 Aside from doing a deal, you have to do an education campaign. You have to have a president in particular who's willing to go on TV with charts and show what their facts are. I do think the American people would be behind a sensible plan. I think they need to be educated. I think they need to be a part of the discussion. I think they need to know just how severe the problems are and why the super committee and the Congress and the president are going to have to come up with some frankly painful solutions. But I think when they know the facts, they will be behind it because the average American is very sensible and we're going to have to have sensible plans to deal with this very big problem. None of us like to tighten our belt. It sometimes cinches. But I think the American public understands that we have a tough challenge confronting us and they want to see that we're tough enough to do so in a productive, successful way. If you tell people really what you're doing and why you're doing it, if you explain it to them, if you explain the process of how you got to the numbers or the decisions that you're making, even though they may not like them, they'll respect that process and they'll respect you. I think our political system will ultimately have to reach a comprehensive fiscal plan. The question is, will we do it in a preemptive and prudent manner and before we have a debt crisis or will Washington typically wait until a crisis is at our doorstep and we have to take dramatic and draconian actions in order to stabilize the markets and restore stability? There's no perfect plan for any one of each party. Everybody has to give something, but isn't that what America is about? Isn't it about us coming together as a community? Isn't it about doing what we need to do to make sure that the future that our children and grandchildren have is going to be better than the one that we had? I think the American people are humbling for something big. I choose to be obstinately optimistic that yes, we can come together as a free people to discipline ourselves and act for the future and address these problems effectively. Apple and companies like it have demonstrated many times that consumers don't know exactly what will excite them and what they want most until they see it. The American people have not yet been shown a common sense persuasive program that will deliver fiscal solvency, economic health and a better future for our children. I look forward to the day when people in both parties summon the courage to look past these temporary polls and let before Americans a program that has that sort of promise. I do think a go big approach is easier than a go small approach. If you're going to just nickel and dime things, you get one interest versus another. Or you get one interest strongly committed to defeating whatever you're going to do. If you go big and the obvious model is the 1986 tax reform, then you get all the interest competing against each other. And I think paradoxically it's easier for members of Congress to resist the cries of a million angry interest groups as opposed to the cries of one really angry interest groups. And if you go big, you marshal public opinion which senses that we've got to make some big changes. You basically win over the people who want simplicity in our tax code and in our budget. And if people are willing to say, hey, everyone's taken a hit, I think they're going to be a lot more willing to go along with you than if they say I'm taking a hit, but he's not going to take a hit. The American people get it. They're ahead of their elected leaders. They know we're living beyond our means. They know we can't grow our way out. We can't just cut our way out. We can't tax our way out. We need to put everything on the table. Everybody needs to be at the table. And we need comprehensive and transformational reforms to our budget processes and controls to Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and other health care spending to defense and other spending as well as comprehensive tax reform. And we need it soon because the clock is ticking and time is not working in our favor. I would say to members of both parties, you're elected to make tough decisions. You're elected to provide leadership for this country in tough times. We're coming to a point that you're being put to the test. It is critically important that you work together. And in fact, you've got to watch each other's back. This shouldn't have become so political that it's not a solvable problem. If the super committee fails, it would be not a failure you're just in the committee. It would be a failure of the Congress and our country. We've brought the country to the precipice of default in paying our debt. About on-demand competence here at home and around the world. I've talked to numerous business leaders, large and small, have indicated to me that the success of the debt reduction committee is critical. If they're going to have confidence in America's ability to manage its finances in a way that will keep our economy growing and maintain fiscal stability and responsibility. Okay. We will now turn to our second panel. If the first panel was not filled with super all-stars enough, this one most certainly is. I'm just going to quickly go down. We have Andy Stern, who is right now the senior research fellow at Georgetown Public Policy Institute and was on the fiscal commission. Senator Pete Domenici, who was the co-chair of the Domenici Rivlin Task Force as well as the former chairman of the Senate Budget Committee. Bill Novelli, who was the former head of AARP. Dave McCurdy, former member of Congress and president and CEO of American Gas Association. Congressman Spratt, former chairman of the House Budget Committee. And Charlie Cobb, who's the head of CED. And what we thought we would discuss in this panel is sort of to bring in the different kinds of special interests that are at play, both in helping to move this issue forward and sometimes standing in the way, sort of protecting different areas which make it harder to have a big budget deal and how we might move that forward. And as well, what the public responses. So many of these people have been out there talking with people, hearing how they respond to different approaches, different proposals. And so that's what we hope to get out of this, sure, to be rich discussion. Pete, if you want to toss out the first or first couple of questions. Given the debate we've seen over the Bolsonaro plan, the proposals from the president, the proposals from Paul Ryan on the House side from Republicans, is the American public ready for this kind of deal, whether it's what the deficit commission, the super committee is about to come up with, perhaps one and a half trillion dollars deficit reduction, or the idea on the table here about going big. Andy Stern, I'll start with you. Is the public ready for this and the sacrifices that'll be required of different groups? I think the public's schizophrenic on one hand they want. This to be done. And over, I think they're tired of it. It goes on too long. It doesn't seem to make any sense. At the same time, when you get to the issues that are important to them, they're somewhat concerned about their particular areas. So I think they're as ready as they're ever going to be. I don't think more information really matters. I think this is just about making some tough choices and moving on. Senator Menici, is the public ready for this? Is that on? Well, I'm kind of of two minds, but I will let the part that I think is more realistic answer. I don't think they are because of one major thing. The biggest special interest, believe it or not, is the senior citizens and the AARP membership. That's the biggest lobbying group without question. Now, some people say that's not fair. They aren't a lobbying group, but they are a lobbying group, and they are very difficult and tough if they're dead set against you. Now, where are they? Well, from my standpoint, we have some more education to do. It's very targeted, so listen me out. They've got a lot of information in the past six months, public of America, but where they aren't yet there is they don't understand yet that the program that they are going to participate in or are participating in, Medicare, Medicaid, in the future, they don't understand that there's something basically going wrong with the program. So they still are of the opinion, the majority of them. When you say we're going to change the program to save money, they say why it's my program I paid for it. And until we have far more saying we understand it's our program, but America hasn't paid for it yet, and we're going to listen to how you might fix it until we get there with a few more millions of people, we're going to have a very difficult time getting around the biggest, most powerful lobbying group around which are seniors and retired people. And that cues us up, Mr. Novelli. Some thoughts on what we just heard there. Your own thoughts about whether the public's ready for this? The public's not ready at the moment. And there are several reasons for this. Number one, the public is too busy being worried and scared. This whole business about jobs, about under employment, about people moving back in with their relatives, about all the different things that we see going on with our faltering economy is really what is grabbing the public right now. Secondly, these issues in the first panel showed us these issues are so complicated and so difficult for the policy wonks to grasp that it's very hard for the average citizen to figure out what's going on. The third thing is they see this food fight in Washington and they want to wash their hands of it. In fact, they probably want to take a shower. And then finally, we're coming into election season. We're already basically in it. And so they're getting all this conflicting information, sound bites. And so if you add all this up, what you have is a public that's not ready. But this is all the more reason to go big. We can't do this in tiny little bites and increments. We can't keep coming back to the trough. We need to really get the public engaged. We need to give them honest information. And we need to lead. That's what policymakers and that's what people in Washington and people in the state capitals have to do. So I believe, A, the public is not ready. B, the public can be supportive of this if we can do a good job of bringing them along. And C, we have to take advantage of the election season and not run away from it and say we can't do anything. Dave McCurdy and with John Spratt, two former members of Congress, two people who've seen the food fighting here in Washington firsthand. Now a different perspective from your job now. Your take? Well, first of all, I think we have to go big because I don't think there's an alternative. And to do that, I think you solve two things. One, you provide some economic certainty. You provide a roadmap to the future for both job growth but for industry to invest and people to get back to work. But you also have a chance to restore some confidence in the political system, which there's absolutely no confidence today that this can be done. And the irony, and I think Erskine said it properly in the last panel, there is maybe a better opportunity to go big and more comprehensive than there is small because everyone has to be, have skin in the game, has to be seen as being part of the solution. And I think in our experience, that's the only way you can actually have big moves like this. You know, the business sector wants predictability, certainty, they want level playing field. But they also want to see Congress and the administration rise above the partisanship and provide solutions. Problem solved. The biggest fear I have, and it's changed a lot in this town and probably because of digital technology and the media and the rest, we are losing our capacity for strategic thinking and action. And if we don't start addressing that, and that's what leaders have to do, is step up and move beyond the horizon. If it's the short term, we're in the food fight. If it's longer term, then I think we all understand that if it's a fair process, then we'll have an opportunity to affect the outcome. John Spratt. Can you take on the tax code and the spending code and entitlements, Medicare, Social Security and Defense, and hold wealth of other issues, you're going to see special interest swarming Capitol Hill. So it's extremely important that if we move forward, the company, the country moves with us, and we've yet to do the job, I think of explaining to them what's at stake and what it's going to mean to the average American taxpayer. We need not just to inform, we need to galvanize. There's a lot of sentiment in the country that is strongly concerned, where I come for example, I think Dave would tell you the same thing about Oklahoma. People are concerned about debt, and they can compare their own debt-laden situation with the government's debt-laden situation, and what's happening to each of them is of great concern to them. No question that they have a great deal of concern, they're not ready yet for whether to take to resolve this problem. And that connection is well worth remembering that it took us four different sittings, four different multi-year budget plans between Graham Rubin Highlings and the Balanced Budget Agreement of 1997 to bring the balance in the Reagan Bush years, bring the budget to balance in those years. That's just an indication of where we had a much more tractable deficit than we did today. It still took us four sittings, four plans to resolve it. And I think we maybe and probably should be, I'm for the four billion dollar goal. I think we should be thinking too about getting certain things done serially one step after another. The one thing that you'll know when Pete Domenici and John Spratt and I talked, when we were in the Congress, we talked about billions. We didn't talk about trillions. That is a different discussion today. I mean, it is a different dynamic. And I've only been out three years. Charlie Cobb, you want to weigh in? Thank you. Normally I'm an optimist, but this time I have to answer the question no. I don't think the public is ready. And I also want to say, I'm not so sure the Congress is ready. And I'll explain that in a second. First of all, everywhere you look in this country, you see a people addicted to short-termism. You see it reflected in the obesity epidemic. We can't make investment decision right when it comes either to our finances or to the food we eat. We over-consume calories and we don't exercise enough. So we've got a short-termism problem with the American people and we don't have the leadership yet to help turn this around. Now, with regard to the Congress, I want to make a point that I don't think has come up yet today. And that is, I think it's going to be very difficult for us to fix this system until we take a hard look at the way money comes into our political system. It's the campaign finance reform issue that I want to mention. Just look what happened the last time the carried interest rule came up on the chopping block. And the special interests came after that issue within seconds. So I think if we're serious about this, if the Congress is serious about this, if the country is serious about this, we have to take a look at how money is coming into the system. And it's a whole lot worse now in the wake of the Citizens United case. 28 years ago, I went to work in the federal government. And the first cabinet member I worked with and got to meet is sitting right here in the front row. And that's Dave Stockman when he was director at OMB. And when Dave left the government, many of you may remember, he wrote a book called The Triumph of Politics that became a best seller. I hope it's still available on the Kindle or wherever. I hope it's still in print, Dave, because I think everyone should read it. I think it's the basis of the comments you made in the previous panel. So I'm optimistic. I support Go Big and everything that's been said, but I'm also skeptical. I don't think the country's ready for it yet. And I'd like to see more evidence that the Congress is. And I think that the money in politics system in this country is making it much harder for men and women, Republicans and Democrats in Congress to come together. The financing of our political system has led to increased leverage from the special interest, and it's led to polarization among our elected representatives. Great points made by all panelists. Charlie, I want to pick up on where you were, because I'm sort of struck by, well, I'm struck by that on the panel, we have people with backgrounds from labor, from AARP, from business, and two former chairman of the budget committees. And so I really want to take advantage of this kind of incredible group of different perspectives. But I disagree with you that the public isn't necessarily ready to go big, because I think what frustrates the public so much is that they keep getting told, I mean, they're these huge skirmishes, and we almost, you know, come, we almost walk off the cliff over and over, and then the headlines the next day are, the problem's not fixed at all. We're still facing mountains of debt. And I think the public does realize that hard choices will be involved, and I think the public, if we're going to go through these bloody political battles, would at least like there to be an ending that's successful this time. But I think Congress may not be ready. And I guess one of the questions that we've been thinking about is, is there a way to change the tone to allow, in particular, the 12 members of the super committee and the leaders in Congress to know that there is this wide spread group of leaders and the public that actually do want them to make the hard choices. And so when I see a group like this, and the others who are here today who are all making the case for go big, I think it's immensely powerful. And I guess the question is to all of you experts, how would you help the super committee to get over this hump of being willing to do something that is incredibly hard? Senator Domenici? Well, I came in with a... You put your mic on. Was it gone? I came in with a plaque. What do you call it? Charts. Since go big, I'm for going big because I think it's just as hard to do it big as it is to do it without a doubt. But I brought a chart in here and let me see where it is. I know it's against the rules. We've been having a chart war. You're about to win, huh? What I want to do is I want to tell you that from this day forward, anybody that invites me to a discussion of the project is going to have this sign with them. Because I'm going to make this sign part of the discussion of our problem one way or another. Now, if you can see the blue line, you understand that it's... I'm sorry, sir. If I give it to you, I can't give it over here so it's the best we can do. See the blue line? The blue line is healthcare. And the other lines are very major, major federal expenditure. Discretionary spending, you see these suits? They're under control under almost anybody's budget. And we've got other mandatory spending after a few years in this recession. They're under control. But look at the one that's out of control. Healthcare. Healthcare costs to the government. See that blue line? See that blue line? Now, you all, you citizens who are listening, you who want to be leaders, who want to fix the problem, you ought to say of any budget offered by anyone, the president, this group, whomever, you ought to say take your budget, go to CDO and tell us where's this blue line down? Maybe 15, 20 years out, turns it down. If it doesn't, tell them go back to the drawing board and start over because you don't have a realistic budget. Now, I won't put it up any longer. I will just say that is the case for how you solve this problem. Now, that doesn't mean it's the only thing, but it's without which there is no appropriate answer. Without which there can be no answer unless that is turned. Everything should be on the table. I want to say that to begin with. I'm a Republican, but I'm not afraid to say everything should be on the table literally, although I think when you immediately say and therefore revenues are on the table, you're almost, people are almost jumping with joy that you can tax people more. I'm not that kind of person in terms of new revenues, but I do believe you've got to restrain the growth of government and you have to do something about the revenue base. But you must do something about that blue line, or you'll just be dumping taxes forever into a growing government and it'll go up to 25, 30, 35% of GDP. Now, having said that, I want to say two other things quickly, and then if I don't speak anymore, it's all right. I want to make sure that you know that I am convinced as one who's been working some 25 years and I've seen three, some people say four balanced budgets, but at least I did three of them and I'm proud of it. It was not with that fellow Stockman. He had a magic asterisk. He balanced the budget with an asterisk for, I think it was only $37 billion. Now, we wouldn't even bother with him now, but we thought that was truly messing with the books back then. Now, having said that, I want to tell you, there's no question in my mind that we must convince the American people that the future of this republic is dependent upon us fixing this problem. If we don't fix it, we don't fix it so that we have a sustainable situation in terms of measuring the amount of our gross national product that we consume. If we don't do that, we will not be the type of country we are today in 25 to 30 years. We will be a lesser light in the horizon of countries in the world. We won't be much for ourselves and there won't be a vibrant feature for our children. It's not that they're going to have to pay our bills, it's they're going to inherit a second rate country instead of a first rate country with dreams. And if that isn't worth working for to fix that, I don't know what is. So I'm getting old but if they ask me to come, I'll bring my charge and tell you fix health care costs so it doesn't, the government does not have to pay that much and the rest will fall in line. Now that should tell you something because nobody yet has submitted a budget that touches health care. I don't know why somebody will say what about the president? Please don't make me say much about the president other than to say nobody has submitted a budget that takes care of or even comes close to touching the health care problem. I don't know why but I believe I believe they are scared to do it. And I hearken back to my day she asked to use me, I'll ask you to use me this way. When we had to take a vote on the chairman and everybody decided we'd like to do that I insisted that they all vote together when they said what do you mean? When we say how are we voting you all put up your hands together so nobody can accuse anybody of having voted first. Because if you voted first on that, they will run ads on you that you started all this and therefore you should not have your seat it is that difficult. In other words I invented a word called simultaneous. We've got to have the people together for the tough, tough issues. It can't be half of them or they have to be together and vote simultaneously so that the burden is shared. Everything's on the table, the burden is shared by everyone on everything thank you. Senator Domenici I'm just going to say two things before I turn it to the other panelists. One, you beat me on the chart issue and I'm glad that you brought it but I do feel bad now for everyone else I said they couldn't bring their chart so I'm sorry. Two, we probably don't have time to go over it but I think everybody should look at the proposal that you and Alice Rivlin on the Domenici Rivlin commission put out on health care reform because you do bend the curve following the cost of healthcare in the long term so you made the case for why it's so important I would direct people to your report to see some of the details that you fleshed out in great detail about how to get there. I made a mistake in not telling you that it's done it is curved in the Domenici Rivlin budget because we do have a a reform of health care system it doesn't start for a number of years long years but it starts and it accomplishes it. Charlie you wanted to weigh in. At the Committee for Economic Development we've made it clear at the Committee for Economic Development we've made it clear that we support savings here from the Joint Select Committee of at least four trillion dollars the committee needs to look at entitlements it needs to look at social security it needs to look at additional tax revenue and also take a look at the defense and domestic portion of the budget and we've said that if the committee and members do that we will work with them we will try and bring business leaders to come in and provide I guess what the politicians like to call cover to make the tough decisions but here's the dilemma there's no more Senator Bennett in the Senate and he worked very closely with Ron Wyden on a bipartisan effort to reform health care and we worked at the Committee for Economic Development we worked very closely with both Senator Wyden and Senator Bennett and Senator Bennett lost the primary as a result of one of the early Tea Party actions so I think to make all of this work there need to be more voices from individuals and groups who are actually helping to strengthen the backbone of the members of Congress otherwise we're likely to see groups at the extreme trying to pick off the very people that we need to provide a centrist resolution to some of this to some of these issues I would just say that that's very logical and yet history has now proven that wrong for the last I'd say three major issues we've had Bill and I and many others built a very bipartisan group of people to deal with the health care issue business, labor, seniors the ARP, NFIB and yet we failed miserably to create a bipartisan backbone and cover for people to act I think on the debt ceiling there was an enormous amount of certainly that everyone was saying we could not walk this country off the cliff in the debt ceiling there were very few people who would say let's just let it rip and see what happens and yet that didn't seem to spawn a lot of action I think we've seen in other cases which we can go through where there's lots of bipartisan support so I think it is a precondition to do something because you can't just have everybody not for it and then imagine it passing it's efficient and I think there is a sad lesson to be learned or maybe an informative lesson to be learned by Senator Bennett that when people run against you in primary and take your job away around a certain issue it gets everyone's attention. So there's time for all of you to weigh in on this, I just want to add to my question though because I wonder if the political moment has or is changing because I have sensed a difference over the summer I felt like there was a difference since these commissions came out with their specific proposals it seemed like there was a difference because there has been bipartisan support for tough choices looking at those 36 senators on the stage standing next to each other last week announcing that they thought we should go big it just seems to me like the moment may be changing so I guess I would add that to my question about how we may help the super committee do their work. Well to go back to the issue of the public and relate it to that I had the privilege of serving and I'm serving on the denation ribbon task force. Thank you. I had the privilege of serving on the Domenici Rivlin Task Force and we're still at work and I think it took about two meetings to figure out three very basic points and those three points are points that the public can understand very readily. Number one the problem is way more serious than most people think. You know when Erskine Bowles talks about going off a cliff it's there. This is not some trivial issue this is something that is going to affect future generations and as Ellen Simpson says it's going to affect our generation so that's a key point. The second point is as Dr. Rivlin said in the previous panel there is no escaping the fact that we need a balanced approach. We've got to do the revenue side, we've got to do the entitlement side, we've got to do spending cuts, we've got to do the whole thing. The public can be made to understand this and the third thing is that in order to do that everything does have to be done on the table. Those are messages that we can convey and I think that and I use as an example my AARP days when we went out and we did town hall meetings everywhere on social security and we basically said to people we've got a problem we have a long term problem and we can't run away from it and here we are in wherever it was Des Moines wherever it was and here are about five or six or eight ways to increase revenues on security and here are five or six or eight ways to really adjust benefits. We want you to figure it out and tell us what you think. People didn't go storming out of the room, they basically engaged. If we can get the public to understand the three basic points and to engage we can sway public attitude and that in turn will have a big effect on how Congress acts. If I could to answer I think there is a different political moment here and in fact Congress may actually have backed into a solution because the fiasco over the debt ceiling created a mechanism that we've not had and the only analogous situation I used to chair a military construction committee and everyone wanted to protect their military base and their district. The only way we could force a collective decision to make decisions was to form what they called the BRAC which is a panel. So this super committee is similar to a BRAC. It gives you an up or down vote. It's a majority. So people can't assume that labor, special interest, business are always united but I would tell you on this one there is an earnest approach right now going on reaching out with the business community and a partisan multi business approach to build support for going big. And again it has to be big and it has to include everything. It has to have the four trillion or the curve. It has to be sustainable. Currently it is not sustainable. It needs to have an entitlement reform because we know where the largest amount of budget is and it has to have simplification of the tax code and talk about tax reform it's a lot of news that people talk about. But I think road maps have been laid out and the people on this super committee who I believe can have the courage to do this if business and other groups recognize there is no option that it has to be done this way and it has to be done now and I believe we can change that momentum. Let me pick up on that if I could because there is a reporter covering this there is a conspiracy theory out there about business interest groups who might have a vested interest in seeing the super committee fail because the sequester is the 1.2 trillion and automatic cuts would be less painful for their various interests than what the super committee might come up with or certainly what going big might be. Again I spend the last 15 years working in the business community and I have not seen that conspiracy theory. There may be some small people collectively manufacturing energy sector, high tech others financial all realize that failure is not an option and just going at the level of the mandate from this panel is a failure because the debt will be larger at the end of this process than they went in with and so in order to reverse this we have seen the scary thoughts and scenarios out there, Greece all the downgrade of our own debt the American business households. We survive as American businesses when our consumers, when our customers, when our fellow citizens thrive and we cannot thrive with a increasing interest rates with the cost of doing business with regulation and all the other issues that are facing us. We need to clean the slate and say now is the time for a fresh start and I believe in the 30 years I have been in Washington that this is one of those inflection points for the country and I think the politicians when you talk to them individually they say yes but it is only if they are involved and you have to kind of jump off the cliff collectively. Pete talked about simultaneity, great word but it means holding hands together and say yes it is in the collective national interest and we will suspend special interest or partisan parochial interest to put the national interest first assuming that people demonstrate the way and I think this is an opportunity. A couple nights ago I was in New York and heard former Secretary of State and Treasury Secretary George Schultz speak at the economic club of New York and I just want to share his comment because I don't think it has been picked up in the press but he was talking about and he said on the play on the famous presidential line ask not what a Congress 10 years from now will spend, ask what you will spend what the Congress will spend this year and next year. Now I guess I would be more optimistic about the long term if I felt that the Congress is able to do the things it is actually supposed to do every year and so there have been articles this week about whether we are going to have another shutdown crisis so again I am an optimist, I want us to think big and I want the committee to act big but again I think the Congress which again has distinguished itself with the lowest public approval rating I think in its history needs to get its act together and they need to do it before the end of September because they can send a signal right now without waiting until Thanksgiving that they are serious about doing the basic things that they have to do every year. Andy Stern I wanted to see if I can get you to weigh in on the special interest side of this. You served on the Ball Simpson commission you didn't vote for it. As you look out now at the various interests that were weighing on you and the other commission members now that the super committee is meeting you are advocating going big right now your thoughts on the challenges that they are facing and how they might deal with them differently than the Ball Simpson commission did. What is that it was very clear and I think even the people who had disagreements with the specifics all thought you had to go big it was never less to a trillion dollars it was how are we going to get to four trillion dollars and I would just say that I think myself that Dave Camp, Jeb Hedzerly, Paul Ryan and the President of the United States made something we could have probably spent a little more time making it work for all of us but you look back now and say you know what were we all thinking at that time that things were to get better when in fact things just keep getting worse and so to me my recommendation is if you think it's going to get better don't count on it it only gets worse and the truth is for people like me who very conscious about trying to not only make a competitive economy to make sure that people that if we don't solve this problem then the suffering that may occur as we solve this problem and we should diminish the suffering we should do what Erskine Ball said is just focus on making sure people who have the least don't get hurt the most but the truth is the longer we wait the worse it gets for everybody. Having served here 28 years the ability of either house to dodge, avoid and duck difficult issues I'm not being sarcastic so it takes leadership which genuinely believes in what we're about to do sets the goals and gets behind them and Pete will recall 1997 we got together with Erskine he had just come to the White House again told him that we thought there was an opportunity this year to finish off the budget balancing effort Republicans would support it so as long as we didn't leave and holding the bag on a few things like Medicare and we'd work together and it succeeded that year because everybody leaned into the problem Democrats and Republicans there was maybe one Democratic leader who lacked enthusiasm for it the rest of us all were leaning into the problem and the President supported us fully just as the congressional leadership did every time we met his first team was in the room and they had his proxy this was not some sort of domestic debate this was an actual meeting where decisions were made and in the end we put together something that balanced the budget for the first time in 30 years and over the next three years I think we paid off $400 billion in national debt are you as optimistic that the structure of this super committee the obligations on the super committee the timeline that this is possible it's probably more difficult than ours and it has a timeframe that is more it's tighter than ours but it's okay they've got a charter they've got a charter that will enable them to do many different things as opposed to one particular thing as I mentioned a minute ago this these problems a lot more difficult than they were in the 80s and 90s but this committee has a great opportunity and I think it can do it but not without the leadership supporting it this is just a way of kicking the can down the road it's not going to work you'll only be able to dodge and duck for so long before the thing ends up in your lap and you've got to make the decision go or no go just one point I think this problem would be insurmountable if they address it in the regular order because we've seen demonstrated over the past decade two decades Dave when you and I were here three decades that in the regular order they're not able to do it but we've had the panels the recommendations that took the time and they've given provided some road maps and you can take and merge the two whatever dementia Ritalin and Simpson bulls whatever but the road map is out there so it's not a question of choices I think it's a question of decisions and leadership and in a regular order I don't think it would work now how do you do tax reform visa and in addition to this it's going to be a multi-step approach but Senator Crapo I think articulated it he said you can set the goals set the parameters put the bumper guards out there and then say committees you have certain time to do it the shorter timeline we always say we can't write it and dot it tell you what they can put the parameters there and the goals and I think the congress will force the administration to step forward and embrace something if they can see that a majority supports this coming before the congress because that's going to be the most historic vote other than war perhaps in modern history this is going to be a historic vote and the business community is saying step up don't fall short go big we'll get your back and we're going to have to work together and it's not easy but we're going to do it well I make a confession I I didn't think I was coming here today to listen to these people up here because I didn't think they had much to tell me but I will tell you right now that I don't know you Andy I don't know you Andy Stern I know of you and you are very notorious but that only means not negative or positive it just means you're damn well known and what you just said we should start with anybody that thinks the condition of their great country is going to get better if we kill this opportunity is more than smoking pot they are absolutely without a mind Mr. Stern just told you if you put it off it's going to get worse we are in the most complicated situation anybody could ever be to try to put together an involuntary bankruptcy it is so complex you can't believe it and literally I hate to use that bad word but things are going bad and they are going from bad to worse and all kinds of things are on the horizon friends you friends here and you friends listening all kinds of things strikes, riots who knows what if leadership doesn't come up with some solutions in the next couple of months we are going to get worse now I want to tell you that from my standpoint the members of this special commission have to be sold on a proposition that is much bigger than anything they've ever been sold on and that is they must believe that their vote for something positive that in fact in fact solves this problem you only got one time to show this I have to verbalize the blue line so that somebody does it and solves the blue line and they could say to themselves it doesn't matter if I ever get elected again I've just saved the country that I love if that can be the test we have a shot at this now I happen to tell you I met with one of them who invited me and somebody else to talk to them and these members that's how the meeting ended well if you're worried about that I'm telling you if they can put together the right kind of package and I vote I and save the country then I don't know if I have to keep coming back here and getting elected and running isn't that a refreshing thought about how important this work is and I believe that if we can get that permeating this commission and I want to close by saying the most difficult thing in my mind is that the big problems that have to be solved are very long term you know Mr. George Schultz I love him but he's wrong the issue is not year by year the issue is 10 years you could do almost what you wanted for the next 3 or 4 years if you put in place a plan that in the 5th, 6th, 7th and 8th and 9th year out reformed Medicare and Medicaid and all the entitlement programs and reformed the tax code if you could do that I guarantee you that we'd be on the right path now my mind slipped me there so I can't close that off because I'm short of memory and I forgot something it was very powerful and I also want to say that Andy I got chills when you said that like it is this incredibly important moment and I hope that people listening and people who know that and there are so many who know that and understand that see that we have to help the super committee feel that we have their backs because there are so many people who are going to be pushing don't do this, don't do this they need to hear from all the one second they need to hear from all the different interests about how people are actually willing to put the collective interest ahead of the special interest and some of the things is going to save the country and if we don't it's going to be a real problem let me just turn to Charlie because he was waiting I want to follow up on something Congressman McCurdy said about the business community I think the business community is looking for certainty and stability to come out of this process and one of the reasons why I think the American public is not ready is I think they're basically confused and if you look at what's happened over the last four years in two administrations a Republican administration you've seen TARP you've seen AIG bailouts you've seen a takeover of GM and Chrysler, you've seen QE1 QE2, you've seen a new dance an old dance called the twist coming back and Wall Street basically behaves as if it has atrial fibrelation and if Wall Street is behaving that way I suspect there's some degree of uncertainty and consternation among the American public so at some point and this is something George Schultz did address we've got to slow this down and put in place serious policies with the right set of incentives that will correct the problems that we just lived through and as he put it we need steady as you go with policies that are consistent with prosperity without inflation now he's a little bit skeptical about 10 years out and Dave you'll remember we thought we'd fixed Medicare, I remember one of the career people at the OMB in 1984 after we did the diagnosis related groups Dave Kleinberg said to me in the hall he said Charlie I think we've finally done it and I said what are you talking about Dave he said we've got cost containment in Medicare, this is 1984 it took about 18 months to figure out how to move stuff into outpatient services and to gain the system so some degree of certainty on the part of this committee and the Congress I think will send a very positive signal to the country and certainly to the American business community and everyone is of course concerned about the $2 trillion they're sitting on that they haven't invested in and haven't produced jobs so it's all part of the same package let me follow up with one question the devil's advocate the other side of this equation there's some here in Washington who would argue $1.5 trillion in deficit reduction if this super committee can come up with that plan which is its mandated target that that is something to build on it is worth this super committee going as ordered as opposed to going big because that will build confidence towards the future towards something down the road challenge that argument for me or do you agree with it like many things in Washington it's completely logical and if you're in any other place but Washington you would think that's true but that was the same thing we said about healthcare I mean let's just put information technology into healthcare everybody agrees we need to modernize our system we never did it you know less past children's healthcare if we get past children's healthcare we can take the next step we never did so it's a completely logical argument that doesn't work so I just think that's the problem and we are going to cut $1.5 trillion I mean it's either going to be sequestered or they're going to make a choice to do it so what challenge is getting what you're going to get anyway everyone is saying is solving the problem so people in America who are sick of this issue they don't even maybe not understand all of it but they understand that Congress is not stepping up to the challenge can worry about something more important in the long run which happens to be how their kids get a job Bill you want to pick up on that at all? No I completely agree with it I mean as I said before you know and as Charlie said we need certainty it's not just business certainty it's consumer certainty it's the public believing that there's a future and it's also foreign markets so if we can get this thing done right and not do it in little incremental chunks little doesn't apply when we're talking about trillions but if we can get it done in a way that is a major plan with as we heard earlier recovery built in then we're going to have done a great thing for the country you know strategic leadership been provided in this country and it's not been done in thousand page tones or reports it's usually done in very simple form by providing some guidance and roadmap and I think there's that opportunity here I don't care if it was George Kennedy he didn't sit down and talk about a whole defense or you know geopolitical strategy by you know laying out all these research studies he said this is a direction and made a convincing argument that's where we are today you don't have perfected perfect is the enemy of good here and good is maybe not enough but it's what we're going to have to shoot for and that's why we're using this term go big because it has to bend the curve 60% of GDP debt ratio that's a serious number but if you only do one then you're going to be 75 in a few years you're going to be at 100 and that is not sustainable it has to be long because it's multi-year and I think everyone says the least fortunate are having a hard time poverty rates up, joblessness is there this cannot be just conning cuts immediately it has to be phased in but they need to know that signal is there and then needs to address the big problems I don't know about peach charts but if you look at where the spending is going discretionary spending is becoming a very very small portion of this federal budget and it's the automatic pilot spending programs that's going to drive us into ruin and then lastly simplification and as a way that I think Senator Coburn, Senator Craver and others who are as principled conservatives as you can find when they say that there is an opportunity to get the right thing done by putting everything on the table that's something that we collectively need to sit up and listen to I think we have time for one question from the audience thank you I have read in several articles that the current my name is Peter Gluck that the current congress does not have the authority to make spending and revenue decisions that bind future congresses I'd like to know first that this is true and if it is what does that say about the staying power of any agreement that the super committee produces and is adopted by the current congress it's a good question and I think we could just go ahead and take a second question and put both of them out there right here Peter I don't know anybody that doesn't agree with what's been said I don't know anybody would argue that it's easier to get big than small if you've been in the process at least and when I listen to Annie Stern, Dave, Charlie talk about the urgency I don't think anybody disagrees with that Pete what I have not heard is an overt public aggressive comment or commitment rather from business and labor to support the people that do the hard thing we all know it's a problem that's not the issue we all know that it's got to be done that's not the issue we all know that we're at the edge of a cliff is his business willing to kick ass I'm sorry I shouldn't say that get serious about really actively supporting the people that gut it out because if you don't do that and if they think they're exposed as Pete said I don't see how you care about this Andy, same thing with labor okay so our business and labor going to kick ass well I wouldn't use the term but I see John Engler from business round table I see other business leaders I know that the US Chamber NAM, other groups a number of us have been having serious conversation and I don't want to pre-announce some things but there is an effort ongoing you've seen the CEO step up and I think that's really important to step and you've seen other former leaders in government and experts I think you're going to see business associations and organizations that are it's very challenging to get unanimity but we're not worried about that we're talking about broad based support for the approaches that we've seen and I think you're going to see for both sides of the aisle that there's a willingness to support if they do their again take on the real problem overcome the extreme partisanship and put the national interest first and everybody's going to have something in this game I think it will be done I think you're going to see it and I think it's going to be pretty strong Bill you've been a long time trustee of the Committee for Economic Development and we have said exactly that we're going to continue to try and work with more business leaders around the country to support those who are courageous and trying to do the right thing but let me add one other point here and this is to business leaders who may be watching the American public doesn't have such a high regard for the business community the good news is it's not quite as low as members of Congress but for 10 years the American business community has been on defense for understandable reasons this is a marvelous opportunity to do the right thing it's not only self-interest and by self-interest I mean the long term implications for the cost of capital in this country but it's also the right thing for the country we talk about business leaders business statesmen at CED and that phrase comes from Pete Peterson who's our longest serving trustee and for years he has been urging business to step forward and address these issues it's the right thing for you your country and for the business community I would just say just to be kind to all of us I mean this is a very is it a totally appropriate theory and I have no idea what the business community is going to do what people want to hear is you are going to endorse me if I am going to do this they don't want to hear we're going to support you we love you if you're going to support my opponent and I vote yes on this so I hope when we talk about this there's a level of sincerity about like sticking with people who do it that applies to labor just as well because if not supporting people is a lovely concept it doesn't mean anything to ask Senator Bennett there's a question about current congresses binding future congresses we do it all the time we do it all the time cap on this right there spending for example if we set a cap it applies to this congress it applies to the next congress the next congress candidate must have the majority in case of the senator he's probably the house too the supermajority he can undo that cap or adjust the cap but it has to pass both houses and it has to of course be signed by the president because it's black leather law that has to be undone I'd just like to say this with reference to support actually it appears to me that appears to me that I'm very sorry sorry Pete there's going to be a lot of support I think this is the moment I think others are what I was going to say is that I think the most difficult part of this is the time the shortness of the time given to get the job done and you can bet that those of us who understand the nuances of a bill that's been written namely the bill giving creating this committee it obviously is created by people who really want to give this committee a lot of authority there has never been a committee with the authority that this committee has they can handle taxes they can make it binding if congress adopts the package and the president signs it they can handle entitlements the question is do they have enough time to do that and we're going to be looking to find ways to give them the maximum amount of time that is conceivable so they can get it done and lastly I just want to conclude that that if in fact we are serious about the entitlements as serious as we want republicans to be serious about revenues then somebody's got to really start working on both of them because both are terribly complicated and they can't be done on 24-hour notice either reforming the healthcare program or the tax code both of which should be reformed and the time is not terrific it's pretty short thanks for doing this and I didn't tell you that when you let me show the whole chart I didn't want to tell you now okay if there are no yes fine last word thank the sponsors the bipartisan policy center made for responsible federal budget simpson balls everyone who stepped up to serve you did a national service and as Erskine said Erskine balls the most in chief staff's white house there's a lot of important positions chancellor and North Carolina and I think they we all owe them a huge debt of gratitude and we also owe this panel a debt of gratitude while the next panel comes up thank you very much