Transcripts For CSPAN Washington Journal 20131217

Put together a list of who had the best year in politics. For our first 45 minutes we are looking for the same from you. Who had the best year in politics . Maybe it was a figure, a government body. Our phone lines our twitter account is like i said, the National Journal put together a poll. They compiled a list of republicans and democrats asking who had the best year in politics. When it comes to those responding for the democrats, here is the result of their list. Here is what they came up with. One percent said it was joe biden paid 60 say it was Chris Christie. Hillary clinton at 24 . At two percent with barack obama weighing in on one percent. Following that, it was rand paul with two percent, harry reid with 10 , and paul ryan with no one. Here is the republicans response. Nobody responded for the Vice President rate of 71 say it was Chris Christie who had the best year in politics. Nine percent of said Ted Cruz Hillary Clinton with ted cruz with 11 . Paul ryan waning weighing in on two percent. Dont defray to tell us who, that dont be afraid to tell us who, dont be afraid to tell us why. Dont be afraid to tell us who, dont be afraid to tell us why. Here are the phone lines is cspan twitter account cspanwj. Email iscspan available as well. We had 100 respondents so far. Cruz, the only one standing up for the working class people. Richard smith adding Chris Christie got some results on the National Journal poll. Dan is up first on our call of who has the best year in politics pit he is from kent, washington. Good morning. In politics. He is from kent, washington. Good morning. How would you respond to this question he echoed this question . Caller i think the independents had the best year. Most people in america realize we need government for our society to function. One of the most dramatic things that has happened is while they closed the National Parks and it pointed out it costs more to close some of the Veterans Memorial limited to simply leave them open Veterans Memorial then it did to simply leave them open. Everybody i talked to was very dismayed that the government did not choose to keep the blue angels up. They have to practice anyway so it does not cost anything to have them demonstrate. They are about as 5 about five times as dramatic as russian airplanes flying around. Why these think it is independents who won the day . Why do you think it is independents who won the day . Ander democrats republicans spend their time arguing instead of copper mines in. Instead of compromising. Bill from florida is up next. He is on our independent line. Caller hi. I wanted to say that i did because i started watching c and a couple of years ago ofjust opened me up to a lot the honesty that is in america. It also opened me up to looking and what each of fo the what sheach side for. E aisle is going i pray we all have an open minda nd and try to get money out of our system, meaning our mental thinking system. Now, just be the wonderful people we want to be. Host before you go, what was the it was so much dread lock. I liked how the civilian pockets did kind of rise up and speak their mind. I dont know how far that went into the political process but it seems like there is an awful of grassroots pockets of where people have concern. Thing, it is the ageold you have to have a voice and hopefully the real deeprooted where congressm is going to do what their constituents and it seems like big money. Host that is bill, he nominated himself. Mayben do the same or give your thoughts on political figures that you think had a good year. The lines keith is joining us from indiana, republican line. Caller good morning. Thank you for having me. Louie gohmert in texas. He stood up there, told it just like it is, and did not miss a beat. He had on everything and told it just like it is in he had no fear, he told up with a lot of respect on all basis. And he told it just the way it should be. Everyone onfor every perspective. Police,ll races, all and he had no fear to tell it on alle way it should be areas, good and bad. Host when did you first take notice of him . Caller on cspan. I listen to everything. Eric is from georgia on the independent line. I think Chris Christie had the best year in politics he seems like a likable fella. Can get both sides to vote for him, democrats tom on republicans, blacks, whites. He is a likable guy. I dont see anything negative about him and even negative isnt that bad. Did you come to the attention of the governor of new jersey e of new jersey e caller of new jersey . On cnn and cspan. On all sides they have a good thing to say about Chris Christie. He seems like a likable person. Host eric from georgia says it was Chris Christie. Weighing in, dean from twitter you can reach up to us on twitter and facebook as well. Michelle from michigan, democrats line. You are on, go ahead. Caller i think the republicans had the best year. Host republicans in general, why is that . They got everything they wanted and got most of what they didnt deserve and Citizens United has ruined the whole political system. Some Facebook Comments this morning you can give your comments and thoughts. Numbers are on the screen, as well pennsylvaniarom and from pennsylvania. Caller as a former republican and now independent, i think the winner was teddy cruz from texas. We have a debt issue and debt ceiling crisis. Both parties are to blame. Republicans and democrats go along to get along. Theyre going to do it again right before the holidays. Theyre going to raise the debt ceiling with little or no debate. I think the politician of the year was teddy cruz. He put the issue did the filibuster i hope people wake up about this growing step growing debt. Host Chris Christie saying it was the best year for him. John kerry also listed as a good year. Here is shea from florida, democrats line. Caller good morning. My comment is that the im talking about the crowds, republicans, independents, all of the politicians. Are all claim they christians and christians are about helping people. Jobs, they did not want to and they do not want to extend the unemployment benefit insurance for people who are going to lose. They wont bring up any jobs. We are the people and we as American People also we are divided. We keep getting what we are getting. We claim we are christians but we are not. Thank you. Here is brian herons and Brian Harrison from twitter here to talk about it is eric from the hill, he is there staff writer. Todays going to be the culture to vote on the budget deal. It looks like it is on track to barely gets done. Tell us about republicans that are pledging support. Caller not all seven have committed to voting for final passage on the bill. Latecomers. Include he is a close ally of john boehner who is able to get a pass by 332 votes three Johnny Isakson from georgia came out yesterday in favor of it. Like opposing its our members like rand paul and marco rubio. Paul ryan could be in the 2016 field and Senate Republican leaders may also vote against it. Mitch mcconnell has not publicly come out. He probably assured john boehner that he would hold fire until the votes were rounded up. Against ited to vote because that deal increases spending in the short term. As far asre democrats the plan is concerned the echo caller is concerned . Caller leadership expends all todemocrats and independents support the cultured vote. Is not entirely career entirely clear they have it all lined up. On monday Bernie Sanders west withholding his vote. He is angry that jobless benefits are expiring and this deal is nothing to extend that. Another liberal has also indicated he would vote for culture. His office said he was still undecided. They have not publicly come out in support but they may very well during the 10 a. M. Vote today. Times reports that kelly ayotte and Lindsey Graham all republicans will bring families to the military senate on tuesday can you give us information on that t e on that . Got and graham have been supporting this deal. I got [captioning performed by national captioning institute] ayotte and graham have been supporting this deal. These numbers are known as the most defense hardened members on the republican side. The way the deal replaces the sequester cut, there is a 6 billion cut to retirement benefits. This is influencing where the cost of living adjustments will pen so younger retirees budget experts say this is an overly generous retirement package. The current foot cutter the current cut federal worker benefits on lastminute negotiations it was change from a 6 billion cut to future federal civilian workers and 600 million cut to retirees. If it passes today, then what he echo then what . Caller the way both parties have been battling on the fl oor since harry reid exercised the Nuclear Option to end the filibuster, it is likely 30 hours will have been taken up to read at the end of that time there will be a final vote on passage. Theill be very close given way this is all breaking up. Hink it makes the culture it could be expected to pass. What is the agenda as far as the senate is concerned on this holiday echo on this holiday . Big thing isther the National Defense authorization act, passed every year for the past century. Where they have fallen down on appropriations and budget state try to keep this record clean. Basically they can accept or reject it at this point and not amended. Ont vote will happen wednesday. Other important things include nominations and most importantly is the nomination of janet yellen to be chairman of the Federal Reserve, replacing ben bernanke. Like to haveuld her confirm before the Senate Heads Home for christmas and get some sort of policy certainty into the economy and stock markets. Is going to take over for been a key at the end of january. Host this is a decision from d. C. That you may have heard about, a judge slamming nsa tactics. Joann from san diego, thank you for holding on. We have been asking people who had the best year in politics. Go ahead. [captioning performed by national captioning institute] caller i believe my own , darrell issa, who seems to be the only person who is investigating and using the oversight privilege of the congress over this administration, just like yesterday. This steering on the navigators in obamacare, these people who are making life and death decisions for people who sign up to obamacare have 20 hours of training, they are not necessarily health care people, and it seems like congressman ices the only person whos trying to hold people accountable. Look at the irs activities in the 2012 election. Over 500 groups cannot participate in our political system because the irs did not like their political views. To me he is a real hero in washington. Others reporting it is jeh johnson who will be the next head of Homeland Security. It is adding bobby from petersburg, virginia, independent line. Caller how are you doing . It would possibly be Edward Snowden. Even though he is not a political figure he exposed the american tyrants. He should not have been hiding from the system. He was not even a college student. He had a high security clearance and he was making an exorbitant amount of money. He should have never been hired in the earth place. Exposed the bias. Host from twitter you can nominate via twitter, e mail, by phones as well. Line, massachusetts, hello. We have got to into the question of who has had better year. Even though i am a democrat i would have to say the republicans have had the best year. Every time you turn around they are on cspan far more than the democrats. They have far more republican radio stations. People like carol from san diego who was just on thinks general ices tunica job. General issa is doing a good job. Any question that does not favor the republican side it is not even allowed in the conference. All they do is lie, steal, and cheat. And we have voters who believe all thats nonsense. It goes on and on, the gerrymandering, the lies every newse week but the good is there are a lot of people out there who arent low information voters, like myself, who helped elect president obama and will help elect Hillary Clinton. Hillary clinton showing up on the polls we highlighted earlier. They asked republicans and democrats to give up to give their results. We will show them in a bit. Forse that as a springboard those at home. Here is on the democrats side, Heller Clinton got 24 Hillary Clinton got 24 . You can find us on the National Journal website. They asked democrats and republicans as well. Lets hear from steven. Caller i think the American People had the best year in politics. He u. S. Has been hectic ,hose things that are happening i think the americans understands that it is very difficult. Host meetings here in washington, including eric mayer, ercer Marissa Mayer the report saying steve from arkansas is asking who had the best year in politics. I dont believe anybody had the best year in politics. I dont agree with what the republicans did. I dont agree with what the democrats have done. Unfortunately it seems like america continues to go down hill instead of uphill. As far as the nsa review, i havent heard anybody asked the question how long it has been going on. You . Ou not go have host why is that important to you . Caller i would like to know how long they have been surveilling the people of the United States without their knowledge. Security is a objective of the government. It still seems like we shouldnt we should have known. As far as snowden goes, i think he should be prosecuted because he violated the security act. Host i invite you to go to our cspan website and axis our Video Library. Not only segments we have done here on this program but you also see hearings that have taken place, numerous hearings on the nsa surveillance tactics, intelligence gathering, and the like. All you have to do is type ormation still box information into the box. Isaac from new york. Go d the best year yet who had the best year yet go . Est year ye caller president obama. Congress tried to block to do block him from doing whatever it is. Issa is a coniving leader. The Washington Post and abc news have a pulled this morning. Have a pulled this morning. A poll this morning. Nobody giving information, 15 . Question, do you approve or disapprove of the way president obama is handling his job as president . 42 approve, 55 disapproving. The website has some of the breakdowns we have been showing you off the ipad. Grants joining us from tennessee on the independent line. Hello. I want to say the military Industrial Complex had the best year. If we look at the number of governmenthe nsa, contractors 3 million, 2 million. Those are not money multiplying jobs. The jobs. Dead and those are 5 million jobs in the defense industry. It is a revolving door. Budget andat the overspending of defense, that is not Homeland Security. Building is going to take 13 years to build the echo where is the outrage. Homeland security is a healthy a a healthy population. Why dont we put some money into the agriculture . Why dont we rebuild agriculture . Theres less than one Million People paying taxes and is that Homeland Security e i ask you. The Defense Military complex, which is also tied in with the and with the congressional complex, they have the strings. We are powerless. A resolve and the budget may be forthcoming this week. Some already beginning to signal they want to press the issue. Shone up next for massachusetts, republican line. I think obama had. This country has never been so divided and a divided government and divided people favors the democrats. Your bags,r, pack you have to go. Host heres rich from pennsylvania. Richr i think the super had the best year in politics and the American Workers had the worst year. I think the Oil Companies and they are having the best year in politics. Thank you. The story in usa today this is jack from virginia, independent line. I would say john kerry. He talked a lot without saying much. To structureble talks and an agreement to keep us out of war. Some would say that is practical and productive. Seen the may have story saying he had a good year. Syria and other issues being listed. Post talkingn about other political figures. Politics is the one we are focusing on this morning. From delaware, democrats line. I think president obama had the best year in politics. If i think he wouldve had a better year if they could Work Together more. The with obamacare, there are some issues with it. If we Work Together to fix it instead of trying to pick instead of trying to repeal it, we will be a better country. Do you think that will happen . Caller i think democrats will take over the house reedit even then it is going to take a lot of one obama came into office he said he was going to get people together. I dont think he has been able to accomplish that. I think he has tried. In my opinion most of the policies that have been enacted some of them originated from republicans. Like no one will work with the tea party. That is the biggest problem. I dont think his ideas are all that bad. I just dont think he has the cooperation from the other people in congress. If you go to the front page of the New York Times close quote times new york independent line, maine, good morning. Obama lied and lied and lied to the American People and got away with it. Years people lied about where he was born. David from germantown tennessee. I agree with the past , obama has refused to work with anybody. Off. S cut republicans have had republicans the best year because obama has failed in practically everything he has done. More of the American People are starting to see who obama is. I dont think he has the ability to tell the truth. Thator three years he knew this healthcare bill would wreak havoc on the American People. I talk to Many Democrats and ask them what is one thing that obama has done to help our country. I have yet to find a democrat who can name one thing he has done to help this country. That is my comment. K look set Senate Leader harry reid. Politico looks at Senate Leader harry reid. It says more on what you can find online. We are asking folks about who had the best year in politics. We hear from the democrats line. Caller i think president obama did. Democrats did because of 47 straight months of private and if theth republicans hadnt blocked and laid off all the as fartor people as candidates for president , i think Bernie Sanders would be one great president. From twitter from jackson mississippi, independent line. I think the whole premise of the question is flawed. Nobody had a good year. Politics is really just rotten in america. You guys in the news media had the best year. That is for all the money went. The money goes to the news media. Follow the money. America. Is rotten in i dont know. Can dan from a pr, ms. It from up here, michigan. From michigan. They crossed all kinds of lines from hispanics to the hispanics and to the blacks to the gays. More call on this. Mark from novelty, ohio, talking about who had the best year in politics. It had the anybody but the republicans, they are imploding. Of a welcome sight because they have had too much power for too long. To one of your last callers about lying and have not fulfilled any obligations. He was talking about george w. Bush, that is who lied to us. Laden host ama bin boson obama got osama bin laden. Host were going to focus on reback will be with us to talk about the policies going on. Joining us for that discussion in the program. Ofyou go to the front cover the latest businessweek magazine, they have a profile. This is what the new general this is what they call her. Because the new ceo on capitolmotors hill it was Daniel Ackerson who was asked about the election. Heres what he had to say. Some have downplayed the some have downplayed the first sake the significance of the first ceo of an automaker. What is the significance of the woman in that job . Have not read anything that downplays its nor do i think it should be. I think it is historic. I think mary was picked up early on her talents, hard work, and success. I am proud of the history General Motors has in terms of remote in qualified minority and female employees. Do that because of science, technology, engineering and math graduates coming out of colleges. About 20 of our plans in this country is owned by women. The young woman who runs our manufacturing and engineering, folks are in the plants. Our complex woman runs , global purchasing supply chain. Quality initiatives and customer experience, woman. These are all 80s it serve on the executive committee. I am not surprised mary rose to the top. She has been with the company for 30 years, graduated from gmi. General motors no longer runs it. They have had their own service academy. I think it stanford is noteworthy. It should be. I think she was well deserving. Joining us on the program is sandy read back. Reback. Of president cture obama and Vice President biden talking to others about trade policy. President obama has really decided to try to reshape the Global Trading system. The first was concerned about things like the Affordable Care act. Now he is really turned overseas in many ways and he has a lot of big negotiations going on simultaneously. One in the asiapacific of the itnspacific partnership and is all part of the pivot to asia. There is concern amongst politicians and the United States, along with other countries in the region. They have grown tremendously economically. The administration believes that through things like trade agreement, that is a way to assure u. S. Allies in the region that United States is going to remain engaged in the pacific. There are charts showing the trade imbalance and what the u. S. Sent out and takes in. It is a sense on how that applies to the asia specific countries. Guest this deal was not a big deal until this year. Them, the u. S. Army has trade agreements with. Malaysia and vietnam were to growing markets that were coming in. This year japan decided to join the negotiations. It is a big target for the United States. Tradeimarily due to auto japan has more cars here and we saw very few cars there. That is one of the things the administration is trying to address. What is the administration asking for and what are you looking for in return . They are both looking to do things like lower tariffs, taxes on imports. Japan, those are fairly low. Theyre trying to adapt agreements and 20th century. To ensure thatng information flows freely across borders. Companies have employees. They can bring that information things to putdo conditions on state owned enterprises. Ande are corporations vietnam. It is a good case of that. The government actually owns and controls a number of the corporations. On idea is to put conditions those so u. S. Countries that are privately held can compete with those other companies. Trade agreements is the topic going on. If you want to ask the guest about what you have heard, here is you can do so here is how you can do so if you want to tweet is a question or comment, do so at c span wj. Because china is in the background, critics have said this is maybe be a way of containment when it comes to the Administration Part of the reason theyre focusing on this deal. Talk about that topic and is there truth to it . Guest others would argue chinas looking to join this. This is going to be a High Standard agreement. They want to remove most of their barriers to trade. It may be more of a midterm prospect for china to come into the agreement. I think the notion is both in the agreement to raise the standard of trade and give a standard for china going forward. I think that is the better way to look at it. Are there similarities between the trade agreement to asia and europe . Trade Agreement Start from the basis of the north american trade agreement negotiated back in the 1990s. There are important differences as well. United states is negotiating generally with countries that are developed economies that have equivalent standards of living with the United States. In asia there are a number of developing economies where wages are lower per capita, grossed a mystic product is lower, and that creates its own product its own problems as well. 202 737000 where are we on the timeline the echo is on the timeline the echo guest on the timeline . Ofst there was a meeting chief negotiators that seems to have resolved some issues. Some people have speculated president obama has a trip to asia planned in april. It may be a real push to wrap it up sometime. In many ways that do not seem to be very realistic. It is unfortunate for the administration to try to put it out there and kind of reach it. What they have said is we would rather take our time and get the agreement right. They have done everything they can to preserve the gnome preserve the momentum. This is a good indication things are coming down to the final stage. Are talking about goods or services as well . We are talking services be United States is competitive in service trades. Think of Financial Services, insurance, health care services. United states has a trade surplus. One of the big targets for this negotiation is to open up the net open up the japanese market. Services are a real important part of this an increasingly important part of the economy as well. We have 2. 2 trillion dollars in exports, 2. 7 trillion in imports. Are those numbers consistent or have the trained overtime . Have they changed overtime . Has been aed states big Energy Importer for many many years. Those count against our trade balance. I heard from some of your calls from the pv a segment talking about horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing, those kinds of things are changing the energy outlook. That could have some affect at affecting the trade balance. Theres no question that as companies have grown, especially at age a, our trade balance has gotten worse. Is 300 billion a year. Is that because people were not holding to the agreements that were written the echo that were written . Caller possibly because different stages of death of economic development. China has had a push on export economy. As china makes a transition to an economy that is more consumption based, we would expect over time for the trade deficit to listen to some extent. Host you are with bloomberg government, which is what . Provide analysis and the impact of government action. I focus on International Trade but we look at defense, health care, finance issues, and those kinds of things. Host here is dave from florida on our republican line. I heard you talk about the competitiveness of our American Companies. I wondered how you felt about the fact that we have the highest Corporate Tax rate in the world and if that is hurting our competitiveness. Is an excellent question and there has been a lot of discussion about the Corporate Tax rate. The Corporate Tax rate needs to be lowered. Ours is amongst the highest in the world now. Pay a muchrporations lower rate. That can be a disincentive to grope and an incentive for companies to actually perform more of their Economic Activity and other countries. There seems to be a general realization that that has to come down. To getbeen difficult things through on capitol hill in the past couple of years. Host randy for michigan on the democrats line. I would like to thank all the people for putting this show on. Good morning to you. Understand the asian deal with the Security Side and all that. We address is how do the wage gap in that area. Service economy doesnt seem to be working for a good standard of living. That is my biggest concern. I am at the end of my work light. For the younger ones coming up, we do have to grow the country. I think you very much and i hope you have a good day. The wage gap is an important concern. A lot of the countries actually involved in the transport pacific in the Transpacific Partnership the biggest economy we are dealing with his japan, which is the Third Largest economy in the world, which is roughly equivalent to the United States in wages and other indications of economic development. Something that are that rules put into trade agreements to try to address, whether it has been unfair subsidies and kinds of things. It is an issue. Is that each trade country will go to its area of competitive of fantasia. Fiber and have a very textile industry. Most of that has moved overseas to areas in southeast asia. We now have a vibrant hightech industry. Each country moves to areas of advantage and we moved up the value change. Host the negotiations to include working conditions guest thats right. There has been a difference between republicans and democrats over the years. Andkratz favor strict labor working conditions. Republicans favor those but they want to make sure they are not too big but dragged on business. Too much of a drag on business. What is the response when the u. S. Presses these types of issues . Guest like any negotiation, they resist a little bit. We try to give as much as we can inotiating with negotiations with United States. Joseph is from maine. Caller is on the republican line. We have very few shows here on cspan about this global basically, what youre doing is, is perpetrating financial terrorism on the American People. Our whole country has spiraled down. The global market, remember, wall street is not part of america anymore. It is basically our enemy. You haveave done is put communism into something so that we are all headed for . 25 an hour. You guys cannot wait until there is nothing left of this country. You have destroyed it. You guys are traitors. This is treason. This is economic treason. You have just ruined the world at the point of mock slavery. Obviously, the caller feels strongly about his views. Thatnk there are areas look at the financial curve in recent years. Agreements, there are a lot of benefits the United States derives from trade agreements. As we export more to other countries, that produces and supports jobs in the United States. Qwest even when there are imbalances between what we sent out and what we taken . You do not want United States to have a net trade deficit for a long time. Sometimes, those things take a little while to come back in equilibrium. Caller we lost half a million jobs. You tried to buy furniture and other items in america. As you said, made in vietnam. On the other hand, we give 101 he billion dollars to the importexport bank to subsidize banks so they can build factories overseas so workers who are not almost nothing can be paid. Then we have the president. Osses head of the jobs council where is the equity echo where is the balance . There is never any balance. This is moving down to the lowest common labor standards in the world. There is obviously a lot going on in that question. I have not found convincing evidence that it has itself been responsible for job loss. Some argue the trade agreement produced jobs. There is no question there has been a decline in manufacturing jobs in the United States and trade is disruptive. There are winners and losers and it is why there is a Program Designed to help retrain workers and move them into areas where the United States is very competitive. We are very competitive in services trade. Biggest and most Competitive Technology companies in the world. Almost all of them are in the United States. As some industries have declined over time, others have risen up and that is how trade works. It can be very disruptive and not Everybody Wins in the game. Michael froman is the United States trade representative, the one who is the point person for deals. He is he has known president obama for a long time. Role, he assumed this worked in a supportive role in the National Security role. Cominga good background in and a very good understanding of the issues. Brings out and tries to agreements. Try to bring these two conclusion in a way that can get through congress. He will be responsible both for negotiating with our trading partners, and then he will be a point person trying to get them through capitol hill because congress has to vote and approve all of these agreements. How much transparency is there in this process . A lot of people would argue not enough. It is a difficult pull and tug on transparency. Some groups would like out in the open. At the same time, there needs to be transparency. There is a system of about 500 which comee advisers from both companies and nongovernmental organizations who are not privy to the text they negotiated. There needs to be as much as. Ossible just by reading a sentence, you may not be able to judge, unless you have a history of doing these negotiations, exactly what these words might be in a particular section. Qwest is someone were to find out the basic texts, are they Available Online or in the public echo qwest the basic tasks are generated not Available Online or in public. There are previous agreements available if you go to the office of trade representative. It will give you a good idea of the kinds of things these negotiations cover. The current ones are not available. Qwest here is john from my sister, pennsylvania. Qwest good morning. A lot of the points i was going to talk about have already been covered. I just hear a little a little snippets that come out. That is the idea of our sovereignty. There will be tribunal set up. If a government decides to change environmental laws or canr laws, these signatures seek retribution or compensation from the government that allows it to happen. Is that true or not . Good question. Thank you for that. We have not seen the tax release. I do not know how these things will be worded. There are exceptions in trade agreements for certain reasons that you can take certain policies. For National Security, there is a general exception that governments can assume the actions they like to take. Same for public health. In some cases, it is true. The difficulty with some ironmental protection maybe we are doing it because we t to keep journal rochester in the market. Host jesse from california, thank you for holding on our democrat line. Jesse . Lets go to paula. Ohio, independent line. Caller i want to know why it said i have to buy all of these your television is on. Go ahead and talk to me on the phone and dont listen to the television. Caller i have to buy all of these products for every country in the world and when i went shopping yesterday for christmas gifts, i went and looked every name that was coming in from the country and i did not see one usa project product. It is a shame. That is all i have got to say. Qwest thank you for your call. Free tosumer, you are spend your dollars in any way you would like. One of the reasons foreign products are popular is because they offer good value and come in at a cheaper cost. That is the reason we would like people in the other countries to buy u. S. Products as well. We need to remember some products which may come in and are assembled in other countries for example, an ipad made by apple, most of the value of that is actually created by apple in california in terms of intellectual property. Even though a product may have a stamp that says, assembled in china, that does not tell the whole story. A lot of products like that, especially electronics, in many cases with apple, comes from united it. Good morning, democrats line. Caller yes, i would like to ask , passed andtion signed into law, are we going to hear this sound we were told about . I was 59 years old when that was set in. Workers. 00 here i am at 59 years old ofking to retire instead that, i had to go find another career. I think trade agreements ought to be fair. I will take your answer off the phone. Thank you for the call. I did not say or do not mean to say it did not affect us. It did affect us. There were jobs lost because some manufacturing went overseas and there is no question about that. Trade can be disruptive era for it can have au, negative effect and there is no question about that. A lot of dislocation. Thinktudies i have seen positive innet terms of employment for the u. S. Economy. There was one done by the Nonpartisan Congressional Research Service that came out earlier this year in february, which looked at some of the employment effects. It is difficult to judge because a lot of things are going on in the economy and not just trade. Had aconclusion was it beneficial effect on the United States, maybe not as much as supporters had predicted and buted when it was signed overall net positive. There are pockets in the economy that are disadvantaged. I am sorry you are one of those. The dealefit most if goes through . We are looking at services industries, which will benefit. Financial services and insurance are right at the top of the list. Tech companies, which provide things like cloud computing, they are well positioned. Heavy Machinery Companies do well in trade agreements. Then, i think our farmers are among the most competitive in the world. That is onet case where japan has high taxes,. Hey stand to do well are there others that might suffer because of this deal . Absolutely. What remains of the u. S. Industry may suffer. In footwear, we have a company up in maine called new balance which still manufacturers they may be the only main event in ther manufacturer u. S. Of footwear. Some industries that have received support from various programs on capitol hill in agriculture, such as the u. S. Sugar industry, they may lose that support and that might open them up as well. Guest sanford reback. Here is the republican line. Good morning. Go ahead. Caller i called on the independent line. That is a correction we want to get there. Theapparently represent interests of wall street. I hope cspan will have someone else on to speak for the another that the other 99 of us not part of wall street and want to benefit from the trade deals. In the past 40 years, 50,000 factories have closed down and millions of manufacturing jobs have been lost. The middleclass has virtually seen no increase in wages while the upper percent have gained a huge advantage on that. I think you are exactly correct when you said the beneficiary of the trade deals will be Financial Services. They are the ones who make these deals and organize these eels done in secret. Of a cannot be much benefit therefore the average person if the deals are done in secret and pushed for approval. Thank you for representing the wall street side. I hope they have someone equivalent on here to talk about the other side. Thank you. Thanks for your call. I do not represent wall street. Never worked on wall street. Im trying to expand how the deals work. Again, i think some industries have done well and i think americans have benefited from greater trade. Affect we can go in and have a variety of products to buy at a cheaper cost is a benefit to us. The fact that we can now sell our products in overseas markets where we are now competitive and Companies Like apple and ibm and that are competitive in these markets can do well overseas. There areo question some industries that do poorly. I am not sure you can place all the blame for that on trade. Other countries are rising their standard of living and it is a competitive world. Have got to strap up our boots and try to compete with them. Looking specifically at the trade agreement, there is a story today in the New York Times about concerns with germany and spying. Talking about how this could affect the trade agreement itself. What is the status . A good question. A great controversy in the United States, obviously. Even more so, in europe, to some degree. Aropeans consider privacy fundamental right. I happen to think we do as well, but they place a lot of stress on that dared especially in a country like germany, where there has been a history of east german spying, they are very sensitive about these issues. These governments have said they do not want the nsa spying way delay or any did her trade negotiation. We need to remember at the same time, europe is negotiating now a privacy law that would apply and americanurope companies are concerned that may inhibit their ability to bring information out of europe. There has been fairly consistent, a lot of voices in europe but most of the leaders said no, the talks should go on. At the same time, europe is pursuing its own privacy laws that could be problematic for American Companies. When is the talk supposed finalized . Guest they are in their third negotiations in washington as we speak. They were originally going by the end of 2014. That is fairly optimistic. Most would say this would take between three years and five years. Time for the city negotiated. Crexendo is strikes me the process is tenuous. Is that a fair explanation observation . I am not sure exactly what you mean but it is difficult to make determinations on when things will conclude. It is difficult when you have got countries that are making in some cases tradeoffs among industries in their country. Access forbetter High Technology and our health care and other countries . We know that will hurt what remains of our textile industry. Thate United States faced issue, other countries at the table are facing it as well. James up next from texas, democrats line. Leg of thisthird trade deal not being mentioned is the loss of collective bargaining rights. If you look at the last 40 years, the same trend has happened. We begin manufacturing overseas. We killed a middleclass blue collar income it does not exist anymore. When you say these agreements have benefited the economy, that may be true in general. But the money has all gone to the top 10 . There is no more upward mobility. We have devastated the tax base and the educational system. Therefore, we are not competitive in the hightech world. When you say trade agreements have benefited america, great. But it is only benefited a few people. There is not enough money in circulation to support the economy. You cannot concentrate all the wealth that the top and expects expect a Consumer Base thank you for the call. I agree with a lot of what you said. I am just not sure we can lay all of the blame for that on trade. 1015 ofs up maybe the u. S. Economy, generally speaking. There are a lot of other things going on in the economy that have in part been responsible for some of the things youre talking about. Certainly, our educational system needs more support and more help. We are competing. It is a global world whether we like it or not. With workers in asia and europe and we need to give them the best tools to do the best they can. I would not disagree with a lot of what you cited. Strong middle class is very important for the u. S. Economy to be vibrant going forward. I just would not lay most of the blame for that on trade. John is up next. Independent line. With mye been battling state and federal representatives against to this trade agreement. Chapters. D the 31 very little is dealing with trade. Primarily deals with Corporation Rights over rightsent, corporation over labor, and writes over environmental impact. On april 20 7,dy 1961, gave a speech. Of thel and collapse United States due to global trade. Thank you. What is your main concern with this deal . The impact of the United States would be devastating. Few jobs we have. You have got to remember, we are not building oil storage tanks. We are building Oil Pipelines to suck the resource out of the United States, not pervert the not preserve resources. Thats ok. Thanks. Thank you very much for your call. I am not quite sure really where to start on that. Think trade is not just us sending what we make here to other countries in other countries sending them back. The world is a lot more complicated than that now. A lot of the value in American Products and services is intellectual property. It is, who designs and apple ipad, and the value in that. That is an area where the United States is very competitive, probably the most competitive in the world in our intellectual property. Trade eels have provisions to try to protect intellectual property because that is where we benefit to a great degree. I think when we talk about trade and trade flows, we need to remember it is not just products and agriculture. It is services in and intellectual property. The Foreign Trade zones zoneslly art tear free set up to allow products to move in and out more freely and more quickly. There are trade zones set up in other countries as well. There is one set up in china. We are looking carefully at that to see if that is an indication of what our trade with china could be in the future. They play a fairly minor role at this point in global trade flows. I believe there is one in kentucky but i would have to check. Also, as far as congress is iscerned, if a deal finalized, does congress have a ay in it . Absolutely. It has essentially the final word. Most trade agreements in the past have been negotiated under this procedure, where what happens is congress consults with the administration as the negotiation is ongoing and when the deal comes back, Congress Votes up or down within a short time without amendment. Some people are concerned about that and i can understand why. On the other hand, our trading partners, the other countries that we are cutting a deal with, would be may be reluctant to give us their best deal if they think first they have to negotiate with u. S. Negotiators and then with congress. That is why the system has been set up in the past. It is one we expect early next year, whether president obama will be given fasttrack authority for this partnership deal. The expectation is it will be a close vote. Fast track votes are usually very close because trade deals are complex and some benefit and some do not. There are some in congress who have said, this is an infringement on the congressional role in foreign affairs. It is a more complicated scenario but we know when president clinton tried to get fasttrack renewed in the 90 in the 1990s, he did not win the vote. By onlyh tried, he won three votes in the house of representatives. We would expect a close vote. North carolina, republican line. Yes. Im calling because first of all, we have a trade agreement and apple is, primarily, it manufactured in china. The workers were worked to death. And they collapsed. In china. Why would we do business with communists . It is likely would do business with russia. Point and so aggravated with this country, that i am ready to move to brazil, which has a fastgrowing largey, and one of the productions in the world. And we bother ethanol by the way. We owe them a lot of money. But we owe china a lot of money because of the fact of george w. Bush wanting to go to war with iraq. Listen, trade policy, the town my mother grew up in was all textile. It is the poorest city in america. It is very sad. There are people there working textile jobs for minimum wage. How can you feed your family about we have talked that several times. The textile industry in particular is one that has i think it is fair to say, it has suffered from International Trade. That is one of the areas where lower wages in other countries have a lower impact. It is not just apple that has benefited from trade. U. S. Farmers are among the most competitive in the world. They have done very well. Companies that make heavy areinery, like caterpillar, big proponents of International Trade and they have done quite well, as well. As we get into areas in health care technology, American Companies are also competitive in those areas. It is a broadbased story but there are pockets that have been very difficult for the american economy. Us on aancis joins democrat line from indiana. Caller good morning. I get a newsletter every month from a guy in texas. Jim hightower. It cost me a dollar. He had one newsletter pertaining to the tpp. If you want to know about this agreement, that has been secretly negotiated, just go to up the tpp and type agreement. But my question is, we are going to a one world government. There are only three countries that the banking dynasty and the Federal Reserve is not in the currency. Iran, cuba, and north korea. Probablyo that, and i will not see it in my lifetime because i am 76, about 1000 billionaires will then control the whole world. But this is all for greed. Host what would you like our guest to address . Caller i would like for him to pollution these companies are going to create in all of these countries, because there will be no laws, our sovereignty will be gone, and compensation and tribunals that will be set up, no one will a dress what they are going to do. You for your question. I think one thing where trade agreements can be helpful is on Environmental Standards. We have little leverage with respect to other countries toironmental policy encourage environmentally safe standards. That is potentially one area where trade and other kinds of agreements on Environmental Standards can be very helpful. Otherwise, countries will act in their own interest. Even china, for example, which , they haveid growth a tremendous pollution problem and they are beginning to realize that in trying to take steps to address that. Agreements would be the only thing that give us a real lever on chinese Environmental Policies to encourage better policies. Prices the Current Situation between china and the u. S. Over the East China Sea going to affect the trade policy discussion as well . It is one not necessarily the Current Situation, but the whole notion of the rise, it is one of the reasons the Transpacific Partnership was envisioned in the first place and why the United States is playing such an active role. China is the second largest economy in the world and will probably pass on a gross aces the United States sometime between 2030 and 2050. They are becoming more aggressive militarily. Moreare becoming aggressive diplomatically as well. The trade agreement, as some people like to see like to call it, almost a security arrangement for the 21st century. The same way we created things like nato. Trade agreements other things that step in now and serve to reassure our allies in the region we are not going anywhere and will continue an active role there. Are we still dealing with issues of their currency . Would think yes. We continue to have a large trade deficit with china. The value of chinas currency has risen to some degree over time. Most economists would say it needs to rise more to really be at a fair level. As we finished, talk a little bit about the next month or so, heaviest the timeline when it comes to negotiations. What should our viewers be paying attention to most . Guest the Transpacific Partnership negotiations themselves. There will be a big push to try to conclude those and that is something to look carefully at. And then this whole notion of fasttrack of authority on capitol hill, whether the administration will get a quick vote on whatever is negotiated, that could come up with a vote in the first quarter. An important indicator of whether the trade agreement will get through, ultimately. Coming up, we will look at the topic of cost and benefits of federal regulation. Two guest representing two sides will join us for that discussion. We will later take your calls and look at the papers. First, a news update from cspan radio. [captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2013] [captioning performed by national captioning institute] Edward Snowden wrote an open letter that says, he has been inspired by the global debate ignited by his release of thousands of National Security Agency Documents and the culture of indiscriminate global espionage is collapsing. A letter, released online, he commended the brazilian government for its strong stand against u. S. Spying, noting noted brazilnts with the top target in america. This included monitoring of the brazilian president have his cell phone and hacking into the staterun Oil Companies in the internal network. He goes on to offer to help investigate in exchange for political asylum. Meanwhile, the National Security agencys Surveillance Program are on the agenda today at the white house as president obama meets from executives from leading technology companies. Also on the agenda, ideas on how to repair the healthcare. Gov website and reform the government information technology. A number of the companies attending have urged the president to curb Surveillance Programs. The letter and the white house meeting come one day after the u. S. District court judge questions the legality of the program, records calling it arbitrary and almost orwellian. The judge is allowing a repeal. The story goes on to say even after the Appeals Court rules, the spring court will probably have the last word. Of a National Security law expert, he says, this is the opening salvo in a very long story. It is important symbolically and is going the metadata program. Judge leon is an employee key of george w. Bush. Those are some of the latest headlines on cspan radio. I am standing in soup in front of the 1905 worlds most practical airplane. This was the third and final experimental plane the right brothers told. It survives as the second oldest of their airplanes today. This airplane, which Orville Wright considered the worlds most practical airplane, was constructed and phone in less than six years time between the and they built their kite the success of this particular airplane. This is also a plain guilt less than two years after their first onght in North Carolina december 17, 1903. What is interesting to think about is the right flyer flu historics on one very day. There were four very important flights and they were the proof of concept of power, heavier than air flight. The airplane behind me, the 1905 right flyer free three, was capable of repeated takeoffs and landings and repeated flights of not just for a few seconds at a time, but upwards of 40 minutes by october 19 oh five. This airplane could fly graceful soakers circles, figure eights, and fly very much like a modern airplane flies. This is very much a modern airplane, capable of being controlled through three independent axes of flight. Pix, role, and yacht. Next week andre as booktv and American History tv look at the history and literary life of dayton, ohio. Saturday at noon on cspan two and sunday at 5 00 p. M. On c span3. Host for the next hour, the cost of federal regulations. Joining us, democrat from , nowsas, Blanche Lincoln the chair for Small Business regulations. Welcome. Also joining us, robert wiseman, Public Citizen and serves as their president. To get their discussion started, we titled as the costs and benefits of the regulation. Let me ask you both, are there cost benefits to regulation . Absolutely. Rg i will bet we will agree on more than we disagree on. We want to see Greater Transparency in terms of what the costs and benefits are. We want real data to be able to see what that is all about. What would you say goes into factoring it, if it is a cost or a benefit . Guest everything should. We are what way over the majority of Small Businesses want safer working conditions, they want cleaner air and cleaner water. They also want to be heard and about how regulations affect them as Small Businesses. And what are the cost to them, whether it is a cost out of their pocket, in terms of jobs they could be creating, or that they have to lose because they have got regulation, you know, what are the benefits . Are they outweighing the costs in terms of what it is costing them as a smallbusiness person in the community and in the economy at large . There are costs and benefits. Regulation has been very vital in making our country as strong as it is. The air we breathe is cleaner. The food we eat it safer. The water we drink is safer. Workplaces are safer. We have gotten rid of child labor all through regulation. We know something about the costs and benefits. The white house looks back over the previous 10 years and looks at both the costs and benefits. Even if you use that figure, which i think does not take into account monetary benefits, the benefits outweigh the cost by as much as 10 to one. That is true for the bush and Obama Administrations. It turns out regulators are sensitive to the costs and impacts on the economy of anything they might do, overly sensitive, and particularly concerned about Small Business, and they do not act rationally. Anyyone that says Significant Impact on the economy, benefits dramatically outweigh the costs. Sense reflected by Small Business that there is too much regulation by this administration . There is certainly a sense by the small and big business lobby that i do not i do not think it is objectively true. The level from the cement a station is not dramatically different from the previous administration. It is somewhat somewhat more, partly because of the wall street reform act and all the rules required out of that, and the Health Care Reform act and the rules required out of that, but by and large, we have not seen as much of a surgeon regulation as you might think, not as much as we might hope to see. It needs to be done. How would you respond to the claims as far as the level of regulations in the past as well . Guest robert is right. We are not about doing away with regulations or agencies. We just think government needs to be smarter about them. 2006, you have seen a larger increase in regulation. About 3300 new regulations in the pipeline right now. What i would say is the uncertainty of what will come out of this large number of regulations, which we have seen an increase, there is no doubt, but again, we are not saying we do not want regulations. What we are saying is we want government to act smarter about them. There are costs and benefits. There are times when we have to determine whether or not the benefits outweigh the costs. Inneed to use everything terms of determining that cost, not just what it costs to the Small Business person, but what does it mean to our economy overall in terms of jobs . We are not growing enough jobs to sustain the growth in our economy right now. Part of that is because of regulation . Some of it is. I am not saying all of it is, but some of it is. Small businesses are really our largest creators, particularly of government jobs. We want to empower them to be able to not only comply and help us reach all of the great things robert mentioned, the fact that we are a country that has cleaner air and cleaner water, safer working conditions, and a whole host of other things we governmentecause of working with industries and businesses, but i think we have lost a little bit of that in terms of empowering our Small Businesses to be able to work with government. That is why we would like to see more transparency in the data used to determine that cost benefit. And that we would have a seat at the table for Small Businesses to be able to talk about their unique experiences of having to deal with compliance. That is really what it is about. Compliance. It is having government smarter so that it will empower Small Businesses and work with them to meet the Regulatory Compliance out there. In that way, both have a vision of what is necessary both government and those regulating, as well as the Small Businesses who definite desperately want to be good stewards not only of the environment and the workplace, but of communities and the economy. She speaks of transparency when it comes to these things. How would you expect how do you respond . Guest there is a strong link but it is different than the senator suggested. The reason our economy is suffering now is directly a result of the 2008 financial crash and housing bubble. That crisis is largely due to whole series of nonregulation deregulation efforts enforcement failures. The Federal Reserve did not crack down on the banks and did not monitor wall street and did not deal with the housing bubble. Whole series of rules have been rolled back and let wall street get out of control, and we are all suffering. Is crisis we suffer from now a direct result of too little regulation. A seat at the table. There are some special laws that require Small Businesses to have an extra byte of the apple. Amazing transparency about cost estimates for any significant rule put forward. That is not an Obama Administration position. Is very amplyness there is a high degree of transparency. It is mostly the other side about stopping rules going forward. There is a special agency at the white house which reviews all significant regulations before they go forward. Rulesgency never makes stronger and never sees them along. It only struck slows them down and we can them. Has been a channel for both the agency and the white house itself to slow the regulatory process. We have seen that time and time again whether it is rules about workplace safety, prevent the from running over getting run over. Host for republicans you can tweet us a question or comment and also email us at well as well. Just to give an example, and maybe this is a wrong one, the dodd frank act, which oversees the Financial Services industry. Into of regulations put place, only about 40 of those actually made it into the process of being official and being on the books. Why does it take so long to get these types of regulations to the point where theyre actually being done . The agencies are facing an enormous pushback from wall street. Wall street fights the dodd frank law in congress, win some, loses some, but they never stop and then they take the fight on into the agencies. Are the Public Interest representation, already weak in congress. Much weaker. Agencies meeting with industry officials 10 times as often or more. Sometimes 100 times, as your meeting with Public Interest representatives. It slows the process down. We are a weaker country for it. Even three years after passage of the law, we have only got half of them done, maybe less. There was a huge need for transparency and accountability in the fountain show financial markets. We try to put into. Frank both the necessary legal language, but also the flexibility for regulators. There is a fine line for legislators. Kind of go through phases on capitol hill where people think legislators are micromanaging, that they are not allowing the regulatory process to take part in what needs to happen as laws are formed and put on the books. Muchimes, there is too leeway given to regulators and agencies. I think in dodd frank, we tried to make very clear what we were trying to do in terms of creating Greater Transparency in dodd franklity and particularly on wall street and handing some of that over to regulators. I think they have done some of what needs to be done. Clearly, there is more to be done in terms of what needs to come out of there. The 40 ou surprised by application of rules and regulations . No because regulators and most of these things take forever. It is important to have the review and the input of wall street. It does not mean they need to write the rags. But they definitely have to have input in terms of their knowledge of what it will do to the markets, as well as what it will do to the Global Economy in global markets. That is critically important. I was reaching out to counterparts in other countries. That was something we did as legislators when we were writing, and certainly, we have seen some of that from regulators. It is an important point. We are not just our own economy. We are working within the confines of a Global Economy and we need to work with those individuals globally. Lets take a call. Democrats line. Good morning. Good morning. About, like to comment we have one party that tries to put in decent regulation. When they get it passed, and get whatever regulation it is, they get past, the other side of the aisle is trying to not fund it. They just try to figure out a passed and it is law, but we do not have to fund it. You can see that in many different ways. Why, after reason the first Clinton White house, i , toded to change my colors try and not look for, and for Common Ground and just make the other party look bad. Mr. Wiseman . It has been a problem that the Republican Party has passedhe idea and regulatory bills and threatened the funding of the agencies to make them carry out rules that reallyen adopted, and make it so they cannot enforce the law. If i could comment on the previous discussion, one of the rules required in dodd frank was an obligation on the Securities Exchange commission to acquire publicly traded companies to disclose the ratio of pay between ceos and their average employee. That was it. Just disclose the ratio of paid between a ceo and your average employee. The fcc, because of so much industry pressure, took a year longer than their deadline to get the rule done. We will see the agencies sued over this. There will be an argument the costs are too high, figuring out this unbelievably simple calculation about the ratio of pay. Ay to average worker that is a typical example of how regulation can clearly serve the Public Interest, often at little or no cost, but faces these claims from industry about enormous cost, and then typically, in the case of dodd frank, a lawsuit, after the agency gets down to issuing a role. We will take another call and then go down to you. Doug, independent line. Go ahead. Thank you for cspan. A little bit of problems sleeping so i was watching programs last night on cspan. You had interesting things. Trade and such. Wiseman,dering how mr. How he would expand upon how these Government Agencies seems to be capture. Panels,d two different and we have these people who were former commissioners and things like that nature. Ceo, and another ,ne is chief legal officer somebody else. I saw one on the federal trade commission. Trade was watching the other negotiating people for trade agreements talked about regulations but they talked about them in such a disparaging way. The audience was questioning about, well, country of labels, origins, things of these nature, also, working conditions and environmental, and things of this nature, that they were so detrimental. Ms. Barshefsky, who basically negotiated for us, has the own firm which tells people about these things. I was wondering if he would comment more on about how all of these agencies seemed to be captured. Senatorpromise to the she would go first. Guest i want to go to the last song we were talking about because the gentleman brought up a great point, certainty versus uncertainty. He talks about being in the middle and finding Common Ground, that is really the key to where we need to be in getting the kind of regulations that will do what we want them to do. Is, again, to provide us a continual effort to clean up our that and air and finding Common Ground makes the difference. We are not doing that anymore. The budget agreement i think they will come up with and get out of the senate is a good example of where we are taking a step, a baby step, in the right direction, finding Common Ground and creating greater certainty, and getting to where we need to be. When we talk about trade agreements, trade agreements are very important. I could not miss commenting on the other piece because it is so important. Americans are really looking for greater certainty out of washington. For trade agreements, you know, they are difficult. More difficult now than ever before. Critically important to the economy globally, as i was talking about earlier, in certainly making sure we are reasonable in what we are looking for in those trade agreements and whether or not we will be able to go along with them. It is the same premise. The caller has got a great point in terms of a big issue where the agencies are supposed to be regulating industry and work too closely with the industry they are supposed to be regulating. Sometimes, instead of thinking about them as the regulated industry, they think about the Countries Companies involved as their clients. The revolving door where people come from industry into the agencies and leave the agencies and go back to industry, they are obviously thinking they have got relationships and they are thinking about their next job when they are making decisions when theyre in the government. Worseprobably is no agency in this regard than the u. S. Trade representative kirk aware they have got people and havingking about a mindset about advancing the interests of u. S. Multinationals in developing trade agreement oft advance the interests u. S. Multinationals. The pharmaceutical industry or the copyright companies, rather than thinking about the impact on everyday americans. They believe what they are saying, to be sure. They also know when they leave the agency, they are likely to work with for exactly the same companies they were benefiting on the inside. Host republican line. Morning. Ood yes, hi. Good morning. Can you hear me all right yet right . All what concerns me about this discussion is the regulators themselves, the people interpreting the regulations, proceed to create an environment abilitythey stifle the of private businessman or private entrepreneurs, to respond to immediate market demands. I will give you an example of that. Sandy, the call tot out to the bus industry supply emergency motor coaches to transport workers in the Staten Island area, which had been heavily flooded. That was both to aid in the removal of people going in and out, and also of emergency workers. Allocated the responsibility for picking these people up, it was unable to find the prevailingt price rate, and ended up having ,o offer double the price rate up to 1500 a day, simply to transport workers about four miles from their barracks to the worksite. Workthey were doing repair for Staten Island. The reason for this goes back to the internal regulations of that industry. That is that you have a number of buses available that the industry could put to work, but in order to do so, they first have to go through a regulatory process and they have to go through an inspection process course, they do not have license plates on them because they have been removed for the insurance. With that in mind, what would you like our guest to address . If you create a vast number of regulations and post them up, what happens is the people who then take those regulations and proceed to try to enforce them, in effect, who constrict the ability of private industry to react to Something Like hurricane history between or hurricane sandy. We will leave it there. That probably goes to part of the process you both talked about. He is flexibility is what talking about. I think that is true. One of the things that could help that is pure review. Bitow robert talks a little about too much. View, but the fact is, you have got to have. View, people in the industry talking to regulators setting these regulations out there to have a better understanding. , is also onemple of the questions when you talk about whether or not the agencies are underfunded. Nobody thought about what sequestration would do. Ustr does not have other programs and other things. Sequestration hit it in a way that our trade representatives could not go to the table in some of these trade agreements because budgets got caught from travel and a whole host of other things. Making sure things are tailor made to different agencies and what they have to do is critically important. When you talk about deployment of agencies for Different Things like health care, some of our agencies are operating with last centurys technology. If we do not invest in these agencies implementing rules and regulations, you are exactly right, we will have agencies behind the curve in getting things out. Some of those things are really important inflight providing flexibility with peer review, making sure industries at the they have making sure a say so when things can be deployed, they can be deployed. I am not exactly sure what the senator means when talking about your review. When we issue major or minor rules, there is an open process. Regular people are able to comment and industry is able to comment. It is an Excellent Way to have engagement by the public in the rulemaking process. Affected industry has a formal way to get in, always. And in formal ways. It is hard to imagine a story about how industry does not have enough say in the rulemaking process. I just cannot see what that example is or where industries positions are. As to the callers question, there are a lot of interesting things in the relationship. One way regulation incentivize is innovation is by imposing new requirements on the industry to do things they were not going to do on their own. It will spur them to invest new. Hings in the environmental area, when the epa imposes a new clean air rule, industry pretty quickly figures out ways to do it dramatically cheaper than they thought was possible until they actually got spurred by the numeral. Industry figured out how to do it on the cheap. Toustry can respond regulatory requirements. Guest it is not a bad idea. It is making sure that gets focus down to Small Business is. I have watched businesses be very creative. They have gone above and beyond. Those are mostly larger businesses. Businessesve small who are simply trying to make greateet, we have a example of a guy in pennsylvania. He has a Small Business. Trying tocomply, build up all of the Different Things for the regulations he had to meet. Taking out loans. The time, he agreed to regulations and then the regulations changed on him. He was invested to getting to where the regulations were in a changed on him. We do nott to say want to move forward. That isg innovators not to say that Small Businesses are not great innovators. They dont always have the resources to be able to implement that. Compliance asin opposed to punitive and putting fines and fees just to raise revenues with enforcement. Guest i think Small Business is far more innovative than Large Businesses are. Most of the solutions by and large come from Small Business. Sometimes there are worries about compliance costs. Bars by andand large Small Businesses, worried very much about the impact of going smokefree. They were stoked by big tobacco. Real Small Business people thought they were going to lose tons of business if they were going to go smokefree. It did not cost the restaurants and bars any business at all. Butfears may be real fears, when it comes down to putting the rules into place, it does not materialize. Guest i disagree. That is an emotional thing. Smoked and it is not something that is great to be around when you are eating. I am talking about the kind of investment Small Businesses are the innovators. Working with their clients or customers, which are bigger businesses. The problem is they do not have the kind of budget that a bigger industry might have. Innovative, they have to be able to have those resources. If they are going to produce the jobs, they have to have some flexibility and a little bit of certainty about where these regs are coming from and how they are being delivered. I do not think they have that of fundingin terms and resources and the day to day. Wish i could still sponsor the softball team, or the Little League team or i wish i could still give to the united way like i used to. I have to let workers go. Most of it is trying to make sure they are running a business as close to the regulations as possible. They are afraid of the enforcement. It is so punitive in a way. You have to focus on empowering Small Businesses to do that. Host leonard from ohio on the democrats line. Caller good morning. Upt did the president give for the nafta program . Safer the lady, what is going by your house, an underground pipeline or a truck hauling oil on the highway . Host how did those topics relate to regulations . Caller she is talking about Small Businessmen and jobs. We do not have jobs. Host mr. Weissman. Guest the nafta question is a little bit different. I would agree nafta was about enabling u. S. Businesses to move manufacturing to mexico and cost jobs in the United States. It was about pushing down on workers wages. They had to compete with the wage levels in mexico. What we give up was some employment and a lot of wage security. Guest i think the underground pipeline would be safer. Investment in that kind of infrastructure would be critically important in growing as a nature as a nation in the Global Economy. We have the new Natural Gas Industry that we have in this country. What it means to us in its ability to produce energy at half the emissions that coal does. There are other things that it nill mean to us in cherubs i terms of job creation. There is not much they can do without being regulated through the agencies. Working with those industries to understand there is unbelievable new technology that can be used, to build forward new pipelines. That will provide jobs and greater safety and a greater opportunity for cleaner air. Who when laws are passed, is responsible for creating the regulations . Congress passes the law and the president signs it into law. The Agency Issues rules to gentlemen the regulation. Rules,ho makes the most which agency . Guest i would say probably maybe epa or department of labor. Health andth care, human services. There are seven regulators with doddfrank. If both of you could respond to this. Information and regulatory affairs. What is that . Guest people know the acronym. It is the office at the white house, a centralized reviewer of all significant rules issued by the government with a few exceptions. Its charge is to make sure the rules are consistent and that costs are outweighed by benefits. It gives industry a second bite of the apple. They take the fight over to oira. It is almost never strengthening the rule. We have seen a huge problem during the Obama Administration of rules getting stuck. Getting stuck for a year or two years. We have a big problem still. Host the office headed by howard shore lansky sh ralanksy. Small. Is pretty you have these huge agencies that put out these rules and regulations. You have three dozen, pretty small. You are talking about needing the review of some complicated things that are put out. Robert mentioned about the revolving door at agencies. I have to say, and i am a huge a lever and ive been in elected office and they do great stuff and they are great, great people. If that is all you have, and that is all they do, how are they as aware of the innovative things that are going on and how they are being and plummeted . And how they are being implemented. And you have new people coming in as opposed to Agency Workers that have been there for 25 and 30 years, i think you miss some of that. You were complaining about the revolving door. I think you need change. I would not be able to work in electronics if i did not have my children around. Young people out in the world doing things and that is what is important. I take that back to the Small Business perspective. Small business does not have the kind of resources, they do not have a fulltime legal team or lobbyists or all those people that will show up at hearings or or thes or oira interaction with oira and other things like that. It is important that government is smarter and able to see what they are doing and what they are up against. We talk about different agencies and groups like this. Small business does not have the time or access to get their point across. Host david in kansas on the republican line. Caller good morning. Thank you for taking my call. A lot of support for doddfrank. A lot of superficial support. There is not some depth of thought as to the unintended consequences. I do not think there is any concern when they are brought to light. Mean that disrespectfully. , it Small Business person is impossible to know. Ow many of doddfranks regulations have yet to be written . It is a trick question. The person trying to conduct business and make decisions. Notorse yet, it is probably dependent upon hundreds of thousands but im people with the capital to go out and take risks who themselves are stepping back if not being forced back were strangled by these on ending regulations. Host are you in a Small Business yourself, sir . The blame is not to be lain down on the streets of the lobbyists or wall street, but at the unworkability, the focal the volcker rule, which is probably come to light and will create more problems than it could hope to quash. The volcker rule host are you there . Being a Small Business person, regulations and the unintended consequences of regulations. Guest i think he was saying a lot of adjusting things. He mentioned the volcker rule, which make sure firms engaging in banking are not involved with speculative betting. He is exactly right. Catered o, complicated. They are explicitly exempted. I agree that the doddfrank legislation was too complicated. It would have been better if we had simpler legislation. It is a step forward. In terms of the complexity the uncertainty he talked about. Doddfrank is a good example. We are looking about 40 of the rules now being issued three years after the law was passed. Why is that . Is it because the industry that is complaining about delay has caused the delay . Is crocodile tears for wall street to say they are facing uncertainty. Created by suing the regulators of the rules they managed to get out. The biggest reason for the uncertainty is that industry opposes the regulation so much. Host senator lincoln. Guest i am trying to think what we are answering here. It was very complicated. There is no doubt. I was involved with title vii. There was need to be technical. The problems that had occurred were wound so tight. We were trying to figure out how do we prevent these kinds of problems from happening again of also to give the kind openness to industry to be able to invest and to make Resources Available to Small Businesses and big businesses. We did create a tremendous amount of transparency. We worked hard on the clearing to make sure that we could create for Financial Instruments the same kind of transparency we provide for commodities. I think we got a lot of that done. There is a lot of people that be using that opportunity to able to be more secure about how they are making investments and how they are creating the resources to be able to invest. Havef the bigger palms we was that we were continually frustrated by the appropriate agencies that some of these were supposed to go to. Agconnection through the committee. Now you only have two commissioners over there. You have to have the people in these agencies understanding what the intent was, what needs to happen, and you have to physically have people there to make decisions to get it done. That is some of the things that will be lacking in terms of doddfrank. Host you just heard from Blanche Lincoln, former u. S. Senator. Us,rt weissman also joining the president of Public Citizen. Why with the president allow oira to slow and stop the regulation . Guest that is a great question. It is an ongoing problem. Is people close to the president , the chief of staff, who are listening to Large Business interests and complaining about rules that have been issued by the agency. That has been one problem and i think it is an ongoing one. There has been a second problem that became very acute around the 2012 election. Did aashington post front page story about this. And going on for a few months after the election. Time forgetting significant rules issued. Whoe is a new head of oira is doing a better job in clearing this up. That was a specific problem around 2012. Host richie from brooklyn, new york. Caller good morning. I was listening to the conversation over the last couple of minutes. Lincoln whatsk ms. She makes of the Small Business administration not having their head nominated the president. It has been a Vacant Office for 10 months. Small businesses are complaining they are losing 200 billion in contracts over the last two years. Corporations, the total bottom line was 27 billion but they have 539 small companies. Not getting the contract they are supposed to get. It is something in the software or things of this nature but it happens again and again. Regarding i heard ms. Lincoln we have this new gas and so on. Businesses have gotten smart about this. Smallre capturing the regulatory commissions inside these local governments and that is what they seem to be doing. Host thanks, caller. Guest i am trying to think of his first question. You go back to the checks and doesces that oira provide. He talks about people not being in the agency. There is no doubt you have to have people in place to run these agencies. They get so big that you have to have the checks and balances. And it takes time. That is something that we have to look at as a greater efficiency in terms of what government is providing and making sure that people that are there are getting the job done that has to be done. Small businesses do not have the kind of time he talks about the competition for contracts. They do not have certainty and they do not have the resources. Businesses that are polled say they are not hiring. They are not hiring because there is uncertainty. They do not know if the resources are going to be there for them. Small businesses are the ones that are creating jobs. We are not creating enough jobs in this country. Host does the idea of uncertainty . Guest i think that is exactly true. The economy is stalling. I do not think it has anything to do with regulatory uncertainty. What is the future of the economy . Is the economy going to grow . And i going to have customers . Thatu look at the question richie had raised about Small Business contracting, i think there is a big problem. The government not allocating its contracts to Small Businesses. The consistent story across the different areas and it all comes down to this. Big business and the heavy lobbying effect has too much impact over the government. Gettinglk about contracts for Small Business, that is one manifestation. Big business shaping the regulatory process and slowing down rules. We talk about trade policy on behalf of Large Business and about the failure to enforce antitrust laws to break up the companys that unfairly compete. Look across all these different areas. The Government Works too often too much for big business and to infrequently for the rest of us. It has a lot to do with the Campaign Contributions and the heavy influence of the lobbyists. Guest it is not just consumers. Small this is contract with bigger businesses with their ability to be able to do that. A Small Business back in arkansas is contracting with a bigger business. You are talking about the industries that are the customers of the Small Businesses. They are supplying a part of that supply train to a bigger business. It islk about customers, not just the people who walked into the coffee shop to buy a cup of coffee. These innovators out there who are really innovating in those busy employee shops for new widgets and gadgets that will fit into the new behemoth of an airconditioning system or a huge piece of equipment. It is important to remember who those consumers are. Host surely on our republican line shirley. Caller these nice people are a classic example of what is wrong in washington. All of these agencies are put in and all of these hires of people are unelected, do not know what they are doing. It should go back to the states. Let the American People show what they can do. We shouldnt have to say mother may i if you want to put in a yogurt shop. It is ridiculous. The trade agreements that we are in, most of them are not working in our favor. We have trade deficits with every blessed one of them. This building up in washington has to stop. ,heir are millions of people like the guy from epa that does nothing. Host she put a lot out there. Guest i would argue it is going back to the states. Because of the paralysis in washington, many businesses are taking their issues back to the states. Trying to figure out how we get this change or mandated in 50 states. Whether they want something new mandated a change what has been done. They are seeing and lack of ability in washington to be able to come together. Yogurt shops are great but we cannot circle wagons and sell our widgets and gadgets to each other. We are in a Global Economy. Host mr. Weissman . Guest there is an Important Role for the states and rules for health and safety. There are important things the government does that you want them to do. You want to know when you buy a pharmaceutical that that is a safe product. You are relying on the food and Drug Administration to make that recommendation. We have a history before we had the fda. You do not want to be buying poison food. Da oneed a working usf that. If you go down the line and look at what the government does, you really want and rely on the things the federal government does clean water, safe food, safe drugs, an economy that is not imploding. These are things that you want. Guest and i agree with robert on that. We have come a long way in 100 years. Host what would you both seek of this administration. What are you looking for . Looking for more input from the Small Business. I think they are affected differently. To big industry because they are a supplier in many ways. I do think we need to have more access to determine these regulations. Thinkrreviewed i do access to that data and making sure others are able to bring in a point of view from outside the agencies. The agencies do a lot of that review. There needs to be more input. And some judicial review would be important. The most important thing is having a seat at the table. They need a seat at the table where they can make a difference and doing what we want them to do, which is creating a safer workplace and clean air and clean water. And where good data has been used to seeing the benefit we are getting from that regulation is outweighing the cost in dollars,ways, notches and a whole host of other things that should be included in terms of those costs. Obama i think the administration should say we have three years left and we came in with the dreams and we fell short. We want to get in place all of these doddfrank rules. We do not want a repeat of the crash. There are a whole host of things we can do to protect workers at the workplace and we are not doing that. We are going to wish that through as fast as we can. Mindful of cost but getting that through. We have not implemented the new rules for food safety. We are going to get that implemented. There were all kinds of things we want to do on climate change. We want to make sure we get the rules through before we leave office. We want to make sure we are protecting consumers. We want to stop holding up rules. Were going to put through the rule that Congress Mandated in that regard. One of the thing we came to office to do, the Obama Administration should ask, we will get it done before we leave office. Host you have heard from Robert Weissman and Blanche Lincoln. To both of you, thanks. We will spend our last halfhour taking your comments on the headline in almost every newspaper today. Nsa call Traffic Program is probably legal. But first we have news from c span radio. Some more economic news. The Consumer Price index was unchanged last month after dropping. 1 in october. Prices stayed flat in november. Inflation remains low across the broader economy. Politics, former senator scott brown who lost his seat in lasters election has found a buyer for his massachusetts home and plans to move to new hampshire. There is speculation that he may who isge jeanne shaheen, seeking reelection next year. Senator brown lost his seat to Elizabeth Warren in the 2012 election. Senate democrats expect a budget bill to survive a test vote today now that at least seven republican said they will support the regulation. It will ease budget cuts in part by reducing the deficit by a modest 23 billion over the coming decades. These the words of the associated press. The house passed the measure expected to reach president obamas desk no later than tomorrow. Those are some of the latest headlines on cspan radio. What is going on today comes down to two words, fundamental transformation. Those are obamas words. I ask a couple of questions. Does the president have the power to transform america . Of course not. You want to fundamentally change america . That means you dont like capitalism and our constitutional system very much. When you keep hearing this transformation, change is hard, you need to understand this is a direct attack on our constitutional system. That is what he is talking about. And radiolling author personality mark levin will take your calls and questions, live starting at noon eastern. The first sunday every month on cspan2. We want to know what your favorite books were in 2013. Join other readers to discuss the notable books published this year. Cspan. We bring Public Affairs events from washington directly to you, putting you in the room at congressional hearings, white house events, briefings, and conferences, and offering complete gaveltogavel coverage of the u. S. House, all as a Public Service of private industry. Were cspan, created by the cable tv industry 34 years ago and funded by your local cable or satellite provider. And now, you can watch us in h. D. Washington journal continues. The the headlines of Washington Post we are going to get more information but we want to get your reaction to this latest development when it comes to the nsa. Heres how you can reach out to us. Republicans, 2025853881. 2025853880, democrats. S. 25853882 for independent joining us to give us some information about this decision is Jonathan Turley. He is a Law School Professor at George Washington university. Could you fill in the blanks . What did the judges decision say . Guest the government does not have the authority to just collect all of these calls and emails, socalled metadata, without having any particular suspicion. The framers of the constitution would be aghast at the notion that the government could collect hundreds of millions of calls and emails just in hopes that they will stumble over something relevant or to hold it to some date when it can be used. He found this was a flagrant violation of the constitution. This is a very conservative judge. Became as a greater surprise. The Administration Just secured a victory in front of a secret court called the fisa court. They said this was constitutional. Many constitutional scholars had to agree with judge leon, this cannot be constitutional if the Fourth Amendment has any meaning to it. Host where does it go from here . Said judge leon properly i will suspend my decision here. We will go ahead and stay it. You can see if you get me reversed. It will go to the d c circuit, which tended to be conservative and to favor the administration on National Security issues. Saysleon does here is he this is wrong. We have a constitution that is based on core notions of privacy and limitations on executive power. He says this is virtually orwellian in its size and use by the government. Host is there any chance this could progress up to a Supreme Court level . Guest it very well could. That court tends to be more security on police power questions. Judge leon is going to face considerable challenge as this goes forward in the court of appeals. His decision is an advancement for the review board. President obama has been saying he does have the authority to collect this type of metadata. The Justice Department has been quietly opposing every effort to get judicial review of that power. There is a type of disconnect in the administration. This case went to judgment. A judge said this is pretty scary. They are storing this information, the government has immediate access to the location and duration of calls. There is a lot of information to be squirreled away. Host what do you think the governments response is going to be . Guest they are going to appeal it. The white house set up a review board after the controversy with the snowdon disclosures. That review board issued its recommendations. This is a perfectly lawful program was one of its findings. That review board was heavily criticized. A furtherion was embarrassment for the white house. Talking tohan turley us about this decision on the nsa collection practices. Professor turley, thanks. Host if you want to give your thoughts on this decision, here are the numbers. 2025853881 for republicans. 2025853880 for democrats. Independents. Or you can tweet us or email your thoughts, journal cspan. Org. This is james from austin, texas. Caller good morning. I wanted to reply to john turleys comments. Host why do you bring up the question . Caller i think it is important to know. These are federal judges. If they presume it is constitutional in the first place, how could they have required this type of opinion . Why would they form this type of opening to begin with . Texas. Ames from austin, republicans. For 2025853880 for democrats. 2025853882 for independents. Times editorial host janice from North Carolina, democrats line. Good morning. Caller good morning. Judgeoncerned that this has made a decision based on his personal opinions. If we are going to have that senator having a hearing to destroy the president like he does on everything else. Dakota. Nk, north caller if you are not doing anything wrong, what is the big deal . Let them snnoop. Host why do you think it only concerns those who are not doing anything wrong . Caller in matters to everyone. If youre not doing anything wrong, what is the big deal . Let them snoop. Host that is frank from north dakota. The decision was made yesterday. You heard Jonathan Turley speak about. We will take those calls for the remainder of our program. Republicans. For 2025853880 for democrats. Independents. Or if you go to the Washington Post this morning, Eugene Robinson gives his opinion. This is part of what he writes. Ays the betrayal of our values and we cant let our Internet Companies know they can fight for privacy and using the most advanced encryption technology. Carolina, on the independent line. Caller thank you for taking my call. Thank you. I was going to add my comment about the nsa program. I think it is a form of espionage. Instead of spying on the people, it is mainly set up to rig the markets and to influence commerce. Host how would it do that . Caller by influencing trends, influencing the forecasters. To the fed. Ed in just like the last guy was talking about, the regulators and all of that. That is my comment. Tyler. His is from another story in the wall street journal this morning. Host simon from california, republican line, good morning. To me it isoe unconstitutional. E is a series of protocols we had to go through to get that information. The information they are talking about was used for targets. There was a you to throw out a big net doesnt make sense to me. Host jesse is from michigan. Caller good morning. Pleased to get in on this topic. It is mindboggling to me. And sayan call up youve got nothing to hide. Host you have to keep talking to me. Go ahead. Caller yeah. We are already in a police state. The police can pull you over for anything. Host cassidy is up next. Please turn down your televisions. That lets the conversation go on smoothly. Cassidy from kentucky. Caller to the individual who said let them snoop, i like my privacy rights and i like the constitution. I think it is ignorant that he said that. Host what do you think about the decision . Caller i think it is a good decision. I wish more people would be involved and get educated. Host the president meeting today with several tech leaders in washington to a dress issues of the nsa and the technical aspects of the Affordable Care act. He will meet with the leaders. They are 15 leaders host normal, utah, republican line. Caller hello. I just wanted to say i agree with the judge. It is completely unconstitutional. I do not trust obama as far as i can spit. Government has gotten completely out of control. The American People need to take it back. Host a story from the New York Times this morning. And announcement is expected next year about the search process for the library for obama. Host jenny from texas. Caller hi. It doesnt bother me if they listen to my telephone all day long. It doesnt bother me at all. If they can stop a terrorist from killing someone i love, that would be wonderful. Host the amount of data they take in, that does not bother you . Caller no. Mike from alabama. Caller i agree with the lady that just spoke. The main thing is that they find a lot of things to help with security all over the United States. People do not think about that. People plot against the United States every day. I agree with that. Ast u. S. Oil production, story in many papers. There was an up date about oil production. Is followed up in the papers today. Host flint michigan, this is ken. Caller hello. I do not believe we are living in a democracy. Our government has been taken over by corporations. To me that sounds like fascism. They do not care about the constitution. All they care about is making money any way they can. Host that idea about making oney what do you mean what does that mean with the information that is collected on phone records . Caller that is part of the whole thing. They are stomping on our rights. That is another way of doing it to keep us quiet. Multivitamins on this morning when it comes to is the like this wall street journal. , theyme medical journal found no consistent evidence that the included supplements affected cancer. Independent line from new jersey. Caller i am calling him concerning the interesting dynamic between the attention received by certain public figures and certain outlets and a certain soapbox about things going on right now. Is beautifulere interesting debates all the time about these very cases that have been talked about today like between the nsa and the aclu. It is crazy. We live in a country where our freedom of speech is so free and enabled by technology. We get to watch people do it out on cspan. Pieceave to speak their and answer these questions from each other. It is great. Stuck,ebates seem to be even when they are streamed on live television. We can only watch. And i think it is interesting how this discourse between these public figures, questions of great moderators. Host jim from manassas, virginia, republican line. Caller i havent heard anybody say this. My main concern about the nsa or any other agency being able to is what weing data have seen over the last year in presss to the associated being spied on, sheryl akin sin being spied on, her computer sheryl atkinson. There have been articles about her computer turning on and off at night. She had investigators to see what is going on. She was a reporter reporting against the fast and Furious Scandal and also benghazi. I think there was an issue with is yourple my fear political adversaries maybe not to the nsa but in spying from ,he government in general somebody your religious adversary. Next is anthony from california, democrats line. Caller am i on . I just wanted to say the nsa does not need to be spying on everyone. I do not think everyone is a terrorist. I believe the corporations and the nsa and any large governmental type body are sort isout of control and nobody defending the constitution any longer. I think it is a sad day for america and the American People. Host the Navy Yard Building in washington will get a new visitors entrance and a renovated interior. Host on cspan today, a hearing on that Navy Yard Shooting. You can see that hearing live starting at 10 30 this morning on cspan and on our website, www. Cspan. Org, and on our Video Library as well. Tyler from michigan. Caller i do believe it is constitutional. If we examine the Fourth Amendment, it includes unreasonable search and seizure. I guess it depends on how we interpret that. In my opinion it belongs to the cell provider. It is not a tangible document. I think our framers were trying to say, they do not have digital documents. I believe they were referring to physical, tangible documents and that is my comment. Host steve from minnesota, independent line. Caller good morning, pedro. America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter, it will be because we lose ourselves. Abraham lincoln. Have a nice day. Host a couple of Facebook Comments. Host you can make those thoughts on facebook on our facebook page, facebook. Com cspan. Tony from texas on our democrats line. You are on. Caller i want to talk about the prescriptions, the medications this morning. The Drug Companies are trying to stop people from buying vitamins. The vitamins a much better than the medication issued by doctors. Host that is the last call we will take on this topic. Another addition comes tomorrow at 7 00. Thank you for watching. See you then. [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2013] coming up today on cspan we will take you live to capitol hill for capitol hill. This in the wake of the september Navy Yard Shooting in which 13 people were killed, including the gunman. That is at 10 30 a. M. Eastern. Looking at violence in the Central African republic as the death toll rises from clashes between christian militias and were supporters of the muslim presidency. Here on cspan. Over on the senate floor, the chamber about to take a key procedural vote on