This is John Bachelor, conversation with Professor John Cochran, the Hoover Institution, teaches at Stanford,

about the enormous spending that's going on out of Washington.

John points to the 1.6 trillion deficit and we discuss the

entitlements problem. Professor Cochran says there's more going on the Entitlements problem.

This is John Batchelor, a conversation with John Cochran, professor at Stanford University, a senior fellow

the Hoover Institution, about the spending that's going on at Washington and how it connects to inflation.

At one point, however, we dealt with the $1.6 trillion deficit projected. I comment that it's the entitlements problem. The professor

corrects me. It is that, but it's more than that. And then we look at the entitlements problem. What is the

entitlements problem? We can't pay for it. It's going to eat up the budget. Intonomous

problem. How to fix? Professor John Cochran about how to fix the

the intitlement problem along with dealing with the enormous deficit along with

dealing with the fact that Washington can't stop spending and we can't stop inflation.

More of this tonight. Thank you.

Well, the 1.6 trillion, the fact that we're running such an enormous deficit at the peak of a business cycle is more than just the entitlements problem.

There is this long-run entitlements problem, which is fairly straightforward to fix.

If you think about we actually want to fix it.

It's a political third rail in Washington talk about fixing it.

And I don't like to talk about, and reform of the tax code.

So you can, you know, it was happened in 1986.

You can lower the rates, so you hurt the economy less,

broaden the base, and the economy grows and you end up pulling in more money.

So it's fairly straightforward what to do about it if you're just willing to even talk about it.

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