and orszag is like, you're the president. anything you want, yeah.but part of it was that obama was trying to muscle up to challenge summers and geithner but especially summers. geithner watches this and he ends up playing it beautifully. another question. how about you? it's revolving around the concept of leadership. >> yes >> your thesis is that obama's philosophy is that government -- the essence of government is the force that will allay a person's fears, but isn't obama the government? isn't obama the icon of government? i mean, the night before manassas he was the moses that would part the sea of government and i think that's the expectation that has never been met. >> yeah. >> he just seceded all that power to harry reid, to the congress, and that he's perceived consistently as being overly passive to consensus-seeking where, in fact, leadership is -- >> that's a great point. he is the man. i am france. he's the guy at that moment. and, again, it's a kind of political capital. you know, i had lunch today with rob kuttner who's a guy up here a

if i have to cut my number is 25 orszag 6, that is going to cost me money, something like $10,000 every year, and i do not think that is there. i think that does not have to be done. all of our dog licenses are different. we work for our clients. sometimes i work on sundays and help them with their dogs, and it helps people have well- behaved dogs. i feel it is hard to micromanage a group that is the difference, and i feel that some of these restrictions are micromanaging us. i personally do not want to wear a lanyard. i would be ok to carry a card in my wallet if somebody does ask me, but you can see me and know what i am doing. it would be great, people have a huge packs of 16 to 20 dogs, or at least they have a helper to manage such a number. i feel that the $250 is too high for people starting a business. what if they do not know anybody? the also have to pay a tax and get their vehicle approved, by the end and fix it up, -- buy their vehicle and fix it up, partition it. you want to be able to do that. i also believe the enforcement problem is huge. i have called numerous times abou

joining me now, a real expert, peter orszag. he is now from citigroup. we understand it's your birthday. happy birthday. we should have had a cake. >> who gave that you information? >> celebrate that. happy birthday, peter. thank you for spending part of it today. i don't know if i would have spent my birthday here on the set. are we seeing good news? are these signs, i gather that there are some initial reporting because the bureau of labor statistics does the next month unemployment numbers begins to do it ahead of time because they were afraid of the shutdown. some of the numbers coming in are fairly positive according to some reports. >> look, we're having a good fourth quarterment reta. retail sales are up. it's in the contempt of coming off a very difficult year and i think we're going into a year that's going to be full of drama. because this situation in europe is far from resolved. we have a lot of political transitions going on including here. and we have the continued deleveraging process of continuing to work our way out of the aftermath of t

they can say you're going to orszag to do oversight. that is a problem in 2005, 2006, 2007, getting people to volunteer. still is. afghanistan is today. and finally as i said in my testimony, this would save money. that's the watch for this area. this is the oversight and government reform committee. the latter rubric should be applied when it can be applied in a money-saving way. sunoco would be one of those ways. >> manchester by my colleagues that all these different nagy is that the respective agencies and departments are busy all the time. so you have a contingency operation to ramp up and try to do other things you're doing consuming all of your time and going over to other areas. you're actually focusing another inspector general on a much-needed area to do that work on me constantly available to achieve it and get it done. i think that's a constructive part of that. there's other issues you raise, but i tank that you can use the sustainability of products that my colleagues raised earlier, the whole wartime contracting commissio

they can say you're going to orszag to do oversight. that is a problem in 2005, 2006, 2007, getting people to volunteer. still is. afghanistan is today. and finally as i said in my testimony, this would save money. that's the watch for this area. this is the oversight and government reform committee. the latter rubric should be applied when it can be applied in a money-saving way. sunoco would be one of those ways. >> manchester by my colleagues that all these different nagy is that the respective agencies and departments are busy all the time. so you have a contingency operation to ramp up and try to do other things you're doing consuming all of your time and going over to other areas. you're actually focusing another inspector general on a much-needed area to do that work on me constantly available to achieve it and get it done. i think that's a constructive part of that. there's other issues you raise, but i tank that you can use the sustainability of products that my colleagues raised earlier, the whole wartime contracting commissio

they can say you're going to orszag to do oversight. that is a problem in 2005, 2006, 2007, getting people to volunteer. still is. afghanistan is today. and finally as i said in my testimony, this would save money. that's the watch for this area. this is the oversight and government reform committee. the latter rubric should be applied when it can be applied in a money-saving way. sunoco would be one of those ways. >> manchester by my colleagues that all these different nagy is that the respective agencies and departments are busy all the time. so you have a contingency operation to ramp up and try to do other things you're doing consuming all of your time and going over to other areas. you're actually focusing another inspector general on a much-needed area to do that work on me constantly available to achieve it and get it done. i think that's a constructive part of that. there's other issues you raise, but i tank that you can use the sustainability of products that my colleagues raised earlier, the whole wartime contracting commissio

they can say you're going to orszag to do oversight.that is a problem in 2005, 2006, 2007, getting people to volunteer. still is. afghanistan is today. and finally as i said in my testimony, this would save money. that's the watch for this area. this is the oversight and government reform committee. the latter rubric should be applied when it can be applied in a money-saving way. sunoco would be one of those ways. >> manchester by my colleagues that all these different nagy is that the respective agencies and departments are busy all the time. so you have a contingency operation to ramp up and try to do other things you're doing consuming all of your time and going over to other areas. you're actually focusing another inspector general on a much-needed area to do that work on me constantly available to achieve it and get it done. i think that's a constructive part of that. there's other issues you raise, but i tank that you can use the sustainability of products that my colleagues raised earlier, the whole wartime contracting commission