from four hundred forty group public relations and caroline hellbent professor of politics at occidental college and i asked them for their thoughts on a big picture this big excuse me big picture solution for getting the u.s. out of this situation and getting us to be able to pay its bills here's what they had to say. what is easy to understand is compare what's going on at the government to what could go on in the household if you reach your debt limit you can't just easily raise your own ceiling which would mean you say we can take on more credit card debt the credit card companies won't let you do that but for whatever reason united states has set a precedent where we can raise our debt ceiling indefinitely and keep on borrowing and we're making money and that's just not good fiscal policy in reality is are the foundation of our economy can only sustain so much we already have cracks and the ceiling is going to start falling on us whether you agree or disagree with you how is the government going to pay the twenty four point eight trillion dollars that goes for medicare or the twenty one poi

he is president of less government and caroline howled and she is professor of politics at occidental college i want to thank both of you guys for joining me so first of all can we just agree that the debt ceiling needs to be raised and this is all showmanship in the mean time big picture seen no no there's a new groups for ok we'll get to that professor hellmann what do you think. i think it definitely needs to be raised it's been raised one hundred times since it was established and republicans are generally the ones in favor of raising it ok so what do you say to that scene i mean there is the whole scenario that people believe that the with the calls on its debts that will send shock waves through the entire globe so how can you say that as you can that resonate you're not right that you couldn't root not raise the debt ceiling a penny and pay all or debtors how is that possible because the i.r.s. continues to collect revenue regardless of whether or not we raise the debt ceiling what many would argue with the economy would be in dire straits as it is with all this and still so high that

and that was caroline hellbent professor of politics at occidental college and state money president of less government without debate now meanwhile this month president barack obama is set to decide just how fast the u.s. will begin withdrawing troops from afghanistan that's set to begin next month now this comes at a time when afghan president hamid karzai ordered nato to stop striking houses nato is saying no and karzai is warning that foreign forces are close to the behavior of an occupation and afghan people know how to deal with that he says that history is the witness to show how afghanistan deals with occupation and looking back at just how they dealt with that during the soviet occupation earlier i spoke with jerry van dyke is a journalist and author of this book captive my time as a prisoner of the taliban here's what he had to say. many people in the countryside do not see a difference in their eyes because they are judging solely upon the people who are killed in their villages in the continuation of this war and the reconstruction in their eyes that the soviet union in t

from for forty group public relations and caroline hellman she is professor of politics at occidental college thank you so much for being with me now it's a usa today analysis that is reporting these numbers that shows that the government actually added more than five trillion dollars in new obligations compared to the one point five trillion in new debt taken on last year and this is largely from medicare and first social security now it's not reported because congress can postpone recording their spending commitments until it writes a check also the federal debt doesn't take into account what's owed to seniors veterans or retired employees but just what's owed to the public so this is a much bigger picture and a more dire picture that adds up to some more than sixty trillion dollars owed long run than what we hear just talked about in the debt ceiling or the debt negotiation debates congress isn't it a disagreement about what to do i want to ask you ladies what big picture do you see as the solution without getting into too much detail but what is the solution really big picture for getting

so i pursued public policy both at occidental college where i went to school as an undergrad, and also uc berkeley where i pursued public policy. i work on public finance for a while after i graduated and came back to government to really pursue that. ever since then, i have stayed here and fallen in love with how wonderful the bay area is. it is a really great place to be. all around the room, you will see a lot of great financial institutions. talk to them. you will see people who can help you with financial aid. talk to them. he will see departments that might have summer job opportunities. talk to them. utilize your opportunities today. learn a little bit about what you should be thinking about in the future. generally, a very practical legislator. i like to look at what the impacts of legislation would be before really voting on it, so i think, depending on the issue, you can move around, and that should be the way most people think, which is let's consider the facts of legislation before you actually consider it, irrespective of what spectrum it comes from and what spectrum it is

so i pursued public policy both at occidental college, where i went to school as an undergrad, and also you see-berkeley where i pursued public policy -- also you see -- also uc-berkeley. that was really what shape my interest in public policy. >> where you place yourself on the local political spectrum? the left or right? supervisor chu: i know a lot of folks want to put a person in the position where they call you left, progressive, moderate, whatever category that might be, and i think it really depends on the issue. generally, i am a very practical legislator. i like to look at what the impacts of legislation would be before voting on it, so i think, depending on the issue, you could move around, and i think that should be the way that most people think, which is, "let's consider the facts of legislation before you actually consider it, irrespective of what spectrum it comes from." >> what did you learn from campaigning for supervisor? supervisor chu: it is hard. i learned that my shoes were out pretty quickly -- wore out pretty quickly. i learned to be more practical about the type

college took seriously the relation between ideas and political action. he has said many times the most important course his he took was the first and second year at occidental an american intellectual history and european intellectual history and chose to study political theory to know how ideas translate into politics? if that is his own conception and and the way he sees american politics, it seems to me it is only fair to take these folks seriously to see how he performs that operation himself and how he moves from his understanding into his understanding of politics. only a professional historian would have heard the of gross of professional historical scholarship in what looks too many people as simply a partisan use of materials from american history but it is much more than that. only someone who does history for a living may see that as historians see it. >> host: then you took up your pen to roach a very accessible treatment of this. you could have buried it in professional this course. who are you hoping to reach and to what end? here is how he thinks and isn't it interesting or we are engaged in various ways. so the audience and other expectation