Transcripts For CSPAN Washington Journal 20140205

About his year of action plan for 2014. One issue is raising the debt ceiling. They are debating their strategy now. Should they ask for obama care reform or the approval of the pipeline . What is your take . Republicans, 202 5853881. Democrats, 202 5853880. 5853882. S, 202 tweet, also send us a cspanwj. Course ofl us a course, at journal cspan. Org. If you want to join the conversation, you can go to president n whether obama should negotiate with the gop on the debt ceiling. The debt ceiling should be lowered and we need to cut government spending. Do you think outside of washington as republicans decide attach a debt to ceiling increase to obama care reform . Debating whether or not it should be the keystone xl type line should be attached to an increase in the debt ceiling. We want to get your take on that. The house gop ways their debt ceiling strategy. The report says. House republicans were still struggling to find consensus in how to handle their a coming upcoming debt ceiling negotiation. This is one quote we should bring up a clean debt ceiling. Let the democrats pass it and move on. Our constituents are fed up with the theater. Fight fornot going to something specific, we should let the democrats own it. , what do you think about making the call for a clean debt ceiling . Yesterdaytold cnn oft he is in the minority the republican party, because he think they should fight for something for increasing the debt ceiling. Seems to becaucus coalescing around the idea of linking a oneyear extension of the debt ceiling to another to repeal some provisions of the Affordable Care act. The bargaining idea that appears to have the most momentum is a repeal of the provision in the Affordable Care act known as a risk corridor wars, which limit the amount of money that a Health Insurance plan can make and lose during the first three years it is sold on the new healthcare exchanges. Republicans see the corridor s as bailouts for the Insurance Industry of plans start losing money. Consideredtion being would be to approve the x the keystone xl pipeline in exchange for a debt limit extension. House republicans are focused on whether to use energy policy, or health care as a bargaining chip. Met andpublicans huddled about this. Debating what their strategy should be. The speaker talked to reporters after that. He said that settling on a strategy that can win votes is John Boehners chief goal. The speaker was quoted as saying the goal here is to increase the debt ceiling. No one wants to default on debt. Jobsve to do something on or the economy. Dale, albuquerque, new mexico, democratic caller. What do you think . Caller the president should not negotiate. As they pass laws, then they. Aise whatever funding negotiate something that congress has always passed, that is ridiculous and against the constitution. It is a silly debate. Host what you make of the argument from the speaker, saying lets do something on jobs . Lets try to do something to help the economy and increase jobs. Caller every time Speaker Boehner says, mr. President , where are the jobs . They have been on his desk for three years. Leaders,ne to minority the district, the bill was already there. It should have been passed along time ago. They are playing games for the majority of the presidency. The president is such a nice guy. I know why he has to do a. He has to try to keep the union together. On twitter. Of course he should, but he wont. Says therl in pa president should not negotiate the debt ceiling. Tom, new jersey, republican caller. Caller thank you for having me. Get together, pass a bill andbt ceiling ,mprove domestic profit bring back jobs to america and stop the fair trade act of 2002 and bring our domestic profit back to the United States. Bill think the farm do you think the farmville helps . Farm billthink the helps . Caller it is inflated with other nonsense. Bill andery good something we definitely need. We need agriculture in this country. It is what drove this country to be so powerful. Host allentown, pennsylvania, democratic caller. Caller when you are reading that bit about the republicans want to take stuff out of the Affordable Care act, i wonder if they realize that the risk c orridors they are in Medicare Part d. You should leave that question open for john make john mica when he comes on later. Host we are going to talk about the hearing and the marijuana policy. We will be talking about that. We can ask about his strategy on the debt ceiling and whether or not republicans should attach it to obama care reform. Republicans are looking at the socalled risk corridor wars or attaching it to the keystone xl pipeline. Journal has this headline. Senate budget chairman knocks down possible gop debt ceiling proposal. Leadershipbout considering a received role move a procedure role move. Rocedural rule ofy would have to vote as tuesday morning. Republicans were hopeful they could garner democratic support. Not long after they met to the insurances, bailout will actually reduce the deficit by 8 billion dollars between fiscal year 2015 and 2017. Says todays cbo report shows that republicans most recent debt limit ran some idea would not only cause premiums to skyrocket for american families, it would also add billions to the deficit. If Congress Fails to address the debt ceiling, your tax refunds could be at risk. Medford, massachusetts. Independent caller. I am sick of people saying that not raising the debt ceiling would cause us to default. That is not the truth. If we did nothat raise the debt ceiling, we would not have to prioritize spending. We would have the means to do that. It is a lot of rhetoric about calling republicans terrorists and they are hijacking the economy. Debt and6 trillion in it is rising. We need to curtail this. I think it is futile to stop obamacare right now. We will have to have a republican majority in congress in 2014. We will have to have a republican in the white house to get anything done on obamacare. People are signing up with obamacare because Medicaid Eligibility requirements are lower with the obamacare law. More people are signing up for medicaid. People on medicaid use the emergency room six times more than people with private insurance and even with people who are uninsured. This is a road to disaster. I usually dont take sides, but i would be cautioned to see what is going to happen this country. I am not going to sign up for the Health Care Plan. Theres no incentive for me to do so. Host we are talking about whether or not republicans should tie something to the debt ceiling vote and should the president negotiate with them. All of that is likely to, when before thetifies House Budget Committee today. Live coverage on cspan2. Will be there. He will be talking about the report those put out yesterday about the Affordable Care act as well as our deficit. All of that is likely to come up. You can join the conversation on facebook or twitter, using the hashtag cspanchat. A fact check on what the cbo actually said. Headline is, no, cbo did not say obamacare would kill 2 million jobs. The fact checker had to repeatedly explain that the Congressional Budget Office never said that the Affordable Care act killed 800,000 jobs by 2021. Now they have released an triple estimate, nearly the size of the earlier 1, 2. 3 million in 2021. This tweet and others respond in part by seriously flawed headlines all over the web. Jobs, is aboutut workers and the choices they make. A result of the analysis on the supply of labor. That is how may People Choose to participate in the workforce. Orther the law increases decreases incentives for people to work. Some people might decide to work parttime, not fulltime, in order to get health care subsidies. Theyre reducing their supply of labor to the market, but companies are not killing jobs because of the Affordable Care act. We should note that the figure 2 are shorthand for fulltime equivalent workers. Pinocchio test is three noses on those that say the cbo is saying that 2. 3 million jobs will be lost. Dana, northeast pennsylvania. Were talking about whether or not there should be negotiations over the debt ceiling. What do you think . Caller he should not raise the debt ceiling. He should do more about and try to get as much inflation down as possible. He should lower the amount of money that the treasury is printing out and try to cut spending and legalize marijuana could behe spending greatly decreased. Host timothy, illinois, democratic caller. Caller good morning. I dont think the president should negotiate with the republicans. Spent and if being you use a credit card to buy something, you should be able to pay for. Credit should not have they should not have the right to negotiate with them. Should do the right thing. You should not negotiate. Host domenech, jacksonville, florida. The debt ceiling is something that president obama should negotiate with the congress in specific terms, the way you look at a menu, one from column a and one from column b. The debt ceiling reduction should be in column a and the republicans can pick from column b, passage of immigration law, renewableill, the Energy Sources to be traded off with the debt ceiling. There should be the keystone pipeline. I think that is necessary at this time. Sois a wonderful tradeoff we can come out with the best of all possible solutions. I feel bad about the young people that are going to school 1. 2y with student loans, trillion taxpayer dollars are out there on student loans. Many of the students have deficiencies in their education and could never complete the real requirements for the courses they are taking. Are pushingschools them through so they get the full payment of the student loan. The students are going to come out and will be able to find jobs. Thank you for taking my call this morning. Poll out by cnn shows that americans would blame the gop if no deal is reached on the debt ceiling. 54 said the gop should get the blame. President obama and 12 said both sides equally. The government could default on its debt rather quickly once the Borrowing Limit is reached, which is friday. Heres what he had to say on monday. [video clip] these measures will give us a brief span of time before we run out of Borrowing Authority. In february, the same trust Fund Investments that were deferred last year are not available. Less cashs result in flows that the plea darling capacities quickly. We forecast were likely to exhaust is measured by the end of the month. The report issued last week came to the same conclusion. Even though these are estimates, it is clear that extraordinary measures will not last long. Exhaust is borrowing capacity, we will be left with the cash we have on hand and any incoming revenues to meet our commitments. We expect our outlays over the coming weeks to exceed our net inflows. Draw down our cash balance faster than at other times of the year. Host jack lew on monday talking thet they will exhaust extraordinary measures by the end of the month. Jake sherman, a reporter for tweeted this out. No potential for a debt ceiling vote until the last week of february. We are getting your take on whether or not president obama and congress should be negotiating over the debt ceiling or should it be a clean vote. What are your thoughts . Larry, d. C. , republican caller. Paul moeller stated that america is heading towards a meltdown. Volcker stated that america is heading towards a meltdown. America is no longer a manufacturing economy. It is a consumer economy. Dollar is like a rope. It is a tugofwar between inflation and deflation. That is why china is converting americas debt. We are heading towards a capital flight. People can live in a fantasy world if they want to. We are heading into a depression. It is going to leave a third world war three. Is 220 trillion. It is not 16 trillion. They dont want people to panic. Get ready. Reality is going to smack everyone in the face. Cathy Mcmorris Rodgers tweeted this about the whole idea of whether or not the debt ceiling can be negotiated. She said the president s refusal to negotiation puts the whole country at risk. Catherine, ohio, democratic caller. Nether snowre in a emergency, but i wanted to call and say that the debt ceiling is not the president s debt ceiling. It is the peoples debt ceiling. We estimate this and voted these who have spent all this money. We had two wars that were not paid for. We had to tax rebates for the super rich that was not paid for. We had a meltdown on wall street that was not paid for. Andident obama gets elected it is his debt ceiling. It is not his. It is ours. People in office, we are going to have to take them out. If we want the debt ceiling to be different than it is, we should raise taxes where it if you make over 250 thousand dollars, you pay taxes. It is that simple. Company or a business here and dont keep your money here, dont let the door hit you. I am sick and tired of being told that my president cannot be a real president because he is a biracial black man. That is crazy. This is 2014. We have got to get over it. We are not all white in america. We are not all male. We all have different opinions. Blaming it on batman is not his man blaming it on that it is not his responsibility. We created the problem, only we can answer. Rob andrews will resign. Step stepto down has nothing to do with the pending investigation into his campaign finances. He has served in congress for nearly a quartercentury. He will resign in two weeks. Leaving with no laws, sites successes. He has written 646 from pieces of legislation. All of his bills had one thing in common, they did not become law. Only four of his hundreds of bills ever passed the house of representatives. None of them passed the senate and none made it to the president s jet desk. He insisted the statistics do not capture history record in congress. Another democrat saying he will not run for reelection. Has this story about the drought situation in california. Bracing for a megadrought. The agriculture issue, producer of nearly half of u. S. Grown fruits, nuts, and vegetables. Ranchers are thinning cattle herds, ski resorts have laid off workers. Calls were up sixfold last month from past januarys. House has a legislation theyre going to be debating and voting on, dealing with californias drought situation. You this morning about target and other retailers, including Neiman Marcus on capitol hill before the senate. They were testifying about the security breach. Target officials apologized and said they plan to rush for new card ship security and that they will push for better disclosure for their customers. They will be back up on capitol hill on the house side today. We will have coverage of that. Go to our website. Yesterday, the second hearing on worldwide threats. The house took it up yesterday. Herring hearing, assad has strengthened his hold on power. Towards syria is faltering on several fronts. Not only has his government blocked progress of the geneva peace talks, it has also delayed taking its most dangerous chemicals to a nearby port so they can be shipped out for destruction. Critics say that the peace talks are unlikely to succeed, unless militarily anded has some incentive to negotiate. John kerry is working on those peace talks. He had to give up his own twitter account when he took over as secretary of state. Yesterday, he got his twitter account back and tweeted out that you can read his tweets, johnkerry. His profile backup and the state department approving his twitter account. In june, independent color, high. Hi. Ndependent color, deja vu all over again. It is ridiculous. Congress, do your job. You know it has to be raised. Do it, look good to the american about doingeel good the right thing for your country. Who is paying your salary, by the way . It is amazing. No negotiations. Do the right thing. That is what i say. God bless america. Host randy, wisconsin, republican caller. Should he negotiate to raise the debt ceiling isnt in the constitution that you always put these questions out that always has with the gop is always looking like the bad person. The question should be, should the gop give obama a blank check to spend as much money as he wants. It is part of government. Host the question is, should he negotiate with the gop on the debt ceiling . Caller absolutely. That is their job. I cannot believe what i am hearing here this morning. Look at these people in washington together to make sure that they Work Together and we do not need one guy on the pulpit dictating what he wants to do. We cannot have that. Host deborah, cincinnati. Is this whole thing when areestion we going to stop acting like the republicans are the grownups in the room and they get to frame everything and decide what we talk about . Everything that they are doing right now is causing our country to fall into a third world country. Our infrastructure is crumbling. Corporations can kill you. Bp, the oil rig explosion, people died. What happened in West Virginia with the water, if we had people out poisoning our water, we would be trying to find them. They want to put the Boston Marathon guy to death. Anybody go to jail . When does wall street go to jail . This all stems from republicans obstruction. It all stems from their failed policy. This this headline how debt limit will end. I think we should let the democrats own the debt ceiling so we can go back to our constituents and explain to them that they do not want reform and we do. Slate. Com says markets stay calm, janet yellen is ensconced at the said, republicans are only putting up as much of a fight over the debt limit as they have to. Outside groups have moveouts have moved elsewhere. This headline about senator rand paul. Talking about whether or not there should be some sort of negotiation over the debt ceiling, saying i am in the minority of the minority of republican standing for debt ceiling sequester. I do not know about the debt ceiling stuff, but what i told this guy when i called in the government needs to back out on all of the rules and regulations on Controlling Companies around here. Quit putting high taxes on them so they will hire again. Want overall tax reform, lower the tax rate for corporations. Farmers are fussing because the government has their nose into their business. They want to run their farms their way, not the governments way. Everything the government tries to run, it backfires. You mentioned farmers and lots of stories in the papers this morning about how the farmville was able to get past how the farm bill was able to get passed after two years. At president will sign it Michigan State university on friday. Bill prohibits government from renegotiation. The government can still renegotiate but contract, but taxpayer watchdogs say the bill any savings be paid back to Insurance Companies. There are clear winners and losers in this legislation. It expands Crop Insurance for farmers over 7 billion over a decade. New subsidies for ricin peanut growers. Antihunger advocates said the bill would harm about 850,000 american households. Mr. Obama, like congress, surrenders to the ad lobby. He should have reread his fiscal 2014 buzz it Budget Proposal before signing this bill. It continues to be one of the strongest sectors of the economy. That is what the white house wrote in a 2014 budget, but they will be signing this legislation on friday. Off theirs easing standoff with the white house over passing another round of iran sanctions. Is makingstory that its way across the internet this morning. Why cbs thinks it can win big on ending cigarette sales. Chains at cbs will stop selling Tobacco Products at its locations across the United States. They hope it will pressure other large drugstore franchises to follow suit. Warrensburg, missouri, independent caller . Independent caller. I never understood why we have to negotiate silly junk. It is in the interest of congress and the executive office and everyone in that the government stays open and operate like it should. That is their job. Andr job is to make it work do whatever they have to do. Not to sit there one branch against the other and say either you give me what i want or i destroy everything. What kind of sense does that make . It is not obama, who is the responsibility to negotiate with republicans anyway. They have the democrats there. Why can they sit down and negotiate among themselves . That is their job. Yes, lets see the president and a man of his work. He said he would work with the gop and use their ideas. Is it just another lie . What is your take . Jack lew as saying on monday that they can probably go until the end of the month before they are unable to pay some of the bills using extraordinary measures. Negotiating over the debt ceiling . We are getting your thoughts this morning. We have about 10 minutes left. In other news, here is a look of this morning on the Senate Democrats holding their annual retreat. They will keep it here in washington this is on the republican. Pocketbook issues to dominate the gop retreat. Will bete republicans having their retreat at the library of congress. Senate democrats also holding their retreat this weekend they will be hearing from former president bill clinton as well as the president. He will be addressing the Senate Democrats when they meet at the Nationals Park here in washington. The senators are keeping their inreats in washington, d. C. The district. What are your thoughts on president obama negotiating with the gop . Should it happen . A little more from jack lew on monday. [video clip] they can rattle Financial Markets and her taxpayers. Think about it. Around this time last year, we had a standoff. We saw consumer and Business Confidence dropped. The bottom line is, time is short. Conversely to act to extend the Borrowing Authority for our nation and a need to act now. It is important to remember that increasing the debt limit of congress is congress responsibility. Has everss in history failed to make this responsibility. Some have suggested that extending the Borrowing Authority should be tied to spending cuts. The time to fight for spending cuts is when you are talking about spending, not at debt ceiling time. Raising the debt limit has nothing to do with new spending. Refusing to raise the debt ceiling will not make these obligations or bills vanished. The president has made it clear time and again that neither he nor any other president should have to pay ransom so the United States can pay its bills. President s from both Political Parties have stood firm in predicting the full faith and credit of the United States. We should never put this in jeopardy. Talking about the ramifications of not increasing the debt ceiling. Should the president negotiate with the gop . Caller congress got us into this mess and the president should not negotiate. He has tried to negotiate with them and they are unwilling. They do not legitimize him. They do not respect him. Dont negotiate. Angel, woodbridge, virginia. What are your thoughts . Caller thank you for taking my call. They should start with their own pay. Half of them make 200 grand a year. See how tenuous they are. The entire idea that we should approve the debt ceiling is needless. Remove that provision completely. Once you spend, you pay. Bailout fears a new finance crisis is brewing. Worries that the nation is heading for another crisis because political leaders ailed to learn critical lessons from the last one in 2008. In an interview with the Washington Times, Esther Paulson says that the most serious lapse failure togress reform mortgage giants fannie mae and in a way that would revive the private market for mortgages, which has all but disappeared since the crisis. On the issue of the financial crisis and what happens to homeowners, inside the Washington Times this morning, they have this headline. Welcome relief. A tax bill. Tax time, Jpmorgan Chase will be able to write off the 1. 5 billion in debt risk debt relief it must give homeowners to satisfy the terms of a recent settlement. Willwners who receive help have to treated as taxable income, resulting in whopping tax bills for families who have just lost their homes or only narrowly managed to keep them. This is the New York Times this morning. The business section. Morning, they also reported that Morgan Stanley has reached a similar settlement as jpmorgan. To the tune of 1. 25 billion. If it comes about, the settlement is still being worked out it will be the Third Largest of jpmorgan paying the largest settlement thus far. Joe, flagstaff, arizona. What do you think . Caller good morning. Thank you for taking my call. We need to stop this. It is putting out a hand. Negotiate. Going to usent think they should statements like terrorists, Holding Us Hostage or any of that. That is ridiculous. I dont know when this became namecalling, but it needs to stop. Job at 50,000 a year. I am down to 20. I am not collecting unemployment. I am not going to be part of the spirit everyone ought to take responsibility for their own actions. A thief orone who is a liar. Thank you for taking my call. Host we are going to leave it there. The front page of the wall street journal, a story about a mystery assault on the power grid in california. The attack took place on april 16 last year. Littlegotten very attention. In an interview with the wall street journal, the former head of the federal Energy Regulatory is talking about the he hast because he says grown concerned that and even larger that an even larger attack could be in the works. National security is at risk. This is in the front page of the wall street journal. Coming up next, were going to switch topics and turned to the administrations marijuana policy. John mica led a Committee Hearing yesterday. We will talk about it next. Later, we will talk to Donna Edwards about the democratic agenda for 2014. We will be right back. I came to washington to conduct investigations. We have been conducting investigations for a year and a half. Five or six days a week. Eight to 10 hours a day. In the field of finance and. Eorganization i had a great galaxy and people on the stand. We never would call a man if we knew he was going to invoke the fifth amendment. Associate Justice William o douglas at 4 00 eastern. Online at cspan. Org. Nationwide at xm satellite radio, channel 120. The American Public sees the first lady in very glamorous circumstances usually. A handsomeh where suit, whatever. What they may not imagine is that is a normal life upstairs on those two floors that are the white house residence. I lay on the couch and read a book. Alwaysase, the cat would curl up next to me. Watch a program on laura bush. See it saturday on cspan at 7 00 p. M. Eastern. Our series continues on monday with michelle obama. We bring Public Affairs events from washington to you, putting you in the room at congressional hearings, white house events, briefings and conferences. All as a Public Service of private industry. Tvare created by the cable industry 35 years ago and funded your local cable or satellite provider. Like us on facebook and follow us on twitter. Journal continues. Host john mica is the chairman of oversight and reform. What did you learn yesterday . Ofler there was a lack policy by the Obama Administration. We have gotten into this because it is some of the president and recenttration officials commentary. The president was quoted saying, i have it here. I do not think it is more dangerous than alcohol, speaking of marijuana. It is important to go forward because it is important for society to not have ua si tuation. The enforcement side is saying that legalization of marijuana at the state level is reckless and irresponsible. That the movement to decriminalize the sale of pot we were trying to sort out what is the policy of the now with many legal use ofg marijuana for first medical purposes and now Recreational Purposes and we still have schedule1listedas a drug, a very dangerous drug. Host what does that mean schedule 1 . Guest we have categories set up and the law allows the administration to put certain drugs that may be the most harmful they call it a schedule one drug right now, marijuana is in that schedule on the president was quoted a few weeks ago when he made this comment that it was up to congress. With further research, we found the administration. Can change the category our probe was to find out where we are going. We want to call in the department of justice. They have also conducted some raids. Dollars,about 40 alien we found out yesterday, on each we spent about 40 billion on Drug Prevention programs. Since the beginning of the Obama Administration, the use of marijuana has spiked up in adolescence. Panel, everyone on the there were some probe legalization people and antiand everybody agreed that we should not allow this narcotic, the drug in the hands of adolescence. We are going downhill in controlling the Substance Abuse with marijuana with young people. We are spending a lot of money. We have a federal policy that is here if state policy is here. Our subcommittee is charged with looking at state and federal relationships and laws and things of that sort. Thats the purpose of the hearings so we will continue and the department of justice and the folks who can tell us about the science of all of this. Was reported about the hearing sing the Obama Administration post deputy drug czar said the white house opposes the legalization of marijuana despite the president s recent suggestion that some statewide decriminalization initiatives should go forward. Guest i called it a schizophrenic policy. It is a policy in chaos. We are trying to sort out where they are going to go. At the same time, if you are spending billions of taxpayer dollars and we are going in thent directions report on adolescent abuse and use is concerning. We have made great progress with tobacco. We have cut the use of tobacco but i inc. We still have a lot of problems with adolescents. The most vulnerable are now some of the victims. Decisions. Many states have made decisions on marijuana for medical use. Florida just put it on the ballot. 20 states have adopted that policy. It conflicts somewhat with federal policy. I think we need to look at how you will control that the several states have also gotten into Recreational Use and the district took some action yesterday. Its not final but i think they also leaning toward more of a legalization. Host is marijuana just as dangerous or more dangerous than other schedule one drugs like heroin . Guest again, we did not have the science folks into tell us. Host you have been looking at this for a while. Ombcp director said that know from studies that have will use of marijuana actually lowers your iq an average of eight percent. That is what he testified to us. 314,000said they have in treatment so it is costing us a lot of money. It is treating people who are addicted or have an abuse problem with marijuana. It does have consequences. At the hearing, the question kept coming up about how many people have died from marijuana overdose. The director could not name anyone. By the same token, he would not posed indanger it relation to other drugs. He just would not testify to that before the subcommittee. We will hear from some of the experts at her next hearing. We know that the marijuana that is out there today is not the 30,that was out there, oh, 40 years ago. It has a higher narcotic content. Addictive and somewhat harmful, as he described. We are trying to sort through it and come up with a logical policy. One of the questions i was interested in i chaired criminal justice and drug policy in 1998late 2000. Up with an ad campaign and worked with the Clinton Administration and others to try to bring down Substance Abuse problems, the use of illegal narcotics whether it be , oftenna or other drugs referred to as hard drugs. We tried to get the media also to since the public owns the airwaves to also use some of their time for Public Service announcements in helping us try to abate the use of hard drugs and harmful drugs. And looking to go back at what we have done as far as where we are with campaigns ongoing after marijuana and other drugs. There are all whole host of issues that have been raised. Another issue that just aim up through the administration is looking at freeing 812,000 prisoners who were convicted of cocaine. I think we have made some changes in the cocaine law on the amount you are prosecuted on. The president granted clemency felt werelks what he unfair sentences. With the release of these attorney, the deputy generalcole is asking defense lawyers to help locate prisoners and encourage them to come forward for this release program. That raises a number of questions. Often, some of the dealers would plea down to lesser offenses of possession. We are going to look at what they are doing with regard to this new wave of releasing some of these people who were in present for offenses. Viewers,s get to our worcester, ohio, republican caller. Caller thank you for letting me be on. I got up early this morning and was watching the hearings on the legalization of marijuana on television on cspan. Tired of them using the race card. In ohio, theyre going to have it on the ballot, try to get on the ballot in november to legalize marijuana. Communitying in our to explain to people how dangerous it really is. It is very addictive. People try to say it is not and we know it is. We will usesay that it for medicinal purposes but what we say here is that we dont vote on medicine. We did not vote on penicillin. We did not vote on any medicines. Why would we vote to make marijuana a medicinal thing . The impact on race from ally to cummings is the Ranking Member of the committee our criminalre charges against African Americans up to four times as opposed to whites who have a similar charge with marijuana. Issue, if youhole want to look at the race aspect of all the problems we face now a lot of it starts unfortunately in the minority communities with Substance Abuse. Africanamericans only account for 13 of the population but 50 of the prisoners and our prisons are africanamerican. We have a much larger problem. I wish the president would step up and do more for our minorities. Impacted been the most whether it is a Substance Abuse over half of the people in our prisons you look at the illegitimate birthrate nearly 70 were africanamericans and other minorities extremely high. You look at the dropout rate of schools. They weren rate bragging about the Graduation Rate overall improving but for backities, it actually has slid. I would like our committee to look at government grants and how they are having a negative effect particularly on the minorities. Her point, many states have had this on the ballot because they narrowly craft it to the use of marijuana for the purposes which most people are not opposed for the problem in florida is they have caveats that open the door for other expansion of use of marijuana. Host there is a tweet guest i dont know. Its very difficult to control. Personally, i dont favor it. People may not like this but i am a tough enforcement kind of guy. I have a criminal justice drug policy chair and Rudy Giuliani did zero tolerance. You see the results residual to today in new york city. Changed the whole landscape of new york city. People not to see using drugs, go to singapore because they have capital punishment. I am not advocating that but tough enforcement works. When i was chair, i went over to the netherlands to talk to their people and their judges sharing just in their judiciary. They adopted some of the most liberal policies with pot and other drugs. They found that the netherlands became the capital of marcotte asked trafficking europe and officials had to back off with tough enforcement and change the law. Im afraid we may be headed in the wrong direction. There may be consequences. Host we will go to john next in fairfax, virginia, democratic caller. Caller thank you for letting me be on. It is incredible the misinformation that people have been fed over the years. Addictive. S not the people who are in rehabilitation for marijuana, they are there because the court sent them there, not because they have a problem. We dont have to go through the dreck on in jail system which is the worst in the year in the world. Guest i wish he could talk to one of the mothers i just talked to this past week whose daughter actually moved to colorado. Life revolvedhole around the use of marijuana. I think it can be addictive. Awayther actually passed from being addicted from the effects of smoking and being addicted to cigarettes so i think you can be addicted ill call, people cant handle it. Alcohol, people cant handle it. We have a drug that is much more powerful which was testified to yesterday. It does have some very damaging effects on human beings and you cannot control all human beings behavior and the government cannot run that but you have to be responsible in society and you have to be responsible for our laws. Ofare spending billions dollars on enforcement prevention programs, a whole host of things. Is that money properly directed . 40 billion. Host how much of that is for marijuana . guest we did not get all of that but it is rogan down a large part is in enforcement. There is quite a bit for prevention. Another interesting thing i have to go back and check the testimony but he said we had 314,000 in treatment. The gentleman said they should not be there. Ondcp director said the good news is i think they are eligible under obama care for treatment. I will have to check that. That is kind of scary, too. Program. New we have opened it up in a new area and there will be costs there. Not that i am against the treatment of folks if that will help. How effective are those programs . Is it just a diversion . Host Richard Rogers treats which is more harmful, cigarettes or marijuana . Guest i would say marijuana. My mother managed to keep her faculties. Whena horrible death someone destroys their lungs from smoking. We have done a good job if we could do as good a job on marijuana and drugs, hard drugs almost every family can name someone now who has died from overdose of narcotics. Its probably one of the highest causes of death, higher than automobile accidents. If we could do that kind of job with tobacco, i think we can do the same thing with Substance Abuse. Host we covered the hearing yesterday and the issue of addiction came up of marijuana versus harder drugs. Congressman blumenauer had a backandforth with the white house control policy Deputy Director. Lets show that. [video clip] what is more dangerous and what is more addictive . Marijuana . Meeth or thats presimple. I think that conversation minimizes the harm. I am not trying to minimize the harm. I want to know which is more dangerous and addictive. Again, you dont know . One thing we look at is not whats the relative risk of one drug against another. Let me say that your equivocation right there, being unable to answer something clearly and definitively, when there is unquestioned evidence to the contrary is white young people do not believe the propaganda and why they think its been nine. If that professional like you clearly m that is more dangerous thaneth marijuana which every kid on the street knows, every parent knows, if you cannot answer that, maybe failing to we are educate people about the dangers. I dont want kids smoking marijuana. I agree with the chairman. If the Deputy Director of the office of drug policy cannot answer that question, how do you expect High School Kids to take you seriously . Host congressman . Guest the hearing raised a lot of questions, some that cannot be answered by the president s director of the office of National Drug control policy. This is an important question. We have a policy in chaos. We have a transition in laws. Ourink we will continue work and we want to bring in the department of justice and people who can answer the westin that was not answered. Republicans on the legalization side and democrats. We have spent a lot of money. It has a big impact on our society, particularly our youth and we need to get it right. Host another tweet do you agree . Guest again, aspects of it. Colombia wheren a whole nation was captured by narco terrorists and Denny Hastert and i helped put together that planet was successful and we rescued helped rescue the nation. We have human beings. They get involved in abuses. We have hard drugs that we need to control. We will have to look at the whole thing. I think we can and must do better and we are spending an incredible amount of money and not succeeding. That is not a good picture. Host lexington, kentucky, independent caller caller thank you for having me on. Just to give you a background, i in browardflorida county and im studying history at the university of eastern kentucky. Im a Young Americans for liberty member. I would just like to say to the congressman that him having been in criminal justice, i would highly suggest he looks into a group called Law Enforcement against prohibition. It goes into how much of a family drug war we currently have and how we can get out of it because we are spending millions of tax dollars on something that is not working. Heroin is currently it is an our streets more and more and it is worse than marijuana and yet we focus on marijuana. The city of lexington is usingnarcam and nearly every day, they try to reverse the effects of heroin. Currently, marijuana is just nowhere near as bad. Again, i somewhat agree. I dont know about the group he mentioned but the policy is in ksm me to look at it if we are spending money and it is not doing the job or is affected. We need to put the resources where we have the best impact one of myain concerts is the impact on our youth and we need a program to do it that and we are failing in that area. We will examine this. This is the first time we have opened this back up. I think the first hearing on marijuana use was when i was first chairman in congress a decade ago. Host no hearings since then . No, i remember Dennis Kucinich had taken over at one point and i dont know if he did any hearings on the subject. A number of agencies have a lot of money and programs. If they are not effective, we need to look at them and do what we can do bring chaotic policy point. E rational host what should be done about this issue . Guest this points to a lack of success. We need to review all of these programs. They have not been reviewed and i intend to do that. I dont know the answers right now there it we started programs i mentioned land colombia and the drug education program. Dick morris helped us with the program. Look at what makes a difference in these programs and the money we are spending and then the success rates. You seemed hesitant to give your perspective and what you think should happen on these issues. Because i want to have a fair and open hearing. We will look at the other aspects, some of which were raised yesterday. Then you try to put together rational programs that make sense and make a difference that wisely use taxpayer money. I am not committed to any course right now. I am not a big legalization fan. I am a tough enforcement kind of guy. We will look at some of those things and if they make sense, i will go down that path. If they dont, we will take another course. Everything is on the table right now. There is a lot of chaos in policy and needs to be reviewed. Host lets let you get a drink of water and listen to the next phone call, reynolds station, kentucky, republican caller. Caller good morning and thank you for cspan. Nice to see somebody has a telephone number on there. I would like to know if you have ever tried the stuff. I have not but i am a chronic pain patient and i have taken other medications. I have taken strong ones and i have come off of them by myself. When you go on this stuff, you have to take this medication to counteract another affect and another one to counteract another affect and another one to counteract the effects of another medication. I have a friend that said she had a person that had cancer and i lost my father to cancer and it was horrific. They kept him on morphine. I think they killed him with it. The effects of that stuff is godawful and this lady that took a marijuana joint after she cameough chemo, out of that room happy and smiling and content, no throwing up and no side effects and no nothing. She was already dying, sir. What is wrong with having a happy death . To answer her first question, i have not used any narcotics including marijuana. I want to say that i never smoked either. I was raised in a family and i saw the effects on the Family Member. It just turned me off totally. Marijuana, i dont know. I probably dont have it problem with that use of it as prescribed by a doctor and controlled and can help somebody. I have seen several things where it has had some positive effects. Again, this is much bigger than that question. The medical marijuana has been entree in some of the state referendums to go beyond that. That is a question that we have to look at because it conflicts with the Recreational Use. We will try to figure this all out in a responsible fashion. We will hear the rest of the different sides. Was a question about the potency, the marijuana that is on the market today. We need to find out how much of a risk that poses and how addictive it is. Host here is another tweet guest i asked that question yesterday. I thought it was a fairly effective campaign. ,remier consulting with morris one of the most respected political consultants. He said we can change peoples behavior through advertising and we did it. Wed have done it for young people through advertising. That was 10 years ago. I asked yesterday how much they were spending on social media and he did not know. Ing and emailing and the Different Social Media that impacts peoples lives, maybe we can look at impacting in a positive fashion whether its marijuana all the way to heroin , educating people a little better and changing peoples attitudes on this. One of the last things i will mention is i met with some of my Police Chiefs recently. I was asking them questions about narcotics abuse. They told me the only reason that the tallies are not worse that this the fatalities have leveled out there in they may not be too bad as far as his store coal standpoint they tell me they only reason for that is they are better at saving them now than they were 10 years ago. Impact and you cited some of the statistics on heroine. Heroin and crack and all of the and legal drugs prescription medication. We as a society must do better. If im spending 40 billion of federal taxpayer money and we are backsliding, we are not succeeding. Hawkeds are getting more hooked and we have a problem. Thats the way i try to approach our direction in congress. Host i want to get your take on some other issues. There is debate within the gop caucus of what to do on the debt ceiling. Should it the attached to reforms to the Affordable Care pipeline orl Something Else . Guest we are falling further and further into debt. I have voted for and against raising the debt limit when we were at war and at other times to get us to a point. When you have debt reaching this for a level, we should ask some steps that help us reduce that deficit and help us reduce the spending. Occasions to many try to get that spending under control but this is a Good Opportunity or something that would boost our economy, maybe the pipeline. Again, i dont think we should let the opportunity pass either to get our spending under control or get something that and aenefit the nation lot of folks in the country are still out of work. That would boost revenue and careity solve Health Problems on a whole host of other issues. Time and unique hopefully we can make it a positive time. Host you served as the Top Republican on the House Transportation Committee for many years. I want to get your thoughts on this political magazine piece that was written five days ago by a formertsa screener guest fortunately, it confirmed our worst suspicions. Tsa was taken out of her committee and has much and from 16,500 screeners to 51,000 screeners and on top of that, 15,000 bureaucrats. Thats 66,000 people total. It needs to be reined in. I will introduce legislation which is a switch to all private under federal supervision organizations. When we created that, we have five airports that were private screening under federal supervision. , theroblem was 9 11 government failed to put any rules and regulations or audit the procedure. Thats what we need to do, not go back to at the federal government out of the Operations Side of it and the spencer bureaucracy they have created. Almost every western country has private screening under their federal supervision. We can bring the bureaucracy down and make it a more passenger friendly 99. 9 of the people screamed posed no risks and they are getting hassled unnecessarily. We see from this article what is going on. Host how would making tsa screeners privatized prohibit them from doing Something Like this . Guest the federal government wont never meant is that many people very well. They are also not good at innovation or expediting the process for the private sector can always do it better. Its a onesizefitsall operation. They need to take it back into security, connecting the dots, not running a huge yurok received. We only not running a huge bureaucracy. We have 35 airports that handle 75 of the traffic. On 15,000h administrators to run that. You can bring down the cost of administration. Can be much more customer friendly and be friendlier to the tsa employees. Private screening is a better retention rate and pay them more in some absences to retain them. We have had a revolving door. We see how they operate and they can be better managed. I think they will be happier campers in that situation. Government does not running huge operation it should not be the administrator or the regulator or the auditor. Running this huge Barack Hersey bureaucracy. We can do better. Host back to the marijuana policy, here is a tweet guest yes. Based on my two years chairing the criminal justice drug holocene. When i the information shared that. Thats what i am left with. Yesterdaye question and its a good question that needs to be asked is there evidence this is a gateway drug today . We will update that information and see what the scientists say. Is it a gateway drug to harder drugs . I dont know where we are today. Testimony, wee have a more powerful drug then we had some years ago. Psychological impact on the brain. We will see what they say as far as taking people to the next level. I want to hear from the experts. Host can alcohol be a gateway drug . Guest probably, people do take alcohol and go on to other types of Substance Abuse. Some incredibly horrible effects. You can just look at the statistics. It was 40 then it came down to 30,000 traffic deaths and half of them are alcoholrelated. Not counting tens of thousands of injuries. Substance that we control probably not very well. Guesthost guest thats his opinion. We have a responsibility right now. Of the drugchedule set by law and by the administration, the schedule of hard drugs. That is part of the question we are asking. The change we see across the country, the legalization with medical use and now recreational ,se in some other jurisdictions going in a different direction. You have to rationally sort this out and look at where we are going and i go back to the money. I am a fiscal guy. I always look for ways we can do things that are and cost less for the taxpayer. We will look at the whole picture and we make a rational decision based on facts and outcomes. Host if you are interested in schedule one drugs and how the Justice Department classifies them, though to justice. Gov. It is right there on their website. Marijuana and heroin fall under schedule one and scheduled to drugs include cocaine meth. Why is cocaine scheduled to and not schedule one . By thethat can be set up department of justice and the administration. Its not just a congressional mandate. They can be changed. The president said it was up to congress. If they want to change it, they can. We will be addressing those issues when we bring in the department of justice and when we bring in other officials. Dea is on the enforcement side. They have the ability to adjust that schedule. We will see if that is the direction they are heading in. Here are other scheduled to drugs. Glenview, illinois, democratic caller. I hope good morning, eventually you will see that legalization is the better policy. The harmful effects of our current policy are astronomical. Is political nature of this fear. When you have studies that say things like an eight percent reduction in iq and to use that and publicized that without discussing what studies have been done looking at decades of habitual use of alcohol and compare their iq. Obviously, we dont have those figures because that is not the political goal of people looking at this. Time over 30 years ago when addiction meant real addiction. It is a medical condition where when you take the substance away, your body stops working properly. You can measure metabolic problems. Narcotics do that and so do opiates. After a long away term of use and your body does not function properly. Now, we have begun to use the term addiction to mean the same thing as being addicted to television or marijuana. We use it for 30 years and take it away but no doctor will find anything going on with your body. You have given an entire generation an excuse to convince themselves they are addicted to something. Guest first of all, i did not bring up the eight percent. That was brought up the president s director of the office of drug control policy. I dont even know what study he referred to. He was just saying that there was an eight percent increase for habitual users in the iq through a study. I dont know how valid that is. The question of comparing it with alcohol the president brought that up. I dont think it is more dangerous than alcohol. This is the president s statement. And theirup the dea enforcement chief is saying this is reckless and irresponsible. I am in the middle of a food fight over the legalization. Steward this out and if we need to adjust the laws we will. If agencies will go down some path that is not effective, my job is to hammer them as an oversight chairman in congress. People are out there working sendings every day, their money to washington and they want me to make certain our policies and the actions of the administration are effective and worthwhile. Billion on a whole host of programs, lets find out what makes sense and what does the best job. I go back to our adolescence and kids. Thats one thing we have not ofe and we cited statistics not only our kids being further at risk. You pointed out that heroin is taken off has taken off the last couple of years. Is in chaos. Lets sort it out. I am trying to do that or it we will do it and i want to hear from everybody. We will hear from all the folks that have not been heard. And people who have facts. Thats what we want to deal with. Then we will try to sort out a rational policy with a lot of different opinions but members of congress. Host congressman john mica, republican from florida, thank you for being with us. Guest hopefully, i will recover from my cold the next time. Democrat Donna Edwards is up next talking about the democratic agenda for 2014. Later, the former Surgeon General and Arizona Senate candidate Richard Carmona will join us to talk about the countrys emergency medical teams response to Mass Shootings. First, a news update. Its 8 34 a. M. Eastern time the Washington Dc Council has approved a marijuana decriminalization bill that maintains criminal penalties for smoking in public. The bill approved in initial vote yesterday would decriminalize possession of up to one ounce of marijuana and it would not be a crime to smoke on ones own property. The District Of Columbia mayor vincent gray and the police chief cathy lanier were among those concerned about doing the green light to public pot smoking. They said 100 in civil fines for public fines would be unenforceable. A day after the fda announced plans for an ad campaign against smoking targeting teenagers, cbs says it is halting the sale of Tobacco Products at its 7000 stores. They are reacting to the announcement and a statement from cvs says i applaud this mornings news that cvs has decided to stop smelling cigarettes and the decision will help advance my administrations efforts to reduce tobacco related deaths, cancer, and Heart Disease as well as bring down Health Care Costs. I congratulate and thank the ceo whovs caremark and all helped make a choice and will have a profound impact on our country. A you and report released today says the vatican should change its rules on abortion and teach sexual education in Catholic Schools to ensure childrens rights and their access to health care are guaranteed. Reaction already is coming from rome. The vatican says that it remains committed to defending and protecting the rights of children but that it regrets the committee had attempted to interfere with Catholic Church teaching on the dignity of human persons and in the exercise of religious freedom. Those are some of the latest headlines on cspan radio. Instrument ofy an the president. That has always been the case. The president has i mentioned in the book that i served under seven president s, they have each come to view it as their purview. They can direct things in secret and dont have to worry about the normal congressional appropriations process. Convenient and attractive and sometimes overly thective tool in president s foreignpolicy arsenal. A look at the cia saturday night at 10 00 eastern and sunday at 9 00 on afterwarords. Monthsnt on last n guest. Go to book tv. Org. Washington journal continues. To welcome back Donna Edwards, democrat of maryland talking about the democratic agenda, campaign 2014. Lots of frontpage news this morning about what the Congressional Budget Office had to say yesterday about the Affordable Care act. Here is one headline in the boston globe. Guest i dont agree with that. One thing that is clear is an individual employees have a choice about their health care and no they can keep it, they can do lots of things to make decisions they would they would not have made otherwise. People of said i might leave the workforce but i will start a business i have always wanted to start. I might lose this job but i will start another job. I think it is not clear what the real implications of the law are going to be for the long term. This underscores the fact that we have to get it implemented and continue studying it to make certain it has the kind of impact we want on peoples health. Host a column in o quote the Washington Post. Guest we just really dont know this yet. One of the things that occurs to me is with health care, i remember when the cbo first scored the Affordable Care act. They could not score prevention. We dont even have any idea of what prevention and changing of behavior will mean for the American People. I want to see this play out for the American People. I think its good we have health care and i am proud of what we have done but weve got to keep our eye on the ball. The ball is Health Care Coverage for all americans. It is portability from one job to another job or starting a new business and those of the things i think we dont quite know what the cbo says. When you look at the details of the study, it also says that there are a lot of unknowns. Gauge doing something important for the American People based on whats going to happen in one Election Year or another. This has been a lifetime change in direction of our Health Care System. Right now, more than 10 Million People from the Affordable Care act and Medicaid Expansion are being covered health care and i never had it before. Host part of your job in ccc ands is to work for d you are in tried to you are in charge of recruitment. Poll from yesterday. Has this hurt your recruitment efforts . Guest it actually hasnt. We have recruited candidates in some of the toughest District Across this country, strong candidates. Many people have been focused on some of the retirements but that have come from mostly safe district. Our candidates, because they are strong and committed and convinced about the law, they are talking to people about what is happening. There he restores of americans who have Health Care Coverage for the first time and most people are focused on the economy and we can do to grow jobs. We have a group of candidates around the country who are focused on how we grow jobs and how we create jobs in this country and how we improve the prospects of millions of americans who have been left out of this economic recovery. It is more of a wall street recovery and not a mainstream recovery. Host we are talking with congresswoman Donna Edwards. She sits on several committees including the science, space, and technology committee, transportation and infrastructure and she is also heading up recruitment efforts for the dccc for the upcoming election cycle. Democratic agenda for 2014 is our topic this morning. Debbie Wasserman Schultz talked about democrats chances for picking up the house and 2014. [video clip] owing to confidently predict that democrats will take the house back. What i will predict is that we will pick up more seats. Down boy. [laughter] context of at the the president s speech last night, for the republicans and the country, they are strangled in a civil war where the tea party has been allowed to take control of the agenda. Do you share the lack of confidence there from the dnc care about taking back the house . Guest i heard confidence. Im confident that we have recruited the candidates across this country that will make the case of the American People about creating jobs and growing the economy for the middleclass and those who want to get into the middle class. Is it going to be the majority or will it strengthen the congress and we can make that case to the American People. People look at overall Approval Ratings. Republican Approval Ratings right now are just in the tank. They are absolutely in the tank. When push comes to shove and every single Congressional District, people make decisions based on what is going on there laws and whether they believe somebody is committed to making sure we raise the minimum wage, committed to getting things like paid leave and we have equity in pay for men and women come out of the job they do. People are focused on growing the economy because we are growing we are changing the infrastructure of the nation and investing. We are investing in research and development and the kinds of things that are about creating jobs in the 21st century. Host president obama met with House Democrats last night. Were you able to attend . What was talked about their . Guest the president had a chance to echo in short form the state of the Union Message which was great. Also, we had an opportunity to engage with the president and Vice President and members of the cabinet on specific issues to our districts and overall concerns. I think the president has expressed optimism and he expressed optimism of going around the country and making the case to the American People in a strongerd be position if we had a majority is democrats. We are counting on him to do that. He and the first lady have already helped us out in that respect. They will continue to do that. Overall, i think it was a great way to get the year started. We are all on the same page about what we want to do for the American People. Host we will go to matt in texas, democratic caller. Caller good morning and thank you, and donna, congresswoman edwards and greta, thank you for taking my call. Blue dot democrats blue dog democrats i thought we were going to talk about spending but on infrastructure, that is one area we do not need to cut. Highspeed rail and things like that on the election, the tea party i think is the best thing that couldve happened to the democrats. I live in the third Congressional District in texas. There is a lot of moderate republicans who are fed up with the tea party and their antics on a whole host of issues. A lot of those folks eventually will look for a choice. Democrat and as a as the democrats have another choice on the ballot. Thats all i wanted to say, thank you. Guest i think texas is one of those states where over a. Of time, demographic is shifting. For the future, there will be for expanded opportunities democrats who really are about making change for the American People. I love the idea about not cutting infrastructure spending. When you look between our roads and ridges and water and social systems, they are falling apart. We have to invest in them. That is about creating jobs. Even as we go into this debate about immigration, i think the American People are recognizing that the tea party is representative of an extreme this country. It is not emblematic of the vast majority of the American People. Even among republicans, i think there is a thought that we have gone too far. In some of these districts, i dont know if republicans moderate republicans will be able to gain control in these district but democrats will offer an agenda that is about strengthening the economy and focusing on those who strive to get into the middle class and want an opportunity and those who are in the middle class who have seen stagnant wages over the last few decades. We focused all of our legislative energy on those people. Put thepublicans would keystone xl pipeline under infrastructure spending. Is debate within the house gop whether to demand the president s approval of keystone xl in exchange for increasing the debt ceiling. Should it be approved . Guest i think thats a separate question. I have not been a big fan of the keystone xl pipeline. I look forward to seeing all of the results from the state department and also from some of our other agencies. At the end of the day, that is the president s decision. Even with keystone, we could have 55 thousand bridges in this country that are failing. I say lets invest the infrastructure dollars there. The president has said he will hold off and get input from other agencies and make a decision about the pipeline. We have done a good job in this country on gaining Additional Energy independence. I would like to see us make more investment in some of our Renewable Energy strategies and improving our nations grid. Should strengthen drop Broadband Access at our schools. Thats about infrastructure as well. There is plenty to do. I question the job creation numbers when it comes to keystone. I think they have been greatly overestimated by the proponents. I dont know whether they have been overestimated by others of us. Host the Washington Times and we are talking with Donna Edwards, democrat of maryland about the democratic agenda for 2014. Obamacare is focused on having 6 million United States citizens sign up for health care. Never to my knowledge was the health care of the 11 billion illegals brought to our attention. Because they are not United States citizens, they are not entitled to obama health care. Therefore, what kind of Health Care Plan will i have to have and how will they pay for their health care . Hasnt us providing them social services increased our debt . Guest this is precisely the reason i have been supportive of the republican retreat around immigration. I look at immigration and a couple of ways. One is getting so many people who are paying taxes aboveboard and to paid wages that they put into the economy and contribute to Social Security and medicare, largely a younger population. And then they become eligible for Health Care Coverage so it does not train our Emergency Rooms and other services. Whatr than focusing on immigrants and their population is draining from the economy, i like to focus on developing a strong immigration system that respects our borders, makes sure we can get people above or in the economy, and then they will be job creators and innovators and contribute to this economy in the most positive way that immigrants have always done. To worryont have about what they are taking away but can focus on what immigrants will be putting in. Host springfield, virginia, independent caller. Caller i have a question on Immigration Reform i am still on the fence with regard to whether or not i am in favor or not. One question that has been nagging at me that nobody has provided an answer for we have a rather Strong Social safety net in this country. People on Social Security, for example, lower income people get much more back in benefits than they contribute. We have the earned income tax credit. We have food stamps all of these costs taxpayers money. That at been estimated least 50 of the Illegal Immigrants would qualify for these benefits. The question is, who is going to pay for them . Think its an interesting question but lets consider was happening now. We have a lot of people in this country illegally. They are working every single day. They are largely out of the tax system and how to contribute them to sell security and medicare but some do. Or actually above makes them contributors in the economy and the estimates for Immigration Reform are the that we would end up putting an additional millions of people in billionshe economy and into our economy in terms of job creation and strengthening the economy and strengthening some of our social safety net programs. When people are working and they are paid a living wage, they want to work and they pay taxes. They buy things and the gross area economy. I really think we have to think about how we create jobs in this economy in a different way and whether that is strengthening our immigration system so that people are allowed to immigrate and become citizens and be come contributors to the economy. Also, strengthening the lower wage jobs and increasing the minimum wage and making sure that people earn enough so that they are not reliant on food stamps and the entire social safety net. Host here is a tweet guest we presume that the majority of the immigrant population are all lowwage jobseekers and that is not true. When you add people into the economy and they are aboveboard, if you increase the minimum wage to 10. 10 per hour which is modest. If we index the regular minimum wage to inflation 20 years ago, it would probably be about 17. , you havewe do this people working above the poverty dependentre no longer on food stamps or other aspects of the social safety net. They are paying their taxes and paying into medicare and paying into Social Security. They are buying goods and services of they are contributing to the economy. The whole bunch of other people create other kinds of jobs. Based on that. To look at the question of immigration and low wage basin a different kind of way, making sure that people who get up every day and work for a living the president has said this if you work 40 hours per week at a job, you should make above the poverty line. If you are like the rest of us,. Host republican caller is next. Caller good morning, i have three questions what is your education and what did you do prior to being in politics . Guest all my goodness. I went to wake forest university. I had a degree in english and then came out and ended up at a job at lockheed engineering, working on the Spacelab Program and nasa as a Systems Engineer and got additional training. Iran nonprofit organizations for many years, hiring many people and raising a lot of money. Then i came into the congress. Franklinas well from which is now the university of new hampshire. Caller have you ever owned a Small Business . Guest i have not but i started nonprofit organizations from scratch in which i have employed lots of people and paid lots into the system in addition to helping people in our community. Host whats your point . Caller i have a point. You think the Affordable Care act is helping Small Business owners because its not. I am a Small Business owner and it is destroying us. I working Construction Contracting and i used to be a member of one of the much loved democratic unions. I us to hire Union Employees and i dont do that anymore because i cannot compete with the illegal aliens that work for 11 per hour. Ideas. E all these great i think youre going to be surprised in the 2014 election. The tea party will come around white you both so hard and bike you both so hard that you will be very surprised. Guest i dont know i agree with you. When i talk to Small Businesses in my district and i will give you one example a woman came to me and said she has about 30 employees and she the minimum of 10. 10 per hour. She is able to grover business. Grow her able to business. She was able to get health care as a Small Business owner and she had never had health care for her employees before. As a business owner, she made a decision to contribute 50 to their Health Care Coverage. Qualifiede employees most of them qualify for subsidies to pay for their health care. For the first time ever, all of her employees have Health Care Coverage and so the she has a Small Business owner. Host is there some for of economic reasoning between behind 10. 10 . How did democrats, but that . Guest the current minimum wage is 7. 25 per hour. The idea was to graduate from 7. 25 per hour to 10. 10. The key is to peg it to inflation. We are not put in the position like 2006 when democrats had controlled the congress and we passed the 7. 25 per hour increase to minimum wage. In that time. In that time, we get to 10. 10 would have it to inflation. It is not a political question. The minimum wage worker would have wages that keep up with inflation. Host democratic caller from new york 105 feet of freefall a 9 11 is not also below must explosives unless explosives were planted at the world trade center. Host thats part of a group of people who are organized and calling our show and others and believe the investigation into the 9 11 terrorist to cats attacks was not adequate the government. Do you think it was adequate . Guest i do and i think its pretty clear who caused that harvell tragedy on 9 11. Of that horrible tragedy of 9 11. We have done things in this country the last decade to strengthen our security and make sure we are protected against those kinds of threats. Host monro township, new jersey, independent caller. Caller i have a question about the obamacare. I dont have insurance. I dont qualify for a subsidy. When i look at the plans, it will increase my cost significantly just paying out ofpocket. Person, if i cannot pay the premiums, what happens to my insurance . Will the government cover me four will again thrown into medicaid . I wonder if she has insurance now and what her premium is. Depending on her income, and it doesnt cover everyone but depending, you can qualify for a subsidy. If she has insurance now, i would be instant in comparing that and its hard to know. The vast majority of people in my district and around the country are now qualifying. They really are getting a better deal. I even got a better deal when i went on the exchange. I am saving almost 600 per year in my Health Care Premium because of my age and the plan that i chose which meets my needs more than the one i had under the federal Employee Health benefit when so i am excited about that. 6. 3 Million People are now qualified for Medicaid Expansion so they signed up for it another 3. 3 Million People who signed up through the federal and state marketplaces. Every day, we have more people signed up that were getting to the point where we have over 10 Million People now who are signed up in the Affordable Care act. They will be millions more. People,say to the young their parents should go and check. 3 million of them now qualified for Health Care Coverage under their parents plan. As the mother of a 25yearold, i can appreciate that. Caller more about the cbo and wt they announced yesterday we are talking about 2. 3 million americans that will choose to either work less or retire or go to a different job in order to keep healthcare subsidies were stay on medicare. Post had washington a fact check on what people are saying. The argument could go that this analysis would hurt the nations budget because 2. 3 million fewer people will pay taxes on their earnings. Guest this is not balance the jobs that are created and the with there profession potential job loss. I dont think it is a parallel connection. I think this is what this analysis is saying. There is no connection between the Affordable Care act and this kind of job loss and transition. There can be other factors that are attributed to that. Important toreally allow this to play out and allow some wanted to do not analysis which could not have been done given the healthcare laws implementation. Whether it is a real estate business, insurance business, or other kind of business. Because my children have a preexisting condition now i have the flexibility of making that decision. That is what this study underscores is that the Employee Choice now becomes available that we did not have to four. Mixing that with employer behavior. Host republicans are talking about attaching that part of the Affordable Care act, reforming that part in exchange for raising the debt ceiling. Guest first of all, i dont have any interest in having a conversation about something in exchange for raising the debt ceiling. It is ridiculous to negotiate repaying our bills. I dont want to go back into that. We were there last fall. We should not repeat that mistake again. Our economy is fragile right now. We dont want to create more uncertainty after we have gone through this. Period of appropriations. As for this risk core door that republicans seem to be hammering theyght now, i think that are making assumptions about what is going to happen with Insurance Companies. They are over assuming the failure of Insurance Companies. I heard some republican colleagues talking about not creating a bailout for Insurance Companies. There has been no discussion on Insurance Companies needing a bailout at all. Host that is what they are referring to . Guest i believe so. I have only just heard this. Republicans have been trying to seize on any kind of argument repeal or that can change the Affordable Care act. The Washington Post says in thepeal of provisions Affordable Care act known as First Quarter is, which limit the amount of money that a Health Insurance plan can make and lose during the first three the plansold start losing money. We will go to fill up in fort worth, texas. Worth, texas. Ort caller i want to know if you think it is fair for all the people that got excused where they dont have to provide obamacare because the companies excuse have that they are cutting peoples hours people work 39 hours. Now they cut them down to 29 hours. It is not a fair playing field. I think there has been a lot of anecdotal evidence of that. Im looking forward to study this in more detail in terms of what employer behavior is. That is true, people still can qualify on their own plans. Cost health this is especially true for some. F our lower wage workers they qualify under medicaid. I think we are going to have to the jury still out on what that impact is. I know we have heard a lot of anecdotes about that. We have not heard anything really specific in terms of studying this phenomenon. Deborah inll go to richmond, virginia. Democratic caller. Obamacare is way better than what we had. The reason i say that is because over 10 years ago, i was mri. D an they claimed i had arthritis. As far as the marijuana is concerned, that is way better. They never talk about how many prescription drugs are killing people. They never talk about that. I have to take all those and nothing really works. Bit to dig a little guest i hear the stories all the time about people who have preexisting conditions and so they were not able to get that health care that they needed. Preexisting conditions dont count. I was surprised when i went to sign on for my Health Care Plan all they asked was whether or not i smoked. They do not ask anything else about my health condition. That meant that Insurance Company cannot deny coverage. Smoking in the statute was actually identified as an acrosstheboard risk for making an assessment about how much you would pay for Health Care Coverage. So that is the only question that you are asked. Im not a smoker, so i said i dont smoke. I was able to get Health Care Coverage. They do not ask me about anything else. They did not ask me about whether i had broken this or that or had asthma or a whole range of things that insurers used to deny coverage. I had a woman who came to us last week. I took her to the state of the Union Address with me. She had just gotten Health Care Coverage that day. At first, she had been calling and they hadrs denied her because she had preexisting conditions. She had to make a change because her husband retired. We were able to help her get that coverage. Navigatingot of online. The upshot is that the end of the day she and her children have Health Care Coverage today. They have not been denied. What we ought to focus on. People get health care, not how long it takes them on a computer or whetheravigate they have to be walked through on the phone. The fact that they get health care. Host they asked that question on that website. Cant you just mark know even if you are a smoker . Obviously, everything is under a penalty of perjury. Most people are honest and just tell the truth. Found not to ever tell the truth, it is pretty easy to determine by a Health Care Provider whether you have been a smoker or not. Most people actually tell the truth about their health care. That smoking question actually allows for doing something that we are investing in in this Health Care System and that is to provide people with smoking addiction with something that will improve their health. Conversationa about the administrations marijuana policy. The president has been talking about it. That is the one question that they asked when you sign up for health care. Are you a smoker . They dont ask if you have used drugs or anything like that. Guest no. But for the first time in this country come every single Health Care Plan actually has to include Substance Abuse treatment. I think this is really important. There are some any families out was one. My family i had a Family Member who struggled with addiction. The sheer cost of being able to afford private Substance Abuse treatment is staggering for families. The fact that that kind of thing is going to be covered now under our Health Care Plan means that we can begin to address these longterm issues that impact us, whether it is Mental Health treatment or Substance Abuse treatment or all the Health Issues that host our families face. Lets go back to the story that we were talking about before we talked to our viewers. Cbs is going cvs is going to stop selling cigarettes. The executive saying, this could cost them billions in revenue. Guest i think it could. They understand that. Cbs is one of these companies that also knows that it is actually in the health care business. Me ilways troubled am a cvs shopper and it troubles me when i go to the counter and im standing behind the counter is all the cigarettes. Theres somebody buying tobacco in a pharmacy. Im glad for this. Cvs has been a tremendous partner along with some of our other pharmacies and getting out great information. That is the great part of the Affordable Care act. Cbs, it was really selfexplanatory. I think this is a good move for cvs. It will be a great business decision. By getting rid of Tobacco Products, cvs can further define pharmacies as full Health Care Providers and strike a deal with hospitals and health insurers. Overtores already home to 750 minute clinics, the countrys largest chains of pharmacy based out care clinics. Hear from john in georgia. Republican caller. Caller good morning. Just a few comments about health. People caring for their own health. 8710 servings of fruits and vegetables a day and take a moderate to high dose of vitamin c and b complex vitamins and maybe some b12 vitamins they day and quit eating cancercausing Dairy Products hormonesoid like that have banned in other countries, we will probably save hundreds of billions of dollars in Health Care Costs every year. The comment about inflation, peter schiff had a whole keynote on this, analyzing the top things American People spend their money on. The real inflation rate is between nine percent10 . A bloomberg economists said the same thing. That is further suppressing wages and our economy. This policy of lose money and printing money, trillions of dollars. Debt over the last five years is not helping. Host we are running out of time. Guest john raises a lot of good questions. The real premise of the investing care act is in prevention. John laid out all those reasons so we can create a Healthy Society one in which people can get up and go to work and continue working and contributing to our economy. They do that because they have great health care. We have lower the Health Care Costs with the Affordable Care act and we are excited about that. We are in the business of making sure that people when they work for a living make a waste that pays them above the poverty rate whether they work for the regular minimum wage are not. Host thank you very much. Thanks for talking to our viewers. We appreciate your time. The formerhard, Surgeon General under the bush administration. He is going to join us next year he is here in washington to talk about emergency medical responses to Mass Shootings. Well get to that right after this news update from cspan radio. Word on jobs this hour from the payroll ross essar. Their private Service Shows that businesses added jobs at a steady but modest pace in january. A sign that hiring has rebounded after a disappointing figure in december. The group says that Companies Added 175,000 jobs last month. That is down from 227,000 in december, which was revised lower. It is much better than the governments official figure of just 74,000 new jobs in december. Adp numbers cover only private businesses. The National Labor Relations Board is proposing rules today that will allow unions to hold work lay selections more quickly. That could make it easier for unions to organize and help them reverse membership declines. The board approved similar rules two years ago. Is this groups challenge them in court and the court ruled that they failed to follow proper voting procedures. Turning to international news, russian investigators say Security Forces killed a militant that may have helped train two suicide bombers that struck the southern city. They had a trolley bus in late december killing 44 people. It heightened Security Fears ahead of the olympics. Committee sponsor at t is condemning a rush a lot restricting gayrights activity. The Telecommunications Giant says in a blog post that the law is harmful to lesbian, gay, and bisexual people and harmful to a diverse society. The Winter Olympics begin on friday. Those are some of the latest headlines on cspan radio. I think american see the first lady and glamorous circumstances. They are in a beautiful down or at some speech at the heads of suits or whatever. What they may not imagine looking at the white house from the outside is that it is actually a very normal life upstairs. Those two floors that other white house that are the white house residence. They lie on the couch and read a book. In my case, my cat is waiting to curl up next to me. See it saturday on cspan at 7 00 eastern. Our series continues with first Lady Michelle obama. 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 the space called federal focus. Each day, you will find conference of 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. Lust, 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. Washington journal continues. We want to welcome back the former u. S. Surgeon general. Since not been here you were the Surgeon General. You are here for a congress on responding to Mass Shootings. What is your rule . I will do a facilitated session at the end about next steps. This is about a group of leaders from around the country, emf and Law Enforcement which signifies that all of these responses are multi disciplinary. To role of the congress is facilitate a discussion about best practices to deal with improvised explosive devices, suicide bombers, active shooters like the incident that happened in columbine and up in connecticut recently. So we know that our tactics have to change. As Law Enforcement, how do we Work Together to make sure that we reduce mortality from these tragic events . Host what is the consensus . Guest the hartford consensus was brought together by the trauma chief in hartford, connecticut. Thiss devastated after event in newtown. He decided he had to bring leaders together last year to talk about how we reduce mortality. Enforcement change their tactics of that we can protect the public . Host the hartford consensus at the traumaping institute at the hartford hospital. What happened that day after the newtown shooting . Guest the community was devastated. There were no survivors from that. I think about 19 people were killed. Most of them were children. It was quite devastating. He was very moved. Being a professional and a professor, teaching this to other doctors and nurses, he decided i have to do something. We had to get people together that are the experts and ask these questions. Improve mortality from these terrible events question mark the conclusion was there were things we need to do differently. We have to look at our tactics differently. How officers responded those issues, how soon emergency medical assistance can be brought in. Right now, the emf people stand outside until it is safe to go in. During that time, there are people dying. Their people bleeding and need airways. Were working on tactics to bring our providers and sooner to be able to stop bleeding and with that information, we get a lot from the Tactical Combat Care Committee. Dozens learned for more that we these arehis because bure like wartime injuries. Host who are the players involved in the response to mass shooting and how do you want their role to change . Guest i want to give credit to the department of Homeland Security and d. O. T. For bringing us together. We are convening under them. What we are finding as leaders from communities around the country, because one of the things we say and Emergency Management and response is, all disasters are local. It starts with a local municipality, local police, local emfs. We share those best practices so that all of these entities around the United States have an idea of what the best practices are. Host who are the players . What role do they play . Guest we have opening remarks and then there will be a number of sessions where we discuss different things. Active shooters, we will talking about tactics. Tactics for the tacticians who come in from the swat teams. At horsemen officers that eliminate the threats. What is the role of ems . Do all the providers know the use of turning kits, getting an are all combat casualty lessons that come to us from the Tactical Combat casualty Care Committee of the u. S. Department of defense. Host we want our Emergency Responders to join in our conversation this morning. We have divided the line as we usually do, but with a fourth line for Emergency Responders. The lines are we would love to hear your stories and see what thethink about doctor is putting on the table here. Shooting, themass ems has to wait on the perimeter until it is safe to go in. What type of emergencies are occurring in that situation . How can the situation change so that people survive them . We put these under catastrophic. If we are talking about the active shooter events, as soon as it goes off, almost every community in the United States has a protocol. Andcers can come in chordate off the area and ask for support. The tactics are moved directly to the threat to eliminate the threat because this is ongoing. You can stand there and wait while someone moves around. We have done that for a decade. Will wait until it is safe and come in and start assessing and caring. There are probably times when we can get emfs in sooner and still make sure that they understand ,he value of using tourniquets care lessons from combat. Most of these incidents look just like you are at war. Arees are all over, people bleeding, lots of airways we can do a better job. That is the thrust of this meeting today and tomorrow. To get those best practices out to our colleagues around the United States. Host it brings to mind the state of the Union Address when the president acknowledged the soldier that had done numerous tors and afghanistan and most explosiveas in an situation in afghanistan and survive. The newspapers were noting how wars, soldier that had suffered that type of injuries would not have survived. Guest it is absolutely true. I am a combat veteran from vietnam. The youngsters that are surviving today wouldve never lived. Simple things have changed that. Every soldier is a provider now. They call it buddy care. When you move around, you dont have to wait for the medic to come in. The guy next u. S. Attorney kit, that canpression gauze stop bleeding. They are able to stabilize your airway and get wrapper transportation rapid transportation. We are seeing the survivability and the most violent war going up because of these simple changes and that every soldier is a provider of care in what we call buddy care. Host this storing from the New York Times in january. Reviving a lifesaver. The attorney kit. Explain what is happening with when they are bleeding from a shooting or an explosive device. Guest both of those result in catastrophic events where people can bleed out. If you have a gunshot wound to her abdomen or groin area or your neck, you big blood vessels there. You can only bleed for couple of minutes before you die. You get that bleeding stopped very quickly echo when i was a medic many years ago in the army special forces, we used tourniquets. We were afraid that it was going to cause a lack of blood flow. Now we realize, we can accept that risk if we can save a life. Everybody carries attorney kit. Many of our Law Enforcement officers carry turning kits. Tourniquets. These events occur in rural and suburban areas. Everybody has to be involved. We have to have a uniform approach this. We do that with working with agencies like the International Association of firefighters, the International Association of fire chiefs, the International Association of chiefs of police. All these organizations are partners as we move forward. Host does it require federal legislation . Guest probably not. If we run into areas where we require legislative relief, we will pursue it. Right now we feel the most important thing is to disseminate the best practices to all of our colleagues around the country. Host lets get our viewers involved. Charlotte, north carolina. Independent caller. Caller hello. I was listening to what you had to say this morning. What really troubled me and concern me is that i felt like im dealing with the military. I have bipolar and i was born with add i have my issues as far as Mental Health goes. I am not hearing you mention regarding issues pertaining to Mental Health. I am seeing aggressive tactics being put in place, but im not seeing preventative measures put spoken loudlyeing about before these tactics even have to be put in place. , i being the Surgeon General would think is a doctor your first concern would be to save lives. And not to jump on the bandwagon of tactics that are going to do than allow circumstances to become more chaotic over the long haul. Good i think he makes a point. I want to make a very important point here that this conference is to deal with the tactics. What my colleagues also work on his prevention. The department of defense and all the agencies involved today decided to carve out a day to say look at the tactics. We want to put a lot of resources in but bad things will still happen. We expect us to respond with the most efficient manner. Pointing aim for prevention, but we have to be prepared for the worst case narrow. Host this tweet it depends. Some gunshot wounds, there are no longlasting physical effects. Depending on the circumstances about happens, you could have psychological effects. As we see with thousands of our young men and women coming back from combat who have rain injuries. Physical and also the silent injuries and for, the psychological injuries. It depends on resilience factors , how strong your mind is when you go into these situations. In lawenforcement when officers are involved in shootings and their wounded. It changes their whole career. It is an important point and one that we need more information on. Most of my colleagues understand spend ado need to lot of time on the psychological aspects of all these events because it can be devastating and lifelong. Host who should oversee this effort . You said federal legislation is probably not possible. Lets of the standard to put in place. Who oversees that . Guest what i said was that the on is possible. It is an educational endeavor. Each community has to be prepared. ,hen we look at the big level 50,000 feet. It is the department of Homeland Security that has overall precedents to coordinate these activities when something results in a disaster or catastrophe. Most of these events are handled on a local level. It is local police departments, fire and ems that come together to deal with these issues. Requireen, they resources that those communities dont have readily available. We have to have a system in place that we can link up and seamlessly scale up so that all of these apartments come together and function as one to be able to protect the public. Really is at the local level, but we have to have interagency communication and cooperation and protocols in place. Fema as part of this. It is in the department of Homeland Security. They deal with things that involve disasters. Host were talking with the former Surgeon General. Talking about how emergency medical teams respond to Mass Shootings and other dramatic. Ituations in bosto republican caller. I have Great Respect for your experience and i know you have come from the communities in which you served as the doctor and also have some experience in Law Enforcement. Yet more than one aspect of understanding. My understanding is with the previous guest, we talked in general about legalizing drugs and all that. What is the impact on legalizing drugs in this country and its future impact on the lives of our young people who think that . He involv guest it is a good question that requires a lot more discussion and debate. The issue of legalization is a challenge. I will answer it from the bully pulpit of the Surgeon General. There are intended and unintended consequences that and legislation has. When you legalize drugs coming up to ask, who pays for the medical consequences and psychological consequences . Will crime rates go up . Will children be more likely to use drugs echo that is why this divisivesuch a desir issue. We dont want to take any chances with the health and security of our nation. There are colleagues of mine who believe that is the case. There are others who say that will not happen. It will make it safer. That is why we need this kind of robust debate to determine how we want to move forward as a nation. Host are you watching what is going on in colorado . Guest i watch all the time because i have dealt with these a frequent basis. Implicated inn violence and trauma. , it of my background can tell you on sundays up to half of the major trauma and violent trauma that came in was related to alcohol or drugs or some Substance Abuse. It has a really big implication in the cost of care and acts of violence. Drugs orited all legalize them, will it make it better or worse . Host what about the degree of violence . Certainly we see in the mystic violence, people with alcohol tend to be more violent. We see those on drugs tend to be more violent. We look at degree and actual incidence. It is no question and contributes. Does legalization make that better or doesnt make it worse when there is more access . Were talking about how emergency teams respond to Mass Shootings. We have a fourth line set aside form urgency responders in this country. We want to hear from you. We divide the lines as we normally do. Numbers are send us a tweet at cspan or send us an email. We will go to jacob next in south dakota. Independent caller. Caller thank you for taking my call. Im like to know if sorry. I would like to know if you think may be teaching gun safety schoolschools and in would be a better idea then some of the crackdown that i hear about and worry about. Remedy gunowners private gunowners with guns in the house guest as Surgeon General and an emf Community Member and leader and as a police officer, i have been a very strong advocate for gun education. We have a program that was national called communities addressing gun ownership. Making sure that everybody understood how to keep a weapon safe, how to make sure it is locked and make sure children dont have access to it. I think that is very important in a society like ours where we have and appreciate the privilege of going ownership but understand the responsibilities and the appropriate i education. Host aaron tweets in, we had a e alarm at our school guest swat teams already have lands at the local schools and they mayldings that have to respond to. In some of the communitys ive worked with, they have special access keys. When school was locked down, the officers have keys that they can access all the rooms. Some of the newer schools, it can be done electronically. They can do it from an iphone or computer. What you want to do is locked out immediately so that you have an action drill. A bomb or an active shooter coming close the windows, pull the shades down, everybody is on the ground until you get her there instruction. Law enforcement needs to access and move. It has to be a lot of cooperation between the School District and Law Enforcement so they have immediate access and begin to evacuate people and assess the threat level and deal with the threat. Host are you saying that as lawenforcement enters a school where there has been a shooting that along the way they also act as caregivers . If they see a victim lying there, they put atorney ken on what tourniquet on. Guest the protocol that we have followed for many years as a hostage rescue protocol. And somebody is actively shooting in the building, we step over those people that are injured because if you stop and put your head down and try to rescue someone, that person may shoot you and continue to see people. That thing you are thinking about now is maybe there is a hybrid we can do. Some of our people can continue to move downrange and neutralize the threat but also stop. Some of that is resource dependent. If youre in a rule area with a Small Police Department and dont have the resources, what those are the discussions we are going to be having at this meeting of the next couple of days to decide how might we do this more effectively and efficiently and learn from these very fast lessons from combat and active shooters in the last decade or so. Host when will these put into place to be put into place . Dialogue started nationally. We want to continue that dialogue now in the next few days. As far as the cost, each department will do it as part of their education. In the last two decades, there as not any additional cost because it was embedded in the necessary continuing education for all enforcement and emfs. Host democratic caller. Hi, joe. Caller thank you for taking my call. Of the surgeone general i have been reading Veterans Health today. On safer approach to pain management, the cdc has recently discovered that prescription drugs kills more people than a heroine, cocaine and street drugs. So i would just like to know if and how he the cdc is it marijuana really true that marijuana makes you stupid . Guest thank you for your question. The issue of prescription drugs being problematic is not new. It has at the media again. When i was Surgeon General, we work with cdc and other agencies on this problem. Especially youngsters have access to medicine cabinets and they take their parents left over medication and get high on it. It is a big rubble. The cdc is correct in their statistics. Do inis a lot we need to terms of education. Medicine and the homes are more carefully secured so that children dont have access to them. As far as the marijuana issue, if you want to learn a lot about marijuana as far science, go to the nih and look at the work of the institute of addiction there. It is pretty remarkable how much problems they can cause. It acts as a carcinogen and longterm. They can cause cognitive decline over time. As we debate this issue, from the standpoint of the Surgeon General, you look at the cost benefit and risk benefit analysis before you invoke any policy. There are often unintended consequences. Host our viewers will remember that you are a democratic candidate for senate back in 2012. What are you up to now . Guest i do a lot of work with the emf to muni. I teach at the university of arizona and ohio state university. I sit on some corporate boards. I work with private industry to ntify merging science emerging science. Awas recruited because candidate was needed. When the community may come i work hard at it. I learned a lot because it is a whole different world once you are running from this. Im very happy with what im doing and looking forward to continuing what im doing. Eddie andill talk to gatesville, texas. Independent caller. Ask onei would like to question. He said earlier that drugs might make people violent. The marijuana issue that is going on around here right now does not seem to me to be the same issue that he is bringing up. He stands like everybody else and says that every drug is bad. Marijuana does not along on the class a drug list. Or class one. They ought to stop this. Hope you did not misinterpret my remarks. We were talking earlier about the relevance of drugs as it relates to Violent Crime and violence. There is no question that this manyiation i saw that cases i cared for that had to do impaired by some other substance. It causes cognitive decline in the longterm. Whether or not society wants to debate the issue of using that recreationally, theyll such a bate the cost benefit analysis. As the Surgeon General, my job has always been to divide the best science to congress and the public so they can have these discussions. Host talk about your experience back in 1999 dealing with an active shooter in arizona when you were the sheriff deputy. An unmarked in police car and i was driving through town. I came upon a very busy intersection. I was off duty in civilian clothes. Officers will often stop to render assistance and call for an ambulance. I saw there were people on the curbside that were injured. I stopped, i called for name glens, called for a supervisor, let them know that i provided first aid. It turned out there was a three car accident. There was a man in the middle that had been released from prison. He killed his father, stole his fathers truck, was on his way to kill a girlfriend. This was a deranged person. I stopped to provide first aid. Nd he got out of his car if or not for the fact that i was in an unmarked car and had my police gear with me and was able to retrieve for second and get a weapon, he started shooting at me. To move quicker than he was. I was able to survive and he did not. It was a completely unanticipated event. I was stopping to render first aid and was asking for Law Enforcement support to cover the traffic incident. Unfortunately ran into a very deranged person who tried to kill me. Host a bullet grazed your head . Guest yes. Was wounded. Significantly. I knew i was in the fight of my life and would have to do everything and bring everything i learned my whole life so i could survive. In the middle of hundreds of people in a busy intersection. Host you shot him. No one else. Guest that is correct. Ist it taught me back then that the men and women who serve us in Law Enforcement put their lives on the line every day. You never know when the worstcase maragos going to show up. You always have to be prepared for that. We should give thanks that we have people in our society who every day go out and are willing to put their life on the line for us. For what we call all hazards. Whether it is a terrorist event or a fire or explosion. Host do we are medium t . That is an issue ive been dealing with for decades in teaching with swat schools and stuff. People are divided on that. I would say if you decide to do it, we have to make sure that our emf professional stiffarmed understand the duty and obligation of caring a weapon and the rules of engagement. You will be held to a different standard. These debates go on. There are communities where emf are not. S the debate goes on in this country. Host carl is up next in maryland. Democratic caller. Caller good morning. That i wouldblems , there ask you about is is such a thing as fasttrack from what i am told. That arethese drugs approved get approved before they really tested. Test it. They talk about how great the drug is in the ads and speak about the side effects. What theyrek treating because the side effects seem to be worse than the disease. One other thing you speak about all drugs. A recyclings program, but there is no references on all drugs. You can recycle just about anything but they dont tell you how to get rid of all drugs. Issue,on the old drug each community deals with that differently. Certainly the best thing to do if you have any doubt is call your Public Health department and ask them how to dispose of those drugs. Sitrder so that they dont around and become a potential hazard for children who might want to use them. The other part of this question was host how quickly these drugs at the market. Hit the market. Guest there are certain fast tracks where they can get to market quicker and there are special pathways for very unique effect. At can have an overall, the fda does a very good job of testing and ensuring that drugs are safe and that they are able to be used as reported. Tv theyear on the advertise and say take this drug. St 20they li complications. It is a risk benefit that your doctor has determined. If there is a disease that you can get better from by taking this drug but the risk as you might have this problem or this problem, that is a discussion you have with your position. It is different with every patient. Host joey tweets and maybe you can expect mass shooting says the future. Have the responsibility and privilege and opportunity to serve the public. You have to think of the worstcase nara. We have no reason to believe this will stop. We are certainly doing everything we can with prevention to try to identify those in the workplace and school place that might have a problem and expressed this problem. We still have be worried about what we do if it happens. Ur planning will continue in a perfect world, i would love to be able to shut this down and say it will never happen again. The public expects us to be ready when these worstcase scenarios occur. Host is there a role for the Surgeon General in this . Guest it depends on the Surgeon General. It helps to have a lot of experience in Law Enforcement and military, having a background in these areas. In tactics and policy. It helps to have decades of experience. Having worked your way up the food chain, as they say, that you have a real indepth an understanding at the state, regional comments national level. We work with International Partners on this because they have similar problems. Bring up the nominee from president obama. Guest im not quick love him. I dont know him. I read his resume. He is early in his career. He has done a number of nice things as a doctor early in his career. Im critical of the process. What is happening, most of us believe that this position requires a lot of experience in training and education. A rolodex you develop over the years he can get the job done. Threestaron is a admiral. How is it that we can pick some money off the street and say, we will make you admiral when you have to work with the army and air force who earned the right to be in admiral or general after 35 years . The United States Public Health service is where the Surgeon General lives. This is an organization that started with president adams. Over the last few decades, our decidedans have to make them an instant admiral. That denigrates the service of those young men and women who serve 20 or 30 years and have the aspiration to be the Surgeon General in the service. All of a sudden, you can have the job anymore because were going to give it to someone else. Why is the Public Health Service Allowed to do that . Old and the36 years cofounder and president of the advocacy group, doctors for america founded in 2000 and 8. His lack of experience has raised concerns among republicans. Guest it should not just be republicans. It should be all of us. That has young lawyer graduated from harvard a few years ago and has done a couple of things and nominate him to be a Supreme Court justice or u. S. Attorney. Why not . Ive spoken to a lot of reporters. They say because they have not had the experience. I said, that is exactly why. Hy is Public Health any less important . He may make a fine Surgeon General. Five reasons why you should care about the Surgeon General. Give us some reasons. Guest you are the doctor of the nation. Youre the spoke person. Your job is to protect the health and security of the United States. Diverse,a wide, indepth background. Having worked in a lot of different areas. You should have Public Health education and Public Health experience because this is about the publics health. You should understand little health. Congress, the president , other secretaries within our government. Andwant to have a wealth depth of extremes and knowledge to do that. That is my point. It is about process, not this young man. Host i want to get your take on one other thing related to the Surgeon Generals office. That is a great. Cbs announcing today that they will stop servlling cigarettes by 2017. 500,000 die from cigarettes every year. The risk is endless. In 2006, we wrote the report on Secondhand Smoke. It is devastating. Yet, we still sell the product. Our congress chooses to subsidize tobacco farmers. It makes no sense. We need to do everything we can to eradicate tobacco usage. Host more dangerous than marijuana echo guest completely different. This is a carcinogen. We have a long experience with tobacco. Accelerated cardiovascular disease, heart attack, stroke. We need to stay focused and eliminate all tobacco use. Host the Huffington Post recently reporting that the Surgeon General has joined an Electronic Cigarette firm. Why would you be affiliated with the cigarettes . Guest when i was first called with them, i would say, im not. I spoke to some of my colleagues were getting on board as well. People in policy, scientist to do basic science research. People who have among them work for decades in the antitobacco movement. I paused and looked into it. The company i joined in, their goal is to make tobacco obsolete. I said, i like that. You have to remember that e cigarettes is a nicotine delivery device. We already approved patches, sprays and gums. This is a cigarette looking instrument that has nicotine that you breathe in and gives sensation of nicotine. It is a strong potential for hard reduction. People can use this instead of the tobacco and we can worry about getting them off the nicotine. Host what about the paper that comes out . Is it Secondhand Smoke . It does not this person the same way as tobacco does. There is Great Potential for hard reduction. That is why myself and many of my colleagues have dumped on board. I also recognize that many of my other colleagues have said, we dont want to be involved in anything. We want everybody to just stop smoking. You found out in the past a lot of areas that abstinence does not work. We need to do everything we can to eradicate tobacco use and be smarter. I applaud cvs for taking that action. Host the house is about to come in for its legislative session. We will talk to bill in waynesboro, north carolina. Independent caller. Caller i would like to commend of the mostre one logical people that ive heard speak on the subject. An idealground is background for a person who needs to be in the know and in discussion. Need to be making rounds on the talk shows and get people knowledgeable about these things. A serious question that has bothered me for some time now there are bath salts that a child can take and not know where he had been. Host i have to let you go. There are a number of these Recreational User drugs that come up that kids get high from. It is a matter of education making sure that children dont have access to the substances that can harm them. Host that was very quick. We appreciate your time. The house is about to come in for its legislative session today. Live coverage on cspan. The speaker pro tempore the house will be in order. The chair lays before the house a communication from the speaker. The clerk the speakers room, washington, d. C. , february 5, 2014. I hereby appoint the honorable reed j. Ribble to act as speaker pro tempore on this day. Signed, john a. Boehner, speaker of the house of representatives. The speaker pro tempore pursuant to the order of the house of jry