Transcripts For CSPAN Washington Journal 20131108

Even if it had a storied history that was offending a sizable group of people, id think about changing it. But i dont want to detract from the wonderful redskins fans that are here. They love their team, and rightly so come it even though they have been having a tough time this year. Think all these mascots and team names related to native americans, native americans feel pretty strongly about it it i dont know whether our attachment to a particular name real, override the legitimate concerns that people have about these things. But, i dont have a stake in this in the sense of them not a part owner of any Football Team. And now we want to include you in the conversation about whether or not the Washington Redskins name should be changed. 202 is the area code. Native americans, we want to hear from you as well. Finally, for redskins fans, we have a line set aside, two 02 58538 83. Should the Washington Redskins . The d. C. Anged Council Passed a resolution asking redskins to change their name. The d. C. Council passed a resolution on tuesday, asking the redskins to change its name because it is considered a racial slur for native americans. 10 of the 11 councilmembers present voted in favor of the resolution. Two other members, Vincent Orange and marion barry did not attend the meeting. That is marion barry speaking. Heres an article about a group that is active and tried to get the name changed. President barack obama has weighed in, the pro football commissioner has two. S, too. At one time, heat speech was all too common from African Americans being called the an word to others. Artistry is scarred by the language of bigotry. Modern society agrees that this type of language is unsuccessful book is unacceptable. Members of congress in both parties led by minnesotas Betty Mccollum have urged Washington Team to stop using the r word. But the nfl has refused to act. It is a cruel insult that hurts native people. Our communities and their children. As proud nfl sponsors, we want the leak to be a unified force, not a source of intolerance. The mission or Roger Goodell should use his power to do the right thing and change washingtons team name. Native people dont deserve to be treated as targets of a slur. We deserve to be treated as what we are, americans. Paid for by the Oneida Indian nation of new york. You can make a comment on our Facebook Page at facebook. Com c span. Quite a conversation are going on there, including a chance to vote in the poll. Finally, you can send us an e mail at journal cspan. Org. Host michael in phoenix arizona. What do you think . Caller ive been a redskins fan all my life. Why should they complain now . Anybodys complaining about everything. They find everything to complain about. Host thank you, michael. This is william in southgate, michigan. William, what do you think . Caller im outside of detroit. I think it is a no brain or. We would have eight teams called the pale faces. It is more insensitivity on the part of white people towards minorities. Thank you. Host thank you. Brandon in love ernie r, texas. Would you think about the redskins name . Should be changed . Caller i think we are total idiots about it. Im a fighter pilot. Americans, we just get too carried away with stuff like this. Go ahead. Right, thank you bradley. Here some of the tweets that we are receiving on the issue. Conservative commentator Charles Krauthammer wrote on this receipt leak in the Washington Post mr. Krauthammer ends his oped withe Washington Post this. Lets recognize that there are many people of goodwill for whom Washington Redskins contains sentimental and historical attachment. And not an ounce of intended animist. Will in albany, oregon. On the native american line. High, will. Caller thank you washington. I dont speak for any other native americans, but for my own part. It is just a disrespectful thing. To know that redskins refers the type of money that was used back in the colonies that consisted of the scalp and skin of native American Peoples. There was more money for young men, but women scalps were with money, too. The washington americans would be a better name for the team. Ayakoou think, america this is kathleen in brooklyn, maryland. High, kathleen. Going to tell you is that most people dont understand that the term redskins refers to the color of the bloody skin underneath the scalp of the native americans. Those cops were used for money like that tillman just said. A white person would take scalps of dead people and trade them like fox first or will scans or that were used in that time for bartering money. So when you say redskins it refers in native american terms to our dead ancestors. What people came here and slaughtered most of these people and now theyre using this word that refers to the state people as an honor. That is i think where most of the people come to a separation is when you use the term of a dead person to mean something honorable. In other words, we are honored that we have killed almost an entire race of people for no other reason but that they were someplace that we wanted to be. They had something we wanted. I am part native american. My father is a kiowa indian from oklahoma. Im not talking off the top of my head. I know what my grandfather told me when he heard that word. He would actually cry. And it is sad. This is yolande in laurel, maryland here in the suburbs of washington. No because after 80 years, now youre just coming and saying that it is a racial slur, whatever. It is just stupid. Sayinghas had a problem it for 80 years. Leave the line keep going. They have done good and that made us proud. Just keep it redskins, thats all i have to say. Host are you a redskins fan . Caller all the way. Host did you see the game last night . Caller yes i thought last night. Redskins name opponent sees an opportunity thursday night. They play the vikings and loss to the vikings. In this article in National Journal, that is a little bit from the National Journal this morning. Don in los angeles. What you think, should the risk is change her name . Caller i definitely think they should change their name. Years ago, the stanford cardinals were known as the stanford indians, but they changed their name. Not only do you think they should change the name, but so should the Cleveland Indians in the Florida State seminoles, for that matter. Im African American and i do have some Indian Heritage as well. Times are changing. But of the skins think about becoming the washington senators. . Why not pick that up as a new nickname. The senate would be honored, im sure. Over all the other reasons that of our to been mentioned host in chicago the chicago blackhawks. In atlanta you have the braves. Have the Cleveland Indians with chief warrant lesser mascot. To those need to be changed to . Caller they definitely need to be looked at. Im not much of a hockey fan so i overlooked the chicago blackhawks, but they should be looked at. Probably the reasons that we are party discussed, im sure that as the discussion goes on those names will come up under consideration. Thank you, don. From cnn, this is a story about a High School Team that demand side School Change arab team name and mascot. Sports andcalifornia is not scoring any points for its name, the arabs. Morning andn this agency, montana on a native americans line. Sterling, good morning. Would he think about the redskins name . Caller yes, good morning. Word and ifensive dont want to bring harm or oure or anything to american residence, but the redskins is the nword and that is white it is so offensive to native americans. The other names mentioned, the braves and so forth and are not derogatory, but the word redskin is to the American Indians. Word as ause that prairie nword which is very offensive to our American People. I just thought i would make that comment this morning. To show you the Cleveland Indians mascot, therell logo, chief wahoo. What you think of the name using the term indians and of this logo . Ago,r well, several years recently, Russell Means of the American Indian movement did have a movement going against the Cleveland Indians and i really dont know what the outcome was that there was a lawsuit filed, but i dont know if that was settled out of court or what. The at particular time, according to Russell Means, the logo and word was offensive. Like a mentioned earlier, it is really the redskin name that is offensive. Like i said, it is like the n word to our africanamerican brothers. Here is tom on our redskins fan line from mountain home, north carolina. High, tom. Caller good morning. Host we think about the name . What do you think about the name . Redskins fan. I dont have a problem with the name change. If you go back 50 years washington had a name for the baseball team, the senators. How offensive or that the for baseball player today . Given that the congress is only 13 approval rating. I really dont think it is fair to the indian nations. Be a to think it should matter of public discussion and Public Policy . Caller yes, it should be. Host all right, tom. Mitch is in plant city, florida. Hello, mitch. What do you think . Caller i think that the name should remain the same. The people that own the team are white men, right . Snyder is a white man, correct. The white people are the descendents of esau. They should name the team after themselves. Youtube. They should name it whatever they want to name it. Is a white man. What is the problem with that . Arlene in jacksonville, north carolina. What you think of the washington foot wall teams name . Of the washington foot ball teams name . Every young girl i would this huge in a strange pose. He looked more brown than red. I didnt understand what the heck that was. Eventually i did ask them what was that dennis on washington. He explained to me it was for the redskins. Offended as it passed by. It was like somebody was stabbing me in my heart. Our family ister not just black but native american. It is very painful to see somebody keep Something Like that around. The name should be changed. Well want to hurt everybody. Somebody should do something about it eric the owner needs to see that the public doesnt want to stand for it. Thats all i want to say, peter. Host gloria is in South Carolina on our fans line. Caller good morning. Fan of theearold Football Team in washington dc. I am not taking sides in the debate whether the team should be called Something Else. To be made, is have a suggestion for Something Else. Have statesmen in the city known as the congress, a good change would be the washington statesmen. This would be a reminder of the American Congress of what their job should be. Maybe they would act accordingly. Maybe a better reflection of the behavior of the members of congress it should be the washington turkeys. Working and playing together is something that the members of congress seem to have forgotten that is what the intent is. Summer Facebook Comments on whether or not the redskins should change the name of the team. Well, on the front page of in usa today, and the inner pages and theington journal wall street journal. Here is a president from last that theyi am sorry are finding themselves in the situation based on assurances they got from me. We have got to work hard to make sure that they know we hear them and that we are going to do everything we can to deal with folks who find themselves in a tough position as a consequence of this. Thehis morning in Washington Post host carol is in minneapolis, minnesota. Change they should name. I just remember all of the cowboy movies growing up and their word redskin was always used in those movies and it was derogatory toward American Indians and native American People. Therefore, yes, absolutely to change it. It is racist. Carol, we have a tweeting here that says our norwegians offended by the use of the term vikings. Not, some arere paired for the most part theyre are not. It is something they treasure. They seem to treasure the name viking. Whereas redskin is totally different. It is derogatory. Host thank you, carol. Here is some more tweets. Johnny is in ski it took, alabama. Is oklahoma where i am. Host sorry, i have no idea where you got that. Caller im calling in to say that they should change the names. It is offensive to those who are American Indian or least i believe it is. It is for me. I am osage indian. It is one of the tribes in oklahoma. We make up about one third of the population in the state should it is very unusual. If they wanted in their teams after certain minority , majority groups, what are they consider the whiteys, the hotkeys, the crackers. That is it. By. A callernny, we had from the crow nation in montana who said that the term redskins was comparable to the nword. Ways i yes, in many think it is. Some people use it freely. You dont hear it here. I can see where it would be very offensive for people in other parts of the country. Here we just call them indians. Host this is jim another caller from oklahoma. Stillwater, oklahoma. What do you think, jim . White skinned and my godmother was native american. Oklahoma would have to change its name to go with this because forand is a choctaw word people in houma is for red. We were named after the native americans and i think this is a complement, not an insult to native americans. Just to recognize them. We are all identified by our skin. Being a that as it just tells her heritage. It has nothing to do with being derogatory. Host thank you, jim. This morning. Democrats see jimmy carters grandson as a star. Democrats are quickly lining up Georgia State senator jason carters campaign for governor. That is in political. Hills in the newspapers morning. The statement comes as the New York Times reported that the main source of the cbs report had lied about his actions the night terrorists attacked the u. S. Mission. That is in the hill newspaper. More citations found in pauls book trade senator rand paul is being confronted with new evidence. One more article before we go back to calls. This is in the daily caller. An quintess in akron, ohio. We think about the name and should be changed . I think people should know how the name was derived. I think the name came from the bounty paid on the skins of indians back when our country was first founded. True, i think we need to look at that paper we want that to be the name of our football, baseball, whatever team . Build up the teams nationality like the fighting irish for the colts. Or the colts. If you drive it from paying the bounty on the skins of your people, i think somebody should look into it. We all as an american need to look at the things we are supporting that our sports teams are politicians. Lets look a little closer, just a little closer into what were are doing. That is my opinion. Iq. Thank you. Next up is standing new york. Caller if you want to prove that you are an american too. Stop repaying your debt and taxes. This to me is nothing more than a vehicle for them to advance their agenda in whatever way they can. Forhis town we get nothing that 35 million casino that they have down there, not to mention their gas stations and all the rest of it. We cant get a grant, a loan to but sewers in this town. Firent have a paid department. With everybody going in and out of that place, the accidents, the need for always municipalities to be funded is just being overlooked completely. Host that is stand in durham ville, new york. This is roger calling on the native americans line from valley village, california. What do you think, should the Washington Redskins name be . Caller caller no i dont. Back in the revolutionary war braves, chickasaw war you can go back and talk to the chief, these to put that red pigment when theyre fighting with the british. The chickasaws fight against americans because the british were just passing through. That is not derogatory. I cant believe that people are in a stampede over this. It is not like theyre calling them the washington dog eaters or something. , that istkeys derogatory. This is more along the lines of back in the southeastern tribes. Used to ws just go online and see for yourself. We are arguing over the name of an nfl team. On the front page of the New York Times this morning. Front page of the New York Times this morning. Checked in appalachia, new york heard you say the name should not be changed. Caller quite honestly i dont know why this is such an important issue. I think that cspan should be focusing on other things rather than this bs. Were going to move on if youre going to use a kind of language. Spartanburg, South Carolina. You see the name should not be changed. Caller i think it should be changed to the washington filibusters in the game would never be played. I think they should change the name of the mascot for the democrats to the donkey. I think it is ridiculous. The fat happens i think we should go after every other thing and just go crazy. Maybe get rid of the fighting irish because that is slanderous. Where do you stop with that . I just think it is a little bit overthetop. Hill,daniel in elizabeth pennsylvania. Would he think of all of this . Caller please be patient with me i just got of chemotherapy yesterday. Also, i think theres another team that has an offensive name, the boston celtics. Thee is no s sound in celtic language. The mascot is supposedly depicting a leprechaun. Leprechaun is a kind cobbler. The schemata and i did fix shoes. Mascot is a potbellied, pipe smoking buffoon. How defensive could that be an . Host smoredeck ou tweets that we have received. Some more tweets that we have received. Lisa calling her fat line from louisville, kentucky. High, lisa. What do you think . In the i grew up baltimore and washington area. I have sons who carry native blood. I see both sides of this issue, hereo be real, they were first and they suffered at the hands of invaders. They suffered genocide, their whole way of life was changed. Lets give this to them. If we are offending them then maybe we should change it to Something Like the washington warriors, something with a little more pride. Thats all. Our james calling on american indie line from newark, new jersey. Chippewa,gh, im creating blackfoot. I am,native american as what happened is that were just starting to get some kind of aftert in this country suicide and dying. We want some recognition. We dont want to get called like the black people the nword. We dont want to be called that. We want to be respected. We are starting to get on our feet. Thank you. Host thank you for calling in. The wall street journal this morning. Beverly is in columbia, missouri. Beverly, what to think about . Caller he name ech caller i think the name is fine. I think they gave the team and named it could be proud of and im sure the team is proud. My grandfather is native American Indian. I have a hard time believing this business about scalps. I think it referred to the red paint that the indian warriors. Ore they were proud people and i think they had the respect of white and black americans across the country. I think we have more important issues that should be addressed advancehe socialist in this country. Johnnie, you say yes the name should be changed. The man who spoke before it hasd that nothing to do with paint. Most native americans never wore red paint. I think the name should be changed because of people who named it knew that name is offensive and they did it to poke at native americans. I father was in native american and i am pretty angry about that name. I think it should be changed. Team thel the football washington crackers or anything like that because it would be offensive to white people. Lets get the name changed and our being proud of that he ancestors that were no good. Finally, to emails. Those are two emails. We in our next segment were going to ask another question that is whether or not the constitution should be rewritten. Heres the cover of a recent National Journal. Constitution 2. 0 is the title of the article and the author, alex thez wald asks if constitution should be written. He is coming up next. After that we will give you the chance to talk to the head of dr. Thomas frieden. Those are two segments that are coming up. This week on our newsmakers program, senator Chuck Grassley will be a guest. He will be talking about health care, budget issues. Heres just a little portion of that program for later on sunday. Senator, there are some republicans on this budget conference who have said they might be willing to look at some portions of revenue that are not raising tax rates. To think theres any room for Common Ground there . Could you envision some sort of compromise or on revenue that isnt raising a tax rate . I dont know what tom cole has in mind. I am one person that feels we have a responsibility to look at everything. But you understand that more revenue is not going to solve our economic problems. Our budget problems. Only Economic Growth is going to solve those. The issue isnt are we taxing people too little, were spending too much. All you have to do is go with the historical averages of what spending is and what revenue is and were about back up to this historical revenues of 18, 19 of Gross National product. Were still way over the historical average for spending. We have to get it down. That is what sequestration is going to do. You know we have had something that hasnt happened for 60 years. Or lets say 50 years. Since the korean war, we have had backtoback reductions of expenditures heard in other that is buzz down from 1. 5 trillion of deficits down to 600 billion of deficit heard it is still too much, but on a favorable path. Bipartisan,is a bicameral, and with the resident suggestion, sequestration is working. If it is working is working. And if it is not broke, dont fix it. Cutsere are 20 billion which are largely going to hit the distressed her. The second to put any additional pressure on you . There are a lot of republicans who feel that is going to be that for defense. On the other hand, a strong growth isd good job going to do more for National Defense longterm than what this is going to do harm shortterm. Washington journal continues. The Lex Seitz Wald of our constitution is going to make it. It is fed to a 24 years of commendable, often glorious service, but theres is a time for everything. Time to change the constitution, in your view . The constitution is a wonderful document and i dont need to impinge its presence at all. But if you go back and think about this, the founders were creating something from scratch that didnt exist in the history of humanity. We have learned a lot in the past 220 four years. The constitution is one of the hardest to change on the planet. ,hey used to have a distinction but it is time to think about modernizing and updating and making some changes to make washington function a little bit better. Your article you say that new constitutions in their development taste on the american constitution. Uest this is interesting even americans to use american constitution as a model. You go back to world war ii, occupied japan, literally General Macarthur park 24 americans in a room and give them a week to writing new constitution and instead of using the u. S. Constitution as a model, they look to the westminster, the british model and created a parliamentary system. Largely same in germany and recently in iraq and afghanistan. There was a study came out a couple of years looking at the 729 constitutions that were written between world war ii and 2006 which is just a huge amount when you think about it. Very few of them is the u. S. Model as a model for their own constitutions. Lynn inlking about juan spain. Guest is idea which makes a lot of sense and is completely on display will with the shutdown. Anytime you have a president and a legislator that are in a legislation that are elected at the same time, in other words they can both say theyre speaking for the will of the people but they have completely opposite agendas, youre going to end up with gridlock and breakdown. That is exactly what we had in the shutdown when obama said he was doing what is right for the American People and john boehner said they were doing the same. Theres no democratic resolve this. You rely on compromise to muddle through, but what happens when compromise breaks down as it clearly is today . Host youre right. You can blame todays actors all you want, but they are just a product of the system areas honestly, it is a wonder we have survived this long. Guest i really believe that. And sympathetic to that throw the bums out crowd, but i dont blame any particular members of congress very much. If you give some blame to some more than others, perhaps, but this is a systemic problem. It is not that people are acting in bad faith and trying to destroy the system, is that the system itself fundamentally doesnt work. Host but we have made it this far. Guest absolutely and that is a great credit to the founders. Is the oldest living constitution on the planet. On the one hand it is a great credit, but on the other hand i think it is time to at least Start Talking about updates. That is a conversation we have not been having it all. Yet he of this article was to start the conversation. Im not sure did propose any definitive way, im just trying to say lets start thinking about it. Host and we have the amendment system where you can amend the constitution. How may times has it been . Guest 27 times. Since then, the most recent amendment was written by James Madison and took over 200 years to actually go through the process. That shows a difficult is to actually get an amendment to the process. It is just not a responsive enough system. The founders were rightly worried about tierney and making this onem robust, but a little too far in one direction and need to move back in the other direction and make it more flexible. Fear, though, a that rewriting the constitution could center more power here in washington rather than in the states . No doubt. Absolutely. If you had an open brandnew constitutional convention, i think the ramifications are completely unknown. I wouldnt necessarily favor that. Theres a group of people who are calling for in Article Five Convention which is a little bit less radical. It is different from the traditional amendment process. Is that of originating in congress, as most amendments do, this originates in the states. When 38 state legislatures come together and say we need to do x or y and then it comes to congress. It puts the states and the driver seat and gives it a little bit less it doesnt put everything on the table. Its just what you want to change more specifically on the table. Quote a constitutional lawyer at the Goldwater Institute. A lot of people have connections when you Start Talking about changing the constitution, thewledges nick dranias. Idea that the founders thought the constitution would be a perfect and unchanging document is simply not true. You go on to write that surprisingly, considering their reverence for the founders, conservatives have led the way in reimagining the constitution so they can add an amendment to create a right to life after roe versus wade or to ring in the federal government with a balanced budget. Wade therer roe v are a lot of conservative calls to overturn the Supreme Court and in order to overturn the Supreme Court you need a constitutional amendment. That is up there, balanced the balancedent, Budget Amendment is hardly a socialist organization. This is a bipartisan effort and he has joined with a harvard professor on the liberal side. They also have a sitting judge on the fifth Circuit Court of appeals and they have a group that is advocating for an Article Five Convention to make updates, amendments, tweaks. It is nonideological. You can get balanced budget you can do anything you want to this venue, but the idea is to use this method to change things and update angst. Host were going to put the numbers up on the screen. We talking about whether or not you think the constitution of the United States should be changed to Alex Seitz Wald of the National Journal is our guest. The cover story. Thehe National Journal in addition of september 2. Guest this is an interesting revelation. He has looked most recently at 37 democratic countries and he went in and did quantitative analysis of everything from economic output to the stability of the government to how well people are represented and how well civil rights are preserved and he came away with this conclusion which is that a parliamentary system works best heard the main distinction between that system and our own is that the parliamentary system is a legislature and the Prime Minister is united. The executive relies on having a majority in the legislature or having majority support in the legislature to continue operating. So things tend to move along more quickly because you dont have the resident in a legislature butting heads consulate. There are the same team, working together. But theyition exists, are confined to minority in the legislature and things presumably work for the better. You can take the Government Shutdown example. Elgin went 20 months with no budget, with no government. Essentially the same that we had here. Things are not bring because things hummed along on autopilot. The same happened in canada couple of years ago the same time we were having one of our many debates about the debt ceiling. Is other thing he recommends a little bit more complicated, but basically instead of having congressional districts where of the voteins 51 and you get 100 of the power representing that district, you apportion power based on the percentage of the vote that you get served democrats get 45 and republicans give 55 , that is a makeup of the legislature and it gives more room for third parties because if you get five percent to 10 of the vote, it is not enough 20 district today, but in the proportional legislates as some you might get 10 of the legislature. Host the senate is an undemocratic relic guest the senate is the ripest place for reform in the government today. The deer was created out of a compromise. It is never thought to be a brilliant thing in the first because small states wanted to have representation. They were afraid of getting bullied around the house the bigger states so they created the senate to preserve states rights and seapower that whole justification away with the 17th amendment which allowed people to directly elect their senators instead of the state legislature. He dont even register that saddam even represent states anymore. See why stayed with 50,000 people should have the same amount of people as if you are in california, you one 66 of the representation. Host a wellknown political commentator out of the university of virginia has some ideas. Guest yes. It is interesting. Suggests expanding the house of representatives, doubling it in size, weakening closer to the people. Expand, nothe would quite make it like the house, but give california two were four extra senators, and then create an office of National Senators that could be former former justices of the Supreme Court, that would look out for the National Interest instead of the parochial interests of their state. Host this is a snarky email, but it gets to why and where you wrote this article. Sandy beach writes in leave it to a snotty nosed, liberal punk to challenge the worlds most important document. To do it. Ebody has if i am a snotty nosed, little punk, i will take it. This is an idea that has been out there for a long time. But give conservatives have been leading the charge here. Sure, attack me, but what about the idea . She does not get into the idea. If you allow yourself to open your mind to it, host it is an extensive article. How long did you work on it . Guest three weeks. It is something i thought about for a long time. Spoke haved to worked on this for years. In whenever tweets people talk about changing the constitution that means let get rid of the Second Amendment. Think you would get anywhere on abortion and the Second Amendment, and you would end in gridlock. I do not think ofshould have any kind overhaul. Onal the point is to make it more representative. Host Alex Seitzwald, wouldnt a parliamentary system completely change the american way . Guest no doubt. We decide. And maybe this is the way we have been doing things a long time, america is different american exceptionalism maybe we decide we do not want to go that route, whatever the benefits might be. It i think it is a question should be posed, instead of just accepting the system. If George Washington and Thomas Jefferson were transported to 2013 and updated with the modern hold here it would not include slavery, for instance they would probably not right the constitution that we have. E the one it was a product of time, a product of the myriad of disagreements between the framers. Just like any bill or piece of legislation today. We do not think it is perfect or unchanging. As you drill in, there are small, kludges, or workarounds built in. Host you also note that because of our system and our constitution, it leads to judicial activism. Guest absolutely, and i think this should appeal to everyone across the board. Unsaid ino much left the constitution situations founders never thought of. They were working from scratch, and they did a brilliant job considering they had nothing to go on, but addressing, for instance, how much power and executive has during a time of emergency, or dealing with ,lights between the legislature this is not addressed. Courts have had to come in and fill in the gaps. You end up getting legislation from the bench, and there is so much little for them to go on, they have to find these minor justifications, and that is why the Supreme Court can swing in completely opposite directions within a few decades uphold slavery, and then undo it. Apartheid, jim crow is ok, and then come against it years later. This is part of the problem. It is left up to the court, the court is human. The conservation constitution preserves things. In West Virginia on our democrat line. We have been talking with Alex Seitzwald about whether or not the constitution should be rewritten. What do you think . Americansy should the what the media gives them silenthat they have been on Building Seven in 9 11 . Host george. We are talking about the constitution. Caller good morning. The comment you made a little while ago asking a guest that there would be concerned about more centralization of power rewriting the constitution. That sums it up in a nut shell. I think that would be the result. The constitution was a document that, somewhat contrary to the gentlemans comment, your comment, was not compiled completely in the dark. The founders were great scholars, many of them it is almost incredible how well educated many of them will were were. They were familiar with john locke and what had happened in england, and the glorious revolution, as Michael Barone has written about it, the revolution that preceded ours, the english civil revolution in the 17th century. The gentlemans comments are interesting. Quotes Sanford Levinson in texas who has a fine reputation as a constitutional lawyer, but i do believe that the attorney who was quoted representing the Goldwater Institute i was a fan and still am of the late barry goldwater. United statesfic senator. He was trounced by lyndon johnson, there is no question about that, but his views on some of the social issues, in particular, the prolife issue, i did not and do not agree with. Host george, to go to the constitution question, if you could make one definitive statement that our guest could respond to. Caller well, i was interested in the gentlemans comments concerning wyoming. The founders set up a bicameral sgislature so that the people house, the peoples branch, as remedy, whoby mr. Has written a book that mr. Seitzwald might be familiar alwaysut the senate has try to put a brake on what the house does. It is more of a deliberative body. To mr. Just recommend seitzwald joseph storys comments on the constitution. On theeorge, a lot there table. Mr. Seitzwald, do you want to respond to anything he had to say . Point,first, the central would you end up with a more centralized government certainly, it is possible, but we might decide that we want to empower the states more than they are today, and give the states more. Thiste a sidebar to constitution story in case we want to get more controversial, about who read write state lines. This is another redrawing state lines. This sounds radical, but if you think about it the states out west were drawn viciously for political reasons. Nevada is a great example. The mormons were in the utah tory and they found silver territory, and they found silver, and nevada did not want them to have it. The idea that states are representing a common interest, which is what they are supposed to do, which is what the founders intended, is not really true today. Federalism does not function as well as it could. U. S. States are at war with each other because they are revisiting fundamentally different constituencies. They be we could change states around and give states much more power than washington. I think that is totally fine. The point is to raise them conversation and let people decide what form of government they want. Things have not changed, so lets let the people back into the process. Host and in that say sidebar article, what if we were redrew state boundaries, he writes yeah, this is the approach that if a martian came down and was somehow tasked with drawing our state boundary, not having any knowledge of the history and what was there presently, there is no doubt that you would not draw the borders the way they are. Part of what leads to the centralization in washington is when states are divided among themselves, and they cannot get their act together to govern their people the way that people want to be governed, it falls to washington to step in and fill the void. Its another thing to think about. Host the next call for Alex Seitzwald comes from joseph in california. Caller hi, how are you doing . Is no needay there to change the constitution as they are not even abiding by the one we have. Article one, section nine, and article one, section 10, disallow the state legislature from passing bills of attainder and that is what background checks are. They are laws that penalize a person because of his past, and that is illegal in the country. Host mr. Seitzwald . Guest i do not want to get into gun control to much, but the courts have ruled on that, and the bill of attainder is legislation that applies to a specific group of people without reason to do so, and the court has said otherwise. Host is this available outside the firewall . Guest it is available at National Journal. Com. Who do notrs subscribe can read this much mark guest you can this . Read it online. Host on twitter, we cannot fly a jet with a horse and buggy. Time for the constitution to fit reality. It is not permanent. Guest you do not want to be rewriting your constitution every five years. You could imagine if the pendulum swung too far in one direction, after 2010, when there was a republican wave, you would have a big swing. You want to preserve that, and the point of the constitution is to be removed and above the kind of foibles of the time. No major changes since the middle of the 1800s, and a fundamental document in place is a longars, that enough time. Thomas jefferson said the constitution should be written every 19 years. West virginia. N guest good morning. Hi, alex. As soon as i get off the phone here, i am going to get online and read your article. This is good stuff. Guest thank you. Caller the constitution was written so many years ago. Take the Second Amendment, for example. If our founders knew what was going on today with guys walk into schools and murdering children, they would not put that in the constitution, the right to bear arms. It even states black and white to bear arms right as a member of a well regulated militia. Even parts of the constitution are not judicially upheld. According to that, unless you are a member of the national guard, you do not even have the right to bear arms. We need a total overhaul of the system, and alex, you look like a guy with a good sense of humor. Outo youtube and check trevor moore, drunk text to myself, the Founding Fathers video. You will love it. It explains everything. Well, it was low points on that. Two pointsd say on that. One, i would say this shows why an open convention would not be helpful and probably end in a stalemate because you have diverse views on gun control among other things. His view on the Second Amendment, and whether its as a wellregulated militia, but courts have ruled otherwise, it gets back to the question of judicial activism, and if the constitution were more clear in whatever direction, to say the right to bear arms should not be infringed in any direction whatsoever, or here is how you can regulate, you would not have as much controversy because it would not look like judicial activism, or that the judges were not making things up. It would be based in textual basis. Host you have a picture here men and and a half you write that the constitution is the same length as a screenplay for two and a half men. 4800 words. Is that a bad thing . Guest i do not know if it is a bad thing, but constitutions are much longer. The previous caller said founders were not operating in the dark, and they were very knowledgeable on philosophy and very learned, but they were right in the constitution based on something that had never happened before. It was based on their immense knowledge and learning. More recently, there have been 700 constitutions written since world war ii, and a best practice has emerged, and you end up with longer consultations that are more specific and account for more contingencies. Host wayne. Shreveport, louisiana. Republican line. Caller good morning. I have not talked to you in months. I think the constitution needs to be left alone. The guy talking about we do not have a right to bear arms, he must be smoking something, because we have a right to bear arms and they should not be infringed. Nothing should be changed. To changemocrats want the constitution. Obama does not want does not follow the constitution. We do not have leadership here and we have a monarch running the country. We need to leave the constitution alone. The only thing i can see is the liberals want to destroy the constitution, said that they can have their way and turn this country into a communist nation. It is a sad thing, but the constitution needs to be left alone. Should changewe is a president should serve six years instead of two years and get obama out of office in six years. That is the way i feel about it. Host thank you very much. Alex seitzwald . Raises an important point. Many other constitutions include the provision to be able to remove the resident or Prime Minister president or Prime Minister from power not because of crimes or for impeachment, but just because they are not being able to they are not doing a good job. You would have political concerns, but you could insulate that by having a large enough majority that it could not be something one party to do unilaterally. Is doing aident simply terrible job of running the country, there is no way to remove him from power unless he committed a civil crime, but i do not care as much if the cheat if he a tax is doing a bad job with the country. Host American Hero wants to know what would the constitution say that we get money out of politics . Guest there are a lot of different proposals. One of the most interesting ones is a form of publicly funded elections, but instead of having the government collect taxes and then use the money to distribute to candidates, he would give everybody a tax rebate if they wanted it, and then you could use the money to fund candidates. You could choose who to fund. Candidates would still need to fund raise and compete for your dollars, so there is still more speech protected there, as the Supreme Court has said money is speech, but it removes the ability of supertex, these dark money groups to raise huge amounts of money from individuals, and he points out that a fraction of americans are responded responsible for the money given. This would democratize things here and host things are host things. Chris and alabama says we the constitution alone, let the elections rewrite every cycle. Host brian. Alex seitzwald is our guest. Caller good morning. Good morning, alex. What i would suggest is this, and im sitting here looking at opening for the constitution of the United States of america, and i would asked the question, do you feel that president obama is living up to the expectations of our constitution, and if you have noticed, and i have watched cspan religiously since the Obama Administration took over, i have watched him what everything that is in the warttitution him th because he does not want to be told how to run the government, and i think it is time to consider impeachment articles. I hear it is in the senate, the democrats are holding up any possibility and not putting it on the table. This man has so much scandal in his wake that he should not be the president because of the suspicions, the allegations. Im a common american. I have been around since post kennedy, and i have not seen a good president yet, even though people will say clinton was a good president. I believe ronald reagan, he was the first president that i ever witnessed live off of a speech. I noticed one thing off of our about our president , he takes no questions and host questions. Host brian, thank you for your comment. Any response, Alex Seitzwald . Guest it gets back to the lack of confidence vote as something we might want to consider what meal or we might want to leave things in place. Said said weer should leave the constitution in place, and maybe that is the outcome, but we should have the conversation and then come to the conclusion. Host then there is just basic housekeeping, you write. Any constitutional lawyer could point out the places that need work guest these are all things, and contingencies that the founders did not consider. How could they have known about cellnooping on email and phones . That was not even in their imagination. Constitution says nothing about a right to privacy. Constitutions have a lot more rights of the bill of rights added onto the wantitution, so you might to consider adding a specific amendment saying that americans have the right to privacy, but right now, the way the courts have justified a right to privacy, which they have said it exists, but you have to go through these loops. Host said here in their own homes . Secure in their own homes . Guest the you have to find tose, so they work backwards find a way to justify it. Host again, the judicial activism you discussed. Vivian says it sound like a libertarian idea change the constitution. Guest absolutely. I am not trying to propose any kind of ideology. This is agnostic of ideology. You have people from the libertarian side, the conservative side, the liberal side, all for this, and if you were to write the constitution today, the libertarian streak is ascendant in both parties, and you might end up with a more document and maybe that is better suited for the 21st century, but i would leave that up to the people to decide what a decide. Host mike in michigan. Caller this is a subject very near to me. I am 46 years old and i wrote about this for school in fifth grade, an essay about it, and i always felt it was wrong to live under this constitution because the founders thought it was ok to enslave blacks. Force jews to look at the swastika, i look at this the same way. We were treated worse than animals. Obviously, because of the article that came with it, obviously they felt they were wrong for doing it, so we should change it completely and let it reflect what life is today, not what it was in the 1700s. Thank you. Guest the caller touches on something tremendously important and a flaw that a lot of people point out in the original constitution. From a more scholarly point of view, not get into the emotional issue per se, the way founders dealt with slavery exposes or helps to show how much of a political document this was. It was a compromise document, like so many other things and you ended up with the three fifth clause, where the south wanted slaves to count as a full person said they would have more representation in congress, and this the north did not want it, it did you want it, and you end up with the 3 5 clause. The dodduld hold up frank law or the Affordable Care act and say this is unimpeachable, perfect legislation. And the changes have to be made and constitutions should be treated in a similar way. Jerk saysloudmouth the rights to free speech, self defense and privacy will be the first casualties of a new constitution. Jim. Good morning. Academichis is so much hyperbole. And we are not a democracy. We are a representative republic. And most of what you are talking about is rules in the house. They are not constitutionally determined either. We have a situation where we are not really following the constitution as it is written. Laws, but weeally are taking a loss and we are allowing folks, a president , a quasilaw that has not been approved by congress or the proper means. Constitution, you keep saying he needs to be changed. It has been changed 27 times through amendments. It can be changed, and all you need to do is follow the consultation as it is written. Guest the caller is right in saying the constitution is not being followed as written. I disagree with them on the reason for that. I think it gets back to judicial activism, and a general consensus among everyone involved in government that we could not function at all if we went by a very strict reading of the constitution. It just would not work in todays world. So, you end up with this backwards reasoning to find ways to justify things on a textual basis. I think that shows that we need to update things, not that we need to go back to, you know, the way things were written 224 years ago, but reasonable people can disagree. Host the caller touched on it, but this tweet would you explain the difference between a democracy and a republic . Guest the founders wanted to create a republic, not a democracy. Foreign, anddea is distasteful to most americans who consider the u. S. A democracy. The caller is right that the founders wrote a republic, but i do not think that is what most americans would want today. They only allowed landowning white males to vote and have the full right to citizenship. I do not think anyone or very few people would want to go back to that kind of system. The idea would be to enshrine a real democratic system into the constitution. Sanford levinson from the university of texas says the constitution gets close to a failing grade on notions of democratic theory. This was intended to be rule by enlightened elites. Politicale reason no parties are considered is because they figured this would be a group of landowning, wealthy, enlightened people that would come together and make compromise. That fell apart within five years after the constitution was written. 11 years after the constitution was written, militias were almost called out to washington. Almost from the beginning, that idealized republic fell apart. Host wyoming. Caller good morning. I am so glad that people your age are looking at the constitution, but i disagree with you on many points. The main point that i would like to make this morning, and several other callers have made this point, the constitution is not being followed. It has not been followed, and i ifld be asking the question, it was followed, if you feel that it is not being followed as many of your callers have, what would the outcome be if the constitution were to be followed on a closer basis, and wouldnt that one of your main objections in your article, judicial activism if the constitution were to be followed more closely, wouldnt that also and judicial activism . Thank you. Guest it is an interesting question. I do not know the exact answer because we are talking about a complete hypothetical here, but i think judicial activism is a product of what is left unsaid in the constitution, not so much a product of any particular judges ideals, although that certainly comes into the equation as well. It is really hard to imagine if you applied a very strict consultation, what it would look like today, but we are in a process that has been built over decades of both congressional law code and, you know, jurisprudence. It is based on the consultation, but it is not directly following the word for strict interpretation of the constitution. Wald talkedseitz with Sanford Levinson from the university of texas. Booktv interviewed professor levinson and you can write watch the interview at booktv. Org. Upper lefthand corner, there is a search function. Type in Sanford Levinson. Bill is in marietta, georgia. Democrats line. Congratulations on your article. It is funny how people talk about how young you are and you should not be talking about changing the constitution, to my question is again, where are the jobs . Everybody keeps talking about where are the jobs . If we want to talk about the constitution and wealthy white folks running the country, they are talking about Voting Rights in this country. Weekend,have a great and things will work out with the constitution because people will get tired and they will decide what they dont want. Host thank you, bill. The fact that a handful of landowning white, wealthy men wrote the constitution, does that affect the way it came out . Guest absolutely. I do not think that necessarily disqualifies it by any means. It was a product of the time, an unfortunate era looking back in our time, but i do not think it means we should draw the document entirely. It just means we should keep that in mind when analyzing what they produced. The caller raise an interesting point about Voting Rights. Tot like there is no right privacy in the constitution, there is no right to vote in the constitution. They did not conceive there should be a right to vote because that would give the right to women and people they did not want to have the right to vote. That might be Something Else we would include an updated version or amendment to instill a very thec, every american has right to vote in the country, and that is part of the reason why there is a debate over Voting Rights. It is a gray area. Your who would write proposed constitution . Somebody from harvard, or someone from kansas . They would look totally different. Guest there is no doubt about that. I do not have the answer to this question. There are a lot of different proposals. I do not favor a full on, it is no convention, but Sanford Levinson, full on, open constitutional convention, but Sanford Levinson has proposed a elite, butt your your average americans selected by lottery, and they would have salary, resource and guidance by experts, but it would not be experts behind closed doors. If you are going to do this, you would need expert advice, but you would have to make it as democratic as possible, that not know exactly the way to do that, but it would be an important question. Host . The public in line that beth. Ublican line area republican line. Caller there are some people that want to revamp the constitution, and i do not think that is necessary. Host turn off the volume on your television, william . Will you . People want to redo the constitution, but there are only slight parts of the constitution itself that are not being followed, and my thought is the government passes laws and then there is no funding for those laws, and that leaves it to the states. It is not exactly how the constitution wanted it to be because they did not pass those kinds of loss, and people want to expand the size of what rules we have based on, you know, making things more for the times , and the biggest example well, there are two of them. Schools keep getting more and , but people who have children and the list of things they have to buy for the schools themselves keep getting longer and longer. Host any response . Guest i am sympathetic to their point, that i was looking at how the government is structured, how laws are made, not particular laws. That is why gun control is not something i even get into because i am more interested in how the government functions on a more fundamental level, and that is where there is most need for reform, more than a specific policy area. Ost clara is in murphysboro independent line. Caller good morning. I think congress should be limited and they should have to follow the loop rules they put in place. A good example are the eeoc laws. It is mandated that they put a poster in all of the offices across the United States and it says that we have equal protection, and if we feel like we have a complaint, we could go but elected officials do not abide. Oc does not have jurisdiction over elected officials. Unless you are a richer person or man, or a person that has been discriminated against, you are really still a modernday slave. I would like to see the congress have to follow some of these rules they set in place for us, and i do not see how expanding the congress could help that. Now, you have to be a wealthy man or woman to sit in congress, first of all, or you have to have money behind you. I want to know how you would propose these things would change, and as far as the Second Amendment does, our state and county are putting army tanks in your budget, so how do propose a handgun would protect yourself against a rogue government if you needed to be protected . Thank you. Guest congress should follow the laws they pass. That is a pretty basic idea of any democracy. Of,thing that made me think new york city has an amongst been role, and advocate to make sure the government is functioning. A new york city, it is public, and bill de blasio was the public advocate, and he was recently elected mayor. Tweets in the rewrite the constitution folks generally turn out to be right wingers. Afraidrarian says im too many crazy people would be involved in the constitutional rewrite. That it might be populated by citizens selected by lottery and given two years and plenty of Staff Resources to come up with something. Guest absolutely. To form a more Perfect Union it is right there in the amble, and those worlds those words hold just as true today as it did then and it is something most americans are not thinking about. I wanted to throw ideas out there, and judging from the response from the right and the left, it shows it is not a particularly ideological goal. I understand the pushback, but it is an important conversation to have. Rewrite by Alex Seitzwald. It is available outside of the pay wall. Thank you for being on washington journal. Guest thank you. Host next, we will talk to the head of the cdc, dr. Thomas frieden. After that, america by the numbers looks at fertility rates in the u. S. As washington journal. Washington journal continues. [captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2013] [captioning performed by national captioning institute] regardless of where you are on the political veryrum, we all feel fortunate and grateful that we live in the United States of america. It is a very unique place. If america was considered to be a product, and we do try to sell our product overseas, what is our brand . I think our brand is the constitution, the rule of law and our value system and under and rand and value brand value system, there is the notion of equal under the eyes and trying the ada to elevate the rights of americans with disabilities. This is a treaty. A treaty is a law. No one can disagree with these arguments. The question is will the treaty have the legal affect that is being proffered by the proponents of the treaty . We do not hear citations to articles in the treaty. We do not hear considerations of the reports, the kind of it beal analysis that would appropriate for analyzing the legal impact of this treaty. Weekend, more than 130 countries have ratified the u. N. Disabilities treaty. The Senate Foreign Relations Committee took up the treaty again. Watch saturday morning at 10 00 a. M. Eastern. On booktv, Malcolm Gladwell on how underdogs can use that to their vantage. Advantage. Sacramento street, two feet from president for, lynette pulled the trigger. Washington journal continues. Host we want to introduce you , the. Thomas frieden centers for Disease Control and prevention. Wherens us from atlanta it is headquartered. Why is cdc headquartered in atlanta . Guest it goes back to the of0s when it was the office malaria in war areas, and that how the cdc isof the response before protecting americans from threats. Host what is cdc responsible for . Guest cdc works 24 seven to protect americans from threats whether they are in tension, manmade threats or naturally occurring, and we do that with a boots on the ground approach. We have people in every state, people in more than 50 countries, and of the dollars congress entrusts to us, we send two thirds to state and other entities to find, stop and prevent risks to health. . Ost what is your budget guest the annual budget is 6 billion to 7 billion. We found the vaccine for Children Program and we have funding for half of the care in the aids relief program. Host how many employees . Guest we have about 13,000 federal employees plus contractors. Hhs, hard you work with the fda, other department how do you work with hhs, the fda and other departments . Guest we are part of the department of health and Human Services. Were the Largest Agency outside of the washington, d. C. Area, but we were closely with other departments. While the fda has a regulatory role, we monitor and support state and local entities. We are in many ways a Reference Laboratory notches for the country, but for the world for Infectious Disease and environmental health. Host a lot of the papers the lead story in the Washington Post, fda to banish trans fats. Does the cdc have a role . Transcends our trans haveare manmade, and we shown that over the past the Food Industry has been a good job. They have been able to get a little over half of the trans fats out of our system. That leaves about half of them still there. You can see glass half empty, or have full, or you could see the artery is clogged with oils that are not necessary, do not improve taste, do not reduce cost, but increase your probability for heart attack. It would prevent 27,000 heart attacks and those are conservative estimates. Host dr. Frieden, what role, if any, did cdc have in this fda proposal . Guest we provided some of the background scientific information on trans fat, what is the level in the u. S. , the estimated impact, and, frankly, we think it is a terrific thing. It is very important. We want to make sure that people just go about their business they will not be exposed to things like artificially reduced trans fats that will increase their risk of heart attack and death. What do you say to people that would say to you this is more of a nanny state . Guest actually, the industry has been a leader here. Groups like walmart have committed to eliminating all trans fat by 2015, but they did not do without some push from government. Sometimes there is a tragedy of the commons, where no one company would have the incentive to do it, but if all companies bid, everyone is better off. The government has some core roles, and one of them is protecting people, and whether that is military or police, or protecting you from drunk drivers, it is a core role of government. A second core role is doing things to increase information like labels on your pharmaceuticals or like menu labeling that may allow you to know what you are going to be eating, or, third, doing things together that we would not be able to do as individuals. Having clean water. We do not tell everyone to boil their water at home. We invest in medicinal, role or other water systems, and that is something that is done more easily, efficiently as a society than as individuals. Host in a minute we will take your calls for dr. Thomas frieden, directors director of the centers for Disease Control. Cdc released ae report on antibiotic resistance and used in the u. S. Was a yes, we found there concerning increase in drug resistant microbes. After the antibiotics used in people in this country are either unnecessary or inappropriate, and there are huge differences between one part of the country and others. There is an overuse of antibiotics, and we see a rise in drugresistant, more than 2 million drugresistant infections in a year. In addition, 14,000 deaths associated with an infection that is caused by the use of antibiotics. So, a serious problem, and something that we need to do more about. Host measles . Guest we see an increase in cases in some communities, particularly religious communities, that have been resistant to vaccination. It reminds us that it is important to get vaccinated. We might not remember some of the killer diseases from past generations, but they can come rolling back. There are pockets that are not vaccinating, and diseases can spread because we are all connected by the air we breathe. When a traveler comes another part of the world with measles, they can cause an outbreak here. It is important to get vaccinated. Since we are in flu season, it is important to get vaccinated with this years flu shot. Host what does this years flu look like . Crystal do not have a ball, but so far the strains we have seen are very well matched with the strains in the vaccine, so we think this years vaccine will be affected. It is not the best we have, but it is the best way to protect you against the flu. Host finally, before we go to calls, do you think e cigarettes should be regulated . Guest i am concerned. In theory, if there are less toxic than cigarettes, they should be able to help people, but four peep four things have me worried one is increasing the number of younger people that you cigarettes. Totally,at would quit and they said they would cut down and hes these. Use these. Three, people that used to smoke start with e cigarettes and then go back to regular cigarettes. Regal glamorization of smoking. Glamorization of smoking. Women smoke in four just before and when they become pregnant, and that can have longlasting, serious complications for their kids. Tobacco has enormous consequences, and if you cigarettes and of increasing or preserving or extending the use of what are called combustible or traditional cigarettes, they would be doing more harm than good. Host what if somebody is using cigarette as a Smoking Cessation tool, and even though it is not sold that way yet, should it be regulated as such . Guest if companies would market it for Smoking Cessation, it would be important, but they need to do studies, go to the fda. There are proven medicines that could double or triple your chances of quitting smoking, and it could be that hecigarettes goodcigarettes could be as and we do not know that yet. Right now, it would be misleading for someone to think they are a proven way to help you quit smoking, just as good as the other medications out there. There are good medications out there, and maybe they will have a useful role for some people, that as i outlined, they could do a lot of harm. Seeing the kind of flavorings out there, it really does bother me. You know that is something that is appealing to kids, and saying things like free samples being ,iven over the internet advertising that looks very much like tobacco advertising 40 or 50 years ago, really glamorizing the act of smoking, i think that is troubling. Host dr. Thomas frieden got his undergraduate degree at oberlin college, his masters at columbia, and trained at yale in infection diseases. He is the director for the centers for Disease Control. He is in atlanta and susan is in greendale, wisconsin. Ir i have two things watched a program on pbs about the deadliest microbes. And twoked about mrsa other bugs that are not receptive to any other antibiotics, and they interviewed a fellow from one of the Drug Companies and they asked him about what they are doing, and he said we cannot afford to look for new , but they certainly are abundant in getting their vaccinations for everything under the sun. The other point i want to make is i am wondering when cdc will talk about the use of alcohol and how harmful that is to people. That is never addressed. Host thank you, susan. Dr. Frieden . Guest sure. Both important issues. Drugresistant microbes are a real threat and we have seen them increasing, and a pipeline of new antibiotics is running dry. There have been actions in congress to try to increase incentives for companies to make antibiotics. The National Institutes for health is Funding Research on new antibiotics, and another department of health and Human Services is funding work on new antibiotics, it is difficult to bring new at the biotics to the market. It will be challenging and we have to preserve the antibiotics we have. We need to be good stewards of our resources, and we have recommended at cdc that every single hospital in this country havent antibiotic have an antibiotic stewardship program, which could save the money, and more importantly prevent tears competitions, and reduce drug resistant. Antimicrobial resistance will take everyone, patients realizing it is not the best thing to get antibiotics, doctors Standing Firm if there is not a need for antibiotics, hospitals and Healthcare Systems looking at the data carefully, the Agricultural Industry reducing the unnecessary use of antibiotics, it and industry and government working together to bring new antibiotics to market and to preserve the antibiotics. Alcohol consumption, there is another agency that looks as substance abuse, mental health, including alcohol abuse, but cdc also looks at alcohol abuse, and alcohol abuse is a serious problem. Binge drinking in particular causes immense harm, not only in terms of alcohol toxicity, or liver disease, but also other infectious ideas and disease, car crashes, social problems, so one of the things we emphasize the avoidance of binge drinking. Binge drinking is more than four drinks in one setting. For women, more than three drinks. Very simply, never more than four. If you get down below that level, you eliminate a lot of the harms of drinking. We have seen that they are quite serious in many different groups. There is an underrecognition that heavy jerking could be quite harmful in so many ways to your heavy drinking could be harmful to your social well being. We are excited about a simple counseling technique known as brief intervention, and we encourage doctors and Health Care Providers to do, simply talking to a patient for 10 or 15 minutes about their drinking, outlining patterns and coming up with realistic goals for cutting back on drinking. Can reduce the project progression from problem drinking to really serious problem drinking by at least 50 for at least a few years. Yes, excess alcohol use is a serious problem and it is something of coworkers and others can do more about. The next call for dr. Thomas frieden of the cdc comes from pam in ohio. Caller dr. Frieden, in november of 2011, the cdc released a press release on the upcoming inact of the ban on smoking restaurants and bars. Mad as hell. E you are involved in covering up the losses. How could you have announced in the same as release 2011 about the upcoming guest are you a baroner . Caller yes. Guest is smoking prohibited . Caller yes. Guest how has it affected your business . Caller its killed us. Guest are they allowed to smoke outside caller sure but it gets extremely cold and extremely hot. Guest what they found in general is no harm to business. That smoke free laws do save lives and Secondhand Smoke does kim people including workers in industries that allows smoking. Eliminating Secondhand Smoke or eliminating smoking in bars and restaurants does not hurt business overall. It does not mean any one business may not have a problem. We know the restaurant and bar industry is a challenging industry, often working on very thin margins. In any one day there are many businesses going out of business whether because of smokefree laws or it has nothing to do with it is hard to say specifically. But what we do know and has been looked at by many independent groups is smoke free laws save lives and dont hurt business. I can tell you what happened in new york city when we did this. I was Health Commissioner in new york city when we went smokefree and was very challenging. People were scared it would hurt their business and it did change some of the business some. Some of the bars found they were able to serve more food because people stayed for longer because it had been so unpleasant when it was so smokey. But ultimately, smokefree legislation is about saving lives. Its about the fact you shouldnt have to choose between your job and your life. And if i had pate recents and waiters coming up to me before the legislation and after it passed in saying every day i remember vividly one young woman who was pregnant and said this is the only job i can get, and every day i go home and i think my job may have just harmed my unborn child. No worker should have to put up with that. Host marie tweets in the government has to stop treating americans like ignorant citizens. Let us choose. Guest i think absolutely what we want is to increase peoples choices. One of the ways we do that is by providing more information so people can make more informed decisions. C. D. C. Is about providing good information and all on our website. We put it out any way we can. We do most of the surveys that outline what the situation is with health. We think more informed people make better decisions, more informed decisionmakers make better decisions. So we agree with increasing peoples ability to choose and make informed choices. Host alex, concord, new hampshire, please go ahead with your question or comment for dr. Thomas freeden of the c. D. C. Caller good morning, doctor. I have two questions. The first, i was wanting if you could industry how it works with the army disease infection unit. And my second question is for you to describe how sequester has affected your organization. Host why do you ask about the army question . Caller i just saw the movie out break recently and was just curious. Host thank you, sir. Dr. Freiden . Guest we have great relationships with the government and we look for new ways to find and stop Health Threats both in this country and around the world. So where there are researchers working on, for example, a new vaccine or way of diagnosing the condition, well often work with a part of the defense department. Let me give you one example of that. Plague is still a problem in some parts of the world. In uganda, for example, they had outbreaks of plague in some areas. We have a laboratory out in ft. Collins, colorado, that has come up with a new way of diagnosing plague with a simple step, like a dip stick, what you might see for a pregnancy test, and it takes 20 minutes and you can diagnose the plague and you dont have to grow the plague bacteria in a laboratory which can be dangerous for workers and others. That test is in clinical trials. Last year, tragically, three people got plague in a Small Community in uganda. There was a large funeral for one of them, more than 100 people were exposed but that dip stick type test was done and within hours, within 12 hours, the unit there had given preventative medicine to more than 130 people and within 24 hours they had gone house to house or hut to hut in this case and sprayed to eliminate the resist of a plague outbreak. There was no plague outbreak and one of the key interventions was a simple test we collaborated with the department of defense to develop so we can better protect and stop the spread of plague. In terms of sequester, this was a significant reduction to c. D. C. s programs. Public health is purchaseable, basically within natural limitations you can determine your own death rate. Its a fundamental concept put forth a hundred years ago. Microbes and other Health Threats didnt get reduced by 5 but our budget did and was hundreds of millions less we can send out to state and local governments that can protect people locally, that we can use to identify problems and help respond to them. So we take very seriously being diligent stewards of public dollars and using every dollar as carefully as possible but with less money, were less able to protect people. Host kevin denver tweets into you, dr. Frieden, the idea one can live forever is an obvious myth. Why not enjoy life while it lasts . Live and let live. Guest i totally agree. You may give up things that are fun and enjoyable. Take the issue of tobacco use, you have a misconception from people who say well, it will only knock off a couple unpleasant years at the end of your life. Totally wrong. People who smoke die about 10 years younger than nonsmokers but even more, they feel 10 years older for the time that theyre alive. So most people who have ever smoked in america have already quit. And most people who smoke today can quit and everyone who smokes can quit. Things like getting regular physical activity makes you feel great. No one is going to force you to do that but we want to encourage you and make it easy to do that, work with communities to figure out ways if you just go with the flow you wont have to deal with unpleasant and difficult illnesses and diseases. So wherever we can prevent suffering and disability and premature death, were going to work with individuals and communities to try to do that. Host dorothy in carlsbad, new mexico. Please go ahead with your question or comment for dr. Thomas frieden, director at the centers for Disease Control. Dorothy . Yes. Host were listening. Caller i would like to know if these host dorothy, well put you on hold. When you turn down your volume well try to come back to you. Rick from ohio. Hi. Caller i had a question for dr. Frieden about the l. D. L. And h. D. L. Cholesterol. When you take the medicine, how does it differentiate between the two types of cholesterol or does it attack both types . And also, on these meth labs, theyve got a big problem with more harmful effects do the children have . I notice a lot of these meth labs, the people have their children with them and get caught. Im wondering what harmful effects the meth labs have on people and the products that are used to make them. Guest thank you. There are many different medicines used to reduce cholesterol. So as you say, l. D. L. Is the bad cholesterol. You want that as low as possible. H. D. L. Is the good cholesterol but you want that to be higher. There are lots of things you can do to reduce your l. D. L. And reduce your l. D. L. And raise your h. D. L. One of the ways is avoid saturated fat and eat less red meat. The second thing you can do is use healthier oils, vegetable oils, olive oils. The third thing you can do is eat more fish. Fish can raise your h. D. L. The fourth thing you can do is get regular physical activity. It makes a big difference. Even walking. 10 minutes at a time three or four times a day will make a really big difference in your life. So these are all really important things. But for many people in our society, taking medicines is going to be important, particularly if youre at higher risk. If you had a heart attack or have diabetes or another health problem. Talk to your doctor and reducing cholesterol, l. D. L. Cholesterol, is really important. Different medicines have different effects and thats why there have been a series of studies done to see which medicines might be best. But ultimately you want to get that l. D. L. Down. Thats really important because thats what we call the therapeutic target and what we try to get done. The issue of Heart Disease is a really important one. If you step back and you say, whats the thing that kills the most people in this country and can be prevented . Its cardiovascular disease. Heart disease and stroke. And a lot of the heart attacks, a lot of the strokes can be prevented. They can be prevented by relatively simple things, what we call the a, bacs. If youre at high risk taking aspirin every day, a. Blood pressure control. There are more than 68 million americans who have high Blood Pressure and millions of them dont know it and arent on medications or not on enough medicines to get their Blood Pressure over 140 slo 90 where it should be. And the second is cholesterol control and getting it down. How low you want it depends on your particular risk factors and thats smoking, Smoking Cessation. If you smoke, quitting is the most important thing you can do to improve your health. In terms of the laboratory that produce crithal crystal meth, they produce very toxic side effects and can be Chemical Waste sites that are dangerous. There are a lot of problems associated with meth labs. Host sam tweets into you, doctor, what about High Fructose Corn Syrup . Guest its something were still studying. There is some data that suggested the High Fructose Corn Syrup may be worse than regular sugar or sucrose. Its not definitive but there are a increasing number of studies that suggests it could possibly be worse. Theres a lot we still dont know about obesity but we do know were out of balance. Were consuming more calories than were expending and addressing both sides of that equation is going to be important. Reducing our consumption of calories will be important. So i think the number of calories in my personal opinion is probably more important than where those calories come from. You have a lot of debate about that and there are a lot of things we still dont know but having smaller portion sizes, finding great food thats healthy that you like and eating more of it and getting more physical activity are sensible things to do which can really make you feel better and live longer. Robert is in the bronx. Host go ahead with your question for dr. Frieden. Caller my question is vaccines, i doubt vaccines actually work but the c. D. C. Website list as lot of the side effects of vaccines from mild to severe and seizures, jerking, coma, brain damage. These vaccine side effects often does not relate to the patient, parents of children. What are you doing to make sure those vaccine side effects are told to the parents and how do you feel about labeling a g. M. O. Which is shown to be detrimental in studies to lab animals but we are consuming it and not knowing that its not labeled. Host on the first question, we believe guest on the first question we believe one of the basic concepts in00 health and in health is complete transparency. We put on our website and we have a Vaccine Information sheet for every vaccine that lists everything that could be a problem because we know some people may be very suspicious of government or health care or of medicines and that kind of reluctance to vaccinate can be very harmful and cost the life of a child. It can cause an outbreak that affects a community. Right now, for example, were seeing way too low vaccination rates for a new vaccine, the h. P. V. Vaccine. This is an anticancer vaccine. H. P. V. Is the cause of Cervical Cancer and oral cancer and very slow g really uptake in h. P. V. Sack sination and are at 30 of completion of Vaccination Coverage and is problematic. If we got to 80 or above in the target population there would be 50,000 fewer cases of Cervical Cancer among girls alive today and for every year we delay, there are another 4,400 cases of Cervical Cancer. We need to increase the h. P. V. Vaccination rate and one of the ways is by being completely open with people. We also are very open with how we recommend vaccines and we the a group called Advisory Committee on immunization practices. Theyre all on the web and theyre all web streamed. And they look at the risks and benefits and recommends lemses and through open and transparent means come up with recommendations used throughout the country. In terms of again etdrickly modified foods, theyre all genetically modified in making it edible and increasing yields through various forms of selection and beyond that its an issue for the department of agriculture and policymakers to look at were always willing to look at the risks of different exposures in the environment and openly evaluate whether or not they exist and to what extent they exist. Host dr. Frieden, gene in ohio tweets in, 80 of generic drug ingredients are made in china or india. We dont know ingredients are deadly until people die. Why . Guest we are an increasingly globally interconnected world. As you say, 80 of our drug ingredients come from other countries. About 80 of our seafood comes from other countries. 2 3 of our fruit and vegetables come from other countries. Were not going to hermettically seal the country. We need to do more to improve health not just here but also around the world. So the food and Drug Administration is expanding their inspections of the producers of pharmaceutical products. In addition, what were doing at c. D. C. Is helping other countries find and stop and prevent Health Threats there so they dont spread here. Ill give you an example of that. Weve worked with the government of china for more than a decade. China created their own c. D. C. In fact, they call it china c. D. C. Though c. D. C. Doesnt mean anything in chinese. And what they found was that after the sars epidemic which cost the world 30 billion in a few months, they realized they hadnt handled it as well as they should have and handled it poorly and they said we need to do better and helped them mom forefor influenza and helped them grow it and sequence it in the laboratory. We helped become a Global Collaborating Center on influenza. And when they found the new strain of influenza, they posted the entire genome within hours and we were able to download the genome and make a diagnostic test and begin work on seeds transfer of a vaccine so we can be safer. We all are connected and its important we not only improve health here but help other countries improve health there. I should add china funded all of that by themselves. All we did watts help them learn how to do it and that made them safer and made us safer. Host another tweet, dog canyon, when will you publish hospital infection rates. We do publish hospital infection rates and work closely with the center for medicare and Medicaid Services and are part of the Hospital System that is there. We have a system called the National Health care Safety Network or nhsn and virtually every hospital in the country now uses that. Weve seen progress in some areas but not nearly enough progress in others. And weve worked with state governments, with hospital oceans associations, with doctors, professional societies to figure out how we can better prevent, detect and respond to hospital infections because far too many are occurring. Its been sfimented estimated there are about 100,000 deaths in hospitals each year and many are preventable. We need to do better at preventing them. Host mary in floral city, florida, good morning. Youre on with dr. Thomas frieden, director at the centers for distress control. Caller good morning. Id like to ask the doctor, have they ever done a study on smoking and chemicals that people use . Host mary, why do you ask that question . Are you a smoker . Caller yes, i am. Host lou long have you smoked . Caller oh, god, too many years. Guest did you see our ad . Caller i had had a friend pass away and she brought it to mind, its not the smoking i did, it was more the chemicals i used. Host that were contained in the tobacco, mary . Caller no, household chemicals, or you work at a chemical plant. Host did she die of cancer . Caller they dont know. They dont know. Host all right. Guest there are thousands of chemicals in tobacco smoke. Tobacco smoke is really in a league of its own in terms of the toxicity that it has. There are hundred of cancercausing chemicals. It harms virtually every part of your body. In fact, it kills more people from heart attacks and strokes than it kills from cancer and doesnt just cause lung cancer, it causes cancer of many different parts of the body and doesnt just harm you but the people around you. Secondhand smoke is also deadly. I know its hard to quit but i really hope that every smoker will think hard and if you want to quit, get help to quit because you can double or triple your likelihood of succeeding. There are a lot of things you can do that make it more likely youll succeed at quitting. But the risk of cancer or death from tobacco is here. The risk from all other chemicals is way, way lower. So obviously we want to avoid any toxins in our environment, but tobacco is far and away the strongest risk. One of the things that weve done in the past year or two is begin showing the stories of americans who have been disabled or disfigured or killed by tobacco. And those stories have been motivating smokers to quit. Lets not forget, the Tobacco Industry for decades deceived americans. They lied to congress. They lied to americans. They worked hard to get our kids addicted to cigarettes. In fact, 80 to 90 of people begin smoking as kids. So we have now a whole several generations that have both a mistaken concept of smoking and began smoking as kids and may be adibblinged addicted. Theres a lot we need to do to help people get free of the addiction and we can. The doctors can, your friends can. There are ways to quit smoking. If you smoke, quitting smoking is the single most important thing you can do to live a longer, healthier life. Smokers at every age die at twice the rate of nonsmokers even if the nonsmokers are exposed to all sorts of chemicals. Its the single most important thing you can do to improve your health. Host gloria, kitty hawk, north carolina. Good morning. Caller two different categories id like to question. You mention all this business about smoke and i agree with you, but what about the effects of marijuana, number one, you havent touched on that. And number two, all of these people, especially in africa, are dying of malaria. And it seems to me that if d. D. T. Takes care of the people who are exposed to malaria that that would be the simplest solution to get rid of this thing. I mean, putting up a piece of cheese cloth over a bed is not going to have the same effect of killing what is possibly the most prevalent killer of people in africa. Thank you. Guest theres actually a lot we dont know about the toxicity of marijuana. There are some studies that make it very clear the habitual use of marijuana is associated with a decrease in your intelligence level. Other things are being studied and looked at in terms of what are the harms . In terms of malaria, actually, weve looked at this very closely. Remember, as i said, the very first thing i said on this show , the office of malaria in war areas and weve worked on malaria since our inception. Weve identified four ways we can reduce ways of death in malaria. One of them is bed nets and theyre very effective and bed nets coated with pesticides that keep the mosquitos away and kill the mosquitos reduce cases of malaria dramatically. In fact, weve shown reductions of 25 to 40 not just in malaria but in all childhood deaths in countries in africa and it reduces the number of kids who go to the Health Care Facilities so the Health Care Facilities can do other things that reduces the use of blood products for transfusions for severe malaria. Bed nets are a very effective strategy but they need to be used and they need to be replaced periodically. The second is use of indoor residual spraying. So spraying parts of the house to kill the mosquitos with safer pesticides than d. D. T. Generally. The problem with that is its quite expensive to do. You have to make sure the pesticides dont get in the crops and takes highly trained staff but can be a very effective and important measure. The third is figure out how to detech detect and treat malaria more effectively. Weve begun expanding the use rapid i. A. I. D. And tests to see if someone has malaria. We find out people in africa may misdiagnosis this a lot because they dont know if the fever is from some other infection. This rapid test could determine if someone has malaria and if they do they can get treated or if they dont can get treated for the other problem they have. And giving treatment to pregnant women to protect themselves and their child. Those things have driven down death rates by malaria by hundreds of thousands a year and saved millions of lives in africa but we have more to do on malaria. Malaria is one of the many Health Threats were facing around the world. We also have h. I. V. In the petfar program which is a terrifically successful program, a partnership across the u. S. Government led by the state department and partnering with countries. We now are treating more than five Million People around the world who have h. I. V. Infection. If it werent for petfar, those people would be dead or dying. Instead, theyre growing up and teaching and learning, theyre making things in society, theyre contributing to their communities and the world. In the last 10 years of petfar, one million children have been protected from h. I. V. And would have been h. I. V. Positive if petfar had not existed and are h. I. V. Negative. There are lots of things we can do to improve health care around the world and are delighted to do that with parts of the u. S. Government and with other countries. Host cspan junkie, tweet, does smocking pot promote lung cancer . Maybe we can switch . I dont know the answer and dont know we have definitive evidence. We need to learn more of the different toxicities of marijuana because the more you know, the more informed decisions you can make. But because its been illegal, there havent been studies done on it. So one of the things that may need to be looked at is can we now learn more about it now in some places it is decriminalized or legal. Host two minutes left. Matt smith tweets in, dr. Frieden, can you comment on the trend of eating glutenfree foods . There are some individuals who have gluten sensitivity and for those individuals, avoiding gluten can dramatically improve their Nutritional Status and overall health. Host maverick tweet, First Lady Michelle Obama suggests we drink more water. Guest water is a very healthy drink and its really important to drink things that you like that youll keep drinking. What we found is it you increase consumption of water, you dont replace it, the calories that you are drinking with water, you dont replace those calories with other things. So by drinking more water, not only will you be able to meet your hydration needs but also reduce potentially the number of calories you consume. So a good way to reduce caloric intake is drink more water. Its an important measure. One of the things were delighted in is more and more School Cafeterias serving chilled water, more water fountains in public places. Whether its bottled water or tap water, the point is water is a great drink, a great way to quench your first. Host finally, tillman tweets into you, doctor, the flu shot is the biggest government scam going. Guest got to disagree with you there. The flu shot is the most effective way to protect you against the flu. Its not perfect. We have vaccines that are better but you do need the flu shot to protect yourself against the flu. Host dr. Thomas frieden is the director for the centers for Disease Control and prevention. We appreciate you being on the washington journal today and invite you to come back soon. Guest thanks very much. Great to be here and thanks for your confess. Host a halfhour left in this mornings washington journal. Well look at america by the numbers and well be looking at fertility rates in the u. S. , how they may affect policy issues. Well be right back. In new orleans with the b. C. S. Title game was, etc. , built in entirely at public expense, after Hurricane Katrina badly damaged and hosting Football Games again was a national feel good story and rightly i would say so. The public paid for all the repairs. The league put in a token amount. The public has invested in todays dollars about a billion dollars in the construction of the Mercedes Benz superdome and the man who owns the new Orleans Saints keeps almost all the revenue generated there. Why dont people rebel against this . I think one reason is many people in the public dont understand this is taking place. I think the second reason is they feel like theres nothing they can do about it, its all based on insider deals and it is largely based on insider deals. The most recent time there was a vote in miami last year, there was a vote to use public money to renovate the place where the Miami Dolphins play and the citizens of miami voted strongly against doing that because they got to vote on it. More with the king of sports author Gregg Easterbrook sunday night at 8 00 on cspans q a. After becoming first lady, maimi eisenhower ran a tight ship inspecting white glove inspections and approving the menus for state visits. Watch our Program Saturday at 7 00 p. M. Eastern on cspan and live monday night. Our series continues. Mrs. Kennedy is very well known as a style icon, admiration of her fashion sense. Mrs. Kennedy put an awful lot of thought in her wardrobe when she was representing the country both at the white house and while traveling abroad, she would think about what colors would mean something to the country im about to visit. So for her visit to canada, she chose this red suit by pierre car dan Pierre Cardenas a respect for the red canadian maple leaf. I respect the thought she put in her wardrobe and chose a style or color that would make her stand out in the crowd. First Lady Jacqueline kennedy, monday night, live at 00 eastern on cspan. Washington journal continues. On this week america by the numbers well look at u. S. Fertility rates and what that means for Public Policy. Joining us, mark mather with the Population Reference Bureau, the vice president. And Stephanie Ventura who is with the c. D. C. National center for Health Statistics. Stephanie ventura, lets start with you and this chart that your organization has put together, declines in u. S. Births slowed in 2012. First birth and birth rates dropping for teens. Teen birth rates are down steeply for all women and unmarried mothers are more likely to be older and cohabitting. Whats the trend in fertility rates in the u. S. Right now . Guest right now it seems to have stablize. There was a big decline between 20072012, most of that occurring by 2010. It slowed down between 2010 and 2012 and seems to have stabilized. We dont have any data yet for 2013 but that seems to be and its across the board, all these groups you mentioned. Host why the slowdown between 2007 and 2012, as you note . Guest i think there are a number of factors. Some people have ascribed it to the Economic Situation which began after 2007 and that, you know, people just decided like they might postpone buying a house or car, they might postpone either starting their families or adding to their families. So thats probably an important factor for many of these people. Matt mark mather, whats the effect of this birth rate in the u. S. Right now . Guest well, there are probably in terms of the shortterm effects, im not sure it will make a whole lot of difference because the u. S. The population is still growing very rapidly. Were still looking to see whether this trend, this decline in fertility will continue for the long term and if that happens there would be more important repercussions in terms of slowing population growth and potential implications for entitlement programs, the labor force, and those types of things. Host is your organization one that favors a slowed population growth . Guest were not advocacy so we dont take a stand in terms of population growth is a good or bad thing. I would say population growth that is very rapid or if you have a rapidly declining population, those types of changes can create an imbalance. But in general, we dont take a stand on whether these changes are good or bad. Host looking at this, if you could talk about the Public Policy potential effects on this. In 1957, women were having an average of 3. 8 children per american woman, correct . Guest thats right. Host and today that is 1. 9 children. With a replacement level of 2. 1. First of all, Stephanie Ventura, whats a replacement level . Guest replacement is a demographic term and kind of says how many babies an individual woman has to have in order for the population as a whole to replace itself. And everybody might say why isnt it just two, but its 2. 1 because some women dont live baby girls dont live to become mothers and others dont have any children. Host the. 1 part is a mathematical formula. Guest right. Host right now were at 1. 9. Guest exactly. Host very close to the replacement level but way down from the peak in 1957 of 3. 8. Guest way down. Host when you divide it by race, hispanics are at 2. 2, black, 1. 9, and whites at 1. 8. The fact that were not replacing people born in the u. S. At the same level, is there a Public Policy implication there . Guest that 2. 1 is kind of a magic number for demographers. When you dip below that, i think we Pay Attention to that. If you compare the u. S. To other developed countries, our fertility rate is still relatively high. There are countries in europe like germany or italy, there are lots of places where in eastern europe, especially, very low fertility rates in eastern europe. So fertility rate in the u. S. Is still relatively high to lots of other places. But as i said, if it continues in the long term, you could see some real impacts of that. Host on which programs . Guest if you think about entitlement programs, Social Security and medicare, i think those are the two big ones. There are concerns we wont have enough as we have all these baby boomers retiring, will we have enough people to fill those jobs that theyre leaving . Will we have enough consumers to buy all the goods that are being produced and the tax base is affected so lots of different things. Host we want to show you this chart. First, birth rates for teens are down sharply. Back in 1960, and this is the rate per 1,000 women, aged 1519. It was just over 60 births per 1,000 women aged 1519. That has dropped to about 30. Guest actually lower. To 25. Host ok. Why . Guest the teen birth rate itself has dropped. The peak was 1957, and the rates were dropping pretty much after the introduction of the pill and then the legalization of abortion in 1973. But in the meantime, in the late 1980s, there was an increase in teen birth rates which got a lot of peoples attention because it was against the grain of what other groups were doing and a lot of programs were started and as a result, after 1991, the teen birth rate has fallen pretty steadily both for first births and all births. Host has the issue of abortion and the pill, have those been the overriding factors in why the teen birth rate is going down, and contraception in general, the availability . Re guest it seems to be an increase in contraceptive use and an increased rate in working contraception. Despite the fact many teens are delaying Sexual Activity until later ages and those things in combination especially in recent years seems to be driving that down. Guest and the use of dual methods, not just one method of contraception so its very effective. Theyre using very effective method. Host mark mather with the teen rate going down, has this affected Public Policy or programs, social programs . Guest well, its great news because teen births is a major social problem i think in the United States. Thats one of the areas where kids born to teen moms, they tend to have much higher poverty rates, health problems. Theyre more likely to become teen parents themselves. The fact its declining is good news. But again, if you compare the u. S. With other countries, we still have a very high rate so theres a lot more work to do. Host i want to show you another chart as we go through and are talking about fertility rates. The numbers have been up on the screen intermittently and well try to get them up there when we dont have these charts on the air. Women having their first child at 3544 are now more likely to have a second child. Why is this significant . Why are older women having children later, correct . Guest exactly. Thats been a tremendous trend since the mid 1970s, women in early 30s and late 30s, big explosion in first births, firsttime childbearing which is associated with women going to college and delay marriage and so forth. But this particular chart is important because a lot of people think if women postpone childbearing until their 30s, will they really have the number of children that they want or that other women who started younger will have . And this tries to help answer that and says theres been an increase in women who have already had their first child in their early 30s or early 40s, they do go on, about 40 , to have a second or third child. And this isnt the end because the survey, the National Survey of Family Growth only includes women up to age 44 and we know there are some women who have children after age 44. Host why is this significant, mark mather . Guest there are a couple implications of this. One, i think there are some good aspects of this trend in that i think that as you delay childbearing, these parents are more financially ready to have kids, more psychologically ready to have kids compared with women who are in their teens or early 20s, for example. But as stephanie mentioned, there are potential concerns that they wont be able to have all of the children that they had planned because theyre not starting until their late 30s or early 40s. And if they dont have the two kids that they wanted, will there be will their children be there for them when theyre in old age and need care giving assistance and so on . Host this is a pretty dramatic chart here. Teen birth rates down sharply. We talked about the overall teen birth rate but this does it by race. All races from this is 1991 and this is 2012. All races. 61. 8 per 1,000 women, births per 1,000 women, down to that was in 1991, down to 29. 4 in 2012. Hites, 43 to 20, black, 118 to 43, a real dramatic decrease there. And a dramatic decrease, hispanic, 104 to 46. Why the drop . Guest the drops, i think the groups are all converging. Weve seen its not just white women or black women or Hispanic Women. If youll notice the trends are a little bit different, some of it occurred, more of it before 2007. And for Hispanic Women in particular the decline is really steep since 2007. So thats one of the trends that weve been noticing in fertility in general is that all women, all race groups and ethnicity groups, no matter how you look at it, fertility patterns are down. Host mark mather, what is this and what does it mean . Is it a good thing or bad thing or a neutral thing . Guest a neutral thing in terms of are high fertility rates good or bad, but i will second this notion that this is a really dramatic trend, especially for latinas and for africanamerican women, weve seen a steep drop in fertility rates and stephanie mentioned this has accelerated since 2007. I think that goes to show minority groups were disproportionately affected by the recession and that could be one of the factors leading to these sharp declines in fertility for those groups. Host do you see well put the numbers up. 202 is the area code for our lines if you want to participate in this discussion about u. S. Fertility patterns. East and central, you can see 5853881 and or outside the u. S. Is down there as well. Now i forgot my question i was going to ask you. Well, well move on then and look at another chart because i completely forgot what i was going to ask you, mr. Mather. Lets look at another chart. And this is by region. This is greatest declines from 2007 to 2011. And this is the greatest declines in birth rates among hispanic teens. Is this because are these new immigrants or people who have been here, are they getting assimilated . Whats the story . Guest i think theres some of that. I think the story here is that its across the board. You can see and the declines are huge. A decline of 40 in just four years in a state specific teen birth rate is really quite dramatic. It takes a lot to move the rates that much. So were seeing these rates among the new immigrant communities in the southeast are down as well as, you know, out in the midwest and the west. So its really across the board. Host tony in minnesota. You are on cspan. Caller yes, good morning and thank you for cspan. I was wondering about the longterm view of a growing population. Being that the earth is basically a closed system, are we overusing our natural our rces, our land use and clean water, and wouldnt a lower population in general mean a better quality of life in general . Ill take my answer off the air. Thank you so much. Host mark mather, would you like to answer that question . Guest its a very good question, an age old question, i guess. I definitely agree with you that population matters and you can see that especially in developing countries where the population is growing very rapidly in many countries and outstripping resources. But its not just population that matters. Its also consumption patterns. To what extent are we using the resources we have and are we using them efficiently, and whats the standard of living . So the standard of living increasing along with the population thats growing. So its a combination of factors here, not just population but how are we using the resources that we have . Host Stephanie Ventura, when you look at our numbers, the u. S. Numbers, compared to internationally, and i know thats not necessarily your area of expertise, but when you compare it internationally, what does the comparison look like . Guest i think one of them is what mark mentioned earlier is actually, our fertility rate is still pretty high relatively to other undeveloped countries. There are stories in the paper lately about italy, france, spain having really dramatically low, instead of 2. 1 or even 1. 9, theyre looking at 1. 3 or 1. 4. And then there are concerns about, you know, children being available going into the work force to help support the elderly population. I guess there are different policies in these countries being aybe are implemented to change that dynamic. Host mark mather, what about the china one child policy . Whats the china growth rate or nongrowth rate . Guest the t. F. R. In china now is 1. 5. The onechild policy has been very effective in reducing the fertility rate there and has dramatically slowed population growth and Shows Government intervention can have a big impact on fertility if you have certain policies in place. Now, china is different than a country like the United States or france or other countries where, you know, we would be implementing a different set of policies than china has been. But it can have a big effect. Host do we encourage via Public Policy having children . Guest in the United States . Host yes. Guest i would say no. In general, its not something on most policymakers radars, compared with a lot of other developed countries, the policies that support childbearing in the United States are fairly thin. So theres not a parental leave guaranteed in the United States, for example, the childcare benefits could be stronger in the United States. So compared to a country like france, i would say that we dont do a whole lot to boost fertility here. Host does france have a socalled pro natalist society . Guest they do. Its one of the countries often mentioned in terms of having pretty favorable policies towards childbearing. And actually, theyve managed to keep their t. F. R. At around two births per women and slightly higher than the United States right now. Host when you look at the developing countries such as india, some of the african nations, whats their birth rate or fertility rate . Guest it varies widely. I have my World Population data sheet here and would have to look at the impact numbers but there are still parts of africa having six or seven births per women so it can be much higher and why most of the population growth in the next hundred years is predicted to take place in the developing world. Host brian, mansfield, ohio. Hi, brian. Caller hi, how are you doing . I was wondering what your guests thought about welfare maybe contributing to part of it. I work for a low income Apartment Community for many years and i know that in the beginning, you know, that every time a lady would have a kid, once they turned 5 they lost their welfare and theyd have another kid so they could keep getting their welfare and i think it was about 10 years ago, ohio passed a law they could only collect it for three years and then youre off indefinitely. And i was just wondering what you might think about that. Thank you very much. Guest i think there are probably lots of anecdotal cases where that may have occurred but as far as i know, the research thats been done has shown that overall, policies to support lowincome families in children have not generally had a major impact on fertility for those groups. Host we have a tweet here from marie tweets, are we seeing more women using abortion as a form of Birth Control . Guest the data that we have actually in contrast to that and abortions have been declining overall the past number of years, and they are more concentrated in different parts of states, different parts of the country, so i would say, you know, no, abortion has not been a factor in that sense. Host ronald, detroit. Hi, ronald. Caller how are you doing . I have one question. Im working on a doctoral piece of World Population, and im shocked and alarmed at what i see. November of 2011, the World Population was seven million, 1. 4 billion chinese, 1. 4 billion indian, 1. 3 billion of african descent and only 540 million of caucasian. It looks like theyre going extinct. I was shocked and dismayed by it. Whats causing that . Host mark mather, population growth worldwide, seven billion. Guest as i mentioned, there really are extremely different growth rates in different parts of the world, so the developed world is really there are lots of countries in the developed world the population is actually declining slightly, not growing at all. Whereas most of the growth is occurring in the developing countries, and especially in subsaharan africa, thats a part of the world experiencing the most rapid growth and thats expected to continue. A lot of countries are lowering their fertility rates but they have something called population momentum, because theyve got so many young people in these countries, that means theres a lot of babies being born there and it will take some time there for some balance to occur. Host what is the Population Reference Bureau . Guest the Population Reference Bureau, were a nonprofit Demographic Research firm in washington, d. C. So we study Population Trends in the United States, internationally, and then we look at the implication of those trends. Host where do you get your money . Guest from a diverse set of source. We get some government funding, especially on the international side. In the u. S. Programs department where i work, we receive a lot of funding from foundations. Host in the 1960s and 1970s, there used to be a lot of focus on zero population growth and the world is getting too crowded. Do we still see that as an issue today . Guest we certainly do. I think that its more nuanced today, people recognize its not just the population that matters but how are we supporting lowincome population, you know, half the worlds population is living on less than 2 a day, so its much more nuanced today. Theres a recognition that the population bomb did not necessarily just go off and we didnt destroy the planet. You know, over the long term, though, we certainly its certainly a concern that were outstripping the resources that we have. Host Stephanie Ventura of the National Center for Health Statistics, explain this chart that is on the screen. Guest ok. This is information from the National Survey of Family Growth. And were looking at unmarried parents trying to see if theres been a change in the nature of women who are having children who are not married. And i think people have an image of unmarried mothers being the teenager and single and kind of at loose ends and getting support from different sources. And that was the truth at one time, back about 40 years ago, about half of unmarried mothers were teenagers. But now were seeing that more unmarried parents, first of all, theyre older. And the other part of it is the unmarried women are more likely to be cohabitting with the father of the child. So this chart shows that is just in the short period in 2002 to 2010 the cohabitting portion increased from 12 to 22 . Host again, the unmarried rate stayed the same. A 1 4 of all births are to unmarried mothers. Guest single. Host youre saying their income levels or support levels are better today than they were . Guest they may be. Theyre certainly older. And theres a provision since the welfare reform that fathers are encouraged to sign a paternity, acknowledgement, hospitals with a big push for that and to the extent thats happening, it means more women are getting that kind of support even if theyre not cohabitting, they may be getting support from the father. Host rowland from detroit. Caller good morning. Host please go ahead. Caller some sectors in the Africanamerican Community think that abortions are being pushed on young black girls. In that regard, what do your stats show about the fertility rate in the Africanamerican Community . Host mark mather . Guest the fertility rate for africanamericans, as stephanie mentioned, has converged to a great extent so its similar now to the fertility rate for Nonhispanic White women. So in terms of the potential impact of abortion, i know the abortion rate has been declining overall. I dont have those specifically for different racial ethnic groups, however. Host Stephanie Ventura, are these stats weve been showing, are these Available Online for viewers if theyd like to see this . Guest the actual charts . Host where . Guest i believe the Census Bureau website and also, i imagine theyll be available on cspan website. And then the underlying data are also available at the National Centers for Health Statistics website. Host and well put up that web address as we take this call from vonnie in martinsburg, West Virginia. Hi, vonnie. Caller hi, good morning. I have a comment and i would like to see if your guests can answer. Do you think that the stress level thats out there today has something to do with the lowering of the birth rate . Do you think that women have to go to work, they cannot find babysitters whether theyre married or single. In the middle its very tough. In the lower top the lower middle class. So do you think that those sort of things could have a dramatic impact on our birth rate . Ill take my answer off the air. Host first, before we get an answer, what do you think and whats been your experience, if any . Caller well, now im 68. Im in that 1957 group, you see. And when i look back at it, i had a child out of wedlock when i was 18. And at the end of that period of time, i learned this is enough of that. It was so hard for me. There was no way to have money of your own, really, because the welfare was not the kind of welfare it is today. You couldnt get anything, your parents paid for everything. If you had insurance, you had to give it up. When i look back then and ive raised three children over the interim of this time, the way i see it is the stresses today, i just cant imagine trying to bring a child into this world when you have to work, you have to look for a babysitter, you cant get insurance here, you have to run over there, you cant afford this, you dont want to live with this guy because its too much stress, the last thing you want is another baby. I think that knowledge is playing a big part now, what weve been hearing from the different groups like here on cspan talking about this very thing. Host all right. Thank you very much. Stephanie ventura . Guest well, i think that could actually play a role for all people, especially it was kind of brought to our attention i think in 2007, thats the most recent, of course going back all of the years since vonny was talking about, there have been many times when there have been special periods, but since 2007, weve seen that a lot of people have been experiencing stress and that may be affecting the fertility across the board of a lot of groups. Host and the last word from mark mather . Guest yeah, i would agree. Having a child is obviously a huge step psychologically and financially. So i think not just for lower income families but for everyone. I think the rese session has taken its toll to some extent. Host mark mather with the Population Reference Bureau. Stephanie ventura with the National Center for Health Statistics. Thank you both for being on the washington journal to talk about u. S. Fertility rates. Thank for you joining us. A reminder that its the weekend and on v span 2 the next 48 hours beginning tomorrow morning, book tv, 48 hours of nonfiction books and on cspan 3, its American History tv. 48 hours of American History. Thats cspan 2 and cspan on the second friday in november, the economy added 200 4000 new jobs last month. The Unemployment Rate climbed from