to this special edition of conversations with great minds tonight i'm joined by economist and author david stockman who served as the director of the office of management and budget under president reagan as well as a three term congressman and author. back back in the seventy's back in the late seventy's jude wineskin who was a writer not an economist for. a fairly influential want to republican circles wrote a piece that later made its way through the ultra journal and others but was seventy six called to santa clause three in which he pointed out that the democrats had always been the santa clause they brought social security unemployment insurance forty hour work week body brought it well and the republicans were always the scourges they were always saying no can't do that you can't afford. can't do that and he said we have to figure out a way to not only make the republican santa clauses but force the democrats to shut senate and the strategy for doing that that he laid out was that when republicans were president they should basically spend like drunken sailors run up huge debt never mention the debt and benefit of course in the stimulus spending and then a

republicans say the white house rushed the deal and showed excerpts of e-mails and red a report by the office of -- read a report by the office of management and budget. >> this deal is not ready for prime time. go to the next slide. given the time pressure we are on to sign off, we don't have time to change the model. >> reporter: in other e-mail, we will set the date for the announcement rather than the other way around. the administration was just trying to coordinate a groundbreaking ceremony. >> there was a question of the vice president's office about scheduling logistics for a potential event. >> reporter: in may 2010 president obama visited. they responded to the e-mail allegations saying it had nothing to do with and there is no evidence to the contrary. nothing to do with anything besides the need to get an answer to make a scheduling decision. at the end of august, they declared bankruptcy and laid off 1100 people. days later, the fbi raided the offices, seizing evidence and paperwork. and now there is this man, oklahoma billionaire george kaiser. he is the biggest investor and a major fund raiser for the obama campaign that suggests he go

specifically, lawmakers this morning have called witnesses from the department of energy and from the office of management and budget to testify at this morning's hearings. the question, how were they involved in the $535 million loan guarantee to solyndra back in 2009? and how they were connected to the restructuring of the deal this past february. attention will also be focused on solyndra's recent bankruptcy filing, its troubled financial history and how it represented its finances to the government. republicans fred upton of michigan and cliff stearns of florida issued this joint statement yesterday: "with taxpayers potentially on the hook for this half billion- dollar bust, it's time to sound the alarm about the remaining $10 billion in loan guarantees set to expire september 30." here's a quick timeline now. back in september 2009, solyndra secured this loan guarantee from the department of energy. in march last year, the company's auditor pricewaterhousecoopers said it had quote substantial doubt about solyndra's ability to continue. just two months later though president obama visited solyndra touting it as

of the bankruptcy proceedings and the fbi investigation. but the two administration officials, they had the loan guarantee program and the acting deputy director of the white house office of management and budget. those two officials, they are the heads of the most critical parts of the administration. what i found striking was that neither one was present in the administration when this loan was approved. a lot of the questions that the republicans and democrats passed, they could not answer. they covered a lot of these pretty telling e-mails that suggested that the white house had intervened and tried to speed up the process. and there were officials that could not answer the questions because they were not there. i thought there were a lot of unanswered questions. host: we want to take a look at that hearing between representative stearns and jonathan silver of the department of energy, talking about what solyndra was spending their money on. we will take a look at that and talk more with any harder of io

stover, we're very -- was every document and piece of information you submitted to the department of energy and the white house office of management and budget and your investors, accurate and complete to the best of your knowledge? >> they didn't answer, of course. they used their fifth amendment rights against self-incrimination. those executives ran a company called solyndra. it made solar panels and was the star of president obama's push for clean energy and green jobs. he visited the plant, you see him there, may 2010. solyndra also received a half-billion dollars in money u.s. taxpayers now have to pay back. congress is looking into how much pressure the white house put on regulators to approve those loan guarantees. one of solyndra's main investors was a big contributor to the president's 2008 campaign. today, lawmakers wanted to ask solyndra's executives whether they misled the government about the company's shaky finances and, well, congress wasn't happy when they refused to answer. >> we finally had to resort to a subpoena and now the outright resistance of getting answers that both of you, our two witnesses, assured us only last w

. >> reporter: gop leaders on the panel blamed the department of energy and office of management and budget for not cooperating with the investigation forcing themsubpoena records back in july. they also accuse the obama administration of favoring solyndra and rushing federal reviewers for approval. they cited august 2009 e-mails that showed some people close to the process predicts the company would run out of cash this month. solyndra seems to agree that the model runs out of cash in september 2011 even in the base case without any stress. this is a liquidity issue. but democrats blamed solyndra's sudden collapse on skyrocketing competition in the global markets. >> the chinese funded $20 billion for four solar companies in 2010 and was seen in the first eight months of this year a 42% collapse in the price of these solar panels. this was a market intervention. now, if the republicans think that, like johnny carson's karnack, that there's an envelope, you know, with the answer in it that was available in 2009, they are kidding themselves. >> reporter: with taxpayers potentially on the hoo

and they have plenty of questions this morning. specifically, witnesses with the energy department and white house office of management and budget be have been called to testify this morning. lawmakers want to know how they were involved in the $535 million loan guarantee deal with solyndra in 2009. attention will also be focused on solyndra's recent bankruptcy filing, its troubled financial history and how it represented its finances to the government. it was back in september of 2009 when solyndra secured that loan guarantee. then in march of last year, the company's auditor pricewaterhousecoopers said it had, quote, substantial doubt about solyndra's ability to continue. just two months later is when president obama visited solyndra and touted it for a model of clean tech business. this past february though there was a restructuring of the deal with the department of energy. in july, lawmakers subpoenaed records from the white house about the solyndra deal and then just this month, republicans requested records of communication between solyndra, its investors and the white house. so all moving very quickly. now, remember back he

and it is not working for a lot of these other ones. >> the rap has to rest on the office of management and budget. omb, the most powerful part of the white house structure. and it is more powerful than a regulatory agency. they were told to rush it. they were saying we have to do due diligence on this. >> right. >> and they were told to rush it because obama loves green energy. he is going to be there, he is going to give a talk and he wants to make sure. instead of that it is totally rebounding. >> it looked like political pressure to get the photo op for biden, get the jobs on you. he overdid it and now you have a scandal. john, half a billion dollars is an enormous loss. >> it is not as much political pressu i have been issue four. -- issue four. tough love. >> the american jobs act. this is it right here. it is pretty thick. this is a plan that does two things. it puts people back to work and it puts more money in the pockets of working americans >>> president obama took his jobs plan this week to two states, ohio and north carolina. the tab on obama jobs is $447 billion that is b, as in boy.

now, they cited a report by the office of management and budget. >> this deal is not ready for prime time. go to the next slide. given the time pressure we are under to sign off on solyndra we don't have time to change the model. >> the white house says it was a scheduling issue for the groundbreaking. the fbi raided the solyndra offices but we don't know why yet. and i guess the cfo and ceo will be there next week. >> we'll hear a lot more about it. >> probably not a lot of kind word from congress for those guys. >>> 5:13. it's the largest of its kind in the state. why a major attraction in san jose could soon be shut down. >> and he saved dozens of irs leaves in a taliban ambush. the marine receiving one of the highest military honors today ,,,, ♪ we were skipping stones and letting go ♪ ♪ over the river and down the road ♪ [ female announcer ] nature valley granola bars, where toasted oats, with rich dark chocolate, or sweet honey come together in the most perfect combinations. ♪ yeah, i was just thinking ♪ i hope this will never end sweet & salty nut bars... they're made from who

take a look at this january 31st e-mail out of the office of management and budget between two officialsbe bad. the timing will likely coincide with the 2012 campaign season heating up. so is this becoming more political now than we thought? i mean, were they going -- were they pulling out all the stops to make sure this company did not go belly up after receiving that much of taxpayer dollars and more importantly, did they potentially know that this company was already in trouble when they gave them that amount of -- >> even as -- >> go ahead. very quickly, you know, we have to be careful here. there's an investor whose name is george kaiser. he created a foundation, a charitable foundation, that foundation used another entity to buy stock in solyndra. ok? george kaiser also happens to be a major bundler for president obama during the 2008 elections cycle so the question is -- by the way, george kaiser and other officials from solyndra visited the white house on several occasions, some say four times the week of the loan. some say up to 20 times during, you know, preceding the loan so t

as the company was going under the white house, the office of management and budget and the departmentstructure this loan to try to save this company and now there's a lot of political fall out, a number of republicans we saw wednesday, a lot of republicans and lawmakers want to know what happened, why was the loan given in the first place, why was the loan restructured in a way where taxpayers were going to be paid after investors. a lot more questions. the white house, on otter hand, jay carney says the process that was used to determine who received the government loan was backed by the department of energy loans. he says this process was merit based and that when it comes to cutting edge industries seeking this government help there's potential for high rewards but potential for high risk, and that's what they're saying in this case. it's not a reason to give up on this green technology, but i think as we move forward, we're certainly going to see more scrutiny of these types programs. >> there were memos written by others in the obama administration saying not so fast, we need mor

representative steve scalise read from an office of management and budget message urging caution. >> this deal is not ready for prime time. go to the next slide. "and given the time pressure, we are under to sign off on solyndra, we don't have time to change the model." >> reporter: jeffrey zients of o.m.b. said the administration was asking about the timing for a groundbreaking ceremony. >> there was a request from the vice president's office about scheduling on logistics for the potential event. >> reporter: the loan was approved and in may 2010 the president visited solyndra's factory, still under construction. >> solyndra expects to hire 1,000 workers to manufacture solar panels and sell them across america and the world. >> reporter: solyndra boasted about their its technologies and now there are suspicions it's political connections that were at least as important in securing the huge government loan. the biggest investor is oklahoma billionaire, george kaiser, a major fund-raiser for the obama campaign. >> obama being there everybody felt it can't fail. >> reporter: peter kohl

the office of management and budget slashed its growth outlook for this year to 1.7%, down from its earlier forecast of just above 3%. it also cut estimates for next year and 2013. as for jobs, it sees the unemployment rate averaging about 9% this year and next. >> tom: goldman sachs came out with a grim jobs forecast just one day ahead of the august report. goldman analysts cut its estimate in half. it now believes businesses added just 25,000 jobs last month. >> the jobless data will be released tomorrow. >> susie: those gloomy forecasts pressured stocks on this first day of september trading. on wall street, the dow fell 120 points, the nasdaq lost 33, and the s&p 500 fell about 15. as for trading volume, just over a billion shares moving on the big board and 1.8 billion on the nasdaq. and today's decline in stocks is raising eyebrows on wall street. after all, it's not a good start to a month known to be bad for stock investors. but will september 2011 buck the historical trend and turn out to be kind? suzanne pratt reports. >> reporter: for many americans, september means beautiful wea

like was going to be a terrible showdown and collusion and train wreck in the senate today it kind of slid by because the office of management and budget in the director of fema came out and said you know we can last another week and so now it's the big budget you want to share some thoughts and some reason well this is not a way to run a railroad much less a country and you know. the question is why are republicans for seeing these fake showdowns which you'd think the government's about to shut down they go out and out of town trying to force a vote they already had an agreement around a horrible debt ceiling negotiations where we almost a fault on our debt which set up the budget for the rest of the year. and what they're doing is they're refusing to follow that limit so they only funded two now to october now they're only funding until november eighteenth. and they're trying to cut more from below the limit they agreed on in those excruciating negotiations that went on for the country almost a false on it's that and why are they doing this where there's only two reasons they're either fools or knaves right they're fools either they'

was joined in the studio by david stockman economist former congressman and director of the reagan era office of management and budget and republican is credited with writing the reagan budget and continued his work on federal budgeting through nine hundred five for after a few years in the reagan administration stockman turned against the promise of reagan's fiscal policies even authored a book on why the reagan revolution failed last night in fact he explained why. once we got into the heat of politics it came unstuck the defense posture got way too big the pentagon got out of control and unfortunately ronald reagan was unwilling to discipline the pentagon and he hated big government but it stuck with the potomac river secondly when we passed the tax cut in order to pass it we had a pretty and every kind of ornament and special interest gimmick and tax break in loophole imaginable there was almost like a feeding frenzy on capitol hill and so the tax bill ended up being forty percent bigger than we had tended as the deficit ballooned and i began to see we couldn't cut our way towards balance i became an advocate of

: perhaps the administration saw this coming because yesterday we saw the o.m.b., the office of management and budget, say it's going to be 9%. right now we're at 9.1% unemployment and be that through the election. >> it's not really turning around. and that's the problem for the obama administration. typically in the past, when we've had these monthly jobs report numbers come out, the president has gone out to a manufacturing plant or someplace where he can stand in front of some piece of equipment and give a sort of reassuring speech saying it wasn't good much but we're doing everything we can. we didn't see that from the president today. about 12:30, he left for camp david for a long weekend. and he didn't talk to reporters at all about this number. that was a little bit of a surprise. gwen: he walked croorks the line to the helicopter holding his daughter's sasha as if it was his last friend in the world. how does this affect his plans for his big speech next thursday night, chuck? >> gwen, the speech as you said was going to be about jobs all along. the problem is that there's only so much any p

all of nasa's figures have come in underneath those levels that we set in the nasa authorization bill. and that is what the office of management and budget and the white house has scrubbed all of the numbers to make sure they were realistic, and that's what has been announced today. and here it is, this is the rocket. now, just to give you an idea of the scale of this monster, the space shuttle in the stack with the external tank and the two solids on either side, the tallest point of that stack is the top of the external tank. from here, that would come up to right there. that gives you an idea of how much larger this rocket is. this rocket will launch more payload than any rocket in american -- in the american space program, and probably the russian/soviet space program. certainly now, but back in the old soviet days, i don't think the soviets had one that was anywhere this big. now, what it does is it has a core. this is a core big liquid oxygen, liquid hydrogen fuel tank, and it's taking the space shuttle engine so we can keep the cost down. a lot of this has already been developed. taking the space shuttle engines and putting five i

of libya. we're just a tad more doubtful this evening. >> pelley: original reporting. barry petersen, thank you. there was an unsettling prediction from the white house today about the economy and the unemployed. the office of management and budget predicts the unemployment rate will remain stuck around 9% all of next year. o.m.b. had predicted that growth next year would be a weak 2.7%, but today they cut a whole percentage point from that, dropping the predicted growth rate to 1.7%. bob schieffer is our chief washington correspondent and anchor of "face the nation." bob, i wonder, where does this leave the president going into an election year? >> well, it leaves him in a pretty hard place, i'll tell you that for sure. just to underline this, scott, think about this: no american president, no republican, no democrat, has been reelected when unemployment was at this level. ronald reagan was elected when unemployment was just under 8%, but it had already started to go down, and that was the highest unemployment rate of any president since f.d.r. when a president was reelected. this is bad news at a white house that is getting a whole lot of bad news lately. >> pelley: yesterday, the white house and congress couldn't agree on a d

former office of management and budget chief for the obama administration has written an op ed entitled too much of a good thing why we need less democracy now the title here is clearly a catchy one but what he does is a little more nuanced or as i argues that our congress is paralyzed by gridlock apparels ation that's here to stay and so we could minimize the harm that that causes by relying more on automatic policies the politicized commissions for certain policy decisions what is actually needed and it means expanding automatic stabilisers having a progressive tax code unemployment insurance or linking the payroll tax holiday to the unemployment rate so it always acts words tax and spending provisions to automatically expand on the economy weakens thereby cushioning the blow and then automatically contract on the economy recovers thereby helping to reduce the deficit he also suggests more backstop rules things that actually take place if congress doesn't apps things like the trigger effect built into the recent debt deal and finally he calls for more independent institutions and more

more witnesses will be interviewed at the staff level, both at the department of energy and the office of management and budget. the bush administration credit review committee had recommended against this particular loan in january of 2009. and the obama credit review committee which came in recommended in, late february or early march, that same year for it. and not only recommended for it, but it put it on the fast track. so we're going to focus on that. martha: obviously that is one of the big questions to focus on, what changed from the end of the bush administration to the beginning of the obama administration that made them feel that this was a good company actually to invest in. you know, talk to me a little bit. you say that there is an e-mail trail. we've heard a little bit of that e-mail trail. what did you learn from it and what tells you about what level, who knew, who knew there was a bad situation going on at solyndra and who signed off on it anyway is the question? >> well, you have the then chief of staff rom emanuel in the obama white house kind of encouraging a quick decision in the, can the

>> what happened, the the office of management and budget has a responsibility of looking as the thesetracts and making a recommendation. now as chairman sfts oversight investigation committee i had done a six months' investigation on this. i couldn't get the information. after six months i issued a subpoena. that was the first suggestion something was wrong. and omb did not recommend that this go forward. so why did the administration push forward on this scheme so to speak when they did not have the full support of the office of management and budget who had the responsibilities. megyn: what is the answer to that? why did they? >> was it political? there wasn't enough technical information that this company solyndra could be competitive worldwide and competently managed to actually do this? megyn: what would be the incentive on this part. you mentioned the guy who does bundling. >> mr. kaiser was the initial person who did bundling for the president and he's one of the big investors. megyn: but that's suggests it's political payback. that's just your theory at this point, correct? >>

. >> reporter: the office of management and budget from the obama administration does have folk testifying at this hearing and they are basically saying there was no pressure, there was no time pressure and they did do their homework, take a listen. >> the transaction went through three years of rigorous internal annex terrible due dill lens including reviews by a leading, independent engineering firm. the department's own solar experts and a blue chip law firm all before any taxpayer funds were put at risk. >> reporter: this isn't over after today, jon. the executives from solyndra were thought to be testifying today, they won't. a senior staffer tells us on the committee they expect to hear from them late last week, back to you. jon: there are lots of other shoes to drop. rich edson, thank you. jenna: iranian president said he'd hoped they'd be comin coming home in a new days. the story of two jailed hikers in iran takes another turn. stay with us for why freedom may not be quite as close as we once thought h. jon: and a young man thrown from his motorcycle, sent underneath this car, we

solyndra but you heard a more full-throated explanation from the department of energy and the office of management and budgetide the obama administration, why they believe the... you know, that they were making good decisions at every juncture when it came to extending support to solyndra and when it came to extending sort of a crisis lifeline to solyndra earlier this year. >> suarez: what was the nature of the relationship? was cash transferred from the federal government to this private company? >> it's a complicated transaction but here's the basic effort of this program. $38 billion in the loan guaranty program basically is to invest in clean energy technologies and different companies that offer to do that through a government-backed loan. in the case of solyndra, they won the government-backed loan, but they also got it from a federal treasury bank at a very low interest rates. so it's basically like the government saying we will guarantee that if you can't pay this half billion dollar loan-- which is what solyndra got-- we'll pay it off. which means taxpayers will pay it. >> suarez: so now that the co

you probe side us, the committee staff w the minutes, e-mails of those meetings between yourself and the office of the management and budget. >> i didn't say i did not have a personal meeting -- >> but your staff has, the agency has, and can we have the access to that information, the committee staff here? >> um, i believe so as long as it exists, we can get it to you. >> let me -- you testified in response to an earlier question about the, i think -- >> and to be clear, you mean minutes of the meetings with the texas delegation. >> no, minutes between -- >> oh, between us and the white house? that i'm not sure we can provide, but -- >> it seems as if white house is serious about regulatory reform, this is something where all parties should be anxious to work together, and it shouldn't be this adversarial relationship to try to get a problem solved. so people ask us to work together, i'm asking you if we can work together to get this information so we can see how to solve a problem that is going to exist in my state. we were faced with several afternoons of possible blackouts haas month -- last month. i don't want us to fa

management. the president of the united states has an office of management and budget, 400 500 people work there. he is the superintendent of every cabinet department in our country. they all work at his pleasure. the sub cabinet people work for him. he has got the entire agencies that he can call on to help produce proposals the commerce department, the treasury department on what taxes to raise and what taxes not to, how much it should be brought in. we have opportunities -- we have the staff he does, to send us a detailed proposal about what kind of emergency spending we ought to be undertaking. i don't know if support reid just conjured this up among his staff or whether he got a detailed proposal from the house, from the president. just suffice it to say i hope my colleagues will not move forward to a bill that contains contains $7 billion in new spending above our limits, statutory limits that were passed in this debt ceiling. why? basically, to object have obviate the need of having a budget. so we don't -- we need not to be moving to legislation and rushing through that kind of new spendi

we just had over 50 experts in fiscal and budget policy former members of congress, former heads of the congressional budget office, treasury office of managementelect committee of ours known as the super committee which is going to be working on finding 1.2 to $1.5 trillion in savings over the coming months to actually take this mandate of there's which is not going to be easy on its own, but to enlarge it and as we say to go big. so with the thinking here is that coming up with love of savings the of been set at is not sufficient to actually stabilize the debt so that it is no longer growing as a share of the economy and it wouldn't be sufficient on its own to reassure the markets or the rating agencies, and what we really need to do is bring together a bipartisan plan that would tackle the largest parts of the budget challenge to those being entitlements, health care, retirement and the tax code and that all parts of the budget to put in place a fix that would deal with the situation. so i am pleased today to be able to release the letter we have so many wonderful letters available for everybody in there will be on the web site the committee

of the president's plan. you might get republicans on board for that. kristin when the white house and the office of management and budget talks about how to pay for the projects and included in that is higher taxes on higher earners, that could put the brakes on it for higher earners. trying for republicans to look cooperative and willing and at the same time not give too much ground to the president. they are concerned that that would reflect on them when they think the president is having a time of challenge. >> it's interesting from the white house, the rose garden, the president kept up the line, pass this bill. he said before congress last week and he is keeping up the pressure on congress. you have got behind the president, people he said would be out of work if this bill is not passed. talk to me about the pressure here. even for those republicans who don't want to perhaps give the president a perceived victory here. >> it can help to galvanize democrats. the people are from some of the key unions. that is big important support. if you get get support this you have not always had with this president, that could h

half a billion dollars to solyndra, the omb was going back and forth and the office was leaning on the office of management and budgetnd they were the ones who were going to say whether or not this was a good deal, whether or not it was good risk and essentially what they were saying is let's approve this real fast because we have this joe biden photo op coming up and some are saying wait a minute, they blew it all across the board. >> $535 million of our money is gone! and now the f.b.i. went in on its own. here it is, this is the chief of staff, joe biden's chief of staff. he says "if you think this is a bad idea, i need to unwind the west wing quickly." >> this is a bad idea to give the loan because vice president biden was going to be at the ground breaking for this company. that's why they were pushing it along. the white house budget analyst response to that e-mail, this deal is not ready for primetime. all right. so then, of course, you have the president there in 2010, may of that year, on how solyndra is going to lead the way for green jobs. listen to this. >> the true engine of economic growth will always b

of enron. and these people should go to prison. guest: i think the fbi will shed some light on that. within the office of management and budget or the loan guarantee program. i wanted at in addition to the s&p. fbi investigation, they did not shed any light on that. in terms of the energy d epartment, they had confidence. wanted to continue going forward with that. host: the white house said they merely added interest in the timing of the event because vice-president joe biden was coming to speak. your thoughts? guest: this really makes this a much more political issue than it would be otherwise. the comments that the administration, president obama and the vice-president and the energy secretary have all been very closely involved. and biden touted the 1100 jobs or so that would be permanently created. that is coming back to haunt them. in terms of playing favorites and try to speed up, i do not think that is an overriding issue. folks i talk to on this issue have agreed on that. the time that was critical in terms of weather and not this loan would ultimately get approved -- in terms of whether this loan would get approved

that emailer in the office of management and budget knew that that would be a big liability and it is right now for the president. think about what he's doing. he's on a campaign swing across the country trying to get his re-election bid off the ground amid very low job approval especially on the economy. this under cuts one of the central remaining things that the president has going for him is that americans generally trust him. and when he says easy pwof politics and only interested in what is good for the country unlike these rascily republican thr-s are a lot of folks who tend to believe him. if it turns out that the president helped a connected donor get a big loan that otherwise he shouldn't of that would be a disaster for the president's credibility on that discussion. megyn: hence the distance that jay carney wants to put between this scandal and the president. chris stirewalt thank you, sir. i want to tell our viewers -- the house is holding hearings on this right now. one of the things that they are focused on is the taxpayers gave this company $535 million but then private

managers and people making more than $200,000 a year. the director of the white house office of management and budget, jack lou, told "the wall street journal" today "that is not a hard choice for most americans if the choice is creating economic growth and jobs or tolerating the results of many years of inequities in the tax code." but republicans are remembering their names are signed on grover norquist's anti-tax plan. this afternoon speaker john boehner's spokesman reacted to the white house's plan to pay for the bill saying "this tax increase on job creators is the kind of proposal both parties have opposed in the past. we remain eager to work together on ways to support job growth, but this proposal doesn't appear to have been offered in that bipartisan spirit." joining me now is the co-author of "that used to be us,: how america fell behind in the world it invented and how we can come back." "the new york times" columnist and three-time pulitzer prize winner, thomas friedman. thanks for joining me tonight, tom. >> lawrence, thanks for having me. great to be here. >> the infrastructure portion, at least, of the president's jobs plan s