Panel: Lack of leadership prevents progress

>> carly fiorina , there is some symmetry here. the white house would argue that the 2010 election happened, the republicans had big gains. $20 billion cuts in the budget. the president wins re-election. gets his tax hikes now. we have a debt ceiling negotiation. they are going to push for additional spending cuts. is this the right balance to get ultimately to where we have to go?

>> well, unfortunately, i think this will sound like a crazy thing to say. but everyone in washington is spending way too much time talking about the politics and not enough time talking about the pragmatic facts. here are the pragmatic facts. the economy has been in a slow-growth mode now for three years, reconfirmed by the latest job report. the deal that just got done adds $4 trillion to the debt. it will cut 1 1/2 points from growth according to goldman sachs economists. we have not solved a single problem that is real. we cannot focus on growth until we deal with some of these problems. so forget who's winning politically and who's losing. the only way to change the current trajectory unfortunately is for someone to lead. and the president as he is want to remind us frequently, one, and he is the president, and therefore the obligation and the opportunity to lead falls mostly on his shoulders. and he has to step forward --

>> but he has to have someone to negotiate with.

>> absolutely, but he has to be willing to negotiate as well. and he wasn't truly willing to negotiate. i have negotiated many deals in my life. and here's what they take, a win-win and a willingness to treat your opponents with respect. not a constant win-lose and a dennigration of your opponent.

>> he put several proposals on the table, and speaker boehner walked away from the deal and washed his hands of all of this. and at the end of the day , the president did everything he could to fulfill his commitment to not let middle class americans take a tax hit. but this is not the way to do it. let me give you the level -- show you the level of dysfunction in the house of representatives on the republican side . the same week we were supposed to vote to provide the victims of hurricane sandy relief, they?? are all suffering, millions of folks, a bipartisan bill passed in the senate with over 60 votes. republicans and democrats, to provide the $60 billion in relief that governor comeau and christie said we need. republicans would not allow the bill to come to a vote. and today we are watching the victims in those four states of new york, new jersey, pennsylvania, and i forgot the fourth state, i apologize, connecticut, suffer as a result of this.

>> and why is there no outrage that politicians as usual use a real disaster to lard up a bill with a bunch of special interest gimmes that have nothing to do with the victims of sandy? why isn't there any outrage about that?

>> this is the problem. clearly this will distinguish the two parties. that bill, 64% of it did not spend out in the next two years. 31% of it had nothing, nothing, zero to do. the train came through and the boys said, let's throw the pork on the train. it came out of the senate as exactly why the country is now sick. this was not emergency spending that the house should have done.

>> tell that to governor christie and the republican members of the house from those four states who said they needed that bill.

>> they don't care how much extra the rest of the country spends as long as they get what they want. i understand. that's local politics in a crisis. the house should have passed a purely stripped down reform bill that met everything for sandy and nothing for the pork. now the country would have understood clearly doing that. and i think the house is not moving at the speed it needs to. but i also want to say one other thing, david. republicans ought to quit worrying about president obama . the president's going to be president. the house ought to worry about being the house . senator republicans ought to worry about being senate republicans . let the president deal with reality from their side. the house has no obligation to pass a cr -- the continuing resolution on the president's terms. it has no obligation to pass a sequester of the president's terms. i think those are both much better fight says than a debt ceiling. the debt ceiling guarantees a crisis. it guarantees that the markets will all cave in on the republicans . and the republicans in the end will give up.