The president will be having four separate meetings on the hill with congressional leaders this week. Dinner and lunches. For democrats, 2025853880. For republicans, 2025853881. For independents, 2025853882. Getting your thoughts and the president planning to make several visits to the hill this week. If you do not weigh in by phone, there are all other options to check in. Twitter is one place for you and post a short message. Tom has this cartoon in this mornings open the Washington Post. It speaks to wallace, a coming together of sorts. You concede the president building a train track towards the republicans, currently trying to finish the track. In the other direction, the republicans paving their own road represented by an elephant. The grand bargain is on the menu, that is the lead headline. Republicans and the president broke bread last week. Now time to negotiate. Skeptics are writing host there is a lot more out there today on the president s visit this week. The president drawing a lot of headlines from his saturday address, where he spoke to and about republicans. [video clip] in the months ahead there will be more contentious debate and honest disagreement between principled people who want the best for this country, but i still believe that compromise is possible and that we can come together to do big things. I know that there are leaders on the other side of the aisle that share that belief. That is what this country needs. That is what you deserve. Host the wall street journal, wrote this week that they are that the president rarely makes the short trip from the hill to the white house but this week his motorcade will be tying up traffic as he tries to convince congress to come to a deficit deal. Meeting with Senate Democrats on tuesday, republicans of the house on wednesday, then thursday making two separate trips to the hill. First to meet with republicans than house democrats. The president is looking for a deal to put an end to two years of fighting over the deficit and has shown a new interest in reaching out to rankandfile lawmakers. John boehner from this week, speaking a little bit about the president and his outreach. Then we will get to your calls and tweets. [video clip] i know. You know, we went through months of Campaign Style events all over the country. I did have a conversation with the president about last friday. It was kind of interesting that this week we have gone 180 degrees. After being in office for four years he is going to sit down and talk to members. I think it is a sign. A political sign. I am hopeful that something will come out of it. But if the president continues to insist on tax hikes, he will let it very far. If the president does not believe we have a spending problem, i do not know that we will get very far, but i am optimistic. Host a couple of facebook postings from joe clark. Tenn. , on the line first. Good morning. Caller i do not know why anyone would meet with president obama, that is a joke. The man never tells the truth. [beep] possible position on budget cuts and tax hikes. He will change in a day or two. He is not trustworthy. He is not anyone you could negotiate with and think that you have something. Host lets hear from fred, an independent caller. He visited the hill several times this week. Never seen three days in a row of the president headed to the hill. What you make of this . Caller good morning, first of all. Host good morning. Caller it is politically necessary, first of all, but politics is so disconnected from the rest of the country, like a black operation where they get together in back rooms and pass legislation where we do not even know what is written in it. It is getting difficult to have any relationship at all with just about any representative anymore. It just dont make any sense. Host if the personal touch and a visit to the hill does not work, what is the answer to the Economic Issues we are facing . Caller one of the at one of the answers is that everyone is going to have to sacrifice. Even those who are on disability. I am on disability, i still have to sacrifice some things myself. Everyone has to cut back and tap into this second economy on wall street. They do not get tax for any of their transactions. The second economy, it is almost like handsoff. Everyone gets to talking about their 1 . If you have 400 people who say do not touch my deal because it is only 100 only 1 of the budget, the math does not add up. They continually fight over what they call this small portion of the budget. We have got to find some revenue. If we cannot do it through other taxation, we need to find another kind of revenue. Everyone with entitlements needs to give up a little something. Host marie, democratic line, good morning. Caller i feel the we are putting too much on the president of the United States. I just listened to john boehner and he just said that there is no way they are going to raise taxes. We have cut two or three times in the last four years. Everything is going on the president. It is not possible. I really wish that they would have some real dialogue between the republicans and democrats and quit putting everything on the president. It is ridiculous. Host code to twitter this morning on all of this. Michael writes that obama host back to facebook. Host senator sessions deliver the republican address this week. Heres a short piece. [video clip] people up people are hurt every day by the washington establishment and democrats are determined to shield them from accountability. Government has never been bigger or more out of control. They say there is no problem with waste, fraud, and abuse. They say that you are not sending them enough money. They say they have proudly spent every penny, so you must send them more. If you do not . They will not stop spending, they will just borrow more. These destructive policies cannot continue. We are at the breaking point. Instead we must act to create more jobs and better pay and we can do it without adding to the debt. Here is how. Make welfare temporary and the Welfare Office and employment job training office. America has Energy Resources to create millions of good paying jobs. Protect American Workers from unfair Foreign Trade practices. A globally competitive tax code to create more jobs here. Make the government last wasteful. Greater results for the money that you learned. And enforce an immigration policy to protect Legal Companies from on lawful competition. Eliminate federal rules and regulations that are not needed and destroy jobs. Finally, we must balance the federal budget. Host that is senator sessions in advance of the president going to the hills several times this week. Lilly, tennessee, republican line. Your thoughts . Caller i am thinking that this is about four years too late. He should have met with them before this. I think that he should have met with both democrats and republicans at least once a month every year. He has not done any of that. The republicans are completely not responsible for some. He is leading the behind again. He told these tales and is now trying to clean it up. So, you know. We are just losing. Host all right, thank you for calling. Here are the numbers again. For republicans, 2025853881. For democrats, 2025853880. For independents, 2025853882. We want your thoughts in advance of several visits by the president to the hill this week to talk economy and budget matters, and other items for sure. From politico, obama heartr congress. Hearts host we have a quote from the white house spokesman host here is isaac from new york city. Good morning. Caller good morning. I wanted to add my input based on a couple of the callers and what they had said. A few people pointed out that offering tax cuts and more leeway for the rich as such a negative thing, but i and my perspective i do not see this as a bad thing at all, you know . At a time when issues are a problem, it is always a great thing to have the u. S. As a safe haven and a comfortable zone for the rich and those who have money to spend, you know . There is nothing wrong with them powering them. There is a trickledown effect wherever they go. I wanted to add that comment. That is all. Have a good day. Host have a good day yourself. Tim, democratic line, good morning. Caller good morning. From where i am sitting, we tried to put forward these tax breaks when bush was in office. It seems like they want more and more and more. I was just thinking what about the money the republicans will be paying back for Social Security . We are still waiting on that to go through. So, i think that they anti american, antiamerican worker. They would rather do things like a third world country to make a bigger bottom line. People just tired of it. Just waiting on them to make a break, you know . They talking about illegal immigration. We still got workers working to save a buck with a bigger bottom line. Host that was tim there. Lets go to ken, cincinnati. A republican. What are you looking forward to this week, if anything, with the president visiting the hill . What would your priorities be . Caller first of all, this is much more than a flood wall. Much more than shenanigans on the part of the president try to make the American People think that he is on their side. With the sequester we were told the world would come to an end. I think that this is more of the same and the republicans need to stand their ground. If we want to raise revenue, we need to fix the tax code more than generate new businesses. Finally, the president needs to meet with harry reid. Host ok. We understand the Senate Budget committee will be working on the budget for the first time in a while this week in open session. Look for coverage as the week goes on. The senate on the floor will take up their continuing resolution for the rest of this year. The house passed a version this past week. A busy week on the hill, including several visits by the president , who will meet with republicans on each side of the hill as well. Edward christian rites b from richard,ear columbia, south carolina. Host lets hear from richard, columbia, south carolina. Caller to a good morning. Everyone talking about being receptive to the democrats or republicans, they complain when they try to do it. They should lay it up and sit down at a roundtable. That is what he made a round table for. Work it out for the people. The rich people are going to be rich. We have got record profits in business. The stock market is getting rich and you all are trying to take money from poor people . It does not make any sense. What kind of incentive is that for the big guy . They are not america. They do not love this country. They are taking and taking and taking for their record profits. That is my comment, thank you. Host that was richard, south carolina. Back to twitter host if you look at the front cover of the weekly standard, this morning, they have the rock and hard place. If you go inside, he writes host you can read more in the weekly standard, this sunday morning. We are going to step back now and take a look at the gridiron dinner. Actually, not a look, there is no camera coverage. A washington correspondent from the Baltimore Sun was allowed in last night. Good morning. Caller good morning. Host remind us of what the gridiron dinner is all about. Caller it is a group of 65 of washingtons i guess youd say their most elite journalists. Historically it is print reporters, mostly bureau chiefs. In recent years it has expanded to television and radio correspondent. They have been doing this annual dinner for 128 years. The president almost always comes to speak at it. Obama is the exception, he did not come for the first two years in office. He was there in 2011 and there again last night. Host the arrivals to the dinner, that was the extent of our coverage. But lets speak about the coverage first. Mark, your journalism, brigitte your journalism correspondent said it was a shame that there was no television coverage, but that the full White House Press pool explain how you were allowed in this time . A first . Caller right. Here is the longstanding issue between the gridiron faithful and the Television Correspondents that would like to go in but have been barred from doing so. As the Pool Reporter there last night, i feel like i was there to represent both sides. It is the first time that a Pool Reporter a pool report has been done of the president s remarks only. So, what happened was i came in. Common for these types of events, the Pool Reporter comes in just as the president is taking the stage. I have maybe 50 minutes or so to try to get a look around as best i can, capture a couple of quotes mostly jokes. I forward it to the rest of the press corps. That is the first time that has happened and i do not know this for sure, but i am i think it is partially in response to these requests for more access. The other thing that the gridiron does is they release the lyrics to the show, which happened before the show began. The speakers, which included bobby jindal and [indiscernible] on the democratic side, they both released texts of their addresses as well, separately. Host we have a little bit of what that had to say. But just a little bit more from inside the dinner, john. Describe the evening, in your words. Caller i was sort of struck by this is not the White House Correspondents Association dinner, which people are more familiar with. In part because it is larger, in part because they allow cameras. It also tends to be a little bit more celebrity focused and a mixture of hollywood and washington, new york and washington t. But this dinner is much more profile by design. Not quite the celebrity clientele there. The one person that i noted, partially because he is close to our leadership is the ravens coach. Leadership is the ravens coach. You do not have the big screen type presentation that you sometimes get at the Correspondence Association dinner. The jokes tend to be a little bit more inside baseball, at least this time. The president s remarks were largely directed toward the press. He also picked on members of both parties, people in his cabinet and so forth. He spent a lot of time, for instance, talking about the bob woodward story, at one point saying something along the lines of name one administration that never walked out after picking on bob woodward . Of what is the worst that could happen. Clearly reference in the nixon the administration. A transcript was put out of the president s remarks. Some of you have noticed that i am dressed differently from the other gentleman. Because of the sequester, they cut my tails. No one will feel any Immediate Impact because of the sequestered . You are about to find out how wrong you are. John, you also send out your own twitter message about marco rubio and the president. What was going on there . Caller one of the more poignant lines of the night came when obama took a long civil water as a parody of the marco rubio response to the state of the Union Earlier this year, ending the show by saying now that is how you take a sip of water. You know, it is a lot of inside jokes. Really geared for the folks in the room. Pretty funny stuff. Host there is also a right up on bobby jindal, who spoke to republicans. He was quoted in one ride up as drawing an implicit comparison between the president and himself, referring to speculation that he might seek the white house. What chance does a skinny guy with a dark complexion and a funny name have to be elected president of the United States . What did that do, if anything, for bobby jindal, who has been talked about for 2016 . Caller look, that stuff was not anything that was in the room for. I was only in the room for a brief few minutes to see the president. One thing that i keep holding back on, i was there to cover the president on the gridiron dinner. There is a fine line. Because of that i did not get to see any of the skits. From what i understand, it sounds like bobby jindal killed it. The president noted at one point in his speech that he thought bobby jindal was very funny. Some of the twitter speculation last night and this morning suggested that he may have loosened up a little bit compared to his own state of the Union Response earlier, which did not get very good reviews. It is tough to say. How people see this, because of the limited size, and what it means for bobby jindal, certainly he got rave reviews from the press corps last night. Host this from the press corps last night, bobby jindal erases memory of his disastrous reply to the obama state of the union years ago. Back your point about many people not being able to see these, how important are these dinners . Especially this gridiron dinner. Caller you know, that is a good question. My sense is that both the gridiron and Correspondents Association dinner appeal to a very limited audience. By suspect that there are not too many voters outside the beltway who are paying very close attention to them. I was surprised by how few tweaks were flying around last night to and among some of the journalists who were not there. Certainly not a wide response from boat not inside the beltway. Virtually none. That is not a scientific analysis, but my sense is that these dinners are very closely watched inside the beltway. Host our washington correspondent, in for part of the dinner host we have about 15 minutes left to take your comments about the president visiting capitol hill several times this coming week. He will have four separate visits with folks on the hill beginning tuesday. He will meet with Senate Democrats. On wednesday, he will meet with House Republicans. Then he will meet with Senate Republicans as well. House and across house democrats, too. Carol has been hanging on from richmond, indiana. Caller he is having a lot of visits because they have an issue on their hands. They lack them put systems in place that have they let them put systems in place that are affecting our technology. And if they are not careful, our government is going to be in ruins. They are trying to get together the best they can. I do not think eric holder did a good representation. Mr. Grassley did good in addressing him. He did strait when right to the point. There is no resolution as to when the he went right to the point. There is no resolution of windy documents will be presented. I have when the documents will be produced. These things need to be addressed quickly. I was watching cspan, your channel that you are on now, this weekend. There is a section in Michelle Obama when she is getting giving an address and they make her look similar to an ape. I called up and told the department of justice and left a message. I am not crazy. These are elementary acting on our cspan, the channel that you guys are on. There is attacking going on in the videos that are representing the world. If anyone wants to take a good watch, they can see them clearly. Host we will let that stand and move on to christine on the democratic line. Caller i am glad you are here and i watch you every day. I wanted to call in having to do with the republicans and the democrats. I am ashamed of our country right now having to do with the republicans. Since being a child, i have been interested in politics. I was proud of our country and how we ran things, especially since the russians were delayed they were. It felt like we were safe and would especially since the russians were the way they were. I feel like the republicans are telling us apart and they do not love america. They would not be taking the grounds they are taking, saying no taxes. How do you run a government with no taxes . How do we keep our country together when someone is saying, we will not have taxes for the rich . It is just not right at all. Those things went on in this country before we have taxes coming in before the heyday in this country. Everybody that was so rich and did so many wonderful things, but the poor people suffer terribly. Host we will go to a couple more of your calls in a moment. Back to facebook. Speaking about the president s visit to the hill, john fox rights, it is all for show. It was all, and he has no go. For show. It was obama and he has no go. They are not interested in doing anything that will shed a good light on obama and ease the peoples pain. Barbara in south dakota, independent. Good morning to you. Caller good morning. I have been watching your cspan program. I have been reading about the president going to meet with the gop on the hill. It is all political theater. They are just doing this to appease the public. They are not going to do anything toward changing anything. They call themselves Political Parties while the country is falling apart. They are doing things to appease the public and not doing anything serious about taking care of the problems of this nation. Thank you. Host senator rand paul writes in the outlook section of the Washington Post this morning about his 13hour filibuster the other night over the issue of drones. It had to do with the nomination of mr. Brennan as cia director. If i had an idea to take the floor 13 hours, i would have worn more comfortable shoes. I started with the words, i rise today to begin the filibuster of John Brennans nomination for the cia. I wanted to send an alarm bell from coast to coast. I wanted everybody to know our constitution expresses precious. As americans, we have fought long and hard for the bill of rights. The idea that no person should be held without due process or with out being indicted is a founding principle. Rand paul is a republican from texas from kentucky. He goes on to say the outpouring of support from my filibuster has become overwhelming. Millions of this debate on tv, twitter and facebook. I hope this starts a National Debate about the scope of every americans natural right to be free. Patricia on the line from phoenix. Democrat. What do you make of the president visiting the hill this week . Caller i am class. I hope the republicans will get off of their high horse and give him more support than they do. He has even offered programs that the republicans themselves had originally wanted. But because he is president and democrats and black, they do not want to let him. They have a voted against things that they had been for themselves prior to their voting against the president. I was originally an independent. I am now democrats. My daughter and i both have supported this president to the extent that when we heard a threat against his life, we called in. Ever since that call, we have had all kinds of Death Threats and everything. We lost everything we had except the clothes on our backs. We still support this president. The Bush Administration got us into so much trouble, and this president has tried his best to dig us out of that. Republicans have not given him the support that they really know him. Why i stand here fully supporting the president. My daughter and i dont both have even been illegally evicted. During that time, we saw firsthand all lots of things that need to be addressed. The president has tried in so many ways to address these problems, including immigration and the homeless problem. Host i do not mean to cut you off. We are running short of time. Id like to get a few other calls. In mississippi, a republican. Good morning, robert. Caller i am listening to your callers, especially the democrats, saying we do not want to raise taxes. Lets just borrow more money. I make only a certain amount of money. I cannot just keep borrowing money to buy things. That is what the republicans are trying to tell the American People. We tax so much. We have got so much money coming in, and that is all we can spend. It is not like we are trying to cut people out. We take in so many billions of dollars, trillions of dollars. We cannot keep borrowing more and keep increasing and increasing. We have got to level off. Host that is a republican named robert from mississippi. Joseph writes in via twitter. The republicans want gridlock. Al is calling from boston. Al is an independent. Good morning. Caller we have gone from yes we can, to know, we are not. No, we are not. Let me remind the American People that the democrats have been in charge for the bulk of the last years. What we are looking at is 16 trillion in debt in this country. Most of it is because of democratic policies. I do not disagree with everything the democrats have done. We have more than 10 Million People on Social Security disability. This is unsustainable. Your listeners need to understand macroeconomics. We cannot continue this. The republicans are of the adults because they want to deal with this. We cannot continue this spending. The president is going to realize this very soon. We cannot go on like this. Host back to twitter. Bill king rice that the president is supported by the majority of americans writes that the president is supported by the majority of americans. This cover story says, what is your number . It is surprising how many people know somebody last and shot. The lead story in the New York Times has to do with guns. The share of guns of a dodge households with guns has declined. The most surprising jobs have been in the south and the Western Mountain states. The gun ownership rate has fallen across a broad Cross Section of households since the early 1970s, according to data from the General Social survey, a Public Opinion survey conducted every two years. The rate has dropped in cities large and small, in suburbs and rural areas and all regions of the country. It has fallen in households with children and those without. It has declined in households that say they are happy and those who say they are not. It is down among churchgoers and those who never sit in pews. David, riverside, ohio. Good morning. Caller president obama is doing the best he can with these republicans. Every time he puts his hand out, they smacked him back. I really believe one of the main problems in this country today, someone has to do and unamerican investigation into fox news. They are undermining our country. You watch them and they lie and they lie and it goes on day after day, every day. Host in the Washington Examiner, this piece. House republicans got their groove back as they continue to negotiate on economic matters. There is still some turbulence ahead for House Republicans. The debt limit was seen as a major obstacle for obama. Now it is his last chance to force a grand bargain. House republicans failed to push the debt limit off until after the 2014 election. Oh, and monitors like senators Lindsey Graham and john mccain will have a chance to pass a tax hike. They should set themselves up for bid wins in 2014 and 2016. On the pages of the Washington Examiner this sunday morning. Greg from jacksonville, independent college. Caller let me qualify quickly. I know your time is limited. I have been watching cspan since its debut. I have one recommendation. You made a quick reference to the gridlock last night in washington, d. C. Most of the callers would not be interested in that. Allow the colors more time to call in. That is the elite callers more time to call in. Give them a chance to make comments. No one was interested in that period that he did that to the question that cspan post. I hope the president and the republicans get together. The president has not worked with the republicans since he got into office. Most working people know that the republicans have not done that. The country is in really bad shape. If we do not watch out, we will not be a country very long. Cspan is the best in the business. The recommendation i would make for that thing on the gridiron, 10 or 15 minutes was taken that you can allow for your program. I have been watching cspan 33 years. Host keep watching and thanks for the input. We appreciate it this morning. We have plenty more time for your calls on economic and other matters. Coming up, we will talk with peter cook of bloomberg tv and Rachel Smolkin. Later, we will take a look at the states with the highest in the lowest tax burden in the United States. First, a look at what is coming up on the sunday shows with c span radio. Topics include the federal budget, immigration, and senator rand pauls filibuster this week. Cspan reality shows beginning with meet the press. Florida republican governor jeb bush is making the rounds of all the shows. Also republican senator tom coburn. On abcs this week, dnc chair, Debbie Wasserman schultz and fort hood former florida government a government jeb bush. Unionstate of the follows. House majority whip Kevin Mccarthy and jeb bush. At 4 00 p. M. , face the nation on cbs. Bob schieffer talks with new york city mayor michael proved boat bloomberg. The sunday network tv talk shows this afternoon on cspan radio are brought to you as a Public Service by the networks and c span. Those repairs began begin at noon. You can listen to them all on c span radial on 90. 1 fm in the washington, d. C. Area. You can listen on your smartphone or go online to cspanradio. Org one of the few federal agencies that is designated to exist in the constitution. Patents and trademarks are a fairly modern invention. The. Patents the first patents were given to monarchies on their inventions. The constitution takes it one step further. This is for useful inventions. From the beginning, novelty was a key aspect of the patent offices role. Every one of the models has a little tag with it. Each of the tags is tied on with a little piece of red ribbon. This little piece of red ribbon is one of the supposes a originations of the phrase red tape. This was originally red ribbon that each of these was tied on. It was not until the tag was tied on and the patent was approved that you would cut through all of the red tape. Original patents were to show the operation of an item. Each of these models works the way a fullscale model would work. Toward the National Inventors museum on cspan 3. Washington journal continues. Host joining us for a look at the past week and the upcoming week are peter cook, chief washington correspondent for Bloomberg Television and Rachel Smolkin, Deputy Managing Editor at politico. I appreciate you coming by. We spent time talking about this schmooze offensive by the president. One caller earlier said this was all for show. There is no substance. There were four separate meetings on the hill. Is there going to be a lot of substance . What might come out of these meetings this week . Guest it is not clear yet. This is a definite shift in strategy for president obama after the dinner we saw last week. The real shift we are seeing, he has been going around the country Campaign Style and hitting the republicans. We saw this during the fiscal cliff fight and during the unsuccessful bid to turn back the sequester. It did not work. Now the president is trying something new, the outreach to republicans. A handful of physics will not change the tone in washington. If this is something he begins to do in a sustained way, he could make a difference. Host peter cooks, defined the term define the term, grand bargain. Guest at the simpsonbowles committee, the grand bargain was dissipated according to a lot of peoples expectations a few months ago. John boehner and the president walked away from the table. It is that in the discussion because of what happens from the sequester. People are talking about a deal that involves taxes, more revenue and income reform changes. We have not seen it yet. It is still a long shot. People are at least talking about it because of the outreach. I do not see a clear road map to any kind of piecemeal solution in the meantime. Guest it has been such an interesting week. This has come up out of nowhere. It seems that it was dead on top of the grand bargain. Suddenly, it is that again. It is hard to know if anything will come of it. The president and his allies know that the only way they will get their revenues is to do a big deal in washington. Guest and to pick out five or six republican senator, which was why the dinner the other night was so interesting. If he can pass something in the shannon the senate, maybe House Republicans can be convinced to accept something. It is still a long shot. Host let me invite the viewer is to phone in with their questions and comments to peter cook and Rachel Smolkin. Republicans 2027370002, democrats, 2027370002 and independents 2026280205. Bloomberg writes about the Unemployment Rate going down a couple aticks. Of ticks. How significant are these numbers . Guest very significant. Reporters that the numbers early. We shook our heads. It was a good report. Unemployment rate dropping seven. Dropping to 7. 7 . This was a good report. Private sector pay rolls were particularly good. It is one month. The Federal Reserve says it needs to see substantial improvement in the labor market. Host Rachel Smolkin, does this change the republican mayor of about tv about the economy . Guest good news seldom changes anybodys argument. Bad news is the only impetus. These numbers do not include the sequester, those spending cuts that took effect march 1. Even next month, we will see the beginning of those taking effect, the furlough notices take 30 days. There are questions from economists about how much of an impact we will see and how much of a temper it will put on a Stronger Economic growth. Host first caller is from georgia. Good morning. Caller i have a couple comments and a question. My first comment is the format of cspan. You bring in these two people for this fake debate. It appears that the media has outlawed any kind of debate for elected officials. Two elected officials sitting side by side asking each other questions, responding to each others questions. This has been outlawed in the corporate media. Republicans can never defend their positions. If they were to debate a democrat on national tv against about any issue, there would be a rebuttal from the republican allies. If you do not have been rebuttal, cspan did not do its job. You have two corp. With mouthpieces, bloomberg and cooks. Both of them are speaking for their respective organizations. Neither of them are elected by the voters. Neither of them have a fiduciary duty to serve the voters. They have a fiduciary duty to serve their companys bottom line. They will not give you the truth. This is how cspan uses their format. This is a fake debate. Lets talk about the issues. Host just to clarify, Rachel Smolkin is with politico, not cooks. Caller 15 is the revenue of this country. That is an historic low. We just came through a recession where people are on the government sold more than ever. We have the lowest tax revenue. What do republicans say . They say, we are the tea party. We are taxed enough already. We have record low revenue and the tea party says we are taxed enough already. What does cspan do . They want to speculate. Asked questions and asking people, what will happen in the future . Your favorite question is speculation. We are not going to examine what happened in the past. Host he left a lot out there. Peter cooks first. Anything you want to respond to from the caller . Guest my job as a reporter and Bloomberg Television is to serve our audience by asking as much as many questions of republicans and democrats. I will leave that as it is. In terms of the revenue question, the caller makes a good point. Tax revenue in historic terms is down as a percentage of gdp. Federal spending is also up as a percentage of gdp. That gives talking points to the democrats and republicans. It is acting core of this debate. At the cord of this debate. Host Rachel Smolkin, what is the impact shaping up to the . Recall of one substance and not speculation. What is happening around the court around the country so far . Deutsche bank a lot of speculation around the sequester. It was hard for president obama to get any traction on this issue. There was a specific event happening on a specific day. Taxes will go up. The sequester is a rolling phenomenon. The president got himself into a little bit of rhetorical trouble. He was going around the country trying to make sure he made clear what he dramatic consequences would be and he got into trouble about the histrionics, as the republicans call them. There will be tangible consequences over time as the spending began to take effect, as government workers furloughed. Nothing has been right away. That is why it is a little bit harder to get a handle on it and these other debates. Caller i just want to Say Something about the immigration thing. When my parents came here, they had to go through a lot to get here. They had to wait in line and they were proud to show their papers that they became americans. They had to learn english to be here. We have got so much going on with immigration. Chicago is a safe haven. Anybody who thinks illegals are not getting into all of the traits, that is a joke. Come here and look around all of the trades, that is a joke. Come here and look around. You cannot compete with somebody who is making half of what your guys are making. Host will immigration be on the agenda when the president visits . Guest he wants to talk about immigration and his gun control agenda and other issues. When the conversation comes up, he has to, as some extent. He is looking for republicans who are willing to agree with him on some sort of larger immigration reform. The caller makes a good point represented by a lot of democrats and republicans, who feel the issue of illegal immigration has not focus completely on the issue of those people who are here already and what to do about it. Host what will it take for a comprehensive immigration bill . Guest of all the issues on the table in washington, immigration has the best chance of some Real Movement and action. It remains a tough issue. How you handle the pathway to citizenship . There seems to be a moment when the republicans coming out of the last election where they are so poorly among hispanics the realization that to move the party for one, there needs to be some attention to this issue. Forward, there needs to be some attention to this issue. There was a moment when sequestration sticklebacks seat and the battle would be over this continuing resolution. Would we keep the government running through march 27 . Both sides stood down on that. It does not look like that will be the big battle, as some first thoughts. President obama was to begin to take up other pieces of his domestic agenda. Host we will talk about jeb bush, the biggest name attached to the immigration issue this week. We will get some other calls. Michael has been hanging on from overtime, boca raton, florida. Caller Speaker John Boehner was attacking senator john mccain and the republicans in the senate. What was the cause of that and what the what will the results be as far as the fiscal cliff is concerned . Guest referring to the issues with regard to the dinner the other night . Caller it was after the dinner. I saw the speaker on abc news. He made an attack on the Republican Party in the senate, particularly Speaker Boehner went after senator mccain. I believe it was the speaker who held the senate hostage with his irate debate about the nomination, saying the senate was not getting anything accomplished in many aspects of legislation. Host making a connection to the filibuster this week. Guest we have seen this strategy from Speaker Boehner over and over lately. Politico did a piece about it lately. He is trying to put the onus on the senate to get things done. You back to it before and now it is the senators turn. He worked it out with the president and we will pick it up from there it is the senates turn. We acted before and you work it out with the president before. T you work it out with the president. Host that is the reality of spending. This budget plan is more politics. It allows democrats to put some pepper something that stands in contrast to what the republicans have put paper something that stands in contrast to what the republicans have put down. Host the thing think sequester does hold . Or does the continuing resolution take the place of it . Host guest we do not know if it will be extended or if there will be a real budget to take its place. They could we do pieces in the continuing resolution. There has been talk about making some changes to the defense budget. Questions about how that will be defended on extended on the domestic side. Host machel in minneapolis, republican. Good morning michelle in minneapolis, a republican. Caller i dont know where to start. Both of your cooks sounded naive about the president calling the republicans your guests sounded naive about the president calling the republicans to have dinner. He wants them out in two years. He is trimming back to when pelosi and senator reid would have the backroom deal for health care. He wants that again in the next two years. That is number 1. Calling people like john mccain and missing gramm to the white house. They want more spending for the and Lindsey Graham to the white house. They want more spending for the military. We want smart cuts. John mccain and Lindsey Graham are out of the picture as far as we are concerned. Host thanks for the call. Lets hear a response from our guests. Guest the idea that the president is trying to target a few republicans who might agree with them, replacing the sequester was some tax revenue, that is a Clear Strategy from the white house. He will not get a lot of them, but he might get a handful. This is a president who would like to get a budget deal to allow him to move onto other issues like immigration, gun control. He needs to get a budget deal. That is why he is targeting these folks and having these dinners and this out of reach. A lot of republicans did not hear anything new from the president. They enjoy eating his meal and spending some time, but they did not hear anything new in terms of substance. The caller makes a good point. Whether this reduces produces anything is yet to be saying. Guest the president wants to win during the midterm. That is absolutely true. There is a limited window of opportunity if the president is going to get anything done. That does not mean he will get anything done. If he is going to make the attempt, he has to make it now before everyone slips back into the election mode. Host shifting gears. Here is a frontpage photo from the New York Times. You can see senator rand paul. He is on the left. In the back, you can see senator john mccain. It is an interesting picture. Senator mccain looking down. Mccain was not happy with senator paul. To the filibuster. How significant were those 13 hours on the floor in terms of the debate here in washington . Guest in terms of longterm policy on drones, probably not significant. It was a real moment. You can debate whether it was staged the last six or something that felt natural, an impromptu moment. Senator paul said he did not plan in ahead of time. He decided to do it in the car and on the way over. He really stirred something in the nation. He touched a chord. It was amazing the response he got on twitter. This was not an issue Republican Party or the Democratic Party has pressed on. By the end of the knights, his own colleagues were under tremendous by the end of the nibhgt, night, his colleagues were under pressure. [video clip] all i can say is i do not think what happened yesterday is helpful to the American People. We need a discussion about exactly how we are going to address this new form of almost internal warfare, which is different from anything we have ever faced in the past. Somehow, to allege that the United States of america would dropped a drone on jane fonda, that brings the conversation from a serious discussion about u. S. Policy to the realm of the ridiculous. Host peter cook, the realm of the ridiculous. We also got whacko bird, a new term in washington. Guest it shows how rand paul can grab the american spotlight when he chooses to. One of the people who went to join him on his support on the floor was mitch mcconnell, who might be facing a primary challenge. The significance of him going down there and supporting rand paul may be one of the bigger story to come out of this. Guest host , let me go to host lets me go to eric. Caller nobody is talking about how taxes went up on january 1. That is what republicans have been preaching. You do not hear about that. That is the main issue. It was good when clinton was in. Bush gave all the tax breaks and it was bad. It is like elementary. Nobody wants to talk about that. Host Rachel Smolkin, what is your reaction. We will put up the jobs numbers to remind people of what happened. The Unemployment Rate dropped to 7. 7 . Go ahead. Guest that is an interesting point. With the jobs report, no one particular month tells the story. We are going to need to look over the next couple of months, particularly after the sequester takes effect to get a good picture of what the economy is doing. One interesting piece of the last job three port is the rebound in the Housing Market that is showing a construction report. That was a good sign. Despite the dire warnings about sequester, the dow is in a great movie. The market had a fabulous couple of weeks. A lot of things are not quite matching what is was predicted. Host more about the dow. Quite a story in the last couple of weeks. Guest it is amazing how the Business Community and the investing community is ignoring washington. Companies with significantly strengthened Balance Sheets and a lot of cash on hand. The focus is on that. The focus of the fiscal cliff deal and all the questions out there and whether other tax changes might be coming there was some sense of relief. The payroll tax went away. That is also something that a lot of economists suggest would have an impact on the u. S. Economy. This last month was pretty good. 187,000 jobs a month is the average. It is good historically. Generally, we need to 1000 and 200,000 jobs or more. Host a broader tax reform bill on the way, do you think . Guest it is something in the mix. It could be part of the grand bargain where they spell out parcel will for tax reform. All of these things spell out certain rules for tax reform. All these things are on the table. Host hubert is on the line for democrats. Caller i am concerned about the country as a whole. I am a democrat. All parties have to get together as one. A house divided against itself is not going to stand. It will not stand. We will be a fallen nation. We need to get together as one because where there is unity there is strength. Josh ints go on to col. Caller it went from 7. 9 to 7. 7 . That is still a huge difference of those unemployed. He brought back 236,000 jobs. There is a factory here in colorado and says they are going to close and move out of colorado. That is over to 1000 jobs right there. There are only 36,000 jobs added. Host some of the numbers according to josh. Guest recession hit evenly across the country. The recovery has also been on even uneven. In the washington, d. C. Area, we have faired pretty well during the recession. We could have some more trouble now that sequester has taken effect now that we are heavily reliant on the Defense Industry and defense contractors. That is a part of the country that has been lucky, but may see some tougher times coming. The senate is moving on gun control. The judiciary is going to meet this week to talk about these various bills involved. Peter cooks, any thoughts on with this is going to be ended soon peter cook, any thoughts on where this is going to be headed son . Guest it will be a heavy lift with some of the proposals the president has put out. Background checks and limiting the clips. The only measure of moving forward has to do with trafficking and would not have had any impact at all on the newtown situation. Will there be a major gun control legislation . It does not look like it is headed that way. Something might have to change in the dynamic. The nra remains powerful on capitol hill. A lot of lawmakers from both parties have concerned about moving to ban far in this area. Host Rachel Smolkin, Chuck Grassley makes headlines for voting on one of these in favor on one of these proposals. How significant is that . Guest the chances do not look good for any significant action on gun control legislation. Many americans do not want to see movement. The assault weapons ban was always a nonstarter. There was not tremendous support on that, even with democrats. We might get action on that context. That seems to be fading. Host lets hear from shane in mississippi. Good morning to you. Caller i watched the news every day and i watch fox and cspan and i listen to everybody. We are doing too many cuts. We need to go back in history and look at our forefathers and what they did. They created this country upon getting out of debt in keeping the country safe. It is going to take going to work and making something. It is going to take a business perspective as far as making money and trying to save money. I read a lot about thomas jefferson. He makes perfectly good sense to me. We can not be cutting down trees to make paper. Host lets hear from our guests. Anything you want to respond to . Guest i am are not entirely sure of the perspective in terms of cuts. It is interesting for a republican caller to be talking about that right now. The republicans on capitol hill want to see the size of this government to do. To the extent that the discussion starts getting into the time of progress, we will see a grand bargain. We will see a major deal that will have to include entitlement cuts. That is the real . For president obama and the democrats. Will the discussions offer anything new. Will the republicans offer anything new on the revenue fund. We will have to wait and see if there is anything new on either one of those issues. Host Rachel Smolkin, flesh that out, starting with entitlements. Guest president obama is a student of history. He tries to go back to where we are as a nation and where we can go to move forward. The republicans say they have given president obama there his revenue and it is time to be a serious about cuts in washington. They want to hear about the entitlement reform. Be specific. That is what the Republican Party was to hear. Host here is an tweet. Back to senator paul. Would he run for president . Would he be running as a Third Party Candidate . Deathbang we do not know the answer to that. There is no reason to think he would run as something other than a tea party republican, a conservative republican with a libertarian streak. He was surprisingly candid about that in an interview that political did with him saying, i am thinking about it. He is not one for hedging. Host guest his father had the opportunity to run as a libertarian, but chose to run as a republican. Host there is speculation about jeb bush in 20 in 2016. He has a new book out. Remind the audience about what jeb bush has said recently on the topic of immigration. Guest he has said Different Things on the topic of immigration. It has been a tough week for him. He was known to be a leader in the Republican Party on immigration issues and has been at the forefront to push for changes in his party. This week, he looked behind the party in terms of what he was advocating on the pathway to citizenship and not supporting it and sounding more open to it. A lot the week for someone who is seen as being a smart and savvy politician. , what is yourok read . Yesterday his comments about immigration have raised the question come is the in the game to run for president. This past week raised a lot of questions about whether or not he would run and how formidable a kennedy would be and what impact he would have on one of his protege of less formidable a candidate he would be and what impact how formidable a candidate he would be and what impact he would have on one of his proteges, marco rubio. There is a lot of pain out there for americans. There are 12 million are out who are out of work. 40 of those who are unemployed have been unemployed 27 weeks or longer. It is a tough world out there for a lot of people. The improving economy does not mean a great the economy by any means. There is no denying that this report was a good report. It could suggest the economy getting some traction. Guest it is important to note that businesses have been cautious. They are not hiring in a robust way and that has been hard for americans trying to find a job. Host anthony, you are on with peter cook and Rachel Smolkin. Caller what bothers me is when someone calls Social Security and entitlement. None of you point out that Social Security has nothing to do with the deficit or the debt. It is not an entitlement. It is an insurance policy. All the republicans want to do is give that money to wall street. All you have to do is lift the cap on Social Security. I would like your response to that. Guest i would go back to what i was saying before. President obama has not gotten specific about entitlements except to say he would protect them. He was never pressed on these issues during the campaign because mitt romney and paul ryan were trying to show they were support of of protecting these programs. If we get to anything resembling a real deal on a grand bargain, we will have to hear pacifics about what president obama would feel comfortable cutting. Thespecifics about what president obama with your local about what president obama would feel comfortable cutting. Guest it will be interesting to watch the president s interaction with house democrats. Nancy pelosi reiterated last week changing the inflation gauge for Social Security. This was a nonstarter for she and her fellow house democrats. The idea that the cap would go up would be a tough issue for republicans. At the same time, other changes to Social Security would be a big issue for democrats. Host roberts from new york, a democrat. Good morning. Robert, from new york, a democrat. Caller the republicans have not agreed with president obama since he got into office. I would like to say to your two guests, when you are a worker at a factory in you are only making 7. 25 minimumwage and you get 300 every week, it is not about the rich people. They should be glad to help out with tax incentives. When you have to choose between a potato and a potato chip when you go into the store and you have to feed your kids, come on. We need help. That is why so many people are taking food stamps now. The government has to issue more money. There is not enough being made. Host we will go to lansing, North Carolina. Mark. Go ahead. Caller i am a former School Teacher and a fall Small Business owner. Id like to comment on how immigration, the Unemployment Rate, and education are all intertwined. I feel our economy and our society, when you have more people riding in the wagon than are actually pulling it, we are creating a problem. Being a Small Business owner, i see that the Unemployment Rate is high. I have a construction business. There is all kinds of work in construction in the southeast and parts of the United States. The problem is all of the jobs are being taken by illegal immigrants. The people who lose those positions are going on unemployment, creating an Unemployment Rate higher than it should be. Along with our Education System where we teach to the test and teach kids to do the least amount for the most reward. We just need to start teaching work ethics in our Education System. Host what have you heard that you want to respond to . Guest the first point about president obama and the feeling that the republicans have not worked with him we have seen it reflected in president obamas on own stance. We heard this rhetoric about everybody paying their fair share. After his election, this confident president obama, not really reaching out to the republicans, but continuing his campaign against them. That did not work well in this last round. He is trying to extend that all of branch. We will have to see how real it is and how long it lasts. Host some members say he needs to let go of some issues. Here is what the speaker had to say. [video clip] we went through months of Campaign Events all over the country. I had a conversation with the president about last friday. This week, we have gone 180. Now he is actually going to sit down and talk to members. I think it is a hopeful sign. I am hopeful something will come out of it. If the president continues to insist on tax hikes, he will not get far. If the president does not believe we have a spending problem, i do not know if we will get to that far. The president that his revenue during the fiscal cliff deal. He also renewed the line in the sand over the debt ceiling, which is going to be the next big deadline. The next big deadline will be the debt ceiling with john boehner repeating he wants to see a dollar in spending cuts for every dollar in increase. People are going to start hearing more about the debt ceiling. It is probably going to kick in in july and august. Host 1 deadline we are watching is march 22. That is the continuing resolution. It is only in a couple weeks. Guest think everyone is tired of fiscal fight here in washington so there seems to be sentiment to move that forward to not try to completely undo the sequester. Part of that may be modifying it, paying in particular for the military. Having said that, sometimes these things have a way of becoming showdowns at the last minute. It does not look like we are heading in that direction. Host every time they go in there and tinker with the sequestered they get more flexibility. The greater the likely this questor stays in place. That is less reason to say these cuts are painful. If the government has the ability to place these cuts with some flexibility, the harder it will be for members of congress to say they are too painful. Host a caller is calling on the democrats online. Goahead. Caller what i want to know is why these loopholes are considered as spending as the Government Programs people pay into. If we had a president did we not have a republican president who left this country in a mass and now they want to get together and say they know better . We have had progress under a democratic president. It has been that way for a while. Why cannot they tell the truth about that . Guest there is a lot in the tax code right now that is an earmark. Is the equivalent of spending. What do you do with the money you bring in . Republicans would use that money to lower rates. Democrats would use that money towards deficit reduction. That is the gist of the debate. The president touched on this on his conversation. What do you do with that money . Guest it is also harder in practice than it is in theory to close those loopholes. When you Start Talking about the specifics, some of them are very popular. The homeowners deduction is something that Many Americans rely on. Host calling from plainview, new york, republican caller good morning. I have a few comments. The first comment is when both houses of congress or with obama, why did he focus on health care and not jobs. If he focused on jobs we would not be talking about sequesters. In terms of entitlements the government seems to exempt themselves from the laws they promulgate. They are not able to join in the pain of the common man. Their pension is an entitlement. I never hear them talking about reducing or eliminating their entitlements. My third point is that wall street mismanagement and Credit Derivatives brought this economy down. Taxing every transaction would go a long way to solving the deficit problem. Taxingsnt enough money the wealthy in the country. There is 780 billion in taxes calculated by going on the internet. Host do you want to respond . Guest i would say in the point about washington exempting itself there is a feeling that washington is not feeling the same pain that the rest of the country is feeling. The white house said two workers would be canceled for the sequestered. They have also talked about how administration employees will be furloughed or could see potential pay cuts. That is one area where we will see some cases. Guest the congressional pay is not affected by the sequestered. Staffs will see potential furloughs and pay cuts. There will be some talk about congress easing the pay during the conversation. The idea of a transaction tax that is an idea that is in discussion. It has been discussed overseas. There is opposition not only from wall street and the Financial Community they do not want to see a transaction tax because it would generate a lot of revenue. There is some opposition from the obama treasury department. Tim geithner was not a fan of the plan itself. Host of all the offense this week at the end of the week is the sea pak gathered in washington. How significant is this year cost gathering . This years gathering . Guest there are a lot of differences in opinion about what the problem was in the last election. Was it a failure to reach out more effectively to minorities . Was it the Technology Gap that republicans have with the Democratic Party . Did they rely on incorrect polls . There are some who argue the differences are fundamental and there needs to be in the ordering of the party. Lots of interesting issues swirling around this year. Host 1 of the issues is that gov. Christie has not been invited. What do you think about that . Guest the insight is as important as the event itself. This is a showcase for anyone who might want to run in 2016. If Chris Christie was not invited he certainly is not lost on people. This is a guy she was dealing with issues in new jersey right now. We can question with his political future will be beyond that. How many people suddenly point to 2016 . Guest he said he was fine not being invited. He played that very well. Host 02 our guests. Thank you to our guests. Rachel smolkin and peter cook. The much for coming on and taking calls. We have about an hour and 20 minutes left. Coming up in a couple of minutes we will learn more about taxes around the country. We are going to talk with a preposition with a representative from the Tax Foundation. And later a look at syria with a middle east analyst Mona Yacoubian. This is on the policy shift we are reading about this week. We will be right back. The United States patent and Trademark Office is one of the few federal agencies that actually is designated to exist in the constitution. Patents and trademarks are a fairly modern invention. The first patent was a royal grant given to inventors for monopolies on their intentions. They were popular in england and continental europe. The constitution takes it one step further. This is for useful inventions. From the big inning it was a key aspect of the patent offices wall. You will notice that every one of the models have a little tag with it. Each of the tag is tied on by a piece of red ribbon. This little piece of red ribbon is one of the supposedly originations of the phrase, red tape. It wasnt until the tag was tied on and the patent was approved that you would cut through all the red tape. Originally malls were required to show the operation of an item. Each one of these models work in the way that a fullscale version would work. This weekend to were the National Inventors hall of fame and museum of american artifacts, today at 7 00 p. M. Eastern. One of the things that an early american wife was taught to do she supported her husbands career usually through entertaining. She was both socially adapt and politically savvy. She instructed her entertainment in such a way that she could lobby for her husband under the guise of entertaining. She also thought it was very important to create a setting in the white house almost like a stage for the performance of her husband and the conduct of politics and diplomacy. First Lady Dolley Madison we will follow her journey from a quicker widow to the wife of the u. S. President James Madison. Monday at 9 00 eastern on c span and cspan3. Washington journal continues. Host he is vicepresident for legal and state projects. We spent a lot of time talking about federal tax. Here we are going to talk about state and local taxes. You have a new study out. Explain to us what you are looking for and what you discovered. It is one of the Animal Studies we put out. It is the state and local tax study. It measures the amount of taxes paid by residents of each state to their state and local governments. We all pay lots of taxes. The state and local taxes pat taxes separate from the federal taxes. The main thing we emphasize in the study is the difference between Tax Collections and tax burden. Tax collections are what the government collects and tax burdens are what people pay. That is the same number for state and local governments, 1. 2 trillion dollars. There is a difference in who they are paid to and how they are paid. I have two examples. In nevada, they pull a lot of taxes from the casino operations, from tourism taxes on hotels in the las vegas area. Nvs government collects a lot of taxes. The nevada people are not the ones paying those taxes. So the tax burden is relatively low. A lot of it is from people out of state. Alaska actually has the highest tax collection on of Oil Extraction and business. It has a very high tax collection but any economist will tell you it is not alaskans paying those taxes. Alaskans actually have a very low tax burden. They get checks back from the State Government. Host let us dig into the burdens a little more. This is a good time to learn more about how status assessed taxes and collected them differently between the burden and collection. Here are the phone numbers. Protest is joseph henchman of our guest is joseph henchman of the Tax Foundation. These are the states with the highest tax burden around the country. New york, new jersey, connecticut, california, wisconsin tweet york has the highest tax burden in the country at 12. 8 . Walk us through those numbers in the high areas. Guest these numbers are the percentage of peoples personal income that they are paying in the state and local taxes. The average is 9. 9 . Americans are paying 9. 9 of their income to state and local governments for services that those governments provide. In some of the states it is much higher. New york and new jersey has very high taxes across the board. They have high rates on them. A lot of people are paying a lot of money. None of it is really surprising. These states have had high tax burdens for some time. Some states moved around a bit but new york and new jersey are usually right around the top. To the lowest tax burden states and alaska hits the bottom. This is what people have to pay individually. Alaska has 7. 0 , followed by south dakota, tennessee, louisiana, and wyoming all in the 7 range. Guest all of these states lack one of the major taxes. They are getting revenue from other sources. Alaska has oil, wyoming has minerals, south dakota has a broad sales tax applied to a lot of things. They are bringing in revenue and it can go without one of the major taxes. Louisiana has all of the major taxes but the governor down there is proposing a tax reform to get rid of the individual income tax. Host you mentioned some of the higher burden states have been in that position for a while. Is there anything significantly different from these numbers that we might have known or seen a couple of years ago . Guest the historical trend has gone up and down a little bit. In the late 1980s the tax burdens were where they are about now, of around 10 . They have dropped over time in the late nineties and mid 2000s. Now we see them going back up. There was a drop in 2007 and 2008. State collections and state tax burdens are coming back to where they were. Host how to seize the about figuring out their tax burden for individuals . Guest the state to call the laboratories of democracy. Each state taxes them uniquely. Each state decides whether it should have property, sales, income tax paid we do a lot of meetings of International Delegations at the Tax Foundation. It is the Central Government that decides how the provinces and local governments can raise the revenue in other countries. State and local governments did about a third of their revenue from state and property taxes, about a fifth from individual taxes, and the remaining from other types of taxes. Host the first call for our guest come of light from california the first call for our guest, mike from california. Caller our gasoline is 4. 23 per gallon. We just had an election that not only for primaries for mayor but we also voted against an increased sales tax for los angeles. That would have made it over 9 . My question is have you broken it down by city and county and which one has the highest sales tax . Host would you be interested in california in that case . Or just in general . Caller california. Guest all of our information is online. We have information for all of our taxes with local taxes and meal taxes and property taxes. For sales tax, the highest is actually arizona. There is a small tribal town there that has the state tax, the county tax, and the travel tax. San francisco as high as far as major cities. Chicago used to be over 10 . They dropped that a little bit after they saw people going out into the suburbs to buy stuff. I know a lot of major cities in california are around there. Southern california has high salestax. Host usa today, has an Interactive Chart if you are interested. You can find this online. What we are looking at now are those lower states that it talked about earlier. Alaska, wyoming, south dakota, all in the 7. 8 range in the 7 to 8 range. Guest i am glad you brought up massachusetts. Massachusetts is an interesting story because its tax burden peaked in the late 1970s and 80s and drop since then. We all remember when it was nicknamed taxachussetts. The governor is now proposing a lot of increases. Host we read about taxes and fees. Are they the same thing . Guest they are not. To economists they are costs. Theres still something you pay the government. Fees are something you pay for a service that the government is providing to you and only you. Taxes are something that goes to the general fund to pay for something for everything. Fees are Something Like toll roads, to get your drivers license. Host let us hear from wayne in burrillville, iowa. He is on the democratic line. Caller the farmers in our state are pretty much exempt from all kinds of taxes. Even though it is food related, with the Reform Program the east farmers get a free ride like the welfare system from the taxpayers. They are the one that do the most damage to our roads. I was always wondering why is their property not considered an asset on taxes . Guest a lot of that is historical. Farmers use to be a very powerful political president political presence. The structure of their industry is very difficult. Every year i put 1 million of seed into the ground and held at the better part of the year i will be able to get 1. 2 million. It is a very risky environment. You see a lot of efforts to put things in the tax cut to benefit agriculture. Some justified, some that maybe not. Every state has an interest some kind of special interest or group that wants the tax code to benefit them. Kentucky just had a Tax Commission that recommended new tax benefits for the bourbon and horseracing industries. No surprise for what you would expect to come out of a commission from that from a Commission Like that in kentucky. Host in terms of what the states and up charging folks and businesses guest people a surprise that federally makes a third of state budget. 33 cents is coming from the federal government if not been raised by their own taxes. In the 1960s and 1970s the Tax Foundation was warning about the growing independence of state and local governments on federal aid. It can be cut back. That is a problem that a lot of state revenue officials and state officials are worrying about right now. Federal government is talking about sequestration and budget cutbacks and deficit reduction. I think federal aid is an area that could see a lot of cutbacks. Host there is a tweet about North Carolina here. Where is your website swear i can see how badly my pockets are picked in North Carolina your website where i can see how badly my pockets are picked in North Carolina . Guest you can pick any state you want and get all the details on each state. You will know the exact number there. North carolina has a high income tax for the region. Almost 8 . Very high sales taxes. It is a problematic situation for them in terms of attracting people to work there. We actually put out a book recently in cooperation with businesses bleak the suggestion ought tax reform. Host why is it high . Guest the southern regions historical problem has been capital accumulation. That is trying enough people in the region to be able to build up investments and invest in things and get Economic Growth out of it. It is something the south has not been able to do as well. They do not have that base. In North Carolina they have a lot of state services and it is difficult to provide them without strong Economic Growth. Host bigger base, more businesses coming in, that means more revenue and taxes might be favorable to folks. Guest that is the big debate we are have been at state level. But as more important for the tax system . It rewards and punishes the people and it has some depiction of what the distribution tables of a crack at the end of the day. Or should it be a neutral tax system to all comers . That is a debate we had over the books tax cuts and the debate over the tax increases in january. At the state level dc states going in different directions. Minnesota the banners want to raise taxes. There are places like nebraska and louisiana that want to reduce taxes. Host those are some of the essential services that government specified governments provided a big topic is the medicaid expansion. Whether states are going to take that money, and the federal government has promised to provide 100 federal funding for that over the next couple of years. Whether they will be able to keep that commitment at a time when they are looking for savings everywhere remains to be seen. Host let us hear from delaware. Robb is an independent. You are on a whiff joseph henchman of the Tax Foundation. Go ahead. Caller i want to expand on the whole taxes versus fees. I lived in three different states, new york, New Hampshire, and now delaware. Concerned you eventually pay anyway. With the drivers license costs this is an example. In new york state you need 30 to get your license renewed every year. In New Hampshire and delaware it could be anywhere from 200 to 300. I understand that is not uniform because not everybody drives. I just think that the whole fees versus tax is kind of evolution. Some of those percentages do not take into fact what the states charge New Hampshire doesnt have an income or sales tax. Guest it is all dollars going into the State Government but somethings categorize Different Things. That is certainly understandable. They rely heavily on user fees. If you were to rank the states on how much they get out of their drivers or users fees they are no. 1 in the country. Everyone in germany and everyone in delaware analysis. It works for them. If it does not that is what the representative process not with the representative processes for. There are quite a few states without salestax. Different states do Different Things to make up for it. New hampshire does not have a sales tax. They make up for it by having a very frugal state and local government system. Anybody up there can tell you about the town meetings to have in New Hampshire when they adopt state budget. It is a very frugal environment that has the consumption of a very limited government. They can rely on mineral extraction. They do not have access tax. They get a lot of business taxes and tolls. Host david is on the line for a democrat from kentucky. Caller kentucky has come up with special taxing districts. I guess it is placed by legislature. The constitution will have to be changed on that. I wanted to comment on that and maybe the other states. Caller can explain how it works . Caller i do not really know. I know some places have got them. 6 to come upes with these special taxing districts. Let us see if we can get our guest to help. Guest there are 9600 different ad sales tax districts in the United States. There are 5000 local tax jurisdictions. I think what the caller might be talking about is tax improvement financing districts. Chicago is littered with these. How it works is the freeze the tax base and any increase in the tax base is invested in infrastructure within the district. Depending on who your perspective on your perspective this is a good way to finance improvements. California controversially upholstered these. Host explain about take about state versus local taxation. Guest like Everything Else it varies dramatically by state. Local governments are creations of State Governments in most places. The mix will be different and the Services Provided will be different. We talked about carolina earlier. The local governments do not maintain roads at all. The state of North Carolina has the Largest Network of state maintained roads in the country, even though in terms of mileage and the roads in the state they do not rank very high. For a state like North Carolina, the local government is not doing road by tenants. States like california are doing a lot. You will see the mix of revenues differ as well. In some places local governments reply on rely on tax revenue. Local Government Income taxes are very complex. There is no deformity. People have to file 15 or 20 income taxes a year. It is very burdensome. Host kevin from tucson, arizona. Caller i want to comment on New Hampshire, i had property there for 30 years. It is not in a release date. They ruled out some the control all liquor sales. They are able to keep the liquor blow the private sale stores in other states. They have things like open fire works laws that are legal. They are opening selling fireworks to raise revenue. Surprisingly it is the borders community. People from massachusetts and connecticut and places like that the only state in the northeast that does not have a deposit. People can buy bottles in New Hampshire and they cannot spend them i think the tax situation doesnt exist. This property tax is ridiculous. Guest two thoughts. New hampshire does have high property and business taxes. The half taxes on dividends and wages. It is not entirely this propitiousfeelin this stealing revenue. I would characterize it as competition. Every state has advantages and disadvantages relative to other states. Montgomery county maryland has a very high level of services. It also has very high tax. The services are more valuable than the taxes are. Maybe you decide taxes matter to you more than the level of services. You see that same type of decision being made all over the country. Host here is a twitter message. They do it lowered though . Guest sometimes. During the recession of lot of taxes went down primarily because income was going down and sales were going down. Certainly that is not the best situation. There have been propertytax revolts. There have been income tax revolts. People of state and local governments called the lower it led to copycats in other states. Propertytax is are dropping after the high in the recession. There are efforts to cut taxes in quite a few states, driven the governors who want to reduce tax burdens. Host we will go to tony from chicago. Caller i have a question regarding the various tax policies and the democratic shifts. I am looking at the lower tax burden in arizona versus being in the state of illinois, which has 70 two hundred taxing bodies. Have you look at the demographic nexus between the population shift of the baby boomers approaching their retirement years and the tax policies from various states . Guest this is something experts are debating heavily what is the connection between interstate people and businesses and taxes . You can go to our website at interactive. Taxfoundation. Org. You can see the movement of people at taxable income adjustable gross income over time between all of the states. Pick a state and the year. Pick a range of years. There are people that say that taxes do not affect behavior at all. There are people at the other extreme the answer is in the middle. There is plenty of anecdotal evidence that tax behavior is a major piece. A piece asserted that taxes do not affect the behavior but had several different examples of tax is treading a prominent person to move out of the state or change their residency. The academic evidence is a bit mixed, primarily because it is hard to parse out all the Different Things. Think about the last time you moved. Did you move because of housing prices . It to move because of the weather . Because of educational opportunities, Job Opportunities . Or did to move because of taxes . Some of those things i mentioned are influenced by taxes. Over all the general trend is people are leaving high tax states and moving to los tax states. It is not purely a weather phenomenon. Host howard from ann arbor, michigan. He is a democrat. Welcome to caller . Wouldke to ask him if he comment on the combined state and local tax burdens as to their progressive or regressive nature relative to income level. Guest sales tax is generally regressive. They take out the less income they earn. A poor person will pay more in sales taxes as a percentage of their sale as a percentage of their income. Income taxes are reversed. A rich person will pay more in income taxes, especially if the state has higher tax rates. This is another thing that will depend on what experts you talk to. Some people say it balances out. There are other people that say state taxes are very regressive. Our concern should be more on designing a tax system that will foster Economic Growth, be able to create jobs, open doors economically to anybody who wants to try to work or live in a state. Host said augustine, florida, independent line. Caller there are a couple of callers that already touched base on a question i have. The word progressive tax could solve a lot of problems in a complex tax structure. You could eliminate exemptions and free rides. With all the equipment they would pay probably no taxes. What is his opinion on a progressive tax system where up to the poverty line nobody pays. Everybody contributes to the pot of gold. The more you make the more you pay. At least everybody contributes and we lend to collapse and consent and we led loopholes and cannoexceptions. Guest he is talking about tax reform. A lot of things are not being taxed. A lot of people are exempt. It will be a fairer system that will grow with the economy. The sales tax was designed in the 1930s and applies primarily to goods. It does not apply to services. Now we are more of a Services Based economy. When a lawyer so services or a realestate agent or an accountant, they are not collecting taxes in those states. They get a tax exemption. Right now the salestax only applies to about 30 of purchases that people make. That is the average in the country. If we were to bring that to 70 we might be able to cut the rates in half. Host do you think that might have been guest . We are working on it. It might have to happen eventually. I think youre going to see Services Continue to grow with a share of the economy. If states want to continue depending on this revenue starts it is a very important revenue source. We will see. The governor of ohio has a plan right now. We will see what kind of reception. Host we will have one last call for kevin for joseph. Kevin from massachusetts. Guest i am calling from the corrupt state of massachusetts. Democratically controlled. We have higher liquor taxes. People will buy liquor and come back across the border. He did get caught and he was so arrogant. It was just incredible. I am not complaining about the high liquors. I am calling about the arrogance of government officials when they set the tax rate but wanted to avoid it. My other question is i moved from new bedford because of the high tax rate in the residential area. There was one year in 2010, it was an 800 increase in the home Residential Tax rate. From what i understand is our schools are overwhelmed with illegal aliens with special needs because of the language barriers and a lot of the special needs these folks come with. It raised our taxes to pay for the schooling of these folks. We found it much cheaper to go out to the suburbs where you did not have a lot of the more social economic problems. The democrats love to just throw taxes at you. They love to cram them down your throat in this state. It is unbelievable. Guest that is just another example of the house tax is inducing competition and how states can compete offer this. Taxes to change behavior. This is a debate i have a lot with people primarily on the left. They talk about how income taxes and how that is not going to change investment decisions. I will move this conversation to cigarette taxes. With respect to illegal immigrants, there are a lot of studies that can go either way and whether they are paying more in taxes or vice versa. At the state level they are paying sales taxes. Sometimes they are paying income taxes and not filing returns. They are not getting that money back in tax refunds. I think a lot more research is needed. As he described cities generally have a lot more services than the suburbs to this has been a big problem for local finance but for the past 30 or 40 years. Host you can learn more as taxfoundation. Org. We have about 30 minutes left in the washington journal today. We will turn to an event in syria. Coming up next we will talk to analysts Mona Yacoubian with what the u. S. Is doing behind the scenes. First tier is more from cspan radio. Looking ahead to todays network talk shows, the topics include the federal budget, immigration, and senator rand pauls filibuster last week. Guests include jeb bush and tim kane. At 1 00 p. M. , abcs this week. At 2 00 p. M. It is open fox news sunday, with jeb bush and paul ryan. State of the union follows at 3 00 p. M. Also majority whip Kevin Mccarthy and an appearance by jeb bush. Republican senator of ohio, democratic member chris van holland, and jeb bush. The sunday talk shows this afternoon on cspan radio are brought to you by a Public Service brought to you as a Public Service by cspan. You can listen to them all on c span radio ,91. Fm, or you can listen to your smart phone or go online and cspanradio. Org. I believe the United States has many fantastic qualities. I do believe maybe many people have the possibility of calling themselves up by the bootstraps. Every year that is less and less probable. The United States, especially in foreign policy, is not a great nation. It is an interventionist state. It is extremely aggressive militarily. We mess with other peoples politics in ways that i cannot imagine americans tolerating. A imagine if the country invaded us to bring us their system of government the way we did in barack bank. Can you imagine americans thinking that is okay . We still have a myth that people are thrilled when we invade them. That is insane. I believe 99 of the time we create new enemies. Host she has made an made a career as an advocate for world peace. Washington journal continues. Host our guest now Mona Yacoubian, who is a senior middle east adviser and stimson center. Guest the u. S. Has decided to increase assistance to the Syrian Opposition and for the first time provide not only full aid to the armed opposition. That represents an important qualitative shift in the ways which u. S. Are supporting the Syrian Opposition. Host what effect will this have on the fighting that guest no effect on the fighting. I think it is a symbolic move. I think the Obama Administration is sensing greater urgency to become more involved in the conflict as this situation continues to deteriorate. The assistance is nonlethal. It is meals ready to eat and medical assistance. It is not going to have any affect on the forces on the ground. Host there is a headline about the secretary of state, john kerry, addressing concerns on the flow of aid to syria and rebels. There is no guarantee the weapons will end up in the wrong hands. Guest this has been an ongoing concern and the primary reason the Obama Administration has resisted those on the outside are urging it to arm the and militance directly. As the situation grows more chaotic and syria is very difficult to see and to be able to guarantee that arms that flow in their will remain in the right hands. Host phone numbers on the bottom of the screen for our guests come Mona Yacoubian of the stimson center. Our guest is a senior middle east advisor at the stimson center. Stimson. Org if you would like to learn more. We will take your tweets. Here si one fo the be here is one of the big headlines remind us how this all came about and what happened. What does it all mean . Guest what is most important about this event, it is the first time that the syrian conflict has affected un peacekeepers. This is the first time peacekeepers have been caught up in the violence. There is a u. N. Observer in syria to observe the truce between syria and israel. These peacekeepers the circumstances are not entirely clear were picked up by the element of the free syrian army. This is a palestinian brigade say you get a sense of the complexity on the ground. They were held for some base. Subject to syrian army shelling. A ceasefire was negotiated and as of yesterday they were transported to jordan. I think it really signifies this concern about how the situation and syria continues to deteriorate. It has implications for israel, iraq, and other countries to host before we get to calls to explain to us the condition of the president. What has been his most important statements lately . Guest he is still in damascus. He gave an interview not too long ago to a british newspaper, very defined. He is not aware or certainly not going to indicate to the world that he is aware of the dire situation his country is in. He lashed out at the west in particular. Britain has taken a forward leaning position on the need to arm the opposition. One gets the sense that he doesnt appreciate the seriousness of the night the seriousness of the situation. Host and he has said the rebels must give up their weapons before the government will agree to any kind of talk. You might say it is a realistic suggestion on his part guest . I think it is a nonstarter. There have been attempts and talks about the need to start negotiations but nothing that has gained any appreciable momentum. Host how would you describe currency as policy toward syria and where it might be heading . Guest current u. S. Policy is one of gradually intensifying its involvement in syria. It is always held back by these concerns of a situation on the grounds that is chaotic and one that which u. S. Military support is not necessarily the weighty and ministers must go. I think what we are seeing is the Obama Administration we have this growing sense of moral outrage in the world and the syrian uprising is fly far the bloodiest. As of last week 1 million refugees. There is a growing sense of crisis and chaos and i think there is a need and a desire in part of this administration to respond to that. At the same time there is understandable restrained about what it is the Obama Administration can really do. Host let us get our first call from florida. We are talking about syria. Good morning, ken. Caller my question and statement is i am old enough to remember the elder assad who killed 20,000 of his own people. I am watching what is happening in egypt and tunisia, libya etc. These hose saunas and hallelujah is considering a democratic new age in the middle east that leaves me with a great deal of cynicism. I think what is going to happen is they are going to revert to what they have always reverted to, the autocracy of one form or another. If you remember earlier last year assad said it people to the Israeli Border hoping to distract opposition from himself. I remember one person said the in her mothers milk is a hatred for israel and the United States. The bottom line is nothing is going to happen and i think we would be foolish to think so. That is our nine of its hay are 90 our naivete. Guest the caller is reflecting deepening concerns about 20 positions are leading. Certainly the vitoria the euphoria has dissipated. We are seeing all kinds of chaos and instability from tunisia, libya, egypt. Syria is of course the worst case. I sense a transportation a transformation that is generations in the making. There is going to be dislocation and unrest. By no means is democracy and guaranteed outcome. I to say is essential for the u. S. To remain engaged. Host there is one story from the bbc this morning. This is according to the un. What is happening and what will happen with all of these people . Where are they going . Guest they are going primarily to the non, jordan, turkey. They are even going to barack and egypt and north africa. To barack bank and egypt and north africa. To iraq and egypt and north africa. As the violence increases we see refugees. What we are finding is that these host countries are being stretched to their limit. Jordan in particular and lebanon. In addition, efforts to attract funding they have had an appeal for 1. 2 billion. Only 20 so weve got a humanitarian catastrophe in the making as well. Call from port washington, new york. Independent caller. Guest good morning. Thanks to cspan. I just wondered how realistic it is to i hate to see another iraq where we displace all the iraqi people, we lose our own treasure, you know, our troops. And i wondered how realistic it is to just take this mentally ill patients assad out. And is that a possible good outcome . To just get rid of him . Guest i think thats going to be very difficult. That sounds almost like if there were a magic bullet. Unfortunately theres not and i think it would require a Major Military intervention to unseat assad and we would well end up with a situation like iraq. I think the u. S. Is very loathe, understandably, to get involved in a third middle east war. So that frankly underscores the difficulty of the situation in syria. This is a regime the assad regime that views this uprising as nothing sort of a threat. And so i dont believe theres going to be a negotiated outcome. I dont believe that he will leave willingly. And unfortunately i think that means perhaps many more months, maybe even years, of violence inside syria. What is the current role of iran, saudi arabia, other countries . Iran is probably the strongest ally of the assad regime. Now, iran of course is shiite. The assad regime is alwite which is a shiite offshoot. Iran has been the southeastern regimes strong syrian regimes money. They provided weaponry and military advice. They even have advisers on the ground inside syria. And i dont see that changing if anything i think the alliance between iran and syria has deepnd. I think iran is very much doubled down frankly on its support. Saudi arabia by contrast is very much opposed to the assad regime. Saudi arabia is a primary sunni power. They have had longstanding tensions with the assad regime even before the uprising began. Unfortunately i think what were seeing in syria is its becoming a proxy war between iran and saub, between the shiite power and the sunni powers in the region. And i think this unfortunately means the conflict could well be por tracted as a result of that. Host moving on to mike in flint, michigan. Caller good morning. I have a question for the guest. My question would be, what is the u. N. s role there . What are they doing as a humanitarian . Are they using any kind of military or multiforce task force there . That would basically be it. Thank you. Guest thats a very good question. The u. N. Has played a variety of roles. First, the u. N. Is the primary agency officially funding humanitarian assistance both to syria as well as to refugees in countries surrounding syria. The problem is that the Assad Government is still considered the official government of syria and therefore all u. N. Assistance, the large majority of it, is being funneled only into areas controlled by the assad regime. So this has been a big problem because theres many, many people suffering in rebelheld areas and theres no assistance or very little assistance reaching them. The u. N. Is also very much involved with diplomatic efforts to try to bring about a political or negotiated solution. There have been two envoys. One coughi annan was the first one. A joint Arab League Envoy who worked and attempted to pull together a negotiated plan. This plan did not work. Hes been succeeded by an aljeern diplomat also picking up where he left off. And working again with both regional powers as well as the u. N. And the u. S. And russia to see if he can forge a resolution. Unfortunately thats not borne any real fruit. Host our guest, senior middle east adviser at the simpson center. Our guest is educated at duke and harvard. If you will briggete scholar in syria. Also spent seven years at the state department here in the u. S. And worked for the u. S. Institute of peace as a special adviser and Senior Program adviser on the middle east. We have about 20 minutes left for your questions and comments. But i wanted to ask you, who are the leading voices on the hill right now when it comes to syria and what are they saying . Guest i think probably senator mccain is perhaps one of the most vocal critics of the Obama Administration. He has been calling now for quite some time for the need to arm the opposition. I think he has been watching with great concern the deterioration in syria and has been critical of the Obama Administration for in his words being passive. Hes joined by senator Lindsey Graham. I think in many ways perhaps the most vocal voice on the hill is that of senator mccain. Host lets hear from general James Madison head of u. S. Central command he was on capitol hill this week this past tuesday and was asked if he thinks the u. S. Should provide lethal assistance. Chairman, the situation is so complex that i have to get some degree of confidence that the weapons that we would be arming them with are not going to people who are our enemies. And that would be the one caveat that i would put on any military advice to go forward along those lines. We dont want to inadvertently with the best of intentions arm people who are basically sworn enemies. You say you would have to get some degree of confidence in order to make that recommendation. As of this time do you have that level of confidence yet . I do not, chairman. But i have not been tasked at this mission so ive not looked deeply into this yet, either. Host with this comes a tweet for our guest. What is the chance that the ones we help today are the ones we fight next year . Guest well, very hard to know that of course. But i think one of the enduring concerns about the armed opposition in syria is the presence of jihaddist groups. In particular, one. This is an Al Qaedalinked organization. These groups are still very much, i would say, fringe elements perhaps no more than 20 of the fighting forces. But they are the most effective forces on the ground. And i think theres concern that as the situation in syria continues and deepens and worsens, that these jihaddist elements will also increase their presence on the ground. And this of course would be a very significant threat not only to the United States but of course to israel which shares a border with syria. Caller now from london. Is it rod . Caller yes. Go ahead. I just want to make a few comments and ask a question. My comments are about the fact that obama initially seemed to want to reconcile some problems, come to the middle east, fix some problems so that hes unbiced and so that to sort out problems. He seems to have completely gone confused to that. The situation, theyre not problems causing the u. S. But he doesnt seem to have a clear policy in that. The other thing is its very difficult when for u. S. President to focus on syria then hes completely overlooked bahrain for example. And whatever the causes of the uprising, there is an uprising and he can try to ignore it but then you would be the only one who is ignoring it. And this would be to the benefit of people that are turning the u. S. Down in Security Council continuously. Russia, china. The beneficiaries of it. And my question is this. Do you think a changed syria would be a benefit to israel . Because i really dont think so. I think if you stabilize syria, these kind of unstable elements, jihaddists, these have been predominantly financed by supposedly the friends of the u. S. So arabia, are not really helping anything in terms of security of israel. So if anything, a dormant, quiet, secular syria seems much version of islam. In terms of the arms, most of the arms up until now has actually been internally acquired either through corruption, corrupt southeastern officers selling their armentments or through overreturning various military bases and securing arms that way. Recently, however, starting really in december there was a noted inflow of arms from the outside. These arms are likely financed by saudi arabia and qatar to arab gulf countries, sunni in nature, that have a strong interest in supporting the opposition. But i think the question is important because it underscores frankly the complexity that of the situation on the ground. The fact that it is very chaotic and often murky situation. And there really arent good hard answers to some of those questions. Or host and politically heres a headline from reuters this morning. This is significant in the sense this is another enduring issue which is the inability of the coalition to coales. Theyve been trying now for some time to form a provisional government without success. And there may be many reasons for that, some external, that theres a lack of sufficient funding and so forth. But it also suggests that there are real internal rivalries. This has been a problem, frankly from the very beginning that the opposition has been largely divided and not able to cohere around an agreedupon vision of what a postassad syria would look like. Turkey was ab an ally prior to the uprising. The turks initially tried to push president assad to reform in the early days of the uprising. When it became clear he wasnt going in that direction then turkey actually did a 180 in terms of its policy disavowing the regime and hosting armed elements and being a very strong opponent of assad. Turkey has been calling for a long time for the u. S. To take a more forwardleaning position. And up until now, we havent been quite what they would have wanted although in response to turkeys concerns about crossborder violence, earlier this year the United States, the netherlandses and germany, have now stationed Patriot Missile bat rizz along the southern part of the Turkish Border to protect turkey from incoming missiles and so forth. So i think theres perhaps a little more harmony now between the u. S. And turkey with respect to syria. But again, i think in some level the turks would have preferred a more forwardleaning u. S. Policy on syria. Moving on to london. We have a call from max. Welcome to the program. Caller good morning, cspan. How are you today . Host doing well. Thank you for calling. Caller the coup in relation to the u. S. What the European Response should be. Now, i know theyve got the chemical weapons and we dont know what else he may have up his sleeve. How feasible do you think it would be for europeans to actually show excuse the language here but show a bit of balls and actually put in a no to fly zone, maybe even put in place a couple of military units just sort of more of a visual threat to assad . After all, surely wooned need the u. N. Resolution. We could argue with the rest of the chinese that were doing it to secure europe from potential chemical attack from assad. Wondering whether you think about that and whether the u. S. Would back the European Union in doing such a thing. Thank you very much. Host lets hear from our guest. Guest i dont think thats in the cards. I think i agree, the europeans have shared u. S. Concerns about the deterioration in syria. But like the u. S. , have not even been willing to send arms to the armed groups inside syria. So, for example, the e u. Just renewed an embargo on arms. We do see britain taking a more forwardleaning stance. They are willing to provide will be providing Armored Vehicles to the armed opposition. But no arms. In terms of a no fly zone, any sort of more sort of muscular military intervention, i just dont see it at all. I think theres no appetite for it in europe. For many of the same reasons that there isnt here about mission creeps, about blood and treasure and all the complexities of what that would entail. Its useful and important to keep an eye on nato. Turkey is a nato member. And so one could potentially well down the road the possibility if turkey feels increasingly threatened of something that would be a natorelated action. But i really dont see any likelihood at this point of any kind of europeanled action in syria. And lets not forget we also have the french now involved in malli and i think that is if anything has put the brakes certainly on any french i want rest in getting involved in syria. What has happened since then . Guest perhaps his true colors have shown. I think that the rest of the United States, in particular, the west and europe, put a lot of faith and hope that somehow assad, the junior, bashar assad, would represent a real shift from the battle days of his father. Because he was educated in london, because he seemed urban, he liked the internet, likes itunes and other things, that he would be more willing to reform. I think what weve now very sadly seen is that in many ways his imperatives for staying in power are exactly the same as his fathers. His brutality, now, has surpassed his fatherings. And this is someone who is recklessly shelling civilian areas. He has unleashed scud missiles on his population, cluster munitions and so forth. So those hopes i think for bashar assad to be some kind of reformer i think were perhaps a projection of our own desires rather clearly than any reflection of reality. To harrisburg, pennsylvania now. Democratic line. Zack is calling. Caller let me get my thoughts here. Looking back, though, with us going into iraq instead of afghanistan, with us asking omar to disarm and we see what happened to him, do we are we culpable in a lot of this may hem thats going on in the middle east . Because with the internet, a lot of these people are internet savvy now. We dont live in a bubble any more. Everybody see what is were doing. And maybe these guys now fig beyond a reasonable doubt if they do business with us is to their own demise anyway so they choose to fight on. I dont think the u. S. Is culpable in these arab uprisings. I think whats been noteable about them and remains very much the case is that these movements have all been homegrown. And that indeed the involvement of the west has been basically nonexistent. I mean, all these uprisings really started in countries by local elements. And so its very difficult i think to say that the u. S. In any way is culpable or took some kind of leading role. This is not at all a situation like iraq, which was of course regime change from the outside. These are very much internally driven movements. We have time for a few more calls before we wrap things up with our guest. Randy calling from california. Independent. Caller weve got a problem here. It looks like to me theyre going to take the oil from iraq through syria. We went into iraq after all. And it looks like to me they want to run a pipeline through there and syrias against it. Go right to the ocean there. That would be pretty convenient and also down to israel. That would be real convenient. Wouldnt it . Guest well, there have been longstanding plans prior to the uprising. Between iraq and syria. Iraq and syria had actually been longstanding enemies and then over time after the fall of Saddam Hussein and the establishment of a new government in iraq there had been plans to build or reestablish oil pipelines. Right now i think with all the chaos thats happening in syria, i think that those plans are, lets say, on the back burner at best. Boston. Good morning. Caller i want to ask your guest does she think if the United States distributes more sophisticated lethal weapons to the opposition might russia also give the government more sophisticated lethal weapons to fight the opposition . Guest thats a very good question. I think thats certainly a concern, that among the many other concerns about sending sophisticated weepsry into syria and what that would mean, is that essentially those weapons would not be going into a vacuum. That if we ratchet it up, our military support, i think its a good bet that russia and iran would do the same. And again, therefore, you would end up with a deeping of the conflict. So i think thats a valid concern. Host the storys been going on for quite some time now. What will you be looking for in the weeks or months ahead . Where is this headed do you think . Guest well, so the second anniversary of the uprising will be this coming friday. And i think unfortunately the trajectory Going Forward in the coming months is not a good one. I think what we are unfortunately going to continue to see is a deepening of the conflict. A broadening of it. I think what were really going to be watching for in the coming months is not only the situation inside syria, humanitarian catastrophe that i noted earlier, but also the regional spillover effect. Which just as an example, last week alone we would the incident with the u. N. Peace keepers in the southwestern part of syria. Two days prior, very significant spillover in the northeastern part of the country involving iraq in which syrian Army Officers were in a firefight fled into iraq and essentially were ambushed in iraq by extremist elements perhaps southeastern and iraqi working in coordination d syrian and iraqi working with each other. It illustrates how widespread the spillover concerns are and how destabilizing they can bfment and theres also going to be concern about the potential disintegration of the state and what that would mean for syria and for the region. Our guest has been Mona Yacoubian. Simpson. Org is where you can learn more about this and other issues. Thanks for your time and your insight this morning. Guest thank you very much. Host appreciate all your calls today. We will be back tomorrow 7 00 eastern for another edition. Thats tomorrows journal. We hope you enjoy the rest of your weekend. Well see you back here tomorrow. [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2012] coming up, newsmakers with congressman sander levin. Then the Nuclear Threat posed by north korea followed by remarks on sanctions. President obama plans to visit the u. S. Capitol three days this week, tuesday, wednesday, and thursday. He will be meeting with republican and democratic members of both chambers to talk about a possible deficit deal. Heres a quick look at house Speaker John Boehner and Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi speaking to reporters last week about deficit negotiations and tax reform. Im very willing to look at how we lower rates to increase revenue. And if closing loopholes accomplishes that lets review that as we do, as we look at tax reform. But in terms of closing loopholes to reduce the deficit , the republicans say no. And what does that mean . That means a squer that shows the choices they have made. They have chosen to protect tax breaks for corporate jets at the same time losing 4 million meals on wheels for our seniors. They have chosen tax breaks to send jobs overseas while losing 750,000 jobs, a minimum of 750,000 jobs in the squeckster. They have chosen tax breaks for bill oil instead of education for little children. Whether its title t head start, whatever. They have chosen to protect with out making millionaires and billionaires pay their fair share a cost that comes out of in the sec ster to military the health of our military families and the training of our troops before they go into the theater of war. Thats what their priorities are in the sec ster because they will not close loopholes to lower the deficit. This president has been so respectful given so much time to the republicans and their views to the point that at one time in one of our meetings i said to the president , mr