currently a senior fellow at the center on budget and policy priorities and tony fratto, currently a ng director. both are cnbc contributors. and i'm going to tread a little lightly. i used to think, you know, i could count on tony as a pirates fan and as a steeler fan. have uh you switched totally to the patriots? i don't know you anymore. >> you know a lot about me. >> go tom brady, where are we? >> you know a lot. yeah, i was in that crowd the other night. i was thinking about you, and i would love to watch it with you. i know you love that spirit. >> can i tell -- >> i thought about you. and you know what, seriously, i'm glad the pirates are gone. we lost four straight. you won a seven-game series in the last week. why should the reds -- and they thought, you know what, those last two games don't matter. when you don't -- when you forget how to win, then you need to win the one game and it was horrible. >> you can never, never, never stop trying to win. you have to try to win. >> which is a good lead-in to why you should be backing your party on the latest move here. >> i want to

steve rattner, the chairman of willett advisers and tony fratto, managing director at hamilton place carl. >> i think you probably called it, you said we would be heading here. how long do you think it will last? >> it will end sometime between now and october 17th. because october 17th, as you know, is the date that the treasury runs out of money, and potentially the u.s. defaults not just on its debt but payment to social security beneficiaries, medicare recipients and so on. so i think sometime between now and then. somehow the two sides get together and craft a compromise that deals with both the shutdown issues and hopefully the debt ceiling issues. that may be a rosie scenario. but that's what i think is logical, and indeed what we should all be rooting for. >> tony, you also believe this will last for weeks, not days. >> yeah. >> do we head into the 17th or not? >> that tells you where we are. steve's rosie scenario is what i'm thinking is the -- maybe like the worst outcome. actually, the worst outcome is that they pass a clean cr right away and try to do this entire fight on

so listen to what tony fratto said. he worked in the bush administration as assistant secretary of public affairs for treasury. he said the following, madam president -- and i quote -- "restricting treasury's use of extraordinary measures is like restricting the fire department's use of hoses." so imagine if you said to a fire department, you can use every tool at your disposal but you can't use a water hose to put out a fire. they are saying to the treasury department, you have to default even if there's an easy way to avoid it for a few days. what are they thinking? do they want this administration and others to have an easier path to default? i thought we'd all agree we certainly don't ever want to default but certainly give the ability of an administration, democratic or republican, to avert a default if they can. their language makes no sense. and then their other rider on there. it's my understanding -- i could be wrong but this is what i get from reading what their legislation i think is going to be. the other on