we re watching the breaking news on the floor of the united states senate right now. we re watching and they re close to a deal. close but not there yet. in the meantime, there are some procedural votes under way on the floor of the united states senate. we want to welcome our viewers here in the united states and around the world. i m wolf blitzer reporting from washington. gloria borger, our chief political analyst, is here as well. we have our correspondents standing by on capitol hill as well as over at the white house. but gloria, let s set the scene right now. just saw live here on cnn an extraordinary exchange between senator dick durbin, the democrat from illinois, been a majority whip, the number two democrat in the united states senate, and john mccain, a republican senator from arizona. he was the republican presidential candidate back in 2008. and it was a perfect way to set the scene for this debate that s unfolding, the stakes, the economic stakes for the unite
group of people aware of the trade problems of the banking problems of the health care problems of the tax code problems and have a huge motivation to do something about it, but quite honestly respect quite sure what to do, they are very frustrated and very frustrating to learn how rig and screwed up the poll advice and can t do anything about t you were trying to organize a job movement in this country around things that can be done, where would you begin? i would begin with the trade with china, we can put a tax on import and investment into china by taxing currency con vers are, simple to do and necessary, dramatically change the structure of prices in our economy and make a lot of things made in china and sold here made here and sold here, we could have a resolution trust in banking to basically clean up the books of the smaller banks like this one around the country as we did in the savings and loan crisis. frankly, got stop legislating taxes every two years, we need to have a n
she says, jobs, jobs, jobs, question mark? peter, what s the first thing we can do? we asked marco rubio, candidate for senate infall, what he would do. he says the tax cuts are where he would start. where would you start? well, businesses need customers and capital to create jobs. they don t have enough customers because of the huge trade deficit with china. we have to fix that. i d, frankly, put a tax on raising the price of chinese goods and bringing production home, use that money to balance the budget better. capital? we should really create a resolution trust as we did in the savings and loan crisis for those 8,000 regional banks that don t have enough money burdened by real estate debt. they don t have enough money to loan to small and medium-sized businesses. the t.a.r.p. was supposed to do that, instead it was used to create big bonuses on wall street. jenna: we had a great panel today, guys, we talked about politics, a little about fashion. fair and balanced. [laughter] app
she said she was frustrate that had she didn t have as much access to the president. with larry, the sinking ship summers whispering in the president s ear, it s no wonder the economy is still in the tank and the banksters have all the money. it s by design, after all. so we re all acutely aware of the situation. we even know where the problem rests. but how do we turn things around? we have a professor at the smith school of business at the university of maryland. professor, what could the government be doing? what could the political establishment be doing to crete jobs that they re not? businesses need customers to create jobs. huge trade deficit with china and the regional banks stid burdened by toxic assets. we need to get china to revalue the currency and put a tax to simulate the effect and get americans making more products at home. we need a bad bank resolution trust to recapitalize the 8,000 regional banks to loan money to
next? i m not saying that the economy is in great shape. i m saying that the economy is in better shape than it was and there are good things going on in the economy. peter is talking about the global economy. that s been going on for 40 or 50 years now. that s not a new development, either. there s no argument that we need to generate more jobs in this country. there s every reason to believe that as a business cycle proceeds, we will generate more jobs in the economy. jenna: peter, on that final thought here from you and then adam, what do you think the government should do moving forward to make sure we stay with at least some growth? businesses needs customers and capital. if we re going to have more customers in the united states, more of the money we have to spend stays here or we have to grow exports, that means once and for all dealing with china and its currency. capital, the president gave the money to general motors instead of recapitalizing the regional banks, they re s