on budget issues, that's such a narrow frame to look at someone. do you think that the romney campaign has reason to fear what the full vetting of paul ryan might show and might show in terms of just weakness around the country? >> oh, sure. the fundamental lesson of the sarah palin experience in 2008, is really, you have to vet these people very closely. and who knows with paul ryan what you're going to turn up. the fact ryan is getting more mention now than he was before

demographics mean that there's more and more pressure being placed on financing our medicare, medicaid and social security programs. so at a time when the recovery is still gaining steam and unemployment is still very high, the solution should be pretty apparent. and that is, even as we continue to make investments in growth today, for example, putting some of our construction workers back to work, rebuilding schools and roads and bridges or helping states to rehire teachers at a time when schools are having a huge difficulty retaining quality teachers in the classroom, all of which would benefit our economy, we focus on a long-term plan to stabilize our revenues at a responsible level and to deal with our health care programs in a responsible way. and that's exactly what i'm proposing. what we've proposed is, let's go back for folks who are making more than $250,000 a year to levels that were in place during the clinton era, when wealthy people were doing just fine and the economy was growing a lot stronger than it did after they were cut. and let's take on medicare and medicaid in a serious way, which i

republicans would like and democrats could agree to come and kind of lump in their medicare, medicaid, social security -- a grand bargain. that is the best-case scenario at this point, to couple them with these tax rates, which both parties agree need changing. democrats say they do not want to extend the bush tax cuts. republicans want to reform the whole code. >> it was said on one of these programs the other day that there just are not the conditions or the incentives for there to be a deal in the lane duck. on the other side, i cannot imagine these guys having the guts to raise all those people pay taxes. i can imagine at least an extension. >> that is right. >> you think jim is wrong? >> well, no,. ' -- well, no. jim is right, for the record. but if obama wins the white house, they might do an extension. once there are new legislators in place, january, february, march, there could be a large- scale deal. if romney wins the white house, i do not see there being an incentive to get anything done, if the senate gets more republican. >> when there are no cameras around, what do they tell you about m

the same way that medicare, medicaid, social security are threatening the fiscal health of our countryning the health of our state's economy. in the fall of 2010, we had a $54 billion deficit in our pension fund. and a $67 billion deficit in our health benefit fund. $121 billion combined. that would be four years of the state budget to bring that to balance. i came in september 2010 with a proposal. the public workers in new jersey, they paid nothing for their health insurance. from the day they were hired until the day they died. nothing. on pensions, we had to make significant changes. we proposed increasing the retirement age, eliminating cost of living adjustment until the health of the fund was back at 80% or higher. and end early retirement for -- ending early retirement for political appointees and political appointees and increasing the penalties for retiring early for anybody. by the way, increase the contributions by public employees to their pensions. you can imagine this went over -- extraordinarily popular. a one to put this proposal out in the first week -- i went to put

medicare and medicaid. i think we should be talking about fundamental reforms and social security.ontinue to borrow 1.2 trillion dollars per year. that is not a formula for success. it starts by reining in government spending. host: is mitt romney the right man to carry that message for the republicans? guest: that is a tough question. he better be. he is the only one left standing. he was once called mr. good enough. i think there are better spokesman in the republican party. you have a lot of stars like marco rubio and paul ryan. i think chris christie, the governor of new jersey, who i just thought it a speech the other day, those guys are superstars. there are more gifted orators then mitt romney is. mitt romney is not the most charismatic guy. he has studied. he has gotten better. he has gotten roughed up over the last three months by people like newt gingrich and rick santorum and that has made him a better candidate. this election will be very simple. when people go into the voting booth on november 4, they will ask one simple question -- can we really afford four more years

republicans would like and democrats could agree to come and kind of lump in their medicare, medicaid, social security -- a grand bargain. that is the best-case scenario at this point, to couple them with these tax rates, which both parties agree need changing. democrats say they do not want to extend the bush tax cuts. republicans want to reform the whole code. >> it was said on one of these programs the other day that there just are not the conditions or the incentives for there to be a deal in the lane duck. on the other side, i cannot imagine these guys having the guts to raise all those people pay taxes. i can imagine at least an extension. >> that is right. >> you think jim is wrong? >> well, no,. ' -- well, no. jim is right, for the record. but if obama wins the white house, they might do an extension. once there are new legislators in place, january, february, march, there could be a large- scale deal. if romney wins the white house, i do not see there being an incentive to get anything done, if the senate gets more republican. >> when there are no cameras around, what do they tell you about m

"discuss a healthy economy and it affects social security, medicare and medicaid." est: social security is an interesting case because when wages go up which they do in a healthy economy, so do the benefits because the benefits are tied to your income. so social security is not helped all that much by rising incomes or healthy economy. i think medicaid in particular which is not so tied to your income is clearly helped because there's more tax revenue for it. medicare, i should know this, i'm sorry i don't, the degree to which benefits are tied to wages. i don't think they are so much so that would be more helped than social security by a healthy economy. host: a democrat from chicago, good morning. caller: thank you for taking these calls because you get entangled with the political spiel which can be nasty so i appreciate you taking the calls on that level. i want to make a comment and ask a question. if you can explain why the austerity measures are necessary at this time, because i'm a democrat but i notice that i have friends that are republicans, democrats and

where is his plan to reform medicare, medicaid and social security? that's what's so ironic about this. actually, mitt romney has these things -- >> he's going to run on the fact that we've had what? 24 months of consecutive job growth and private sector? he's going to run on -- he's going to run -- general motors is back after they were dead, left for dead, run on the fact he actually got osama bin laden. he's going to run on the fact he's the first president to get a health care plan after 70 years of people trying to do it. yes, some of these things aren't popular in terms of the health care plan, but the president is still very popular. >> the president is signaling -- >> the president is still leading. >> the approval rating -- >> his numbers have deteriorated over the course of the week. >> a month ago you said it was because of gas prices. >> mitt can do this. mitt romney from the private equity deal making world can say to americans, you know what? this guy can't make a deal to keep us out of bankruptcy, i can. i will apply my conservative fis

demographics mean that there's more and more pressure being placed on financing our medicare, medicaid and social security programs. so at a time when the recovery is still gaining steam and unemployment is still very high, the solution should be pretty apparent. and that is even as we continue to make investments in growth today, for example, putting some of our construction workers back to work rebuilding schools and roads and bridges, or helping states to rehire teachers at a time when schools are having a huge difficulty retaining quality teachers in the classroom, all of which would b benefit our economy, we focus on a long-term plan to stabilize our revenues at a responsible level and to deal with our health care programs in a responsible way. and that's exactly what i'm proposing. what we've proposed is, let's go back for folks who are making more than $250,000 a year to levels that were in place during the clinton era. when wealthy people were doing just fine. and the economy was growing a lot stronger than it did after they were cut. and let's take on medicare and medicaid in a serious way which

not heard about to make the numbers -- >> if you look at a pie chart, this part blue, medicare, medicaid, social security debt, that blue point would be at the halfway rate and most of the rest is defense. there are other important issues but entitlement reform is critical. governor romney has a very specific approach pose al on the table to do that, anotherth president doesn't. another failure of leadershipnd this president. >> governor, thank you. appreciate your time today. >> larry will be talking with governor romney tonight at 7:00 p.m. eastern time. >> coming up, earnings are in full effect this morning. the numbers and instant market reaction when squawk returns. >>> time noum for today's aflac trivia question. on this day in 1998, what song by of aage garden reached number one on the billboard hot 1 hoon list? the answer when we continue. isn't major medical enough? huh! no! who's gonna help cover the holes in their plans? aflac! quack! like medical bills they don't pay for? aflac! or help pay the mortgage? quack! or child care? quack! aflaaac! and everyday expenses? huh?! blurlbrlblrlbr!!! [ th

debt is growing.what we didn't include was future debt from things like health care medicaid, medicare and social security scene ...on.../ route 68... at.... savage mountain .../ in... garreet county.../ covering the trees... and ground. so.../ whee ...will t be pood weather .../ to... put up the xmas lights? lights? it's cood outsidd outside p3here's chiif meteorlogist vytas reid with the skywatch fot forecast 3 be in charge of your own ou can- personnlized forecast. foxbaltimore dot com. - use the interactive tools to your street. gootoofoxbaltimore dot com slash i-radar p new addition to the maryland zoo in baltimorr. baltimore.the zoo .../ seet... this white...// co-loobbs... monkey.../ which was born ...at the exhibii.../ over the weekend..../ áázookeepersáá still... aren't sure... of the little one's.../ gender..../ ááandáá... he... of she.../ refuses to show anybody 33 a 6-yyar-old girl... apparently taken from her own home...the focus of the just 10 minutes.coming up in in:'black people werent allowed in stadiumsa they weren't selling hot doos or cleaning the floorss nothinn" nothing" jackie robin

make the tough budget tear cuts over 20 years and slow down the rate of growth for medicare, medicaid, social securityt you need adjustment up front. you need to convince the population we can bring it under control. i would not extend the bush area tax cuts. >> if you addressed long term debt issue, medicare, medicaid, defense spending, does that not send a message that the united states is making the tough choices and they give us a little more breathing room over the next four or five years to avoid the type of cuts great britain has made? >> what you need to do is convince the markets you can create revenue that's the sticking point. one side will not budge. the other side is digging in on the spending issue. you need to show you can raise revenue. that's the issue for the presidential campaign and what happened with the bush tax cut. that changes the game completely. you take fiscal crisis off the table. >> we have a question for you from washington. katty kay. katty. >> hi. what i am hearing is the problem is about politicians. here in the united states is actually a relatively easy fix, the pol

there's no real dialogue about the real serious issues, debt, you know, rising costs of medicare, medicaid, social securityional problem of war. none of this is being discussed. it's all about how can i win about seven or eight swing states. >> and i ask you as an entrepreneur and a private equity guy, do you admire romney's career? do you think he was really good at what he did? >> as a business person i admire every business person in this country who is taking a risk and becoming creative and innovative and trying to create jobs, build wealth and obviously help this country become competitive. >> you're not sure that translates to being a great president. >> a president is not like a ceo. a ceo you got a lot of control over what you do and how do you it. a president has to share the decision making authority with the congress. >> but based on policy, you're not exactly jumping up and down about being opposed to a lot of romney policy either. >> i'm not opposed to anything that's going to move jobs, economic growth and reduce the deficit and the debt so we don't spiral into spain or greece. >> very good.

this year, 63% of all of our spending is medicare, medicaid, social security, interest on the debt, veterans' benefits. in 4 1/2 years, 2017 budget, it's going to be 75% of all of our spending. what we call the mandatory, the niflets. your government is very quickly becoming a health insurer with a shrinking army. we need the president to stop pushing policies that attack our wealth, our jobs -- job creation engines. the fantasies like buff -- biffeth rule isn't good policies. and i yield back. mr. chabot: the gentleman mentioned the buffett rule and i will talk about it briefly. because i think the gentleman from arizona did a debate job in showing this is all about politics, this so-called buffett rule policy is. there is a gentleman named charles krauthammerer who is one of the smartest pundits in the land and i saw him talk about the buffett rule and he illustrated it differently but the same illustration. he indicated and he had the numbers run on this from a very repew tabble organization and if the -- republic you tabble organization and if the dollars were collected on the buffett ta