Panel debates merits of fiscal cliff agreement

>> congressman, you voted against this. you thought this was fiscal cliff deal was a bad one. why?

>> i think newt just gave the explanation for my no vote. these political showdowns don't work. this is no way to run government. you can't give anyone any kind of certainty where to go, whether it's the markets or the average american family. and we have to deal with these tough decisions with big deals. you can't keep hitting singles or hope to be walked to first base and win the game. you have to go for the big deal . and it's time for us to sit down, lock ourselves all in a room, not just a couple of folks, and come out with a deal. at the end of the day , you end up doing what ultimately happened, which is if you can't agree because you have the extreme sides, then put your best proposal on the table and let the best proposal win.

>> ej, you think that view is too narrow. this is a better deal than it's gotten credit for.

>> i think i'm the only person here who think it's a better deal than it's gotten credit for. if you keep hitting singles and scoring runs, you can win the game. and i think to say that this was the easy part, since when is raising taxes, $620 billion, the easy part? i agree that there are flaws in this deal. there are things i wish it had done. the real question is what we do now. and in a sense, i would like to challenge the premise of this conversation. we could spend all of our time arguing about how to fix the debt in 2035 , and what to do about 2035 , or we can stabilize the debt at a rate that's way below greece, way below most countries, with a deal of about $600 billion in revenue, $600 billion in spending, and then deal with the problems we face now. getting more job growth above all. broadly shared economic growth , and dealing with problems like gun violence and immigration and education and infrastructure. we've got to stop being accountants. i think if we are going to keep talking like this, we might as well have a constitutional amendment requiring all members of congress to be accountants. because all we're going to be doing