Transcripts For CSPAN Washington Journal 20140204

Counterparts. We will talk to the author in just a minute. In our first 45 minutes this morning we are interested in the thought of american exceptionalism. Here is how you can weigh in this morning. 20258 reach outou want to on social media, not only can you post yourself on facebook this morning, that you can take part of a pole that asks the same question. Journal cspan. Org is how you reach us an email. Pedal peter buying heart, from the atlantic, joins us. His book is entitled the end of the american his article is entitled the end of american exceptionalism. Where did you get the idea for this title . Caller i was looking through polling data from Young Americans and what struck me was how different the attitudes were from stereotypes about what makes americans different from someeans and how, in really striking ways, the attitudes of Young Americans are much closer to the attitudes of europeans than those we consider stereotypically american. Host you set it up to define what you mean by exceptionalism. Is that part of it . Can you expand . To say that america is exceptional does not just mean that it is different from other countries. Every country is different from other countries. The idea is that america is the exception to a rule. Historically the rule has always been defined by europe. There was this idea that there was an established way of thinking or running a country. Thinking about the designs that were established in europe. The United States, it was an exception to that. In todays world, people tend to think about american exceptionalism in terms of religiosity and our special mission in the world and in terms of our belief in our upward mobility and lack of cost lack of class consciousness. And all three of these ways the attitudes of Young Americans are much less exceptional than we think. Parts,ake the last two our role in the world, what has been the general thought . Especially to the older ones who share those ideals . And what is the thought amongst millennials, as they are called . There is a strong sense amongst Older Americans, certainly not all, that the United States has a special mission in the world to spread , whatever exactly that means. And that also this special role gives us special privileges. The privilege of not having to essentially take orders from other countries and be able to follow our own will when it comes to things like needing approval from the United Nations for military action. What is striking about the attitudes of millennials is that millennials really reject the idea that america has a special mission in the world. They have a much more minimalist idea of what america should be doing. But they also deny the idea that america should be able to act on its own prerogative. It is more typical for or. Lder americans beyond that, they are more likely to deny the idea that American Culture is superior. These are some of the statistics i found most striking while doing research. Older americans are substantially more likely than europeans to say that our culture is superior, but Young Americans are actually less likely to say that. That is shapedof now that we are 10 years after 9 11 . A lot of it is a reaction to the iraqi war in general. One interesting thing is that Young Americans were the demographic most supportive of the iraq war originally, but they are the group whose support for the war plummeted most are medically. Disillusioninga experience because it came in their formative, youthful years than it was for Older Americans. A lot of these attitudes are a response to the kind of attitude about americas role in the world that you saw. You could even see this in the kind of hyper patriotism of the Bush Administration. You could also see that in cultural figures, like jon stewart and stephen cole bear, we spend a lot of time kind of mocking the aggressive, inyour face patriotism that was characteristic of the bush era. Is thenother category ability to move upward, upward mobility. Talk about that. Right. Historically, one of the Things Considered to make america exceptional is this idea that white americans, historically, were out religion of their birth as much as europeans. That they could rise above their station based on talent and hard work. We have known for a while now that this is no longer the case in the United States today. That by many measures, the United States has less upward mobility than many states in europe. What i would argue makes millennials different is they no longer believe in the myth of american upward mobility. You find that Older Americans still believe in the myth of Horatio Alger in larger numbers, where younger americans are much less likely to believe that. Much less likely to say that the rich people got there because of hard work and talent and are more likely to say that because that they got there because they were born into privilege. Part of the corollary of this is a greater degree of class consciousness. The stereotype is that all americans think of themselves as middleclass. Actually, a lot of Young Americans now referred themselves as lower class, referring to themselves as have nots. This is an attitude historically associated with europe. Clash cap class consciousness, the belief in Rising Economic economy, but we are now seeing much more amongst younger americans. , if theser beinart attitudes continue, what does it mean for the United States and its future . Caller in the essay i argue that it is not a bad thing that younger americans are rebelling against some of these myths, because those myths have not been working out for them in practice. What good is it to claim that america is a country with exceptional upward mobility when, in fact, it is not anymore . Perhaps changing the American Economic system to make upward mobility possible again means being more clear eyed about the reality of where we are. , the response to the idea of americas Exceptional Mission in the world is the response to the very painful disaster of American Foreign policies that have led us to these terrible wars in iraq and afghanistan. Being more suspicious of the myths that lead us into those two wars may actually be that beginning of a path to a wiser Foreign Policy. Host Peter Beinart teaches at the City University of new york. You can find his work on american exceptionalism on the website for the national ,ournal here go Peter Beinart journal. Oh journal. Peter beinart, thank you for your time. Caller thank you. Our topic this morning, is america exceptional . You can tell us on one of the three lines available. Host if you go to our Facebook Page, not only facebook. Com c span, but not only can you make your thoughts known there, you can participate in a poll this morning of people weighing in. So far saying that america exceptional, 47 . 34 saying that america is not. Tim, good morning, what do you think . Caller i think that america is exceptional. In the case of michigan, only in michigan can they take a surplus, again, a 1 billion surplus and give it away to the richest people in michigan if they own property instead of fixing our roads with it or giving money back to education. It is an outrage. I just heard it on the news today and i knew it was coming, they are pulling an angler. Thank you. Mike joins us from cary, north carolina, republican line. Hello. I do believe that america is exceptional, still exceptional, but whether we retain that, i do not know. I am familiar somewhat with the work of Peter Beinart. I think that his view comes from the left side of the political spectrum. I listen to him, it is very shortsighted and forecast and focused very much on the last 10 years and the Foreign Policy of bush, iraqi, and afghanistan. Not saying that they were perfect. They were flawed. A lot of americas history is flawed. But when you go all the way back ,o the founding of the country our constitution, the only country in the world that enshrines the rights of the individual in an effort to restrain our government, what we have accomplished in terms of technology, inventions, inventors, the fact that we have sent our youth to die on foreign battlefields not for toonialism or empire, but spread freedom. Mostly in world war i and world war ii. We can debate vietnam and other lesser wars in the last half of the century. None of them were perfect. But all in all, if you take america from beginning to end, or from beginning to now, yes, america is exceptional. You can still succeed here. We have done what no other country in the world has done before. That is my opinion. Thank you. Theseyou may agree with opinions, you may not, you may have another take on them. Call in host theodore haskins, from twitter, says host you can make those thoughts on twitter known. Facebook, as well, two. Republican line, port city joe, florida. Yes, americas exceptional because over 250 years ago 50 men calmly sat down to draft a form of government dedicated to securing our natural rights. 1913, the government of the United States did that, secured our natural rights. In that time we went from a backward agricultural collection of 13 petty states into a first class world powerhouse. People busted down doors to get into this country. To experience freedom, and such. We have forgotten that. I am amazed that your guest, the author from the atlantic, could drone on and on about this, that, and the other, and never come down to the fundamental point that our country was founded not from the people rising up and demanding rights from a king or a desperate, it was founded by men, as i said, sitting down and calmly putting together a government that secured our rights. Until we get back to that, our nation, our public is doomed. Host also facebook, Richard Smith says Carter Clemons says a couple of thoughts this morning from facebook. Back to the phones, chicago, illinois. Caller is this me . Host is this bruce . Caller it is. Host you are on. Go ahead. Does this gentleman think that western europe has more opportunity than this country . I get so sick and tired of people complaining, complaining, complaining. If we could just get the government out of our lives, stop demonizing people that moved the country ahead, the people that pay the taxes, the people that pay the bills of the country, all of a sudden you are demonized and saying you are not doing your fair share. To whereo get back people that pay taxes are more revered than demonized. Host what would you say makes america exceptional . There is opportunity galore in this country and it gets crushed by the government. They just will not let people they keep complaining, they want to take away from people who are achievers. You cannot take away from people who are achievers and have a mission and give it to someone else and expect the thing to survive. Host a hearing on capitol hill about Army Recruiters and bonuses paid to those who would sign up for duty. Are probingrs allegations that hundreds of National Guard recruiters and others tied to the military abused and Enlistment Program at the height of the iraqi war. Next, oklahoma, independent line. We are asking about if america is exceptional. Caller yes, it used to be. Good morning, pedro. Excellent, good morning. I am a proud austrian american. I bring that outside european perspective. My military has been raise the. Amily here the United States used to be exceptional. What the older generation has to understand is that they can no longer live in the past, know they rehash the past. All that you can do is learn from it. Throughl, they went world war two. Austrians are very proud. They stand very proudly. What is it about americas past that makes it exceptional . Caller oh, my god, where do i start . First of all, they tried in the overextended. Peter did not explain it well. They release it really started during the cheney Bush Administration. They went completely overboard. Patriotism is not flying a flag, it is what you do and how you act in your country. You do not go and dictate to other countries. You do not do that. Host pete is next, texas, independent line. Hello, pedro. America was exceptional in terms of their resources and rooms for expansion and all of that after they took over from the native americans. Now makes it unexceptional is that it is part of the globalization, income inequality, and greed. In any other place in the world, the one percent can exploit the majority, the 99 , for their profit. So, that is my opinion this morning, pedro. Is pete, from texas. We have a story about janet yellen being sworn in as the first female chairman. The meeting will take place on the 18th, she is scheduled to hold a News Conference before that. She will appear before Congress Next week to deliver the feds twice for year report on its handling of the economic outlook. Sworn in yesterday, she is being sworn in by her husband, a nobel prizewinning economist. The story from the washington times, noted what happened to , benrevious fed chairman bernanke, reporting that the Brookings Institution announced he would join as a distinguished resident. John, rancho rio, new mexico. Hello. Caller good morning, pedro. Rio rancho. Host sorry. Caller oligarchy, basically. I think we are an exceptional nation. Tohave the infrastructure become an exceptional producer of growth again. The problem that we have is that we have no capital. All of the capital has taken off to the Cayman Islands and other sorts of places by these by these people who claim to be super patriotic for america. The wealth gap is very real. If you look at wages, they are stagnant over the last 25 years. There is a gap between the rich and the poor and the almost nonexistent middleclass. You see the trickle down theory not working. You give the one percent the reins, they take what they can, they justify the fact that they cannot hire workers, they make all sorts of justification that our allies. Way, what is the best moving forward, to change the idea of making america exceptional . Caller we need to recognize that human nature is a greedy animal. Bill gates gave a billion dollars to charity last year, theenerally speaking articles of confederation, the federalist papers, the Founding Fathers knew this. Humans were desperate by nature. From twitter, art says us andou may be joining missed our interview at the top of the program with Peter Beinart. Of the atlantic. He wrote a piece for the national journal, talking about the end of national exceptionalism. We are asking people this morning to comment on the idea of americas exceptionalism. You can give your thoughts on the phone line and on facebook as well. Aten also tweet us http twitter. Com cspanwj. Wyatt, good morning. Caller thank you for having me. I am part of the young libertarian movement. As a whole, i think our country is exceptional because of where we began. We began starting at the bottom and we built up. The constitution does not really cover everything. Lets be honest, here. But as we continue to go up i think we will realize the fundamental of our programs and we will cut off what does that work until we get to the right amount of government. Other countries that started at the top and work to down will have bigger problems figuring out what is messed up and what is not. Davis, pennsylvania. Bill, republican line. Caller you are one of my favorite hosts. I wanted to say that america was exceptional at one time, but we are losing it. We have really started to lost it. Time,s because at one something that work for everyone. Our economy and government work for everyone, with the exception of slavery, which eventually ended. America at one time followed a judeochristian ethic. We also had the value of hard work. Today we are sorted into a secular materialism. People have become lazy. People have become poorer people doecause many not inform themselves properly on the affairs of water going on. Thank you very much. Host several developments, looking at the investigation regarding the closing of the George Washington bridge in new york. Joining us to talk about the latest, Michael Simons, of the asbury park press. He has written a book, chris inside story to his rise to power. Thank you for joining us. Can you talk to us about the events concerning the investigation . Caller there are two investigations. One of them is being done by the legislature. Subpoenas ande 20 the first subpoenas began being delivered yesterday. They were subpoenas for documents and not testimony at this time. And then there is the separate investigation being done by the u. S. Attorneys office in new jersey. They have also issued subpoenas. Governor christie was doing his monthly radio show last night and acknowledge that the ther or his office Governors Office received subpoenas. Host as brought to light by your by her paper, some people resigned come resigned, some people pled the fifth. Can you elaborate . Caller two of the people provided with subpoenas have told the legislature that they will not provide the documents in question. One of them used to be the deputy chief of staff in governor christies office. He also managed the campaign in 2009. The second person then succeeded him as deputy chief of staff when he left to go to the campaign, richard kelly, a person who in august, it has been learned, sent an email to the Port Authority, saying to him that it was time for some traffic problems in fort lee. What is the significance to these actions, if there are any to be seen . Caller the legislature got documents from people at the time who were at the Port Authority, to learn a lot about what we know so far. The testimony that you give to the legislature is supposedly supposed to have some sort of prosecutorial immunity, but obviously at that point prosecutors could see and use that as an avenue for investigation. They are basically saying that they have a fifth amendment right not to testify and incriminate themselves, so they will not cooperate. The legislation came up with a response when David Wildenstein was called to testify. He refused to answer questions and he was held in contempt, which is a misdemeanor. Host last weekend his lawyer submitted a letter in part that says that the evidence of direct ties to governor christie are has there been any change in that front . Not really. On friday the attorney said that evidence exists, but he did not say that he had it, which would be the most interesting. He essentially said that the governor knew that they were going on at the time of the lane closings. The governor said that basically, look, if he knew anything about traffic in september, it did not make an impression, because traffic at the bridge is not a big deal for him. It did not rise to that level for him, but it became memorable as a story in the wall street journal on october 1 in the wall street journal on october 1. The director of the Port Authority said that these closings may have been the legal and were wrong to do. The point where christie says that he told his chief of staff and chief of counsel that they needed to look into it, which is another thing that we learned yesterday on the Radio Program. Until now people had wondered why he did not you anything about this until december, when it started to get additional coverage and a legislative hearing was held about it. So, there was a. Of inquiry in which we learned some things, because in december and january we were caught off guard by what we now know. The governors tone like on that Radio Program . There were quite a few questions from the host about new jersey hosting the super bowl, sort of conversational type questions. There were a lot of questions from the host, many times, about the bridge situation. However, very few of the callers who called in for the show were asking about that. They were asking about various other issues, property taxes, other personal parochial concerns, which is the kind of question he gets on the show all the time, but too many people who were eager to hear the governor talk about this, you could see conversations on twitter and in newsrooms saying why are we asking questions about this . Host that is Michael Simon joining us on the phone. Our guest has written a book on the topic of governor chris christie. Chris christie, the inside story of his rise to power. Michael, thank you for your time. Again, we returned to our question, is america exceptional . Tosha, thank you for waiting. Good morning. Caller i do not believe that america has been exceptional from the start. We have had assassinations with people not being able to have their way. This land was stolen from the indians that they killed off. This country was built on the backs of slaves and until this day there remain people who want to continue to live in the olden days. The system has never, never work for everyone. Thank you. Host darwin, up next. Caller i have a nephew and a grandson who are professors in china. They taught one year in south korea, one year in japan, now they are teaching koreans in china. The grandson is starting a business over there. Consulting with Chinese Students who would like to come to america for the colleges. I asked him how come you dont come back over to the United States to start your business . He said that it is so much easier to start a business in china. Sot the United States has many rules and regulations, the banking is so hard and so tight that his potential for making a business and a good living in times better than it is in the United States. By the way, he speaks six foreign languages. A very brilliant, brilliant professor. So, god bless america. We have a long ways to go to get back on top again. Thank you for your time. Host the federal government allows some companies to receive release request that they receive on information from the nsa. Google,isposed by microsoft, linkedin, tumbler, providing expanding details and venting criticism on the handling of Internet Data in counterterrorism and other intelligence related probes. The figures through 2012 and 2013 show that these companies were compelled by the government to provide information on as many as 10,000 customer accounts in six months. Yahoo complied on more than 40,000 accounts in the same time. Maria, westville, new jersey, good morning. Think that america is still exceptional. We are made up of individuals who came from all parts of the world and we have the spirit of individual liberty. I think we have gotten away from our ideals because of the pact that we made with great written during world war ii where we accepted being imperialist. President obama talked about our country as being composed of groups, which is wrong. Americans should not think in florals, they should think of each individual. We should rethink what we get out of these Bilateral Agreements with these nations so that we can be independent financially again and stop the globalist agenda. Even with all of this, this is a nation where you can become more perfect. Thank you. Cyber crime and privacy, the Senate Judiciary committee is taking up that hearing today on cspan three. You can also share your comments on facebook and twitter, if you want, using our special feature if you want to comment directly on that hearing. Also, the marijuana policy, government operations, also on cspan three at 30 this afternoon. 1 30 this afternoon. The website has been totally redesigned for use on your desktop and your mobile devices. Cspan. Org. Take advantage of looking at our revised website. Paul, massachusetts, independent line. Hello. Good morning. I was listening to this program and i am very concerned about america. The subject matter of exceptionalism. Dont think that america was ever exceptional. I think that we have sort of branded ourselves through history. I am 57 years old. Slavery indied about the 1800s. We never had that in the curriculum. There are awful lot of things in this country that we sweep under the rug, which is the reason we are progressing to not being exceptional. The equality situation in this country is beyond reproach. There are so many different ethnicities in this country and we only sort of celebrate one. That is the reason there is this problem in this country. There is not enough emphasis put on our diversity. Talent ofies of everyone in this country everyone in this country is talented, and we always sort of looked up to the eurocentric aspect of talent in this country , and it is a serious problem. We need to get act to respecting each other. I think that is why we are not so exceptional. Leading up to that Cyber Security issue, taking a look at the topic of Cyber Security in the washington post, certain agencies are blasted, saying that this report found federal agencies as illprepared to defend networks against even moderately skilled hackers. They leveled particularly tough criticism against the department of Homeland Security. The report concluded that the department had failed to update even essential software with basic security measures that any american with a computer has performed. None of the other agencies want to listen to Homeland Security about aching care of their own systems. That is senator tom coburn, from oklahoma, whose ranking minority Member Committee oversaw the development of the report. They arent even doing the simple stuff your code you can read that report in your preparation for the hearing today on cspan three. Jacob, massachusetts. Hello, independent line. Caller some people are exceptional, but very few. My reasoning behind that is that some people worship the state, some warship the natural laws of man that have always been around. If you take a child and put his hand on a burner, it will get hurt. Putting it back on the burner is pushing us in the wrong places. Worshiping the state, worshiping lawmakers. People need to change their minds and start thinking about what is between their ears. Thank you. Our Facebook Page has the same poll question today. Is america exceptional . 81 people weighing in. 69 people say no. Green bay, wisconsin. Stephen, democratic line. Who are these people who have the gall to send a lunar vehicle to the moon and then land on the moon . Who are these people, then, that the astronauts back to earth from space . That built such a vehicle . That dared to push the envelope so deep into space and overcome all obstacles . I think that we have lost our sense of mission. We need a new mission, a new enterprise, if you want to talk in star trek jargon. Because these missions, this preconceived brilliance that we had in the 1960s, is missing. These things tied us all together. This is what made us all exceptional and can make us again and exceptional. 2014 elections, particularly in the senate, the topic of a story today in the usa today. Taking especially a look at senator kay hagan in north carolina. Alaska republican, dan sullivan, took in 1. 25 million dollars, raising more than the incumbent senator. The House Republican raised more than one point 2 million, edging past mark pryor. The story goes on to say that the marquee race of the midterms is alan grimes, matching mitch mcconnell, the senates top republican. A huge stockpile of unspent cash, more than three times what grimes has. Grimes has a clear shot towards the partys nomination. St. Petersburg, florida, democratic line. We are exceptional in that we have allowed Corporate America and take our employment and place it overseas. We have allowed this and america is allowing Corporate America to rape us left and right. When i was in fifth grade, my teacher said that the demise of the small farmer would be at the hands of the major corporations, and so we are. If we want to be exceptional, we need to show our president the proper respect that any president should have. Our president has been disrespected. I firmly believe that a large part of it, when boehner said that when the president was elected the first time, to make him a one term president. They refused to work with him and it showed disrespect. If our young people have no opportunity for good employment because employment is in farmland, like the gentleman who spoke earlier, in china . Have in china because we offshore all of our industry and it is criminal what the American People have not done by speaking out and voting out most of beeness, who have unsupportive of the American People. The time has come for americans to be exceptional, as we really are and have always been in our chalabi in our charity and thought patterns. While this country is under the racism, weery subtle will never, never succeed. The president reached out to democrats several times this week on a variety of topics, starting yesterday with harry reid. Initially trade was the topic, but talks then turned to the senate and november races. From theule this week, report in the washington times, al, boston, massachusetts, independent line. Caller good morning. Please give me a minute to explain exceptionalism. The bible is a book of love and a book of exception. Americas exceptionalism is very simple. This nation have been dedicated to god in jesus christ. That is where comes from. Look at israel and how israel survives. It was the fulfillment of gods word. Again, a book of love and acceptance. Anyone using a christian anyone who is a christian using and does not practice love, they are not a follower of jesus christ. That is where the exceptionalism comes from. That is how we defeated the germans in two. We have the station to defeat israel. Look how far we have come. The greatest nation on earth because of the grace and love of jesus christ. That is why we are exceptional. If people take the time to read that book and understand this do we have problems . Of course, we do, but we go from glory to glory as we go forward. From boston,s al, massachusetts, coming off a twitter that rob andrews, south jersey republican, will announce his resignation from the house. That is off of twitter this morning. Pages, an the obituary column dedicated in the washington post, dedicated to the former wife of walter mondale, writing about her, saying that in her youth she worked as an assistant librarian in fine arts work as an assistant librarian at the library of fine art. Fine arts. Host that was our last call for this segment. We have two legislators joining us today to talk about a variety of topics. Up next, peter welch, democrat from vermont. Later on, representative rohrabacher. That is part of washington journal, which continues after this. [video clip] websiteew cspan. Org makes it easy to find and watch all of the coverage of washington. Look where it on our homepage and a station called federal focus your coyou will find Congressional Committee hearings, events with the president and members of his cabinet, press briefings from the white house and capitol hill, the state department, and the pentagon, plus selected Supreme Court oral arguments and appearances by the justices. Watch live or on your own schedule. On cspan. Org. Making it easy to keep tabs on what is happening in congress, the white house, and the courts. Span, we bring Public Affairs events from washington directly to you tom a putting you in the room of congressional hearings, white house events, briefings, conferences, and offering complete gaveltogavel coverage of the u. S. House. All as a Public Service of the private industry. Cspan, created by the cable tv industry 35 years ago. Watch us in hd, like us on facebook, follow us on twitter. Washington journal, continues. Host our guest this morning first, representative peter welch of vermont. Guest thank you. Host the paper say this morning that democrats will be meeting at the white house today . Guest thats right. We are looking forward to it. I think the president really talking about the topics of the day. The white house and the secretary of the treasury have been very firm. There is no negotiation on this. You have to pay your bills. Trying to establish conditions on paying your bills does not work. It does not work for a family or for the country. Will be the republicans next move, but i expect the republicans will speak about that and take up the themes of the state of the union address, where the real focus is on trying to get income up and the number of jobs up so that people can find their way into the middle class. That is the real challenge for the country. Do you think of the 2014 elections will be a topic of discussion . Guest hey reread tends not to meet at the white house and talk about the ins and outs of those elections. President , in general, takes the position that good policy will be good politics, and i think there is some truth to that. Some signs of cooperation. In my view it is very helpful, we have a budget. That was one that was genuine and negotiated with paul ryan in the house. Very conservative. Patty murray in the senate. It was one where at the end of the day, not bragging about the budget, we got a budget, which in this defense this Dysfunctional Congress means a lot. It is not the best farmville, but it was bipartisan. What i think the president has always had as a goal is to try to find Common Ground on things that are going to move the country forward. Especially in the area of economic growth. That is going to have a benefit for everyday americans. The dilemma that we have right now in our economy is that the folks who own stocks and bonds have done pretty well since the crash, but people that uncheck lock or get wages, their incomes are stagnant from where they were five, even 10 years ago. And there are a whole lot of people who are not working. On those matters should executive authority be the only thing the president does to achieve those goals . No, there is a mutual responsibility to the obligation. Part of that, in my view, is that we in Congress Work with the president to try to find Common Ground. Of course, that is up to mr. Boehner and mr. Where, oh, much more than our side. If i can do something on my own at home that will help my district, i do that if it is within the law and i think that any president in his executive authority can use it, but it has its limits, they cannot cross the line where it cuts into areas that require congressional action. Such as . Anything that deviates from statute. There is delegation of authority to the president. Any president , again. George bush, barack obama, it is a casebycase debate as to whether that falls relative within the scope of authority. Do you expect a clean bill to come forward . Guest eventually, i do. Mr. Boehner has been very clear. We will not mess with the debt ceiling. That is the bottom line. They tried it once with the Government Shutdown and they regarded that as a setback for the party. Pass ay do not want to clean debt ceiling when talking about conditions, but they have over 200 members and 200 different proposals. So, bottom line at the end of the day, they are going to agree that we cannot default. Mr. Boehner has made that extremely clear. The problem here is that we are pretending as though it is optional for us to pay our bills. The other thing is i think the American People understand that raising the debt ceiling is not about authorizing new spending. It is allowing us to paid bills on spending that has already been incurred. There is a fair amount of hypocrisy from these folks that do not want to raise the debt ceiling but two weeks earlier voted for a debt ceiling where we would needed to pay disability claims to veterans. We actually have to do that in order to fund the budgeted we just passed. 202 7370001 host there is a report saying that they are considering a bailout of obamacare. Just one of the tactics they are talking about, coming ultimately to the conclusion they know they have to come to, which is that they have to pay the bills. In this congress we have repealed the Health Care Bill 45 times in the house. It has gone nowhere in the senate. That debate should be over. We should be trying to figure out how to make it work. We should also be identifying our legitimate problems and correct them. I think that this socalled bailout of the Insurance Companies is just another gambit to try to stave off facing the inevitable responsibility that they and all of us have to pay our bills. We will have our first guest of the morning, representative peter welch, joining us to take your comments. The phone lines mail iswitter and e available for use as well. Donna, minnesota, you are up first for our guest. Go ahead, please. Caller i have a question about you could call it economics. Bible it is called user refee only. Comment about three months before they were overthrown in egypt, they brought the concept in their, in their constitution, this same concept. Usury fee only. I do not understand why people do not understand this. Host could you expand on that . If you want more people in the street, you call it economic class warfare and all of that, but it is called user refees only. I am understanding you right, you are talking about interest charges on loans, which sometimes get way, way out of line. Usury is charging excessive Interest Rates on alone. An example of that would be these payday loans, where people borrow to make it to their payday in order to pay off bills , and then the annual Interest Rate winds up being 300 . That is just a total ripoff. That is where there needs to be some consumer protection. Those types of loans, and my view, should not be allowed. But we obviously need a Strong Financial system that includes get ag so that folks can mortgage, expand their business. It has got to be within reason. This is rick. Rick is from massachusetts. Independent line. Caller good morning. Thank you for my call. Representative, i own property in vermont and every year i get hit with a nonresident educational fee, about 130 of my tax bill. Taxation without representation, we are seeing the same thing from the federal government. The democrats are pushing higher taxes and higher fees and higher regulations that will cost more money. American people actually being represented when you folks up there just keep spending money that we do not have . I do not understand how that is legal. Guest two things, property taxes, i have nothing to do with that here in congress. That is the purview of the towns and cities in vermont. Tax rate to pay for the education of the kids to live there. Anyone who owns property if i owned property in massachusetts, i do not, but if i did i would have to pay it and that money used to help educate massachusetts kids. Owner inoperty vermont, i pay my property taxes. That is an entirely local and state activity and has nothing to do with us in washington. Host in new hampshire, go ahead. Caller i would like to clarify something that the representative said. He said that when bills come due , homeowners have to pay their bills. The analogy that congress, when it comes to the debt ceiling, are paying their bills, is the equivalent of taking out a second mortgage when your mortgage payment is due. It be wilderness me how you guys have this separate logic when it comes to these types of things. They give very much. Onst i am happy to comment that. If we pass a budget, like the ryan budget, requiring that we pay Social Security and veterans benefits, paying what is funded for the National Institute of health, that is the moment of responsibility. If we it think we are spending too much, dont vote for the budget. But if you vote for the budget and the bills come due, then you have got to authorize the ability to make good on the promises that we made to our veterans, to the folks in Social Security. That is really the question. You are asking a fair question about spending, but that spending question has to be decided when we are passing a budget, not when we are paying for the things we have approved of. Host you are going to the white house . Guest yes. Host will trade be a part of that discussion . Will. I think that it there was a lot of resistance to the fasttrack authority in the Democratic Party that would be part of that negotiation, and there are a couple of reasons why i think you saw senator reed indicating that he was not excited about this. Two things. One, a lot of folks are nervous about the negotiations that go on essentially in secret. Arehe one hand, if you having negotiations, there is a privacy zone that is required to probe each other and get to someplace where you can put it on the table, but on the other hand when these negotiations are in secret, the only thing that congress can do is say yes or no. We have no ability to weigh in on the terms or conditions of the environmental labor. I ammakes a lot of us, and one of them, concerned about the packages that we will be voting on. But i would expect the president to bring that up as it is of significant concern to the white house. Specific thoughts on the Transpacific Partnership . Guest we have to be confident, and trade is on balance a good thing for the country. We have had some trade agreements that have worked for us and some have learned b us. Ed i think nafta has been a net loss of jobs. Host is there a way to restructure trade agreements . Guest it is all in the negotiations. It will be essential there be Environmental Standards and labor standards that means the trade agreement will not result in a race to the bottom. It is going to kill our workers. That is a dilemma. They have to protect the environment and a decent working wage. Host representative peter welch is joining us to talk about a meeting at the white house. Brian from new hampshire, good morning. Youer i want to ask, reference the fact that we have to pay our bills that are already due. I agree with you that we do not want to cut Social Security. We have to make choices. Our debt ceiling has been raised point. Es at this it is not really a debt ceiling. It is an artificial ceiling. We kind of borrow money from china that has to be paid back. You guys have to take responsibility right now. Guest you have a point i agree with. Debt, iffault on the that is your tactic to get fiscal responsibility, you are going to blow up the economy. Outs like you being maxed on your credit cards and being mad at the banks. Youre not going to pay the mortgage anymore. There are going to be a lot of bad things that happen. You shouldnt have bought a mcmansion. The critical decision was when you decided to get an eight bedroom house when you only needed two. There is too much spending in many areas. I am willing to cut it back. We have to bring spending under control in healthcare and in the private sector. There is a lot of things we need to do in the budget. To put us into default would mean it would cause Enormous Economic harm to you and to me. This is seen as a tactic. The problem that you are talking about, how do we get a sustainable spending level, that is important. Host how much leeway do we have after friday . Guest we will be bumping up against the at the beginning of march. The last time we came close to defaulting, our Credit Rating went down. It cost us billions of dollars with higher Interest Rates. We did it again and the economy took a hit. The callers are making very legitimate point about trying to get to a balanced budget. The last time we had that was in the clinton years. That is important. The tactic of not paying bills is ready dangerous. Really dangerous. It does more harm than good. Down,bt has been coming about 45 from its peak. A lot of the debt had to do with the collapse of the financial sector. Jpmorgan paid 20 billion in fine. They gave their ceo a 20 million bonus. Hasnt anybody learned anything on wall street . Host should there be changes made . Guest i think there should be. I think it should be led by the corporations. We have great bankers in fairmont vermont. They would never do things you see being done on wall street. Do you think they would go to the board and get a 20 million raise . There is a culture you have on wall street that is disconnected from main street america. I would like to see the compensation boards get real. It is hard to see how congress can micromanage it. It appears the bigger the fine on wall street, the bigger the bonus. Say some of the supporters a lot comes in stocks. There is an incentive to perform as well as possible, for the shareholders as well. Guest that is the rationale. It was like the trifecta of bad stuff. Some of the fine was for participating indirectly in the ponzi scheme of madeoff. Some was for the traitor who put shareholder money at risk with those wild trades and seeking a bonus. Some of it was further role in the sub prime mortgage fiasco. You do all those things. Those would not be rewarded on main street in burlington, vermont. Host good morning. Caller good morning. I love cspan. You stole my thunder. I wanted to note your views. The American People are interested. We are paying attention. We do want more transparency. I appreciate you taking my call. Guest thank you. I am sure the president will hear that message. Don from california. Caller good morning. In democrats take control 2006. Nancy pelosi takes over. That is now eight trillion dollars. They cannot believe the number one thing, cut the spending like normal people are doing. They are drinking 100 bottles of wine at lunch. They think the president travels five times in one day and it is good for the economy. They have to cut spending and cut their own salaries. We are broke. The country does not have the money. They keep going to more and more expensive restaurants and super bowl parties. President obama gave his state of the union speech. It was like a holiday. Everybody was lathered up. Is supposed to be servants for the people. We have the government completely loaded with people who cannot figure out how to sharpen a pencil. They are setting up government websites and they cannot figure out how to do anything. If it is negotiated by the same , and theid syria syrians outmaneuvered us, it is ridiculous. Host we will let our guest respond. Guest i had Chicken Salad in my apartment with a bud lite. That 100 dinner you are talking about, i did not have. You are pretty angry and i hear that. Spending has gone down. Look at the budget, being cut the last couple of years. That is one. Why is it you didnt include any of the conduct on law struck on wall street that helped get us into the situation. 100 bottles of wine, that is not those in government. They are concerned about paying their bills. They are not getting 100 bottles of wine. That is not the reality of people working in the state of vermont. There are things that happen in the economy, bear stearns, lehman brothers, that really weakened the underpinnings of our economy. That there was no expression of concern about some of the conduct in the private sector that has led us into this trouble. Host South Carolina on the republican line. Caller good morning. Can the president used the executive order power to get a debt ceiling . Guest there is a debate about that. The president wants congress to step up and meet its responsibility to make certain america does not default. Host do you have a followup question . Caller why cant we use the debt ceiling to create jobs . Guest that we cant do. We can use the budget to try did create jobs. We should be using the budget to promote economic policy. The debt ceiling is a separate thing. It is like your bill comes for the mortgage comes due and you decide youre not going to pay it. Means we cannot pay the mortgage. The budget fiscal policy, we should be using that. That is the big debate in congress. I think we should borrow our money to fix our bridges and roadways. The infrastructure is like a 20th century infrastructure and we are competing in a 21stcentury economy. It is forborrow, something that is going to benefit this generation and generations to come. There are things we can do that would help boost the economy. I think those investments bring in revenues and lower the debt. Host what keystone xl be part of that . St the Keystone Pipeline the issue is what goes into the pipeline. It is a very Energy Intensive process of extracting energy. The pipeline would take the oil down to texas to be refined and likely exported. Host even if there was a pipeline it would come in through rail anyway. Guest that is right. That is how i read the report. There are a couple of issues. The most important is that is a good way to extract oil. There is a significant environmental question. They are not weighing in on the Environmental Impact of getting it. It . Do you transport that is what they were talking about. The suggestion was the pipeline would be better than the railcars. Does it make sense in facilitating Oil Development that is in the view of many very environmentally compromising. Host tina on the democrats line, good morning. Caller i was calling in reference to the unemployment. I am 55 years old. I have worked since i was 16 years old. Away. Ly i job was taken i have worked at this last job for 16 years. I have a breeder full resume. People tell me i am over qualified for my job. I have paid into the system all of my life. My father is a veteran. I am a widow of a veteran. I put into the system. I just need a little help until i can get to my next step. I am not planning on living on unemployment. I worked in registration for insurance in a hospital for 16 years. People have to understand that the insurance they are losing is garbage insurance. The deductibles were like 5,000, 6,000. You have a big deductible you have to pay. Situation on unemployment, you are entitled to unemployment. It is very disturbing. Congress has not extended unemployment benefits. There is millions like you who have worked hard all their years and paid into the system all their life and now need it. The economy is not producing the jobs that we need. There are 1. 3 million fewer jobs today than there were at the beginning of the crisis about five years ago. It is tough out there. We are having an argument in congress about unemployment. A person like you, i wish you the best of luck. I support extending unemployment benefits. Lets hope we succeed in getting that done. Thinkin 2014, she didnt did want to predict the democrats would take the house back. Guest it is real uphill for us. Part of that is the obamacare rollout. I think we are going to get through that. There is a lot of the things in the law that we stepped on with a bad rollout. The gerrymandering in the districts is tough. Really are designed for the benefit of politicians. They are super conservative or super liberal. It is tough for either party to get a crack at winning and those gerrymandering districts. You get members who are serving in the district where they are concerned about the primary. We have seen it in some of the senate races. The conservative republicans like luger lost in the primary. Lost in the lugar primary. Host what do you think about the recent retirements from congress . Guest we will miss them. It is a different world. On a personal level, it will be a huge loss. Each one of those, george miller, henry waxman. I was on that committee went he was chair and we passed the health care law. George miller is a wonderful legislator, a kennedy style the birder who loves the process and the game and the people that he is opposed to. Conservative lawmakers all like george miller. They dont agree with them but they note he is willing to make a deal. He tries to find that Common Ground. He has not lost an ounce of his energy or his wit. Henry waxman is regarded as a legislative master who was going to leave with a resume that will be the envy of just about anybody who has served in congress. Host who do you see taking up the mantle . Guest that is tough. Host donald from new jersey. Caller good morning. Thank you for taking my call. I have a couple of comments. The back end of the health care does not seem to be working. How do we know anybody is paying . Whether obama comes out and says there are no more bailouts but there is a bailout for Insurance Companies. That is throwing tax dollars at a bad problem again. Guest our Health Care System has been a mess. It is the most expensive with the most people without insurance. It is a fragmented system. The bill we passed will help folks who were denied coverage because of preexisting conditions and they can get it. Those with kids can have their kids stay on it policy. That has been a tremendous help for so many families. They get out of college and are lucky to get a job. They get a foot in the working world. They can stay on their parents policy and that has been huge. Lifetime conditions. If you have a chronic condition, you will not get thrown off insurance because you have reached the limit. The design of the healthcare bill was the one that mitt romney designed in massachusetts. It was a private sector plan that used private insurance. I did not like that. We went with the private sector approach. Making that transition is complicated. The rollout was bad. But these are things you have to face and fix. Is ongoing challenge for us we have to make our Health Care System much more efficient. Why is it if you get a hit replacement, hip you can get the same thing in belgium for 15,000. That is a lot of money. I would like to see us work on Common Ground instead of bickering back and forth. Purchasingf those coverage were adults, the exact group the Administration Needs to make the numbers work. Guest younger people think they are invincible. They feel nothing will happen to them, until something does truck they get hit i a they get hit by a truck. If you want to have insurance, and i want everybody to have access to health care, then we have to contribute. It is as simple as that. I think kids are understanding that is an important issue for them. It is tough on them. A lot of them have low incomes. They are trying to hang onto everything they can. Host you have to change mentality. How do you do that . Guest you see that with parents talking to their kids. Kids can stay on their parents coverage until age 26. Health insurance is on their mind. That ifs do know something happens, they dont want to end up with this bankruptcy by not having health insurance. It will trail them and be a drag on their ability to get ahead. Host f peter welch is joining us. Farm bill. What does it mean for vermont . Is a in vermont, there gary program that will be a good deal better than the current Safety Net Program there is a dairy program. There are a lot of conservation programs across the country that will help conserve our land and help farmers with the best practices on farming. That is essential both for the longterm sustainability of agriculture. There is a new emphasis in the farm bill on local agriculture and organic agriculture. There is an Enormous Consumer interest in trying to get local food and nutritious food. Those things are now a prominent part of the farm bill. A lot of emphasis on farm to school programs. The department of defense food program, we are going to be able to use the amount of money we would have gotten in vermont to buy local fruits and vegetables. These are things that will help steer the farm bill from our local food production. Some of the challenges, the commodity reforms were not made. We did bring the price down a bit but not enough. That is a significant blemish. Host food stamps . Guest we cut too much. Stamps areon food disabled. There was a lot of talk about fraud in food stamps but that is low. It appears a good deals less than the commodity programs. Host richard, good morning. Caller a couple of comments and a question. Ifn all the callers, you have less jobs and no jobs that means you have less taxes and no taxes. The American People need to get out of their own personal debt. If china were to americas debt across america, what would we do . T. Est you got a poin your foldable to your creditors if you owe a lot. So, the bottom line here, we were doing well in the clinton years. We balance the budget a couple of years in a row. Alan greenspan was testifying before congress about his apprehension that we may pay off the full debt. People scratch their heads when they hear that now. We should all be working together to get a sustainable debt to grossthe to mastech production level down. That is what we need. This is the irony. In some places we should be spending less. Do we need to be spending as much as we do on defense or Homeland Security . And other places i think we have to spend more, like with infrastructure. We need to have a 21stcentury infrastructure in order to compete. Host peter welch joining us. Thank you for your time. Well hear from Dana Rohrabacher. He has just returned from a trip to russia last month. We will talk about security at the olympics. Raising the minimum wage for federal contractors. Two days before the opening ceremonies, the u. S. Ambassador to russia is announcing he is stepping down after a turbulent two years in russia. He is considered the architect of the effort to reset relations with russia and he points to many successes in relations including the negotiation of a new strategic arms treaty and operations on the campaign in afghanistan. There has been disappointing in resentment insing russia. He announced his departure in a post earlier saying he would leave after the sochi winter olympics. A campaign targeting atrisk youth highlighting the dangers of smoking. Launch ongn is set to february 11 will include ads on tv and radio as well as print and social media. The campaign will target more than 10 million young people ages 12 to 17 that are open to already experimenting with cigarettes. More than 700 kids under 18 become daily smokers every day. President obama has commitments from Companies Worth about 750 million to get more students connected to highspeed internet. Apple and microsoft are among the companies pitching in. The president said to announce the commitments today. 2 billion will be devoted from service fees to connect 20 million students. It is part of the goal to get 99 of American Students connected than five years. Cspan is covering the president s event. Those are some of the latest headlines on cspan radio. The new cspan. Org website makes it easy for you to find and watch all of cspans extensive coverage of official washington. Look for it on our homepage in a space called federal focus. Each day you will find comprehensive coverage of house and senate debates, Congressional Committee hearings, events with the president and members of his cabinet, press briefings from the white house, capitol hill, the state department, and the pentagon, plus selected Supreme Court oral arguments and appearances by the justices. Watch live or on your own schedule. Federal focus, on cspan. Org, making it easy to keep tabs on what is happening in congress, the white house, and the courts. 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 35 years ago and funded by your local cable or satellite provider. Watch us in hd, like us on facebook, and follow us on twitter. Washington journal continues. Is danaoining us now rohrabacher. Thank you for joining us. You are just back from russia. In egypt, israel, and russia. The theme was what only going to do about radical islam . How are we going to work with those people on the front lines . I learned a lot and was able to spiritsy bolster their that the people in the United States congress are behind those people who are now taking the brunt of the battle of a group of people that want to hurt us and kill innocent civilians in order to terrorize populations. It was a learning experience but i think i was able to encourage some people who needed encouragement. Host to those concerns extend to the upcoming olympics . Guest absolutely. Host how so . Guest i think it is unfortunate president putin decided to go with this time to have the winter olympics, especially when he was required to have it in a location that was so close to what would be considered a battle zone of radical terrorism in dagestan and the caucasus area. I thought that was unfortunate. He did make that decision and you have a country moving forward with the olympics, i do think it is up to us to be as cooperative as we can and as encouraging as we can to the russian people. Less than a month ago, over 30 were blown up in a train station by these terrorists who were trying to terrorize that population. I am sorry they decided to have the olympics there. Security is a tough job there. The terrorists have the message that we are all standing together. Host how much u. S. Involvement with the security at the olympics . Guest the russians are taking the lead in a big way. They spent a numbers amounts of resources and money to the security of the olympics. The United States, we have stepped forward. We have some major disagreements with the russians. We have stepped forward to help them as much as we can. We probably could do more. We are doing enough to be proud of. Host there is an announcement. Michael mcfaul is going to step down after the olympic games. Guest is that right . I know mike. That is not because of the sochi games. Ambassadors usually last just a couple of years and move on. Host do you think therell be terrorism attacks at the games . Guest i am sure there are plans for terrorist attacks. Their purpose for terrorism is to terrorize the populations of retreat from the world so the radical islamic elements can take over those large chunks of the planet. Attemptthat they will that. I do believe with our cooperation and the herculean effort of the russians, they should be able to thwart the attacks any attacks that are being planned. Host our guest is here until 9 15, and you can call. Our first call is from joseph from virginia, republican line. Good morning. Caller good morning. How are you . Guest doing well. Caller i am concerned about the sochi olympics that terrorists will make their way in somehow, make a statement to the world. I am more concerned about the 19 Million People out of work since 2009. Understated the fact that there are no jobs. He wants to up the insurance. Young people cannot find jobs. There are more people on food stamps ever in the history of this country. He wants to let 11 million mexicans have citizenship so they have the right to vote. Should we concern ourselves with that conversation as well . Guest is not 11 million mexicans. A lot more than just the people from mexico that have come here illegally. Million. H more than 11 i think we are talking to a leather million and between 11 million and 20 million immigrants. Hisave the president and inaugural saying he wants people to get a raise. It is absolutely hypocritical for him to at the same time be pushing to bring 20 Million People into the system. Those 20 million of that have family unification, which means the number would be more like 40 Million People. That will depress wages. I think there are other things to be concerned about. Symbolic for all of civilized countries to try to Work Together and to try to put forward what is best in humankind. I do not think it is wrong to make a commitment to working with the russians and other countries to ensure the ego part outumankind does not stamp or put out the light for the world that we deserve to have with the olympics. Host what do you think about the house speakers movement on immigration . Guest i was there this weekend when the speaker put forward his principles as to what he was thinking about in terms of the immigration issue. All the members of the Republican Party and the house there. Here were we had a fine discussion. I am glad the leadership was open to that discussion. There is a split in our ranks as to what direction we should go. It was clear from the discussion that the vast majority of republicans in the house do not want to move forward now because it would split our base. There are people who are more inclined towards the chamber of commerce and the business interests of our country who want to go along with the legalization of these folks because business wants cheap labor. There is another group of us, a large group who perhaps identify with the caller we just had. Those who are struggling to get a good job or your children are struggling to get a good job, we cannot do this at a time of high unemployment and we have people struggling to get higher wages. That was it. I respect the speaker and those others in my party who are more business oriented. I do not think the Republican Party will take the chance on that kind of split. I do nothing this will come up in the house until after the election. Host when it comes to the republican plan, this is what yusa today has to say absolutely wrong. You can tell how biased it is. He used immigrant rather than illegal immigrant. Most Illegal Immigrants are opposed to legalizing the status of people who come there illegally. They went through the process. They are proud americans and dont want somebody who thumb to benose at our law given what they had to earn. Last time we had an amnesty was with reagan and i was at the white house at the time. What that did was destroy the Republican Party in california. Millions of people just added into the system. Before that, we were competitive in california. Before that, we elected Ronald Reagan and folks like that. Now we cannot come close statewide. Our congressional delegation has been cut in half. It gets traced back to the amnesty. A couple million more people were brought into the system. Most of them vote the way democrats want to vote, for more Government Programs and more government benefits and services. The democrats want pawns. The corporate world wants cheap labor. You have some powerful forces working against what i consider the interest of the American People. California onrom our independent line. Guest huntington beach. Aller actually we met ands buying some sheets have the opportunity to talk with you briefly. Guest was i at the Goodwill Store . Caller yes. Guest that is my favorite place to shop. Caller i wanted to bring up reflate, briefly, i think youre right on some of the things you have been talking about. People that have come here legally definitely comprise the fact they were able to become american citizens. I just remember when we had our talk, i wish one thing i had covered was if they were that concerned or congress was as concerned about health care, one outlook at the idea of perhaps maybe putting a dime tax per gallon on every gasoline gallon of gasoline and create some sort of a fund that could be put into health care in order to take away from the high deductibles that are involved . Ntthat wouldnt would there be an alternative or option, and if it works, throw another dime on it for the deficit. Guest a dime a gallon tax would come out of the pockets of a lot of people who can barely afford to fill up the car with gasoline now. That is probably the most punitive tax that could be suggested on regular people. I could not see that for that reason. Reforms weurse think have had, if we would have had, instead of redoing the entire financial structure of our Health Care System, if we would have focused on those people who had preconditions and couldnt get insurance. If we would have focused on those folks and have the rising cost of health care, we would not have had to have the increased in revenue that this particular, the obama system is in need of. Host here is jane from missouri. Good morning. Caller there is no plane that 9 11. Ilding seven on cause a still frame highrise to do that. Critical features were left out design. Ilding sevens those features are included. You are on the committee and you have a duty to look at the facts and hold them accountable. Guest i have had different people come up to me who are was aseptical that 9 11 simple as it appeared to be. People hijacking airplanes and flying them into buildings. I try to listen to everybody. I also told him how i feel. I am frank about what i believe. I do listen to people and a couple of times i have tried to follow through on a couple of ideas. The plane that flew into the pentagon was not on the course. It couldnt have gone down and maneuvered into the pentagon where it did. Instead it flew over the pentagon and the pentagon was instead hit by a missile. That is one of the theories. Than the follow through. Is totally impossible for this plane to have made the maneuvers to get there. I went to people in the faa and asked them their opinions and pilots who flew the same kind of planes. The people making that charge were wrong. I dont know about building seven. It does seem to me that i could. It doesnt seem to be suspicious enough. When you have buildings that close together and explosions, it seems there is a lot of metal flying through the air and that mightve gone into that building and caused it to catch on fire and collapse, as well as the other main towers. That make sense to me. There are some conspiracies that happen in this world. There are other things that are dastardly that people cannot believe it is as simple as it is where people are hijacking airplanes and flying them into buildings. Host ron is up next from florida. Caller hello. Good morning. How are you . Guest it is cold. It is warmer in california. I am at work in washington. Caller my question has been covered about illegal immigration. My question has switched to this. I do not see anything that was done to eliminate corruption and overspending by hospitals. Continues to compete against one another and use equipment that will never be used because they dont have the it, but we get to pay for it. Why should 10 hospitals have an imaging machine that has the capacity to do all 10 hospital work . They have more equipment than they need and pass the cost on to us. When this health care land came out, i didnt see anything to curb abuse and make it a competitive system. Guest that is one of the complaints about the bill. It was a very expensive opposition and there wasnt a lot of savings in the proposition. Instead of making the system more efficient, they instead have gone but way of setting up a system that will restrict the services they are providing two people to determine whether someone is going to get treated or not, whether they will get certain operations when theyre over 70 years old. I think that is the opposite direction to go. We should it is the old idea between democrats and republicans where republicans are talking about increasing the amount of wealth and the democrats are talking about how to better distribute it. If there are ways of increasing the wealth in society, make things more efficient. If youre going to distribute something and focus on the distribution, which is what the obamacare does, you will end up having some people left out and you will not put any more efficiency into the system. I think we could give people incentives to cooperate. And perhaps incentives to cooperate would be better than punishment or punitive action taken against hospitals that do not operate. That type of thing. Incentives need to be built into the system. We needed to take care of people with preexisting conditions so they could get insurance. We didnt do, republicans did not do that. We have the presidency and both houses of congress and we did not do that. Obama putting together a package that is really bad. The republicans, we can criticize the package, but we need to make sure we have some self introspection. We should have been proactive before this, which wouldve prevented obamacare from having to be presented. Host our guest is Dana Rohrabacher from california. There is a story about a conversation that john kerry had with Lindsay Graham and john mccain about syria. And more assertive policy is needed and the listed russia was arming the regime of syria and assad is violating groups in syria pose a direct threat. Guest that was with lindsay and john mccain. I likeke to say Lindsey Graham and john mccain was our parties nominee. I wish people in the immediate would quit focusing and i wish the administration would quit focusing on lindsay and john mccain as spokesman for the party, because they are not. There was a lot of resentment that these guys are presenting themselves as spokesmen for the republicans, and they are not spokesmen for the republicans that spokesmen for themselves, as we all have that right. Host what is different with what they say and what republicans think . , whereon immigration their views are not reflective of a large number of republicans. Host back to the situation with syria. Guest i think the American People are were wearing war weary. We made a mistake. I voted to support george bush at the time. It was a mistake to follow george bush into iraq. In so manytrillion thousands of lives that were destroyed. Those who died and those who have broken bodies and now we have to take care of them for the next 10 and 20 years. It was a mistake. Lindsey graham and john mccain do not seem to understand how war weary the American People are. Whether they talk about syria or elsewhere, the American People do not want large deployments of troops overseas anywhere. When they talk, i do not think it reflects the fundamental shift in the way republicans feel about foreign engagements with large numbers of american troops. Host marian, good morning. Caller good morning. Thank you for taking my call. I wanted to go back to sochi. I believe what you say about lindsay and mccain. I think they have lost touch with my party. Back to sochi. Eople froming p michigan to make snow for those guys . What is the deal . If for not hosting, why are we over there building snow form . I believe that is on taxpayers nickel. I think we supply about 2000 chips for congressman to go on factfinding missions every year that are costing us millions and millions of dollars. Guest you have a couple of points there. I am not sure if there is any involvement in sochi in the olympics that the american taxpayers are paying for. I will look into it. I think there are some hybrid sector money from the United States i think there is some private sector money from the United States that want to participate in the olympics, as traditional. Money to helpg with the security. There will be a lot of americans there. This is ae need large deployment. This is helping out at an International Event that is held in russia. To prevent a terrorist attack in which if we have a large number of our citizens, they would be victimized as well. I dont have a problem in helping the russians security wise in the olympics. I would object to taxpayers trying to build things for the olympics. Your last point was what was that . Host lets move onto another call. Georgetown, massachusetts. Guest about trips. That me justte note. I am on the Science Committee and the Foreign Affairs committee. I think that my trip to israel to take a look at their antimissile system that we could benefit from was certainly justified. I went to egypt and met with the general who was on the front lines of the battle against radical islam in egypt and i learned some of his concerns. He has a lot of problems because our government, president obama decided we will not be providing the Egyptian Army when it needs to combat radical islamic terrorism in the sinai desert. I need to know about that. I needed to know directly from people on the scene. In russia we needed to talk about security. A lot of the trips youre talking about i believe were totally justified. Many of the excursions i have taken overseas are that way. There are some trips by members of congress that i believe are more frivolous than that. People want to go to the 50th anniversary of dday in normandy or have congress represent the American People at one of these situations overseas or countries are commemorating historic events. Yea represented. This is paid for by the United States government. It is public record. Is ralph. Thatll creek, michigan. Battle creek, michigan. Caller you voted for the war. Guest i made a mistake. Caller why did you vote for the war at the time . A lot of us could see that there iraqno connection between and the 9 11 attack. When the weapons inspectors went did not findey anything. There were reports that we knew there was no Nuclear Weapons in iraq. Almost everything we were told by the Bush Administration about the intelligence on iraq was wrong. Arent you partly responsible for the trillion dollar mistake . Guest i am. I voted for it and i am partially responsible. That was a mistake. I do not think we should be afraid to admit our mistakes. Of my motive, it was easy to tell you what my motive was. 9 11. Gone through this was a different environment. Was at theht onto onto theever bought argument that there were Nuclear Weapons. Was a vicious dictator, he had murdered hundreds of thousands of his own people. Rockre going to go into a iraq and help create democracy and that would be a model for the whole area. It would be a symbol for freedom and encourage freedom lovers around the world. Thatis what the motive is what my motive was in supporting the president. I think we gave that an honest try. It did not work. We should have known it would not work. Time, the president did not have a game plan that would have succeeded. The game plan is almost impossible in iraq, now that i look back and now that we know the details. You cannot blame people for making mistakes. You can blame them if they refuse to admit them. We will try to make sure we do not make that mistake again. Host the front page of the New York Times has an article about president karzai. Do you still feel the same . I was involved with that operation personally. , had nothing to do with iraq but i was personally involved with helping organize the Northern Alliance. I was deeply involved in the 1990s, organizing a coalition against the taliban on. In afghanistan. Those people who i was trying to organize against the taliban and that being the Northern Alliance. After 9 11, they came in and did the fighting for us. That was the way that is the way we should be defending our country. Supporting the elements who want to fight for their freedom and the battle, win rather than sending in a bunch of american troops. American troops came in and started picking up the fight in afghanistan, which that was what the mistake was. One of the most beloved figures in afghanistan, we could have brought him back after the taliban was defeated. There was a constitution written there in 1969, written by afghans for afghans. We had to rewrite their constitution. That is a horrible constitution. We inserted karzai. He had no popular basis of support. Not we should be getting out of afghanistan asap. I have been voting against keeping our troops in afghanistan for the last year. The surge inst afghanistan. It made very little difference in the long term outcome. There who weple can support and let them handle what is going on. We can give them the support of the United States. Karzai is not a friend of the United States. He has outlawed me from afghanistan. I was going to afghanistan to meet with various leaders and he refused to let me in the country. I had to stay behind as other congressmen went out. He is a crook. He is not doing good for his country. Are the afghans ready to pick up the fight . Guest there are some very fine afghan leaders. If we do not support guys like karzai, they will emerge. We made this guy out of nothing. He was nobody. A tody for us for a wild. A while. Karzai is there tody. Danny, louisiana. Good morning. About you made a comment the democrats. That is what politics are about. Redistribution of wealth. Guest that is your theory. That is your five that is fine. May i finish . Bear me a little time. I am sick the five years old. I am 65 years old. Dont you dare thank me for fighting for my benefits. I voted against that package. Caller dont thank me. People as you and your Congress Host your question or comment please. Caller back when the ussr capitulated, i was concerned about the budget for the cia and the defense. The argument was that we had to spend it because of private industry. The American People, with everything being classified, they do not know the truth. Terrorist is aa freedom fighter. What is going on in the middle east, these people overthrowing the governments that we have supported. They came at us because they business and military who have made their lives miserable and oppressed for generations. One of the things you are complaining about, i voted against the budget deal, which, the obama and Republican Leadership deal capped kept in certain benefits for Illegal Immigrants while cutting colas for certain veterans benefits. I voted against that. That is number one. Number two, you are complaining that the cia and the Defense Department after the fall of communism in russia maintained their same level of spending. It came down a bit. You are right. The reduction in spending in defense and intelligence did not had been reduced by the fall of communism in russia. T i think is a legitimate i actually agree with you. Business keeps promoting the idea that there are people in business that there are people in business and make money off the fence. They want to have a ticket items , whether it is defense or cia, they want to have bigticket items to make a big profit off of it. That is one of the things that we have to deal with. That is a problem in our society. Maybe the problem you mentioned. About people being freedom fighters, that is baloney. If your child is killed by one of these people, bombing a building here or a train there, you would not be saying that. Terrorists are people who intentionally target civilians in order to terrorize populations. That we are talking about, they are terrorists because not because they fight against our system or are willing to do violence, fight the military or the police in another society, but they are terrorists because they target people, like in volgograd. You had the black widows there, going in and blowing up a train station with innocent people. That is what makes them a terrorist. It is not whether they are islamic, whatever they are. Whoever targets a group of in order to kill them to terrorize a population, that is what a terrorist is. These are not freedom fighters. Freedom fighters do not do that. They fight against other armies or against military establishments. The Northern Alliance came down and thought the taliban and. They were freed by thae tal iban. They were freedom fighters. If they would have been doing schools,p buildings or like in russia, which some of these terrorists did. They would have been terrorists, not freedom fighters. Host shannon, republican line, good morning. Caller thank you for everything that you have done politically for our country. I think you deserve that. Israel andover to i know thata part of the world is very hard to travel from a United States citizens point of view at this moment because of everything going on. Israel, were in israel, did you get a perspective of what israel is doing to help the syrian situation. Did you have any discussions with the palestinian and israeli situation going on there. Had he seen anything firsthand that has changed that has not been in the headlines or the media . I did not talk to them specifically about what role they are playing in syria. I could not give you an accurate description as to what that role is. Outsideear from the that both sides are pretty bad in syria. That is especially why the United States should not get involved. In terms of the palestinians, we met with one of the palestinian frankly, about 20 years ago, i thought israel was standing in the way of a Peace Agreement with the palestinians. A lot of people got mad at me for expressing that. That is what i looked at. It appeared to me that the position was of the palestinians needed to go away, we did not need to talk to you. We are not about to do that. Now, after 20 years, that does is them to be what hangup in creating peace in that area. Now it seems to be the palestinians. Up area,lis have given they have been trying to reach an agreement and i thought both sides had. The negotiator for the palestinians, he was complaining about israeli settlements. I said the settlements, they are just pushing you guys towards making a decision. If you do not, they are going to continue to have settlements on the west bank. What i found to be the big stumbling block the israelis have their hand out. They want to make a deal. The palestinians, they will make a deal, but only if they do not have to agree that millions of Palestinian Refugees will not be able to go back to pre1967 israel. Agree with the israelis unless the israelis agree that their country is going to disappear. I cannot blame the israelis for saying no, you will not be permitted to have all these people coming back. I asked the palestinian negotiator about that. All you have to do is say we no longer believe in the right of return to the pre67 borders and i believe there would be a settlement and we would have peace between the palestinians and israelis. But that is the stumbling block. He got mad and said i cannot say that. What it really is, the palestinians will not agree to allow israel to exist. They wantve a deal, all the palestinians to flood back into israel. Israel is not going to do that. Of ais the equivalent saying to mexico that if you have a relative that can trace their roots back to the southwest part of the United States, you can come back. That would probably be in the area of 50 to 100 billion people and we would not do that. , thankana rohrabacher you for your time this morning. Our cspan bus continues his travel in texas. Via skype is aman batheja. Good morning. About the race senator john cornett is facing. Add up all the democrat and libertarians, he has 20 opponents. On the republican primaries. His leading opponent is steve stockman. He surprised everyone by getting into the race. International an trip. He is in new york today. He has not been campaigning that much in texas. He has not been doing a lot of fundraisers. He has been kind of absent, other than online. It is a very strange race. There is another primary candidate who has been getting a lot of attention from tea party groups. Dwayne stonewall is getting some attention. He has over 10 million in his Campaign Account and is seen as the favorite. Would you agree with this race being a solid are . Solid r . Is mostly focused on the governors race and the lieutenant governors race. There are five democrats trying to revive for a seat. Win didate expected to he is a millionaire, he runs a chain of dental clinics. He ran for congress couple of years ago and came in fourth. He spent Something Like 4000. He is not the most polished politician. He is mostly expected to win because of the fortune he has to tap into. The reaction on the ground since the story came out looking at wendy davis and some issues with her story . Been athis has polarizing story. Republicans have been jumping on that story to say that she has been misleading people and exaggerating her rags to riches story. A lot of democrats have felt that the attacks have been sexist. You are debating whether she got 99 or 2001. 19 theres a lot of question of whether a male candidate would have gone the same questions or scrutiny. Host has a change polling numbers . Guest there have been no polls released yet. Are not focusing on the race yet. Theres a lot more focus on the primaries. Ofhas been a bad couple weeks for wendy davis. Yesterday, Campaign Finance reports came out and her republican opponent outrace her more than 31. In dealing with rick m iny, any plans for hi 2016 . Guest is going to a lot of events outside of texas. Idealked a lot about the of the next president should be a governor. Tothe same time, it is hard ignore the fact that ted cruz has become the most the hottest thing in texas republican politics. Gained, he has attention. There is a question of whether rick perry feels he can run it ted cruz is running. 2014 race is awash in texas. Aman batheja , inc. You free time. Thank you for your time. Minimum wage for federal contractors, taking care of the issue be a and executive order. Via an executive order. [video clip] do it you can to raise your employees wages. [applause] good for the economy, it is good for america. Every mayor, governor, state legislator in america, you do not have to wait for congress to act. Americans will support you if you take this on. As a chief executive, i intend to lead by example. Profitable corporations like costco see higher wages as the smart way to boost productivity and reduce turnover. We should to. Too. I will require federal contractors to pay their federally funded employees a fair wage of at least 10. 10 an hour. If you cook our troops mail meals or wash their dishes, you should not have to live in poverty. Host the topic of federal ors is our last topic today. Joining us is stan soloway. Guest we represent companies that provide services to the government, every level of service. You watched the last couple of lines with special interest. What was your reaction . Guest he was more concerned about the implication then the impact. The contractors covered by the executive order, almost all of them are directed by the federal government as to what they have to pay by the hour. The department of labor lists wage grades. When the president talks about the issue, it will be a very small impact, if any at all. Is that thesen companies are out there paying some standard of less than fair wages, but the wages are being directed by the government. Scale,u look at the wage going down to the lower end of the wage scale, that is what ned tom wage is desig protect. Have a lot of Union Contracts that have long since left the 10. 10 level of wages. Are out there paying unfair wages, when in fact, in almost are told by the federal government what we need to pay. Justervice contract act is is designed to cover maintenance, janitorial, all with two data processing. It is a large category of jobs. The department of labor determines fair wage to pay somebody based on competitive market in that region. As i have looked at the directory as this issue began to come up, the vast majority were well above 10. 10 an hour already. The sour taste was targeting us is that the federal contractors were doing something unethical, when they were doing what the government told them to do. If you want to ask a question, do so on the lines. Republicans, 202 5853881. Democrats, 202 5853880. Independents, 202 5853882. If you want to weigh in on this as a federal contractor, 585 3883. Guest the ways great employees at every organization has every they are determined on a regional basis by the department of labor. Minimum deal with a wage for federal contractors, the issue is to make sure the department of labors wage scales are at the appropriate level. The focus should be on making certain that the scales are correct. Host how does that compare to the rest of the country . We hear contractors if you compare their salaries, it is usually higher. Guest it depends on what you are looking at. They can be higher. Federal unions have incorrectly argued there is a pay gap between the federal pay scale and what the commercial world offers. As you come to more ways great, it is more competitive. The wages under the Service Contractor are determined by analysis done by the department of labor. There are some questions as to how contemporaneous they are and how well they keep up with it. Implementation of the act is very complicated. Match and set wrong, you are in violation. About five hundred 16 billion dollars spent on contractors compared to 533 billion in 2011. The numbers are the numbers. That is all contracts. Had two wars that have taken a lot of resources over the last decade. Thee of contractors other side is products, your computers, your weapon systems. When youre looking at the governmentse missions have become more complex and technology driven, the role of contractors has grown. The government continues to struggle to access the community of talent. About six to 7. 5 million contractors is what we are told. Misstatement. A that is a number that was based on an analysis using a department of commerce model. That is designed to assess the total employment impact of the spend of the dollar. Isis not just the jobs, it all of the jobs that it would drive. That is where the number comes from. Thes somewhat less than equal number of federal employees. The best estimate is about 80 to 90 level of what we have in federal employment. 11. Almost substantial amount of money on federal employment. If you look at that compare to what we spend on Service Contract, there is no way you can have a 41 ratio. Did the executive order take you by surprise . Guest it has been discussed. The is going to happen is whole process to implement the order. We have been short a collaborative process. It is not as simple as throwing a number out there. The white house is behind the scenes and has been communicative about it. Issue itself is not that big of a deal from an impact perspective. If there are cases where people are being less than fair wages, why is that likely happening . Host lets take some calls. Tom is, maryland. , maryland. Good morning. Caller i believe the president is in front of the nation. I do not understand why this guy is a ceo and how come he did not bring forth the same issues. I am sure his salary is six figures. If not, it is very close to it. People do need higher wages. Contractors have been getting over like fat rats. We paid these contractors. It is our money and you cannot give it back to us . Something is very wrong. Guest the point being raised is fair. Making a fair wage. This is part of a larger debate. Theonly issue here is that a very few contractors covered by this act are making less than 10. 10. Perspective,try the Service Contract is a leveler of the field. It keeps wages from being the reason people get work or not. It is about quality and so forth. I understand the concern, but the facts are otherwise. Host what about the subcontractors working on federal projects question mark are they covered by the order . You will have a contract where there is a prime or a general contractor working on your house. They bring in the painters and the plumbers and so forth. In the case of federal contractors, it is very normal to have a subcontractor. For the most part, all of the requirements on the prime contractor flow down to the subcontractors. Be some specific cases, and i think it may be worth looking at. For the most part, i think it does flow down. They dont see much impact from this. Host do get a lot of calls about the executive order . Of calls that lot we already do this, why are we being targeted . Nevada, good morning. I have worked in Human Resources for more than 40 years. I have done more wage reports then i can admit to. That youom experience work on any government job, federal, state, or county level, there are, printed out for you, exactly what you pay and how you handle it and you have to fill out reports every week to prove it. I have never seen one where the lowest grade was an at least double the minimum wage. I love obama, but i think the executive order for federal is a little bit of just trying to get everyone on board. That is just my opinion. Guest i think the president said that in his speech. The white house has said theres is not a lot of data to say how many data will how many people will be affected. Is, he is getting out in front of an issue. Lets have the debate instead of singling out a community. Host sharon, california. Will this minimum wage effect only federal contractors or will it affect every single american job in the country . What about all of us that are unemployed . Or 60s us in our 50s that had nothing to go to because we were cut off of unemployment. More this going to make it and more difficult for any of us to get back to work . Are we all going to end up on the streets . There is no program for us. Aside, thisissue order only applies to federal contractor employees in certain wage grade categories. That is the limit of the executive authority, to raise the National Minimum wage, the president would need congressional approval. He is calling on states and local government to do it on their own. He is hoping he can work with congress. This would only apply to federal contractors. Host can it influence the debate on a higher minimum wage . Guest i dont know the answer to that. I am not sure it has a Significant Impact on the debate. He is trying to get out in front of thessue. In this case, the Service Contract it is designed to ensure that folks who are vulnerable in the wage environment, particularly hourly workers where the skills are more easily accessible and less highend. You think about them it is not meant in a derogatory sense, but Janitorial Services and food services, you can swap them in and out and play games with wages. That is why we have a minimum wage. It is also why we have the Service Contract act. They have tried to modify it to protect people at that level. The thing all of us in the industry agree with that. We do not want to get into a game where people are playing just to when jobs a contract. Had a couple of issues in the 1990s and we had to adjust rules to make sure that did not happen. These are mostly small companies. The act has a very legitimate purpose. Focus on enforcing the act and making sure this has the right levels rather than doing a fiat to say we are going to do this for contractors. That is a different debate. Aside a line for contractors. It is 2025853883. Tell us about the work you do. I work at the Training Center and i work for a Service Contractor where i check for Government Property that the government provides to the contractor and i verify serial numbers and stuff like that. Host go ahead with your question or comment. Observation i have come to the conclusion that the primary difference between a contractor in the government is , budgets a government are important, but they are sick to dairy secondary national defense. With a contractor, the mission is very important, but it is secondary to creating a profit. Otherwise, you cannot exist. Me it is not necessarily more costeffective to have contractors doing the that the Civil Service or military would normally be doing. Guest this has been the discussion for many years. Is a popular concept ocular misconception that profit is the negative driver. Having spent several years in the government working on these do it right,you you can use the profit motive as the driver for higher performance and lower cost. It is all about how you structure the business relationship and the incentives therein. You have the reverse problem on the government side. Theye him credible have incredible passion for the mission, but they dont always work in the most efficient way. Cost varies and depends on what youre looking at. If i look at technology skills, Cyber Security and so forth, it is difficult for the government to hire highend Cyber Capabilities because the thattplace for those talent has driven the prices so far up. Andt with a tech recruiter he said they were having a terrible time getting cyber skills because people did not want to work for big banks. They are paying sixfigure salaries to get top talent. The government cannot do that. Fors becoming difficult contractors because the government is trying to keep its cost am. You have to be careful about making generalizations about cost and assuming it is the only reason you do something inhouse or through contract or in host ors. Host james. The minimum wage question, i made seven dollars, when iollars an hour started us economy 35 years ago. I went on and made a lot more money come up to 25 an hour at times. For 30 years, wages for the American People has sunk or stayed stable. On the other hand, the wealthy 500 bottlesparty, of wine, yachts for everyone. These rich people are suffering. In the meantime, the American People are the ones who are really suffering. The middleclass are dying. That is all i have to say. Guest what can i say . I am not an economist. That issue there is a larger debate to be had here. The federal contractor minimum wage does not get you into that debate. On the Civil Service side, they get benefits. To contractors get benefits . Required health and Welfare Benefits payment. It is part of the total weight you pay. When you get total weight you pay. If i want an i. T. Professional or someone with data analytics, i am competing in a tight market. I have no choice but to pay competitive salaries and competitive benefits. One of the challenges we have as we move up where the competition gets greater is as the government budget pressures and buying habits drive costs to a low price environment, which is not the best way to buy tape abilities, it inhibits companies the ability to compete for that talent. There are requirements for benefits and as you get up into the higher and where there is competition for the talent, you have no choice. Where they affected by sequestration . Were they affected by sequestration . Guest agencies were holding back, they have been cutting. There was a popular phrase going around that we were laying off federal workers during the shutdown. That was unfair to the federal workforce. The contractors and not feel anything. A 50 billionout reduction in spend on contracts. That is jobs. If you take just Service Contracting, it is all about people. Not all of those jobs have come back. The budget deal that was passed else provide some clarity to the agency so they can execute against a program plan. That flows to their implementing partners. Host connie, california. I am a retired employee. I am 76 years old. Is goingl contribution to be 59. 66 each month. My net payment is going to be less than it was last year. My contribution is it going to go up . Here i am retired. I dont see that. I dont know the answer to the question. It is beyond my area of expertise. Host max, republican line. The dark have been in for all these years. I am 74, retired. I have been in the dark about how to get more money as a worker. I always thought that it was through hard work, doing a better job, being a better employee, not going up and telling the employer that i deserve more money. If you can prove that you deserve more money, maybe that is a good point, but to say that ,ou deserve so much money besides that, 10 an hour is the pins. Why not 30 or 40 hour . The issue of the minimum wage is less about the value of generation than it is about making sure people get a reasonable wage. Is should it be race and to what level. That is a broader policy debate that goes beyond the contractor question. Were already there or above in most cases. Going to comens after you for higher wages now that minimum wages have increased for others . , based onhink anecdotal evidence, almost all of them have said that a lot of them have collective bargaining agreements with unions and their already passed the 10. 10. I do not know that will happen. Host how has your industry changed when they heard that Edward Snowden was a federal contractor . Guest aside from the national ng, the fact drivi that he was a contractor attracted a lot of attention. Stepped back and said a, this is nothing new. This is long before 9 11. The fact that he was a contractor, it turns out if you look at the data and evidence, it is irrelevant. For forming some function as a network administrator. The process for clearances and contractors is exactly the same. That issue seems to have come down in heat. Is whats appropriately we call continuous monitoring. Whether you are a Government Employee or contractor. Things change. How do we maintain cognizance of changes that may affect whether or not you deserve clearance or can keep your clearance. And the alexise case at the navy yard highlights where the attention will calm. Will come. The government does some, contractors do some, but they only do the background checks. The government has to evaluate, assess, and adjudicate the decision. It is a mix. Clearance in the case of alexis, it is not that complex. Government responsibility. Companies cannot get their own employees clearances. Background checks only lead to government adjudication. The more we learn about the snowden case, it is cleared what is the process to share information after a clearance has been issued . Host stan soloway is our guest. Tennessee, independent line, go ahead. Caller why is it only federal inkers going to get a raise minimum wage when everything is going up for everyone else. Groceries are higher, electric is higher, gas is outrageous. You cannot afford to go to work on minimum wage. Contractors federal employees subject to the executive order. This is a precursor to a broader debate. The president has made it clear that he wants a broader debate. This is from twitter. People making 10 an hour will demand a 13 an hour. People making 13 an hour will demand a 17. Inflation will quickly eat away more. Guest in the community that is affected host charles, arkansas. I dont know too much about the contracts that you have, but every business has a it different. Costco requires about one third of the amount of people compared to walmart. Walmart is a more intense handson store. Costco is not. Per square foot, they can pay their people more money per sales than walmart can. Labor in the fast food business, such as mcdonalds, you want to raise their price, two dollars an hour . What does that due to the people that walk through the door to buy food . It will be more. The entire system is going to be raised. The point that is raised begs a larger perspective. It is fair to make some comparisons between the government and the commercial world, that it is dangerous to assume the same i will give you one example separate from this. We always hear that a lot of companies in the commercial world drive costs down, why have costs and government go up gone up . They are not subject to the same competition requirements or rules that we put on Government Contractors. The rules are there for another purpose. They are not there for economic reasons. We have to be a little bit careful with equating government and commercial across the board. There are so many differences. James, silver lake, indiana. Independent line. Caller good morning. I have about four questions i would like answered. Dont cut me off. Number one, has barack obama ever worked in minimum wage job in a minimum wage job . Number two, has he done anything at minimum wage . Doner three, has he ever an honest days work in his life . My guess is the answer to all three is probably yes, but you would have to ask president obama. Contractors with tsa, they are paid below 10. My questions about the first line supervisors. They are paid 10 an hour. You boost up the front line, what is the impact of that . I feel like the biggest federalck we have, contractor sold that. Collective bargaining units tend to protect different processes that create bottlenecks. I would be surprised if the security folks in tsa are making less than 10 an hour. I cannot swear to that one way or another. That may be a Small Community that would be impacted by this. Federal government has outsourced too much of what it does to private contractors while allowing the quality of its own workforce to atrophy. Guest he is right in half of it, in my view. There is no doubt in anyones mind that anyones we have devalued the governments people. Opportunities for advancement, theres a whole bunch of areas in which that is true. Linkingutsourced them together is the mistake. To government has struggled access talent have had no choice but to go outside. Sometimes they use contracts to get to where they need to go. Build ad i want to permanent infrastructure when i can rent rather than buy . There are a number of reasons the government has increasingly relied on contractors. About 1990s, we talked reagan, and then the clinton administration, we were reducing the size of government. As we brought civilian employment down, contractors increased. The size of government as measured by mission and total number of people performing the work. That was not the driver of outsourcing. If you look at the data, when we reduce the federal workforce, about 98 of deductions came to the Defense Department. Driven,mission peopledriven kind of need. The whole security footing of the country changed after 9 11. We need to rethink the federal Human Capital model. Operate aing to Technology Age on an Industrial Age model. We need to recognize the legal functions that cannot be performed by contractors. The mix of other people doing work is going to change because of the nature of competition for talent. We need to be thinking forward, not back. We get stuck in the good old days. Host darrell, national, georgia. Go ahead. I have three questions i would like to ask quicklike. This insurance i had my job for seven years and the insurance that i had, i got sick and my insurance did not pay anything on my operation. I had to fall back onto the v. A. Because i am a veteran. Number two, the Government Contractors are the ones making all the money. I am working at a minimum wage job for several years and can i get a raise. How are you going to solve that issue . People are going to say that the Government People if you give them a raise, what about the lower racket people . Implement president s order does not apply to federal employees. Order the steps now . Federalheres the Acquisition Regulation and it will be an open process, a Public Comment period. The federal administration has indicated that this will be a lot of dialogue about how to do this. Muchoncern here is not so that they are raising or putting this number in there because it is impact because its impact will be minimal. Will have to adhere to conducting work in the course of the government. The president s goal is to have effective ino at least october. Host those that have a seat at the table, unions . What are the perspective hurdles that have to be crossed . Guest the decision has been made that he is going to issue this executive order. How do you implement it . How does that match up with the directed wages under the Service Contract act . I dont know there will be that much difference. I think the issue that will come from it is going to be the question about a living wage. People tend to confuse the two issues. A different level of minimum salary, called the living wage, based on a whole different set that debatetions, is probably coming over the next couple of years. I think it will be in the broadest environment. That is a policy debate we need to have. I am not sure we have that much of a position on it. It is a policy debate for leadership to have. The Service Contract levels the panic playing field. Everyone has to pay the same thing. That is an economic debate. It is not a competitive issue. We all have to pay at the same level. Host as far as your yourization, talk about leadership as you discuss these issues. Guest we will sit down with the white house and talk about with certain talk about certain aspects of it. I expected to be a collegial environment. Host we have been discussing the role of federal contractors. Stan soloway is our guest. And that, go ahead with your question. Were going to have to leave it there. , thank you for your time. We are about to go to the house of representatives. Stay tuned. We will have a couple of hearings of interest for you as well. The house will meet at 10 00 for morning our. Hour. We now go to the house of representatives. 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