Transcripts For CSPAN Washington Journal 20100313

host: about 90,000 people have dropped out of the program for various reasons. daylight savings time kicked in at 2:00 a.m. sunday. and in "the washington post" today, president obama's lead pollster says america is closely divided when it comes to health care, saying that in some cases some people don't think it goes far enough and others think it goes too far. in that vain, and in that spirit, we want to talk about the health care proposals. the speaker pelosi saying to expect a vote in 10 days in some cases. we want your thoughts on if it does too much, too little or if it's just about right. the numbers will be on the screen later on. if you want to weigh in with your thoughts on what the health care does, the proposals do, if it does too much, too little, too right, pick the line that bept represents you and start calling in. if you have called in, in the last 30 days, if you could hold off from doing so today we would appreciate it. you can share your thoughts electronically on twitter.com and our trusty e-mail journal at c-span.org68 the president's lead pollster taking exception, a piece that he wrote in, "america wants health reform." he starts off by saying it is ironic that democratic pollsters felt compelled to challenge the myth about public attitudes on health care by simply restating one most commonly stated and patently wrong republican myths. two recent polls, he goes on to say, including one with the most negative ratings revealed follow-up questions that a significant number of people who oppose current plans do so because they don't go far enough, rather than because they go too far. so, again, in that spirit, here's what we want to do this morning. we want to get your thoughts on health care. if you think it does too much, at least the proposals you've heard about, if you think it does too little, and if you think it's just about right -- in several of the papers this morning, speaker pelosi saying, including this in the "new york times," the headline this morning at least saying that the speaker is predicting a health bill within 1 10 days. various elements of the bill have been debated, even the public option resurfacing as one of those discussions. here's what speaker pelosi had to say about that. >> i had supported single payer for longer than many of you -- since you've been born and you've lived on the face of the earth. so i think i have always thought that was the way to go. a. b, the public option, it isn't with a little sadness that it is not in the bill. but in fighting for the public option, which is i think a fight that was led in the house and we had it in our bill, we improved what is going to be in the final project. because while we may not have a public option, we have the purpose of a public option served by the exchanges and what they allow, by the great reviews which we insisted upon, insurance rate reviews, and by saying that insurance companies, should they be raising rates between now and the onset of the exchanges, may be prohibited from participating in the exchange. so i believe we have a very strong bill that will increase competition, will lower costs for the american people, and accomplish some of the same goals. host: again, does it do too much, too little or is it just about right? that's the health care proposal. that's the thoughts we want to get from you this morning. let's start with albany, new york. craig was on our too little line. craig, go ahead. caller: yeah, i think it does too little. most people want the>x)ingle payer. the single payer option is just dragged through the mud because of all the medium mccarthyisms, by the rights of rush limbaugh and fox news. if we could go ahead and get a single payer, it would bring the costs down for everybody. on one second thought, i have a programming thing for you. why don't we have van jones debate glen beckon television? that would be great over the easter holidays for an hour. host: if both would participate, who knows. but going back to the original -- you say most people want single payer. how did you come to that conclusion? caller: by talking to people that i see going to the health centers at the hospitals, people who are employed. everybody's just tired of how much money they're spending for health care. some people, the out-of-pocket costs, medicines are beyond their capabilities of getting or, you know, can they pay rent, pay your mortgage, your car note? these situations truly exist, as they say. 4,500 americans die every year because of lack of health care. our competitiveness throughout the world is suffering because of health care. host: if you don't mind me asking, what's your personal health care situation? caller: right now i'm getting medicaid. i work for a union that unless you do so many hours per year, you don't qualify for health care. matter of fact, they have over $10,000 of my money for the past three years, and i don't qualify to get anything. so portions of the bill such as the medical savings account, those are good things. there are ways to compromise. but the republican strategy is we have to just do what they want and not go ahead and have a broad range of things. it is ridiculous. host: we'll have to leave it there. but, craig, thank you. michael from bowie, maryland, i think created his own category. he says it's all wrong. caller: yeah. i think the whole health care issue is completely wrong. first of all, i think if you ask me, i think it should be divided into three phases. the three being catastrophic health insurance that the government can pay for, phase two is noncatastrophic insurance that employers can pay for, and then the third phase which is the one that is self-inflicted or self-caused due to maybe people who refuse to exercise and eat poorly, poor diet. if something does not come out of your pocket, you're not going to be able to be good stewards of your own health care. for god sake, health care is not a right, education is not a right. it is a privilege. if you say health care is a right, what do you tell the physician who's go to medical school and accumulate i lot of loans and they have to pay them back? is it a right for them to go to medical school and become doctors? heck no. it is a privilege. host: how did you come up with those three categories of health care? caller: the three categories, i came about it by looking at the term "division of labor." everybody has to be able to pay a share into it. i don't support free health care because i know what's going to happen. people are not going to be able to be actively involved in their health care. that is what got us into this mess in the first place. you have to be actively involved in your health care. if you're able to pay your own health care such as the things that you inflicted upon yourself, you don't exercise daily, you eat poorly, then if you cox up with some -- come up with some chronic illness, you pay for it. and more importantly, there should be no health insurance company. health care payments for health care illnesses should be paid directly to hospitals. the gentleman, i believe on thursday or friday when i was listening to c-span who talked about dividing it into regions, hospitals can form regions. hospitals should be paid like washington hospital center, georgetown, they're all part of medstar health. medstar health would be the people you pay the money to. host: so take the insurance companies out all together? is that what you're saying? caller: completely. with the special deals, the louisiana purchase, what is that? what are we turning ourselves into? this is another opportunity for the government to be able to keep people down and demonize people more. you should be able to pay for your health care. and you should not allow the government to pay the loan. you should have your own share. host: we will leave it there. on our too much line, tampa, florida. jay, good morning. caller: good morning. how are you this morning? host: fine. thank you. caller: i've worked different jobs. i've had health insurance over the years for the most part and started my own business about nine, 10 years ago. i had health insurance. and then the premiums got to be from $700 to $1,700 a month within five, six years later. my point is right now i still have my business. i've had to downsize and eliminate my health insurance. right now i'm paying cash. my wife has to have her annual mammograms done. we called women's hospital here in tampa, told them we don't have health insurance right now. and they said that the cost would be, if we paid cash to the hospital, $86. if they billed us, the bill would be $149. now, it doesn't cost $62 or so to generate an invoice. there has to be a generated invoice and a paid receipt at the hospital when you pay cash. if it was turned into my insurance like we always did, which they never paid because they don't cover mammograms, it was $329 when i got the bill. i thought the whole idea of this health reform was to get the costs down. now, i've had -- i have to go for my semiannual blood work. one is about $450 for one of the screens a year and the other is $650. last one what i went for, about three weeks ago, i only pai paid $142 for. i talked to my doctor. they're building a new hospital in north tampa. he said, if you go in, it will be even cheaper. i always thought that a business, like myself, would negotiate for the best price. i don't see where can you justify if you're paying cash or being billed by the hospital almost 66% of what it costs to do the procedure and quadruple what the procedure is from the health insurance. it's ridiculous. host: that's jay from tampa, florida. again, we're asking -- when it comes to the health care bill, do you think it does too much, too little or is it just about right? the lines on your screen. i want to give you a perspective from senator scott brown of massachusetts who has a response this week. it's about health care. >> the greater the public opposition to the health care bill, the more determined they seem to force it on us anyway. their attitude shows that washington is at its very worst and that the presumption that they know best. they're going to get their way whether the american people like it or not. when politicians start thinking like that, they don't let anything get in their way -- not public opinion, not the rules of fair play, not even their own promises. they pledged transparency. instead we have a health care bill tainted by secrecy, concealed costs, and full of backroom deals. that's just not right. they should do better. the american people expect more. they pledged a true bipartisan effort. instead they have resorted to bending the rules. and they now intend to seize control of health care in america on a strict partyline vote. and speech after speech on his health care plan, the president has tried to convince us that what he is proposing will be good for america. but how can it be good for america if it raises taxes by $500 million and costs $1 trillion or more to implement? host: minneapolis. gideon, who believes just right, go ahead. caller: hi. thank you very much for letting me talk today. i think it is totally wrong for an american of low-wage earnings, who pays taxes, you know, social security, you name it, paid more jobs, temporary employment, then they go out without health care. now, we got all of this medicare deduction in our paychecks, but we are told we don't get its benefits until we are, say, 60 somesome years old. think that is wrong. because most people who pay these deductions don't even get good health care and some don't even live to get the ben fits because they -- benefits because they die. if it is better now for the congress to address these issues whereby those -- [inaudible] when they decide to deduct paychecks, all the taxes and all the medicare, they should -- [inaudible] host: thanks for your participation. here's the proposed timeline. this is from the folks at "congressional quarterly." this coming monday the health budget committee will consider the bill. wednesday the house rules committee will set rules. and possible debate and votes on thursday and friday. that's according to "congressional quarterly" as to what we might expect next week when it comes to health care. massachusetts on our too much line. good morning. caller: yes, how are you doing, sir? host: well. thank you. caller: i just wanted to call in and say, you know, through this administration i have really been upset with what i've seen in the presidency. i have never had a problem with any of our presidents. and i think partially because of this, you know, more of a fas fatious style, socialized medicine is going to bring us into a debt that is going to burn rome. ok? there are countries in this world that would love to see us fall. ok? right now we are the rome of the new world, the new age. if a bill like this gets passed, ok, and we socialize medicine, we're going to be $41 trillion in debt. now, dollar bills stacked up, that's going to go 10,000 miles above the atmosphere from ground up. ok? host: lackwanna, new york. agnes on our line for just right. good morning. caller: yes. we've been discussing this in our family for years, long before it became the topic of conversation. in public. the reason -- it can't do any better in congress. they've got too many people, democrats who don't want to change. and you've go got other people e fearful. all of these people that live without heir husbands or wives, they're injured, you have a right when you shed your blood for this nation and your family to be taken care of. and besides, whose money is it that they're using except the people? all of the people. not the rich people but poor people who do all of the labor. another point i would like to make because of this discussion that happened on television and one of the republicans was saying, they have to have money because they have to do research. that logic doesn't hold water. if we're paying, as the country, for the research, then we should get the benefit. the benefit shouldn't be going internationally to people who pay less -- we pay twice as much, three times as much for drugs as we pay for the research. that logic is faulty. and people ought not to accept it. if you look on television how the people of the nation feel -- and i was looking yesterday and last night. the men and women of age of 60's and 70's, regular working people, their hair looks good, their skin is nice and plump and good, those who are in the middle, not poor but in the middle, they're decaying. host: of a twitter -- reform needs to get started sometime, some how and then finishes off with "do it now." steven? caller: yes. i want a public option. the only way to make the insurance companies pay fair is to have a government option. but honestly, i'm for single payer. every other industrialized country unti in the world has universal health care. why can't we? we're the richest country. it's ridiculous. it's a human right to have health care. it should not matter whether you have money or not. you don't have the money for the breast surgery. sorry, your cancer will just spread. in the richest country in the world? give me a break. it is ridiculous. host: so you support the legislation as it stands? caller: no, i do not. i want a public option. and i will not vote my democratic senator again. i won't vote for the democrat or the republican unless there's some sort of public option in the bill. host: ok. we'll leave it there. today marks the launch of what is known as coffee party u.s.a. it's been in news and newspaper accounts as an alternative to what people commonly known as the tea party. on the phone with us to talk a little bit about the launch and the purpose is the founder of coffee party u.s.a., anabelle park. ms. park, if you had to boil it down, what's the purpose of this new group? guest: what we're trying to do is change our political culture so that we go from a political culture in which it's so divisive to one that's cooperative and solution-oriented. we need to get people in congress to be much more productive and to actually work together. host: and was there a certain situation or cause that led to you this belief? party? or was it several things that you saw? and if so, can you tell us kind of what led you to it? guest: right. well, i think it's really -- watching the health care debate degenerate. it's almost like, you know, we got to see an x-ray into our political process. and realize that there's something really wrong here. it shouldn't have played out in this way. the level of rhetoric, the vitreal and misinformation and the fact that we still haven't actually passed the health care reform is a sign of trouble. it's not the only issue but i think the health care issue led to us this point where we have to recognize there's something really wrong in washington. host: when you say level of rhetoric, was this particularly in your thought, coming from the republican side or did you see it from both sides? can you clarify that? guest: right. well, i think part of the problem actually is thinking about this incredibly important issue that is affecting our -- literally our bodies. you know? the health of our bodies. i just don't think a binary way of looking at our political process is helpful. democracy assumes we are a community and we are are to advance the common good. it really says nothing about having a paradigm in which you have two teams and it's a zero sum game situation. and severing about winning and losing. that's really not a healthy way for us to conduct collective decision making. we need to kind of dismantle that whole framework. host: so as far as a member of the coffee party, is this a partisan member on your part? who is, i guess, invited to become a member? guest: all people. all americans. we're inviting all americans to sit at the table and engage in the democratic process. because unless we have a critical mass, the majority of americans actively participating, we're not going to have a government that truly represents the collective will of the people. host: if that's the case and you sit and meet together, how do you then express those thoughts or at least those impressions to those on capitol hill? guest: well, this is going to be a bottomline process because the leadership is not there in washington right now. it could be that there are great leaders in washington right now but the car is broken. they might great drivers, but the engine is broken so we need to show them from bottom up this is what cooperation should look like, this is what it means to work towards solutions. right? so that's what we're trying to do. we're going to come together. we're having great results already. people are really fighting it to be a community, working on challenges together because we all face them. host: as far as today's events, how widespread are they across the united states? in essence what are people going to do? guest: basically we have events going on across the country. we're, i think in every state. i think the few were missing but we are in just about every state. and really, we're going to come together today as a community and sit down at the table and we're going to ask people to leave their political affiliation at the door and just meet one another as fellow americans. right? as human beings. roll up our sleeves, put our heads together, and talk about the issues that matter to us. right? we're going to work on collaborating. today's the day we start that collaboration process. host: as far as people who know about the tea party, one of the things they know about is browing being held here in capitol hill and other parts of the united states. do you envision your group doing that? guest: perhaps eventually but we need to build a process where we learn consensus together so hopefully we can have granular, checktive decisions like let's have a rally on this day. but we're just beginning this process. we're hoping to get there where we can say we support this candidate, we are going to have this rally. you know, we want these sorts of policies. democracy isn't just about talking. it's about first having open dialogue, it's about deliberating, considering facts and weighing our values. and it's about execution. we have to take action. host: do you have any backers or supporters whether a think-tank or a corporation or anything like that? guest: right. no. we're completely independent. we're all volunteers, totally independent. host: tell us a little bit about your political background. guest: right. well, i have been basically a very active as a citizen. it's just really in the past few years. i was always interested in politics, but i had an awakening to be really active starting about, say, when the abu ghraib story broke out. i became very involved in volunteering for senator webb's campaign in 2006. and relevantly helped do some minority outreach, especially towards asian-americans. i worked on president obama's campaign, especially during the primary. and created videos that really did outreach, again to latinos, asian-americans, just kind of with the theme that we're all united for this candidate. so i've kind of been able to use my film-making skills to communicate these messages. so i feel i'm just practicing responsible citizenship. host: finish up. guest: that's it. i'm advocating that people really practice active citizenship and become community organizers to get to the point where, you know, we can engage in the electoral process. host: you have a website. do you plan to use social media and those kinds of tools in this process? guest: absolutely. we started -- given birth on facebook, a social networking site. we have 123,000 fans as of this morning and we're growing quickly. we just added about 20,000 people in two days. so we are a very rapidly growing community. i think that's the best way to look at us right now that we are a community. we're not trying to start a third party. we're trying to change our political culture. host: annabel park, the founder of coffee party usa, coffeepartyusa.com is the website if you're interested in finding out more. ms. park, thank you for your time. guest: thank you. host: back to your phone calls, looking at the health care bill if it does too much, too little or if it's just right. on our just right line, carl, go ahead. thanks for waiting. caller: when people say single payer, do they really know what that means? that's you, the taxpayers. are you willing to let the government take 5% more of your income to pay for some joker that don't want to get out of bed and go to work? when you ask the question, who do you think the single payer is, i guarantee you a lot of them wouldn't know how to answer that question. this health care deal that obama's got down there, it's going to drive this country into bankruptcy. we're headed to bankruptcy. when that happens, you know, it's hard to tell what this country will turn into. host: you called on the line that says you think it's just right. is that the case? caller: well, i'm calling to tell you what i think. host: thank you. we appreciate if you would use the appropriate line. imperial, missouri, joy on our just right line. caller: hello? host: hi. go ahead. caller: yes. thank you very much for taking my call. this is my first time. host: welcome. caller: thank you. i wanted to say that, yes, i think it's just about right for right now. it does away with pre-existing conditions. the insurance companies can't drop you anymore because you get sick. it takes care of the elderly and their donut hole. and this rhetoric from the republicans is just totally ridiculous. they're constantly saying that it's not transparent. well, i have sat and watched the senate on this day after day after day after day. it is transparent. all the deals that they say -- they've been taken out. host: we'll leave it there. "the washington post," a story in the first section. "senate measure would cut penalties for crack-cocaine." this is a bipartisan bill, a story written this morning, saying that the senate bill that's being proposed would increase the amount of crack-cocaine required to trigger a five-year mandatory minimum sentence for possession with intent to distribute from five grams to 28 grams. possession cocaine in rock form would no longer carry a mandatory minimum prison term, equalizing that penalty to of that of other drugs and marking the first time that congress has overturned a mandatory minimum. house judiciary committee passed a cocaine sentencing reform bill in july that bill lowering the ratio to 1-1. owe sew next on the line -- ohio is next on the line that says all wrong. this is ter yeetion i can't. g-- teresa.go ahead. caller: it is all wrong. there are facts in the bill that pre-existing conditions are eliminated. insurance companies are making money off of people because of pre-existing conditions. my background is where i have been under insurance up until about two years ago. there's a history of heart disease and buy deets in my familiar -- bu diabetes in my family. i'm diabetic. i was extremely overweight at one time and i am being told i cannot get insurance, at least something i can afford, right now. there needs to be some kind of measure where people in my single situation -- i have always worked. i'm not working now because i'm going to school full-time. but because of similar situations, i'm a single woman, no children, under 18, i can't get any kind of help from the government to cover any kind of medications, health care, whatsoever. i have to fly by the seat of my pants, so to speak. i'm being told by insurance companies who laugh at me in the face or else tell me, go out and get a job. there's 16% unemployment in the surrounding counties where i live. i cannot easily move. the health care bill, as far as taking care of preexisting conditions is right on. how we end up spending the money to cover everybody, that's the big question. host: and you say it's all wrong. caller: i say there's a lot good in the bill. there's a lot wrong of how it's being done. and somehow or another the democrats and republicans both, and the independents, need to get off their high horse and decide that they're going to do what's right for this country not what they want done. host: this is adam wrisp writing in this morning on our question saying "i am an unemployed veteran with a college degree. i'm sick of hearing saying that this health care bill is going to lazy people." boca raton, florida, too much. caller, go ahead. are through? caller: yes. boca? host: yes. go ahead. caller: yes. much, much too much. first of all, cutting out $500 billion to $600 billion off medicare, that's going to be ridiculous because every doctor i spoke to says my benefits are going to be cut. i paid into the medicare all my life. also, it's unconstitutional. they're forcing everybody to buy something. that's unconstitutional. they're spending too much money. they don't care about the deficit. and they lie about it. it's going to lower the deficit, that's ridiculous. there are earmarks in this thing that are costing billions of dollars and just throwing it away. i can't stand the bribery by the democrats to try to get somebody to vote their way, even trying to get some of the democrats to vote their way, of course. and they're directing like chicago thugs. everything that they do is just ridiculous. and he's only doing it for his legacy. don't let anybody fool you. that's why he is so much in favor of this and giving so much time to it and forcing people and bribing people. host: in the "new york times" this morning there's a story which features a picture from the associated press. that is shareef mobley. he was arrested last week in yemen. the headline to the story says "american's arrest stirs fears that wars radicalized u.s. muslims." it writes about the arrest of the man accused of joining al qaeda is the latest in the case of radicalizing american muslims, a trend some experts link to the wars in iraq and afghanistan. it goes on to talk a little bit earlier about the arrest this week of a jihad. this story goes on to say that the cases this week in the latest cases that have challenged the conventional wisdom that american muslims are less susceptible to extremism than those in europe. host: can you read more this morning in the "new york times." back to our calls. virginia, suzy. a line that says -- our line that says it does too little. why is that, suzy? caller: first of all, i don't think you should have to be wealthy to be healthy. i would like to see a public option because i really think that would provide more competition for the insurance companies. i would also like to see the antitrust legislation repealed. i know they're working that through -- they worked that through the house. i'm hoping that's going to pass. and i also would like to know if the gentleman from west virginia -- i know i'll never know this, but whether he would accept medicare when he's eligible because it's a single-payer program. thank you. i appreciate you taking my call. host: before you go, we had an earlier caller who said he wouldn't vote for his democratic senator because -- if he voted for this bill without a public option. are you to that point yet at all? caller: no. i would take anything i could get at this point. but i absolutely will not vote for my congressman ever again who has his head so, you know, far upperric cantor's rear ends he'll never see straight. thank you. host: california. joan is next on that the bill is right. caller: yes. i think the bill is just right for now considering how difficult and how reluctant most people are to accept change. and i think the democrats have been very strategic in pursuing, you know, what is good for all of america. it's unfortunate that the republicans are not willing to participate, you know, actively instead of just saying no. but all people will gain from it. i know that it's going to pass because it's what's good for america, it's what's fair, and it's about time that america got on board with taking care of all of its people. thank you very much. host: you said you're confident that it's going to pass. caller: i am absolutely confident it's going to pass because the majority of americans are for helping each other. we've always done that, and we're going to continue to do that no matter how strong opposition has been and continue to be. we're a democracy. we're going to continue to function as one where the majority of the people are helped. host: "the new york times" this mornings takes a look at the female faculty members at harvard university, saying that they are making -- this is writing that five years after warren summers, the president of harvard suggested that innate differences might explain why women are different in siens science and math careers. professors can get up to $25,000 for health care. there are new programs to encourage young women to pursue science and research careers, and seven of the 16 members of harvard's council of deans are women. university wide, slightly more than a quarter of harvard faculty members are women, an all-time high with the senior faculty accounting for most of the increase. women also lead the engineering school, the law school, the education school, harvard college, the radcliffe institute. and while harvard extended four of its 32 tenured offers to women in the year last year, offers went to 16 women and 25 men. since dr. summers' resignation, harvard poured millions of dollars into childcare centers, family-friendly programs for the faculty including research-enabling grants that let junior faculty members take their babies and nannies on field trips. massachusetts, john our our line that says the health care bill does too much. caller: yes, good morning. host: good morning. caller: yeah. my feeling is that the problem we have is that we don't face problems or try to solve problems in the context. and the context we have now is that we have all of this unemployment, and we live in a world economy. and the other element that is a big negative as far as expanding the economy, in the world economy the cost of governance in the united states is equal to the cost of governance of all the other countries in the world put together. it exceeds that minus two countries. so if we're going to compete and create more jobs in the world economy, we cannot increase the costs of government at this time. so some contextual thinking would say, hey, this is not the thing to do right now. that kind of summarizes my views. host: and that's where we'll live it this morning. we appreciate all of you who have called in and sent messages in regards to the topic. coming up, we're going to take a look at efforts by the senate, particularly how payday lenders and people who make car loans and things of the like might be affected or not affected by the bill. our guest is with "the washington post." he's their national banking reporter. we'll talk with him in just a few moments. >> sunday, your chance to talk to karl rove, live on "booktv." the former senior advisor to president bush and current fox news contributor will take your phone calls, e-mails and tweets on his new memoir. on "afterwards," bill cohen and his wife, their interview by congressman john lewis. and all this weekend, live coverage of this year's tucson festival of books. find the entire weekend schedule at booktv.com and get the latest "book tv" updates on twitter. >> obama and his socialistic ideas of the government running the car companies and the banks and deciding salaries, this is a life lesson in progress right now for conservatives. >> sunday, michelle easton, founder and president of the claire booth lewis policy institute on her work to promote conservative women in leadership roles, sunday night on c-span's "q&a." >> our mission is to make the world more open and more connected. we do that by providing people a free tool where by they can share information with anyone, anywhere, at any time. >> more than 400 million users online, it's the fastest growing website in the world, facebook's public policy director tim sparapani saturday on "the communicators" on c-span. >> "washington journal" continues. host: on your screen right now, "the washington post"'s national bank reporter. you had a story earlier this week talking about overall financial efforts to oversee financial services and to change that. but particularly when it came to something called -- certain, i guess, lenders that weren't covered by the bill. who are those lenders? guest: in america we have sort two of kinds of lenders, a regulated system of banks and then an unregulated system of company that make loans that look like banks but aren't banks. payday lenders, consumer finance companies, auto dealers that make loans on their lots. and the question before congress right now is how those nonbank lenders should be regulated. that's the judge of associations -- negotiations right now between democrats and republicans who had tendively reached a compromise he -- tentatively reached a compromise earlier there week. that deal is now back on the table it remains to be seen what happens but that's the issue. host: assuming they'll know at least about the car portion of that, what about the payday lender? guest: it's a model where you make short-term, relatively small loans, and people who need money. so you might need as little as $300. you might charge them $45 for the privilege. that's a very high interest rate if you think about it. the loan probably rolls over every two weeks. so you're paying a lot of money for the privilege of having that money for a very short period of time. it's popular with people who need the cash. but it's been controversial for years because of how expensive it is. host: from some research we pulled together it said that there were about 500 of these type of lenders in the 1990's. according to estimates, about 22,000 or so today. the average loan that they smaik about $300 to $400 -- that they make is about $300 to $400. it could raifng from 206 to 520%. from those numbers and what you told us, what can you add to that as far as why congress would be interested in seeing how this process works? guest: again, broadly what we have is a situation where we have for a long time regulated the loans banks make. we imposed conditions. we require certain disclosures, certain treatments of cussments. an-- of customers. the government has examiners who go around the country making sure that banks are following those rules. in theory, the same rules apply to payday lenders but there's no one making sure that those rules are followed. in concern, both with respect to payday lenders and other types of non-bank lenders who do a growing volume of loans in america that have become increasingly popular is that no one is watching them. no one is making sure that they are treating customers fairly. and the proposal has been that the government, the federal government, should expand its regulatory portfolio to include oversight of those kinds of companies. host: does it face any state regulation at all for those type of lenders? guest: they do. it depends on the state, but the states are free to regulate them. all the states regulate to some extent. some states do so more vigorously some less vigorously. it varies depending on where you live. host: so if i'm a payday lender and see this legislation come downing the pike, would have some type of defense. what would be that defense? guest: there's two options to this plan the government is offering. first is that there are regulations at the state level, laws at the federal level. and payday lenders basically say, listen, we're covered, it's working. there's sufficient regulation of our industry. the second argument that you get is that the government is proposing essentially a very expensive expansion of the work that it does. the creation of a new bureaucracy, hiring new enforcers to go out in the field and look at these things. there's a question about need. this discussion about expanding financial regulation began with the financial crisis. it's pretty clear the payday lenders did not play a role in the financial crisis, neither did used car dealers, neither did consumer finance companies directly. there's a question of, you know, why are we fixing things that weren't broken? why are we going after these guys right now? host: who is making the effort to keep these type of lenders -- guest: the lenders themselves have been very active in washington, coming to town to make the case that these are businesses, they provide americans with services they want. they've been very effective and voak glal air -- vocal in their advocacy. there's also concern about the extension of regulation to want to ask, why are we extending regulation? why are we spending more money in this area? what is the purpose of this expansion? there is a natural audience there for the concerns of the industry. host: was city of new york senator corker leading the charge or were there are others? guest: it's not just senator corker. he certainly is one of those republican who's has been concerned about the extension of government oversight to these injuries, has been concerned about the costs and complications. and it's a view that he shares with other republicans. it's a view that is really pretty typical of the republican party. host: our guest is known as the national banking reporter for "the washington post." he is going to be with us until 8:30. we'll take those calls in a moment. you said this. i want to make sure that i'm right. even though senator dodd says he's going ahead with his own plan, as seen in recent days, this still is under consideration, under what might emerge on monday? guest: it's under consideration. senator dodd's staff is working probably right now, at this moment this early on a saturday to hammer out the details of what they want to propose on monday. basically senator dodd, the democratic chair, the banking committee and is in charge of producing this legislation, the senate, has been negotiating with senator bob corker who you referenced a moment ago, the republican of tennessee. they've been trying to find middle ground. on a lot of points they have found middle ground. they haven't gotten all the way to a deal. dodd has now decided he wants to move forward and get some language out before the committee and to move the discussions basically to a public forum. the question that he now faces, that he's trying to resolve this weekend is to what extent does he preserve the compromises that he has already reached with corker and to what extent does he revert to the draft that will only have his name on the cover? host: we'll talk about other issues in a moment. our first call is lakewood, new jersey. our democrats' line. gary, good morning. go ahead, please. caller: hey, how are you doing, sir? good morning. i just wanted to just -- ok. host: go ahead, sir. caller: ok. i just wanted to let you know that i'm against this payday lending 100%. i'm an individual in the military it seems like every area that you go to in the military you got them like loan sharks. what they're doing to the average soldier who is here to protect the country, they are charging them so much with this -- under this payday lending that they can't even afford to pay the money back. and then what happens is it gets out to their commanding officers and a lot of times what happens is these soldiers get reprimanded for it. so it's just a modern day loan-sharking and they should do away with it. understand, just like you have emphasized, in the early 1990's it was 5,000 of them. but now, as far as today, it's over 22,000 of them. so it's not helping the soldiers here trying to protect the united states. they should do away with them all atogether and just let them go to regular banks and stuff where they don't use -- utilize them as a loan shark. host: he brought in the military on this. does he have a point? guest: it's actually a really interesting point. the department of defense which doesn't get involved in this type of issue very often, has actually been on capitol hill advocating on this issue and saying we think our soldiers are particularly vulnerable at some of these non-bank lenders. it had been focused on used car dealers rather than payday lenders. but there's a lot of good studies showing. if you just drive around the edge of a major military base, you can see concentrations of payday lenders, of car dealers, of pawn brokers. these businesses really do thrive near military bases. the department of defense really is concerned about, you know, their role and the way that they serve soldiers and delegations, you know, predatory lend ago booses in some cases. it's really been pushing very vigorously for this legislation, taking an unusually active role. host: minneapolis is next. richard on our republican line. go ahead, please. caller: good morning. yes, i'd like to know what happened to usery laws. i don't know. do you have any history a state-by-state getting rid of the usery law? i think the credit card companies are responsible for this, too. and also, the city of minneapolis. they charge 50% interest on a late license and then they charge about 1,000% on administrative fines. they're guilty of usery, too. how about the usery laws? guest: it's a great question. the answer is that in the early 1980's the supreme court ruled that a bank operating in one state could operate under the interest rules -- the interest rate rules in that state and every other state in the union. and a number of states, most prominently delaware and south dakota, took advantage of that supreme court ruling to pass laws that said, basically, charge whatever interest rates you want to, come here, set up your business in delaware, set up your business in south dakota, and we'll leave you alone. and that was basically the end of usery laws. because it meant that, you know, whatever your state wanted to yoim pose, whatever -- impose, whatever protections your state wanted to have -- if you look at your credit card statement, you'll probably find it is based in south dakota or delaware or a handful of other places could now charge whatever interest rates it wanted to. there has not been for a will he long time any significant effort at the federal level to improse interest rate caps. that, in theory, could still happen. but the ability of states to do it has been fundamentally undermined. host: because of the legislation. turning to the cars and people who make car loans. how would it affect the car dealer who had the ability to make a loan on site rather than go to a bank? guest: this is the group we're talking about. when you go to a dealership and they offer you a loan on site and they're priing that financing -- providing that financing, this is the group that the question is, should they be regulated like a bank or is something different going to happen to them? the car dealers have pushed very aggressively to be excluded from this law, arguing that their ability to provide financing is basically about selling cars that this would constrain their ability to sell cars that they're offering a convenience to customers and fund meantly that it's not -- fund mentally that it's not broken. the house has already passed the version of financial reform legislation. car dealers want an exclusion from the house version of the bill, and they're pressing the senate to do the same. host: next call is michigan. it is from mark on our independent line. caller: yeah. good morning, fellows. i have a question. the first question would be, isn't it true that deregulations started under the nixon administration on a federal level that started this whole downhill slide and the situation where banks have been basically undermining the whole -- like the second caller said, the usery laws? guest: that's a little bit earlier than we usually date the start of significant deregulation. most scholars of financial regulation tell you that it's really a phenomenon that dates to the early 1980's, to the reagan administration, and that it continued in full force through the clinton administration and into the bush administration. this pattern of really a consensus among members that both parties here in washington that we needed less financial regulation that it was better to allow the markets to operate freely to allow buyers and sellers to make their own decisions. really, you know, over the last three decades we saw that trend in full swing. host: we have someone off of twitter saying that in theory, if the government created this payday loans by making it harder to get legitimate bank accounts. any truth to that? guest: i don't know what the reference is to specifically. it's certainly true that banks tend to serve the middle classes. that's always been a problem. how do you provide financial services to lower income families to family that are more transient, which is what happens with military families, to people without stable incomes, you know, without stable places of residences. it's a long-standing problem. it's not so much that the government has created it but that the government has never quite found a way to fix it. but you do end up with a situation where other types of lenders have been more successful in serving those communities than banks have. host: if there's language in the legislation that does offer oversight who would be managing the oversight? guest: so this is one of the major controversies. new regulator, a con p assumer pro -- consumer protection regulator solely protecting consumers, borrowers in particular, from abuse by lenders. that entity would have the power to write rules that would apply to all lenders. and those rules would be enforced differently depending on what kind of lender we were talking about. so in the case of banks, the current proposal is that existing banking regulators would continue to enforce the rules. mortgage companies would be examined by this new regulator. nonbank lenders, it's not clear who would examine them. this is the controversy. it's possible that they would remain solely under state oversight. there are democrats who would like to place them under the oversight of this new agency. that's exactly what they're talking about. host: and the agency would be a stand-alone or in another area? guest: this, too, is controversial. we have a lot more questions than answers on financial reform. but the proposal that senators dodd and corker who, again, i believe are negotiators on this issue, have agreed on tentatively to place it inside the federal reserve. democrats, many liberal democrats, strongly oppose this idea. they would like it to be a free-standing agency. as a second choice, they'd like it to sit in the treasury department. republicans are more supportive of the concept of putting it in the federal reserve. they think it ought to sit inside a banking regulator so that its priorities of consumer protection can be balanced with the priorities of keeping the banking system healthy. . so your reporters want to check that out, that's another thing. as far as this, i consider this a big theft from the american people. i think that there should be ethics reform in government and that when there is any crime committed there should be oversight. the best thing to disinfection is sunlight and we should get back to basic that is no one should be above the law. so that when any of these scams are perpetrated in wall street or anywhere else, there should be oversight. and i think the feds should be audited. host: put a lot out there. guest: i guess the one thing i would say is there is no one who disagrees in the senate that laws should be followed and that laws need to be enforced the discussion is who should enforce them, to what extent. states should have that responsibility. to what extent the federal government should have it. and within the federal government, what types of regulatory agencies should be doing that work. host: as far as payday lenders are concerned, are they usually small stand-alone shops? national chain sns guest: it's become quite large and fairly consolidated. there are a number of very large national chains with hundreds and even thousands of branches across the country that do this work. so it's not -- there are mom and pop establishments who do it but there are also big franchises. host: sherman oaks, california. go ahead. john on our republican line. caller: hi thri. i don't have a feeling one way or another whether these things should continue. but there isn't very valid economic reason for them to exist. one of your earlier callers said they should just go to a bank if they outlawed them, people could just go to a bank. that's just not true. the reason they go there in the first place is because they can't get money from a bank. they're like a lender of last resort. they can't get money from anyone else. so the option is if you take these things tauf street, if you get rid of all the payday lenders, a lot of people will have no place to get a loan. and then what do they do? they're paying a very high price. but the option is they will have noplace to get a loan. guest: i've spent a lot of time talking to customers who use them and other types of nonbank lenders that are often characterized as lenders of last resort, and i would say in general the customers at those establishments are actually a mix of two kinds of people. one the group that you described which is people who can't get money from anywhere else. but also, generally quite sizeable group of people who could at least potentially get money at lower interest rates from another source perhaps on more favorable terms but are not doing so. and they're not doing so for a lot of reasons. some of them don't trust banks. that's a particular issue in the hispanic community. some of them don't have banks in their neighborhoods or don't have an understanding of how to use the banking system. we get a lot of issues that are not just questions of needing the lenders of last resort. and even if you do need a lender of last resort, it's the only place in the world where you can borrow money is at a payday lender, there's sometimes reason to ask about whether you should be borrowing that money. host: what's the min rum requirement if i wanted to go there and get cash? guest: in general, you need to be able to show income. what they're going to do is take the payment, the cost of the loob out of your next paycheck. but it's very easy to get these loans. host: not even proof of residency. guest: you'll need to show id, that type of basic stuff. host: sherman oaks from john. next up, houston, damon on our independent line. go ahead. caller: good morning, gentlemen. i am very happy to hear that this issue has come to light in a way that is relevant. i've been tracking what i like to term as predatory lenders for some time now. it used to be that they were just in what i call red line districts, mostly inner city, poor communities, the banks moved out, the predatory lenders moved in. since i've grown, i reached 41 years of age this year, i live out in the suburbs. a very nice community. they moved out since the predatory nature of the recession has come about, and these institutions have moved into areas where traditionally they could not exist because people had the resources. and they seem to operate with no immunity. they just are free to do what they will. and it does hurt communities. and the communities where they started they haven't gotten any better. in the suburbs, the communities are getting worse. people are losing their homes but yet these institutions still thrive. thank you. guest: two notes about that. the first is that our economic jobs have really changed over the last couple decades. it is increasingly our suburbs where we have the greatest concentrations of poverty so it's perhaps not surprising that some of these types of lenders have moved out tho those areas. but it is also true that they have moved up market as it were, that they serve a broader spectrum of the population than they once did. this is a reflection in large part of the extent to which we've become a nation of borrowers and turned to a growing number of sources of lending to satisfy our demand for munch. host: you have a story today in today's paper taking a look, and you referenced it earlier about the work being done this week on this bill. one portion when it comes to this separate regulator. i want to read a sentence. it says that 19 current and former members of the feds consumer advisory coun sell advise sent a letter to senator dodd on friday arguing for free-standing agency with a group of advocates and academics saying that the fed had failed to pro tect consumers during the economic boom. who is this council? guest: they're a group convened by the fed. it consists of a number of community advocates, people who work with consumers and communities across the country and a number of bankers engaged in lending. they meet regularly to advise the fed on issues of how the banking industry is doing in its relationship with consumers. you know, during the economic boom, during the housing boom, many members of that committee, many people who sat outside the fed came to federal reserve officials and said there are abuses occurring. banks are making loans they shouldn't make. mortgages are being made on outrageous terms to people who cannot afford these loans. this is going to go bad. and specifically what they said to the fed is you have the power under federal law to restrict certain types of lending practices to say this is inherently bad. and you're not doing it. you're not exercising that power and you need to. and the fed did not exercise that power until the housing market had crashed. and so during the period when it might have done the most good, the fed sat passively and watched as predatory lending grew as a problem and did not address it. and the question now, and incidently the fed recognizes that this occurred. they have said that they failed to act properly. that's not controversial as a historical characterization. but the question now is, should the fed keep those responsibilities? the fed basically says, listen, we acknowledge that we failed to do this properly. we are recommitted to this work. we've made reforms, we've put new people in charge. we have placed a greater priority on consumer protection. and we remain the agency with the best resources to do this work. but some people who know the fed very well including alan greenspan, the former chair of the board of governors, including the members of this advisory council, including several other former members have said publicly we don't think the fed is structurally suited to do this. the fed is most familiarly in charge of managing economic growth, it has a considerable responsibility to regulate the health of the financial system. consumer protection is as long finished at best third on that list of priorities. that's not going to change. and that responsibility should be moved elsewhere. host: to hear the consumer advisory arguing for a free-standing agency. guest: it is striking that these people who have long been part of the process who are in some respect on the inside of that institution are basically saying, you know what? we know this place and we don't think this should be here. host: atlanta, georgia. you're next. roy on our democrat's line. caller: how are you? guest: fine, thank you. caller: well, let me say this. what he speaks of the fed, whatever, we have to stop giving these people who so-called that we allow to run our government to be accountable. and i'm sorry. so this is no different than s.e.c. they know what's going on here. and they're part of the problem. so what happens now is that you have this ordeal where we're talking about consumer protection organization. what's going to happen is they're going to make it sound well for the everyday american who is here on television is going to sound good. then they're going to take the teeth out. then the local states depend on that local state's ideology, either be republican, conservative, democrat, whatever it may be. then the local government is going to take the teeth out of that. which means the everyday joe duh not get protected and everybody else gets plun in their pockets. i'm sick and tired of everyday americans taking hits. if we get a traffic ticketed, we don't pay it, we can go to jail. you guys have no accountability and you need to call everybody to the mat. and we need also to investigate everybody that has any involvement in anything at all. this is our sacred government. we need too take this back. guest: it's interesting. for a long time in washington there was a piece of conventional wisdom that financial reform was not an issue that motivated voters on election day. the financial regulation was not that kind of issue. and you still hear sort of on capitol hill now as they debate financial reform this question about do people really care about this? if we don't do this right will there be consequences? is this actually a political issue in the sense of something that decides whether we get to stay here. and when you hear a call like that, you're reminded of how angry many people are and how much of a political issue this has become. host: there's an anniversary next week, two years since bear stearns collapse. does that still reverb rate and at lives the desire of congress to get more oversight done? guest: i think people are cognizant. i think probably bear stearns seemed much more important when it happened and then all the other things happened and bear steamed a little smaller. but it is amazing that we're two years passed that moment and still so deeply marred in this process. host: boston is next. steve on our republican line. good morning. caller: good morning. i want to say as a lender i feel we should have less regulations, because we are just trying to do our jobs. and i really would just like to touch your beard. it is a really nice beard. host: we'll move on to our next call. i apologize for that. caller: how are you? host: you're on, sir. go ahead. caller: i was raised on a couple of principles. one was you don't buy it unless you have the money in your pocket. the second was by the time you are 30 you should have a year's sail salary in the bank. the only thing i ever financed in my life was my house. i paid 25% down and paid it off in 10 years. i believe that people just borrow money -- and i ran a business for 18 years and i heard all this stuff about during the crisis how people were borrowing to make their payroll. well, if you're borrowing to make your payroll you need to walk off because you have no business being in business. so i think part of the problem is that people borrow money that they can't afford to pay back regardless of the rate, whether it's 2% or 50%. so there needs to be a lesson taught to the young people today that they need to be more fiscally conservative and don't live beyond their means. i have a friend who makes $1 million a year and he is in debt for $5 million. so it doesn't matter how much you make a year, you've got to live within your means. it's just that simple. guest: i really appreciate that point. and one hobby horse of mine is i find it amazing that financial education is not a staple of every high school curriculum in this country. how is it possible particularly as we have increasingly asked citizens to make their own financial decisions, to be responsible for their retirement plans, for every aspect of their financial life that we do not teach these fundament yals as part of a required education? it's just beyond me. and the consequences i think that the caller describes -- host: am i right the new rules put some type of financial education within them? guest: they do. but most of those financial education programs are targeted at adults, at people at the time that they sort of engage with the financial system. it strikes a lot of experts it would be a lot smarter to do it earlier, to engage with people while they're young and still learning how they're going to move through life and help them understand how the financial system works. and to help them to make better choices. host: as early as high school? guest: absolutely. host: there's a couple pictures this morning in the papers about the federal reserve. it's three names mentioned, i guess possibly nominations to the federal reserve board. could you tell us why these people are important i guess in knowing as far as the federal reserved is concerned? guest: it's important to understand the role of the federal reserve. we talked about it a moment ago. it basically managing economic growth. it is our primary regulator of the financial system and it has at least for now this role in consumer protection. and these choices speak to the president's priorities in all three of those areas. these are three people who will sit on a seven-member board that play as role in making those decisions. they would all tend to be voifs in favor of -- voices in keeping interest rates low to preserve the engine of economic growth. several of them are people with long records of engagement on consumer protection issues. that really signals praps to a degree any previous appointment to the federal reserve board a commitment to making consumer protection a priority at that institution and they are people who tend to regard regulation more seriously than have some past members of the federal reserve board. so this is basically president barack obama's effort to stamp his priorities on that institution. host: the headline over these three people says, it would hint at an activist fed. what does that mean? guest: it's those areas that we're talking about. a fed more engaged in regulatory issues, on protecting consumers, means a fed that sees its mandate a little more broadly than in the recent past. host: mobile, alabama. gale is up next on our democrat's line. good morning. go ahead. caller: thank you. i just want to say i'm so thank. for the payday loan opportunities. i only had to present a pay check stub that shows i am employed, a checking account for three months that showed that i was in the positive, proof of residence, and an id. and i received immediate loan that i needed. however, with the bank, i do have direct deposit coming from my payroll account and i have been turned down for a loan. i am having to deal with the banks that will not lend me money where i am sending my money and then having to go over to get help from the payday loans. i do not overuse the payday loan. i am living a very moderate life on a $52,000 a year income. but i do be penalized for having that amount of money, a single parent and a daughter in high school. where as, other parents probably don't have to pay as much as i do for medication, for school, care, for taking care of my child having to pay everything including senior fees and all the kind of moneys that come along with having the responsibility of a child. and i don't receive any federal aid. therefore, sometimes my check is spent on my necessities, bills, housing, clothing, and food. and it does become necessary for me to go to the payday loan people. and i am so thankful for them. host: can i ask you a couple questions? when you go to these folks, how much do you usually ask for as far as the loan is concerned? caller: i try to get the maximum, $500. and i pay $587.50 back at the end of the month. host: and that's the fees? caller: the fees would be $87.50 for booing $500. but i say it is still better than being turned down by a bank and being charged late fees or having my light bill turned off or a car note late. host: thank you for giving us that input. guest: just one point. it's not under discussion in this debate whether or not we should have payday lending in the united states. the system will remain in the states where it's legal. it's a question of whether the federal government should be involved in overseeing the operations of payday lenders in making sure that they follow consumer protection laws. but the industry itself will remain. no one is proposing to ban it as part of the legislation. host: is the story that she told about why she visits them similar? guest: very typical. for many people they do view it, the inability to get a loan from the bank is a characteristic of many. they've gone there because this is where they can get a loan. also, unfortunately, the use of that money to pay for necessities, that sense of living so close against the line that you need to borrow in order to pay the bills. host: tampa, florida. good morning to john on our republican line. go ahead. caller: how are you today? host: fine, thank you. caller: how's the weather there? host: it's raining. go ahead with your question. caller: i want to know, you were talking about personal responsibility. how can people be responsible when they're taught by the liberals that the government is everything and you can see they're bailing out so don't worry about your bills because the government will take care of you? just keeps expanding. and obama has never had a press conference, a legitimate press conference and he will -- the media is always letting him get away with everything without asking any hard questions. they said they're going to take over the health care. they said ok, how you going to do it? and just the media is in bed with them. host: you've veered off drastically to what we're talking about. do you have a question? caller: how can you do physical responsibility when everybody is taught that the government is everything and they're going to bail you out? host: you've made your point. guest: i gezz personal responsibility suggests, the person needs to be responsible. host: tuscon, arizona. independent line. caller: here in arizona we had a vote to as i recall to basically get rid of the payday lenders. and people many in feeks, the legislature has basically -- phoenix, the legislature has allowed it to continue. and that's just a comment. my other comment is that it seems to me that what we need to do is get all of the politicians out of office and maybe start over again and get some people that are actually responsible for taking care of the people and our country rather than themselves. i'll take your comments off the line. guest: two things. i'm sorry, i'm not familiar with the situation in arizona. but there are a number of states that have tried to ban payday lending. but the difficult thing is there are no such thing as payday lending. there are stores that make types of loans. it's kind of a cat and mouse game. it's proved difficult to do in some places. as far as the quality of our lors, you know, -- ledge lators, that's ultimately the decision people need to make about who they want to represent them. host: courtney, good morning. caller: good morning. how are you? i'm actually a mortgage broker and the topic in which lenders are not being held accountable specifically, i'm working with a client that is with bank of america and when whittaker had closesed their doors, they had, they were actually -- bank of america is one of the banks that was given the account. and with my particular borrower, my borrower's credit history for the mortgage is not even reporting on the credit report and bank of america was again holding the mortgage history on the credit report and bank of america is not being held responsible for the rest. they say that we have 60 days to get that particular account updated to the credit report and because bank of america wasn't reporting on the credit report and they were saying that they were being not released, my borrower's obvious payments, it has affected my borrower's credit history and but the saddest part is there is over 120,000 clients out there and when my client just refinanced their home they had to pay an exorbitant amount of fees which was interest accrued in addition to i'm thinking that bank of america is getting away with my borrower paying twice for that august payment. so when i see that they've -- today's topic is lenders unaffected by the bank reform, i mean, bank of america is not being held responsible to the rest of the law that states they have 60 days to get this particular account satisfied and here it is in march, you know, which is well over that 60-day time frame. host: let me leave it there and let our guest respond. guest: just u a couple quick comments. i don't know anything about this particular case. if you do have a concern about the conduct of a bank like bank of america, the office of the comptroller of the currency is the federal agency that regulates that institution. they have a complaint line that you can call. i believe it's occ.gov is the website. and they try to help customers handle those types of issues. host: bank of america deciding not to do overdraft fees. are we going to see other banks? guest: city grupe already announced a similar policy before bank of america. so it is i guess a trend at this point. there's a new federal law that comes into effect in a couple of months that basically requires banks to sign up customers ahead of time to ask them if you try to spend more than the amount of money remaining in your account should we allow the transaction to go through or not? that's what an overdraft is. that's what the fee is for, for a loan that you take at that point. banks of america is going further than that and saying with won't let people overdraft whether or not they want to. if you're using a debt card and try to spent more, we're going to reject the transaction. in general, overdraft is a revenue source are going to get a lot smaller for banks. there's a lot of pressure from regulators, a lot of pressure from customers, a lot of anger about that issue. and i think bank of america is kind of a belle weather here for the approach. host: if they lose that as a fee, where do they make it up? guest: there's two answers. one is that banks have been extraordinarily profitable in recent years. it's just an incredibly lucrative business to be in. and it is likely to be less lucrative going forward. some of the ways that they were making money are ways that we have as a society have decided we didn't like. and they're going to go away. and but banks are full of very creative people whose job it is to figure out ways to make more money. and we don't know what that will look like. i expect we'll find out. host: two more calls. troy, michigan, up next laura on our republican line. caller: i find that our financial system in this country is just absolutely screwed up, for lack of a better term. big banks that are allowed to borrow -- pay 1% when they borrow money. but a poor person as these payday loans, i don't know the percentage rate but i think i saw something the other day, 500% is what they're paying. the other day i opened a charge account at home depot and people have to pay 30% interest if they don't pay their loans. it's unconscionable. the people that should be getting help, the laws and things are not helping those people. and i personally am in favor of a separate agency to oversee. you know, when we had all these problems with the banks standard and poors and moody's gave false credit ratings to investments and these people were not punished. any of the people that were involved in this traud that was perptrate on the american public, none of them were punished. and i think that's a gross injustice. thank you. guest: a lot of people have lost their jobs. i don't think we're done yet with the process of figuring out who is responsible or holding them responsible for their actions. but i appreciate the caller's perspective. host: eastern, maryland. mike on our independent line. caller: can you hear me? host: go ahead, please. caller: good morning. i love the you. i appreciate the opportunity to talk to your guest. i don't know if your guest has looked into agriculture sectors, because right here in maryland agriculture and farming is one of the largest economic sectors. and, unfortunately, nobody is talking about the hardship the farm ser going through. they -- going through. they pay typically interest rates of commercial customers of 8%, and our expenses have gone up by 20% to 25% in the past three years. and we really are under tremendous pressure. we're running out of equity in our businesses because we constantly work other jobs and use our equity to pay our commitments. and i really think the interest rates they're charging farmers and claiming that agriculture is the big sector in the economy, they're not looking into a small farmer situation. and the type of interest expanses and the cash flow problems farmers are having. i appreciate his feedback or any guidelines he may have. host: guest: this is a big issues not just for farmers but for all small businesses that are reliant on borrowing money to finance their operations. farming is a cash intensive operation. you need to pay for stuff in order to sell it and get more money. every business that matches that description is a big -- has a big problem because lending has constricted. it is much harder to get credit even for well established businesses to operate. the government has been trying a number of approaches. none have been particularly successful. so the caller is high lighting a real issue. host: when senator dodd unveils the legislation on monday, give us a time line. guest: senator dodd has said that he wants to let members both republicans and democrats propose amendments for one week and then begin the process of what we call marking up the bill, which is to say editing it and amending it and getting it ready for a final vote in the committee. most members of the committee don't think it's going to move that quickly. they expect that this process will take a little longer than that and -- host: will health care take up a lot of the air next week? guest: that's been a big problem for a while. there was an expecttation that health care would be done, and financial reform, that the attention could swing to financial reform. that still hasn't happened. as we all know, next week is likely to be consumed by health care. senator dodd is an important member of the democratic side, many members of his committee are actively engaged on those issues. until health care is done, it is likely that financial reform will continue to play second fiddle. host: thanks for coming on. guest: thank you. host: coming up, we'll talk about a group of standards unveiled by national governors which would nationalize reading, math, and other skills that students would have in various grade levels. we'll talk about that with the group "achieve's" president. but let's take a look at the week in political cartoons. host: our guest is michael cohen. he's the president of an organization known as achieve. guest: we are a nonprofit organization led by governors and business leaders and we help states set academic standards so students are prepared for what they face after high school. host: this is the week that governors and states came out with a plan. what is that plan? guest: standards, for people who are not familiar with this langwg, a description of what students need to know what they need to be able to do grade by grade so by the time they finish high school they are pretared to do college level work or with the same kind of skills go to a job training program or the workplace itself. what happened this week is that the governors and the state superintendents of education had organized a group of people, achieve was part of this. to develop a set of standards for the country on a voluntary basis. this builds on the best of what states have done. these standards look at what the best, highest performing countries in the world include in theirs. and what has been created is really a next generation, a step forward based on the best that's out there already that describes very clearly grade by grade by grade what students need to know in each grade in reeding, writing, listening, and speaking and in mathematics so that they are prepared to succeed after high school. host: so if a group of states decide they want to adopt these standards, what does that mean as far as technically what they have to do in the schools? guest: so any state that adopts this -- and we expect quite a few will -- over time. this doesn't happen overnight. but overtime they will change their curriculum to be in alinement, they will provide teachers with development to help them teach to standards. they will change how they prepare teachers, who are going to become teachers so they're grounded in this content. they will also change the assessments so when they measure student performance they're measuring against these standards. that will occur over a number of years. host: so if three states get together and say a bunch of fifth graders are taking these tests, is it going to be the same test in every state? guest: that's a hope. that's not a guarantee yet. the secretary of education is launching a competition, a grant competition. he will provide up to $350 million for states to work together to develop common assessments. you would like for the most part all states to use the same test. then you can measure students around the country with the same yard stick and have honest comparisons of where states stand and let students know. but they may find several groups of states, in which case there will be work to do to get those comparisons made. host: and so how does it also affect technical curriculum? does that mean that students or states that opt into this would be required to have to buy new text books? guest: some are statewide decision, in other places it's a local decision. but every jurisdiction updates its text books on some regular cycle. you wouldn't want 20-year-old science text books. so there will be a phase-in of new textbooks and i would presume that every textbook publisher in the country ought to be overhauling their textbooks so that they're aligned with these standards. that would lead to a more to cuck -- focused curriculum. host: it seems there's a bit of turf wars going on. how does that factor into these goals which are ambitious? guest: keep in mind that this whole initiative was led by states, governors, state education commissioners. they came together in recognition that the current system, 50 different states, 50 different sets of standard, 50 different tests, nobody can understand how we're doing. but overall, we're falling behind other countries. so this is an effort to recognize that our students are competing with others around the world, not with others in the next school district or the next state. and that the real with world demands that students face don't vary depending on their zip code. so this is an effort to make a common set of standards and then have a consistent set of expectations for students. this is all voluntary. so states that look at this and say this isn't for us or this doesn't meet our needs, the proper response to that is to not adopt it. and then they will be done. host: am i right to saying that texas and alaska have already said that this guest: texas and alaska said a year -- a year ago 48 states came together and said we want to work on this. so that's quite remarkable. everyone focuses on the two that haven't. it's important to keep in mind the 48 that have. and they have worked with this process for a year. they've provided input all along the way. they've reviewed drafts and provided feedback always with the intent of trying to get this to a point where it is high quality and worthy of adoption. now that this -- there's a public comment period now, so more input and one more round of revisions, and then the ball is in each state's courts. texas has made clear that it has no interest in adopting, the governor has. alaska seems to say the same thing. host: is there a reason? guest: you know, some of this has to do with politics, quite frankly. but what governor perry says in texas is that he wants to make sure that texas standards are written by texans. other states have taken a different approach. they said not every kid who starts in kindergarten here is going to remain in our state forever. we want them to be prepared for the larger world. and i think that's an important decision. host: michael cohen is our guest until 9:15. you can ask him questions yourself. here are the numbers. we have divided them politically. what does this mean for the teacher workday? guest: it's going to be better. one of the things that teachers suffer from now in many states is the standards for each grade are jam-packed with content. we expect teachers to teach an awful lot. one analyst who has compared u.s. math standards to those in other countries describes the u.s. standards as a mile wide and an inch deep. every week there's a new unit and a new topic. and what happens is first teachers have to rush through the curriculum, students don't get an in-depth learning of it. next year, the teacher reviews what was taught because students haven't really grasped it. with these new standards it's a much more focused set of expectations for each grade so the teachers in, say, kindergarten through grade five have a focused set of topics mainly around teachers teaching students around number concepts, addition and subtraction. they understand not just the formula but understand the thinking and can apply it. that will be easier for teachers to teach. they'll be able to teach in demtsdz, have more time to do it, and have students who come to them each year better prepared for the work. so this is a win. host: does it mesh with what was set up with no child left behind? you described the rush that teachers would have to do to keep those standards. guest: it meshes in the following sense. what no child left behind says every state should set its own standards. the federal government doesn't -- is not going to make a decision about whether the standards are good, bad, or indifferent. so the states have the authority under the current law right now to change the standards to be more focused, so they measure in-depth what students learn and move on. the other thing to keep in mind is that no child left behind, the elementary and secondary education act is goin to be reauthorized. congress is going to change it hopefully this year. and members of congress in the obama administration are keenly aware of the work that's under way. seeing that it is in the right direction. and are trying to figure out how to best line the federal government's efforts up behind what states states are trying to do. that's the best way to do it. host: carolyn, go ahead. caller: thanks for taking my call. i have a question and a comment. the comment i have is that occasionally i watch who is, are you smarter than a fifth grader. and it seems that the kids are being taught a lot of interesting but yet just completely useless information. and my question is, i really am concerned that the schools aren't turning out good citizens. what's happened to civics? it's just not taught in school any more. thank you. guest: very good question. and we need to keep in mind reading and math matics are a very important foundation for an acdemition foundation for what students are going to do next. in later grades and beyond school. but they also need to be good citizens. they need to understand the history of our country. they need to understand how our country fits into the larger world and they need to know how to behave and take responsibility as individual citizens. and that needs to be taught both as subjects as a content in school. civics ought to be taught. but also, the expectation to have students behave in and out of school is really important. and that's an obligation both to the school and also the family. that takes all of us to do. host: buford, south carolina. earnest. democrat's line. caller: hi. god bless you. i'm going to tell you what's wrong with schools. when they desegregated, that's when the schools started to fail. you can take 900 kids all the way through high school from the seventh to the ninth grade, 100 are going to college. when we came through school, you had all kind of occasional schools or -- vocational schools or trading. this isn't a part of the program right now. yet, you bring on all they talk about is academic this and that. ask him, can he do plumbing, can he build a foundation, can he put up a wire house? can he drive a bulldozer? the girls don't even know how to cook now. when i went through school, they learned how to cook, how to sue, they learned how to do everything -- sow. identify got a nephew. he dropped out of school and he went with my uncle. he knows how to do drafting and everything else. some of these educated individuals that go into engineering come to him to figure out the problems that they've got. they pay him a little $3,000 extra. host: so caller with all that in mind, what's your question? kiveragetteds my question is you've got too many people who went to college coming on your program talking about math. math and vocational and all of the -- to turn this around you're always talking about jobs host: we'll leave it there. guest: i think it's an important point that the gentleman makes. we want schools to not just prepare people for college or some kind of post-secondary education but for the workplace as well. but what's happened when we were in school is there were plenty of jobs that were available for people who dropped out of high school or just had a high school diploma that could pay a good wage. you didn't have to be highly skilled. you had to work hard, think, use your hands and you were in good shape. that's not the economy that our students are growing up in now. if you want to be -- if you want to work in the building trades now, you're working with computers and digital tools. you're not just working with hammers and nails. you have to work closely with engineers and be able to understand what they're talking about. so it turns out that even what we think of as blue collar jobs require a fairly high level of math skills, quantitatetive reasoning, geometry, and very sophisticated communication skills. so the point here is not that everyone needs to go to college, but that jobs of the future require a pretty similar level of academic preparation as do colleges and we need kids up to that level in order to give them a chance to succeed. host: tony on our independent line. caller: yes. i'd like to ask him that if we had all these jobs back that we used to have that what bill clinton signed the trade agreement sent away, but i'd like to ask if we had them jobs back they'd have an opportunity to go to college and stuff, these kids would. and they have opportunity to do things like we used to do. we had a choice. you know, to finish high school, go to college and stuff like that, these kids could. and have opportunity to make bread and make money. you know? that's all i mean to say. thank you. guest: i'm not an expert on free trade issues. but i do know that oftentimes countries to which jobs are moving are countries that have more highly skilled high school graduates than with do. and i can't help but think there isn't a connection there. so the emphasis on better preparing young people in the u.s. is really important if we're going to keep those jobs here. host: some of the standards for grade seven in reading would be to cite several sources of teckedtullevered when useful to support analysis of the what the text says. analyze how two or more themes or central ideas in a text relate to one another drawing on key details. and to analyze how particular lines of dialogue or specific incidents in a story propel the action, reveal the character or provoke a decision. but do you tell the teacher how you do that? guest: no. standards talk about what students need to be ainl to do. and what those say is students need to be able to read very carefully so that -- and accurately so they know what the text says. but also think about it, analyze it, compare it to other things and see what it means. it's important that students develop those skilesf skills. but this is not a standardized approach to teaching. this leaves teachers free to select their curriculum torks be innovative in how they approach teaching. to do whatever it's going to take to help students meet these standards. host: you talked about teacher preparation, and that takes money and time. how does that account for making these standards a reality? guest: well, so teacher preparation takes money and time. we're already spending a lot of money and time preparing teachers as undergraduates in teacher education programs. the problem is they're not often prepared to teach to any specific set of standards or expectations. they're taught jenically how to teach content -- jennerically how to teach content. the more states adopt these standards, the more incentive there will be for teacher education programs to prepare students to teach these expectations. they can still figure out how best to do it but our public schools will get a more well prepared class of teachers than now. if you look at how other countries that are high performing, there's a very height relationship between, for example -- i visited singa pore and went to their college of education and met with the physics teacher who was preparing teachers to teach physics, the same physics, the same kinds of problems, preparing to teach those people to teach fizz 86 the way they would when they got to the secondary schools. very tight link between how they prepared and what they taught. we're this far apart 2349 u.s. so with the same money and the same time we can do a much better job. host: st. petersberg beach, florida. steven on our republican line. caller: good morning. i'd like to thank you for taking your time out for us today. guest: you're welcome. caller: and the question that i've had is we've had horrific education in the united states for the last couple decades that i know about. i believe we're currently ranksed 23rd in the world. what remedy are you taking to remedy this? guest: the call ser absolutely right. on most measures of education performance when we compare ourselves to other countries, we are 20 ds or so in the world, whether it's on reading achievement, math, high school graduation rates, college. we used to be at the top and we're well behind now. one of the things we've learned from studying how other countries do that, and this is particularly true in mathematics, i think i mentioned earlier, in the u.s. our math curriculum is what one analyst called a mile wide and an inch deep. we teach a lot of subjects every year. we don't teach them very well and in great depth. students are not expected to understand. they're not able to understand the math. so next year they have to go through the same cycle over again. the result is they spend a lot of time being taught but not a whole lot of time learning math very deeply. that's why other countries outperform us. and standards that were released last week, we took a lot of lessons from how other countries do this. many fewer topics in the almost are elementary grades. much more focused. they begin to be introduced gradually to algebra thinking, for instance, in the early grades as part of that learning number sense. and by the time they're in seventh grade they will have a solid preparation to take algebra after that. right now, students who try to take algebra in ninth grade don't have the foundation. this does a much better job and ought to make us much more competitive internationally. host: here's a bit of criticism. guest: i've read the standards. and i'm a parent. i'm not a specialist in each discipline. the math standards will be hard for many parents because if you don't have a strong math background at some point that gets to be a little complicated. but they are very clear for teachers to understand. we need to do a better job of translating that so parents will understand. in english, though, i read those. thr very clearly written. you read some of those standards. those are not hard to understand. in fact, if you read those you can see a real progression from grade to grade. so if you went to the reading standard that you had for grade seven and looked at grades four, five, six, you see how students expect to be able to do more complex tasks, more sophisticated work from grade to grade. and if you looked at the writing standards in grade seven next the reading and the listen and speaking, you would see thou whole curriculum is providing a coherent approach to teaching. that is quite powerful. host: do you have parents who say because if you adopt these standards it's going to be more work for me? guest: we haven't heard that yet. it might be. but actually, parents should spend time with their children. it's not helping them with their homework, some parents can, some can't, but make sure they're doing their home work, that they understand the importance of it. those are the most important things for parents to do. and that is -- none of this can be done by the teacher in the schools. this really takes parents who are incredibly important. it's not how much time they spend, it's what message they're delivering to the students and how they're making sure that the students are spending the time on the academics. host: our guest is michael co-en, the president of achieve. achieve.org. you can visit their website. we're talking about education. common course state standards that were released this week. his group was part of that process. chicago on our democrat's line. caller: good morning. i'm glad to hear there is something going on with this area because all i've been reading is about the texas and its revision of text books. and i was so upset, i just figured are we going to adopt these standards? like they're deleting jefferson, king is a paragraph. and caesar chaves is just a foot note. they're dealing with only conservatives and religious people. they're putting like knut gingrich. i mean, we're supposed to be raising all-around students. not just in math, not just in reading. we should inject civics, history. but history should be correct. we should not be adding all of this other stuff. thank you. host: there was a story this morning about the texas board of education. guest: a couple things. first, with regard to what the caller said. we should be teaching history and civics and arts and other subjects. let me make clear, though. the standards that were released this week are solely about mathematics and english language arts. they don't cover the other subjects. states do have standards in those and should continue to. and i think what we all need to be mindful of is that we don't turn our schools into a political football. we shouldn't have partisan idea logical debates about who is most important or which cuncht -- current political figure should students learn about. we want students to learn our nation's history and foundation, both the tremendous accomplishments we've had since we were founded as well as debates we continue to have. but we need to do that in a way that doesn't politicize it. host: we have someone off of twitter. how do private schools compare to public schools? guest: a complicated question. the answer is it depends. on average, private schools nationwide do a bit better. not dramatically so. and if you look carefully at the kind of students that they admit the background of the students, income level, parent education and the like, sometimes the differences are accounted for by those characteristics. sometimes you are seeing private schools that do a good job because they have some advantages. they can be focused. they can sort of have a mission and a unique approach to teaching. and that makes it easier than public schools that aren't able to create that kind of foundation. so there's sometimes important differences there. but overall, if you look at, again, our students compared to any place else, public or private, we all have a long way to go. host: if a state or states decide to adopt these standards, what does it mean for special education students within the system? guest: well, currently special education students are treated in several different ways. they need to have an individualized education program, and that will continue to be the case. in some cases they just need some extra help or adaptations to be able to learn the same content. that continue to be the case. in some cases, students are severely challenge ds and will need somewhat different curriculum. but that will all -- that doesn't change under this. that can be accommodated. host: new jersey, mark on our independent line. good morning. caller: good morning. i just heard your comments about what the construction trades and stuff were, and i've got a problem with that. the average person that catches the engineer and the architect's mistakes is not the college educated. and then the other problems with our school is that they really don't teach the curriculum that has an active work agenda. we need to start teaching more responsibility to our children in the school and they need to quit pushing their progressive agenda. guest: let me respond to that. if the point is that the -- workers in the building trades who catch the mistakes of engineers are not necessarily college edkated, that's precisely my point. you don't have to go to college. you just have to be highly skilled in order to work in today's world. so it's not about college. it's not about whether you went to a university or not. it's whether you have the skills you need. in some cases you need a post-secondry education. but the skills are important. and the ability for people who have not been college educated to have the skills and the capacity to interact one on one directly with those who are college education f kated so together they can figure out what needs to be done is important. . . post-secondary post guest: texas is the next to the largest purchaser if you will. and they are compared to markets that can't compete. but think if they were compared to the other parties adopting to standards. and then it's not just texas against other states. and it's a large standard aligned to the standards. and i think that most textbook publishers are thinking of these standards. guest: do they have this section? guest: we want this to drive what the textbook publishers. not the other way around. host: republican line, janet from chicago. caller: good morning, i speak from the experience of a mother who has raised two children through the public school system who in private schools raised a second set of children that i home schooled from day 1. i believe that the standards being researched are not take into consideration. what is happening with the trend with the people leaving the government school systems. because it's been a failure for nearly a generation. as a result of the baby boom generation, is was born in 1961. what the baby boomers have done to the education system and the unions have done stinks. we are leaving the system because it doesn't work. i pay my taxes for the system and i don't use it. i don't believe in your standards. i believe what standards you set, you need to look a generation back. and stop trying to preach morality in the systems and put that back to the parents. i have seen other children in other situations, private schoolchildren and home schoolchildren are better behaved. a public school system is lord of the flies, i have not seen it getting better. i have spent years with my child and teachers lowering the expectations trying to help. i don't see how they can help by stepping in and making the textbook companies richer and taking more empowerment away from the parents and trying to tell them how to raise their children. host: thank you caller. guest: she makes a couple of interesting points. when she talked about the federal government, they had nothing to do with it, no federal funds or directions. this is a group of states working together on behalf of students in this state. second point, private schools, public schools, i would argue schools in every state, both public and private, ought to look at these standards and ask the right questions. and for the most part if they do that and want to make sure that the students that graduate from their schools, public or private. are prepared for workplace and post-secondary education, these will provide a pathway. it doesn't matter the school. anyone can make a judgment about it and i urge each to read carefully. host: next caller from florida, kemp. caller: thank you, c-span for your timely discussion. we have such a span of time in the millennium place for the children and it's done in an old way. the schools in florida have become more or less reduced to testing facilities rather than educating facilities. and mostly in new millennium generation, you are looking at teachers that are facilitators and not just standing lecturing out of textbooks or it's declined to testing for the big s-cat. guest: thank you, i can say to a number of things, regarding the standards we are talking about. if you look at the standards for reading and writing, you see they continue to pay attention and make sure that students know how to read well, understand what they have read and interpret and the like. and they understand that this is the 21st century and a lot of attention of the appropriate ways to gather information on the internet. to write text not just as an individual but to share and get feedback from others as people do in the workplace now. there is a tremendous recognition of the changed environment now. second i would say, and a lot of people are concerned about testing. it's here to stay and it's been put in place as an important z@e tool to hold schools accountable so that everyone gets the education. we have to be careful, the important thing is to of standards and curriculum drive the way the test works. that way you are tested on rich content, on rigorous skills. and have to demonstrate that, what you need to do in order to pass a test. in high school we took regional exams that are rigorous that covered the entire course. in english and history there were three or four essay questions you had to write. you couldn't just bubble in the answer, you had to think about it. those are the kinds of things we need now, to have assessments that call on students that think deeply and call on the students and not just what they saw in class but are educated to do important things. that's a challenge ahead of us, but the standards are here for that to occur. host: has secretary duncan made comments? guest: he has said that the process is important but leaving it to the states to decide what that should be. host: caller on the independent line. caller: i want to say that the public school system in america is broken. it ruined my life. you talk about testing, they don't even know how to give the test. and how to give test in the public school system. i was in the second grade i was diagnosed dyslexic. so i was in l.d. all through school, and i helped some teachers help me out and some % who did not. when i graduated from high school i was in l.d. and i graduated in 1995 and that was in the beginning of them starting to give the exit exam. they had my i.e. p. and the highest level of math i learned in high school was long division and long multiplication tables. they had my i.e. p. and the first table of the exit exam covers division and multiplication but the second page was algebra. and i had not seen an algebra problem until i went back to school a couple of years. but i was not taught algebra, they had myi.e.p. and passed ufr part but the math. guest: you make a point. schools have an obligation to teach every student, not to let some go by because of some program and catch them at the end. if you got math after the school, my guess he was able to learn the math and the schools let him down. that's unacceptable. host: we have tammy on the republican line. caller: good morning, i am here. in detroit they closed in over 40 detroit public schools, and the [inaudible] is over 3 -- 300 million. and the financial managers are receiving the bonus and plus they are closing more schools. that's my comment, have a good day. guest: thank you, i am not familiar in depth with the detroit situation, but they have had financial problems for a time. host: what about charter schools, they are created to help those not in the formal school. guest: in those cases the charter schools are to help like other publicly funded schools. and i expect that would ally -- apply as we go forward. and you hope that the charter schools perform in that room. many have done better. many charter schools look like regular public schools. but the more charter schools, the more public schools can grab hold to these things and take it seriously and work hard to help the students. host: good morning, caller. caller: good morning, i am not bragging but as a teacher with 35 years i think i speak with authority. i believe in the standards. i think they are what we need. there is a problem with the process. and the point of the problem is the classroom. teachers are totally left out of the loop. on a whole they are told don't say anything, we don't want to hear your comments, do what we tell you to do. there is only one problem, i will be realistic and take to my level. you have 34 students in your classroom and you trying to teach with discipline students and then you send them out and they g%i come back. we were told we couldn't fail seniors we had to find some way to pass them. students are smart enough to know if they can't fail you, they know what they will do. they will do what they have to do to get by and being passed. principals passing students and children taking "a" and scoring in the 34% and how can you do that? we have a problem and i try to figure out how to fix it. but i tell you i speak for the teachers with the expertise and the longevity. we are to the point that we are leaving, there is a lot of cover-up and playing with paper to make the school systems look good on paper. and then the tests come out and what they show doesn't bear out because the children continue to fail the state-mandated standard tests. guest: one response, i appreciate your frustration. one thing that you said, the standards of the teachers in the classroom and the standards that the state applies in the tests may not be the same standard. and we see that a lot. and aufrn time because we get an "a" in one community, particularly one with poor students and get a "c" in a more affluent community. the effort is to make sure that the standard are clear and appropriate and apply to everything. so we educate everyone where they need to be. host: tell the timeline, now that you have the release, what goes on from here? guest: this is a public comment period until april sjç3, we are looking for feedback and what needs to change. and as soon as possible in three to four weeks, these will be out in final form. and each state will have a decision on whether to adopt. and over the calendar year you will see a lot of activities in the state. host: if they adopt it won't be this fall? guest: no, the state adopts at the state level and then with a plan over the coming years. host: michael cohen, thank you for joining us. we will take a break and when we come back, we will talk about federal debt. >> sunday your chance to talk to karl rove on book tv, he will take your phone calls on his new memoir, courage and consequence. then on reconciliation, all this week on booktv.org. >> obama and the banks deciding salaries , this is a life lesson. >> sunday michele easton, on women's conservative roles. >> "washington journal" continues. host: in our last 45 ualminute will talk about issues related to the federal budget and particularly u.s. debt and spending. first we want to hear from on this issue. if you want to chime in on the debt and how much we spend, you can do so on these three lines for independents, republicans and democrats. also we want to introduce you to something we found that was brought to our attention from a series of videos put on the internet, matthias shapiro, he's the founder of politicalmathblog.com, he takes information from various levels of government and to help people from visual forms. to give an example, we put out this one video to look at specifically the president's budget for the united states. and specifically how to balance that. >> the thing that a lot of people don't get about the federal budget, it's made up of two kinds of -&spending, mandatory and discretionary. only mandatory is set in stone, think of federal spending of $100 budget, for the car and rockets and so far. and if president obama spends two terms, it will look like this. this is on the right is mandatory spending and on the left is discretionary spending. the mandatory spending will be this gorilla, and we have to feed it, and if we do nothing to help the mandatory spending, the next president will have to help the all the departments, etc. basically if who is president in eight years wants to balance the budget, he or she would have to get rid of everything except the air force. president obama says he's got a solution, they are baby gorillas and those will grow and it all keeps growing. i have to admit i am confused of how adding another debt will help spending. i believe it has to do with things like time travel. host: joining us on the phone is the creator of that video, matthias shapiro of politicalmathblog.com. mr. shapiro how did you come up with this idea? guest: it came last year when president obama announced he would cut billions from the federal budget and the staff would find this money and get rid of it. and it was widely critized by both sides, and described as cutting coffee out of a $100,000 salary. i didn't feel that anyone was getting to the scale of the really tiny cut. so i made a video about it, it was a goofy video i thought. and it ended up getting a lot of attention, over 1 million people saw it and i started making more. and really have kind of a passion for taking big numbers, which everything having to do with the budget is enormous. and visualizing it so we &#tca get a get sense and feel of what we are looking at. host: when you say big numbers and we have those from the public debt and today it's 12.5 trillion and something called intergovernmental holdings is 4.5 trillion, how do you make these devices to show the viewer at home. how do you make that simple? guest: i try as much as possible to bring it into something real. i dislike using kind of all computer generated stuff. because it seems to disconnect it from reality. when you can take the numbers and bring it to something where someone feels like, i can see that in my living room or at home. then they have a feel for, special things like percentages and size that way. >> do you come -- well, a couple more questions, when you take these numbers, where do you pull these numbers from? guest: i pull almost w5mall of numbers from the bureau of labor statistics and census bureau, those are great places. host: so when you present the videos do you come at it with a political bias in mind? guest: when i make the videos i try to have little bias in creating it. obviously there is some bias in choosing which videos to do. it's hard to describe at this point when i have a video on debt, that i am not antidemocratic. the fact of the matter is that democrats are in charge of everything. if you are going to blast something in government, you will probably find a democrat in the cross hairs. i am planning when and if republicans get back in power, i will continue to do this. the republicans are planning a big game but i am not sure they can put these videos off. host: have you heard from anyone in washington, d.c. about what you do? guest: i have spoken to senators and congressmen and fox news and cnn, and a lot of places. it is a little bit funny to me, because i am not enormously political. i am mostly economic, but this seems to excite a lot of people in the political sphere. host: set up another video, this deals with cups of water and you are talking about the budget freeze. set it up a little bit. guest: ok, it was when president obama was venting earlier this year about the spending freeze. and i just, i always try to sit down and think, ok, let's find a good metaphor for this, and i thought a cup of water would be great. and i try to differentiate between discretionary and mandatory, and i like colors, things that are bright that catch my eye. so i had different colored water and trying to get a scale of what a spending freeze would mean this year and other places to save more amounts of money. host: stay with us, here's the video. >> president obama announced he will freeze certain amounts of spending. this sound good, but what does this mean? let's play that this water represents the frozen -- get it, because water can be frozen. the freeze will only apply to 47 billion of spending ,q-that represented in the blue cups. when we think of freezing money, we think that the money can't be spent. but this is different, this portion of the budget is still liquid, it can still be spent. the 15 billion this freeze will save is something like this. if we really want to save some serious money, we can just cancel the rest of the stimulus spending. and not spending that cash, will save us 357 billion immediately. and the current freeze is like freezing three cups of water. and this doesn't hold water. host: mr. shapiro, how many people have come to you and said, i didn't know what a budget freeze was and now i understand. guest: i am sure that people do it in the comment section, because every youtube portion has tf÷comments and i try to ignore them. and people say that you took something that i didn't understand before and bring it to a place. the budget freeze in particular was a very curious concept to me. because we have, we have one concept of a freeze. and usually our concept of a freeze involves money that is simply not just being spent anymore. so when you say you are freezing the budget, people think we are taking an enormous chunk of moan and not spending. -- money and not spending. no, we are just not increasing it next year. there is a terminology confusion i wanted to clear. and i have a lot of people saying i did the job. host: let me throw this in off of twitter, from mary, what this guy is doing is called junk math, and trust me, he's a conservative with a hidden agenda. guest: ok, i am not deeply familiar with the term, junk math. but criticism is fair. i am not sure -- my question i guess would be, which way would you prefer that this be visualized? which numbers would you prefer i use? i am more open to having a discussion and twitter is a horrible place to have a discussion. but i can say that i am doing the best i can with the numbers we have. and i am not using any hidden, crazy, creeping conspiracy website numbers. i am not talking about entitlement of 70 years in the future. i am trying to keep things as close as i can. and using c.b.o. numbers, because they are respected from both sides. i don't know what else to say. host: how do you think about debt and spending now? and do you have other videos planned on these kinds of issues coming out? guest: i am trying not to say things about other videos, because when i say something, i never end up doing them. i am generally trying to keep on top and keeping videos going. they are a little hard to make. i am sorry, what was the first part of the question? host: how do you think about debt and spending, and what are your thoughts not about this congress, but overall. you sound like a relative young person and you look at this from a different lens than others. guest: debt and spending now are now enormous. is this president obama's fault? it is and isn't. a huge amount of the budget is on auto pilot. all the discretionary spending is not what one president can do about that. watching with one raised eye brow as they talk of how to reduce spending. like the first video says, there is not that much you can do unless we deal with mandatory spending, and everyone is terrified of mandatory spending, because it's vastly politically unpopular. so -- i am not apaupulous person, i am not enormously worried, but it's just the way i feel about thing. host: for those interested in your work, where can they find you on youtube? guest: if you go to youtube and 10000 pennies and i do things with pennies to illustrate other things. host: if you want to see it there, you can see it on the youtube channel there and politicalmathblog.com, matthias shapiro, calling in from salt lake city, utah. thank you for your time. for the rest of our half-hour, your thoughts and debt and spending and what you see as current u.s. debt. the numbers for democrats, and republicans and independents on the screen. olalona, kentucky, pat on the republican line. caller: yes, can you hear me. i can tell you where the debt is exactly. and also it may not be very popular, but i wish you would listen to me. the debt is in three or four places. the first place is in affirmative action. they have spent $700 billion a year since 1965. for affirmative action programs, that's $23 trillion in the last 45 years. another place where the debt is, of course is paying for two wars. another place for debt is when the administration pays china, for example, $500 billion in cold cash about seven or eight months ago for exports. now everybody knows that you balance the budget with imports and exports. you don't just go and pay cash money for exports. that's three places. where i get my figures is from u.s. almanac, anyone can buy one from 1965 on and up to today. and check the affirmative action programs and you will see the money spent on the affirmative action programs. host: ok, dave from cincinatti, ohio. caller: i am a gold bug and the solution of how the debt problem will be dealt with is through inflation. we are going to inflate our way out of the problem. the scare tactics that the children will be saddled doesn't make sense. all the people watching can remember when you could buy a coke for a quarter. well, cokes will be $10, and the dollars that repay won't be worth what they are now. the problem since we moved off the gold standard and allowed democracies to print money. and they have no choice because of the social demands. thank you. host: silver spring, maryland, you are up in next on the independent line. caller: yes, i want to talk about what the last caller said, about inflation. i don't think there is a way that we can deal with the debt crisis with inflation. for three reason. number one, more of our debt is inflation adjust securities and they will automatically adjust for any inflation policy we have. and second, most government spending is tied to inflation like social security and other programs, and thirdly we are so dependent -- no, the third reason is that our securities is are so small, the average is about two years, if we try to inflate our way out, bond holders will get through their maturity and buy new debt and the interest rates will reset to account for inflation. so inflation is not going to help you go with the debt problem, we have to find another way. host: the story about general motors wanting to pay factory workers lower than $14 an hour, lower than the wage from the national contract. g.m. and the uaw has reached the agreement, and there is new framework to include newer classifications and new work rules that were hashed out last summer for the g.m. pact and for those who are trying to familiarize them with this. these need to be worked out. welcome caller. caller: this comes down to personal responsibility, we wouldn't run our house like this country is run. we will have to bite the process and pay as you go. host: do you think we are too far in debt to fix it? caller: no, we will have to cut these social programs and taper down to the point where we can afford what we can provide people. host: social programs such as? caller: all of them. across the board, we will have to have, you know less spending on medicare and medicaid. maybe some basic coverage. but not, heart transplant operations, maybe we will have to take a cut in social security. whatever it takes to balance the budget. the debt is crippling this country. host: you probably have seen stories over the last weeks about greek's economic situation, one this morning saying that the euro zone bailout agreement and despite resistance in germany, and the euro zone is to finalize the rest of the package on monday. it will be written to create greater fiscal difference for the members. they have agreed to constitutions if athens is to refinance their soaring debt, and other sources say it can rise to $25 billion euros and that they could need up to 55 billion by the end of the year. missouri, democratic line, jerald. caller: i was listening the other day to an old boy on tv, saying that the best way to get out of this is from the past, and yet no one wants to think about it. and that's to lift a tariff on the goods, because that's where all of our jobs went to import jobs and that's why no one has work. it will take about six years before our companies will have time to pick up the slack. and then we would be down to 3.5%, unemployment, and you will be able to get a decent job.j spt's my opinion. host: los crucos, new mexico. caller: you can't talk about debt unless you talk about taxes. and this is the point that needs to be made. and this is why this man's work is junk. and specifically it is when medicare and social security was moved into the federal budget, two funding streams were moved into the budget. when we are workers we pay taxes on medicare and social security. social security brings in a surplus and it's put in the general fund and spent according. if we section off medicare and social security and in the next column put in payroll taxes, we would have a clear understanding of what is going on. the second thing in terms of taxes, recently what the federal government presented was the 349 richest taxpayers pay in percentage of their income. they pay 16.6%, that's their tax rate. what is the equity in the country where the richest pay such a small percentage of their income in taxes. and the reason they pay so little is that the richest people in this country make their living off of capital gains and dividends. if we were to equalize this tax situation, in which they would be responsible as all of us are for this debt that we have. they would pay a larger amount in taxes. take for instance john paulson, he was the one that made $37 billion in his hedge fund as a result of the downturn in the housing market. he made approximately $3 billion. and his tax rate was 15% on $3 billion. host: matt writes from twitter it's a fallacy, that government should manage its budget the way a household, but not the same. caller: i am a republican and we talk about being conservative. i am a little discouraged from the last administration, after a democrat left money there for us to spend it. and i am a little discouraged as a republican, that when we have a war and we don't fund it. those things cost me from the first time i voted and i voted for ronald reagan the first year, those things made me change over to democratic president. i am not for the big spending, and for americans to say we can't run a deficit. and the average american has a credit card, and that allows you to run deficit. i think pay-go is great. and we w/pwill leave things for our children. i will leave my child money owed to pay. i have insurance for that. the federal government doesn't have insurance for that. all they have is building up the middle class and not have a deficit. as a republican we need to get onboard and realize our administration caused this mess, we have to clean it up. host: we have a note from paige about can day is pulling away from the pact after the jobs market healing following the path of other economic measures and they are moving back to parity with u.s. currency. the economy churn churned out another 21,000 jobs in february, the jobs drove the dollar pass the fed mark. welcomed news to canadians just before spring break. good morning to missouri, bob. caller: maybe if we can start thinking about paying americans decent wages and realize how much is that back for our coffers rather than rewarding these companies for jobs overseas so they can be competitive but no regard for consequences of what it's doing to our tax base here. we can may get a little grip on this problem. general motors announced they want to pay some workers $14 an hour to put together their cars. and if they cut those wages in half, it's going to be just that much less going into the tax coffers from american workers. and you are just compounding the problem. because you keep people broke with these mat-down jobs and then they can't pay the taxes that it needs to be paid to run this country. and then you run a trillion dollar double war off the books and give all of these tax breaks to these multimillionaires that are making millions off of the war, like blackwater and all of those guys. when are people going to get a grip on reality, cutting our own throats. host: michigan, john, hello. caller: hello, i am grateful to see that c-span has this as a timely and important topic. those following this issue will not be unfamiliar with the text and meaning and legal force of the comrade drag amendment. and just as a public service announcement it should be made clear and i would like it do so. the senators who signed on as co-sponsors and voted against the bill ñf=after they co-sponsored it. that would be senator bennett of utah, brownback of kansas and hutchinson of texas, inhough from oklahoma. and a senator from alaska. host: the story of the u.s. post deals with the trade workers from 9/11 the recovery workers suffering from debris before a proposed settlement is put to a vote. and according to a judge over the case, vows that the settlement needs approval. hellerstein among those sickened workers are to g7j/sr' appropriate or just by the numbers when it looks at the grand figure. that the details to deal with 10,000-11,000 claimants and $65 million to be divided among them. saying that $65,750 is the average award likely given to the claimant, with 33% of each award going to attorney fees and health coverage will be discontinued. that's a public hearing set on that issue next week. arizona, republican line, carl. caller: yes, how are you, i want to address a few issues. number one this guy that called in and talked about cutting social security, he should shut his mouth. congress has not deposited one penny of our social security paid in. since 1968 they withdrew 33 billion out of our social security. no one talks about entitlement spending, since 1949 united states has paid foreign aid to foreign countries. and that's trillions of dollars out of our budget and we don't get any credit card for it. and on top of that bush gave them $35 billion to study aids, we never get any foreign aide but when someone goes else, we are the first to spend trillions of dollars. this is an american issue, and america, you better wake up, because you are going under water faster than you can shovel it out. host: the"the wall street journal" has a story, you get the same coverage from your senator, yes and no. that the health care will give americans the same koefrn -- coverage under congress. this is partially correct, and obama feels that this could offer coverage to some 30 million americans. of the democratic plan all members of congress and their staff would have to get their insurance through the exchanges that would open in 2014. the lawmakers would be along americans who don't receive health insurance coverage from their employers. the majority of americans who receive from their employers shall remain on those plans. the new exchanges would allow people to compare and to provide a minimum set of health care benefits. two plans would be managed by the office of personnel management, those plans would be available to everyone. and this goes on, you can read it in the wall street journal and on the front page that speaker pelosi is predicting a vote by next friday or saturday as far as the health care bill is set. hearings on it early next week, potential voting thursday and friday, and possibly into saturday. cleveland, ohio, fred on our democrats line. caller: hello, i had a comment someone said about taxing importing 50%. i think that's correct. i walked through the car show this year, and i didn't see pontiac or saturn there. and how many thousands of jobs is that gone that no small business will create those jobs. there is just too many of them gone. i don't believe there is any answer, because our politicians will not pass any kind of law like this to help anybody. i believe there is no answer to this. and that's my comment. host: cynora, california. caller: good morning, last week there were congressional hearings of 300 trillion of derivatives out in the world. i was thinking if those things had been bundled and sold at least once, there is a 15% tax on capital gains, why do we have a debt? if the tax on that $300 trillion of derivatives had been packaged and taxed once. it doesn't make sense to me we would have a debt if the debt tax alone had been paid. host: michigan, republican line, dave. caller: yes, the root cause of k all of this, namely the social security, medicare and medicaid going broke, and that's because we have lost our young. we no longer have a vast population of young people and larger portion of old people and poor and disabled. and that's a bigger percentage of the population. the reason being because of abortion. because we aborted 100 million lives that would be young and paying taxes. my solution to this is opening our borders wider and trying to bring back the plants of making clothes and dishes and automobiles, and creating jobs to create more tax dollars into america. we can't bring back the 100 million aborted babies, but we can look to the world and say we have plants that need jobs. and i think the baby boomers need to look at themselves in the mirror, they brought this on because they demanded the right to have abortions. host: up next from dallas, texas, charles. caller: good morning, i hear about u.s. debt and a lot of people calling in. and they really don't have a solution to our problems, but i do. i have an edition i have made up about the tsunamis and how to lessen the effect of the tsunamis and i have created how to get out of debt and sell this to china and other nations. and this will work, this president has somebody listening today that will contact me. because i know information is out there and i know that y'all can look at numbers and stuff like that. but i have an invention i have worked on the past 30 days, it won't stop tsunami but where you get 90% water, you will get 10% water. i guarantee this will work and figured out the marth -- math and i am serious, because president obama is the only one that could listen to my idea. host: ok, leave it there. one more call, william on the independent line. caller: good morning c-span, good morning america, god bless you. host: you are on sir, go ahead. caller: on the reserve notes at the head of it, it says in god we trust. and i propose at this moment in time, basically we are merely suffering a momentary lapse in reasoning. i think that the answer to our problems is not so much not having enough money, but not knowing what to do with it or how to handle it. host: ok. that's all the time we have for our calls today. this is what is on deck tomorrow, you will have a discussion about politics, mark tapscott and david waldman, and joined by joan claybrook from washington, d.c., and she testified recently on

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