let me read that article from paul krug and. -- paul krugman.way spending growth. instead, well more than half of the deficit was caused by the ongoing economic crisis, which has led to a plunge in tax receipts, required federal bailout of financial institutions, and been met, appropriately, with temporary measures to stimulate growth and support employment. the point is that running big deficits in the face of the worst economic slump since the 1930's is actually the right thing to do. if anything, deficits should be bigger than they are because the government should be doing more to create jobs." scott, your thoughts. caller: good morning. i'm just listening in and i hear a lot of people calling in with misinformation. the lady who just called now -- i am not from tea party. i am from the libertarian wing of the republican party. long disenchanted with the new conservative movement had taken over the republican party. what we're seeing now with the tea party movement is people coming to the more classical liberal mind-set of the old republican

economist paul krugman, no conservative, to be sure, says that deficit fear-mongering is republican strategy. but he says that running up deficits in the worst economic slump since the 1930's is the right thing to do, and to be bigger since it would create jobs. >> he has been saying that for some time and he is not alone among economists who say that it at some point there has to be a reckoning. you have to during a recession prime the pump, but at some point you have to come to grips with the fact that deficits cannot be sustained over a long period of time. >> even at he says that if you look into this article, he acknowledges that you cannot continue that indefinitely. >> many economists say that you can reach a certain point with deficits and it is not a big deal. part of the problem also is what are we going to look like when we get out of two wars? we are in the process of leaving one and ratcheting up the other. we have no normal period in any short time frame here. >> look at the polls. the american people think that this are a big deal. -- deficits are a big deal. >> you have to go

that is a little bit of paul krugman's colorado in "the new york times." -- paul krugman's colorado in "the new york times. back to the white house blog responding to the business week/bloomberg interview. from the white house itself. white housegov, if you want to see it entirely. joshua, a democrat. caller: your last caller who described barack obama as a socialist, i think it got it right. he came from a background in socialist in academia and i think he is implementing his idea for our economy and our country and when you say he is not for business, that is right. he is not for private enterprise. if it is government owned or it is a business he could run out of business to create more dependent on government that is what he is going to do. the callers and also the people watching c-span, if they would look at political theory they would be the to tell that this is exactly what is going on. i don't know if it is going to be able to be stopped. i wish it would not go this way because i'm an older democrat who likes the older ways and not the radical communist aspect, but unfortunate

let me read aç little bit from paul krugman's ps this morning.ty, and i left the party several years ago because of that. i think what we are seeing now is in the tea party movement, people coming back to the more classical liberal mind-set of the old republican party, what liberalism used to mean, which is now been translated to conservatism. and the lady that just called and referred to teabaggers, i really find that insulting and showing the intolerance of the left. i do not know where to begin. you are referring to paul krugman, as a real economist. he is not a real economist, first of all. he is a biased journalist. what he talks about being a scare tactic is ridiculous. it is true that a lot of the deficit is a result of the downfall of the economy lately, but most of that was because of the bailouts, that they had to spend. it was not necessary on that part of the sort of libertarian mindset. all this bailout, the companies, the nonsense, that is part of the system, that the government needs to get out of the way. host: what do you think a

by having bigger and tom differences paul krugman in his book shows how income the quality, between democrats with a big overlap with cross party voting but within a quality no overlap battle. it really does affect the political process. but what we had to do do is realize how it fits 102 rein in carbon emissions and the greatest threat to to environmental policies driven by status competition and amplified by inequality that is what makes the struggle to keep up with each other. and instead of being depressed societies we should be able to paint a picture to improve the real quality of life for us and solve environmental problems. we're consuming about three times as much as we need for instance if we needed to maintain the current levels of life expectancy on a given technology. that is about one-third of levels of consumption and curb emissions. even on existing technology. we can improve the social quality by moving in that direction. appealing on behalf of the poor minority, this is about the well-being of all of us together. >> i am just curious as if you would think about the gap. [ina

. >> reporter: which sounded a lot like stockman's political polar opposite, paul krugman. >> this is as raw an incidence of the power of money in preventing us from doing something that everybody knows we should do that i've ever seen. >> reporter: and now both men favor a new tax on risk-taking financial institutions. which prompted one last question for ronald reagan's budget director, famous for the "starve the beast" argument that tax cuts would force government to cut spending. do you still feel that way? >> i think the lesson of the last 25 years is that it doesn't work. you can keep cutting taxes until you reach the point where this year... the year just ended we spent $3.6 trillion and only collected $2.2 trillion, so we are now so far out of kilter that it's irrelevant. taxes are going to have to be raised and the beast needs to be trimmed back, but can it be starved enough even begin to cope with our fiscal problem. and this is where i think all the politicians are faking in both parties, but the republicans especially. the republicans think their mission in life is to cut

. >> reporter: everybody i talk to from george shultz to paul krugman says, "too big to fail is a problemwe have to do something about it." are they right? >> yes. the top 10 banks control something like 70% to 75% of the financial assets in the country. i think that really high concentration makes me uncomfortable. i would like to see our financial system be less consolidated, less concentrated. >> reporter: so what would you do about it? >> there's a whole lot of things i'd do. i would change the regulatory structure. i would consolidate these regulatory agencies and have more effective supervision than we have. as we get out of the recession and things begin to settle down, we need to aim for much higher capital standards on our major banks. the smaller banks already had a lot of capital and i don't think they're the issue. we also need to deal with a whole host of highly pro- cyclical regulatory rules and accounting rules that made this crisis much worse than it needed to be. >> reporter: and by pro- cyclical, you mean that the policies exaggerate the good times and exacerbate the bad

. >> rose: already, this is paul krugman on our program on february 18, last week.e it is. >> you have to bring health care costs under control. and if you do that, then you're still left with a fairly sizable gap, but not a huge one at the kind of thing that almost surely the bulk of it has to involve raising more revenue. you know, the united states is the lowest taxed nation among the major economies. if we move to just moderately higher taxation then there will be endless negotiations about what form that will take. that plus health care costs control brings us within striking distance. >> well, he's absolutely right that the key is health care costs. and then beyond that, look, we still face an underlying fiscal gap. that's why we're creating a fiscal commission that is intended to not only help bring the deficit down over the medium term but also over the long term. >> rose: do you think it will work? >> i think it will. we have alan simpson and erskine bowls who are... >> rose: republican/democrat. >> republican/democrat. but willing to work hard on a biparti

he interviewed, a few years ago, a couple of years ago paul krugman, and paul krugman said the followingout ezra. ezra is very, very good, and very, very young, because when ezra interviewed him in a restaurant, he was carded. [laughter] >> that was -- paul was just jealous about that. >> i think that ezra is actually even prouder that quite recently a fellow by the name of rush limbaugh called him a rising star. i don't know how to take that actually. [applause] >> what came after that was somewhat less complementary, but you'll never see that -- you will never see the rest of that on the back of my book. don't worry about it. >> next, seated to my immediate right is susan dentzer. susan is the editor in chief of health affairs, the nation's leading journal of health policy. she has been for quite a while the on air analyst on health issues with the news hour with jim lehrer on pbs. she is formerly the chief economics correspondent and economic columnist for u.s. news and world report. she's been a senior writer covering business for newsweek. our work on television, included appearance

he wrote an op-ed piece in "the new york times" and then paul krugman wrote an op-ed piece basically saying jim, go back to your science, you are a great climatologist but don't know what you're talking about when it comes to carvin trading. that is the answer. raj patel i want to ask about the value of carbon and explain what carbon trading is. >> essentially the idea of the carbon trading is premised on this idea that the -- we are living in a tragedy of the commons. the tragedy of the comments of people don't know was an article written in 1968 by a scientist named garate which publishes as a thought experiment and the thought experiment is imagine that we are all lit are now a forest and we all enjoy trees and using a tree is so because we are all selfish individuals and no one owns the forest we are going to go in and chop the trees down and take them back and carve them and burn them and do whatever it is we want to do with those and keep going back to the forest but the tragedy is a selfish desire overrun any possibility of us standing in the managing the forest and because no

to my delight, paul krugman followed up with a piece, and paul voelker questioned about the canadianrday. so there you go. >> what is the lesson? >> two really important lessons of the canadian banking system. first is regulation, regulation, regulation. and canadian regulators were actually criticized by the imf and believe it or not, china, for being too boring before the crisis. >> boring is good. >> and canadian bankers said our regulators, they are such dogs. instead of feeling that growing the sector is their job, they feel like their job is saying no to us. actually it turns out for the whole community and for the banks, it's great to have regulators who think their job is to say no. and the other thing that's important is this point about mortgages, that actually you cannot get a mortgage in canada unless you put 20% down. if you have less than 2 20% dow payment, by law that mortgage must be fully insured. that made the mortgage market a lot tighter. that means subprime hardly exists in canada. so the kinds of problems faced in america, canada doesn't really have. in good tim

host: people like paul krugman and tim fernholz are saying that you need to spend more, you need to spend more in order to help out the economic situation. why shouldn't the u.s. government be spending more, and yes, it will raise deficits in the near term, but long term, help out the economy? guest: this has been a debate that has been going on for 70 years now, since keynes suggested that the government could step in to fill the void in spending that consumers were not able to fill because of the economy. that has been the theory, and sometimes it seems to work for awhile, and sometimes it does not. the debate goes on. the argument against that thais that the level of deficit to gdp and debt to gdp as well undercuts the currency and raises the interest rates on treasury bills, which will tend to drive out money for the private sector, undermine our ability to expand, and increases the public sector, which is not a productive part of the economy, and take that money out of the private sector, which is where growth occurs. we can debate forever and would not reach a conclusion. those are

host: columnist paul krugman writes in this morning -- six louis on the democrats' line about trade andjobs. -- st. louis. caller: it will not do anything until we get rid of cafta awnd nafta, which bill clinton really loved. our senators and congressman, they don't work for the people any more. so i'm not looking for any trade agreements that will bring jobs to our country unless you are in the military industrial complex. if we are not using depleted uranium and dropping an innocent people we are not doing anything. i don't understand my government any more. america used to be a place where you can get a good job but it seems like our senators and congressmen are hooked on slave labor. host: texas, republican collar. all because generally speaking, free trade is good for everyone. -- caller: generally speaking free- trade it is good for a name -- everyone. the problem is the tyrannical booed of government built with taxation, regulation, and litigation. you've got to stop treating business like the enemy. make a good business environment and those jobs that led this country for those

host: paul krugman's colorado in "the new york times." -- column in " the new york times."e on the independent line. caller: i hope there is no next that. the progress as did not take no for an answer. they feel like -- the progresses do not take no for an answer. they feel like as long as they can get it done. they don't care if they do it under the table, over the moon, or how. they will try to do it because they don't care -- don't care. host: of a picture from "the new york times." joe on the republican line. caller: you are a great american. i love c-span. this thing is to be scrapped. the american people are firmly against it but the only long- term solution is to let free enterprise conservatives and today on my radio show i am not endorsing its -- people like mitt romney. host: two things. mitt romney is going to be on book tv. what kind of insurance do you have? caller: i am over 65. i have a supplement, of course i have the medicare and i do have a supplement. host: are you happy with medicare? caller: no, not completely. i think the best government is leased gove

i would also mention paul krugman and he wrote an argue in the "new york times" last week that said, you know, this roadmap for the future is really a trojan horse to dismantle medicare. well, maybe. but i don't think you can get re-elected in the united states if you're going to dismantle medicare. i actually don't think that's right. i think it's actually worth thinking about, whether we want to create a budget. for medicare. and, you know, what -- what form would that take if we actually put some limits on the spending for medicare? and what would that mean? and then, you know, you would have sarah palin and other of my favorites in the public debate. and she says no death panels. okay. no death panels so we're going to spend half a million dollars somebody who's 90 years old alive and where he's going. okay. maybe that's right. maybe that's the moral thing to do. but on the other hand that means we need to raise medicare taxes from 2.9 to 3.9 to 4.9 to 5.9 or whatever it's going to be in order to balance medicare. so i don't think anybody is creating the right debate around healt

i would also mention paul krugman and he wrote an argue in the "new york times" last week that said,is really a trojan horse to dismantle medicare. well, maybe. but i don't think you can get re-elected in the united states if you're going to dismantle medicare. i actually don't think that's right. i think it's actually worth thinking about, whether we want to create a budget. for medicare. and, you know, what -- what form would that take if we actually put some limits on the spending for medicare? and what would that mean? and then, you know, you would have sarah palin and other of my favorites in the public debate. and she says no death panels. okay. no death panels so we're going to spend half a million dollars somebody who's 90 years old alive and where he's going. okay. maybe that's right. maybe that's the moral thing to do. but on the other hand that means we need to raise medicare taxes from 2.9 to 3.9 to 4.9 to 5.9 or whatever it's going to be in order to balance medicare. so i don't think anybody is creating the right debate around healthcare and other budget items. and until