Back with a discussion on the economy and how its going to affect the 2020 election. Joined by the president of the Economic Policy institute and joe griffith, research fellow, finance and regulations at the heritage foundation. For both of you economy what do we see the economy playing into the 2020 elections. Lets start with you. Jesse. K you, i think in the past, the economy has been a pretty good predictor the outcome of president ial elections. In other words, in the economy is trunk the incumbent tends to reelected or the incumbent party and if the economy is weak, the opposite tends to be case. I think this year might be a little different for a couple of reasons. One is the economy is kind of quite ased, its not cut and dry like its good, its bad. News from such different places best for two bill clinton, defeating an incompetent, bush. S george h w he had won the gulf war. We entered a mild recession. President clinton want. 1996, bill clinton one despite having a lot of having personal and illegal turmoil. He pulled off the election. Feedingsident Obama John Mccain defeating john mccain the midst of a financial crisis. President obama trounced the republican. This time, the economy will be the number one issue. We are in a period of Economic Growth for many demographic groups including hispanic americans and africanamericans and women. We are at record low unemployment rate. Those economic positives favor the incumbent. Economy willee the be the number one topic for the 2020 election . It will be important. There are a lot of personal issues at play this time. I would disagree withdrawal a little bit in how great the economy is. Atemployment is low, we are the end of a long recovery. , it is also true cap at 40 years of wage stagnation and growing inequality. The small wage gains we are seeing recently are not enough to make up for those 40 years of growing inequality where the middleclass have not gotten their fair share of the wealth created in this economy. There are a lot of pockets of discontent. Pockets of inequality. By education, race, gender. This is an economy that has not delivered. There are weak spots Going Forward because of the poor decisions the trumpet administration has made in and keyto tax cuts Economic Policy decisions. I understand the talking points for some, we are in a period of stagnation. Data does not show that. Reputable,bureau is government agencies, the Census Bureau, the tract median Household Income. See, they dont always adjust Household Income for family size, which has changed. Look at the data. Adjusted for inflation, the middle class has declined as far as percentage of population, from 38 to 32 . The lower class has declined as well. What happened to these people . Tens of minutes of people. It is in the data. There is a greater percentage earning in the upper middle income adjusted for inflation and upper income. To 30 of from 13 the population. One other interesting stat that plays out is disposable income. Earning 11,000 more per family in disposable income. That has widened in the past 20 years. Things are looking up for americans. This is something we should be applauding. That isnt right. You cant look at Household Income, you can also look at real wages. One of the recent Household Income has kept up, more people are working, working longer hours, retiring later. That is stress on a family. Median, thee, the guy right in the middle, he earned less today in 2018 that he did in 1973. That is extraordinary. There has been a lot of a growth , yet workers in the middle class have not seen their share, virtually all income gains in the last 20 years have gone to the top 10 , most of the top 1 . Almostceo pays skyrocket 1000 while wages of ordinary workers are stagnant at around 12 . About the economy earlier this week. He focused on wage growth. Here is what President Trump had to say. Eight number came out. A number came out. It said under the Bush Administration for eight years, median Household Income went up 400. That is over eight years. Obama, mediant Household Income went up 975 over eight years. ,ver your favorite president president donald trump, median Household Income for two and a half years remember, eight years, eight years. That gets wiped out inflation. 400, 975. In two and a half years, our plus 2000 for0 the tax cuts. 7,000. How has President Trump done with the u. S. Economy . If you look at the economic numbers, they have improved. With the continuation of growth that began under president obamas administration, but we saw an acceleration in the gdp rate following the tax cuts. Importantly to the typical family, you see 2800 a year in tax dollars. These are real benefits for typical americans. He look at the wage growth, the numbers show official Government Data showing median Household Income continues to grow in real terms, it has grown by more than 4000. The past year, the wage growth itself, those at the bottom of the scale saw their weight growth grow twice the rate of those at the top, roughly 6 for those in the bottom and around 3 for those at the upper reaches. This is positive news for not just the wealthy, not just the poor, everybody. Same question. Bill has failed to deliver on growth, productivity, investment, all the promises made on its behalf. The vast majority of benefits went to corporations and the wealthy. A 1 trillion hole in our deficit, which will be a an excuse for people to cut programs. On the tax front, President Trump inherited a growing aonomy, he juiced it up with sugar high because he cut taxes and increased spending, so he got a temporary boost, but at the cost of 1 trillion increase in the deficit while the economy was growing, this is when we ought to be preparing for the future for an inevitable slowdown that will be coming, yet we have the Trump Administration has taken a lot of actions that are antiworker. He has cut overtime pay, cut protections for workers, union protections, health protections, these will lead live with working people for decades to come. Host how important is the federal debt in the deficit right now . How important is that . It is important. If i can go quickly to something you mentioned before. When it comes to tax cuts, a large portion of tax cuts went to lowering the Corporate Income tax rate. That is because it was at the highest in the industrialized world. It is deterring investment. I understand if you lower the Corporate Tax rate, those at the top will receive fs. That is an incomplete way of looking at the picture. Those investors, its not as if they are running those on consumption items. Most of those resources go into growing the businesses and investing in technology at research that increases productivity, that helps all of us. It increases breakthrough technologies. Medicine or otherwise. We have seen productivity increase, the last few years. That is translating into wages increasing across the board. When it comes to manufacturing, in 2018 we had two consecutive quarterly alltime outputs and a real manufacturing, the first record high since 2007. Spending is important. It is not the fault of the tax cuts. Look at last year. We saw 4 increase in tax revenue. We saw increase in spending, almost double that. That is the reason of why we are seeing this deficit blow a hole in our budget. We did not see the growth in investment that we had been promised by the Corporate Tax cut. What we saw was most of the Corporate Tax cut went into stock buybacks. If that is self enrichment. People are making decisions that and rich themselves at the value and the value of the stock they own. What we need to look for is what its going to happen Going Forward given the structural changes made and the tax bill and do we have the resources need to find the things we need . Infrastructure or education or investment in our children and future. I would say that tax bill has it taken away the resources we need as a country Going Forward to invest in our future. Host this is a great conversation. Lets let our colors get involved. We will open up our regular lines. Is 202 7488001. Democrats are 202 7488000. Independence, you are 202 7488002. At 202 ext us 7488003. We are reading on twitter. Somethingike you had you wanted to add before we get to callers. Host we did see for several quarters a big boost in investments. That has slowed even though it because ofcreasing, trade disputes we are having with our allies and with china. Issue, on the buyback money did go back to buyback. What is a stock buyback . It is a return of capital that investors invested, return capital to investor. You might own a stock. You might not want to sell that stock. You are happy with the dividends. That is great. A buyback allows you, if you want, you can keep investment in that company. If you think you can more successfully employ that capital to generate more capital, a buyback gives you that option to allow the company to transfer resources to you and now you get to make that decision. The dividend means everyone gets that money from that company and they have to pay taxes on it. They might not have a better place to put it. A buyback put power in your hands as an investor. We are not seeing copies invest in job growth the way we would like to. If they are putting it into self enrichment. A 10 year stretch of job growth. Host the economy has been a issue in the democratic primary. During a town hall, Elizabeth Warren spoke about the minimum wage. [video clip] when i was a girl, a fulltime minimum wage job would support a family of three. It would pay a mortgage, covert utilities, put food on the table. Today, a fulltime, minimumwage keep aamerica will not mama and baby out of poverty. That is wrong and that is why i am in this fight. [applause] and understand this. Is no accident. It is about who Government Works for. Go back andrl look. The question asked about minimumwage is what does it take a family of three to survive . What does it take a family of three to get a foothold in americas middleclass . What does it take a family of three to have something secure they can build on . Today, the question asked in washington is, where should the minimum wage be set to maximize the profits of giant corporations . I dont want a government that works for corporations, i want one that works for our families. Warrensto senator statement on the minimum wage. She is right. She has based the right issue. The minimum wage has lost 30 of its value since the 1960s. The already wealthy country. We ought to pay people a decent wage to work. People should not begin poverty if they are going to a job. There is a dell in the house right now a bill that passed the house, it would raise the wage to 15 an hour. And address in a great. That is a great thing. It is popular in the country. It is long overdue. We all have a common goal and that is for people to have a solid standard of living. The problem with the midmonth weight is it does not do that. Is pricingnimum wage people out of the marketplace. If you are uneducated, unskilled, other issues that make it less profitable for an employer to hire you, fixing a midmonth weight from seven dollars an hour to 15, it will place people out of the marketplace. We have seen this. Look at the cities that implemented wages higher than the federal level. Seattle. There are studies that show the impact of those wage hikes on people in the service center. People trying to gain experience , a lot are parttime, it placed them out. We see premature automation and businesses shut down. This is not fair. Keep in mind who are on the met him wage. A few percentage of the population. A lot did not have a chance to get a good education. They develop skills on the job. Studies show the majority of people do not stay in minimumwage jobs for long. They pick up the skills they need, they very quickly are able to leave those jobs or employers pay them more than the introductory wage. That isnt true. There are a lot of cities and states that raise the minimum wage and there have been a lot of studies that have shown there is virtually no negative job impact. Seattle is prosperous, as is california. What happens when you raise the minimum wage, you also reduce turnover, increased skill, increase peoples ability to get to and stay at work. The median age for a midmonth weight worker is a 33. It is not the fault of workers they dont have education, it is employers have chosen to underpay workers. These jobs are not decent. These are profitable companies, they can up for to pay a decent wage. Show there is almost no discernible negative job impact from raising the minimum wage. There is a wealth of academics out there, including eta from euro labor statistics that track employment. I encourage people to contact me. We can provide you with information. Join lets let our viewers this conversation. Lets start with mike, from houston, texas on the republican line. Good morning. Caller good morning. I have three points. Your pay way, becomes pays pay raise becomes effective when you are. State revenues in new mexico and pennsylvania, state revenues have gone up by a billion dollars this past year. I will tell you, that affects every human in the state of new mexico and pennsylvania. It affects infrastructure, colleges and universities, k12 schools, roads, everything. That is a good thing. Related to Economic Growth and the oil and gas boom initiated by donald trump. You may not like donald trump, but his ideas are better that what we had before. Thanks for the call. You say the. Becomes effective when you are. What i see, employers have outside power in the labor market. They use that to keep wages low. Wages have not grown with productivity. They have not grown with education. Workers are more skilled and educated than they have ever been. We see this stagnation of wages over the last three or four decades. It is not true employers automatically pass on productivity increases to wages. We will disagree in terms of the oil and gas boom is great, it brings in revenues. We also need to think about the future and the future of the climate and how we are going to handle that and unnecessary a necessary transition. When it comes to weight status nation, wage stagnation, wages increase over the past few years. The middleclass are shrinking because people are moving into the upper middle class. Education is important. You mentioned that. The problem is we see a lot of Public Sector teachers unions and politicians across the country that refuse to expand School Choice options for children, many in poverty. We need to focus on education for the children and when they graduate have an opportunity to quickly access the booming economy. I dont think School Choice is the magic bullet to school quality. That is not improving. What we want is to have investments in Public Schools. Pay our teachers so they can do their job. From lets go to alex lesson 10 park, maryland on the democratic line. Caller good morning. I think our economy is moving in the wrong path. Middleclass has a reasonable chance to get rates and improved conditions. In the meantime, the weight we are the largest economy in the world. Studies state it shows more than 14 Million People are at a risk of hunger, 12 million are children. What do you think about these conditions . Understand a lot of people are coming here to get started. It is a lot of hard work. I dont believe the data show those who take opportunities to move here are in a situation where they are condemned to poverty. Went of my colleagues wrote a an open doortill about immigration and look at studies that have been done that show immigrants, once they are here and raise families, a lot of their children and up outperforming native born u. S. Citizens. This is a land of opportunity. It is why we see so many people struggling to get here. Trying to get you through all means. They know once you are in this country, you not only have protection of our laws, not only a government that respects the people, but you are able to succeed and achieve for yourself if you are willing to work hard and be a person of integrity. This is a wealthy country. It is a great country. It has tremendous potential and opportunity. My dad came as an immigrant from china. He was able to get a great education and become a professor. This is a wonderful country. I think this country has not done what it needs to do over the last couple of decades in investing in the future. There have been out tents to undermine worker power, whether it is attacking unions, the wrong kind of globalization, privatization, underinvestment in our Public Sector, whether it is school or infrastructure or parks or libraries. Those are the things this country needs to succeed. For everybody to have a chance. We talk about the American Dream. The American Dream is a wonderful ideal. The idea children will do better than you. The United States has left intergenerational mobility more than our wealthy counterparts in other parts of the world. That is something we need to think about. Is every neighborhood have an Excellent School . Every child have a chance to succeed . I think the caller said there are millions of children in poverty. That is a shameful outcome. Host lets go to rick from florida, the independent line. Good morning. Joel has a lot of talking points. Corporations are not helping me and my family. Realld like to see the data pulling the communities. I never see these guys in communities. I and africanamerican. They dont come in here and ask us what is going on. We see it firsthand. You have a lot of good talking points, but that is all that is. Come to our communities and get real data. I appreciate your question. We cant just look at data alone. We want to interact with those who are living across the country. A family of Small Business owners. My dad runs a company in suburban dayton, ohio. He employs 10 people. He has a lot of other businesses, clients across the region. I know from my conversations with him and my sister who runs the recent economic expansion has lasted 10 years and has been accelerated the past few, this is helping families. Families across part of the country that are part from the Power Centers in los angeles and new york and washington. I hear your concern. I appreciate it. I am happy, because i have talked to individuals that are earning their livings and reliant on Small Businesses. Caller raises an interesting point. What does it feel like on the ground . One of the dispute between me and joel, we are looking at the same data, but we look underneath the surface. You want to break down the data by racial category, education category, by gender, by google urban. If you do that, there are a lot of places that never did recover from the last recession. They have been losing jobs steadily whether manufacturing because of trade policies or Good Government jobs because we underfunded the government. Those are key areas where people are working hard, doing the right thing, not able to make a living because the we have seen an erosion of the wages and a growing inequality across all those dimensions. I think it is important that we look underneath the surface and breaking down things so we understand the challenges facing communities. For whiten up limit workers is usually double that for black workers. That is not acceptable. Have one of the things we been talking about in general is the economy and the upcoming campaign. Lets talk specifics. What do you think voters specifically want candidates, republicans or democrats, to talk about when it comes to the economy in the 2020 election . I think americans want to know how politicians are going to pay for the programs they are proposing. We have seen a lot of proposals by those running for president on the Democratic Party. I am one of those people that watched the debate the other night. We saw a number of candidate challenging their opponents. Show us how you will pay for these programs and put a price tag. I have a lot of data on that. That is something the American People want to have answered. I disagree. I dont think how we pay for things is the most important question. We got a wealthy country. We gave a tax cut to corporations last year. He can afford to pay for the things we need. Want to talk about the bread and butter issues. Make sure people can afford Health Care Without going bankrupt. That is the situation today. We want to talk about good jobs for everybody and how we strengthen the voices of working people through increasing minimum wage to strengthening unions, strengthening peoples ability to come together in collective action. We want to talk about investing in the future. People talk about a Green New Deal or infrastructure plan. This country has under invested in infrastructure. The society of Civil Engineers gives us a d . Inhave a 4 trillion deficit infrastructure. B could be fixing schools,ighways, Water Systems electrical grid. Those are things we should do. I want to hear the candidates talk about that. A lot of things you mentioned cost a lot. You say we are a wealthy country. In our country, if you add up all the Government Spending on all the levels, it is 27 of gdp. That is less than our competitors in the developed world. Growth7 of all economic in those countries goes to the government. What happens when you have the government become that much larger . You might find these projects, the average person, they suffer. Our disposable income in this country is far higher than our competitors. Higher than germany, our on up limit rate is lower than those countries that have Government Spending that would be on par with what you are suggesting. If you look at italy, spain, double and triple that. Level oft to have that Government Spending, we will have to realize the class will pay for it in terms of higher taxes and we have fewer Economic Activity economic opportunities. Host lets talk to john from North Carolina on the republican line. Caller good morning. Thank god unlike the last two and a half years, cspan has been talking about russian collusion with President Trump, frommpeachment and removal office. Democrats have been talking about for the last two and half years. I included cspan on that. President trump has made this economy the best economy we ever had. 3 million new jobs in this country, women have the lowest unemployment in 50 years. Blacks, hispanics, very low unemployment. The stock market is at the highest level. 401k at the highest level. 401 k s are at the highest level. , getting cspan and Major Networks talking about issues that matter to the American People. Host economic comments . Guest i appreciate what he said and i appreciate your call. It is an economy is the growth we have seen so far durable and is some of it just by tax cuts and spending not sustainable and are not going to provide the longterm boost to the economy in terms of investment and productivity, we will see some trouble down the world. Guest we really need to keep the focus on these economic proposals from the leading candidates. If you add up all of those proposals, they are proposing 4090 2 trillion over 10 years ranging from the Green New Deal to medicare fraud, education proposals. Even if we were to take every dollar from corporations to raise a fraction of that, if you would take every dollar from every earner 200,000 plus, if you are to levy the wealth tax, we have all of these numbers. It would pay for a fraction of 42 90 trillion bill. If you want that type of spending, we will have to have europeanstyle taxation. In europe, the middle class pays far more than we do. In france, there is a payroll tax in excess of 50 . The democratic candidates, such as bernie sanders, if you look at his legislation for medicaid for all, there is a payroll tax, 11 on everybody. That pays for half of the medicaid for all proponent. Youre looking at higher taxes for the middle class. How are we going to pay for it . Guest when you compare apples to oranges, if you are talking about a system where everybody has free and universal health care, there is going to be a shift between what you pay in taxes and what you pay for health care. It is not Like Health Care is free today. If it is more efficient to provide health care universally to ask to expand and strengthen Social Security, to make sure we have universal prekindergarten so every child can realize his or her potential, those are things that are important investments in the future. Some of it may require a shift. What you pay in outofpocket costs and premiums. We want to make that kind of shift . It is not like it is free today. Guest it is not free but you mentioned efficiency as if nationalizing health care is going to make it more efficient. D. C. , adult literacy, below the basic level. Care, we should see what a Government Health care system might look like here. Talk to people that have had to rely on the v. A. I have had people in my family who have had to. Guest we are talking about efficiency. Whether we want to spend all of our payments to health care on Insurance Companies chasing after a dollar and trying to convince you that you are not sick. That is a waste of money. Host speaking of senator bernie sanders, last week, he had this to say about the minimum wage. Us,cross the street from people are struggling day after day just to survive. Here in new york city, it is also in West Virginia and kentucky and alabama and mississippi and other states where people continue to work for starvation wages. Aboute worried to death the future their children face. That is why we say today, in america, anyone who works 40 hours a week will not live in poverty. [cheers and applause] we are going to raise that ,inimum wage to a living wage at least 15 an hour. Suree are going to make that every worker in america has the right to join a union. Host 15 minimum wage. Is that going to be on the Democratic Party platform . Guest i think it probably will and it should be. It has been so popular in a lot of states they have lit they have moved to raise their minimum wage. Think it will be part of the democratic platform and it should be part of the democratic platform. Value for work, working people should be able to make a decent living. That is a great platform. Host 15 minimum wage, good or bad idea . Guest it is a bad idea. To minimum wage is not going harm employment at all, why not make it 20, 25, 100 . We know that is going to make it impossible for many people to find a job because they do not create that kind of value for their employer. As you go down the minimum wage level, fewer and fewer people are negatively impacted. Those who have not had a chance to get a good education, those who want to have a chance to move up the economic ladder. That is what the data show. They move up when they gather the skills and we all want to help the same people. One proposal sounds good but will harm them. Guest is that the best youve got . If you raise the minimum wage to 100 an hour, it will work . In 1968, we had a pretty Strong Economy, a strong and growing the class. That period after world war ii, when unions were growing, those were healthy and productive times. Working people had money in their pockets. It was good for business. Put it out we dont as billion dollars in our. Lion dollars an hour. We have had a situation where working people have not had the Bargaining Power they need and employers have attacked workers rights to have unions at the state level and federal level and that is the reason we have so much in balance in the economy. Thankfully, we can look at the impact of these policies and you can see across some areas of the country where they increase the wage, you are saying businesses suffer you are seeing businesses suffer and you are seeing people at the lower end of the economic ladder no longer have an opportunity to earn a living and no longer have the flexibility. Host lets go to michael who was calling from florida. Michael, good morning. Both of youris for wonderful presenters. Foundational to both of your positions is the idea that free markets and laissezfaire petition, both sides competition leads to an optimum this is something i would love for you guys to bring as a study because it has real effects far beyond economics and politics. We have parkland march for life kids raise public awareness. What we had was not revealing records, we did not even know where students were going as far as who needed special help. That is what happened with the shooter. Climb at a false velocity. This is science. You guys can bring your two sides together. I dont know. Everyone is good people. It is foundational, it just is not science. Scientists. Utionary you lose things once you do not have a need for it. Respond. Ahead and tough one tos a respond to. Aboutou are talking education, and general, a lot of these concerns are valid that we need to have a focus on tracking children better and tracking behavioral problems better and nipping these problems in the bud before they turn into situations with serious consequences. Michael, i appreciate your call and you raise important issues. In my view, you have a capitalist economy that works best when the government plays an important role. A lot of rules the government a lot of roles the government can and should play that the private sector will not and do not perform. Those are things the private sector is not interested in doing. There is no way that individual businesses are going to address Climate Change and we need a government role. In terms of opportunity and making sure that every child in this country has an opportunity to succeed and get an excellent education and get the training and support and Safe Community and healthy neighborhoods they need. That does not necessarily happen. We have a lot of inequality and what we need to do is make sure that we are investing in longterm things like infrastructure and education and skill and that the government is playing a moderated role. Thanks for your call, michael. Host i want to get you guys to react to these comments from joe biden during the speech on wednesday. He had this to say about the economy. If you are going to restore the middle class, need to start to reward work again, not just wealth. Under the trump plan, we only reward wealth. Donald trump inherited a Strong Economy from barack and me. Just like Everything Else he inherited, he is in the midst of squandering it. [applause] economy andbuild an rewards that rewards work, not just wealth. To reflect our values. I will start by reserving reversing the trump tax cuts. [applause] corporations have spent them on stock buybacks for benefits to their stockholders and ceos. Guest quite a bit of fiery rhetoric but he is trying to run on the policy of envy. Under president obama, things are beginning to move. That is not reality. The economy was still growing, yes. Data he quite sure what is relying on. When he talks about restoring the middle class, yes, we do want a strong middle class. He is talking about restoring the middle class and ignoring the fact that median Household Income continues to grow. Going back 40 years, people have been leaving the middle class and have been migrating up the income chain. By there facts provided Census Bureau and the bureau of labor. He is denying all about to score a few cheap political points. We should not be running on the pulpits of envy. We should be focusing on policies. Guest i think Vice President biden is talking to things that resonate with a lot of people and the same kind of frustration that workers have felt over the last 30 or 40 years that got donald trump elected and donald trump did not deliver on his promises to working people. This is a real opportunity for the next president to make good on those promises, to make the tax code fair for working people and to make sure working people have the kind of tools they need to be able to organize and raise her voice and come together with their coworkers to bargain for their fair share of the wealth they create. Host lets see if we can get one more round of callers. Lets go to thomas who was calling from texas on the independent line. Caller man, good morning, america. Do youlease remember a mode of economics that was termed by mr. Reagan . As far as the impeachment is concerned, you cannot impeach a can of soup. Host lets stay on the economy. Caller as far as economics, the Green New Deal was started when obama first came into the office. We want 1200 more a month, ok . We love you guys. Merry christmas and happy halloween. Guest thank you, thomas. We are seeing some voodoo economics or zombie kind of theories. Trickledown economics, which is if you cut taxes for corporations and the wealthy, eventually, that will trickle down to ordinary working people. It did not work with reagan or george w. Bush and it is not working for donald j. Trump. Different viewa on supplyside economics. Supplyside economics allows those that are earning wealth and creating wealth to keep more of that wealth and allows them to invest that. It creates more wealth. That is what we have seen for years, the typical family becoming better off. We need to be very wary of the Green New Deal. Look at california. Are 1. 5ectricity costs to two times of what we pay for the rest of the country. They pay a lot more for their gasoline. We can look to europe as well. Their average disposable income is 11,000 less per year per family. That is real money. Think if we do not make some tough decisions about how we are going to live in the world, live in the global economy, it will come back to bite our children and us. It may be that the specific Green New Deal needs a lot of work but there is no question that should be an imperative for the United States. It can if it is done right something that creates a lot of good paying jobs because we put people to work repairing pipelines, noting electrical , those are investments in the future. Those are the kinds of things we need to do. Host lets go to marshall who was calling from clearwater, florida, on the republican line. Caller good morning. I want to make a comment. Host we are running out of time. Lets stick to the economy. Caller lets do this. The economy will not come up in the 2020 election because it is doing so well and unfortunately, all the democrats can offer there are no plans, just ideas and there is no way to get to where they want to go without bankrupting the country. Our government has never done anything effectively. Except take more money from the and put itabuse it in places that it dont need to be. In clearwater, i can tell you we are booming. It isutiful to see part of the highway system. It is a five year program. It is good to see buildings that razed and New Buildings put in place. Emptyngs that have stood and being put back into use. St that is an interesting it is not just an anecdote. If you look at data that tracks population and capital income, over the last few decades, there has been a flow a flood of people leaving places like california, leaving new york. They are going to states that are friendly towards businesses, friendly towards places like florida that has no state income tax that has a much better regulatory environment. Places like North Carolina and tennessee were workers have freedom to manage their own contracts. We are seeing it across the country. If you go to rich states poor org, we track all of that information. Guest you make the argument that the economy will not come up in the 2020 election because it is doing so well, i think we will see. Continues tof it do well and who it is doing well for. The Public School system is a wonderful thing. I am a product of it and my daughter is a product of it. Need to invest more in the Public Sector if we want excellent outcomes. Also things like Social Security , that has completely transformed old age in this country. Instead of having seniors in poverty, having a Social Security program that is wellfunded, adequate and could grow and should grow in the future, that is something the government has done well and needs to do better in the future. Host one more quick call from karen who was calling from indiana. Question and aa comment. Why are we sticking with an antiquated system of tax, brackets toing tax decide how much tax will cost each individual . To get outent needs of the business of assessing peoples wealth and then deciding to tax it or give and look at the system where they are taxing every dollar of income every incomees not mean taxing that is spent the year before. I am talking about every dollar that comes into a corporation, Small Business or individual household. Will level and make just the system of taxes and have enough money to pay for the education system, which has now and will go toy the current private education system. Our system in indiana is almost defunct. Host lets start with you, joel. Caller thank you guest thank you for your call. You are wondering why businesses take taxes only. Downnk a lot of this comes somee fact that margins are quite small. You might only have a 1 profit margin. 75 . Say that taxes are suddenly, you are paying 75 of your income in the form of taxes. That would leave next to nothing to expand growth. On whether or not businesses should be taxed on revenue, states have tried versions of this. There is a lot of data that shows that that actually sounds good on the surface but it has a lot of unintended economic consequences. Host final thoughts, thea . Guest there is no question that the tax system could be made fairer and more effective. People who can afford it pay more as a percentage of their income is important to the system. Going forward, i think we need to figure out how we can make sure our tax system, whether it is Corporate Taxes or income taxes or sales tax or value added tax, we have the resources that we need to fund the services and the investments that this country needs to be effective and successful Going Forward. Thanks for your call, karen. Host we would like to invite all of our callers, especially our guests, thea and cspans washington journal, live every day with news and policy issues that impact you. Coming up sunday Morning Center for new American Security will be on the talk about the geopolitical fallout from the u. S. Troop withdrawal. Watch cspans washington journal sunday morning. Join the discussion. Collect sunday night on q a, a wall street trader turned fern turned photojournalist on his book dignity about the plight of those living on the margins of society in america. It was a sunday morning. All the semis were gone. Immediately her intelligence just kind of came right through and we spoke for about half an hour or so and she told me her a cliche ofike everything wrong that can happen. How do you want me to describe you . And she just shot back. Am, a prostitute, and a child we take you live to nashvilles using city center for politics on musica city liticon. Or po looking ahead at our live Coverage Later in the day, at 6 p. M. Eastern we will hear a Point Counterpoint discussion with James Carville and sean hannity. Eight 30 p. M. , former senator al franken makes his return while we wait for the next discussion, here is a portion of ters conversation from earlier today at politicon. Ann one thing that surprised me, i never realized how much i hated the Republican Party until trump came along. The official Republican Party. I hope it is remade more in trumps image of running on popular issues, being able to vote on this basket of issues and not oh, were going to throw out popular things and then betray you once youre in. I hope we do get that with trump. That would be a nice change, but thus far, republicans seem very, very slow learners. The 1986 amnesty, when i was writing adios, america, i was wondering because weve done this before. I mean, its not like well, i wonder what will happen if we pass in amnesty . No. There were 3 million illegals who passed then, in 10 years there were 11 million. What happened to the employer sanctions . There was a tradeoff. Were going to amnesty the 3 million here, but were going to secure the border and there will be brutal employer sanctions if you hire an illegal alien. They are hard workers, they are lovely people, i bear them no ill will. I just want to raise the wages of my fellow americans so what happened to that . It was republicans who stopped it because their donors wanted the cheap labor. It was my own party that stopped the employer sanctions. The democrats want more and more of the third world coming here for the votes and the republicans want it for the cheap labor. We have been betrayed so many times. Trump, if he does keep his promises on immigration, and he doesnt have much time left, hell deserve to be on mt. Rushmore. And we are back live at Nashvilles Music City Center for politicons fifth conference. We will hear a conversation on leadership with james comey and nicole wallace. While we wait, lets look ahead at our live coverage of politicon later in the day. At 6 00 p. M. Eastern, a Point Counterpoint discussion with james carbo and sean hannity. At 8 40, al franken marks his return to the national scene. This is live coverage here on cspan. [no audio] [no audio] [no audio] [no audio] we have the house considering Bipartisan Legislation that would impose sanctions on turkey. Can you tell us about turkeys recent lee terry action, the president announced his decision to withdraw u. S. Troops from syria