that's russ roberts of the hoover institute. so it's not this big horrible crisis? well, when government spending is about 3.8 trillion, 3.8 trillion and you're going to cut 100 bill, that's a deck chair on the titanic. it's not really a dramatic change. >> it might be good if they're across the board. >> if they're actual cuts, that would be great.ar across the board would be good. i would cut 10 or 20% if i had my choice, it scares people because they think let's save the things that are important and cut the things that are not so important. that never works. >> it's all important. it's all crucial. the tax increases sound scarier. that's about $4 ho 400 billion. >> we have a trillion dollar deficit. we're already spending for the last four years each year a trillion more than we take in. so saying we're going to raise taxes by 400 billion in one year, well, we're already raising them a trillion in the future, so to me, the idea of raising taxes is probably a good idea. it says this spending that we've been doing is not a free lunch. > >> john: and not just raisi

russ roberts comment not a horrible crisis? >> government spending is 3.8 trillion. you will cut 100 billion? that is o deck chair on the titanic. john: it is good across the board. >> if their actual cuts. i would do 20% across-the-board but that scares people because they think let's save the things that are important and cut the things that arnot. it is all important. the tax increases sound scarier of 400 billion but we have a $1 trillion deficit. each year we spend $1 trillion more than we take 10. so to raise taxes by 400 billion we have already raised them 1 trillion in the future. it is probably a good idea to say the spending is not a free lunch. john: and they're not talking about get rid of deductions and make it simpler. >> tax reform is great there is good and bad some deductions wold be good some others may be not so good but the limitation to take advantage of the fiscal cliff would be good for the economy to simplify the tax code. john: that means eliminating deductions. i cannot see them agreeing pension contributions, a mortgage, at gillibrand, a ch

russ roberts comment not a horrible crisis? >> government spending is 3.8 trillion. you will cut 100 billion? that is one deck chair on the titanic. john: it is good across the board. >> if their actual cuts. i would do 20% across-the-board but that scares people because they ink let's save the things that are important and cut the things that are not. it is all important. the tax increases sound scarier of 400 billion but we have a $1 trillion deficit. each year we spend $1 trillion more than we take 10. so to raise taxes by 400 billion we have already raised them 1 trillion in the future. it is probably a good idea to say the spending is not a free lunch. john: and they're not talking about get rid of deductions and make it simpler. >> tax reform is great there is good and bad some deductions would be good some others may be not so good but the limitation to take advantage of the fiscal cliff would be good for the economy to simplify the tax code. john: that means eliminating deductions. i cannot see them agreeing pension contributions, a mortgage, at gillibrand, a

russ roberts comment not a horrible crisis? >> government spending is 3.8 trillion. you will cut 100 billion? that is one deck chair on the titanic. john: it is good across the board. >> if their actual cuts. i would do 20% across-the-board but that scares people because they think let's save the things that are important and cut the things that are not. it is all important. the tax increases sound scarier of 400 billion but we have a $1 trillion deficit. each year we spend $1 trillion more than we take 10. so to raise taxes by 400 billion we have already raised them 1 trillion in the future. it is probably a good idea to say the spending is not a free lunch. john: and they're not talking about get rid of deductions and make it simpler. >> tax reform is great there is good and bad some deductions would be good some others may be not so good but the limitation to take advantage of the fiscal cliff would be good for the economy to simplify the tax code. john: that means eliminating deductions. i cannot see them agreeing pension contributions, a mortgage, at gillibrand,

russ roberts of the hoover institute. >> it's not this big horrible crisis? >> government spending is 3.8 trillion and you are going to cut 100 billion? that's the deck chair on the titanic. it's not really a dramatic change. >> might be good if it's across the board. >> if they are actual cuts i think that's good. i tut 10 percent across the board if i had my drtuthers. let's save the things that are really important and cut the things that are not important. >> test all or not. it's all crucial. connection increases but we have a trillion dollar deficit. we are already spending each year a trillion more than we take in. saying we are going to raise taxes by 400 billion in one year, we are already raising them a trillion in the future. so to me the idea of raising taxes is probably a good idea. it says this spending that we have been doing is not a free lunch. >> not just raising taxes let's even things out a bit get rid of some deduction make the code simpler. that wouldn't be bad. >> tax reform would be a great idea. there's good tax reform some bad tax re

roberts. you're about to weigh in. >> it's interesting that russ was for president obama, if, in fact, it turns out he votes for him because what we're seeing getting back to math's overarching point this election is about a country that is vastly different from the country that most of us grew up in. white men in this electorate are about 34% of the vote. look around the boardrooms of america and you would think it's 100% of the population and when you have a party where you have white men being the main focus and that has been the main focus of romney's campaign, it's just not enough of them to make it. so you need them to pull in some white women and some college educated women and we've got to see how that goes through the night. >> not enough to make it. back to matthew dowd but in the state of ohio, so many of them like what president obama did on the auto bailout. >> and the economic situation in ohio is actually blunted some of that situation that may be going on in the rest of the country. to me this election is going to be so much as we look forward and we look at the preliminary info