Transcripts For CSPAN Washington Journal 20130706

Also, on twitter, we are using at cspanwj. Ouracebook, we posted question already. You can also email us. We can get to your phone calls in just a moment. The news report yesterday, the jobs numbers from the labor department, the first friday of every month am a we are halfway through the year and the numbers are staying the same in terms of the unemployment figure. But the number of jobs made are taking up. News reporting throughout the country and on various websites and newspapers around the country. The headlines so the latest reading of an Economic Indicator was a positive surprise. So over the last three months, we are averaging about 200,000 jobs created per month, a revision from the labor department. As we mentioned, we posted a question this morning on facebook and we will get to that in a moment dream here is the headlines for saturday. Wall street journal they have a couple of stories, one looking at what the fed reaction might be good lets read part of the main story here. They say that the u. S. Job the idea that up it will grow without help from the Federal Reserve. Now to the story on the other side of the page about the possible fed reaction. The sub headline on that is report keeps fed on track to ease the bond buying. Some of the reporting this morning, we would like to know did those numbers make you more or less confident about the economy . Again, the numbers here is the question we posted this morning on facebook and a couple of the responses so far. We are actually doing it as a pole. So that is facebook. Com cspan if you would like to post your comments. Other news this morning, news from overseas that mr. Snowden in russia has been offered asylum by venezuela. Here is the report this morning from the New York Times. He was also offered asylum by nicaragua as well. And the wall street journal also reports on how that plays in Economic Zone of hong kong. That is this morning from the wall street journal. Our underlying question for this morning is about the economy, whether the job numbers make you more or less confident in the economy. We will get to your phone calls in just a little bit here and more from the model the wall street journal and the labor report. The monthly payrolls had been rising for some time. What is different now is that the strong numbers are actually accompanied by far fewer headwinds than in previous years. We will also check a couple of tweets as we are able this morning. cspanwj. Eet us a they write in the morning edition. Lets go to our question this morning about the economy and the jobs number. First of from chicago. Do these numbers make you more confident . Aller i feel more hopeful host are you currently working . Caller yes. Host what is the area like in terms of the economy . People there are not educated to take them all. But there are jobs out there. so there is not enough education out there . Caller not enough people are taking the education that they need. So, yes. Host thank you. Lets go to homestead falls, ohio, angela on our independence line. I am less confident because these are minimum wage, deadend jobs. That seems to be all we are getting. Host are you currently working . Caller i am. Where exactly is homestead falls . , its [ohio indiscernible] it is minimum wage. I have no confidence in the economy. 80 in mill buried, massachusetts. The republican line. You say you are less confident. Caller yes, it is terrible. We have the highest Corporate Tax now in the world. Chinas medical expenses are less than half of hours. Just think when obamacare kicks in. I dont know why they call it the Affordable Care. It has gone up 3000 already in the last three years. What happens on january 1 is a disaster. Sorry. Host are you working now . Caller no, i am retired now. Inflation being a problem . Caller yes. You can see it going up. I can see bread now costing five dollars a loaf. That is her in this. Host the boston globe this morning has a article about the cost of college. Tony is in las vegas. You are less confident about the economy. Why is that . Caller i lost my job in 2008 and that is why i think obama is a lousy nigger. Appreciate you to keep the conversation civil. We will go to huntington am a West Virginia. More confident in the economy. Why is that . Caller the jobs are not what they need to be and i am a union member to the previous color mentioned the issue of wages. The decrease in Union Membership is part of the reason why that we are seeing a hammering of wages going down. But i am more confident because at least we are in positive territory and we have been for some 40 odd months consecutively now come i believe. Host what is the biggest work you are doing their . When you are typically employed, what are you doing . Caller i do commercial plumbing work. Houses,so work in power chemical lance, many in the chemical plants, many industrial settings. Host are there many big projects in West Virginia . Aller not now most of the work is on the books for next year. Its kind of a slow year. Northern shale in the part of the state is a big bill. Big boom. here is where we stand so far. To silver lake, indiana, we go to james. You say you are both, 50 50 on whether things will improve. Caller yes musser, i do, but its on the downgrade. Im not sure it is going to improve a bit. There are certain elements in our government that dont want it to improve any. Host what about your personal situation . Caller i am retired, sir. Host is it difficult for you . , it is pretty good. But i see the prices going up and up on everything. Energy prices are going through the roof this year. Global warming, which i think is not proven fact. I think it is all in the money aspect of what taxation can do. To dearborn, michigan on the democrats line, the same kind of thing. You are mixed on whether you are confident in the economy. Caller im slightly optimistic about the economy, especially the gold prices being the lowest in a couple of years. It is a cyclical cycle. , theially in Michigan House prices here are quite lower than 2008 and they have started to pickup now. Michigan is a big manufacturing state ca. So it is optimistic to see a report such as this. Host again, we are asking you about your confidence in the job numbers. 195 thousand jobs in june, but they improved the numbers for may and april as well. They made those numbers go a little higher based on further data. The Unemployment Rate stayed at 7. 6 halfway through the year. An editorial from the wall street journal. It caller mentioned parttime jobs or lowwage jobs. To hillsboro, New Hampshire on the independent line. Dave, it says that you are less confident in the economy. Many employers around here hire extra people in the summertime. Evenhis summer, they have added more jobs, but they are parttime jobs because they have already let somebody workers work less than 30 hours a week. For the people working there jobs, they hired a f parttime. Nothing has really changed here. Host and you say parttime, what is the predominant type of parttime work there . Mostly restaurants, amusement parks and rides, you know, boating. Host so more Seasonal Work for the summer. Caller yeah, Seasonal Work. Insuffer in the winter, but the summer, we do get a lot more people more people got jobs due to the fact that they had to cut down the fulltime workers. , on their regular jobs, like construction or whatever. You get only 20 hours a week. So they had to add on some part time jobs that would make the numbers look a little bit under. But really, they are not better. They are less. Jeanne, welcome to the conversation. I want to bring to the fore the fact that 4 of the working force is always unemployed. I have read that. I have the statistic somewhere here in my folder. So when you say 7 , i think seven minus four is 3 . As far as Getting Better or worse, its like the weather. It takes a long time for things to change. They change maybe not even within the 7080 years of a humans life. They changed three or four times during my 60your life. It doesnt mean that 30 years is the appropriate amount of time to judge things. I have been fairly lucky. I was born poor and i became an electronic engineer. I made enough money, save my stuff, used some self discipline, and i think that is what is hurting people now. Thank you. Host lets check twitter. To our democrats line. Wallingford, connecticut, you are more confident about the economy. Why is that . Caller jobs are starting to pick appearing connecticut. The houses are starting to sell again. People are getting mortgages. The houses that were foreclosed on are starting to be bought, starting with the one next door to me here in it was to me. It was sold the spring. It was empty for over two years. People are a lot more confident here in there are people going on vacations and stuff that they were not doing the last couple of years. I think people feel better about it. I think the stock market is definitely on a rise in unemployment is going down. Yes, it is too slow, but it is. Oing down ver in no other recession have we experienced anything compared with the recession that we had these last four years. Im hoping these jobs will and, as i say,p car sales, a lot of indications that things are feeling better. Host where is wallingford and what is the biggest implement their . Am just out of new haven, north of yearly university. North of Yale University we have things here like ari whitney, sikorskys emma which , aa big employer, eb sub letter defense work here. This is where you get the people with the ability the machine we, a lot of old time also have the guns. There is a lot of defense work here in connecticut. Host talking about some of the defense manufacturers in connecticut, a story this ning nine the house and senate will be back on monday for the lead just let it work. So of callstes or on what you think about or what is your confidence on the economy after the job numbers . The numbers nine two reading, california, phil. Caller good morning. This is my first time on your show. I think what a lot of people have failed to see is what we need is a stronghold in our core values of what amerco was work of what america was, worked. Especially what happened in california was gerrymandering and the dividing up of the parties and making it so only one party could win in a certain district. Big problem is a with the gridlock we have now throughout the country. And letuld just free up , because vote freely sometimes we call ourselves a democrat or a republican. That is veryarea republican and i have a lot of republican values. But also, we have a lot of democratic values. And its too bad that we have divided ourselves and half in half. We all need to know that its about jobs. Its about having home values. Its about having an it having an ability to live a good life. Host what is the biggest employer out in reding and art a in redding and do they have big employer . Caller it is healthcare and transportation. We have railroads going through here. And we also have good health that is affordable to take care of our aging parents. That is a big problem across the nation actually. That should be addressed i. Host thank you. We will talk about the fire season, but this is on bloomberg businessweek. I will flip the page and read just a bit from that. Are you more or less confident about the economy based on the job numbers from yesterday and broadly from other stories . Decatur, illinois, john, go ahead. I believe all these numbers are manipulated by our federal agencies. Everywhere i go in Central Illinois, there may be one cashier in a store or the form store near my house has 10 cat just hers and they have only 10 cash registers and they ave two people working to host two people working. Host how many would they normally have . Half ofthey would have them open and have people available to help you find things or to do a tire change. I do not see an improvement in the last eight years, not even counting since the 2008 ordeal. Host do you think the companies are doing that just as a matter to tighten their belts and make it through the economy . More of athink it is thing on the part of these corporations that they are making more money than ever while the federal government manipulates these job numbers to make it look like things are improving. Half of the factories in this little town in Central Illinois have closed in the last 10 years. Host what kind . Caller we had a firestone plant, to foundries, a machinist that made parts for all kinds of if and things. Our caterpillar plant has gone from 45 buildings to one building. From four or five buildings to one building. My friends are working two weeks on and two weeks off. Theirre looking at losing jobs, too. Especially here in Central Illinois, nothing has improved. Host lets hear from another john in sals bury, north carolina. Johns on our democrats line. You said youre more confident about the economy. Why is that, john . Caller how you doing this morning . Host fine, thanks. Caller well, i just wanted to say, theres reason to be more confident about the economy, nd where we are and how. We should be confident. Host john, appreciate your call. Make sure you mute your Television Set when you call in. Lets check a couple of tweets. This one is from arnold, who says the tax relief for those that hire americans, monopolies kill jobs and lower wages. Also from still an individual, the politicians, big government, a. K. A. , 1984 socialist are winning, and the individuals are being screwed. From clarksville, indiana, mike is on our independent line. Mike, what do you think of the economy . Are you more or less confident . Aller im less confident. Host why is that . Caller well, theres a little store. Is it ok to say the name . Up here at mars, weve got friends that work here, and for that obamacare, they can cut everybody to about 30 hours. Serve going to be working parttime. Host how about your own situation . Are you working fulltime or parttime . Caller no, im retired. Host appreciate you calling in. Alan next up, new hyde park, new york, democrats line. Caller im a little more confident. As in most things, it will take a few years to judge, but the stock market is up significantly. People have a lot invested in their 401ks. Its really not mentioned enough. The job market is up. Indeed, it should be better, and the Housing Market is up, so theres really no choice but to be a little confident. A new york city story on the front page of the New York Times this morning, the mayors race in new york, and a picture of Anthony Wiener on the subway, the former congressman. The headline, candidates surprising freed scandal, just a bit from that article. They write that written off by election experts and should notted by political establishment, mr. Wiener has once again upended popular conception about him, vaulting to the front of the race for mayor host linda on our republican line, less confident about the economy. Go ahead. Caller good morning. Im less confident because we standing. Ment still its still reaching into the pockets of american citizens. The legislators seem to be , gislating for corporations and so the interest of government, not for the people. He numbers that come out are tabulated, i personally participated in Small Business, and i must have seen home surveys of unemployment, and i guess most Unemployed People dont live at home, according to the government, because the home survey said the Unemployment Rate was 23 . Host did i hear you right that you said you ran a Small Business . Caller yes. Host and what type of business is it, and how many people would you employ . Caller its retail, and its less than five. Host is it affected by seasonality there in florida with the tourist season . Caller no, because its in the ag business. Host thanks for calling in. Lets check facebook. We posted the question this morning, more or less confident about the economy, heres whether we stand so far. So far, 23 saying theyre more confident about the economy, 20 less confident. Caroline says when a company has 50 employees and cuts them all to parttime, they now have 100 employees. Add that to those who fell off unemployment and poof, thats how they get their numbers. In ohio, shes less confident about the economy. Shes on our democrats line. Caller yes, good morning. Host good morning. Caller yes, i am i get very upset when i see the jobs report stat stex, because they dont think about people that are unemployed who got off of the unemployment role, not because they got a job, but because the benefits ran out. Those statistics are not really reliable, because you have hundreds of thousands of people that are unemployed that just arent getting benefits anymore. My husband was one of those who got laid off five years ago, and he was older worker, and theres so many Older Workers who cannot find a job now because people dont want to retrain them or give them a job that they were in because of all the younger people coming in to work in the economy. Host what kind of field was he in . Caller computer repair. Host hes been out of work since 2007 . Caller five years, yes. He worked for a Younger Company , and they just did not have when the economy went down, all these small Companies Just went out of business. Its just horrible. My home has been foreclosed on because he cant find any work. He works as a handyman. He doesnt even live up here anymore. He lives in another state because thats the only place that he can get work. Host can i ask how old your husband is. Caller yes, he will be 57 on his birthday. Host a bit too young to file for Social Security benefits and things like that. Caller right, right, yes. Host thanks for the call. To keith in leonardtown, maryland, who is less confident about the economy. Hi, keith. Caller i agree with the sentiment of many callers who say the administration and all the politicians can make the numbers dance around. My reason for pessimism is rooted in obamacare and the cost that Small Business specially is going to incure because of the requirements of obamacare. I think a lot of employers are hiring, but theyre hiring parttime. Theyre not going to go all in and invest in fulltime employees because of whats looming down in the future. Host thank you, keith. Clay is on our republican line. Hi there. Youre more confident about the economy. Caller yes, im more confident about the economy. First off, i think that the major part of that is the republicans will hold the house of congress will hold the house of representatives in 2014, which makes obama a lamedumb president. I think in general, business is doing better than most people think. A lot of parttime people because of the impending obamacare, which incidentally he quietly moved back to 2015. As far as the gentleman from illinois who called in crying about the economy, he should, because illinois is one of the worstrun states in the country, and im from louisiana where we had our own problems with politics. Host whats the situation like in louisiana . Whats the economy like there . Caller well, the economy is neither hot nor cold. Its sort of in between. And i live near a large metropolitan area, new orleans, nd the unemployment is ok. But we have a large chemical complex, which is good and bad. But it maintains the economy on a fairly steady level. We have a governor, who i think has done a good job. Its not an excellent job, but he hasnt picked the pockets of louisiana as in past political situations. So i think things are in general looking up. Im retired, but i still think, and its low Interest Rates that are killing retired people, but i think that will improve in due course. Host you said lower Interest Rates are killing retired people. Why is that . Caller well, because if you have, lets say, 100,000 or 1 million, whatever, to invest, and youre getting and your treasuries are yielding about so just figure those numbers. On a Million Dollars, you may get 20,000 a year in retirement. So those numbers are not too swift. Traditionally Interest Rates re somewhere between 4 and 5 awful toll. Because remember, as a retired person, i am mandated to take out a certain amount out of my i. R. A. , which is generally between 4 and 5 , so im getting 50 of my money, and im having to take out 4 and 5 . Those numbers dont add up. But im still confident, because i think the political situation will improve. Host let you go there, clay, and that happens for calling in. To roper, north carolina, this is lucy, who is less confident about the economy. Caller i am much less confident about the economy. Host why is that . Caller well, as the man just said, the Interest Rates on your deposits that you have put in the bank, you draw the interest off of, said that you said part of your income to go along with your Social Security economic, if you dont have any other retirement, that money, when it was 4 , even that, and then some areas now, its. 50 if youre getting that in good. But the only people using that money put it back into circulation. It was being used over and over and over again. You dont have that money going into circulation, we dont have it to spend because the money is not in the interest, and youre either going to take out your savings and use that or youre going to do that. At the age most of us get to be, youre spending more, spending more on medication, spending more all the time on things like that. You dont have a chance. Host lucy, thanks for your call. Want to make sure we get a couple more folks in here. Mark is in harrison, arkansas, on our republican line, and hes less confident about the economy as well. Caller this is Mark Harrison in miller, and im less confident because i dont think the democrats and the republicans and the independents, if we have any in either one of the houses anymore, you know, i know we have one or two, but, you know, they just dont care about the American People. Theyve lost touch with everything that goes on in america. They jiggled the numbers on unemployment, just like theyve done on inflation. Housing used to be an inflation. It removed, you know, they keep printing money. Ey need to federalize the 12 districts and the main Federal Reserve bank, get rid of it, because that amountment will never pass in the first place. Pardon my language, but you can bleep that out. Host well, thanks. That happens for your input. Thank you, mark. To fred, less confident about the economy based on the numbers yesterday. Why else, fred . Caller i think the economy should be based on more real things, like how many people are on welfare, how many people are on food stamps, how many people are going to, you know, to places to get free food, which is, you know, they cant keep enough food on the shelves right now. To me, thats a little bit more realistic than the job numbers, which i do believe can get manipulated. Host steven in south jordan, utah. Caller yes, im less confident in the economy. There are principles that have applied to increase the social, spiritual, economic wellbeing of individuals, communities, and nations. A copy of these principles was given to moses, and theyre called the 10 commandments. And this nation is turning those into the 10 inconvenient truths. Well talk about global warming. Remember the sabbath and keep it holy. Its a rest day for man and fwods environment is rest day for the earth. Host steven, thanks for your call. Remember the question posted his morning, facebook. Com cspan. Well continue about the economy. Were going to hear from the economics correspondent for reuters. Well look ago the jobs figures and more broadly at the economy. Later on, Shane Goldmacher, the Congressional Correspondent for National Journal. His recent story looks at how some members of congress draw government pensions for previous work in addition to their congressional salaries, a practice known as double dipping. As fit tv and American History tv continue our tour of american cities, this weekend will foe tour bakersfield, california, all weekend long much its located about 80 miles north of coming up today on book tv, well show you all of our programming we gather there, including a look at the story of africanamericans who migrated to Rural California during the dust bowl years. As part of this migration of blacks who did something that no blacks in america kind of went against the grain, the great migration went from the south to the Northern Industrial cities, and if it came west, it came to oakland, an francisco, and l. A. But there was a tribe who wanted to retain the rural lifestyle. It was very important for them to feel the wind at night and be out in places where no one bothered them, to be close to the land. And about 25,000, 30,000 of them didnt go to the industrial cities. They went from rural to rural. They followed the cotton trail west. And james dixon was one of them. He was from louisiana. He worked in the railroads for a while as a porter. When i met him, he had a little water pump here, a little pecan tree, and he cut down the pecan tree to burn fire to keep himself warm. He was 55, sleeping on a little iron crate. The iron crate was too small for him, so he had a wooden bee keepers box for his head. I remember locking inside, and there were vienna sausage cans, empty ones, that he had put in the crevasses to keep the place from falling. I mean, literally, chickens have a better roost than he did. And this is where he was living. Hed come, and we found him a half a century later. And he was nervous. He thought we were government workers here to maybe inspect the house, shut it down, whatever. I told him, no, we were here to ell his story. Washington journal continues. Host pedro de costa is economics correspondent for reuters, joining us this morning to talk about the job numbers that came out for june, came out yesterday from the labor department, but more broadly about, the economy, and perhaps even touch on the thing weve been asking our washington journal viewers about whether theyre more or less confident in the economy. Want to remind folks our phone lines are open for your participation, 2025853880 for democrats. Republicans, 2023853881. And independents, 2025853882. Well check twitter as well. The headline this morning in the Washington Post economy and business, economy added 195,000 jobs in june, but the larger story is the revision of earlier numbers. Why is that important . Its important because it shows that weve had a pretty decent trend of employment rowth the last few months. Were still coming back from a dark, deep place. The labor market is still very weak historically. The pattern is encouraging, and if we see this level, for instance, the average employment growth has just surpassed 200,000 per month the last six months. Thats a pretty soliden trend that, if sustained, would bring down the Unemployment Rate substantially. The question is, will it be sustained . We can talk about the forces that are going to affect that later on. Host what does the number have to be for the economy to be really humming along . Whats the number the Obama Administration wants to see for that to happen . Guest well, lets put it this way. During the clinton boom in the 1990s, we had, at the peak, half a million, if not more jobs created per month. Host that was the average . Guest for a solid period. The average is more a solid number would be something in the 300,000 vicinity. Nobody even hopes for that at this point, because the labor market is still anemic. Theres still a lot of lack in the economy. Weve kind of lowered our expectations. The breakeven level is about 150,000, so at 195, at least were making up ground basically. You have to remember that not only are we making up lost ground from the recession itself, we lost about 8. 5 million jobs during the recession. Weve made up about 6. 5 million of those. Were still about two million jobs short, and then youre still talking about the population growth that we had since then and all the young people coming into the labor market. So its a lot of ground to make up. Host going back to the revisions on the numbers for may and april, why does the abor department do that . Guest the Payroll Survey is based on payroll data for private firms. And as they update their payrolls, which happens over time because hiring and firing of people doesnt happen in a single instance. Of course, its a process, and sometimes it takes a while for all the h. R. Paperwork to kick in. As they get the new data, they update it. In fact, theyll update it again later. Hey actually do revisions that rewrite history. Its a nap shot in time, but not necessarily one thats going remain. Host want to take a look overall at the numbers, where the job increases were in june from the labor department. They say that professional and Business Services added 53,000 jobs. Healthcare, 20,000 jobs. Leisure and hospitality, 75 jobs. Retailers up 37,000. Financial activities up 17,000. And federal Government Employees was down 5,000, and a note from the bureau of labor statistics, federal government jobs have dropped 65,000 over the paths three months, perhaps because of the is he vester . Indeed. One of the issues being debated is how hard the sequester would hit. Of course, if we had lessons about what happened, and the economy didnt really fall off a cliff, but you could argue it would be doing a lot better. So its an unusual drag. Generally the company is stimulating rather than contracting from the economy. So it is a jag. On the other side, does that make it tougher for the administration to argue for ending the sequester if the jobs picture is improving elsewhere . Caller i think it does. I think theyve painted themselves into a corner by pitching the sequester before it happened and sort of a cass mitt mick event. That leaves him open to the charges to cry again and nothing happened. You could arg youre if the basic basic the economy just remains short of its potential, and we could just get youve that he will if we had to. Quick economy before numbers. When you look at the numbers, what area arent we bringing in . The Manufacturing Sectors is a source of concern, because its very cyclical that for tends for the rest of the economy. But really, the issue is the longer term unemployed, the number of discouraged workers. We have an anoam i can labor market, and if we dont, you know, if we dont make rapid progress towards improving that issue, then we could have longterm damage to the employment of Many Americans. Host first up is matt, who is in madison, wisconsin, on our democrats line. Caller thank you. Host i am a returning student. Im 45, going back to school for i. T. , and i hope on a nonprofit at the school. Went computers for students for free, and it allows students and the i. T. Department to get handson work working with us while they do it. And i hear recruiters calling me, asking me to get them themselves. I think the economy is. Mproving theres a few smesters ago, they were not placing people the way they are now, and im getting i mean, i get phone calls literally weekly asking if i have any spots available for people. Some of the students that im placing are in their first or second semester of a sixsemester program, and theyre getting jobs. Caller autos you mentioned i. T. , i said youre in a particularly privileged scheduler compared to many others in the recession. Guest this is a particularly privileged sector. I wouldnt argue with the point that the economy is improving. It certainly points that way. In that sector, i think it is a special case. Host where are you getting the calls most from . What sort of combeers . I a few that i work with. The other thing that bothers me is they have cut a lot of money out of the Technical College program, and the extension of the B Visa Program is really a big concern for me on my. Were meeting with people coming if from one of the country and, you know, theres not that leaves us open, wondering, you know, is there going to be a job for me or ken who they think get the sbs and host is that what youre saying . Caller im very concerned about that, and also our governor cut 140 million out of the technical program, which is the source of training for us. Host matt, thanks for your call. Just echoing what he had to say in terms of increasing numbers. Hes getting calls from recruiters and such. Heres a chart from the wall street journal this morning, and they ask the question, is your employer hiring, and that number has kicked up steadily since 2010, and really, 2029, the bottom of the recession up to 22 . They asked that their comboors are hiring for. We had a call earlier that said that her we accepts is a lot more art team or under 30 years. This is an enormous linebacker thats not rejected quality of jobs dog, that doorbell isnt as loud for you. I dont like anybody low skill because it actually takes a lot of skill, but lower paid, less benefits, more parttime work, and you definitely see that on the course of data. Thats not a source of secure. Host republican from virginia. Go ahead. Caller my wife is a manager at a crab house here out on the potomac. There are times when she actually has to send her best managers and best people home because theyre approaching the 30hour mark. But they have to maintain the staff at the restaurant, and so people working for 10 hours and five hours and so forth. You and i cant operate on a ess than a 48hour workweek. Now, what employer is going to offer somebody 10hour jobs . Or how many jobs can there be out there . Secondly, i deliver for the Washington Post and a number of other papers. I couldnt help but notice in the Washington Times the other day, there was an article that said that the number of job increase reflects or is on par with the number of immigrants. My wife sees that out at the restaurant, that the only people who are willing to put who ve, 10 hours are those need that and are table to put together, patch together a number of these two. So the numbers, the up tick of numbers appears to me to be if you have anything, up end up with two of it. So i see that with the numbers, and i dont see it improving anymore until they keep this 30hour problem, and ill take your response off air. Guest i mean, i dont know how to address it other than really, i had a commenter who said recently theres alza lot of bad jobs created in any economy. Its just that when the job market is good, people dont take them. The solution to the 30hour program is really a job market that puts the employee in a position of strength and who says, im not going to take that deal. Thats really why we want the job market to be booming, to put the worker in a position where they can bargain for themselves really. Host i want to ask you about the figures that came out yesterday about the longterm unemployment. The june figures were out. They said theres still 4. 3 of ion, 46. 7 , nearly 37 it unsold. Its line declined over a million in the last 12 months, and they say also this is me, theyve been jobless for 27 weeks or more. Whats the realistic figure that the administration wants the longterm number to get to . Guest i dont know whats realistic, but that number should not exist. We shouldnt have people who are actively looking for work for six weeks and unable to find it. Were the richest country in the world. That should be an unacceptable scenario. As far as the program has remained, its been consistent. One of the issues is you dont know whether the people have stopped looking for work because they finally gave up or whether they finally found employment. Thats one of the tricky parts to figuring out where that how to read the longterm unemployment deadline. Host what is it . Is it mainly older folks who arent getting the guest i think it varies. Theres also that demographic but theres also an even more frightening one for the future of the country which is the young people who arent finding jobs. So they come out into the job market. They see raising rates of school and people will go back to school out of frustration during p unavailability of work. So i think its broad based and needs to be addressed. Host lets go to georgia and al on our independents line. Didnt get you on the line there. Caller i was just calling regarding the gentleman you have on saying that the economy was improving. But i dont understand, if the Federal Reserve is constantly printing money and pumping into the economy, it seems to me that theyre the reason that the economy is barely maintaining itself. Its not being maintained by business, which is where it has to be maintained. The Federal Reserve even stopped producing m3. It wont show it to you any more. And i dont believe the reason that they gave for not showing it any more, they say it costs too much. Its a lot of business going on in this government. Youve got your fake uneement ployment, fake inflation numbers. Theyre not telling us the truth about anything. And when you look at i think it was reported that they had Something Like 40 Million People on food stamps. And if youre on food stamps. You might as well be unemployed. Because i know you cant have very much in the way of possessions if youre on food stamps. Host are you currently work sng caller no im in school. I wanted to go to school for a while because i decided to change careers. But its not me that im referring to or anything. My problems are not the same as most peoples problems. Ive been unemployed for a while but its mostly by choice because im going back to school. Host well let him answer. Also, tie into his comment about the fed. And their role in this. How much longer will they be pumping tup economy . Guest well, i spent way too much of my time thinking about fed policy. I think his point is extremely valid that if it werent for fed support the economy would probably not be even treading water as it is now. Point very well taken. I hear not just from him but from other callers the suspicion about the economic data. I find it a little frightening honestly because i grew up in brazil and it tends to be in developing countries that we doubt the veracity of our government. Different from being worried about the quality of our employment. If you doubt the quality of our figures, its a bad sign for our democracy. Im not there. I go to the lockups. Host whats lkups . Guest when we go to the data thats sensitive. We cant take it out. We have no phone, we have no access to the outside world. So we look at the unemployment figures for half hour, we get to write the story in advance and it gets published during the time. So i talk to economists all the time. I trust the economic data. The issue isnt whether the data is wrong. The inflation is real, the jobs is real. There are underlying trends. Inflation is very relevant but there are prices that consumers notice are rising. If you look at wages, house prices for a long time were stagnant. Those were factors. On the unemployment side, the rate has been coming down. Longterm unemployment is very igh. The u 6, unemployment, urban unemployed 6. What it means is workers who were it adds to the regular pool of unemployed workers working part time but want to work full time and workers who are basically working at less than their full potential, working at jobs that are subpar. Or host did the hourly rate go up in june . Guest the hourly rate did go up. That was another piece of good news. And so i believe that wage growth over the year period is now up 2. 2 but wage growth has been pathetic in the United States and thats one of the underlying problems in the economy because consumers are never making enough to catch up. So they end up going into debt and thats kind of the cycle of debt and bubbles that weve had in the last few decades. Host on the issue of wages, the caller was from georgia and the readers will see in the atlantic journal constitution what Georgia State workers are making. Pay for georgia workers trails ther states. Ets hear from nevada. Good morning. Most of think that our jobs have been sent erseas and that the people that represent us, they dont actually if they come out and ask the people what they think about these things and representatives are honest, we wouldnt be having all these problems right now. But the representation that were getting is not a true representation. Jobs that are being created are donothing jobs. And what i mean by donothing jobs, is somebody in a business atmosphere that just basically are a waste of time. 90 of those jobs could be eliminated because the one thing thats really important, thats what do you produce . You produce nothing. Youre worth nothing. You have to actually you go out and you make something happen. In other words, you repair a car, you fix the plumbing, you do carpentry work, you do something. And these other people, 90 of them, are donothing jobs. And i think that the tariffs from the other countries that are not being made is partly in trouble. I think if its a fair thing, if we adjust the tariffs which are to at least the same tariff, i have nothing against world trade except for that fact. And im 75 years old. Host well let you go there. Guest i think that the trade deficit had been an issue for the u. S. There have been a lot of jobs, essentially we opened up ourselves to the world from a global trade perspective and we didnt really put a lot of emphasis on making sure that the other countries that we were doing business with had, say, the same labor standards, the same pay levels. So Many American workers were thrown into competition with a huge global competition with workers willing to be paid a lot less. So a lot of that work was transferred there. Some people say thats the way it goes and how the Global Economy moves around. That might be the case. But that doesnt mean there arent jobs americans cant do. And the definition of doing something that your caller i agree that there are donothing jobs in every organization probably. But the point that your caller was making i think there are the definition of doing something is very broad and there are a lot of thing that is need to be done in this country including Services Jobs that arent getting filled by the private sector like home care workers, child care, things that would enable the labor market to function more smoothly. Those are areas more demand than supply . Guest absolutely. Think about day care, its a perennial problem for american workers, especially people who dont have a lot of Vacation Time and couples that are two working couples or single parents. They have a difficult time in dealing with child care. Host i have a question for you oo on twitter. Guest lets see. Well, the highest Unemployment Rate under bush when he left office. Because as he left office we were in the middle of the crisis and the Unemployment Rate was still in the process of skyrocketing. So when he left office it began in his when he took office was very low because host when he took office in 2001. Guest it was after a small recession but in the vinty of 4 to 5 then it went up to 8 . Peaked at 10 at the end of 2010 or 2009, i believe. And it has since come down 7. 5 . Host one more question from twitter. Guest thats a pretty charged question so i wont answer that directly but i will say that the if you squ economists of both stripes, republican and democrat, you will they will tell you that the spending cuts that congress has been putting through are detrimental to Economic Growth. So thats a bipartisan view from the Economics Community about but that doesnt mean that democrats havent supported some of the same pending cuts and vice versa. Generally cutting spending into a weak economic environment is not advised by bo most schools of economic thought by most schools of commict thought. Host leaths john. Caller ive got a radical opinion. In my opinion the Free Enterprise system has totally failed. And i think when i say that the new norm for unemployment is 6. 5 . Thats Proof Positive Free Enterprise has failed. Guest whats interesting about that is that people will argue that from both sides. Free enterprise is so ideological that people will say that you could argue some folks argue that theres too much government and thats the reason and some people will say that the government hasnt intervened sufficiently. So i would rather not get caught up. But i agree that i dont know if its a failure of the Free Enterprise system but its a failure of the u. S. Economy to provide for its workers. We cannot and one of the scary parts of the sort of mild improvement is you get the seps of complacency. Were creating jobs thats fine. And you sense the frustration with your colleagues. No, its not fine. My husbands been out of job since 2007. Ive heard that quite a few times and you hear that frustration in their voice. So i think its not an acceptable situation. And one of the ironies is that of course all the pundits that go on tv and talk about how great the unemployment figures are generally have a job. Host to maine, we hear from joel on our independent line. Caller good morning. I guess its hard to get a bunch of points in but it always seems this topic circles one thing and its globalism. You need to have a show on here that whats globalism done for you lately . I think you have to find out. Every subject weve had on this show for the last six months basically is all about globalism and how its, theyve basically taken those little donothing jobs that used to be our industrial base, this is what holds america together. This is economic theyre perpetrating economic terrorism on us from wall street. This is a horror show. Doesnt anyone out there why dont the people here call in about Everything Else . Its basically Everything Else here is globalism. And i really would like to see a show on that. What has globalism done for you . Host thanks for the call. Guest free trade and open trade has definitely done some serious damage to the Manufacturing Sector. Its a shadow of its former self. Some people talk about a manufacturing revival. I think the evidence is flimsy. Of course now its only really a sixth of our economy. It would be nice if it were larger but we could focus on improving the parts that we do have. Host theres an article this morning about our manufacturing, particularly bout 3d printing. It says moving past paper. What do you see as an economics reporter . Wheres the growth area overall in manufacturing . And is this part of it this 3d printing . Guest i know nothing about, its pretty incredible. I think it shows the importance of investing in rd. I dont know which parts of manufacturing are thriving. I think one of the sad parts about what manufacturing revival we are having is one of the reasons were having is that wages fell sufficiently in our year that we are now beginning and wages rose in china and other manufacturing nations so now our wages arent quite competitive but getting there. Thats not really great for the income of the people in the area. One of the huge one of the primary areas of our Manufacturing Sector really is the auto sector. So thats reflected in the sort of the concept of 3d printing would allow you to broaden its use there. But the auto sector has been a huge boon for the economy particularly because of the said policy and low rathes. Host you said a minute ago the wages are growing but stagnant. What happens when the inflation rates starts to bump up as the economy improves and were seeing the intreth rate the intreth rate not inflation. The Interest Rate goes up on home mortgages. Guest Interest Rates would normally be going up because economy is booming and people expect higher rates of return. One of the issues weve had in the last couple of months is that rates have risen not really because of in part because of some improvement in the economy but because the fed has taken that improvement kind of ran with it and said that were so optimistic that wear going to take our foot off the gas. The markets dont quite seem as convinced as that stedieness as the fed. We have had weve seen loss that led to a sharp rise in rates. The 10year note has risen a full percentage point. So there is a danger that what little traction weve been having could be undone by this latest, this very rapid spike in Interest Rates. Theres also a fear, theres some highly leveraged bond funds that invest and when a sharp move in rates can be magnified very greatly. Host but the fed and their action last week, theyre really telegraphing what theyre going to do next year. So theyre trying to ease the markets into this. Right . Guest this is thats right. The issue is theyre going to start doing it probably now in september. This latest strong jobs figure kind of sments the market. Theyre going to start to reduce the monthly pace in september. So well see if the economy can handle that. Of course the fed has left the window open to doing more if it needs to. Ost portland, good morning. Caller i want to throw this out there. For every commercial industrial robot that goes on line. We lose one payment of Social Security and of federal withholding taxes that no longer substantiate our budget. Our economy. Now, we have that half a million new roberts coming on line every year and theyre not paying anything. So if we were to figure out how much theyre worth per hour of manufacturing and they have to pay withholding and federal taxes. Its not a question thats something you can give a quick answer on. Ive given it a lot of thought and i just want to throw it out there. Guest i never thought about it but taxing the robot seems like a great fiscal strategy. They cant protest against you after all. But on a more serious note i think the issue of technology is a very serious one. Because what i always find difficult to square is that robots and technology are supposed to make our lives better not worse. Were not supposed to be displaced by robots. So hopefully we can figure out a happy medium. So we can remain employed and maybe have a robot serve you a cold drink on a warm sunday. Host ten more minutes with our guest. Talking about the economy in the wake of the jobs numbers that came out yesterday from the labor department. Again just looking at some of the areas where theyre showing job growth, 195,000 jobs added in the month of june and they revised their figures for may and april as well. Professional Businesses Services adding 53,000 jobs, health care 20,000 jobs. Diveragetsdznunchinge take mig call. You know, in a world of anything tivity, i appreciate your opted mix for government. Perhaps trying to do the right thing for us. I would just question what would people be calling and talking about if the numbers went in the opposite direction for unemployment . Or the jobs that have been created . In my opinion, any job is probably better than losing a job. And even if the job is what people some people describe as nowhere jobs or nothing jobs, they may be taking somebody off unemployment or perhaps government subsidies in some way. So in my opinion it stabilizes our economy. So i would like your opinion. Thank you very much. Host thanks. Guest i couldnt agree more. A job is a job. I certainly wouldnt den grate any work over another. But i think we all want the highest quality economy possible for ourselves, for our kids, for everyone. So we should we can and we should take a Glass Half Full attitude. Its great that were not seeing a decline in employment. But at the same time we should aim for what we could have. And actually the economic potential of this country is much greater than where were at now. Host lets see what your answer is to a question on twitter. Guest well, u you know, i dont know if all Economic Growth can be traced back to bubbles but there certainly has been that pattern recently. In fact, for people who like to take pot shots at paul crugeman theres that quote that he used in 2003 where he said the fed needs to create a housing bubble to get us out of the rut caused by the popping of the stock market bubble. Perhaps not the best choice of words. But i dont think that we need bubbles to fuel Economic Growth. I think economic booms tend to have a sort of particular sector thats associated with them that when they go too far we think of them as bubbles. But i dont think that we need bubbles to fuel the economy. And i think that one of the problems that we have is that the growth and one of the reasons we have bubble fueled economies is the growth of the Financial Sector has been so large the dependency on the economy on Financial Assets has been so great that the propensity is even greater. One of the reason it is fed is afraid of its own weapon, is because theyre afraid that some part of the Financial Market things might be getting too frothy as alen green span used to say. Host john on our democrats line. Good morning. Caller the thing i want to ask real quickly is that i wish obama and everybody else would go on a field trip and i would like to take them up and down the east coast and all around this country and show them the factories and everything thats shut down. The people who are out of work. Me being an electrician, i would like to also show them all the Illegal Immigrants working on job sites and our insurance is being dropped and were being replaced by people who are not even born in america. We need to take care of america. We need to take care of our people. Taxes are going up. If you cant receive everything you buy and then deduct that off your paycheck you dont make nothing. And i think the whole problem is we take more than we give. I think its time that the American People wake up and ow whatever they have to do, show people how to work and show whats going on in america. Because the republicans and the democrats are not telling the truth to the American People. Gains, tax profit and now were being overwhelmed. We left england because of taxation and were back into the same situation. Host lets get a response on the issue of immigrants. Illegal immigrants taking work. Guest before addressing that issue i would love to go on that tour of the downtrodden side of america with him and with congress and democratic and republican politicians because i think your caller does speak to a sort of detachment. The lives they live are generally not the lives that most americans are experiencing and i think there would be something very valuable to that tour that he twoont organize. As far as immigration, to me it goes back to the same issue we were talking about the 30 hour week and the lack of vacation and benefits in the restaurant sector. It goes back to what kind of an economy and job market do we have . In a better economy, we wouldnt be pitting recent immigrants. Yes, you need comprehensive Immigration Reform so that theres no possibility for companies to be gaming the system by abusing Illegal Immigrants and paying them less than they should be paid, less than the legal wage and with no benefits. So that needs to be addressed. At the same time, if you had a booming job market, the employers would be competing for the immigrants and the americans rather than americans being pitt against recent immigrants. Host a couple more calls for you. Fort wayne, indiana. Don. Caller good morning. My comment is that Ford Motor Company and General Motors and United Auto Workers all kinds of money has been sent to them and bailed them out of their going bankrupt and paid for their pensions. And then you think that the Obama Administration would have some control over Ford Motor Company, General Motors, both have announced new Assembly Plants in china. Now, we catch this out of the paper and i caught it because the ceo of General Motors was out there with a shovel with the rest of the chinese making the ground breaking. And i would think that somewhere in the United States somebody would be knowing that ford and General Motors is going to build a plant, two plants in china and we dont know anything about it and the Obama Administration does nothing to try to stop it and move it back into the United States. Host well get a response. Thank you. Correct me if im wrong but ford was not part of the federal rescue. Guest it was gm and chrysler who were. But to his point on gm, if thats the case i dont know that story. I would like to read about it. Theres this fair point to be made that if we are going to invest federal dollars in bailing out a firm they should be u. S. Focused in their employment creation. But i would say that actually the auto bailout was the least of outrageous. If you compare the auto to the bank bailout, the auto looks glowing because it had some conditions attached, the workers had to take cuts the management was lobbed off. So there were conditions that were imposed much more than the banks. Host on the gm have we completely sold the federal government investment, are we completely out of that . Guest i think were almost there. I think with gm were completely out but im not 100 . Host lets hear from john. On our republican line. Independent line. Caller hey. General motors still owes us 20 billion. Host thanks for the update. Caller chrysler and jeep, china, too. Thats where the markets are going. But its kind of ridiculous. We bail them out and they go overseas. The unemployment under george bush was 5. 6 for six years. Going on seven years. And but he didnt spend trillions of dollars like obama did. We virtually got nowhere. Up in ohio it hasnt come back. Myself i think its because of the debt. The debt that we owe. For some reason its not letting us break through. Host texas. Thanks, john, for the financial figures. Plaino is billy. Guest caller i have a question about the energy jobs. Do you have any stats sticks for how many energy jobs are traded in the last fiscal cycle . Guest i do not. But i know that i can tell you that north dakota has the countrys lowest jobless rate, Something Like in the low 3 percentage point rate. And thats because of the boom in energy. So i dont know the quantity of jobs but i know that its one of the reasons our economy is booming. Host put you on the spot because you said north dakota has the lowest. Do you know which state has the highest . Guest i do. I remember it was michigan at like 13 . Michigan is now that speaks to the success of the bloult. Bailout. Michigan is down to 8 . The highest is still in nevada, which is still 9. 3 . Host thanks for joining us this morning. Guest thanks for slg me. Host up next, shane gold milwaukeer. Interesting story about how some of the members of congress draw government pensions from their previous work in addition to their congressional salary. Well also look more broadly when they return. Nd later on this morning a reporter for climate wire. How federal dollars and man power allocated for fighting fires across the country. Well look at the recent tragedy in arizona as well. On newsmakers this week our guest is the new president of the American Medical Association. She talks about a variety of topics including whether the white house has asked the American Medical Association for help explaining the Affordable Care act to the public. We have been in communication with many individuals in the administration about our role as physicians in this and what we can help them do and what we can do to help our patients get the kind of information that they need. But we will continue to work with the administration and do whatever we can in our power to make this happen. What do you see as the role of doctors in the Affordable Care act . s a pretty polarizing what do you see as the role of doctors in partnership with the administration . Well, i think clearly as we move forward with this our responsibility as physicians will be to our patients. And my job as a doctor will be to communicate with my patients and their families Going Forward as to what they can expect from the exchanges or any other pieces of the Affordable Care act. Physicians come together on many things. The American Medical Association has brought doctors together. We set policy, and out of that body has come good work about outreach, good work about transparency, and good work about how we can help our patients access the kind of care that they deserve and need. Host is your advice to physicians to follow up, physicians that dont like the Affordable Care act, basically this is the law of the land and they should do what they need to do to get people coverage . Thats a very good point. And i think again there was decisionmaking on both sides. Some supported some did not support it. But at the end of the day the American Medical Association and its policy body, the house of delegates, came together in a support of the Affordable Care act. It is the law now. As i mentioned earlier there are things in play now which are helping the American Public and our job as physicians will continue to be to get our patients the type of care that they need at the right time at the right place by the right rovider. Host Congressional Correspondent for norl. Were going to talk National Journal. Were going to talk about his coverage story double dipping. More than one in five members of congress draws a government pension in addition to a government salary according to shanes investigation. Thanks for being with us this morning. Guest thanks for having me. Host this issue of double dipping. A lot of folks have a job and also get a pension. Whats the issue up on capitol hill . What do you find . Guest what we looked into was whether there are members of congress who are currently in addition to their 174,000 salary collecting a got pension from Previous Government Service. And the reason, some conservative groups and tax pare groups call that double dipping. One of the jurisdiction, a previous state pension, youre supporting their state pension as a taxpayer and also their salaries as a members of congress. So theyre asking the taxpayers to help pay them twice. Thats the criticism. And maybe you shouldnt be collecting a public pension in addition to your public salary if youre doing a Public Service job. Host when you ask members, whats their typical reaction . Guest the most common reaction is look i earned it. I worked my many years in such a job and im entitled to my pension. And so what if its a 110,000 in addition to my salary . One of the members i spoke with, former sheriff out in Washington State David Reichert said look i worked for 33 years, i earned my pension and im going to collect it in addition to my congressional salary. Not all earned it in quite the same way as he did in Law Enforcement for 30 years. Often these members of congress have particularly sweet deals, they came from state legislatures, other elected positions where the pension packages are a lot more lavish than what are available even to other e sectors. Mary land rue from louisiana is 57 now and shes been collecting her pension when she was only 41 years old. The average Louisiana State worker in contrast cant collect their pension until theyre 60 these days so theyre not just collecting pension bus often particularly terms that arent available to other Public Workers. Host i want to take a look. The chart the largest the ten largest pensions taken by embers of congress at the top. Guest the most from texas everything is big anywhere texas including public pension. They have generous system where you can collect from multiple systems simultaneously. Ted poe that figure is two different retirement packages because he was both a judge and prosecutor and there you get to collect separate pensions from separate jobs. Even that 126,000 is actually loser to 140,000. But the number that really stands out there is joyce beatty. 250253,000 pension. In addition to her salary that makes her better paid than president obama. So how does a lawmaker make that size of a pension . She used to be a former state legislator, again those are good packages. Then she got a job at Ohio State University for three years and 20 days. In ohio they calculate your pension based on your highest three years of service. So those extra 20 days that hurt her pension calculated on her career for 320,000 job. And so shes got for the rest of her life a pension thats a quarter Million Dollars. Host what prompted you to cover this story . Guest i was looking through the Financial Disclosure forms for the lawmakers knew they kime out in june. This is a trend id seen across different moments and no one looked comprehensively. A lot of times, a lot of members of congress. Frankly the forms arent perfect. The information is not presented really clearly. And for the numbers likely higher than the figure which i had about 100 members one in five in congress were collecting Public Pensions. Members of congress who collect military pensions arent included. Thats not required. And lots of members didnt report it exactly as it would appear to be necessary. Host shane is with us to talk about the pension story that he wrote for no National Journal and more broadly the. The numbers are on the bottom f your screen. Lets go to california. Gary on our democrats line. Caller im a former republican became a democrat in 2004. Heres what im wondering a little off the immediate topic that youre on but something i wanted to ask somebody who is intimate with congress, has covered them for a while. 20 or 30 years ago, the perception was that the democrats in congress were kind of out on the fringe, more radical, less concerned about the political accomplishment than the republicans. It seems to me now that given that theres been a shift and thats the role of republicans has become more of political outliars even though theyre in the majority now, they just seem to be outside of the american tradition in so many ways that im wondering if thats a perception that is unique to me or if thats something that others see as well. The people on the right just seem so much more extreme than the people on the left these days. Im asking that question of of you because you cover congress. Guest and you describe yourself as a former republican. So it seems you have parted ways. And frankly there are a lot of people who were republicans who feel the party has moved to the right. I think there is little doubt that the group as a whole is more conservative. The majority in the house is true but in washington overall they are the minority party. They control, one third or one half of one third of the federal government. And to that puts them in the minority which makes them message makers and not chief lawmakers because the president is controlled by the democrats, the senate is controlled by the democrats. So they dont have full governing authority. Host your story about the double dipping. You put an interactive story by being able to go and to click on individual members. So in this case we go to joyce, who as you said has an annual pension of 253,000. So very visual representation of where that falls. Host and the goal was if somebodys watching this program or somebody grabs the magazine or reads the story they can look up is their member of congress doing this and theres also a tool you can search by state, name, type of retirement. Figure out other people can get a sense of looking at the data that we helped put together. Host how many are former military . Guest around 100. Its actually much lower than it used to be. Post world war ii, almost the entire congress served in the military. Host robert, republican line. War during the vietnam many congressmen and senators went to vietnam the last two days of the month and the first two days of the next monsdz and paid no federal income tax on their salaries or any other income because theyre in a hostile fire zone. I dont know if theyre still doing that in afghanistan or iraq. Host you mean so help us understand this. So on a congressional visit hey went to vietnam. Caller yes during the vietnam war they usually go at the end of the month. I would see them come in on the last two days of the month and be in a nonfire zone. It was safety. And then stay there for two days wining and dining. And then they would leave on the second or second of the next month so they would get two months because theyre there 24 hours of each month and they wont pay taxes for those two months. I wonder if thats still going on. Host thanks for the call. Have you ever heard of that . Guest ive never heard of this. I would be very interested. It seems unlikely you could avoid paying taxes by being out of the country but frankly i dont know the answer. Host to texas. Ron on our independent line. Caller look, i have a couple of comments, maybe three and ill be real brief. I think government pensions are basically the last thing that we should be worried about. I mean, compared to the the ridiculous amounts that we spend on these wars trying to take Natural Resource that is dont belong to us. I think your guest should concentrate on that. When it comes to government pensions, congressional workers ill use an rkers, example that goes back 30, 40 years agent most of these government workers took these jobs that pay on average 30 to 40 less than comparable jobs in the private sector. Through the years they paid their taxes, they got their medical eases, benefits and over time these people are making 40, 50, 60,000 a year. What makes it mostly absurd to a lot of people is that a lot of these individuals dont have an education past high school. Guest i want to address one of the things you mentioned is this shouldnt be a concern. And youre right in terms of dollars and cents the amount of money that goes to Public Pensions to members of congress is very low, about 3. 5 million last year. But what the members of congress say, what people i looked at they talk about the importance, symbolic significance of leaders collecting government pensions. One of the lawmakers, publicly campaigned against congressional pensions and against defined benefit packages without talking about that he in fact collects one. He introduced legislation while collecting his state pension and he talks about it, when he was testifying before Congress Never ask anyone to do anything that you yourself would not be willing to do. And so it doesnt come down to sort of the broad amount of money, but its a question of is this the right example to be setting for our nations leaders . Can host thanks for your call. To jean in illinois. Caller i have been waiting for you to discuss several things. I am flabbergasted that this law that was signed into effect during the Reagan Administration that penalized people who paid into two pension systems does not affect congressional members. How is that fair . If they believe in a Free Enterprise system where people are forced to pay taxes when they work, you didnt get an option of whether you wanted to pay or not, you had to. The government forced you. Then to tell them later on down the line when theyre ready to retire and they need that had money and im one of them. Im a retired teacher. I lost 1,000 a month in my Social Security because i was told that it was illegal to pay into two pension systems. I have friends in my neighborhood who worked for the postal service, policemen, firemen, all these people find out when they get ready to retire that they cannot draw all the Social Security that they paid into. But congressional members can do it. How is that fair . How can they get around the law that we have to abide by . That is my question. Guest one of the complex tizz in dealing with members of congress who are collecting pensions from Previous Government Service is that most of them served at Different Levels of got in local office, state office and collected a local pension. Now, a lot of those states and localities wont let iretire from one job and take another from another state. You cant retire in colorado in one job and take another state job. But if you dake a job at the federal government its Different Levels and there are no rules across Different Levels of government. So for any other worker its not an issue that they bump up in terms of not being allowed to have a salary and a public pension. Host a couple of comments and questions. Laura says our quote representatives dont much epresent real americans. Some of our comments on twitter this morning. Guest its been going going on a long time. Its not a new practice. One of the more fun facts that i found out about while looking into this with you congressman ralph hall, the oldest member of congress, 90, hes been collecting his public pension for service in texas from the day he was sworn in to congress 32 years ago. So this is not a new problem. For people who think it is a problem. But it is but its been going on for a while. Host republican line. Paul. Caller im in the same situation as the young lady that just called. Im a retired federal employee, and also resip knt of recipient of Social Security. I have a two thirds penalty on my payment and i put in all that money over the years because they call this a windfall profit. Actually it was intended for higher paid individuals who are getting maximum Social Security benefits and large pensions which doesnt include me. There have been several bills that have been introduced in the past six or seven or eight years, maybe more, that were going to correct this and eliminate certain threshhold amounts on the payment that you get from Social Security and your tral pension. Have y are all going to introduce that. I think the last was about three or four years ago. So i agree whole heartedly and i put money into Social Security and i get a windfall from 900 and ive worked for and put in down to almost a little over 400. Thank you very much. Guest since the time ive been covering elected leaders here in washington and previously in california you hear from the public frustration that is those elected leaders are getting benefits, packages better than theyre receiving. Its a common complaint. An issue with congress. Members of congress do make a fair amount of money. They also do have to maintain two homes, one in both washington and in wherever their district is and quite a few to make ends meet sleep in their offices, especially that 2010 Tea Party Class of freshmen republicans, some who didnt come from wealth or business backgrounds or along Government Service with pensions. Theyre making ends meet. Host question on twitter. Guest ive not looked at that. Congressional aides do have to file Financial Disclosure forms but theres a lot more of them and theyre also not elected by the public which would have an immediate say on whether they think this is a good thing or bad thing. Host the story is about double dipping and the story, the the ne did you address issue of Social Security . Does anybody on the hill get Social Security as well as their pension and their salary . Guest i did not look into Social Security again because i was looking at the financial filing records. They dont have to list whether they get Social Security. Some of them do. A handful just listed that they collect x amount. But i can only look at what is publicly reported and what theyre required to report and theyre not required to report those federal benefits. Host lets go to California Independent line. Caller im another one thats affected by the windfall, im a teacher when i retire i will lose about 1,000 of my Social Security. Im not rich but i decided not to have children and work for my ex husbands company its affecting me in a very negative way. I am wondering if theres any action thats going to be taking place to chining this windfall. Guest ive not heard of any congressional push to make any changes to those benefits. Host thanks for your call. Indiana, keith on our democrats line. Caller my question is this. It seems like were set up to fail from the beginning when it comes to taxes. You take someone as young as theyre starting work and immediately they take tax out of their first paycheck that they get. I would think it would be better if they didnt take out any taxes until they made enough money to sustain their lives here and pay their bills. Their medical. And food bills. Like 17,500 from january until they make that 17,500. And then after that you tax them. Thats just my comment. Guest a little bit is what we do already have in the federal tax code. I dont believe its that 17,000 figure but it is a number. And then its a progressive tax code. So the more you earn theres more you are taxed. Theres some exceptions but broadly its taxed on that progressive sliding scale. Host in addition to that piece youre a Congressional Correspondent for National Journal. House and senate are coming back next week. Look agget when they return what are the priorities in both the house and senate . Guest the sort of immediate thing that they probably need to be dealing with is student loan rates. On july 1, the rates that Student Loans are being paid by College Students beendyond are doubled. They can change it retro actively so there hasnt been a big hustle about it. President obama in previous years has made a big year they havent dealt with it so this is number one immediate thing on their agenda. For the house, they have to figure out what theyre doing on immigration. The senate right before they left has f passed an immigration bill, 68 votes pretty big bipartisan votes. The house has said its dead on arrival. Were not taking up this measure. But they have to write them and put it through the house and get it through the floor which has been a challenge for the republican leadership. So those are the elements. And the washington story now if it happens would be national story. Theres talk about changing the rules for the filibuster in the senate called the Nuclear Option would they blow up the ability of the minority to prevent legislation to be blocked by 60 vote threshhold. Host they got immigration through whats motivating that . It seems less of a priority. Guest a few things. For Senate Democrats are the ones talking about this theres always a question about when they bring up this are they just trying to pressure the republicans to begin approving more of the backlog of nominees that obama has pushed out there plally or federal courts. Theres also Consumer Bureau created through the dodd frank act after the financial crisis and the head of that bureau has not been confirmed. And the president would like him confirmed. The Senate Democrats would like him confirmed. Thetch problems with the Consumer Bureau itself. They dont like the law that created it. They say its not congressionally accountable and theyre going to hold up any nominee theyve pledged until they change the structure of that board. So the democrats want the pressure to break that stance. So more gamesmanship in washington. Host the first imet the student loan Interest Rates. The New York Times weighing n. So whats the likely outcome . Guest it will be interesting to watch here politically is that neither side is yelling about it yet. The democrats if they felt this was an absolute winning issue they would be kicking and screaming and blaming the republicans. The republicans would be doing the same. Neither side is sure what the politics is going to play out and that means that students and people paying loans are left in limbo the short version is that over the long haul the republican package would see student loan rates rise over time faster than the plan the democrats want to put in place. They said republicans say look we shouldnt be subsidizing this. The private sector will take care over time and the short term theres a little more complex. Over the long haul thats the biggest difference. Host our guest, another 15 minutes or so of your calls and comments on his double dipping article and more broadly too the upcoming congressional agenda lets go to South Carolina. Air force a retired pilot and you had apparently never heard of the combat exemption so just a quick little history here. When i started flying in vietnam in the early 70s, and this probably went back before that, basically it used to be 500. So if you served in a combat zone the first 500 of your base pay was depree. Taxfree. In those days, my monthly pay was taxfree. It was that way for 40 years. A lot of high rollers in the military, they would come enrolling for an inspection. Pay taxall their base free because they were in the combat zone. We called the double dipping. The military did it more than congressman did it. That stayed 500 all the way into the 9090s. It is up to quite a few thousand dollars now. 1990s. It is up to quite a few thousand dollars now. It is to be called a combat exemption. It was definitely abused, when you can be there one day and get the whole month taxfree. Im unfamiliar with that. I was familiar with members of the military not being taxed when in combat zone. I was not aware of members of congress temporarily receiving the same benefits. Thanks for your information. Lets hear from missouri. On our line for independents. I think it is an outrage, Congress Making a mock out of us. Cut this andto that and take away our pensions, and they get their pensions and their healthcare. They want to take away our healthcare. I think it is a mockery from the democrats, the republicans, even the conservatives. Country. Middle this is not a far left country. It is not a far right country. This is a middle country. That is what we need to get back to. Theyre really making a mockery out of us. Like one caller said, someone come down here and see how people really do live. We are not in the congress world, were not in hollywood world. We are average people. All this bickering and hatred and democrat this and republican this and conservative this conservatives, if they want to do something, do something about saving money. Let Congress Show that as an example. That is one of the complaints, that by having generous pension benefits and pay packages and putting them all together, you are further removed from the public you represent. Members of congress are not unemployed and they are not suffering in the economy the same way as Many Americans. A separation between the leadership and the people there representing. Packageshe retirement these folks are getting we talked about the generosity, you can retire earlier in some cases, you can make more money. One lawmaker came into the 2010 tea party wave. He reported his first year, 88,000 pension. Solicitor, which is basically a district attorney. Youre required to work for 24 years to become a solicitor pensioner. Than a dozenmore years of service time that he did not actually work to receive a pension, which is a benefit not available to other Public Workers in South Carolina or other states. They left it vague. The form is vague. He took a lump sum of money, paid to the system and bought what amended amounted to and 88,000 pension. Number three house democrat, you write, accepted a 55,000 pension. Clyburn has collected roughly Million Dollars in pension benefits for joining congress in 1993. Back to your calls. New mexico, john. Good morning. The firefighter so eager to put out our fire the firefighters , a weekout our fire later they go home and get killed in their own backyard fighting with fire. I wonder about the Insider Trading. It was illegal for congress to trader or it insider now they can become as rich as they want insider trade. They can become as rich as they want. They dont care about the American People. Now we are looking at useless people who got into congress not to help americans, but to profit off of them. I dont appreciate these so called journalists coming on as apologists for congress and the democratic party. Im a democrat and ive been a democrat all my life. But you guys have got to look at these politicians and say, youre lying, sir. Tell us the truth. Thanks for your opinion. Recentlyngress did passed a law to further limit the ability of any kind of Insider Trading or Insider Trading allegations. An outgrowth of that is that they now have to report their stock trades in close to real time. You can track who is selling, what members of congress are selling what stock in what bonds in realtime. It is pretty usable. You search by name. You can search by date and see who is trading what stocks. Help us figure out what is going wrong. Host a couple of comments on twitter for you. On congress itself and about the student loan rates guest i will answer the last question first. I believe yes. Host these are for new loans to, as well . Guest i believe so. It is hard to say what will happen on immigration. Senate clear is that the bill will not be taken up, at least not right away. The most likely outcome is that the house puts together its own package of legislation, probably not including all the things in the senate package, probably not including a path to citizenship to those who are here illegally. They will lob that over to the senate and both sides will say, we passed our own bill h. Bill each. They may go to conference. It is a long process. What the house rankandfile doald republicans want to is slowly file through this legislation. A tough issue for the Republican Party. The latino vote went overwhelmingly against latinos republicans in a last election. Theres a lot of fear that if the Republican Party is the party that kills Immigration Reform, it is going to damage them in the long haul. Post thisington morning. Will put that in later, talking about obamacare. We going to hear about this delay in the mandate . Guest we will hear about it for the next 18 months. In washington, politics is important to people. Theimplementation of mandate, forcing businesses of more than 50 people to provide insurance was one of the things the Republican Party thought would galvanize conservative activists. This is going to be front and center. Theyre going to be businesses that are not going to hire people, businesses that are going to lay off people. This will really activate the grassroots. Obama has taken it off the table for the shortterm. This is purely a policy decision and certainly has political ramifications. On the flipside, it gives republicans a great talking point. Youre writing in National Journal, youre talking about the irs. Are there more irs hearings planned . Guest im sure. Currente three congressional investigations. The biggest one is being led by. Arrell issa a very aggressive inquisitor and chief of the Obama Administration. Thee is one being led by house, ways and Means Committee and one by the Senate Finance committee. Ist came out most recently that the irs has created this targeting list and they are looking at Tea Party Groups in particular for extra scrutiny, whether they should be approved as nonprofits. There is also the word progressive on some of these lists. They have not found evidence that this was used currently or in the timeframe they are looking at, but democrats say, this is a whole other issue, not just Tea Party Groups. There has not been evidence that progressives have been targeted to the same extent as Tea Party Groups. There is a lot of investigating that will still need to happen. Carl in knoxville, tennessee, on the republican line. People 85 years old that cant raise the alarm needs to go home and live off their raise there are needs to go home and live off their retirement. Why are we sending people to afghanistan and iraq, and we have people here in tennessee and florida going hungry. And then congress is double dipping . We have got a problem in the white house, in congress. I want to know what you guys are doing about it. People are getting fed up with congress playing around. Scraping by, and congress is double dipping . You cant do that on disability or Social Security. Tell me what youre going to do about that. Host what is the number you found in congress that have pensions addition to salary pensions in addition to salary . Guest one hundred and two members. We talked about the top 10 person on this list, bill keating. He takes his full pension. He turned it into a charity to help child abuse victims. Turn it down and send it back to taxpayers as well. He pays the taxes on it and sends it back. Christopher gibson said, i dont want to double dip on the taxpayers in times of fiscal challenge. Host dan is on our independent line in florida. I heard a lot of pensioners calling in going, double dipping. Its an argument between the haves and the have mores. These people dont understand what its like to try to save for your retirement and pay for theirs. Wey use some arguments like, made less money and we did this and that. Large, those people when they are 70 and 80 years old, have had Permanent Employment for many years. They did not have to worry about getting fired. They have benefits out the pyongyang Pirg Ying Yang compared to the private sector. They shouldnt get it. What is creating the intergenerational burden is the pensions, hundreds of thousands of people are getting at every level of government from where you live. They are city pensioners. You live in the county. There is county pensioners. There are state pensioners. Then you have military on top of that, maybe School Districts are different. Theres so many people on public retirement plan. Ordinary citizens cant afford that. Host thanks for your last were there. Guest word. Been the system has changing, when you talk about Public Pensions. It was pretty common, Big Industries were able to support. T those were things that could be supported. They have begun to disappear from the private sector. There is talk among republicans of wanting to do away with it in the Public Sector as well. System. It is the it deserves the argument that may be more americans one Retirement Security and would like pensions. It definitely stirs a passion. Host Shane Goldmacher if Congressional Correspondent for National Journal. You can look online and website. Ve more washington journal coming up. Athaniel massey one of the points we make in this book, didnt make any difference to have direct popular election . I think we come down on the side of, yes. Senators began to act like house. Embers its not something that any senator wants to hear. They had to go out and deal with the people as opposed to if you have a state legislature, and there are 26 members of your state senate, all you need is 14 votes. You can easily pay off. Senatorsdid pay off 14 , paying off their mortgages and a couple of cases to buy their election. More with historian emeritus of the u. S. Senate, richard baker. No man needs a strong and honest partner than the american president , sheltered and. Uccumbed that is what i concluded after five years and hundreds of interviews. Those husbands with brave spouses willing to speak sometimes hard truths that others are unwilling to speak to president s, those have a distinct advantage. Let me give you an example. Had pat nixon been able to cut through her husbands paranoia, watergate might have been avoided. But pat had long since given up on her husband by the time they reached the white house. They were leading virtually separate lives, as you will see in my portrayal of this saddest of all president ial couples. I dont give my husband advice, pat was quoted as saying, because he doesnt need it. Is there a man or woman alive who doesnt need advice from the person who knows him or her best . Talks aboutti maron how first ladies have shaped American History. For our final segment here on washington journal, were going to look at federal resources in fighting wildfires. Our guest is Nathaniel Massey, who writes for climatewire. Role inthe federal fighting forest fires, particularly out west . Guest the federal government plays an enormous role across the board with many different agencies. The main agencies are the Forest Service and bureau of land management, which maintain their own fire crews. Then he goes across the board from the department of defense, which leases their craft to the firefighters, to the National Oceanic and atmospheric osier association, which provides meteorologists. They can embed meteorologists with term teams of firefighters. Host we are having National Journal with us Nathaniel Massey with us in the wake of the Yarnell Hill Fire tragedy. You can join the conversation. The numbers are on your screen. Tell us about the Yarnell Hill Fire and the hotshot crew. Crew, based person largely in the western u. S. In this case, the yarnell hotshots was a local unit, write . Guest yes. It is a designation, skill sets more than belonging to a particular agency. Most are trained and funded at the federal level. , they were hotshot the Granite Mountain hotshot and belonged to the prescott fire department. Host when you look at the 2013 fire season, how does compare to other years . Guest it is bad. It seems that that is becoming the new normal. One ofhaping up to be the most destructive fire seasons on record. Host headline this morning in the arizona republic, courtesy of the museum in washington. How the tragedy unfolded. This was a large number of firefighters to lose at one time in a season. How many lives are lost in a fire season . Unusual, thes very worst tragedy we have seen in 60 years from wildfires. This is highly unusual. There are lives lost almost every summer, but 20 is a huge number. It hammers home the dangerous nature of this work. Of training or advanced equipment can necessarily mitigate the fact that nature can still play with wildfire. Host your reporting and climatewire says there are 13,000 federal firefighters across the country, 1000 aircraft, including air tankers, seven nextgeneration aircraft being added this summer. What is that nextgeneration what does it mean . A badly needed update to the air tanker fleet. Firefighters have it at their disposal. Tankers make up a small fraction of that. Many of them date back to the 1960s. These were planes designed during world war ii. Summerthree crashes last , but that also crashes in 2009, 2010. One of the crashes happened last summer because the planes wielded not properly deploy wheel did not properly deploy. So now there is a contract with seven new tankers that will be coming online during the course of the summer. Bringing in new planes, they will phase out the old ones. It is a slow expansion of the tanker fleet. Host i thought i would look at the actual acres burned in 2012. Usa today had a chart. Acreage, 2 t of the of what they consider in eastern area. We have calls waiting. Lets go to jail joe. Offer my want to condolences to the families of the 19 firefighters killed in firefightersll the who have lost their lives fighting wildfire. Hey do a wonderful job they should be thought well of for that. Its a twopart question. The resources for fighting protections well as and regulation over the extreme hot temperatures we have seen in this country over the past week , isthe unseasonal weather that a situation that should be more priority for the federal government or is it more efficient for state governments to manage those resources . My second question is the unusual weather and temperatures, the wildfires is that something that can be attributed to Climate Change, and what can and should we do as a nation to help reduce the number of incidents . Hit two of the main issues right on the head. The federal government has a big role to play in fighting forest fires. It helps to have a large body that can coordinate many different agencies. There are city and state, local agencies constantly fighting wildfires. The nature of fires is youre er sure where you are and going to need to place pressure. It is efficient to have these interagency fire centers that can coordinate. Up on tough budget times for the federal government , across the board sequester cats have hit, the forest cuts have hit, the forest agencies have not been spared. The fund for restoration has been cut. The Forest Service has to do more now with less. Getting to your second question, we are seeing a lot more intense fires. They are by and large occurring in the west. Intergovernmental protection is a there will be more wildfires in the future. They have to ship more and more of their resources to fighting fires, being reactive rather than being proactive and treating in a way that will make them safer and reduce the chances of fires spreading out of control. , governoro hickenlooper in response to the latest fire in colorado springs, convened a panel to find out what the states can do. He has proposed a regional air tanker fleet he sponsored be , and perhaps in the surrounding states as well so they have their own capability to immediately attack the fires in that area. Your article in Scientific American the headline says, how did nature and bad luck combined to kill the firefighters . Briefly tell us what you mean. Guest Climate Change can load fires favor. Any particular event is going to be the result of a number of localized weather forces. In arizona, there is an ongoing investigation. There were a number of storm fronts that coalesced simultaneously around the yarnell area. There were high winds from the storefronts storefronts st orm fronts coming in every direction. It was the change of wind that swept over the firefighters. Hotter, drier conditions do give rise to more and more intense storms. Todd is on our line for independents. Caller good morning. I like to offer my sympathies to the families of the fallen firefighters. My question is a little different here. Fires like these have been going on for millions and millions of years. Only since we have technology do we really send guys in there to fight them. If there is no imminent loss of life, it seems to me an incredible waste of resources just to let these fires not burn out. Thank you. I think a lot of people in the Forest Service would agree with you. The Forest Service does have a let it burn policy. It is fairly new and it came about in the 1990s. Previously the policy had been to extinguish all fires. We learned that that leads to overgrowth. We had overgrown, over wooded could say ish i half the reason we are seeing such intense fires now. Conditions have been so hot and dry in the last few years that the Forest Service took the extraordinary step last summer of suspending the let it burn policy because they no longer had the resources to contain those fires in a manageable way. That was very strange and that took a lot of people by surprise. When you suppress fires and dont let them burn and dont let them clear the fuels and youre letting the fuels buildup more for another year, when the fire can be worse. Is ourathaniel massey guest, talking about the federal role in fighting fires across the country. We want to take a look at the effect of the sequestration budget cuts, what they have had on the resources of the federal government to fight fires. Guest protecting human life and human property is a redline. They have to do that no matter. Hat when times are stretched, they have to find that money elsewhere. Theyre going to be digging into their future mitigation programs, their r d budgets. There will be less best practices analyzed because so many resources now are going to fight fires. In the early 1990s, the Forest Service spent 12 of its budget fighting fires. Now it is up to 40 and climbing. Host what sort of data do you have on the link of the fire season and when it length of the fire season and when it typically starts compared to 20 years ago . Guest we know it is lengthening. When you have a warm, dry winter you can expect a long, hot fire season. Over the last 10 years we have seen many of the longest fire season years on record. Itmate scientists attribute to Climate Change. In terms of the future, its possible were coming out of a particularly long cycle. We may get some relief in the next few years, but then likely will start climbing again. In the future we can expect longer, hotter seasons. Host we go to milford, connecticut. Caller i think part of the reason why we are looking at h of his stating results devastating results is people building in places where they did not used to build before. A lot of people dont know these federal firefighters that fight these fires are called temporary federal workers. They dont get health benefits. I think it is disgraceful. They can make a lot, but they cant afford insurance. 20,000s about 15,000 to of them which are temporary, which means they dont get any benefits. We asked them to protect life and limb. Dont even go so far as to protect theirs or their families. It is something that should be looked into. Guest thats a very good point. Im embarrassed to admit i have not reported on that. I have heard of it. It is something im interested in. Thank you for bringing that to our attention. I want to bring up a point on your earlier point, that people do build in fire hazardous areas. Many of these structures were built earlier in the century, in the 1950s in 1960s when we were in a relatively cool, wet period. It was safer than. Then. We are seeing fires in central colorado, the eastern size of the cascades in washington and oregon. Zone. S a fire hazardous ask howre beginning to we can disincentive eyes building their disincentivize building there, or what you can do if you already live there. Host we have a caller from redmond, oregon. Morning. Ood we have a large percentage of the fires out here in the northwest, as your map showed. There is a state of the art tanker based on the 747 platform. Why is that not being used . It has more capabilities than just about any aircraft in the inventory, yet the forest bom essentially right rules limiting the potential of this aircraft to operate. It can make multiple drops. It doesnt have to drop in one spot all at once. It can operate and be anywhere in the u. S. In less than three and a half hours with a load, ready to drop. This aircraft was located 30 from those 19 firefighters who were killed. That aircraft could have billed on could have been on station and prevented that from happening. Why does the Forest Service and bom refuse to contract with the owners of this aircraft . Thet i could not speak for the blm themselves. I imagine it has to do with costs. There is a shortage of aerial support. For air tanker support are delayed or not answered because the fleet is relatively so small to cover an entire country for the fire season. I do know that last summer, when president obama signed a bill to accelerate the modernization of the air tanker fleet, there were questions about certain air tankers not being included in that process. A number of rules about capability. Those were challenged in court and overturned. It is possible that the aircraft you are speaking about, a similar process might be going on. Host you heard about the updating of the fleet earlier this year. You wrote in part that the Forest Service is issuing a notice of intent to award exclusive use contracts for five companies, which will be responsible for up supplying nextgeneration aircraft. The fleet will be expanded further in subsequent fire seasons. Host william is calling from california. We may have lost california. Caller good morning. Host there we go. Go ahead. Caller i come from a logging area here in the sierra nevada. We used to get a lot of money from the sale of timber. We did not have these devastating wildfires. Logging companies would take care of thinning out the forests and cleaning up the brush. When ozzie to do that anymore. We dont seem to do that anymore. We are buying our wood from canada and he gets shifted to the ocean and then shipped back shipped to the ocean and then shipped back here. That is something that tom tidwell talks about a lot. He is a strong advocate for revitalizing the wood product industry here in the United States. He believes it has a strong role to play. The Forest Service can no longer do as much as it once in terms of treatment and thinning. Tore are programs meant incentivize the Timber Industry. I think we are seeing a lot of action there. It has been gradual. If you talk to people in the Forest Service, they believe the Forest Service [inaudible] writing but since 1970, spring and summer temperatures have increased more rapidly in the west. Continuing with calls. Casey is next in buffalo, wyoming. The Timber Industry could be, or it is the one cash crop on the planet. Why dont they managed these forests . Why dont they harvest this would . To heck with the government. The government cant do anything right. We need to do it in the private sector. Thats it. Hear a voiceice to from wyoming. I grew up in wyoming. I think the Forest Service does agree with you. The concern is that the withnment coordinate whatever role the Timber Service plays in this. We do have quite a bit of forest, especially in the west. If are going to manage that, we have to do it strategically. It does not make sense to send your industry out into the woods and have them cut down every tree. Their capabilities are not that they can manage all of that. They need to work strategically around communities. In fire prone areas where people are living, send them out into the areas where fire danger is highest. Host you said you are from laramie, wyoming. Did you experience fires . Guest i lived in the high plains, so there were not many dense forests where i lived. But i remember taking trips to the north of the state and the skies being a haze and the sun being blood red. Host our guest a graduate of lewis and clark college. Mark, you are on the air. Want to comment on training aspects. My condolences go out to the hotshots. I come from a family of firefighters. City, metro area firefighters are trained. They have to go through an academy. They are continually trained. My nephew recently went for training. Hes going to be a firefighter. They sent him to maybe three weekends of training. And theyre going to send him out to fight fires this month. To me, thats kind of ridiculous. Considering in metro areas, firefighters, most of the calls they respond to our for emergency medical reasons. I believe that we should use more Training Resources for firefighters who fight wildfires. Do you think that two to three weeks of training is adequate . Do you want your son or nephew to go to three weeks of training and then thrown out to the most dangerous firefighting there is in the country . Lets start looking at what the problem is so we can find a solution. Host thank you, mark. Absolutely, sir. I would hope with that level of training your nephew is not necessarily on the front lines of the firefighting. Is thef firefighting hard, physical work of preparing the lands with the safest possible clearing brush, digging trenches. Kids with good physical ability you can do this, who can do this, i would sincerely hope they are not being put in the line of fire. Do have more extensive training. The majority of the crew has to be a veteran of at least one season, and 80 hours. Nathaniel massey writes about the hotshot crew. There are 100 and 10 hotshot crews. Shot richard is on our republican line. A question for mr. Massey, following up these questions on the role of the private sector. I was wondering what his view is about the stewardship contracting provisions to make forests more resilient to fire. Host tell us what hes talking about. Stewardship contracting goes on between the federal government and local jurisdictions. It is what we have been talking about. It allows the private sector, even cities if they want to get involved, to manage their own coordination with the federal government. It is really strategic management. Harvesting timber, but doing it in a way that does not harm the ecosystem and protects communities. One of the Forest Service officials i talked to about this is very excited. It has been very successful, i think. About half of timber harvested last year was done under stewardship contracts. Host joel is on our line for independents. Morning. Ood im a bit of a different color than most people on this planet. Reluctantly, i have to accept this is the way im built. Forest fires, just one of hundreds of problems this country has. It is too hypocritical to try to. Olve them everybody is unequal and has other bigger problems to solve, personal reasons. The drought, wins, global warming, gasoline exhaust in the i wrote this down quickly. That is the problem. Affected you sometimes their in van nuys . Caller yes. They came with these big trucks, these firemen july 4. Up. Hook me every problem is fixable. We can fix everything. This fire in arizona was due to winds. Hese firemen got caught i heard about these stories all the time, years and years and years ago. We will let you go there, and echoing what joel had to journal wall street they regularly see these fires in l a area. L. A. Area. How much potential to you seek for it threatening urban areas . It threatening urban areas . Clearing acan take buffer zone. The Forest Service has all of this information available. We see the most destructive fires in these areas of close proximity. These are not the largest wildfire. Ones that happened to burn close to human civilization. Host so they burned the most in terms of Property Damage and cost of the fire. Guest and the cost of fighting the fire. It is more expensive to fight a fire where you are protecting than to just let it burn in a managed way where there is no threat to human life. Host susan, hello. I have a complicated question. Ive been researching it for about three years. We have a population of about 5000 in an urban area with green belts and then nationally protected watershed and in a National Forest behind us then a National Forest behind us. It is interesting to me to follow the federal money for resources to preserve what we have. Our county will not correspond with the governors plan, Peter Goldmark will not correspond with the governors plan. Road loggers are allowed to log on a nationally protected watershed. Then we had a mudslide five years ago because it is volcanic type cliff rocks behind us. We need our trees for protection of our water and our homes. In the same breath, they took out a fema loan for the mudslide five years ago and nobody has fixed our water pipes in all that time. We are itching our heads with chlorine. Re and theyre up thei did not use the red retardants. Detectsral government what they are supposed to do, but the local governments dont correspond. I would like some sort of contact to get through for our local government to correspond with the federal government to protect what we have. Now we have got green belts that ,re half logged, stumps hazardous. We have got loggers up behind on nationally protected watersheds that are causing mudslides and there is no response from the federal government. Athave a green belt report the library which we have had for three years and we have written all our government correspondence and they are not doing anything about it. As far as your contact, i would start with the national. Nteragency fire they coordinate state, local, and federal resources and are very accessible. You have a good point about the dangers of logging irresponsibly. Learning that clearcutting or just going out and cutting down whatever trees you see is not an effective way to manage fires. Can be just forest as ecologically unhealthy as a clearcut forest. For example, a fire gets in there and burns intensely enough, you have soil sterilization and loss of those trees. A caller from virginia. Opportunity tohe serve on one of the first managed burns december of 1977. It was out in the black hills National Forest in south dakota. It was recognized there were economic values in this program, which was focused at reducing fuels for fires. Any word on where their program may have gone to . Guest i would imagine is being revitalized under stewardship contracts. I think that is something of the federal Forest Service is quite serious about. A chart in the wall street journal indicates just what a dangerous career firefighting is, and how it has gotten more dangerous. Headline. S job is the that is from the Forest Service. Maggie is in new york on the line for independents. Someone had told me that, and i also heard with the colorado fire, the inmates in the federal prisons are being trained to fight fires. Someone the other day mentioned these fires are a perfect excuse for terrorism. They do great damage. What do you think . Guest i think nature has that one covered. To get to your inmate question, inmates are sometimes used. I do not think you would see inmates on the front lines actually battling fire as it is raging. I think they would be used more for the preparatory aspect, digging the trenches and clearing that brush, preparing the landscape. I dont know what their benefits are. That is an interesting question. Host hendersonville, north carolina. Brent, hello. , what role dossey you believe that Fire Suppression over the last 50 years with the national Forest Service has played over the increase in intensity of fires . When you speak to fire meteorologists, forest scientists, they always say the two major forces in the severity of fires we are seeing right now are a, a shifting climate, and b, the fact that we have been suppressing wildfires for the better part of the century. Place at a time when there were not that many fires. There was more growth in the forests. Up with very overgrown forests which burn hotter and more intensely when they dry out. Host our guest has been Nathaniel Massey, who writes for climatewire. His most recent article writing about the Yarnell Hill Fire. They give for joining us. Thank you for joining us. That will do it for todays washington journal. Tomorrow we will look at the Affordable Care act. Marilyn were bertha ruffini Marilyn Werber Serafini is our guest. She is talking about the report out that says the u. S. Has the highest childbirth trust in the world elisabeth rosenthal. We appreciate your calls and participation. Hope the rest of your Holiday Weekend is great. See you tomorrow. [captioning performed by the national captioning institute] [captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2013] journalists debate whether medicare is the problem or the solution to the cost of healthcare. National religious leaders talk about mandates and the Affordable Care act. And religious issues from the supreme courts ruling on samesex marriage cases last term. Next, journalists talk about medicare and whether it is a problem or solution for prices in the medical industry. The two authors and tv Network Executives sat down for the debate at the manhattan institute. Paul howard, a former healthcare advisor to the mid2012 president ial campaign, moderated. Good evening. Please take your seats. I name is paul howard and i am a senior fellow and director of manhattan Institutes Center for medical progress. I will be moderate drinker i will be a moderating our discussion this evening. Prices and health care are opaque, byzantine, and only rarely visible before or after the fact to the people who are actually using the system, the patient. It varies widely for similar patients with similar conditions, not just in the same state or city but across the street from each other. We have brought together to americans latest leading Health Care Policy advisers an analyst to explain why this so dysfunctional and what we can do about it