MR. KOJO NNAMDIFrom WAMU 88.5 at American University in Washington, welcome to "The Kojo Nnamdi Show," connecting your neighborhood with the world. It's the paradox of power and politics in Washington, D.C. So many powerful people and institutions call it home. So many people live and breathe politics and public policy. But many people who live and work here never invest their time or effort in the city. They see themselves as New Yorkers or Californians living as expatriates in the nation's capital. Today, we're exploring why that is and how that disconnect affects the way the city debates issues, like education reform, taxes and economic development.

MR. KOJO NNAMDIWe're talking with public figures who continue to engage with policy debates at a local and national level. Later in the broadcast, we'll talk with Alice Rivlin, a leading voice on national and local budget issues and public policy. And we'll be joined by former Congressman Tom Davis, a Virginia Republican who took up the mantle of D.C. autonomy and voting rights. But we begin with Mayor Anthony Williams. He joins us in studio. He was mayor of the District of Columbia from 1999 to 2007. He was previously the chief financial officer of D.C. and before that of the Department of Agriculture. He's a member of Mayor-elect Vincent Gray's transition team. Mayor Williams, good to see you again.

MR. ANTHONY WILLIAMSGood to see you, always a pleasure.

NNAMDIYou were the CFO of the Department of Agriculture before Marion Barry -- then mayor -- nominated you to be the CFO of the District of Columbia when we had a control board here. And I'm wondering if there was a moment of time in which you said, you know what, I am really a citizen of this city. I may be working for the federal government, but this is my city. And I'd like to see myself playing a more significant role in this city over and above this appointment or this nomination.

WILLIAMSWell, I was over at the Department of Agriculture with Secretary Mike Espy and then Dan Glickman. And I was there for a couple of years, and I received an offer from Secretary Brown to come over and work with him. I was really excited about that, really admired him, thought I would have more responsibility over there, was looking forward to it, and, lo and behold, I was intercepted by some folks here in the District. Jeff Thompson, a chief among them, told me to come and talk to Mayor Barry. And my first reaction was, are you crazy? The city is in terrible shape. It's got this horrible reputation and so on and so forth.

NNAMDIJeffrey Thompson, the head of the accounting firm?

WILLIAMSYeah, Jeffrey Thompson was a good friend. And so I went over, and I talked to the mayor and then talked to the control board. Everybody knows the kind of history. He was kind of tortured a little bit. Everybody thought, you know, editorialize, you know, what kind of bin did you find him in? But I came over because I thought that it was -- I didn't really think of myself as a local citizen, but I thought it was a national kind of, you know, public service moment. I thought, here's the nation's capital. It really deserves better.

WILLIAMSI can make a real contribution. And it was only after about a couple of years of serving as a CFO and as a matter of doing business -- my detractors say it was always a plot to run for mayor, but it really wasn't. It was just a matter of I thought good business to go out and talk to the neighborhoods about the finances of the city. Then I just started thinking to myself as more of a local person.

NNAMDII remember that you were recruited by citizens of the District of Columbia to run for mayor of the city. It's not an idea that you came up with on your own. When you were approached by those citizens, what was your initial reaction?

WILLIAMSMy initial reaction was kind of interesting, but it was really informed -- I'll put it that way -- by my wife, who did not want me to run for mayor. She thought -- on a number of levels, she didn't think it was good for her family. She really didn't think it was any of my business to come intruding into the city and parading around to try to lead it -- you know, that kind of thing. But, you know, the rest is history, as they say.

NNAMDIWell, the rest is history for me because there was a moment for me. You and I were together in the Greater Leadership Washington class of 1998.

WILLIAMSThat's right, the (sounds like) iconoclast.

NNAMDIThe (sounds like) iconoclast. And at some point during that class, which included the late Barry Campbell who used to be chief of staff for Mayor Marion Barry, the rest of us in the class were interested, from the beginning of the class, to see what the dynamic would be between you as CFO and Barry Campbell. Yet, you two seemed to hit it off. And at some point during the course of that year, Barry Campbell stood up before the class after you had decided to run for mayor in the very early stages and told the other 54 members of the class, I've got an announcement to make. I have decided that I will be supporting Tony Williams for mayor of D.C. For me, that was the moment when you became a true Washingtonian. What did that moment mean for you?

WILLIAMSI think that that's actually true. I love Barry, you know. I thought -- the thing that I really admired about Barry is he was very talented. He was very loyal to Marion Barry. He may not have agreed with Marion Barry's policies, at any one time -- you know all that. But I think all of us agree, you want people around you who are good people, who are loyal people. And I just think, what was Barry? Barry was really kind of a fierce advocate and competitor, and I really felt that when you had someone like that behind you, you know, that was real people behind you.

NNAMDIYeah, it was.

WILLIAMSYou know what I mean?

NNAMDIIt was. It was. And it sent a message to a lot of people who were in that room at that time.

WILLIAMSAbsolutely.

NNAMDIAs we speak now...

WILLIAMSWe miss Barry to this day. He had a great sense of humor.

NNAMDIHe certainly did.

WILLIAMSHe had a great way of deflating me. I'd go down to the mayor's office for their various reports, and he would always find some flaw in my presentation or how I looked and kind of pick fun at me at my expense. But I had to give him credit. He had a great sense of humor, you know.

NNAMDIHe certainly did. And a lot of things that people later discovered about Mayor Anthony Williams is that he, too, has a great sense of humor. As we speak, Washington, D.C. is in the midst of transition. Starting in January, a new administration will take over city government. A new Republican majority will take over Congress. A number of signature issues, like education, seemingly coming to a head. How would you assess the state of the city right now?

WILLIAMSI think that the -- I think it's just something that we ought -- it's part of our city. It's part of our history and our context, which is typical of many American cities. The election of President Obama was a momentous event in our country, and it did mark a great advance in our history in dealing with race in our country. We all should -- you know, we should feel proud of that. That said, I think all the writing about how we had entered into this whole post-racial world where we could ignore all issues of race and all that, I just think were misplaced and premature. Now, that doesn't say that everything should be seen through the prism of race. It shouldn't say that we -- it isn't saying that we should go back to some kind of old days or something. It just means that we, to this day, are still -- and this bedeviled me.

WILLIAMSIt bedeviled Mayor Fenty, and will be a big challenge for Mayor Gray, is that we're still a region, let alone a city, divided, right? Pretty much right along the Anacostia River between rich and poor, white and black, you know, people who have, people who haven't. You know, the statistics that just came out for the census. We're the most richest, most educated region in the country, but also one of the highest concentrations of poverty. This is something that the mayor has to deal with, and I think that he's in a good place to deal with it. Well, I actually thought that Mayor Fenty was, but, you know, we could talk about that. I thought he was in a great place to deal with it, with the overwhelming mandate that he had. But it's a big challenge.

NNAMDIDidn't work out that way, and I'm glad you brought the issue up of race and mentioned President Barack Obama because both he and Mayor Adrian Fenty are black politicians who chartered a path away from a certain style of identity-driven politics. In some ways, you were the first. You were one of the first locally-elected officials who side-stepped those kinds of appeals. I remember you showing up -- I guess it was at Mark Plotkin's anniversary party -- wearing the big afro wig that you had on.

NNAMDIAnd that was, in fact, the statement because you had, in fact, been criticized for not being "black enough." So it's clear that we are not in any kind of post-racial generation. But is it difficult to chart a path as mayor of the city towards what you see as progress for the entire city? Is it possible to do that and avoid the racial division that exists in the city at all? How do you take that into consideration as you chart a path for the future? Because that's what Vincent Gray faces.

WILLIAMSI think it's big. I think where -- I think I failed, to a certain degree, on this. I would do things differently if I were back in the job again. I think that Mayor Fenty would agree that maybe he failed in a lot of respects. And that is, I think, because of the division, you have to almost work overtime to see that you're open, accessible to, communicating with, including everyone in our city in the decisions that are being made. This doesn't mean that you don't make decisions, doesn't mean that you slow down decisions, doesn't mean that you necessarily make different decisions, but you have to go out there and get yourself knocked around and beat up in every quarter of our city as you move the city forward. So one of the things I -- you know, I'll never forget. We had the whole big episode with a hospital when going over to Union...

NNAMDID.C. General...

WILLIAMSYeah, D.C. General and going over to Union Temple, which was not a pleasant evening. But it's part of being mayor, you know.

NNAMDIYou may be aware, of course, that there's a disconnect between official Washington and local politics in the District of Columbia, but D.C. has also been a laboratory for a variety of national debates, especially education. You were a supporter of school of choice. You were a fan of -- or are a fan of Michelle Rhee, now with Mayor Vincent Gray. There are open questions about the direction of the reform movement. Do you think there's going to be any turning back here on school reform?

WILLIAMSI think -- I still -- I tell all my friends and people that I talk to, I think we're still heading up the mountain. We may not be going up the same path, but we're going up the mountain. And I think -- I'm very, very positively confident that Vincent will continue us in the right direction. I think that the chancellor that we have now, I think, is committed to that as well. I really do believe that.

NNAMDIKaya Henderson to win election this fall, Vincent Gray built an impressive coalition across a variety of demographic and geographic lines, but it's already clear that he's going to be facing a variety of interests, a variety of stakeholders, who demand things that will be controversial. How do you, again, navigate that passage?

WILLIAMSWell, you know, you try to listen to everyone, but you're not just taking dinner orders, you know. I always used to say 70 percent of the time you really are like a maître-d where you're just trying to make sure everybody is kind of happy. Or another way to think of it is you're the drum major of the city. You've got to find out where the parade is, get out ahead of the parade and pretend like you organized it. That's about 70 percent of the time. You're following the city. That's your job.

WILLIAMSBut 30 percent of the time, you're supposed to lead. And, to me, that involves going out, talking to everyone and then trying to find the highest -- not the lowest, but the highest common denominator. And I think Vince is -- the mayor-elect is in a great position because I think he's a great listener. He's a very thoughtful man, and I think he is committed to really getting things done, to go out there, talk to different quarters of the city -- in a way that I think he can -- find that highest common denominator.

NNAMDIThis is a city that people outside of the Beltway think of as the nation's capital. We in the city think of it as a city of neighborhoods. When you look around the neighborhoods of this city 12 years later, how do you feel about what you see?

WILLIAMSWell, in a lot of ways, I'm very proud of what's happened. I think we put the city on a good path. I'm very proud of what I did. I really do. I think I served the city well.

NNAMDIAt a national level, there's an ideological debate going on about the proper size of government, how we pay for the services that we expect, what levels we tax different groups and whether we can live within our means. You came into public service as a "bean counter." Do you think pragmatism will ultimately win out over the kind of philosophical and ideological debates we have on this issue?

WILLIAMSWell, the beautiful thing about being a mayor is there's no one lower in the universe than the mayor. I mean, you're lowest to the ground of all elected life forms. So, I mean, you've got to be results-oriented. You can't be up in the policy sky. You've got to be about real people, you know, and about the concerns of real people. And that's what accounting's about. It's a language of getting stuff done. And I'm -- you know, I don't shy away from saying I believe that -- for example, right now -- and I've talked to Nat about this -- I think we all agree that -- and our city can -- we really need to make a major investment in figuring out the cost of what it -- cost of service.

WILLIAMSThere's been a pilot project, but we really need to get behind it and really push it. So in other words, all these debates we've had for years and years and years, what's it costing? For special education, what's it costing to educate a student? What's it costing to, for example, pick up the trash or, you know, trim the trees? And, very importantly, how does this compare to other similarly situated -- the wonk is back, everybody. How does this compare to similarly situated cities is very important.

NNAMDIWhen you arrived as CFO in 1995 and when you were elected mayor in 1999, there was a sense that the city was at a turning point. And, now, 12 years later, most people agree that something happened. You said you were proud of it, during those early years of your tenure as Mayor when the city staged a turnaround. Now, some sense a similar turning point for the city. Do you or...

WILLIAMSI don't know. I think we're heading, and I think we built -- it's all a matter of inertia and momentum that you build up over time, a positive momentum and a virtuous cycle. And I still think we're going to maintain that positive momentum and that virtuous cycle. I don't see -- I know I was around in the old days, at the end of the old days. And I know the old days, and I know the new days. And I know the people involved, and I think that we're at a good place. Do we have challenges? Yes. But, you know, look at our challenges over the short-term and the long-term with the budget, for example.

WILLIAMSIt's roughly $200 million short-term, $400 million over the long-term. They're serious, and they have to be addressed. I'm not downplaying them in any way. But, you know, we don't have the pension issues. We don't have the health -- long-term healthcare liability issues that other cities and states have. You know what I mean? We complain about the level of our fund balance, but we have a fund balance, you know. So, you know...

NNAMDIThank you kindly. Anthony Williams was mayor of the District of Columbia from 1999 to 2007. He was previously the chief financial officer of D.C. and before that of the Department of Agriculture. He's a member of Mayor-elect Vincent Gray's transition team. I'm Kojo Nnamdi.

NNAMDIWelcome back. We're talking about the disjoint between national politics and local civic engagement. Our next two guests were born in Pennsylvania and North Dakota, respectively. But at some point, they came to identify with this region and this city in particular. Alice Rivlin is a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and a former director of the Congressional Budget Office. She's also a member of two national bipartisan commissions on the national debt, but in another way she's, well, a homegirl. She serves on Mayor-elect Vincent Gray's transition team, and she once oversaw D.C.'s control board.

NNAMDITom Davis is a former Republican Congressman from Virginia's 11th Congressional district and the former chair of the National Republican Congressional Committee. During his time in Congress, he worked across the aisle and tried to broker a deal to get D.C. a vote in the House of Representatives. Before that, he spent more than a decade engaging with politics on its most local level as a member of the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors. Alice Rivlin, as we said, is director of the Greater Washington Research Program of the Brookings Institution. Thank you so much for joining us.

MS. ALICE RIVLINDelighted to be here.

NNAMDITom Davis, Former Republican Congressman representing Virginia's 11th District and now President of Republican Main Street Partnership and director of Federal Government Services with Deloitte Consulting. And most recently, according to a press release we received today, appointed to the Airports Authority Board of Directors. Congressman Davis, good to see you again. Welcome.

MR. TOM DAVISKojo, thanks for having me.

NNAMDIAlice Rivlin, allow me to begin with an anecdote that came from the Washington Post back in 2008 when it was a time when the Democratic Party was in the mists of an intense competition between Sen. Barack Obama and Sen. Hillary Clinton, and the entire world learned about these crazy things we call superdelegates to the convention. David Nakamura, who was then covering the D.C. beat for The Washington Post, decided to talk to some of the members of D.C.'s superdelegation to the Democratic National Convention, and he discovered something pretty alarming.

NNAMDIMany of those party bigwigs who were representing the District of Columbia in Denver had no idea who their councilmember was or even what Ward they lived in. Was there ever a time for you, having come from and born in Pennsylvania, worked in the Congressional Budget Office -- was there a time for you when you said, no, I am a resident of Washington, D.C., and I intend to have an active role in the local political scene?

RIVLINYes, there was. And it began with a phone call from Marion Barry, whom I had known in national connections. You know, he -- through -- I don't know what -- the Lincoln cities or whatever. But he called me up one day and asked me to chair a commission on the finances of the city. And I first said, no, but then he talked me into it. You know Marion. He can talk you into anything. And I actually ended up chairing it and had a very interesting time learning about the finances of the city, which were pretty good at that moment -- we're talking the end of the '80s -- but on their way downhill. And Marion Barry knew it, and he thought he ought to have a distinguished group to tell him what to do. So we put together this report, and that got me really interested in the city.

NNAMDIAnd she's been involved ever since. Tom Davis, we know that you were involved in Fairfax County politics before becoming a member of Congress of the United States. What we don't know is why it is, as a member of the Congress, you took such an intense interest in the District of Columbia, that you tried to broker a deal to get voting rights for the District of Columbia. What was the moment for you?

DAVISWell, I was in a position to try to do something. I was chairman of the committee with jurisdiction, and it's the capital of the free world and seemed to me we're spending billions of dollars to bring democracy to Baghdad and Kabul, why not the District of Columbia, our nation's capital? This was just an anomaly in American history I thought needed correction.

NNAMDIBut you're two years removed from office, and yet you are still the poster child, if you will, for a politician who is not from the District of Columbia who has that kind of interest in the District. And that, frankly, is a little unusual.

DAVISWell, it -- I just think it's the right thing to do, Kojo. I mean, it's -- to me, the nation's capital ought to have, at a minimum, a vote in the House of Representatives, and it just baffles me why -- in a Democratic senate, in a Democratic House and a Democratic administration -- this eluded them at this point. It's going to get tougher from here on out, but it's just the right thing to do for the country. These citizens of the District have fought and died in 10 wars. They pay federal income tax. They ought to be treated like full-blown American citizens.

NNAMDILet's bring our audience on the discussion. The number's 800-433-8850. Do you feel engaged with both national and local politics, and if not, why not? 800-433-8850. When did you come to the Washington region? More importantly, at what point did you come to identify as a local? Or do you still consider yourself a New Yorker or a Californian or a Texan? 800-433-8850. Or you can go to our website, kojoshow.org, and join the conversation there. You can also send us a tweet, @kojoshow or e-mail to kojo@wamu.org. Tom Davis, even as we speak, the cause of voting rights for the District of Columbia seems to be at a low point. The deal that you helped to broker, which would have given D.C. a vote in exchange for an extra seat for you, that got bogged down in a dispute over gun rights. What do you think is next?

DAVISWell, I think it's going to probably be awhile. You have Republicans controlling the House, and there's very little interest in the Republican conference of giving the Democrats an extra vote in the House. It really comes down to partisanship. The opportunity was there this year after the Senate voted for it. But the Senate attached some gun rights amendment, and, frankly, we found out that the NRA doesn't just own the Republican Party. They own both parties. And when it came to the House, they had the same kind problems, and I think the city fathers were just unwilling to take the voting rights along with these gun amendments that were put on in the House.

NNAMDIAlice Rivlin, these are interesting times at a national and at a local level. A new Republican majority is coming to power in the House of Representatives. A new mayor is coming to power in the District. At both of those levels, people are beginning to ask tough questions -- and you're involved in them -- about the size of government and about how we pay for it. How does that differ at the federal versus the local level?

RIVLINWell, the problem is basically the same. We ought to have a budget at both levels that pays for the services that Americans want from their government. And, right now, we're facing very large deficits as we look ahead because we've made more promises than we're willing to pay for at the federal level. At the local level, at the District level, we're not in such bad shape. We are facing a shortfall in the budget because of the recession, but it's not huge. It's manageable.

RIVLINAnd local governments basically have to balance their budgets over time. They don't have this choice of borrowing to a fare-thee-well that the federal government has because they can't sell their bonds. And that means that they have to keep their finances in pretty good shape, and the District has had a good record. It's had 12 consecutive balanced budgets, and that's pretty good.

NNAMDIYeah, when you look at it from the point of view of your tenure, Tom Davis, in Fairfax County versus going to the Congress of the United States, what's the difference you see there in budget approaches? Alice Rivlin has already pointed out that the Feds can run a deficit local governments really can't.

DAVISNo. Well, local governments don't have a printing press. Washington borrowed, I think, 41 cents for every dollar they spent this year. It's just an unsustainable model. Local governments, you decided what your priorities were by how much you could spend. Federal government doesn't seem to have that problem. Also, local government, when you made a decision, you could see it implemented. The federal level, it's just so far removed from the policymakers and the decision makers down to where, you know, these laws are implemented. Local government's far more fulfilling in that sense.

NNAMDII'm curious about how, in your view, things have changed from your perspective. Certainly, Fairfax County has transformed since you first took office on the board of supervisors back in 1980. How has the dynamic, in your view, between Congress and the District changed since 1994? What was the prevailing attitude in Congress about D.C. back then?

DAVISWell, a couple things. One is -- let's just take Fairfax. Fairfax is a city now. It's not a suburban county. You go out there to Tysons Corner. You look at the density measures -- it's almost 1 million:1, in terms of the number of people living in Fairfax. Tysons Corner, standing alone, is the 14th largest downtown in the country, and I think the county as a whole with office space, is 5th or 6th in the country in terms of office inventory. In terms of the Congress, you have a Republican Congress coming in now. The city is in much better financial shape than it was in 1994.

DAVISAlice can agree with that. She was there as head of OMB under President Clinton at the time and was a great friend of the city and to me 'cause we were trying to work our way through this. But some things have changed. The difference now is you have more polarization today than you did in 1994. People thought it was polarized then, but the parties have become much more ideologically sorted since that time.

NNAMDIYou got to remind people -- 'cause you said this to me once and a lot of people have never heard it before -- who were your two best friends in the House of Representatives?

DAVISWell, I mean, Eleanor and I got along, Moran -- I mean, we all got along, you know, frankly. And we all got along really famously together. So we'd go to ball games (unintelligible). We were pals. Parties didn't really make any difference in those days. And, by the way, Jim and Frank -- I don't know -- they're still very good friends, even as I left. But...

NNAMDIThey're old school.

DAVISThey are old school. But let me just explain. So the parties are more ideologically sorted today than they were then. Secondly, you have the growth of what we call the new media. So the people now tune in. They either get Huffington Post or Drudge. They get MSNBC or Fox. If you were to go up and cut a deal with the President today, it could be undone by the time you get back to the Hill because Sean Hannity is on Fox undoing it with the base, and the communications have differed. And, finally, campaign finance reform, people don't realize what a disaster that has been coupled with the Citizens United Decision, so that, now, the parties are really -- they're denuded.

DAVISThere's very little parties can do -- more money spent by interest groups on the outside, most of them right or left. All of this has lead to a great polarization of politics that you didn't have just 15, 16 years ago.

NNAMDIPolarization, yes, Alice Rivlin. But there has been progress because when you got to Washington D.C., the congressional committees that affected the District of Columbia were mostly controlled by southern politicians who could, well, charitably be described as holding a certain animus towards African-Americans.

RIVLINYes. I think that's right, and that had a long history. But I credit the District itself and the series of mayors and councils that have gotten the District government into far better shape. And now there is much more respect on Capitol Hill for the city and much less racism, frankly.

NNAMDIOn to the telephones. Let's talk with Sue in Silver Spring, Md. Sue, you are on the air. Go ahead, please.

SUEHi, Kojo. Yeah, I'm from Chicago, and I moved to D.C. -- actually, back to the D.C. area a few years ago. I was born in D.C., so maybe I'm more amenable to being a local gal. But my day job is to work for a civil liberties organization called the Defending Dissent Foundation, and we work on national issues of surveillance and FBI intrusion on the right to protest. But just last week got swept up into some local activism when the D.C. Metro announced that they were going to start searching bags. And our Montgomery County Civil Rights Coalition and our D.C. Bill of Rights Coalition allowed me to work with local activists on a local issue.

SUEAnd it's just so much more fulfilling because you can -- you know, you're right there in the thick of the battle, and you're working with people. You're able to talk to them rather than use e-mail and stuff, and it's just more fulfilling to work on a local level.

NNAMDIThank you very much for your call, Sue. I'd like to invite others to call, 800-433-8850. When did you come to the Washington region? More importantly, at what point did you come to identify as a Washingtonian? Or do you still consider yourself a New Yorker or a Californian or a North Dakotan or Pennsylvanian? 800-433-8850 is the number to call. Or you can go to our website, kojoshow.org, and join the conversation there. Across most of the city's history, members of Congress have had trouble resisting, turning the city into a kind of Petri dish for their broader ideas.

NNAMDIOn both sides of the aisle, sometimes it's serviced well. We are the forefront of debates about school reform, for instance. On the other hand, sometimes it's been highly problematic. We just talked about how voting rights were affectively derailed by a question of gun rights. I'd be interested in hearing both of your points of views on the basis of your experience about how members of Congress and federal officials tend to view the District of Columbia. Alice Rivlin?

RIVLINWell, I credit the Congress with, actually, giving the district more fiscal autonomy in recent years than it used to have. They aren't meddling quite so much. But when it comes to social issues and hot button issues, like gun control, they just can't resist. And I was very torn 'cause I'm very worried about the level of gun crime in this community, and I think we ought to have a right to control our own guns. And yet they used that to derail something else I care about, namely voting rights, so it was a bad moment.

NNAMDIWe got this tweet -- before I go to Congressman Davis, we got this tweet from someone who asked, "Would more national people be drawn in if more room were made for them, for instance, if we expanded the city council into a legislature?" And I don't understand quite what that means.

DAVISWell, you could have more people running for office. You'd have more participation. You may get a little more bipartisanship. There may be a few enclaves in the city that would vote for a Republican. I don't know. There aren't many.

NNAMDIWell, let's get back to the Petri dish issue for a second. Because I've always felt it's very difficult to resist if one has power over another jurisdiction, regardless of where it happens to be. Is it very difficult to resist using that power?

DAVISWell, it has been for members of Congress that are looking for a headline.

NNAMDIEspecially if there's no consequence.

DAVISYeah, I mean -- look, for years the city had domestic partners, legislation and Congress without law. Eventually, I was able to get that taken out. I just was -- why are we interfering with this? We're behind the marketplace. But there's always -- on abortion language, there's always been interference. The difficulty is that when you put something up for a vote on the House floor, on the District, it is scored by the national groups, and it becomes a national issue. And so members vote as they would nationally instead of trying to make this an autonomy issue.

DAVISUnfortunately, with the political polarization and interest groups controlling each party, that's what's happened. And anybody who puts something up on a D.C. appropriation bill -- or any D.C. bill now -- you see these national cultural issues come in to play. And it's a -- they're very polarizing. It's unfortunate 'cause they don't do that to any other city in the country. But ...

NNAMDISo the real challenge is keeping these issues off the national radar with a majority Republican House coming into office come next year. Alice Rivlin, do you think there's going to be -- that that challenge is going to be greater?

RIVLINOh, I think it probably will be. But the same issues keep coming up, and, with any luck, we'll find somebody like Tom Davis who can talk some sense into them.

NNAMDII don't know, Tom Davis. I keep saying that, two years after, you're still the poster child for this. We're still looking for another. Here is Iman in Upper Marlboro, Md. Iman, you're on the air. Go ahead, please.

IMANGreat to speak to you, Kojo, and the rest of the guests. I'm from -- well, I was born in Washington, D.C. at Walter Reed Hospital. I was raised primarily in Fredericksburg, Va., and I've done a lot of activism over (unintelligible) D.C. area with various organizations. Now, I'm a PhD student at the University of Massachusetts. And my dissertation -- once I get there -- (unintelligible) there will focus on the Civil Rights and the Black Power movement in the D.C. Metropolitan area.

IMANBut I'm a bit ambivalent about doing this project because of the fact that I was born in Washington D.C. But I have more of an association with Virginia, and even Maryland. And so I'm curious what the guests feel, and even you Kojo. How do you feel about the D.C. Metropolitan area being a larger identification label or identity label than just Washingtonian? Thank you so much.

NNAMDII approve of it. I even approve of the term in use these days, the DMV -- that is the District, Maryland and Virginia. But just to what extent do you think, Tom Davis, that -- has Metro had a role in making what seems, to me, to be evolving and evoking what is a sense of emerging regional identity in this region?

DAVISWell, the Metro has played a huge role in this because it's just -- you know, it's made transportation across the lines a lot easier. But, look, Washington has been the magnet for attracting business. D.C. suburbs did a good job of being able to take that and build up their contracting base to get some federal installations out there. But we learned a long time ago -- and I learned this when I was chairman of the county board in Fairfax -- that if you have a hollow city, it hurts the whole region. It -- basically, our destinies are intertwined, and I think that has fostered a culture now of cooperation between the jurisdictions. It wasn't like this 25, 30 years ago. But I think everybody recognizes we need to work together, and let's grow the pie together instead of dividing up pieces of a smaller pie.

NNAMDIEven, Alice Rivlin, given the partisan divide we have and we expect to continue in the Congress, there does seem to have been a coming together of the regions, so to speak, even in terms of Congressional delegations.

RIVLINOh, yes. I think that's true, but it's got a ways to go. Now, that's true of all metropolitan areas. We haven't faced up to the fact that many of the problems and public policy issues that we have, like pollution, traffic congestion and crime, can only be solved if metropolitan areas work together. And they're often not structured so that they can very easily. Washington is a good example, two different states and a District of Columbia, a very difficult sort of -- structurally for them to work together. So they're impediments, but it's better than it was.

NNAMDIWe're going to take a short break. When we come back, we'll talk a little bit more about what these individuals see at the national level in their dual roles as being both civic and local political activists and playing on the national scene. We invite your calls, 800-433-8850. How do you see yourself? Do you see yourself as a Washingtonian? Or do you still identify with someplace else and are proud to say that you play no role at all in local issues or politics? 800-433-8850 or send us a tweet, @kojoshow. I'm Kojo Nnamdi.

NNAMDIWe're having a conversation with two individuals who bridged the national, local divide in Washington. Alice Rivlin is director of the Greater Washington Research Program with the Brooking Institution. Tom Davis is a former Republican congressman representing Virginia's 11th district, president of Republican Main Street Partnership and director of Federal Government Services with Deloitte Consulting and, apparently, expert on rock and roll music. He identified the group that made our break song. Who was it again?

DAVISLink Wray and the Raymen.

NNAMDIIs that correct? Oh, yeah, our engineer said exactly right. At a national level, this country is beginning to talk about the deficit, how much money we spend, what we get for it, and how we raise that money. And most people think it will take a combination both of cuts and tax increases. First you, Alice Rivlin, do you think our system and our leaders are mature enough to handle these major questions?

RIVLINI sure hope so because we're in deep trouble if it's not true, that we can face up to these problems. They're quite dire. We are facing bigger deficits than we've ever had, and growing over the next few years because of the baby boom generation and the rising cost of medical care, so we've got to do something. And, as you say, it's going to take both action to control spending and additional revenues.

NNAMDIWhat do you think, Congressman Davis?

DAVISWell, if you want to balance a budget, you're going to have to do a little of everything. You can...

NNAMDIDo you think we really want to balance the budget?

DAVISI think if we don't make huge changes to this deficit, we're going to have big problems down the way. I think somebody sooner or later is not going to buy our bonds. The interest rates will jack up, and the economy comes to a collapse. And, sooner or later, I think -- we're an airplane flying into a mountain. Let me give you just two -- does it take tax cuts or -- if you were to confiscate every penny that people earned over $250,000 a year and taxed it, it wouldn't pay off -- it wouldn't balance the budget this year. Secondly -- Alice, correct if I'm wrong, but I think these numbers are right.

DAVISIf you were to take every discretionary dollar that is appropriated by Congress and cut that, you wouldn't balance the budget. These are huge problems at this point. We've dug ourselves into a huge hole. I don't think you can dig out of it, you know, overnight without, you know, difficult circumstances. But we've got to right our path pretty quickly, or, sooner or later -- I'm not worried about the stock market. I'm worried about the bond markets looking at this and our ability to pay off our debt and finance it -- I think, is going to go out the window.

NNAMDIWhere do we find the political will, Alice Rivlin?

RIVLINWell, I've just served on two bipartisan commissions that...

NNAMDIYou have indeed.

RIVLIN...took this problem very seriously and came up with two slightly different plans. But they both conform to what Tom and I have been talking about. They're a bit of this and a bit of that, some spending control, some entitlement control, some revenue increases. I think that there is a new spirit, quite recently in Washington, that if the President takes some leadership, there is leadership in the Senate on both sides of the aisle to get this problem solved. The House may be a little more difficult 'cause it's always more partisan. But I think that, as Tom says, we're flying into a mountain in an airplane. If we don't change course, we're in really serious trouble, and I think people are beginning to realize that.

NNAMDIBack to the telephones. Here is Nancy in Finksburg, Md. Nancy, you're on the air. Go ahead, please.

NANCYYes. Kojo, I love your show. Thank you. Although I will always consider myself a Tennessean, no matter where I live -- because of my upbringing as an Air Force brat -- since we have moved to this region about nine years ago, and even though I'm about an hour-and-a-half from D.C., for me, what's been interesting is I've always been interested in local politics. Moving to this region has made me more aware of national politics and the interaction between local and national politics. And so I even keep up with what's going on in D.C., so I can keep up with what's going on in the region.

NNAMDIThat is fascinating. Tom Davis, when you moved to the federal government as a member of Congress, you're working with a lot of people who are here only because this is the seat of national government, only because the Congress and the Supreme Court and the White House are here. How difficult a time it is for you, as a member of Congress, to persuade people to actually take a vital interest in the District of Columbia or, for that matter, in Fairfax or any of the places they might actually happen to be living in?

DAVISIt's very hard, particularly for members of Congress who orient to their own districts. And when you put an appropriation bill up, their job is to fight for that piece of pie for their own districts. If you give it to the city, that's less pie that they can share for themselves, so even issues like the Woodrow Wilson Bridge, which was a federally-owned bridge, is a huge inter-connector on the East Coast transportation highway system. They looked at this as a local piece of pork instead of part of a national system, and that's one of the issues in a democracy or that a lot of members look at this very parochially. They don't look at this as one nation, and you're driven by a lot of parochial concerns and parochial interests. And that does not always equal the national interest.

NNAMDIAnd, Alice, we've been going back to when you were serving. I remember, when I first started in broadcasting, you were the director of the Congressional Budget Office. There is the matter of how difficult it is to divide your time when you're working in a post like that. Isn't there?

RIVLINOh, absolutely. People serving in government, whether in Congress or in the Executive Branch, have very time-consuming jobs and may or may not have time to be active in local politics. But they ought to take an interest in where they live. It's inexcusable not to, I think.

NNAMDIOn to Anne in Bethesda, Md. Anne, your turn. You're on the air. Go ahead, please.

ANNEGood afternoon. I just wanted to say that, as I view the city, it's a series of small towns that happen to be located in the same place. There are the government people, who come from wherever and always are from Indiana or whatever. And there are the military people who come in and out. And there are the diplomats, and there are the congressional people. But there are all these groups who really never move to Washington. And then there are those of us who see ourselves as permanent Washingtonians. Now, the problem I see with this is, considering the size of the metropolitan area, it's very hard to find people to serve on non-profit boards and do that sort of community activities because they're people that just don't identify with the area.

ANNEYou overlap with these groups at places like church and school, but the groups don't really socialize with anyone else, other -- you know, their group is the main group with whom they socialize.

NNAMDII can't tell you, Anne, how many people I know who have said to me over the years, I am here physically and have been here for years, but in my head and in my heart, I'm still at home. Don't you hear that a lot, Alive Rivlin?

RIVLINWell, I do. But I also hear people say, I came from somewhere else, but I love it here, or I'm a fourth or fifth generation Washingtonian. Now...

NNAMDIYeah, you do hear that.

RIVLIN...your guess -- my guess on that is most of those people are African-Americans, and there is a very stable group of people who have been here a long time. They aren't all African-Americans, but a huge number -- a proportion of them are.

NNAMDIThank you very much for your call, Anne. We got this e-mail from Brian. "Alice Rivlin just said we need to cut our budget deficits by curbing spending and raising taxes. At the same time, we know that we need to make major infrastructure investments. I recognize that these two imperatives are not necessarily intentioned with each other, but it just seems like that this is a kind of spending that could be demagogue." Tom Davis?

DAVISWell, we talk about how much we're spending, and we can't afford it. Nobody talks about where the money is going. And this, I think, causes me more concern than anything else 'cause if you look at where the country is spending it's money, it's basically a generation of wealth redistribution stream going to Medicare, Medicaid -- most to Medicaid is now seniors' hospital beds and the like -- and then Social Security, interest on the debt, federal pensions. So for every penny you're spending over there, that's dollars you can't invest in the future, which means education, infrastructure, R&D. Our global competitors are focused on the future. We're using the General Motors model. We're rewarding retirees.

DAVISAnd I think you have -- I'm not against that. But I just think it's way unbalanced right now, and it's just no way to take America where we need to be in the 21st century.

NNAMDIWhat do you think about that, Alice Rivlin?

RIVLINWell, I agree with Tom and with the caller that we need to invest in the future, but there isn't going to be an economic future unless we get this budget deficit under control and by doing a lot of different things. So it's not a choice. It's not whether we do the budget deficit or we invest in infrastructure and education. We've got to do both.

NNAMDIThis one we got by e-mail from Beth. It says, "How can you state so blithely..." -- this is for Alice Rivlin apparently -- "...that we should raise the Social Security retirement age to 70 for everyone when, surely, you must know that while the life expectancy for professionals has increased, the life expectancy for people who do physical work, and for minority group members, has not increased. There is a moral dimension here that you seem to be ignoring."

RIVLINI don't think I've said that blithely or any other way. The two commissions that I served on -- which were compromises across the party lines -- both did deal with the fact that, on the average, we're living longer, and we are paying benefits out for a much longer time. The Domenici-Rivlin Commission did not raise the retirement age at all. We took a different approach. We indexed the benefits for longevity. The Simpson-Bowles Commission did raise the retirement age, not to 70, but, I think, to 69 -- but way in the future, way down the road, decades and decades.

NNAMDIWhat do you think about that, Tom?

DAVISWell, we raised the age from 65 to 67 back in 1986. It was graduated. It was done over a period of time, and nobody complained. Everybody saw it coming. They...

RIVLINRight. It's still going on.

DAVISYeah, and there's no reason we shouldn't be able to take these steps now over the next 20, 30 years to raise this to -- that's the easiest of all of the solutions. It's not a solution, but that's probably one of the easiest steps you can take, is to raise that retirement age. I have no problem with that at all. It is unsustainable right now where we are. It's unsustainable, and it's going to take, I think, everybody taking a haircut or two to make this thing work.

NNAMDIAlice?

RIVLINI think the caller is right though. The increase in longevity has come disproportionately for upper income and better educated people. And we need to think of how people with less education and more back-breaking jobs are going to transition to other kinds of jobs.

NNAMDIAlice Rivlin is director of the Greater Washington Research Program with the Brookings Institution. Thank you so much for joining us.

RIVLINThank you.

NNAMDITom Davis is a former Republican congressman representing Virginia's 11th District. He's President of Republican Main Street Partnership and director of Federal Government Services with Deloitte Consulting. You'll like to hear this, Tom. We got an e-mail from Arnold who says, "Great call. Link Wray was local to this area. Rumble, if I remember correctly, was recorded in a garage in Waldorf, Md."

DAVISWell, a little bit of history right here. You heard it here first.

NNAMDIWe do all kinds of things here, Tom Davis. So good to see you again.

DAVISThank you. Thank.

NNAMDIAnd thank you all for listening. I'm Kojo Nnamdi.