Transcripts For CSPAN Washington Journal 20100905

holiday tomorrow, we want to get you to weigh in on the future of the labor movement. the detroit free press this morning has this headline -- "labor of hope." it says here that the uaw plan is to tap into worker discontent and focus on social crisis. justice.al "u.s. unemployment stands at 9.6%, with michigan at 13.1%. those who do not have jobs are anxious about losing them and watching their benefits declined. incomes are down, and many people are fighting health care expensive or lacking coverage altogether. for many, retirement seems but a dream. the the union is trying to tap into worker discontent and re- commit itself to broader social and justice issues in an effort to rejuvenate its sunken membership level." in "the new york times" there is an article about anna burger. "after all light and labor, a union leader retires, frustrated. she has dedicated her life to building the labor movement but has in nonetheless grown smaller and weaker. beyond a stepping down debt from of federation represents 5 million union members, she is retiring from her job of 14 years as secretary-treasurer of the powerful service employees international union, representing 2 million janitors and other hospital workers. many women have far too hard a time of balancing jobs and family. she is frustrated that union membership continues to shrink when workers should be flocking into unions during this time of stagnating wages. in a time of democratic majority that union members fought so hard, that could be over in november's election." "ms. burger was not going to get your progress of majority and that it was partly labor's fall. they were successful in electing a more pro-union house and senate, but the advocacy of the unpopular health care bill will mean losses for many house and senate members in november supported unions." we want to talk about the future of the labor do it. mike on the independent line. california. you are the first phone call. caller: does not look very good for the labor movement. a lot of the main jobs that used to be controlled by unions -- where people could count on a living wage -- they no longer exist. remember ross perot? he said he would hear of a great big sucking sound. that has all come to fruition in my opinion. you cannot any longer just a graduate from high school with a skill or trade and thinking be part of the middle class. host: mike, what is your advice for those that had up unions? caller: the unions have supported candidates that are not really for the people. here in inglewood, they did that. they did not support those people actually were in support of their positions. these people only wanted to get elected, and the leadership of the unions, that is who they chose to put their money behind. they did not put their money behind those politicians who wanted to support the labor truly and stand up to big corporations. instead, they took their money and supported politicians who supported their position and supported the very same corporations that wanted to send our jobs overseas. and that is what they did here in inglewood as well as in other minority communities across the country. and that is why the labor movement is suffering today. bottom line -- they put their money behind the wrong candidates, those candidates who were not sincerely supporting people who are working every day but instead, put their money behind candidates who were playing both sides against the middle, getting money from corporations as well as from their position. in the end, we are where we are today. host: let's go to bridgeport, connecticut. stuart, you are up. caller: good morning. i want to make a comment about your question. well, i want to make a brief background remark. if you go back, the economic history of the united states since 1952, you will see that every time the country has been in recession, a republican president has been in the white house. what does that have to do with your question of the day? it is because, in a recession environment, the labor movement suffers very badly because, first of all, they lose their membership with unemployment. more importantly, the labor movement is in a weakened position to make demands for the membership. the desirability of belonging gets reduced because they cannot achieve a very much for their membership. so the future of the labor movement is going to be a very much proportionally related to the future of the economy of the country. host: the front page of los angeles times this morning has this headline -- ugly reality. it could be years before the labor market recovers. many will run on a bed of his before that. out of benefitst o before that. caller: republicans do not believe in keynesian economics. it does work, it is just that when you do not apply correctly, you will not stimulate the economy of the country, which you need to do. you need to put a massive investment in the infrastructure and that will automatically create hundreds of thousands of new jobs, not only for the people who will do the work but also people who have to prepare the materials and the machinery and are to get the work done. host: in this article in "the new york times" about anna burger, she has been an outspoken member of the president's recovery advisory board. she urged the president to appoint a jobs czar and adopt an industrial policy to rebuild america's manufacturing base. she supports establishing a federal infrastructure bank that would spend to build roads, bridges, and mass transit, creating millions of jobs. fort worth, texas. jerry on the republican line. what are your thoughts? caller: a want to give you a little history about the job market. started shrinking greatly under president reagan, and people did not seem to realize it. i had two divisions that were shipped to mexico. i lost a lot of my friends which have the same experience. this is been going on for a long time, the shipping of our jobs overseas and the reduction of manufacturing. it has completely restored our country. host: you are calling on the republican line. some would say you may not sound like a republican. caller: i voted republican. i am trying to explain to what has happened. that is all. and that is basically what has been going on for such a long time that it is going to take a great deal of time to ever restore the jobs in america. primarily, we have shipped those jobs overseas to benefit the major corporations in the world, to increase their bottom-line profits, it is just the way it is. i do not believe that we will, in my lifetime, i do not believe we will see it come back. i feel sorry for my children and grandchildren, because i have seen it passing. host: we are talking about the future of the labor movement. in mid-august, the gallup poll came out and said that u.s. approval for unions remains near a record low. the second lowest approval rating in the and the history of this trend, behind only last year's 48%. 72% in 1936 approved. 75% was in 1953. support for unions declined in the late 1960's and early 1970's, but hubbard or around 60% until last year when it dropped below the majority reading for the first time. approval widely varies among political party affiliation. 71% of the democrats compared with 34% of americans and 49% of independents, all three groups showed very low approval of the union's last year. the future of the labor party does not look good. significantly more americans say they want labor unions to have less then, 40%, rather than more influence than they have today. 27% want their influence to stay the same. 40% say they should have less influence, compared to 29%. 46% of americans say unions will become weaker in the future. this general pattern has held each time gallup has asked the question since 1999. minnesota. democratic line. good morning. what do you think? future of the labor movement. caller: i absolutely think the labor movement will be stronger, because if people have faith in the union, it will be very powerful and strong i absolutely think the last caller was absolutely right. . workforce started weakening along time ago. the last administration, the job market started losing jobs, 700,000 per month. if this administration and the democratic party started focusing on that and let's the american people know all they want to do to go back -- to bring policy. so i think they should be ok. host: caller, do you think unions should tap into the discontent out there? >> caller: people forget what happened yesterday. they just focus on today and tomorrow. i am working right now. what i tell a lot of my friends at my workplace, they do not even remember what happened to them yesterday. i think if the democratic party focused on this, campaigning hard, they should be absolutely ok. host: jay in huntsville, alabama. on the republican line. what do you think? caller: i think people have forgotten one of the laws of economic reality. when i asked people what made there were twosouth grow, things that took place early -- the labor movement in the north and -- in the economic laws there is one law that is as powerful as supply and demand -- wages, jobs when wages are low. when you have people in the labor movement making $70 an hour, you cannot afford it. you cannot sell your product. i will relate to real quick stories. as a kid riding a bicycle throwing papers going to a doughnut shop, living in burning birmingham at the time, and the union guy gave me a hard time of going into the shop to buy doughnuts. the other thing is that my father was a policeman in birmingham at the time. for months, he had to have a sign policeman whenever at&t was on strike at the time, because the union people were absolutely thuggish. host: unions have changed since then. what do think the future hold? caller: has anyone tried to repeal the law of supply and demand lately? you cannot repeal that economic lot. jobs and go where wages are the lowest. so get your demand into reality. my cousin is a labor organizer in california. he and i have had some conversations over time, but guess what? his union continues to shrink, shrink, shrink, particularly the later in life -- had a job as a senior in college, i was a warden in a county jail, and the teamsters or on strike. they were shooting up trucks. we ended up having the president got arrested, brought to jail, and hoffa would not even bail out. host: "falling into poverty. job losses hit states middle income families large. two years ago, he was getting to see the results of his labor. a week ago, instead of bringing his newborn son home to a condominium he had rented for 12 years, johnson and his wife when, to the health and garden inn and milton. in this recession, thousands of once comfortable connecticut families have fallen into poverty. the reports shows that the heaviest job losses have been in the middle of the pay scale and that connecticut has seen more long-term unemployment than anywhere else." independent line, los angeles. freddy, go ahead. caller: i think the future of the union movement is in dismal trouble. unfortunately, they will bring the rest of us down with them. job losses overseas. is the labor movement itself that cause that. they virtually brought down the steel industry in this country. and that is what ships jobs overseas. i suppose the crisis is going on in every state government in the nation -- it is the public service employee unions. as the caller said, you cannot violate the law of supply and demand they ridiculous salaries. the passionate -- they have ridiculous salaries. if you -- if you are public employee, there should be no unions. the private sector is bad enough. right now they are running an extortion on the american taxpayer. host: let me get your reaction to a piece for "the washington post,"about this being no holiday free labor unions. unions represent less than 30% of the work force. when union is represented over 33% of private workers in the 1940's, they drove wage increases for everyone. now union firms have to compete for good workers. unions struggle to defend their member wages and benefits. before the recession, productivity soared, profits rose, and ceo pay skyrocketed but most workers lost ground. what do you make of that? caller: henry ford was the first one to boost up wages for workers. even before henry ford, carnegie did it. wages were going up before unions came into existence. it was up tracking during the halt industrial revolution. unions got the credit. when the steel companies took over and have these ridiculous and work rules, it made it impossible for americans to compete against other steel mills over the world. the facts do not bear it out. they can run the company as they see fit. it is not some outside union leader who should run the company as well. i challenge any union member out there to run your own company if you think everything is so unfair. host: we will go to springfield, massachusetts. on the republican line. louise. caller: i wanted to comment on some things that i see going on in the -- industry, which is definitely shifting to mexico and other countries. this includes non-food items like toothbrushes and various things like that. the insurance costs have gone up tremendously for employees. obviously, that is a reason to move. the equipment costs, the wages, the equipment costs, the ingredient costs -- there is no water for agriculture in california. the questionable tax situation. ingredients like sugar are much lower in mexico than here, so a lot of cookie companies are moving there. and then you have the equipment costs. and of course low wages with undocumented workers. so, who would want to do business here? , you have a hard time finding out in the fine print in the package, which you cannot and the food market because you are concerned with what it will buy for dinner bid what the relative price will be -- for dinner and what the relative price will be. so, all in all, i would like to have some comments about the things that i have talked in favor of. by the way, in california, our government shut off the water, agriculture and the middle section of agrtghehe state. those farmers are going to food banks to get food. host: front page of "the washington post" this morning. "housing market out of sync." "buyers, continuing jitters lead to discontent. next to that is the headline this morning that craig's list has stopped offering adult advertisements, say that one of the world's biggest providers of internet classified advertising abruptly shut down the adult services section of his website. if you go to the website, there is a black box containing one word -- censored. the associated press is reporting this morning that palestinian president abbas says he warned israel's prime minister that he will quit peace talks unless israel extends a curb on some construction. benjamin netanyahu has not said what he will do but he told his cabinet on sunday that creative solutions are needed to make the talks succeed. the front page of "the new york times" this morning has a long piece about secretary of state hillary clinton's role in these peace talks. clinton is facing a crucial test in these talks. mrs. clinton will be in the thick of the negotiations between prime minister benjamin netanyahu and the palestinian authority president abbas when they meet on september 14 and egypt. her role will be -- will be to take over from george mitchell when the two sides run into serious obstacles. it may prove the greatest test yet for mrs. clinton ought -- one that could cement legacy as a diplomat in she solves the riddle that foiled even her husband, president bill clinton, but it could propose soon begin risks to any political ambitions she may harbor. dave on the independent line. we are talking about the future of the labor movement. what do you think? caller: obviously the more manufacturing we have done by the union, the higher our costs will be, and that is why they do it in the other countries. but my concern is that trumka and sterns seemed to be wanting to go for a global union. if i was a union member here, i would be worried that i was being used as a useful idiot in the meantime. host: why you say a global union? caller: there is plenty of youtube video on this of them talking about uniting global workers. to get into the -- i do not want to say new world order stuff, because that is so far out there. they're trying to globalize the unions and other countries, and it is just a giant power grab. host: let's go to democrat. stan in philadelphia. caller: i am a union. \ the reason we have no unions is the republicans. they hate unions. host: y do you think membership has fallen for unions? caller: they sold the country out. they sold out for money. all about free enterprise. they do not selling out to other countries. they ship the jobs down south. some of them people do not have good sense. i hate to say it. host: stan, do you pay membership dues? caller: this is always been a union place. people that ship their jobs down sell or of the country, they do not have no benefits. i am retired. we have union meetings still. host: stan, move on to charles on the republican line. caller: good morning. supply and demand is what it is. it is the union leaders that are the corrupt people. the union workers are good people, but it is the leaders. the leaders take the money and their dues and spend it on politicians to get a vote so they can keep the leaders in a position. the textile industry moved from the northeast down to the south because of the corruption and the wages. now, in nebraska, an omaha, they asked the unions, the public unions and just to take one day off without pay. and they said, no. they just needed that to make the budget better. the unions, in a sense, have created their own problem. they lie to people. card check. that is a bogus name. they will take a secret ballot away from the union man. if he wants to vote for union or against it, he ought to be able to do that in private. host: rasmussen is out with their presidential poll. votersthe nation's strongly approve of barack obama. 45% strongly approved -- strongly disapprove. out yesterday with their latest poll on the president. new york. michael, independent line. caller: good morning. i think this discussion about unions it is on the private side is going in the wrong direction. unions are mandatory. i want to bring that out directly. unions are mandatory for all county, city, state and federal workers. so sanitation, teachers, clerical workers, police, fire -- they earn about 50% more than the private side. it's mandatory. now, the situation is funny. i am a professor. and my projected retirement is like $45,000. social security is $12,000 per year. i was out with a sanitation person. his pension is $68,000 per year. no education, no higher education. trump pointed out the real problem with ben bernanke. bush change the inflation number in 2002. he put a person in from texas. so trump said the following question which everyone should consider -- how can there be to% inflation if medical costs are going up 14% per year and a college education is going up 11%? it is not possible. the inflation rate has to be well over 5% or 7%. if medical costs -- host host: of around 8:30 a.m. eastern time we will talk to kevin hassett of american enterprise institute, whether or not the stimulus has worked. the president will be unveiling more stimulus, looking at tax credits. we will talk more about that later. for "newsmakers", we sat down with the new commandant of the coast guard, admiral robert papp . here is what he said about the coast guard's response to the bp oil spill. >> are you confident that you have the resources and the structure from the coast guard, the government assets and industry assets, to deal with an equals bill or are greater event -- an equal spill or a greater event? guest: absolutely. perhaps there are improvements and different technologies. i am being flooded by people with different technologies. we responded in an unprecedented way. we flowed all types of coast guard forces down there, from people to some of our seagoing ships that have skimming pot -- skimming ability. >> what weaknesses in the system have you discovered? guest: we are in the process of that. we have a commission that is looking at it. we have the marine investigation going on. it is premature to say that anything is a weakness. we are very pleased with the way overall we have responded, and we will take it delivered approach to looking up the entire case and come up with recommendations on the way ahead. host: you can see the entire interview this morning, 10:00 a.m., right here on this network following today's "washington journal" and again at 6:00 p.m. on c-span. you can also go to c-span.org to watch the video. and we also have an app for "newsmakers" on your iphone as well. we're talking about the future of the labor movement. what are your thoughts this morning? caller: i have been in the union for 32 years. at the time, i started off as labor. and i remember in the 1980's, when president reagan came into office, they cut all our wages. i am a journeyman carpenter. that was when he granted amnesty to the latino workers and brought the mem in. and by him doing that, they laid us off, cut our wages, and that is why you have a lot right now. host: are you there? my apologies. sorry about that. buffalo, minnesota. republican line. caller: good morning. the future of labor --if you are from the northeast, midwest, you need labor in this country. and for the survival of the middle class, you need labor. if you live in the south, where you have the right work states, the people down there think they do not need labor. but then you look at the different income earnings from the north, midwest, and to the south, where it is one of the poorest and education and everything. a lot of them people need to wake up in terms of, in order for us to survive as a country, the working class, you need it labors. so people from the south who consistently think and do things that does not help the poor people down there, which the majority of them are. they need to wake up. thank you very much. host: "the new york times" editorial is about jobs. growth and private jobs has slowed from a monthly average of 119,000 in the first four months to an average of 72,000 jobs. that is not enough to make a dent in the ranks of unemployment. most new jobs in august were in health care and food service, like home care aides and fast food workers. a job is better than no job, but jobs that do not amount to a living will not lift the economy. data and august suggest that the average paycheck, now $774 is being stretched to support more family members, a graduate sick cannot find work, and underemployed workers who are working part-time but need full- time work. in all, the economy is coming up short by 11 million jobs. that employment -- unemployment rate, 9.6% in august, is down from a peak of 10.1% in october. but that is almost entirely from people dropping out of the work force or not entering. they go on to say that fo only sit vacant jobs measure passed this year was a $13 billion hiring credit for employers. the state aid was cut nearly in half before it's made its way through congress. the danger to the economy will not come only from a stall the job market from from -- but from the stalled politics of washington. then, independent line. -- ben, independent line. caller: i have a son just graduated from high school. we had to send him to school to be into labor unions. union dues, every three months. everything. and they kept promising jobs. we ended up spending about $1,700 to give him a job and there was no job to be had. they offered him a job making $7 you haveur and now general motors moving to mexico to set up a big plan. t. host: more on the economy in "the washington post" this morning, about president obama's speech tomorrow and milwaukee. he will travel there for a labor day speech and conduct a news conference friday at the white house. advanced to demonstrate his recommitment to the economy, but it is unlikely he will have an announcement on who will head the new consumer protection bureau? aides say it is possible he could fill another vacancy, the council's economic advisers, which christina romer departed on friday. more about permanent tax credits for businesses in "the new york times". mr. obama is planning to outline the $100 billion proposal in his speech in cleveland. the house republican leader, john boehner, who will probably become house speaker should his party win a majority in november. mr. obama will call for expanding the simpler of two credit options available to business. he would increase that to 17%. the research credit which has existed since 1981 has a strong business support. the issue is that the credit costs. it has always been passed as a temporary credit because of the revenue loss. congress extended it 13 times for as little as six months. when you look at the cost of it, "the new york times" says that it is about $85 billion over 10 years. expanding it would cost $15 billion more. since congress has been temporarily extending it, the treasury would probably give up as much as $100 billion in the coming decade when you look at this legislation. if you want to read more, that is "the new york times" this morning. appleton, wisconsin. paul, democratic line. caller: my thoughts are that if people vote republican, that will be the end of the labor movement. right after bush got into office, with his first tax cut, he called it a tax cut reinvestment act. what he did is he increase the amount of money and loopholes that companies could write off a for shutting off old equipment. right after that, all of the small paper machines -- all of the small mills around apple to and shut down. within the first two years, three mills shut down. i worked at the mill in kimberly for 25 years, and i've lost my job two years ago. this had two of the biggest machines in the united states as they are shut down right now. for all of the republicans out there that wide about socialism, you should check out china because china is building paper machines with --and the government is buying them and putting them in to shut down american workers. host: can you tell us more about your situation? how much were you earning two years ago when you were let go? are you old enough to collect a pension? caller: no. we are originally were owned by repapp, then consolidated took us over. then the company by the name of a new page to this over. and this investment company is called --it is the company that owned chrysler. this investment company was owned by dan quayle. host: do you care to share how much were making two years ago? caller: or around $19 an hour. we were making 2,000 tons of paper a day. if you figure in the amount of per ton, that bill was raking in about $1.5 million per day -- that mill was raking in about $1.5 million per day. they shut us down. host: are there other jobs to have been looking for since then? caller: yes, i have, but the market is tight around here now. i'm 45 years old. i think they want younger workers. it is hard to get a job when you're older. host: have you found a job that will pay $19 an hour? caller: no. i am one of the people that is getting to the end of my unemployment benefits, because there are not any jobs. i had one interviews so far at wal-mart, and that was right after i lost my job at the mill. and they offered me $8 an hour. host: and email from of your. viewer. a "a principal factor is the price of labor." another e-mail -- "the jobs were given away by a republican party and a democratic president. clinton signed than half the bill which sent many more jobs to mexico -- signed the nafta bill, which sent many more jobs to mexico. until free trade is eliminated and factories returned to the u.s., we will suffer." caller: a man who called earlier as a republican says he is against free trade. free trade is not conservative. it is highly liberal. i think the labor movement goes to show that history is important, because of the history of labor and so forth. my dad was a steel worker. host: duncan, we will move on to john on the independent lines in pennsylvania. quickly before you began, i want to let our viewers know what is breaking on the wire this morning. a suicide car bomb explodes in baghdad. kills 8. wounding 29. last telephone call here. john, what are your thoughts here on the future of the labor movement? you are calling on the independent line. caller: the future of unions looks bad, but people have to remember -- right to work states are red states. they are the lowest in the country in education, health care, infant mortality, all those things that are negative those are non-union states. the happiest people on earth are danes, finns, swedes, and you can look that up. they are all strong union states. european governments realize that the top gets the money. you would do all the viewers of c-span a big favor if you had each of these the think tanks that come on. you have american enterprise institute. they are funded by the coke brothers. they fund cato institute, all these guys. whether right or left, ask and have them submit who funds them, because otherwise, we just going round and round year after year listening to american enterprise institute, who is a shill for republicans or conservatives. host: do you acknowledge that there are liberal think tank funded by a large democratic donors as well? caller: of course, but i am asking you for new viewers are people that are not aware, find out who finds them. host: we can certainly ask the question of kevin hassett when he joins us at 8:30 a.m. eastern time. we will turn our attention to campaign 2010. labor day is the official kickoff of the season. we will talk about that key house and senate races coming up next. first, a look at what is ahead on the sunday shows. >> here is the lineup for today's sunday television talk shows. at noon, eastern, you will hear "meet the press" re-airs. issues include fault midterm elections, unemployment, middle east peace, and afghanistan. charting host david gregory are republican senator lindsey graham and the campaign manager for the obama 2008 presidential campaign. tony blair is interviewed. on fox news sunday, chris wallace talks with arizona republican senator john mccain and tim kaine, chairman of the democratic national committee. face the nation at 3:00. they discuss the economy with laura tyson, former chair of the house economic advisers. finally, at 3:30, it's cnn's "state of the union,"they talk about the fall lections with the afl-cio president trumka. yanda look at afghanistan and middle east policies with michael duffy of time magazine. again, the five sunday television talk shows began re- airing at noon eastern time with "meet the press" at 1:00. abc's this week. 3:00, "face the nation." listen to them all on c-span radio, on 90.1, on your iphone or channel 132 on sirius satellite radio. >> "washington journal" continues. isenstadt is the national reporter for politico. labor day is the official kickoff. what should viewers expect? guest: what you will see beginning tuesday, you will see a barage of money coming in from interest groups in a last- ditch campaign in the final weeks of the race. there will be millions of dollars spent on the air and a last effort to define these races. host: where will that money be coming from, individual candidates or the outside groups like the democratic national committee or the republican national committee or the third party groups? one caller referred to the coke brothers and what they are spending for their third party 527 group. then you have karl rove at american crossroads. guest: we're looking at how republican outside groups have into theseneled money races. the republican national committee is that a cash deficit compared to their democratic rivals. republican candidates are relying on these conservative outside groups to funnel millions of dollars. host: can they make up the difference? democrats have a cash advantage going into november. guest: democrats will at least have an cash advantage, and the fact that they on the white house. these conservative groups can help close the difference. host: what is it looking like for the democrats in the house, republicans in the house? guest: for democrats, it could not be that much worse. it is about managing your losses. democrats will have to decide where they want to cut their losses, which members they want to invest in, which members are laws, which members can still be saved. for house republicans, it is about upping their game, deciding where they want to invest their funds to boost the number is as much as they can. host: that is the headline on the front page of "the new york times" this morning. democrats plan a political triage to retain the house. what are some of the races that democrats will have to say, we will not spend any money on your race? gu guest: democrats and very conservative district. democrats that barely one -- virginia and maryland. then you have democrats that face tougher calls. chett edwards faces a tough race. these are members represent conservative districts. this may not be the year for them to save their seats. host: what will be the game plan for the white house to save the majority in the house? guest: to be very cold-blooded in their a look and where they need to invest in these races. decide where their money can make a difference. host: will the president be campaigning for individual candidates? will he stay clear and fund- raiser for them instead? what will he do? guest: i think you'll see president obama heading up the new york checkbox pretty soon. he will head up the los angeles checkbox. -- checkbooks. many of the conservative democrats -- and democrats in conservative districts, do not want to have the present campaign for them. the individualize their races. the distance themselves from the national party. host: the first lady is going to spend some of her political capital and carefully stepped into the campaign season. where do you expect to see her? guest: we have not seen a lot yet as to where exactly michelle obama plans to weigh in. we know she is very popular. what we also know is that she is planning on increasing visibility and a final two months of this year. host: will see mostly talk about issues or on the campaign trail? when you talk about raising her profile. guest: she will be very active with her get healthy platform she has been running out there. we also know that she will be making appearances with laura bush next week in pennsylvania to commemorate 9/11. we are expecting to see more for. it is not clear how active she will be on the campaign trail. if you read the reports, they indicate that she may be weary of waiting too deep in the political waters. a lot of the republicans do not want to be too close to the national party, either. a lot of them are taking the anti-washington banner themselves. we are seeing someone like dick armey coming out. some of these candidates are taking in a tea party leaders. i do not think you'll see that many republicans running close to washington. host: what influence will sarah palin have? guest: she has been active in endorsing candidates across the country. how active issue will be remains to be seen. it will very district by district. host: we are talking with alex isenstadt of politico about this year's campaign season and what to expect. ads, money, you will see it happening in the months to come. little rock, arkansas. paul, republican line. go ahead. caller: good morning. i think the republican party will gain control of both houses of congress. i think they should because we need to get back to a common sense agenda for america. host: all right. let's talk about american crossroads a bit more. i thought when i read, this is karl rove's group, when they first came out there would be paying a lot of attention to state legislatures and governors, because they were looking more towards the future of the republican party and of trying for re-districting to make sure there was a strong influence on the state level. have they had to re-focus? or have they planned all along to be focused on these house- senate races? guest: there is a big portion of both parties right now that are focused on the state legislature and re-disk testing right now -- re-districting right now. if you look at american crossroads, they are taking a advantage of what is a great opportunity for republicans across the country, to take over the house and possibly even the senate. if you are a republican now, you know where your dollars need to be going. host: american crosshairs is out with a new advertisement, going after michael bennett, to replace now interior secretary ken salazar. take a look at this ad. >> coloradans are in debt to washington. it spenders like michael bennett are spending $2.5 billion per day, wasting billions on failed stimulus programs. the result? over 100,000 jobs lost. bankruptcy's reaching an all- time high. it might be we have nothing to show for it. call. tell bennett to stop spending. host: that was american crossroads gps. ed gillespie's and karl rov'ee's group. >> for 100 years, we the people have picked our senators. but ken buck wanted to r ewrite the constitution. he proposed ending our right to vote for our own senators. rewriting the constitution, ending our right to vote? ken but is too extreme for colorado. the democratic senatorial campaign is responsible for the content of this advertisement. host: what is going on here? guest: what is going on is that you have republicans trying to portrayed michael bennett as connected to the national party, as someone who is weak on spending issues. then you have democrats tried to cast ken buck, the republican nominee, as someone who is of step with colorado voters. who is far too conservative. host: charlie cook wrote that it seemed a mathematical possible -- in possibility that republicans could score at 10 seats. but he is saying that it is not out of the realm of possibility now. guest: it is not out of the realm of possibility, but it is still unlikely. republicans would have to win in states they have not typically one. states like washington, a state by california or wisconsin, where russ feingold is running for reelection. democrats have a fire wall that republicans will need to barge through to take control of the senate. host: why is russ feingold in trouble? the president is going there tomorrow. will the senator be with him? guest: they have a better opportunity because they have a self-funded candidates, who is spending a lot of money. he is going on the airwaves heavily. he will be difficult to defeat. polls show the race very close. host: los angeles. our independent line. good morning. what is your question or comment? caller: i am listening to this about economic stimulus, and i think our whole system is antiquated. what they expect to gain from new technology is even surpassing their own intelligence. i think our senate, our government, our president, i think that is beyond their scope. i think we need to get people more educated, in the sense they understand what they are doing and what we are transitioning to. you cannot transition to an economy with a new product and shut everything else down and expect to create jobs. host: let me bring this back to campaign 2010. are you saying that the candidates out there do not have the economic background, education to bring us out of our economic situation? caller: i think they are depending on the very secretive way of turning around our economy with the new technology that they expect to have. no one has really talked about exactly what that is. host: how are you going to vote? carly fiorina in the senate race foreg whitman running governor. caller: i will vote for fiorina. i won't vote for whitman. on top of being educated, you have to have a human conscience. the: let's talk about senate race in california. barbara boxer versus carly fiorina. he will vote as an independent for carly fiorina. guest: a very democratic state. if republicans win california, they could take over the senate. that is exactly how bad a year it is. a tough race. a tough battle looms. she raised a lot of moeny ney. she is pressuring fiorina as too far right for voters. host: go to our website if you want to watch the exchange in their debate. lexington, ky. al on the democratic line. caller: i was calling to comment on the bush legacy and his legacy as what has got us into this quagmire. taking care of the rich folks where the trickle down has never gone to pour people. it is what he has done over the past eight years that got us into this dilemma. host: is that sentiment enough to get you ought to vote for democrats? caller: absolutely. we cannot put tea partiers in like rand paul, will not do anything for blacks and minorities. he will go back to years of the reminders of slavery and those types of things. all these people have the same ideas thatbus bush had. host: al, do you think your democratic friends are is motivated as you are? do you have any concerns? caller: if we can get the economy stimulated, and the w a bring middle class folks in, and quit the republican party -- the party of no. host: we got your point. let me have alex isenstadt handicap the kentucky senate race. . . host: not charlie crist? caller: i like him, but he isn't conservative enough. host: how about the governors's race. caller: whoever the republican is. host: all right. two vital job plans are fuzzy on details. republican rick scott and democratic alex sink are duking it out in a hostile race to be governor. they agree that more jobs are needed. columbia, south carolina, george, independent line. good morning. caller: good morning. you got a good point, the guy that called before had a good point. america has got to wake up. the republicans don't care about you, the democrats don't care about you. you got to care about yourself. you can't vote for a party. c-span, you got three lines, independent, democrats and republicans, splitting the country up. you all are splitting the country up. the politicians pitting the republicans against the democrats, vice versa. it's not going to work. all of them are crooked. host: all right. are republicans looking at these favorable numbers they've seen coming out of gallup saying they can take back the house with a wide margin in those numbers? any concern that the sentiment that the caller stated, neither party cares about the constituencies, and the caller before that talking about president bush. guest: there is anger at about the parties. voters polls show voters are taking out anger at democrats. republicans fare well in these races. host: next caller, florida. caller: the job issue is important to me and my adult children. i'll be joining many workers that will be at the msnbc rally in washington, d.c. october 2. i support meeks and gray son here in orlando. i believe that as republicans rule again, we'll go back to a corporate rule like we had under bush. bush's tax cuts back in 2001 was supposed to give corporations ins septemberive to say reinvest in the workplace, but they didn't, they did not upgrade machinery or produce more jobs. instead, like my corporation i work for, they made one worker do the work of two or three, stopped giving raises on bonuses, and bush's secretary of labor chow cut back on how much overtime you can make. i think many americans remember this. host: ok. let's talk about those two races she mentioned, the senate race in florida, and the house race with grayson. grayson. guest: florida, you have three very serious candidates running, governor charlie crist running as an independent, mark rubio and congressman meek. charlie crist has tried to peel away voters in order to advance. rubio is picking up republicans. charlie crist is trying to win more centrist voters. how much success crist has in doing that could well determine the outcome of this race. the alan grayson race, fascinating playing out in orlando. gayson has been very visible an msnbc and liberal talk shows. he has raised a lot of money, not apologized for his support of the republican agenda. can he win in a democratic orlando city is the question. host: how are you going to vote this november? i'll vote republican. i'll go to reasons here. i think all our job situations created with the lack of proper care of incoming goulds in this country. those tariffs are to be used to give tax breaks. tax breaks create balance of trade, give our companies a good footing here in this country to compete. world trade is good. it's a good thing, but it's got to be fair and balanced. that's where the job situation has gone downhill in this country. concerning unions, if folks are concerned, they'll be asking where do all the millions of dollars go that they pay in union dues. this money should be put away for their pensions, put in safe funds. now they're talking about another bailout for the u.a.w.? i don't think so. it's time we put a stop to that. host: ok, do you want to take the first part of his comments. guest: to the question of bailouts, there is a lot of anger at bailouts, has a lot of discontent across the country. a lot of democrats are running against the bailouts. they voted against that. republicans, too, have also seen some trouble with that. republicans who in primaries supported the bailouts, some of whom have lost their seats in primaries. host: what about the tough three or five issues that the voters are motor concerned about, economy, jobs, jobs, jobs, number one. what else are people talking about? guest: spending is the other issue right now, and to a certain extent, health care has been an issue that volares are angry about. we have a story on our site today talking about how you only see democrats running against health care at this point, something that the white house and democrats, the message on that issue never gelled. host: democrats are running against health care? guest: absolutely. certain districts are spotlighting their opposition to health care and their vote against that bill. host: what are republicans doing on the issue of health care? guest: you're seeing republicans across the country slam the national democratic leadership for pushing health care and the ambitious agenda on cap and trade and spending. that's why we're seeing it come up in so many raises. host: tim, independent line. caller: with two pieces of background, obama's approval rating being low, but popularity being high, and the way that congress has stalled, legislation gets through, but it can't get through the house or the senate. i realize that all politics are local, is there any thought, have you heard anything about more nationalized campaign where obama, almost a national campaign where obama really talks to the people and says look, everything is stalling because of filibuster in the senate, and we have to stop that or nothing is going to happen? and i'll step down now and hear your answer. host: tim, how are you going to vote this november? caller: absolutely going to vote democratic for one big reason, that tax break at the very top, that 4.5%, that costs so much money, and does so little, and the c.b.o. has over and over said every dollar to goes to that top 2%, and i'm in that top 2%. only a dollar or two gets back into the economy, where everybody below, $1.60 goes back not economy. host: tim, have you ever voted for a republican. caller: yeah, i worked on reagan's campaign back in the day. host: did you vote for president bush? caller: absolutely not. guest: if you're democratic, here's the problem. there's very little time for democratic to say change the narrative, change the conversation that people are talking about. from national point of view, the cake is baked. there is little president obama can do between now and the election. it's up to democrats in local races running for the house across the country, for them to define the race on their own terms. they are going to have to go negative against their republican opponents. there is up to the democrats in these individuals races right now. host: jack, democratic line from tennessee. good morning, jack, you're on the air. caller: on this race and stuff, it's going on between the democrats and republicans right now about taxes. in the old west, when they had gold mines and went out to ghost towns, today, it's over jobs overseas is the gold and stuff. we in the cut and run society, whereas the corporate world is not under the american flag. in the bible, about god and satan, it's all about the rich man. god got rid of him, because he didn't care for the people. host: jack let's talk about tennessee's eighth district race. what's happening in this race. why is this so competitive. caller: it's the race for january to knower in tennessee. i don't think democrats could have picked a much better candidate than roy haran. he is state senator, well known pickup to have wonder if democrats can really win. the republican is a good candidate. a lot of people like him a lot. this could be a tough seat to hold on to. host: good morning, frank. caller: good morning. i'm a republican who is a capitalist who thinks the democratic party has let the country down because they don't have an industrial policy. health insurance is killing american industry. you cannot afford to compete. when various companies go to other countries with different divisions, they tell you what your health care costs, that you are saving millions. host: we are talking about campaign 10 here. how are you going to vote in that senate race, pat toomey or sustak? caller: i think the lobbyists control the republican party. they are not capitalist, they are paralyzed. host: david berger writes in his column this morning, "the stark choice in pennsylvania, that both of these candidates are trying to say they are moderate. do you believe that president toomey is a moderate republican? he brought in susan collins of maine for a fundraiser and told and interviewer that he would have confirmed justice sotomayor for the supreme court. caller: the republican party must help industry. if they do not, nobody will. the health care was doomed because it's not done in a way to protect. we have insurance companies last week, a guy retired with $133 million package. these people are taking money that industry has to make up. host: frank, we got your point. host: toomey held the point that viewers can expect two months of ads arguing that the other guy is the extremist. alan, does that handicap that race? guest: toomey is a different candidate than we've seen run in the past. he was very conservative when he was in the house. when he ran against aurelian specter six years ago, he was known as being very conservative. enis running much nowhere moderate against joe sesak, congressman from pennsylvania. the question is is that can democrats written in pennsylvania, which is a battleground state in a very tough year. it could be an uphill battle for them, i think. host: joseph from pennsylvania, independent line. you're on the air. caller: good morning. host: good morning. caller: i'm an independent. i could never support republican. republican doesn't support unemployment or health care. they are always voting no on everything. i don't see any reason why anybody would volt forum. host: we'll go on to try, democratic line in greensboro, north carolina. go ahead, troy. caller: people are talking about job loss in the country. the biggest thing about the job loss is the and is the nafta t. it has hurt the jobs in middle class and manufacturing. host: nafta was put into place by bill clinton. given what you just said, what does that mean for how you will volt this november? caller: i will volt for democratic. bill clinton did shine bill, but that wrong don't make right. we need to change it, make revisions to the nafta treaty. i want to comment on what people were saying earlier is that the unions are the reason jobs left the country. host: we are talking about campaign 2010. miller's campaign promise in alaska. he is saying less. alaska gets a lot of federal support. jill miller ran on getting less. if you're interested in this piece, it takes a look at who joe miller is. miller left the army to attend law school at yale, where a professor who new him well recalled a compassionate man who chose to move to alaska for a long internship. he could have clerked on the east coast, done extremely well in kansas, instead, he's a real adventurer. he wanted to strike out and go to this frontier to make a name for himself. he lives on 20-acres with his wife outside of fairbanks. what is next in this senate race? guest: this was on no one's radar screen two weeks ago. democrats are taking a local look at this race. at the end of the day, it's hard to see national republicans invested in this race. california or pennsylvania, this is going to be a tough seat for democrats to win. it's more in play than it used to be. host: it's a republican-leaning state, likely that joe miller wins? guest: absolutely. host: from new york, republican line, you're next. caller: i'd like to see term limits straight across the board. i think the problem is you get these career politicians elected, and they make all these promises when it comes to campaign and election time, but seems as though election time is over, they go back to their elitist club and they're self-serving. they forget about what the forefathers started our government for, to serve the people. democrats and republicans, they both need to be limited as far as how long they can serve, and then once we get down to that, maybe we can turn the country around. host: all right. we'll go on to massachusetts, maureen, independent line. good morning. caller: good morning, how are you? host: doing well. caller: good. i do have a comment. host: ok. caller: i follow this very closely, and i follow fox news very closely, as well as your station. i do feel very strongly that there needs to be a stimulus for the actual taxpayer. i think that if president obama would give money back to the taxpayer, you'll see the economy get back. host: what do you think that would do for democratic's prospects in november, if he were to put forth an idea that would go right to the individual, an economic idea? caller: i think it would help them, because i'm not going to vote democratic. even though i'm an independent, i will volt as republican. host: what about a payroll tax holiday. caller: no, i don't think so, because independent contractors, we don't get paid unless we sell. we cannot collect unemployment. he needs to put into this system a stimulus package for the taxpayer, and i mean money, i mean like $15,000 to $20,000 per taxpayer. he can do it. host: if he did, would you vote for democrats? caller: then i would vote for the democrats, because he's now helping the people. the unemployment is over 9.8% right now. there is no money for the person to go spend, and there is no money in the housing. we went a whole year with no sales. congress has spent money on things they should not have done. give us a a break, give the cash to us. then he will see the economy come back. he always says i feel sorry for the taxpayer. host: what about the politics of the economy and jobs. the president is likely to focus on republican proposals, tax credits for businesses, a payroll tax holiday. does that sell to somebody like maureen? guest: you have to discredit the republican ideas at this point if you're a democratic. there's no realtime right now before november for a legislative fix. we know the house and senate are going to be in session for three weeks and go home and campaign. there is not time to get things done on capitol hill. it's up to democrats and president obama to discredit republican ideas as much as they can before the election. is president obama going to offer any solution himself? the problem for democrats is the cake is pretty much baked. you haven't seen the kind of economic recovery that they wanted to see over the summer. host: we wanted to let our viewers know about the outlook section of the washington post. chuck schumer writes a long piece this morning about if democrats don't want to relive a disastrous 1994 year, that they should steal a page from the gop playbook from 1980 to. kentucky, democratic line, go ahead. caller: i want to make a comment, and i'll get off and listen. i think the answer to everything is what obama is wanting to do, and republicans won't leave him alone, but all he has to do is release that reserve oil we have and let it get out on the market at a fair rate, and that will bring gas down where us poor people can afford it, and that will start the economy rolling, and then we need to invest in the refining business, because we to have refine it for all these people in our countries, and that will straighten the whole works out. host: raymond, are you going vote this november? caller: yes, ma'am, i'm going to vote democratic. host: why is that? caller: because i always have. we never got anything when we got republicans in charge. host: are you motivated to get out to the polls? caller: yes, ma'am, i never missed one. host: all right. we'll go to the republican line. dan in pasadena. do you plan to vote in november? caller: yes, i do. host: how will you vote? caller: republican. i just feel that i do believe the democrats are in for a major crash, because all the programs to are going on. i do feel that the republican incumbents are not safe at all, as well, because they've been in there way too long. i think we will take the senate. host: dan, before you go, let me ask you about republican leadership. you said republican incumbents have been in there too long. what do you think about the leadership or john boehner becoming speaker? caller: i think he will become a speaker. host: do you support that? caller: sometimes. i'm 50/50 on boehner. he is conservative, but he does have -- he lets his mouth get him in trouble. sometimes he doesn't think real clearly. i just believe that people should instead of counting on the government, if they want a hand to count on, it should be at the end of their own arm. host: let's talk about republican leadership. if republicans take control of the house, will we see a shakeup in the ranks? guest: you are going to see presumably if the republicans take control of the house, and boehner becomes speaker, cantor of virginia moves up to majority leader, then it's a battle for whip. kevin mccarthy could be interested. you could see someone like mike pence of indiana, who is the current house chair interested. you could see a number of people interested in that position. then it shuffles down from there, who takes on the position of national republican chair, there would be seats up for grabs on the republican side. you don't see a big shift in democratic ranks if the republicans take over. host: if democrats take control, would nancy pelosi lose the top job? guest: that would be the million dollar question. everything would shuffle down from there and work itself out from that point on, but that would be a million dollar question i think. host: thanks for your time this labor day weekend. guest: you're welcome. host: we turn our attention to the economy and stimulus, and whether or not it worked. first, a look at the past week through the eyes of a few of the nation's editorial cartoonists. host: we will talk the stimulus and economy. let me show the viewers this article. obama to pitch permanent tax credit. do you support this idea? host: it's an open question. r&d is something that should be subs died by the government. it's hard to fix, but it's really a mess. host: it says that besides seeking a permanent credit, mr. obama will expand two simpler of the credits available to businesses, increasing that to 17% from 14%. guest: that's the kind of thing they need to do, move people off the really complicated thing. the sort of idea is that if they do research into weather, a new flavor of pop art is going to sell. they try to wall it off, but don't do it successfully. there are international definitions of research that should be adopted. the current proposal doesn't do that, but it's a step in the right direction. host: does that mean this idea should be supported legislatively before the house and senate break? guest: you can never predict during a appliesiccal cycle what is going to happen. every economistist i know would dispute about that. the economic bureau of research has folks studying research and development and the way credits interact with it. if i stimulate you to do research, you might learn something, and then the thing you learn might give me a good idea, and then i think of something, too, and things cascade. the return to r&d can be as high as 50%. years from now, these ideas feed on each other, and we'll have a stronger economy. host: the cost of this. "the new york times" article says making the credit permanent will cost and estimated $85 billion over 10 years and expanding it will cost $15 billion more. doing so would end one of the longest running gimmicks in town. the president and both parties have called for a permanent extension but kept it temporary. based on that history, the treasury would probably give up as much as $100 billion in the coming decade in any case. given that, do you have concerns about adding to the deficit with this cost, $85 billion, $100 billion, up to 10 years. guest: i think it's actually a nice, clever idea by the president, because the fact is that the budget cost for this is really zero, as "the new york times" writes, or almost zero, because they did expand it. the r&d credit is one of the biggest scams in washington. every year they pass it for one or two more years and don't to have count the cost of it past that window. there's nobody that wants it to expire. they're trying to renew it every year. congressman like to have it up in the air, because campaign contradictors have to give them money to help shepherd it through. ending the scam, giving certainty about what the credit will look like over the next decade is a good idea and doesn't cost much because they were going to extend it anyway. host: payroll tax holiday, how did it work, and how much will it cost? guest: the basic idea is when you work, even if you're poor person one have to mail a check to the government, and the employer has to mail a check, as well. that increase, the cost the hiring workers, and reduces the benefit, the take home pay to you. both of those things are a bad idea right now with the unemployment rate still a little bit below 10%. what we want to do is stimulate firms to hire people, and not having to pay the payroll tax each month when they hire the person, and the workers, we want them to buy more stuff so they have more money to take home with them. both of those things are helped by the rarely tax. the other thing i like about the payroll tax cult is it's not a big government step. david williams wrote he considered an alternative history where president obama instead of having this really big expansion of government spending had a payroll tax holiday that he pursued as the major centerpiece of his stimulus right when he first came to office. i think the world would be a different place. it's a much better idea, cutting marginal tax rates, doesn't expand government a whole lot, so maybe the tea party doesn't even get started. host: how long do you do a tax pay holiday, for months, a year? guest: it costs a heck of a lot of money. i would say that a year is very, very expensive, so i would be surprised if they even went that long. the factual is that the economy a week ago looked like it was poised to head back into recession. we kept getting bad report after bad report, then got a jobs report that was not so bad, showing that it could be a lot better, the unemployment rate was still terrible, but we at least added jobs in the months. we inched away from the precipice. maybe we don't need quite a big stimulus as we thought. i thought after the august jobs report that there was a good chance we'd be back in a recession. the markets rallied when the jobs report came out, because the jobs report was better than we expected. host: why is the payroll tax cut necessary. guest: we edged back from the precipice, but we are only three steps away. host: you and other republicans and it looks like maybe the president will put this idea out there to go forward. how does that create a job, though, if the companies that are going to be saving a little bit of money, they don't have to pay this tax, but we've seen companies over the past year or two years are hoarding their money, not spending it. where's the guarantee that they'll take that savings and invest? guest: not everybody is going to do that. at the margin, it's an incentive to do so. i'm trying to get you to work and get harder, but you want to go home and spend time with your family, but if i throw in some overtime, you'll stay and work a little harder. i think based on prefers variations and labor tax, this will push things in the right direction. it's not a radical change. i thought it should be paired with long-run changing to the social security formulas that kind of paid for it, so you have absolute transparency. that would have been budget neutral. they're not doing that, but i think they should. the fact is that the deficit is really hoar filing, and to add to it right now is miscarry. host: you've been critical of the $787 billion stimulus. $281.2 billion paid out. you've been critical of it. president obama's that his administration stopped the bleeding of the middle class. i want to show the viewer that is, and we'll come back and talk about it. >> we need bustling main streets and a growing, thriving middle class. that's why i'll keep working day by day to restore opportunity, economic security, and that basic american dream for families and future generations. first, that means doing everything we can to accelerate job creation. the steps we've taken to date have stopped the bleeding. investments in roads, bridges, and high speed railroads will lead to hundreds of thousands of jobs in the private sector, emergency layoffs to prevent the layoffs of teachers, firefighters and police officers, and tax cuts for small business owners who create most of the jobs in this country. we ended a tax loophole that encouraged companies to create jobs overseas. i am fighting for tax breaks for folks who create jobs right here in america. host: kevin, you disagree, why? guest: there is a heck of a lot going on in that statement. the big picture reason why i think the first stimulus wasn't designed as well as it could have, and it sort of responds to the idea that he stopped the bleeding, i think he probably did stop the bleeding, but he probably could have stopped the bleeding, and given some medication, as well. the fact that they didn't is a loft opportunity, and one reason the economy is still weak. my criticism of the first stimulus is just that if you look at the economics profession, there are two schools of thought, there are those who think the stimulus was perfectly designed, except it was too small. there are people, supply siders, i guess we could call them who think that the stimulus isn't effectively, but that if you reduce tax rates, it can be. there is a lot of evidence looking at both of those schools of thought, and on the tax cut side, for stimulus, christy romer has a famous paper that shows if you cut tax rates during a recession, you can juice up the economy. on the spending side, there is more disagreement. some people think the effects are large, some think they're small. seems to me given the two branches of the literature, one with strong evidence if do you that it will work, one with evidence maybe it will work, the right answer for a president would be to look at all that and say maybe we ought to try a little bit of both, because i'm not exactly sure what will work. we should try and get built of this and that. the stimulus designed, they put all eggs in one basket. tax cuts weren't marginal rate reductions. they mailed check to say people and didn't reduce tax. we are going for another round of stimulus, and it seems he is taking it for the other side, going for the marginal rate reductions. host: kevin is our guest until 9:15. our caller is from georgia. go ahead. caller: george h.w. bush is the one who first entered the nafta agreement, and the congress gave bill clinton nafta to sign. i wanted to correct what you used earlier. host: you don't think that clinton supported the idea? caller: he signed the bill. but the republicans are the ones has are who are in charge. they gave him that it was a part of their contract. they're the ones who sent our jobs overseas. but enough of that. i want to get to kevin. guest: ok. caller: i have a problem with businesses wanting our tax dollars to start new ventures and to subsidize them, but when there's a problem, they talk about government's causing the problem. if there's free market and capitalism, why do they have to use the taxpayers money to start and fund these businesses? guest: thanks, kay. i to have respond to the clinton thing, even though kay didn't want me to. i think that one has to concede and state if you look at the way trade has been handled by presidents at least in my adult lifetime, that president clinton was the person who got it the best. he's the person who handled it the best, talking a lot about the benefits of free trade, but focused on the dislocation it's caused if you live in a town where your factory closes because the one in mexico is cheaper. while pursuing free trade, he also pursued aggressive health for the people who experienced the dislocations. if we think back, that's the last time our nation made great strides in trade because clinton had a reasonable approach that appealed to people of both parties. president bush, and now president obama have deviated a lot from the clinton strategy, and that's why we're not making progress anymore. it's wrong not to give clinton for nafta. he deserves more credit than kay is giving him. i don't do that a lot. i'm not clinton's biggest fan. we are saying that the businesses should get to keep more money to stimulate them to do things, expand their businesses. if businesses keep less of their money, they're going to decide to operate less. it's at the margin, like if we pay you more, you work harder, if we pay you less, you might not. while they're talking about giving an r&d credit, they are lifting, president obama wants to lift the tax rate in the top bracket. 48% of income is in the top bracket for people who pay the $250,000 that is going to be taxed by president obama if he has his way, and those tax cuts expire. on that, even with the r&d credit, they are significantly increasing taxes on small businesses. host: kevin, we had a viewer call earlier who, and when i mentioned that you were going to be on said, wanted to know who raises money, who funds groups like the american interest prize. he made the point on the democratic side and conservative side, the republican side, we have think tanks in this town that are funded by wealthy people, not just wealthy people, but they make large donations to these think tanks, and we should be more transparent about how you're funded. he mentioned specifically the coke brothers for the american enterprise. guest: i don't know if i can speak to the coke brothers. there's a heck of a lot of information, not only about who supports aei, but what people who work for them make. if you can to our website, you can find all the information you want about that. one of the things we endeavor to do is to separate fundraising from research. if you were to grab a random a.e.i. person and say who gives money, most of them won't know, because we have a fire wall between fundraising, but there are corporations, foundations, individuals. the last i checked, it was equally divided between the three. host: we will go to thomas, democratic line, go ahead. caller: maybe you can help me with this problem. when president bush was in office, most of the people who belonged to the tea party and conservative groups supported his invasion of iraq and the trillions of dollars that we spent for a war we didn't have to fight. we're in trouble because we spent all this money, and they are mad with whoever, who is trying to -- they are mad with the american people, the democratic party, who is trying to help our economy, who is trying to get the money back that we spent to try to get our economy going, and they're mad with us. i don't understand the mentality of these people. maybe you can help me with that, because i'm having a lot of the trouble. could you help me? caller: it's an interesting point. i think in terms of the raw effect on government, it's a fair point, that if the iraq war cost about a trillion dollars, why is everybody so upset about a stimulus costing the same. i'm not an expert on the iraq war and whether we should have done it or not, i'm an economist. i think that the reason why the tea party people presumably supported the war was that they thought this was a bad guy that the united states should go after. i think it's fair to say, though, that, to pose one expansion of government in one direction, and support it in another is inconsistent if your rhetoric is don't tread on me. i think thomas raises a fair point. host: and when it comes to spending, we've seen conservatives balk at spending in washington, d.c. guest: if you can back to 2002, i was one of the first republicans who took president bush on for the big spending, and the part where president bush really, i think failed as a president economically is that he pursued tax cuts, but a big expansion of government spending that wasn't financed, and left us, i think vulnerable for the kind of problem that we had now. you can have tax cuts, but if do you that, you've got to really restrain the growth of government spending. the prescription drug program, if you do something like that, you should pay for it. president bush has an irrational economic policy. tax cuts and big government doesn't make sense, it just runs us into the ditch. host: georgia, on the republican line, good morning. caller: i'd like to be address something. i served as the republican party chairman in georgia, and i'm very unhappy with the party, but i don't have a home to go to. we have a group of people running our country who just don't have a clue. they don't know what the effects of what they're doing in washington has on us. i own two grocery stores, a convenience store, and a restaurant, and am now bankrupt because of what george bush did, i hit the perfect storm. gas went to $4.39 a gallon. my customers and i, how do you think i'm going to make money in that environment? george bush wanted to give me a huge tax cut. guess what? it doesn't mean anything to me if i'm not making any money. there's nothing there to cut. i was already not making any money. he needed to create the environment for a healthy economy. you see those trees right over your shoulder? every one of those grow from the smallest root up to the top leaf. reagan said trickle down. you've never seen that tree behind you grow from that top leaf down into the ground. host: robert, have you ever voted for a republican? caller: oh, yes. sad to say, i voted for george bush twice. host: all right. let me ask you this, robert. before you go, what is president obama doing, in your opinion, to lay the groundwork for the customer to frequent businesses like the ones that you had? do you think he's doing anything? caller: absolutely not, because nancy pelosi pass add health care bill that said for god's sakes, let's pass it so we can find out what's in it. the republican folks, they want control presencive plans for everything, and don't comprehend anything. host: how do you get customers spending? caller: bring some jobs back here. free trade is not free trade, because it's not fair trade. when the united states jobs were shipped overseas, if they did not pay the american minimum wage over there, you can't bring it back into this country at all. wal-mart has tried and tried and tried to get to us buy cheaper, buy cheaper. the folks who supply them go over seas to get slave wage labor. host: we'll leave it there. what's the economic prescription for georgia to get jobs? guest: my heart goes out to you, robert. i'm sorry to hear that your firms are having trouble. you raised a number of excellent points. i want to start with the big one i really agree with. people in washington don't really know what effect that their actions will have. they don't. you know, the people at the think tanks, we study it and say here's what we think will happen, but you have to concede that you don't know. each time is different, and you might have a point estimate about what's going to happen, but there's a lot of uncertainty around it. i just wish that in american politics, that politicians could concede that more. it goes back to our talk about the design of the stimulus. if you say there's a lot of uncertainty, i'm going to do both things, just in case this one works belter than that one. i think policy would be better if it recognized the uncertainty about what we know will work and what we think won't. i think that trade is not the main cause of the problems in georgia and elsewhere around the country. i think that again, there's uncertainty, but it is around a small effect. there's a small positive net effect for americans for free trade. there's isolated locations that get harmed tremendously by trade, by the turnover that trade causes, but on that, it's a positive for society. host: those who lobbied and argued for the stimulus, it is written, were right, and he also says president obama should have gone bigger the first time around. he says that here's hoping that mr. obama this week coming up goes big. if he does, he'll have the facts on his side. in his piece, he writes about the stimulus, let's start with interest rates. those who said the stimulus was too big predicted sharply rising rates. when rates rows in 2009, the bond vigilance returned. it was all about fear of difficult sets, when in doubt, bet on the markets. guest: i mean, that argument is a total red herring. the people who said the stimulus isn't going to work, maybe somebody said the interest rates would skyrocket during a recession, but that's not the channel. the channel of failure for the stimulus is what we've seen, we'll get a little bit of boost from the government spending, but the multiplier won't be nearly at big, so it won't be glorious. uncertainty about what is going to happen next will give the economy a hang over, which can give us a double dip. if we had done payroll tax cut funded by changes take the benefit formulas, people wouldn't be worried as much about what is going to happen when we cut government spending, and we won't have built up this big government infrastructure that we're going to take away. the problem with that analysis is that he constructs a red herring. people thought the multiplier wouldn't be so big, if you go back to the wall street journal, that view was summarized, as well. it looks to me that's what happened. because we have to make a decision now about what to do, this is an academic issue that is not going to be resolved for a good amount of time. there is work now that is quite promising that will help us understand how the stimulus worked and resolve dispute. there was variation across the states in how much the stimulus money went to north dakota versus wyoming, for example. maybe the stimulus worked better than we thought or worse. we have to make a call about what the next stimulus is going to be. i still believe the right call right now is the same call we should have made then. there is two schools of thought, both have evidence supporting them, and we ought to try something that is a little bit of both. host: glenn from tennessee, independent line. caller: i'm interested in hearing who funds this, or whatever. he comes out with people give money to have influence on the house. one thing i want to--people come on and talk about some organization, nobody tells us what the background is, including who funds them. ok? but what i wanted to say was this, have you read, i'm asking the guest, have you read henry paulson's book "on the brink"? guest: no, i have not read that book, no. caller: i don't think anybody you got to tell somebody what they ought to read, but i'm reading it now, and it's just, all he's doing is trying to preserve his place in history, ok? the other thing that comes on all the time, people in our government in particular talks about corruption in the world, middle east, afghanistan, iraq, africa, but nobody ever says, they mention corruption in this country, but the most corruption in the world is right here in the u.s. of a. >>. guest: we need to have arguments that are informed by facts and theories and we have to put them on the table. to go after all right wing group or a left-wing group because they're were funded by this particular guy, is to go after them. in the end, i would hope we focus on the arguments. host: there is a report on the stimulus. its effect on real gdp, jobs and inflation are huge and what -- averted what could have been called the great depression 2.0. without the government response, gdp would be 11.5% lower. the nation would not be experiencing deflation. guest: i am very familiar, i am very friendly with both adjustment. mark, you still owe me. one reason he has risen so much into the public eye and the last couple years is because he was mccain adviser. the fact there is a john mccain advisers saying that this thing the democrats are doing is a good idea has been very newsworthy. host: he owes you why? guest: i hired him. i organized the mccain team from the beginning. mark is the best person in the world and telling us what the data that came out to date is coined to mean, what gdp is this quarter. he rarely briefs senator mccain on the economy. everyone loves him for doing that. if you look at that paper, i think that the policy analysis in the paper is not wrong, but is all conditional on accepting a faith in a keynesian view of the world that has a lot of holes that have been exposed by empirical work. if you accept the model they use to analyze the economy, then their analysis is exactly right, but i do not think one should except that. there is too dispute about the assumptions in the model. what they did not do is give us hard, indisputable evidence that the keynesian stimulus worked. what they did do is say, that if we take the stimulus and stick into the model that we used to think about the world, how big of an effect would that be? i think the documents serves a political purpose, but it does not serve an academic one. i do not think it is a paper that will come out in the top. journals -- top-pier journals. caller: thank you, c-span, for taking my call. i am surprised i got you on the first call. i could not believe it. i just want to say first about aei and these think tanks, they do not seem like researchers, because researchers tried to do research and come up with a conclusion. it seems like these right-wing think tanks, which is what they are, they are given their conclusions and they are told to justify them. that is what they do their research for. guest: that is just false for the reason you got through it is because we are the only ones up. as a holiday weekend. host: let's hope not. guest: it's flat-out false. what to do. aiei a lot of people at our organization would object to being called conservatives. we higher academic people, political scientists, also defends policy studies, and we ask them to study the things they want to study. if you looked at some of my colleagues who writes a regular tax notes column, and his tax cohns were so useful to tax attorneys, and they are not political. vinson reinhardt was asked to give the keynote paper at the jackson hole conference. i mean, nobody tells people like that what to do and they do not get assignments like speaking in jackson hole if they are not respected as a neutral academic authorities. i did not know if everybody runs the show the way that we do, but i object to what he said. host: let's talk about tax cuts third that is the next big debate, whether or not to extend the bush tax cuts for those who make less than $250,000. "the single largest contributor to the deficit is the bush tax cuts and to extend will add over $3 trillion to the deficit over the next 10 years. explain." guest: single largest contributor, i do not know. it is not bigger than medicare. it is not anywhere close to the defense budget. the three trillion dollars is about right. extending the bush cuts relative to a baseline cost $2 trillion at over 10 years, after the middle-class tax cuts that president obama wants to extend, and an extra $700 billion for the wealthy. extending the bush tax cuts is a costly thing to do. given the deficit is as high as it is, it would be lunacy to extend them for 10 years and let congress continue to keep the deficit problem down the road. if you want a lower marginal tax rates, you have to reduce the government spending. it is not sustainable. will come bond rating into question. i think what probably will happen is that right now in the political season, with the economy close to the press office of going into recession again, it is a difficult time to pass a tax hike. they should extend it for a year or two. all of them. it is looking to me like that is what will happen. then we need to be serious in november about getting our house in order. because, 10 years from now, the path we are on, especially if we add the bush tax cuts on top, then we are in the worst fiscal situation than the country of greece was in. if you think of the financial crisis, one of the things that stopped it from going farther down was that there were banks holding these really terrible assets, the toxic acid. then the fed to cut toxic assets off their hands and handed them treasuries. the treasury's did not make people feel better and more, then there is no saying how bad it can get. right now we are running the risk of the and the world because we are in denial about big deficits. we cannot extend them for 10 years now. host: with his country had a budget surplus, people point to the years that president clinton was in control, and they say that, with republican help at the time, though, he did cut spending. republicans in control help him with that, but he also raised taxes, and that is what led to the budget surplus. guest: i think the tax hikes were a small part of it. even the bush tax cuts relative to the clinton tax rates or not that big. there are really much bigger changes in u.s. history than those. it is funny to think about it. it is something we should talk to a psychiatrist about. how is it going from 39.6% to 35% can enrages many people are going in reverse can enrage people? i think it is a reaction. if you look back at the clinton cycle, it is something that gives us hope for the cycle we are about to experience, in the sense that president clinton came in and with democrats in congress pulling him to the left maybe or maybe he wanted to be there in 1992, he lurched to the left, especially with health care -- sounds familiar -- and then there was a republican revolution and clinton had to work with them. the political analysis that makes sense to me of that circumstance that could be something that could be repeated is that, when you have divided government, then the deficit becomes more important, because the deficit virtue is a way to constrain your political opponent. so with president obama wants to do this in this, then the republicans might be able to restrain him from doing that, not by saying it is a bad idea to offer better health care to this guy or rather by saying, we have a deficit agreement. on the other hand, the republicans might want to offer up a tasty tax cut that could be attractive to voters. obama does not have to say, i think taxes need to be high. it is like a cease-fire that happens when there is divided government. in the plan administration is something that happened. it could be something that could happen right now -- it happened in the clinton administration. caller: good morning. listen, he said a moment ago that the bush tax cuts would be costly to the government. i disagree with that. i agree -- disagree with this notion that that when taxpayers get to keep their money that it cost the government anything. i am of the mind that the republicans anought to stop answering this question in terms of a costing the government money, when i get to keep my money. if i cannot get my hand in my neighbor's pocket, that does not cost me anything. when pundits, like this lady asked and when others ask, what does it cost the government when the government cannot get a hold of my money? what does it cost when they cannot get a hold of all my money? because we can start thinking in terms of the government confiscating all my money. that cost something too. guest: i am close to the end of my time this morning. you gave me an alley oop. i absolutely agree with you. when we are talking about costs, we are talking about costs relative to expenditure. so, if the government is spending this much, this many trillion dollars, then we have to raise that many trillion. in present value, you have to pay back the debt. the problem is that when spending is way larger than tax, then there is a strain that can ultimately put our economy into crisis. it is very irresponsible to let spending and taxes be out of line as much as they are right now for an extended period of time. during a recession, maybe you can look the other wafer year or two ago. right now, we need to address that. when we do, we need to be mindful of what she said, which is that is people's money. the government has a great responsibility to treat it with respect. if they take money away from folks, they need to spend it wisely. given how much government has expanded, there is a lot of room for reductions and the size of government before we increase taxes on people. host: the conversation is happening on our twitter page also. "roth-ira -- trillions and 401k plans gave clinton a surplus." guest: that was not the only thing. worksy the throth ira is you put the money in and you pay tax on it but you do not pay taxes down the road. you pay future taxes -- the roth popular and very increased tax revenues. but the effect is very, very small compared to the big increases in capital gains as we were growing so wealthy. it turned out to be temporary revenue and temper wealth. we did not know it. host: the debt commission, the commission looking at how to tackle this situation, part of these taxth ira's, credits that people get. you think that is a good idea to look at something like this? in shelters of tax collection years down the road where the government could get a bigger chunk with a bigger pot of money. guest: for a listener planning for their retirement, a roth ira is a good thing to think about because deficits are so large that it is likely that future taxes will go up. if you pay taxes today and do not have to pay taxes in future, that is looking like a better bargain given how much government spending is relative to revenue. if we lose revenue by expanding roth ira's we will have to gain them somewhere else. we could gain revenue by eliminating or capping the tax deduction for state and local income taxes. that is a big tax expenditure, maybe $2 trillion dollars. transfers money from taxpayers and states that are responsible and gives that two states that are irresponsible with big government. it subsidizes irresponsible state governments. if we remove that, it could pay for a lot of this. host: i want to go back to what you mentioned about mark zandy. you hired him for john mccain. you suggest to them. what was your role in the mccain campaign? guest: i was a senior adviser. three years before the campaign began, we began to have weekly briefings to go over economic topics. there was a team of economists very early on that participated in that with me. doug, who worked on the campaign, were the people who courted the briefings for three years. host: once the presidential campaign was under way, you are not part of it? guest: i did not take a full time paying role. i stated the american enterprise institute. host: what you look for in 2012? vice-president candidate, sarah palin, was on that ticket. what role do think the economy will play in 2012? guest: if economic history is a guide, then by 2012, the economy will be doing a lot better than it is the. there is dispute amongst economists whether it will be doing enough abettors of the economy will be a positive for president obama -- will be doing and not better so the economy will be a positive for president obama. vincent reinhard and others at harvard have done a lot of work with a great book -- "this time it's different." there is a suggestion that there is 10 years of pain after financial crisis. you are growing at 2% instead of 3%. there is a slower growth rate. if we look ahead to the next election, the unemployment rate will still be high and people will still feel economic pain. it is probably a neutral factor for president obama. host: kevin hassett, appreciate your time. we will turn our attention to the decrease in unauthorized immigration coming up next. but first, a look ahead of the sunday shows. >> re-airs of network television talking shares begin at noon eastern. today's issues are the fault midterm elections, the economy and unemployment, and mideast peace in afghanistan. we begin with "meet the press" -- joining david gregory r. graham.grahaare lindsey christian amanpour interviews former british prime minister tony blair. chris wallace talks with john mccain. and tim kaine, chairman of the democratic national committee. at 3:00 p.m., bob schieffer discusses the economy with laura tyson, former chair of the council of economic advisers, chief economistdy, at moody's. at 3:30 p.m. eastern, it is cnn's state of union. there will talk about the fall elections with the afl-cio president trumka and the president of the small business association. also, a look afghanistan and mideast politics with michael duffy of time magazine. again, the five sunday television talk shows begin airing at noon eastern with nbc's "meet the press" at 1:00, 2:00 p.m., week," "face the nation," and finally 3:00 p.m. you can listen to them on c-span radio. or online at c-span.org. guest: you think about ponzi schemes. the biggest ponzi scheme for wall street is telling someone who has worked really hard to earn a buck that they are not smart enough to understand how that buck is going to be invested. >> in 2007, meredith whitney was the first to predict losses for citigroup. she is our guest tonight on c- span's "q&a". >> join our conversation on the american revolution and the importance of historical study today with gordon wood. at noon eastern on c-span-2. >> "washington journal" continues. host: paul taylor is the director of the pew hispanic center. here to talk about the drop in immigrants. 1 million, about 8%. guest: it is a dramatic decrease in the inflows of authorized immigrants. we estimate these numbers annually. we have been able to do this for the last decade. we are able to do an annual estimate of inflows. there the drop is even more dramatic. from 2000-2005, annually on average, about 850,000 on authorize immigrants came to the country. now in the last two real years, 2007-2009, it's down to 300,000. this is not a static population. as a population that comes and goes, but the net result of the dramatic decrease in inflow is that the the first time in 20 years, we see a decrease in un immigrants. host: were you able to find out the reasons why is? guest: we do not have the tools or the skills to say that will with quantifiable -- say that with quantifiable expertise. a couple of things have happened over the last five years. the economy has gone sour and the jobs are are the magnet that draws immigrants. enforcement along the border has stepped up. there is a border fence being built. enforcement is much tougher at the worksite. so the more deep -- there are more deportations. both of those factors are moving in the same direction and will tend to decrease the inflow. there is a third factor, which we know from reading news accounts, it is more dangerous to get across the border illegally than it used to be. you read accounts of people lose their lives. this is something that happened to the years, but the drug war in mexico, the lack of law enforcement in mexico, makes it a more dangerous journey. host: talk about the inflows of unauthorized immigrants and which countries they are coming from and where you saw the decreases. guest: we estimate that of the current on all the rest immigrant population, about 60% are from mexico. another 20% are from the rest of whether america other than mexico. and the other 20% are from asia, africa, and other countries. in terms of the decrease in inflows, the most dramatic decrease has been from mexico. in terms of the decrease in stock, we see a bigger decrease in the stock of current authorized immigrants here from the rest of latin america other than that mexico. this suggests that there may have then a greater immigratiem. unauthorized immigrants return. a lot of journalists and others have speculated that that is something that is likely to have happened because of the sour economy. we do not see a great deal of that. there is always circular flow. we do not see an uptick in return flow to mexico, but we can surmise from these numbers that there may have been an uptick in the return flow from other countries in latin america. so the stock of authorized immigrants, but now we are talking about south, central america and the caribbean, we estimate is down by 22%. host: let's talk about states with the largest on authorize immigration population. california, texas, florida, new york, illinois, new jersey, arizona. some may be surprised arizona is that far down on the list. guest: if you start with the biggest states, these are not only large states, but these are historic and treat poientry poi. if you compare the share of those top five states and their share of unauthorized immigrants 20 years ago, they accounted for roughly 80% of all authorized immigrants. now they account for slightly more than fivhalf. what we saw last 20 years is a dramatic increase in this population and its geographic dispersion of this population. arizona is a border state, along the southern border. it has always had some flow. in some ways, the more dramatic change over the last decade has been in the south east of the united states, the carolinas and georgia which had very little hispanic population to speak of and a little on authorize population. that has grown pretty sharply. some states in the midwest, where again, no history of hispanic immigration, that began to change. these are now some of the states where we see this inmigration leveling off. there are a few states were able to stay with some certainty, in florida, nevada is one and virginia is one where the stock of unauthorized immigrants has come down and the past year. host: i want to ask you first, how do you come up with your terminology? like unauthorized immigrants. you hear a lot of different labeling with this issue. guest: the pew hispanice center as part of the pew research center. we don't have a dog in any fight. we are nonpartisan. if you choose what label or another, you are seen as being on one side of the issue or the other. we are not on any side. we chose the term the government uses. whether it works for some people or does not, it is the closest thing, we think, to the initial term. host: how did you do this study? how you calculate it is coming in and he is leaving? guest: i urge your viewers to go to our website. it includes a seven-page methodology section that describes how we do it. i will try to give you a brief summary. our website is www.pewhispanic.org. does is iswho rey purcell. he worked for the census bureau of some 20 years ago. he has been with us for the last five years. he is the originator of this methodology. it is called the residual estimation methodology. in so many words, it starts with census data, but now the census put sell lots of product every year, where they are updating numbers -- the census puts out lots of product every year. what share are u.s.-born and hare arerahre immigrant. do they have green card? ock that iss a blc residual, that is step one. we can look at mexican census data. mexico does a good job of tracking its immigrants and emigrants, and we can compare our data about the inflows and outflows with their data to make sure our estimation is in the right ballpark. i emphasize, however, that these are estimates. they are subject to ranges of errors, margins of error and we make that clear in our report. host: caroline is joining us on the independent line in caldwell, texas. caller: how can you say there are fewer illegals? you cannot prove it in my neighborhood, because there are more and more daily. we live out int h the country on small lakes. they're here everywhere. more and more daily. and they respect nothing, you know. no laws of any kind. we have to help pull drunk illegals, who cannot speak english, tearing up your hard, driving off. they are putting illegal septic tanks in. we paid a fortune to have hours put in. host: where is caldwell? texas a &m,twest of college station. host: do you assume that they're illegal? how do you know this? nobody: well, let's see, speaks english, number one. number two, is when a policeman comes around, they are like a bunch of roaches that run and hide. perception. guest: as of 2009, there were 11.1 authorize immigrants in this country. if you go back a decade, there were only about 8 million there is no question that there has been a genetic increase in this population over the last few decades -- a dramatic increase in this population over the last few decades. that increase peaked about three years ago, has leveled off, and has declined slightly, which is the first decline were able to measure in more than two decades. these are estimates, but we believe that is possible. what we have done with these estimates as we applied the same methodology to data year in and year out. whenever the strengths or weaknesses of the method is, they are consistent from one year to the next, giving us confidence that the overall trend we are reporting on is accurate. host: california. the democratic line. good morning. caller: i think what he is saying is untrue. i live in a community of predominately hispanics, from within 10 miles. the men hang out. they bring cars across the board appeared they take their drugs out. gangbangers. i have a town house. i cannot let my 11-year-old daughter go outside. the gangbangers. the men are here. the women here. it tears down our neighborhood. the school, i cannot take my daughter there. they spend so much money on esol to teach them english. they come home and speak nothing but spanish. and i know they are not citizens. they are not authorized workers. host: where's hayward located? caller: hayward, california. san francisco, oakland area. oakland police station has the map of all of the gangbangers north and south. so much of violence. host: paul taylor, anything there? guest: it's hard to comment on all of that. you know, one of the things we did about 8 months ago is we did a major survey of latinos coming of age, 16-25. we tried to understand how they're were doing in this country, how they were assimilating, becoming american, if you will. this population of latino youth is not primarily immigrant. the latino immigration wave for this country, which really began about four years ago, is mature enough that it is generating a very large second generation, children of immigrants. that is where most of the growth is. so, on some of the things you mentioned, what we find and we find that the census finds that other efforts, other scholars find that in terms of english acquisition, immigrants tend to be predominantly spanish- speaking, but very dramatically, children and grandchildren of immigrants pick up english. 95% plus become english speakers because they realize what every immigrant has to realize -- if you want to make here, you need to acquire english skills. you mentioned gangbanging. we tried to get this in our survey. it is not easy to ask -- are you a member of a gang? you may not get a straight answer. we ask, do you know somebody who is a member of a gang? a little bit surprising, but when you think about it not all that much, it is not the immigrant kids who are most likely to say, i know somebody. it is the children or grandchildren of immigrants to say that. again, these are young adults who are u.s. citizens by virtue of having been born here. the gang phenomenon seems more prevalent in the second and third generations. host: "does the pew hispanic center promote for or against any policy regarding amnestyi?" guest: we do not promote any policy for or against anything. our mission is to provide good information toward public policy issues. we do this with a generating numbers. we say, we hope this informs the debate. it is up to the policy makers to figure out what to do with it. host: ohio. al on the republican line. caller: good morning, paul. i have a question and a statement. the way the economy is in the dumps, did you mention that? it does that have a lot to do with that? guest: absolutely. caller: now, do they slowdown on letting illegals -- on documented workers come in for visas? did they cut down on that? host: actually, you found an increase of that. is that right? guest: the share of immigrants that are authorized versus those who are here legally has shifted. if you go back to the middle of the decade, about 31% of all immigrants in this country were unauthorized. that is down to 28%. there was another important change. today, we estimate, based on this methodology, that the unemployment rate of authorized immigrants is higher than the unemployment rate of legal immigrants or u.s.-foreign citizens. this is a change. if you go back to pre-recession. housing boom. construction was a big industry that employs a large amount of unauthorized immigrants. the unemployment for of the rise is 10.4%. u.s. data is is 9.1%. -- the unemployment rate of unauthorized is 10.4%. the risk of getting across the border is higher than it used to be. there is more workplace enforcement then there used to be. if they have someone in custody for one reason or another, looking at their immigration status, and setting them out of hascountry, i think this changed. host: maggie, independent line. caller: i do not disagree with your on authorized label you are using. by any name, they should not be here. i do think there is an arrogance on their part that is very, very disturbing. i do agree with workplace enforcement. your studies are just hispanic. i do disagree with being called prejudiced, because i disagree with any one being here illegally from any country. the increase in visas given to businesses, that has cut back on the jobs available to natural-born citizens. host: the san francisco -- the federal reserve to board put out an economic letter on august 30. they did a study looking at how immigrants affect total output, income per worker, and in. in the short and long run. consistent with previous research, they fine nose into the affect of immigration on that job growth for u.s.-foreign workers -- they find no significant effect of immigration on the job growth of u.s.-born workers. two, at the state level, the presence of immigrants is a function of increased output per worker. however, in the short run, when businesses have not adjusted their productive capacity, immigrants reduce the capital intensity of the economy. can you make sense of that before we go back to maggie? guest: no. i am not an economist. i am interested in studies. i think you can find other economists to take a different view of that. it is a difficult subject to disentangle. whether or not unauthorized immigrants are as benign as the suggest, it is clear just listening to the american public, that they are very upset with the high levels of illegal immigration. it does not feel right to a lot of people for all sorts of reasons. we are country of laws. trying to parse the economic consequences is very complicated. the unauthorized entrance to tend to be low-skill. take the jobs at the bottom end of the latter. dder. they work expansively. they probably have the effect of reducing the cost of goods the rest of us by. as consumers, we get in direct benefits that these workers are here. i do not mean to suggest that that is the be-all and end-all. there is another set of issues about what is the cost to unauthorizeduthoriz immigrants. a lot pay social security taxes. they do not extract benefits, because they are using fake numbers. at one level, we get some free money, if you will, from them. but there is no question that, at the state level, in particular, there are resources that are expensive. host: 4 wayne, indiana. rick, democratic line. -- fort wayne, indiana. caller: do you have any statistics in arizona about how many jobs have been filled by those vacated from the undocumented workers? guest: that is a level of detail we cannot get to. if you go to our report -- by the way, one of the things we have is an interactive map. you can click on arizona or the other states and get a lot of detail on the total number, total estimates of unauthorized. arizona it has one of the highest shares of undocumented workers and its labor force. we did not find a statistically significant decline in arizona and the number of undocumented workers between 2008 and 2009. there is a lot of interest, obviously. arizona past and enforcement of law a few months ago that attracted a lot of attention. that is the subject of a federal lawsuit. will be the supreme court that will resolve that particular issue. because our data only goes up to 1.5 years ago, we are not able to measure the impact of that. it seems, at the very least, a long-term growth in arizona of the unauthorized population has leveled off. host: "immigrant pay sales tax where they shop." sally on the republican line. caller: i noticed you th ought there was a greater danger getting across the country. my opinion, living in arizona, is that the drug dealers have no problem getting across the border from mexico to our country. we do not even let some of our border people shoot at them. i do not know if this is a political question or if it is really just about illegal immigrants, that they are getting through every day. guest: sadly, again, i do not mean to suggest i am an expert at this. i used to live and work in texas and got some feel for what it is like to live on the border. drug dealers have more resources than the typical immigrant, who does not have much resources and may be paying even thousands of dollars to get them across. so i think we are dealing with two different groups of people. from everything i read about the drug situation and the organized crime situation in mexico, along the border, it is frightening stuff. host: illinois. phillip, independent line. good morning. caller: good morning. sometimes there will take the illegal immigrants that won a job and they are looking for mules to carry the drugs over the border. so a lot of different situations, all encompassing, like the lady that goes through the desert and does not make it who is trying to have a baby. but that does happen, too, sir. host: phillip, let's talk about the population of children born unauthorized immigrants. guest: that has become a flashpoint. leading elected officials were suggested that we re-to visit the 14th amendment which grants automatic citizenship to anyone born in the country. we were able to do estimates from the same database i have been talking about. if you look at the full population of adults in this country, about 4% are authorizunauthorized immigrants. childrenare born to at least one unauthorized immigrants. they are young population. their median age is 10-12 years younger than native-born citizens. they are population that lives in families with children, and the women have high fertility rates. the limitations on the data does not allow us to produce an estimate of the fertility rates of authorized women, but weakens around that question and it would appear as if the fertility unauthorized it'sd wom more. is a young population. it is a population in this child-bearing years. they are inclined to have a lot of children. yes, we estimate that about one in 12 children born in this country has at least one immigrant parents. host: robert, a democrat line. good morning. caller: good morning. sendan't our government soldiers to herd them up like we did the american indians? orized is auth much better term than undocumented, which is much better than, oh, gosh, i forgot. most of my a information is anecdotal. my girlfriend used to own a restaurant. she employed this gentleman. he provided her all the proper documentation, etc. what i am finding out is, if you are not using e-verify, it can take up to two years, some knitting the proper things to the government to find out -- submitting the proper things to the government. we have this gentleman who was a cook for her. he had been working there for two years before she found out he was a legal. -- he was illegal. if i am a business owner, small business owner, and i have had somebody who has been working for me for two years, showing up on time, doing a good job, i am going to ask the sentiment, what honestly does he think any business person will do? host: paul taylor? guest: listen, you point up the fact that this is a pretty complicated equation. surely the person who has come across the border illegally has done something wrong. we as a society need to figure out how to address that. but the person who employs that person also is part of the equation. should the employer have known? what are the resources made available? and e-verify is supposed to make it easier with a central computer based. . you point to a more poignant, more human situation, someone is not through. -- someone snuck through. what do you do in that case? i think the nature of the question points up how complicated this is. we talked a moment ago about let's go back to the high number of children born to unaut horized immigrant parents. 80% are born in this country. you have a high percentage of mixed-status families. the child is a u.s. citizen. you break that family up when you discover the parent is here illegally. he said the family home, the child is in no man's land. the child is a u.s. citizen. they are not a citizen of the country that his or her parents came from. if you think about our efforts to address this as a nation, three times in the last half-a dozen years there have been efforts in congress to come forward with some comprehensive solution, and they have never gone for. maybe that is because of the polarization and the country. i think part of it is the complexity of this issue. it is a tough one. again, since we do not advocate on one side or the other, we put out a lot of numbers, but all the numbers i see that we put out only underscore the point that this is not an easy problem to solve. host: "in the times after 9/11, if we were worried about terrorists, when we want to know who is in our work force, laboratories, etc.?" caller: good morning. i have heard, i was thought that being here, coming across illegally from mexico is a crime. is this a crime or not? i have for a glorious argue that it might not be a crime -- i have heard lawyers argued it might not be a crime. guest: if the border patrol agent catches you right on the other side of the fence and you just snuck underneath. there will not be a legal proceeding. you'll be put on a bus and sent back across paired with workplace enforcement, if you are discovered to be here illegally, you are not charged with a crime. you are simply deported. theyou get into semantics of whether or not this is a crime. there is no question there's is an illegal act. we generally treated to an administrative way rather than in the legal system. when someone is picked up and charged with a crime, and a more systematic way, both the federal government and the state and local law enforcement, looking at that suspect's credentials to see, are they here illegally or not, and if they are not, they, too, are sent home. perhaps after serving what time they have to serve after committing the crime. host: new york. democrat line. caller: paul, i appreciate you handling those questions. some of the callers have mentioned a labeling. i am curious. with mexican -- would mexican- americans be considered immigrants, cubans refugees, and puerto rican as migrants, since they are u.s. citizens? guest: mexican-american. the mexican-american population is made up of immigrants, people born in mexico and the children of immigrants -- people born in the united states. what they are considered depends on the status and their family, the history, and the circumstances that brought them here. there are no generalizations of any country of origin. it depends on individual circumstances. host: frank, independent line. orlando, florida. good morning. caller: good morning. i am glad you put the telephone number is down so we could call. i have two questions. already, why is there never anything said about the fact that 1/3 of the united states used to be a part of mexico? and all those states were once spanish-speaking period, during the mexican era? guest: at the pew hispanic center, a young woman came to work for me a few years ago. i asked her about her family history. she said, my family never came here. we trace our roots in southern colorado, and my family has been there for seven generations. we did not move to the united states. the united states moved to us. that was part of the territory that became part of the united states after the mexican- american war. there is a long and rich history, particular between mexico and the united states and peoples of those two countries. about 9% or 10% -- but if you look at the full population of mexican-americans -- thery unauthut 60% of orized immigrants and 30% of all. in fact, there are more immigrants from mexico and the u.s. than there are any other immigrants in any other country in the world. if you look, where 80%, 90% of that mexican population has come, it has come in the last 40 years. we are a country of immigrants. we had a big immigration wave in the early 20th century. then it went into a valley. it has picked back up. the difference is that our earlier immigration waves were almost entirely european, white, caucasian. this immigration wave, about 1/2 are latino and 1/4 are asian. it is creating a much more diverse society, and it is creating some stresses and strains that you always get with immigration wave h. host: george in middletown, new jersey, on the independent line. caller: one of the things that a lot of people did not realize is that with all the illegals coming here, they devalued the rate of wages the same way counterfeiting de values the rate of our currency guest. guest: greta read a report earlier, and i saw economic analyses and that made that point. if you have low-skill, low-wage workers, it is going to have a depressing effect on the wage scale, particularly at the lower end of the scale. most economists would agree with that. host: napa, california. ray, democrat line. caller: i live in napa valley. i have been here my whole life. there are a couple things going on. on. we have

Related Keywords

Arkansas ,United States ,Alabama ,Nevada ,Alaska ,China ,Minnesota ,California ,Fairbanks ,Washington ,District Of Columbia ,Connecticut ,Carolinas ,Chihuahua ,Mexico ,San Francisco ,Arizona ,Egypt ,South Carolina ,Massachusetts ,Wyoming ,Omaha ,Nebraska ,Cuba ,Spain ,Greece ,New York ,North Carolina ,Oakland ,Texas ,Afghanistan ,Napa Valley ,Philadelphia ,Pennsylvania ,Kentucky ,Florida ,Illinois ,Indiana ,Puerto Rico ,Virginia ,Georgia ,Michigan ,United Kingdom ,Maine ,Iraq ,Tennessee ,Jackson Hole ,Baghdad ,New Jersey ,Israel ,Colorado ,Middletown ,Sweden ,Maryland ,Ohio ,Kansas ,North Dakota ,Capitol Hill ,Orlando ,Americans ,America ,Puerto Rican ,Mexican ,Swedes ,Cubans ,Spanish ,British ,Palestinian ,American ,Christy Romer ,George Mitchell ,Tim Kaine ,Roth Ira ,Nancy Pelosi ,David Berger ,George Bush ,Charlie Crist ,Joe Miller ,Ben Bernanke ,Ken Salazar ,Christina Romer ,David Gregory ,Chris Wallace ,Paul Taylor ,Jill Miller ,John Boehner ,Michael Bennett ,Benjamin Netanyahu ,Rick Scott ,John Mccain ,Chuck Schumer ,Susan Collins ,Meg Whitman ,Christian Amanpour ,Alan Grayson ,Vincent Reinhard ,David Gregory R Lindsey ,Los Angeles ,Michael Duffy ,Tony Blair ,Henry Ford ,Russ Feingold ,Bob Schieffer ,Henry Paulson ,Kevin Mccarthy ,Barack Obama ,Carly Fiorina ,Lindsey Graham ,Michelle Obama ,Sarah Palin ,Dan Quayle ,Ross Perot ,Robert Papp ,Kevin Hassett ,Roy Haran ,Charlie Cook ,Laura Tyson ,Dick Armey ,Vinson Reinhardt ,Laura Bush ,Hillary Clinton ,David Williams ,