Transcripts For CSPAN Washington Journal 20140716

Well begin this morning with the debate between the two parties about which one is more friendly to women. We want to talk to women only this morning. Which party represents you . That debate breaking out on the senate floor yesterday between democrats and republicans. Well divide the lines like this. Eastern central time, we want to hear from you at 202 5853881. Also, you can join the conversation on twitter twitter. Com fox46carolinas twitter. Com fox46carolinas is our handle, or facebook. Com cspan, and you can email us. Journal cspan. Org. Well get to your thoughts in just a minute. Joining us on the phone is ramsey cox, reporting with the hill newspaper, and ramsey cox the senate yesterday on the floor as we said had a little debate between the two parties over which one is more friendly to women, with a bill from the democrats that would try to reverse the recent hobby lobby decision by the Supreme Court. What exactly would this legislation do . Caller the democrats introduced a bill and the senate will take a vote today on the measure that would completely reverse the Supreme Court decision that allows employers to stop covering Birth Control if they think it violates their religious freedoms. Host and so how would this what is this pertaining to . And remind our viewers what the court decided. Guest the Supreme Court ruled last month that some closely held private companies cannot be priored to offer Birth Control in the Health Care Plan if they have religious objections, they ended up citing the religious freedom restoration act in making that decision, and the democrats bill would amend that piece of legislation that the Supreme Court cited, in order to make it so that privately Held Companies have to offer Birth Control for women. Host why are the democrats taking this legislation up now . A lot of people are arguing theyre using this for a senator or written hatch said political prop was his argument yesterday, to democrats are using this issue to drum up the base that their party ahead of the midterm elections. Host and theyre hoping for women voters . Of course, yes. Women are a huge base for the Democratic Party, and theyre trying to get support for that ahead of the elections. Host what are republicans county proposing with . They said they would introduce legislation that would ensure that women cannot be barred from purchasing contraception by their employer. That bill differs from the democrats, because under the democrats bill obamacare required that private that employers provide Birth Control as part of their health care coverage, so employers would end up paying for part of the cost of Birth Control whereas the republican bill says women can, of course, buy Birth Control on their own, and their employer has no business telling them they cant. Host is the republican counter proposal changing law . No. No. Its just reaffirming it. Kelly ayotte said the bill would call on the fda to look into whether Birth Control should be available over the counter but it doesnt say that has to happen. It would ask the fda to look into it. Host why are republicans introducing this counter proposal now . Because also want women voters ahead of the midterm election. Theyre trying to counter democrat efforts to get all the women votes, so theyre trying to make it seem like theyre a party thats equally supportive towards women. Host ramsey cox covered the hill. You can find the reporting at the hill. Com. Thank you for your time. Thank you for having me this morning. Host let me turn to women only this morning. Well begin with helen in tucson, arizona, and this question, which party represents you . Helen, go ahead. Caller the Democrat Party represents me, because im also a minority, and i think the republicans only only like the the more of the the white americans, where the democrats are more inclusive. They like anybody, whatever you are. Host have you always voted democrat . Caller yes. Host okay. Let me ask you this. Here is the Washington Times this morning with their headline. Democrats use hobby lobbily lobby ruling to rally their base, and tom howell reports democrats desperate to rally an issue ahead of the election. Argues that it limits womens access to contraception. They already set up a test vote today. Let me ask you this, helen. Does this ruling by the Supreme Court motivate you to get out to the poles in november . Oh, definitely. But im im now at the point of my life where politics i believe really affect really affect me, and i want to make sure that whoever i elect has has, you know, the majority opinion. I realize certain certain politicians are going to fall in the republican and democrat, but i would rather have somebody that is going to be have a true opinion and whether its for the democrat or the republican its going to do the good for the people. Host okay. All right. So whats the Biggest Issue that gets you to the polls to vote . Whats your number one priority . Caller i dont like this where the republicans, theyre putting up all kinds of different roadblocks for, you know, for challenging you on voting. Host okay. All right. The voter id laws. Helen. Were talking to women only this morning. We divided the lines, regionally. So numbers will be on your screen. You can start dialing in now. Well go to sandy in freeport, illinois. Sandy, youre next. Caller good morning. I have been a long time wanting to speak with you. Host great. Go ahead. Caller and i think this is perfect. Im a lifelong democrat. I am storeyearsold. I believe in womens rights. I believe in the right to vote. And i believe that women should be able to call a republican bluff when they are out their talking out of the side of their face. I have raised two children, and ive done it with Birth Control, with spacing my children, my husband and i have always been in low income. We do not believe in millionaires running our country, and we dont believe in hobby lobby never spent a time there. I do not believe government sticking their nose into my religious beliefs. I do not believe in republicans cal telling me how to live, how to earn my money or how to raise my family. Host okay. Sandy is this going to get you out to vote in november, in the mid term elections . Caller absolutely. Absolutely. Host and anything else . Are you are you contributing to candidates . Are you volunteering . Caller no, because in the area that i live in the republicans the republicans dont want to pay you a fair wage. I am next to poverty. Host okay. Caller and i live with it, because i lived in my area for all my life, and i lived with it. Okay, if thats all you want to pay with me, thats where i will live. Im on Social Security now and they better suck it up. I paid into that and my tax dollars have gone into that all my life. Host all right, sandy. Washington post has the deadhead lines that unveiled an action plan policy, setting Ambitious Goals for this november. They plan on unveil a list of Election Year blue collar workers, and younger voters. Three key constituencies that historically dont show up to vote in significant numbers in mid term elections. The plan comes as the House Minority leader said her goal is to pick up 25 gop seats in november, a bold ambition. The party of a two term president usually loses seats in its sixth year in office. And part of the action step thats democrats are going to outline includes raising the minimum wage among other issues. So that in the Washington Post this morning. Were talking with women only this morning. Which party represents you after debate broke out on the senate floor yesterday over this hobby lobby decision by the Supreme Court, Senate Majority leader harry reid came to the floor and talked about democratic efforts to reverse that decision, and also respond to the minority leader, Mitch Mcconnells comments that he made last week. Here is sena majority leader harry reid. Last year they esaidially declared victory for american women and their struggle for equality by saying weve come a long way in pay ek which if i and there are a ton of women, ceos running major corporations. I would be wrong but i think most of the barriers for american women have been lowered, end of quote. Republican leaders seems to be suggesting the obstacles preventing women from receiving equality is the only thing missing from Republican Leaders declaration would be an Aircraft Carrier and a Large Mission accomplished sign hanging in the background. We all remember that. Remember . That was president bush declaring the war in iraq was basically over with. Well, it wasnt, and the war regarding women is not over. Republican leader suggested the notion of ensuring the rights of american women is tantamount to preferential treatment. That was his opinion. Thats a shocking as it is troubling. The truth is, regardless of what Republican Congress may say, the barriers to inequality for american women are very real and substantial. Host that was the Senate Majority leader harry read on the floor yesterday. Mr. Mcconnell, the leader from kentucky who is up in 2014 had this to say in response. It becomes increasingly clear that the extent to which obamacare is particularly hard on women. Research shows that women make about 80 of the Health Care Decisions for their families in our country. And yet obamacare has caused countless women to lose the Health Care Plans they had and liked when these women first spoke out about the betrayal they felt when they lost their plans many of the laws supporters waived their concerns or said they were making it up. They said they were lying. Or that their plans were junk because, of course, the critics knew better. Its a pattern that continued ever since. American women also have fewer choices of doctors and hospitals under obamacare. The bill supporters have continually waived those concerns aside, too. Millions of americans are using flexible spending accounts, but obamacare imposes limits on how much of a familys hardearned money can be set aside, and the law from using them to pay for common expenses like allergy medicine or cold medication. Obamacares cuts to Medicare Advantage and other regulatory actions could reduce the average benefit for women and men who rely on this program for more than 1,500 a year. Concerns like these are all simply brushed aside by obamacares supporters. Host Senate Minority leader Mitch Mcconnell on the floor responding to the charges that the democrats are un the Health Care Law is unfriendly to emwith. By the way senator Mitch Mcconnell, the minority leader from kentucky up for reelection in november, running against a female candidate. This morning were turning to all of you, women only, excuse me, and asking you which party represents you. Well go to jerry in canyon lake, texas. Youre on the air. Go ahead. Caller the thing that i noticed i think the democratic to begin with, and i started noticing things that alarmed me, and switched to republican voter. And i noticed that the republicans seem to be more apartment to be more in line with what i liked. And the thing that i would have to say is if democratic leadership is more in line with the women then why is the Current Administration the salaries not in line with whether in line with men, because thats been a relish a that has been in line and talked about most recently, so i guess that would be my question out there to the Current Administration. Host okay. Caller maybe if someone could answer that, that would make me happy. Host what is going to bring you to the polls in november . Its a mid term election, typically low turn out. Whats going to bring you to vote . Caller i vote all the time. Whats going to 50 bring me to vote, im in health care, and obamacare is a real issue for me, because i already see issues where people are having problems with their insurance, with health care, with things like that. Im really going to watch everything that ever senator whoever thats going to the thats going to be in an election, im going to watch everything that they have to say, everything that theyre going to do. Im going to the polls and going to watch every official and what theyre up for and everything that theyre going to have online, and im going to make sure i know everything about them before i even vote. Host all right. A poll was released showing one in six say immigration is the most important u. S. Problem. It said that americans are citing immigration as the top problem surged this month, the highest since 2006. So you can see the chart there. This from gallup this morning. Inside the poll, it breaks it down by women and men, as well, so you can take a look at how women versus men are viewing this. Top four problem its, the most important facing the u. S. In july, of all u. S. Adults, 17 immigration 17 said immigration. 17 of women also said immigration, 17 of men citing that, as well. Women said 7 of women said its the government, politicians and poor leadership, while 11 said it was the economy in general, and 17 said employment jobs is the most important issue facing this country. Were talking with women only. As both parties battle for the vote. Mary, youre up next. Caller i wanted to say that ive been watching this so closely over the past years, and when they failed to pass the equal pay for equal work policy not too long ago, the republicans, and when they failed to step up and work with president so not just males can be up and about, about having better lives in this nation, but all of us, all of us, and that includes women and our children, and that includes my grandchildren. I am very, very alert and aware of how i feel when i see hobby lobby, you know, the Supreme Court and what theyve been doing, it seems like theyre chipping away for bit by bit of the freedoms that we worked so hard for, from the freedoms that was due us as americans, as citizens, and women i believe that the Democratic Party is more for women, but my thing is that the era, the equal rights amendments have been around since the 70s and its been both president s, and these things still havent got passed. I refuse to go back in the dark ages where women have to be out on the streets trying to find a way to abort a child that they know that they cannot take care of, and then i look now if you read the news its always babies being found. What are you going to do about that . Why dont they get off talking about the republicans, get off the high horse that they seem to place themselves on, to make the wrong kind of policies, lets get onboard because we are 50 of this nations population, and i always say, if someone sent a nuclear bomb theyre not going to tell me youre a woman get out of the state, get out of the country. Theyre going to hit me, too. Im tired of this equal, and just its got to stop. And i do i vote all the time. I go, i vote both republican if im living in the state, i like the you know, i am a democrat, but ill go both if i think theyre going to do the right thing for all of us. Thank you. Host all right, mary. Were going to keep talking to women only from both parties. We want to hear which party represents you. If you changed parties or if youre an independent, as well, so we divided the lines regionally. Keep calling in. Well get back to your phone calls. On this issue of immigration, the Washington Post is out with a new poll, abc news polls, that shows the public is critical of both president obama and republicans on the immigration issue. Nearly six in ten disapprove of the way the president is handling the situation and a larger majority disapprove of Congressional Republicans on this issue. We told you that up on capitol hill today there are several hearings happening, and were covering many of them here at cspan. One of them, front page of usa today has the story, about the anthrax situation at the center for disease control. Here is the headline on the front page. Lab safety worse than thought. Recent lapse involving anthrax, smallpox and dangerous strain of bird flu are the latest revelations. 11 labs run by universities n and eight more operated by state, local or private entities, according to government reports, stamped restricted that were obtained by usa today under the freedom of information act. The reports by the office of Inspector General at the u. S. Department of health and Human Services cited Inadequate Security procedures, lax inventory records for germs that could be used as bioterror agents and training concerns. This will be the topic before the house energy and commerce oversight subcommitteey this morning at 10 00 a. M. Eastern time. We have coverage on cspan. Org, with the cdcs director, tom freeman testifying. The House Rules Committee will be gathering at 10 00 a. M. Eastern time. Theyre going to be having a hearing about the proposal by House Republicans to sue the president over executive action. Well have live coverage of that on cspan three, and well be talking about that coming up here on the washington journal with Michael Burgess, republican, about their efforts there. Also on the senate side this morning, here from the New York Times, the house effort to trim trim r trim insurance is splitting the gop. Theyll take up legislation today that extends the federal insurance first approved after they passed the september 11, 2011 suddenly found their projects uninsurable. The extension for seven years is expected to pass easily on thursday with only minor changes to increase the sharing of costs by the private sector. But the house, which hoped to take up the scaled back version is facing a revolt. Led by the representative peter king, republican of long island, who says he has support from 20 to 30 other republicans whose districts are potential trim targets. For new york, and other cities with potential terrorism targets even small cities with large stadiums, the steaks are height. 100 million in devastation insurers would receive a heavy federal backstop. Some percentage would be repaid to the government over time. So this debate happening in congress this week. Well go to bonnie next in yukon, oklahoma. You are on the air. Were talking to women only this morning. Which party represents you, bonnie . Caller im a republican. Host okay. And why is that . Caller because thats at the end hobby lobby did not do right with the Birth Control. They can get all the Birth Control they want with the hobby lobby thing, but the only thing that he took away was the abortion pills, and the abortion things that you cannot do an abortion by just taking that medicine or using the iud. I dont know what in the world these people keep saying he took away the abortion mandate. They didnt. They only took away four of the abortion pills. But somebody needs to kick him out. If we get enough in the senate this time, in 2014, we can get rid of harry read and get something done because he is the one that will not let bills come to the floor to vote on because you knows some of the democrats are as bad as the republicans. Is that what is motivating you to show up in november, is the possibility that republicans could take control of the senate . Caller yes, its a good possibility. And i will be glad to get rid of harry reid. Some of the people, some of the democrats, would vote for those bills, and he knows that. Thats the reason he wont bring them up. Host how old are you . Do you mind me asking . What did you do or do you do for a living . Im retired. I was a nurse for 35 years, and i worked in the hospital, and i know just how the medicare thing and the medicaid works, because i lived in the town where we had a meat packing plant and there was overwhelmed with latinos they come in and have their babies, and work out and expect the nurses to take care of those babies. Well, they didnt get by with that with me, because i said you stay here and you take care of your own child. Host all right. Well go to jody next in minnesota. Caller good morning. Im fired up, ready to go. I love that woman from North Carolina that was fired up to go for obama, and there is a lot of issues but this womans issue is over the top. Host why do you say that . Caller im fighting, im volunteering, im walking, im door knocking, ive never done it in my life, and education theres just theres just so many issues. Host youre going to get out for caller you bet. And i dont need Birth Control anymore, but im going to fight for all womens rights for equal pay, for everything, because this is just to the point where it needs to me it needs to stop. Boehner needs to be stopped. And the rest. Host all right. Take a look at the reaction on twitter from members of congress. Here is senator mark udall, who is up from election, and he is a cosponsor of this democratic bill in the senate thats going to get a test vote today. Our coverage on cspan2, and he says this on twitter. Hobby lobby unfairly singled out women. Senator patty murray, his cosponsor on this legislation said women everywhere will be watching this debate. I think they will be very interested in seeing who is on their side. Hash tag not my boss business. Women in wyoming, North Carolina, and arkansas share accounts of how obamacare forces them to pay more for insurance they dont need or want. And North Carolina and arkansas, two key senate races. Women owned companies are among the Small Businesses hit the hardest by obamacare taxes. The response from a republican. Wendy davis, you know that name, state senator in texas who had that filibuster against an abortion legislation is running for governor and she tweeted out proud of those fighting back on hobby lobby. We should trust women to make their Health Care Decisions, not their bosses. Were talking to women only this morning about which party represents you. Well go to jo ann in san diego, california. Hi, jo ann. Caller hi. I think religious liberty is just as important to women as men in our country. Thats why i think the hobby lobby decision, which bonnie described as being misrepresentative against Birth Control, it was for abortion causing drugs, and now we know that americans dont have to surrender their freedom when they open a Family Business to the federal government. I think that definitely this decision is more about religious liberty, which of course women care b. Its our first amendment, i just think hobby lobby decision should have been more than just about the religious restoration act, but it was unconstitutional. It was against our bill of rights. And my main reason why im republican, which i changed parties when i was 48yearsold, but because im in a one Party Democratic state, our economy is shot, we have 21 unemployment, the cruelty of this minimum wage hike is when you say you can its illegal to hire somebody, that means that hurts women workers who are trying to supplement the family income. It also hurts women who like to be have their own businesses. Very difficult to create a job in this country. Host all right. Okay. Well hear from maria in pennsylvania. Whats the name of your town . Caller yes. I really dont want to put this as a party whether republican or democrat. One thing is this. I think the democrats are just saying this because they really havent done anything. There are so many issues that are more important right now than this honor the abortion issue, and i used to be a democrat. Just remember, when Hillary Clinton, a woman, she was in the primary, and all of this democrat, so really went against her, attacked her, thats when i realized, this Democratic Party cannot really pro woman. I think i will vote on ever issue and what is good for the country, not just for women, just for americans, we are in a downhill here. Okay. So thats my comment. Host how old are you . Caller im 57. Host this is whats motivating you is caller what motivates me to vote would be to get rid of people who are there just for their own politicians specifically, are there for their own agenda, not for americans, not for the people, theyre not there for that. Whatever they think will make them winnie lexes, thats what they go for. I think americans should be smarter than what the politicians are trying to do. We should elect who are sincere, will work hard and not be disengaged like the current president. Host dana on twitter said if Birth Control is not your bosses business why should your boss be mandated to pay for it . Zoe says gop spends so much time saying the government shouldnt come between a woman and her doctor to. Patty youre up next. Caller i want to talk about health care. If anything, divided this country, its this health care and i think women are going to pay more for your family, and they said the premiums are going up next year. I do not believe in a government who tells you that you have to listen to him about womens rights. Women should stand up for themselves. Harry reid, of all people, i think its a distraction from the real problem in this country, and we have big ones. And it all came out of the book, divide and concur. We are not all thank you. Host all right. Patty on this hobby lobby decision, take a look at this poll that was done that shows whether asks people if you approve or disapprove of the Supreme Courts decision which ruled that businesses whose owners hold religious objections have to comply with the contraceptive mandate. Total 47 approved the Supreme Court, 41 disagreed. You can see this along party lines. They broke down by men and women. 43 of women supported that decision, 46 do not support the Supreme Courts decision on hobby lobby. Were talking to women only this morning. Give me your thoughts on which party represents you, as both try to vie for the female vote in november. Just a few months away, washington is in business, this week, and will conditio continuo for a few weeks leadings up to august. These take a break and come back ahead of the november elections. Speaking of that in the senate, the latest polls we showed you earlier the the cosponsor of the legislation in the senate, that being mark udall, democrat from colorado, who is, according to nbc, ahead of the polls in that state, along with other democrats, so here is the poll. Democrats hanging on to slight leads in key senate races, mark udall sponsoring the hobby lobby legislation, and nbc says that he leads the gop challengerrer by seven points among registered voters, 48 to 41 . Another 10 are undecided in that race. Mark udall taking the lead on the legislation, that test vote happening today in the senate. Tune in to cspan2 for the coverage. Davis, who is running for governor, speaking out via twitter about the debate in washington over hobby lobby. Here is from the miami herald, the headline, abbott takes big Campaign Cash lead over davis. She remains a fundraising force but begins the pivotal final push towards election day with substantially less money to spend than republican greg abbott. The poll showing davis trailing behind her opponent there. Pam in california, women only this morning, pam youre up. Go ahead. Caller thank you. I listen to the reporter, miss cox explain the hobby lobby decision and a lot of democrats and some republicans have left out, as many of your caller hads have stated, it is only four out of 20 contraception devices are methods that have been excluded under the decision by the Supreme Court. Four out of 20. The other 16 will all be provided by hobby lobby to their employees. And these were provided before obamacare, and will be continued to be provided under the Health Care Plan by hobby lobby after the Supreme Court decision. Host what do you make of the debate, and what democrats are trying to do . Caller i think that including cspan in allowing miss cox to perform the debate as dividing a method of either providing Birth Control or not providing Birth Control, that thats misleading the entire debate. The question really is whether hobby lobby under religious because of religious concerns should be entitled under the federal constitution to exclude four out of the 20 Birth Control methods that obamacare requires them to provide, or whether they should be the government should overrule their religious objections to these four of the 20 Birth Control methods, and that the four that were excluded because of religious reasons by the Supreme Court are the 2 iud methods and two emergencyings the week after, morning after, im not sure of the specifics, but out of the 20 that were provided, only four were excluded. So i think the debate that should be on cspan shouldnt be whether hobby lobby has to provide Birth Control or doesnt. Host pam we talked about what the courts decision is, and how that impacts us, so if you missed some of that programming, go to our web site and find it there. Susan, youre up next in illinois. Go ahead, susan. Caller yes. I think maria had it right. I think this issue is somewhat minor. Nobody has to tell me i can buy my own Birth Control. I appreciate these peoples rights to decide based on the religious values, but they really dont want to provide this kind of Birth Control. The only thing ill say about that is i like how hobby lobby what is it they call them . Small family owned corporation or class, you know what im saying . Host i think its called closely held corporation, very few shareholders. Caller yes. And the reason they did that is for tax, all kinds of advantages. Its funny you take advantage from the government but when the government tries to tell you what to do you say you shouldnt have to do it. And that causes me a lot of concern, and i have been a i started out as a republican. I actually campaigned for obama. Little bit disappointed in some of the things hes done. But once the republicans went to sarah palin i was so embarrassed by that fact it made me vote democrat. Host here is a headline from the Associated Press on the strategy from democrats to make issue of the hobby lobby decision. State democrats are treading lightly on the hobby lobby ruling, not speaking out as much in more conservative states. Kate in utah, go ahead. Caller thank you. I dont even know who im talking to. Its 5 30 in the morning here. Is this greta . Host yes, it is. Caller im sorry. I just tuned in. Host thats all right. Caller i wanted to call and give my opinion. You know, i think the biggest problem here is that women want some women want the right to decide whether they can kill their unborn child. Host okay. Caller if you think about it, most women participated in conceiving that child. Now, i know that some have been attacked, different people have been, but most of us participated in bringing that child into the world. I have had seven children of my own, and i do not know how anyone could carry a baby, an unborn child, and not feel the movement inside your body, that you know that that is a human being. Host and kate, is this a big is this how you vote when you go to the polls . Is abortion your top issue . Caller its pretty much, because i think that a lot of females in this country are trying to make it legal for them to commit murder, and to have the choice of whether they can kilowatt they started. Host okay. Ill leave it there. Another headline for you on the race for the senate, control the senate in november, here is the New York Times, looking to the fall democrats in the senate races are leading in fundraising, so that from the New York Times this morning. Other headlines in the papers, front pages this morning, the wall street journal well begin with that. Janet yellens testimony on capitol hill yesterday. She hedges her views on Interest Rates, reports, Federal Reserve chairwoman janet yellen defended keeping the Interest Rates low. But opened the crack to keeping the market cracked. We covered that hearing on cspan. Also, front page of the New York Times this morning, on general motors, documents showing that gm kept silent on fatal crashes, this by rebecca ruse, and said the company repeatedly found a way to answer the simple question from regulators of what led to a crash. In at least three cases of fatal crashes, including an accident that killed this person, gm said it had not assessed the cause. In another fatal crash gm said attorneyclient privilege may have prevented it from answering. In other cases the automaker was more blunt, writing gm opts not to respond. The responses came even though gm for years had been aware of power loss in the models involved in the accident. These documents given to the New York Times by federal regulators. The ceo will be up on capitol hill again this week, tomorrow, before the Senate Commerce committee and we will have coverage of that starting at 10 00 a. M. Eastern time on cspan3. Also this morning in the papers on Foreign Policy the Washington Post on the Israeli Palestinian conflict, wider gaza war feared as a bid for truce is rejected. The first israeli fatality was reported yesterday, and the Washington Post noting more than 190 palestinians have died. It also says that israeli Prime Minister gave the military authorization to useful force against militants in gaza involving hamas and its allied would suffer for the decision not to halt the rocket fire into israel. The negotiations, the Washington Post reports secretary of state kerry cites big gaps in the iran talks as sunday deadline looms for some sort of deal. We have been talking to women only this morning, which party represents you, one more call, comes from lee in wisconsin. Youre on the air. Go ahead. Caller hi. You know, i would never vote republican. You have this hobby lobby thing, you have five men, all catholics, some of them white, voting for what they feel is the right way to use Birth Control. And then they also had the massachusetts thing that they let these abortion protesters get right up in womens faces and scream and holler at them, and they do that. Weve seen it. And weve seen tragedies happen from it, too. And roberts said they just want to have a conversation. I dont know where hes coming from on that. And also, i just want to remind people that todd akin, we all remember his comment about legitimate rape, hes out with a book saying he doesnt regret saying that. Then you have huckleby giving the forward to that. What did he say . Sugar uncles, the women who want their Birth Control, thats just so despicable. And you had it took two years for the republicans to finally women against violence act. What else . Oh, they also remember Rush Limbaugh during the president ial primaries, the comments i made which were so ugly, and no one on the right stepped up to say anything about, including all these eight people on the running for president. They just sat there and let him do it. Host is this a top issue for you . Does this get you out to vote in november . Caller i always vote. I follow this. I dont think the women who call in on the republica republican y look at one issue, abortion and Birth Control. I dont think they understand, if you want to have the sugar uncle comments and this time of thing and legitimate rape, keep voting for these people. Host all right. Well leave it there. Coming up next, were going to talk with democratic representative karen bass of california to discuss her child trafficking legislation, and then later well talk with Republican Rules Committee member michael about your just about the speakers lawsuit against the president. Well be right back. The patriarch was known as fondly as uncle henry, and he was the founder of well, this is farmer magazine. His son, henry, was u. S. Secretary of agriculture underwood row wilson, and henrys son was born on this farm in 1888. He went on to become editor of farmer magazine. He was then asked by Franklin Roosevelt to serve as u. S. Secretary of agriculture, which he did for eight years, from 1933 to 1941. And 1941 to 1945 he was roosevelts vice president. As u. S. Secretary of agriculture, he is known for the agriculture adjustment act, which was the first time that farmers were asked not to produce. At first, people couldnt believe the things that he was proposing regarding that, but then as prices went up, they started to listen to him, and people still refer to him today as the genius secretary of agriculture. Explore the history and lit rarey life of des moines, iowa, saturday at noon eastern, on cspan book tv and sunday afternoon at 2 00 on cspan three. For over 35 years cspan brings Public Affairs events from washington directly to you, putting you in the room at congressional hearings, white house event, briefs and conferences and offering complete gavel to gavel coverage. Were cspan, created by the cable tv industry 35 years ago. And brought to you as a Public Service by your local cable or satellite provider. Watch us in hd, like us on facebook and follow us on twitter. Washington journal continues. Host we are back with california democrat karen bass, also the founder and cochair of the congressional caucus on foster youth. Youre here to talk about child trafficking. Guest right. You have legislation. Specifically what is your leveling isolation doing . Guest first of all there is a problem in our Child Welfare system where a number of girls primarily get involved in sex trafficking. Its a real tragedy, well go into it later, essentially what the legislation says is the Child Welfare system needs to change and needs to recognize that this is a serious problem. Well, one step towards changing is training the staff, nationwide, about this problem so that they learn to recognize it. And also that states put in place a response, resources, et cetera, to address this growing problem. Host so were talking about u. S. Citizens. We are talk. Good we are talking about 12yearold girls born in the u. S. Host was does it mean to be trafficked . Guest essentially the average age is around 12, a girl gets either taken off the streets or recruited by typically a guy who says hes her boyfriend, and seduces them into the sex trafficking business. A lot of places this is happening where you have gangs involved in Drug Trafficking but also trafficking girls. Host where is this happening . Guest all over our country but three of the major cities this is happening in are california. But this is a national problem. This is happening in many of our major cities, and you might remember when the super bowl happened, there was a lot of attention to this. So a lot of times if there is a major sporting event, you will have girls who are sent from around the country to service or be exploited at those major sporting events. Host where are these girls or these children coming from . Guest they are coming from all over, some of them are run aways, but a large percentage of girls are from the Child Welfare system. And this is one of the problems within our system. Let me just paint a picture for you. You might have a 12yearold girl that is upset at her foster parent, and she runs away, and she winds up in the arms of a sex trafficker. You might have a girl that is in a group home situation, and you might have boys who are also in foster care that recruit her into being trafficked. There is a lot of different ways this happens. My focus is specifically on the foster care system, but it is not only foster girls that are involved in trafficking. Host how many kids are we talking about . Guest were talking about tens of thousands, but i will tell you that one of the things my legislation is doing is that we need to better document this problem within our country, so documentation is one of the critical things that are needed. Host right. Guest i had a girl tell me, a 17yearold, a young woman, who was trafficked at the ill an of ten, from the age of ten to 17. And she said that the nations Child Welfare system helped prepare her to be trafficked, because just think about out. She said there was never anybody in my life that wasnt there who viewed me as a commodity because they were paid to take care of me, and that the first person that said they loved her was her pump. How tragic is that . Host so how much money are we talking about . How much money this the system to deal with the situation . How much money do you think is needed . Guest this is not so much a financial issue, so i will tell you that theres not money in the system right now to deal with this, because the system has not even gun to fully recognize that this is a problem. So thats why its step one. Im happy to say that theres a number of pieces of legislation that have been introduced that im confident will pass out of the house in the next couple weeks, bipartisian legislation, with many members of the house of representatives recognizing that we need a comprehensive solution to this problem. And so this is something that our nation is just beginning to become aware of, because as you said a minute ago, these girls are from the United States. We are geared to view trafficking as an International Problem, and we dont recognize the girls right here in our neighborhoods are getting involved in this, and i have to tell you Something Else thats incredibly tragic. The average lifespan of these girls, once they start into this, is seven years. They dont live. They typically are either murdered or they die of hiv. Host let me show the viewers graphics put together. This is from january of 2014. Take a look. 80 of the child trafficking victims are female, 50 are under the age of 18. The average age, 12 to 14. 300,000 kids a year trafficked. 41 of cases reported to the National Human Trafficking Resource Center hotline. 70 of the traffickers are male, and a 32 billion industry. Guest how tragic is the that . This is something our nation is just beginning to become aware of. I have to tell you that one of the reasons, one of the things that fuels this is the internet. You have specific sites that traffickers know they can advertise these girls. We need to change the way we view this situation, because some people would call these girls prostitutes, but if you think about it it doesnt make sense to use that term for an underage girl, because if you are below the age of consent, how could you be considered a prostitute . So one of the things that happens in our nation in many places is these girls wind up being arrested, and treated as though they are criminals, and it is not recognized by either Law Enforcement, or social services that they are victims and shouldnt be arrested at all. Host would your legislation change that legally . Guest well that is something we cant change on a federal level, so a lot of it is about public awareness. You know, in some instances, and ive had Law Enforcement officers tell me this, they dont want to arrest the girls but they dont have any other way to get them away from the trafficker. So that speaks to another problem that we need to build up in our country, that will take some money. It might take redirecting current money, but one of the main problems is when you identify a girl that is trafficked then what do you do . One of the reasons she keeps going back to her trafficker is because she has no place to go. There is a layer of inin a structure that needs to be built in our country. We need to have shelters, we need to have specific counselors. These girls need to be treated in most instances, are suffering from ptsd. Its the same situation as a hostage, a prisoner, et cetera, a lot of them begin to adapt the mentality of their abusers. Some of them turn into abusers and recruit other girls. They recruit their girlfriends. This is a complex situation that really requires a lot of attention, which is why im glad that a member of congress has come together to introduce legislation. Host you think this will get a vote . Guest i do. This is a very bipartisian issue. Host lets take a look at your legislation. You want to identify and screen youth at risk of sex trafficking, document it, provide response training for cps workers, require states to submit annual reports on child trafficking to the National Child abuse and neglect data systems and require the hhs to report to Congress National trafficking why is this a federal problem . Should not it be done, resolved on a state level . Guest both. They are absolutely responses that need to happen on a state level. Im happy in my state, you know, things have been happening. Several years ago we passed state legislation when i was in the state legislature that said that the girls should not be arrested, that they should be treated as victims. So this requires a national response. So the legislation that you see many of us doing, i think theres probably about 14 members of congress both democrats and republicans, that have all joined together to do this. You see us essentially laying the foundation for what i believe over time will be a comprehensive response. So you see my legislation talking about documenting. Before you begin to address the problem, you really need to have a better handle on how widespread the problem is, are there evidence based practices for how we resolve the situation . So once you identify the girls, then what do you do . I will tell you that in my area in the city of compton theres an innovative court, called the star court, and that court is a court that specifically deals with under acknowledge girls who are trafficked. I went to meet with them one time, and before we went into the Court Proceedings there was a room of people social workers, educators, lawyers, defense, prosecution, everybody salt around the table and discussed the cases before we went into proceedings. And it wasnt dealt with as though the girls were going to be prosecuted and incarcerated, it was all about how do we rescue the girls and help them get out of the life. Thats the mentality we need to have. Right now the mentality in our country is still behind in a lot of places, and again we view these girls as criminals, not as victims. Host were talking with representative car enbass about child trafficking in this country. Individualeck had in or a group of people who were undercover. He was asking for money to support this group who actually went from the states to thailand. They were very successful in saving quite a view quite a , boys and girls. This is something we definitely. Eed to tailor with more money actually what will happen with the kids on the border, how will that work out and who will check to make sure they will not be abused . You are absolutely right. One of the pieces of legislation we will be dealing with that was put forward does deal with the international piece of this and requires the state department to set up a specific euro. They have an office but we want to elevate it so we recognize the significance of it. I am very concerned about the children on the border because some of them more traffic and brought here, but i am also concerned that when we deport them back, they are not put in the hands of traffickers. I want to clarify a lot of the legislation and trafficking we are talking about our kids that were born and raised in the United States, not the international piece of it, although i really up vitiated you raising that. Lets go to eric, a democratic caller. I have a procedural question. That we are talking about child trafficking in a workforce 60 of the is labor participation, an alltime low. Is talking about child trafficking. I agree it is a problem. I do not know how she plans to document it, but at a time where we are not talking about demand, demand for business is down, because one percent of the country is getting 90 of the income growth. That contributes to child trafficking. You have people trying to make money instead of trying to get a job because there is no demand. You are absolutely right. The demand is a very big issue. I think we need to address the demand. One of my concerns is, like the graph you put up with the states and trafficking laws, the laws are focus on the traffickers and rightfully so. We also have to do with the guys that exploit the children and we need to change our mentality when we are in and talking about them as well. Should be called child molesters. If you have sex with an underage child, you are a child molester. We need to change the way our society views this problem. I think addressing the demand is one of the things we need to do. In some states, when you are talking about adult prostitution, they put the pictures of the johns up or something. I think we need to figure out a way to a dress the demand. Dave is next. The previous caller hit on exactly what i wanted to bring up. What is creating this demand . Talking 60,004 trafficking reasons. I just do not buy it. Guest 60,000 for what . Caller this latest scandal unfolding on the border is creating an influx of immigrants into the nation. Host i guess he does not buy it. Guest ok. Again, what our legislation is about is not kids on the border and hits from other countries. It is about kids born and raised here. What i said previously is that i am concerned that some of the children who are coming up here by themselves are sent here by traffickers and i am worried about if and when they get deported, that they are not put back in the hands of traffickers. That is not what our legislation is addressing. We are addressing a home grown problem. I am mostly talking about girls but boys are affected as well. Lawmakers scoffed at a border funding plan. A democratic congressman is supporting legislation from his colleague, republican senator john cornyn, that some in the Democratic Party, including those majority leader harry reid have said, to broad, do not like it. Do you agree and why . I have not read the bill yet but what ive heard about the bill, it changes the law that says youngthat people, miners, that come from other countries seeking Refugee Status that are not from mexico or canada have to have a Court Proceeding and do not automatically get deported. Crisist believe in this we should change that law. Theas put there during Republican Administration bipartisan support. I do not think it is time to fundamentally change the law. We need to adjust the crisis and in the president s plan, the call for money so we can increase decrease the time it takes to put the child through a proceeding where the child should also have legal representation which just not happen right now. Can you imagine a sevenyearold or eightyearold kid put in a courtroom with no one to help him . We need to stay focused that these are children. The legislation would streamline how the u. S. Processes these miners, to either allow them to apply for asylum or return home. The congressman was on our show recently and he said this needs to happen and we arty have this kind of process for mexico and canada, we should get the same arrangement with Central American country countries expedite the children. I do think the process should be expedited but i do not agree with the way he talks about expediting. We need to increase the number of judges and lawyers so the process can be expedited without fundamentally changing the law. We need to think about what is going on in these countries and why people are fleeing. The gang problem in x in el salvador started in los angeles. We deported tens of thousands of gay members who went down to el salvador and continued the criminal behavior they had in the Los Angeles Area. In addition to expediting the resources,increasing the other thing we need to do is assist countries deal with the problems. Harry reid said yesterday the border is secure. Do you agree . If you look at how we have spent money or resources that have been increased, in the last seven or eight years, we have increased money to the border to strengthen it by 350 . This is not an issue of the border not being secure. Have these children coming to the border looking for the border punch and turning themselves in. They are not trying to flee. It is not a question of the border not being secure. Our viewersowing this is a picture in the opinion section of the wall street journal. Immigrants in honduras, after being stopped for illegal border crossing, a number of children standing there. Let me show you the Arizona Republic front page as well. They have this picture with a caption that after crossing the border at the southern tip of texas, women, children, and unaccompanied minors from Central America promptly give themselves up. They interviewed these kids and they said they were happy when they saw the border patrol. It is a false issue to say the border needs to be more secure. But then, lets just go with that for a minute. If we want the border to be more secure, why dont we pass the bill from the senate . That adds resources to the border. Denise, new jersey, democratic caller. Go ahead. Caller i was just calling the pedophiles, half of them are on drugs or whatever. Why dont they take and put them in some kind of facility until they are drug free. You see so many kids being born in this country from out there on the streets and they have drugs in their system. Here, you is coming know, with a jug problem. I agree with you. We have a Wonderful Program in the Los Angeles Area called shields for families which does exactly what you said. They have been able to keep a number of children out of the Child Welfare system by bringing the mother, when she was pregnant, into their facility, providing drug and counseling services, making sure the baby is born drugfree. But then also helping the mother address her addiction. We did Something Else not talk about about the trafficking issue. The pimps get them strung out on some type of drug. They need to medicate themselves with Illegal Drugs just to survive what the temps put them through. Turning tricks in the night. Host we will go to alabama on our line for democrats. Brandy. Caller yes. Good morning. Like to congratulate president barack obama. Grandfather is always doing right and Everything Else. He makes me very proud. I have no idea what else to say. Ok. Pennsylvania, independent caller. Good morning. Thank you for taking my call. She has already touched on a lot of what my question is, but i would like your pain in on the pros and cons of this subject and that is my only question. The pros and cons of the subject. There are no pros. There are only cons. We have girls beginning at the age of 12 who are trafficked, me, thefic, and to comprehensive legislation we are looking at is to adjust the problem. Can see a pro. This legislation will pass out of the house in a week and it is Bipartisan Legislation and that is the pro. In the senate, that is another story. I believe it will be supported in the senate. Not a veryt controversial topic. Im happy to say it is not. Host we will go to katrina next, telephonic, independent caller. Caller thank you for taking my call. I am happy to see representative baths bass is on. I am happy to have her as a california representative. It is a real pleasure to speak with you this morning. I think some of this child byfficking thing is fueled pornography. I am not a man hater. Do not get mad at me. Some of you guys are cool. But what a crime against a minor under 18. Cant you wait until they are 18 . You can be 75 and still get yourself a sharp 18yearold. It is a philosophical problem with society. You look at the priests and everything. That is a problem. She is right. Child per not your fee and child the tourism, all of this is interconnected. It is happening right in our own communities and we need to recognize this. Host on twitter that is a good question. When you showed the map of that very severere are laws in many states. In california, we passed the ballot initiative. What happens is a parent involved in trafficking, if the girls are under age, then they serve a lot more time. There are task forces happening. The fbi leads a task force called innocence lost which brings together all different departments in lawenforcement to adjust this problem. There have been major arrests that have taken place. I mentioned a while ago, the super bowl. Major arrests in california. The issue is getting more and more publicity. Just like we can tell from our callers, itll take a mind shift to understand this is not an International Problem, but right here in our own backyard. We will hear from jim next in chicago, independent caller. Morning. In 1995, there was a book that talks about the kids who were omaha, nebraska. The book talks about wellknown involved in picking up kids for their own pleasure. I was wondering if you had read the book. If not, you should read it. This is something i was pointing out in 1995 and it seems like no one really wanted to do anything including the fbi who boys town. D my other question is, since there are a lot of people and not just pimps that are involved in this, what can be done about this situation . I do think we have these moments in history where of a 1995 might have been too early, but now things are beginning to change. Like i mentioned earlier, there are still too many areas around the country where these girls are referred to as prostitutes and they are arrested. That type of mentality needs to change. Fortimes, it takes a while our society to change. I think that change is beginning to happen now. Legislation, the fact that there are a number of bills and they are all bipartisan, is an example of our society beginning to change. This is a huge problem globally. The United States does a report that really looks at the entire world and we grade countries based on tears as to how they are trying to address the problem or not. It is absolutely an International Problem and up until a couple of years ago, we did not realize it was a domestic problem at all. California, tracy is calling, independent caller. Good morning. I reside in l a county and i had the pleasure of listening to you on the front page, Radio Station in my sandals. A pleasure always to see you. And like, being here most of the southwest, there is an issue that relates to crime and the trafficking that him and its simply due to the lacks enforcement of borders. It seems a lot of the times, politicians, both democratic and republican, primarily democrats, you are missed focus on getting to the root causes of the issue. That is not to say that would not be an occurrence here, there are always people who are opportunist and willing to take advantage of women. With thedealing symptoms and not just the problem. He says it is a border problem. Guest and again, what we are talking about is people who are children born and raised in the United States. This problem is happening in it iseach, absolutely. Happening all throughout Los Angeles County and it is something we need to adjust. I will emphasize these were girls born and raised in the United States. The issue on the border i believe is a different issue. How tohave to figure out do with the problem happening in our own backyard. The governor of texas, rick perry, republican, echoed what the caller just said in his opinion piece this morning in the wall street journal. He writes president obama last week proposed 3. 7 billion in spending to deal with the crisis but only a small fraction of that money will go to the actual core of the problem. The lack of sufficient resources to secure the border. If we want to talk about the root causes, we have to talk about why people are so desperate to leave their countries to come here. That is the root cause. Border security has been increased 350 over the last few years. There is a bill sitting in the senate that could be passed in the house at a moments notice that would increase border further. Resources even it is a little bit off days to talk about what the president has proposed today when we do have legislation. I think the president told the governor he would be very helpful if you would talk to republicans in texas and ask them to go ahead and vote for Immigration Reform. He could also call Speaker Boehner and say, cant you just put the senate bill on the house . We believe there are enough votes there. Some of your members even want to vote for Immigration Reform but you will not allow the vote to come up for a vote. If you are really concerned about border security, we have a solution. Speaker boehner needs to step up. Host he wants the faa to approve drones along the border. Guest i think the governor wants to run for president again. If we have a situation where the kids are looking for the border patrols so they can turn themselves in the, what good does it do to have jones in the National Guard . He is trying to rectify mistakes he made during his president ial campaign when he was sympathetic toward immigrants and he got hit for that. So now he is shifting to the right then all of a sudden wanting to look tough. This is about setting the stage for a 2016 president ial run from governor perry. Jerry, independent caller. Good morning. Thank you for taking my call. I would like to dress this immigration thing a little bit here you talk about sex trafficking. I wonder just how many of these young girls and boys, they are shipping them all over our country, how many of these kids will end up on the street working for some temp. I think our government just got involved in sex trafficking. Yesterdaya meeting with the secretary of health and Human Services and i asked her whether or not the kids come across the border would end up in the Child Welfare system. She told me the ones that are allowed to stay temporarily, until they have a hearing, would be placed with relatives because the overwhelming majority of them are coming here in search of relatives. So they are able to call their family members and would be with their family members. Fall through the . I have no doubt. But we have a very serious problem in our country with child sex trafficking. The majority of children trafficked are born and raised in the United States and not come across anyones border. Host it is reported the full senate will get a briefing tonight on the situation on the southern border. Joe is next, democratic color, new york. Caller, new york. Usually, when i call, i say i am a counselor and not a plumber. [laughter] what i want to say this morning, i have been watching this thing that is happening. Since three weeks ago, whatever it is. See the people who call themselves christians, the christian is nothing but a person who is christlike. That is all a christian is. The same people that say, send , dont let them stay in our country, send them back, and then when you look at this who does notica, have anything but slim shots on whenoster that themselves, you have this were to a rack, and the people are telling me, over 5 Million People went to refugees because of the war between iraq and afghanistan. When you said to send them back, they say they are the christian. Host got your point. Sad images of people being really hostile over the buses and there are children on those buses, children who have been totally traumatized by the journey they have had to take, and they come over here in search of their relatives and are greeted by two or 300 adults who look very hateful and hostile. It frankly resurrects images, to me, of the 70s and 80s of busing, where kids were greeted in such a hostile manner. I can only imagine what those children sitting on the buses are thinking. I really think this is a humanitarian crisis. Our feelingst away and thoughts around immigration right now. If we do want to focus on that, we need to focus on passing comprehensive Immigration Reform. If we want to increase resources on the border, there is a bill we can do that that can be voted on today. I think we really need to focus and to me, to have all of this hatred and hostility toward children who make this journey, i think is very sad. Host gabby, massachusetts, democratic color. Go ahead democratic caller. Go ahead. Caller hi. So happy you are addressing this issue. I watch cspan all the time. This issue is not only a child issue. It is hatred against women problem. Is not only about america. I live in los angeles for a year. Work with the government of the state of california for 70 years. The Government Funds training for women but these women training by the state, the local government that are supposed to be sending them not because they are training. They are being labeled unable to be trained because they have less than 2. 5 gabbys point about a hatred towards women, a cultural and societal issue. Atst when we are looking child sex trafficking, what happens to these children is that they go up with such terrible selfesteem and feelings of selfworth, feeling hated, it is one of the things that keeps them with the trafficker. When we talk about root causes with the girls, we really do have to look at that theyre the overwhelming majority of the girls who wind up traffic have been sexually abused earlier in their life. Thank you for talking to our viewers. Coming up next, we will cross the aisle and talk with republican Michael Burgess about the lawsuit against the president. Later, we look at a peach peace in fortune magazine. Taking a look at Big Companies moving overseas to dodge billions in taxes. All of that is coming up right after this news update on cspan radio. [captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2014] [captioning performed by national captioning institute] two congressmen are introducing a bill to require the ncaa schools, conferences, towell as college playoffs, reveal how much theyre making on college sports. And reveal similar information to schools water to report information to ncaa. It also affects conferences and any hosting competition. The state said yesterday it would allow for the first apple store apples comparison, the revenues and spending in college sports. Did not spokeswoman immediately return an email yesterday. Says theiated press white house is defying a congressional subpoena by keeping top president ial political aide dave siemens from a hearing today. They argue he is immune from subpoena by the committee and his investigation into the Political Office he directs. The white House Counsel letter to the House Oversight Committee Chairman says the subpoena threatens the constitutional separation of powers. We will hear more about this coming up. President obama meets with the congressional spanish caucus today at the white house. This is to discuss the border issue. Later, state and tribal leaders will talk about ways to prepare their communities now for the effects of climate change. The president will also announce new resources to help communities. Some of the funds will help the development of a threedimensional mapping of the for use in flood those are some of the latest headlines on cspan radio. Now you can keep in touch with Current Events at the Nations Capital anytime. Simply call to hear congressional coverage, Public Affairs forums, and todays washington journal forum. You can also hear audio of the ate network Affairs Programs noon eastern. Long distance or phone charges may apply. Washington journal continues. Lonel what will you be hearing and from whom . Guest four witnesses are coming on other woman will also be on the republican side, an expert in constitutional law. A former Carter Administration who will be on the democratic side. The next one i have to look at look it up. Host where do you come down on the issue . Ideal . Is this the answer is no. When there are disputes tween parties, we have three branches of government, you take your dispute to the third branch, to the courts, and get that result. There is always a risk when going to court and one will win and one will lose. Always a risk of setback. Very difficult. We have a law of this magnitude and complexity and things get changed. Republicans have been criticized for trying to change and repeal parts of the law. A lot of times, the discussion will start off with 42 or 58 times we tried to appeal the Affordable Care act. Sometimes, quite large parts of the Affordable Care act. No advice or input from the legislative ranch which wrote the law. The president did have an option as the law was written. Most of it was written down at the white house. Even in the crafting of the language, he had opportunities. Certainly, he felt the law, after it came out of the senate and out of the house in late 2009 and early 2010, if there were such strong ambiguities, he had the power to direct it to be vetoeded. He could have the law, but his statements at the time, if you send me a law, i will sign it. Nancy pelosi famously said we have got to pass the law to find out what is in it. Ok, but we found out some parts of the law are very hard to administer. As they cruised into the fourth of july weekend last year, it there were going to be substantial difficulties implementing the law. It might be one thing to cause chaos in the 50 of the population in the individual market, but if we disrupted the population covered in the large group market, the employer market, there was going to be a high price to be paid and they were not willing to do that. So they suspended the employer mandate peace. That might be a good idea. The problem is the good idea should not come back to the house of representatives or the we neednd say, look, fine tuning here on the employer mandate. They did not do that. It was a blog post, july 2, late in the day, and everyone had gone home. I got pounded with questions about, what does this delay of the employer mandate mean and i had no chance to review it or understand it. It caught a lot of people off guard. Insurance executives in to see us must before said, republicans, stop trying to change things. We arty made the adjustment within the assurance and we are anticipating the employer mandate kicking him in november. In in november. I was surprised when this came out on july 2. Ambiguity in the law . That is certainly something that should be open for discussion. It is one of the things we will hear talked about in the committee today. The constitution is pretty clear. The President Shall take care to faithfully execute the law. Turley say that more than once this morning. That is in the constitution and it is correct. If there is ambiguity in the president may have discretion because he has got to decide between two statements of congress that have not been reconciled. I cannot tell you, it could not be clearer in the law itself, the language covering the individual mandate and the employer mandate, it is very brief. The individual mandate, the effective date, the amendments shall apply to taxable years after december 31, 2013. The employer mandate, the effective date, the amendments made by this section shall apply to months beginning after december 31st. No ambiguity. They are the same statement. Was firster mandate put off for a while and then that was extended. The president last year in july delayed the employer mandate era that is what republicans are suing over. This is your statement from july 17, 2013 last year, when you said, while i have long held all in the healthcare bill should be delayed permanently, we at least came together talking about a vote in the house today to support the president s efforts to delay the employer mandate by a year. Republicans, yourself, you endorsed the idea of delaying the mandate. We try to help the president but unfortunately harry reid said no. The correct way to do this would have been through legislative action. President did not come to us asking for legislative action. When we passed a rule to allow the bill to come to the floor of the house, the administration in fact issued a veto threat. They issued a veto threat over the same activity they had done i executive action a few hours before. Truly was surreal. Do i think the employer mandate is something that should and or and are endure . Look at the chaos caused in the small group market, the individual market in november and december of the past year. Ple found themselves would get health care january 1. Multiply that many times by the number of people in the employersponsored market, the large group markets, that is a degree of chaos i do not think the country can tolerate. Some sam baker citing experts, law professors saying, a plaintiff has to show cause by a defendant. That has been problem in the past. Their political this agreements are not an injury for the legal system to address. On top of that, congress has its own powers to employ when it thinks the executive branch is not doing what it proposed to do. Republicans voted in support of delaying the employer mandate. How do you establish injury when you have that vote . Click the lawsuit is different than the ones brought against george bush in the Previous Administration because those were individual members of congress trying to show they had been harmed. This is the institution of congress that the speaker asserts have been harmed by the actions of the president. Argue that Congress Certainly was affected because ae 2010 elections affected change in the leadership in the house of representatives. He went to a democratic majority institution to a republican majority institution because of the laws that were passed. Many of those seats are now occupied by republicans. The equity they gave up essentially was lost now why the president s actions to unilaterally delay the mandate. The appropriate thing to do is come back to congress, lets have debate, without discussion, as we did last year, lets have involve the senate, and if the mandate is a bad idea, lets legislate the improvement. Lets not do this by the Administration Just picking and choosing which parts of the law is to uphold. We all know the second tuesday in november is election day. What if the president decided that is no longer convenient because of football season or some other thing and delayed by two or three months . There were probably be a fair amount of pushback if that were to happen in 2016. Weredash of things that ambiguous, sometimes, there will be discussion. In this case, there was no ambiguity there in if the discretion exists in this case, there is no limit to the power. Mike, go ahead. Caller i am in ohio. Lebron james will be here. Selected for the Gop Convention. Of friends here in northeast ohio, a lot of moderate republicans, people who i will be so happy when the Gop Convention comes to cleveland. I just hope they do not all drink the tea. As far as my question to you, i am so jealous of president obama. What could i do to have congress to be sued by this congress is a badge of honor. It is like being arrested by the keystone cops. I am a retired teacher. It will be an insult to my students. We are all entitled to our opinions. Stay tuned and well see what happens. Representative, i wake up every morning around 5 00,. 00, i go to bed around 11 00 i go to bed cussing at people like you. I find it so big a hypocrite of you and the Republican Party. It just came out yesterday. The Law Enforcement came down to florida. I would really like to know how many are in washington dc working against the American People, trying to hurt Barack Hussein obama and hurting the United States of america. What are you saying . I do not believe the representative sitting up there like in april 2000 10, i retired and i wake up every morning to watch the show. Find it amazing host ok, we will move on. Republican caller. Caller good morning. Mr. Burgess, out of all of the things you can chew barack obama over, why would you sue him for something you are willing you actually shut down the government for what he actually did. For one reasonit or another, that is a separate story. You can sue barack obama for benghazi, for the irs, so many things. This . U sue him for thisll make the Republican Party look absolutely ridiculous. Guest i will concede there is an embarrassment of riches that you can sue the Obama Administration on. This is straightforward. I read the language to you. It is unambiguous. We live in a country where we do not have a ruler. We have three coequal branches of government, separation of powers. Suspendresident cant that activity on this, where it is so clear i and clear and unambiguous, that is what is so in fright so frightening about this issue. Thingsre a lot of other you will hear about what happened to benghazi. The irs keeps looking worse and worse. There are other things out there that are problematic for the administration. This was simple, direct, Straight Lines between the two problems. It is one where the speaker felt if there is going to be a check on president ial power, here is where we should make our stand. Host columbia, maryland, tom, also a republican. A republican maryland, good. Caller there was a proud tradition of liberal republicans from maryland, which i continue. Up anothere to bring thing. Outcontinuously set partisan bills for obama to sign. Every law sent to him has a poison bill on the back end of that he that he has got to refuse. Laws. Ep making incomplete ae irs is one example with 502 c or 503 c. , you doot fund the irs not fund the state department to complete their security requirements. You do not fund the border down in texas, which you own for 150. Ears with all its problems and you come back and blame it on him. Did you vote for president obama or john mccain and mitt romney . Caller john mccain originally. I have also voted for ross perot. I have also voted for john , i have also voted for Ronald Reagan and the first bush. Believe it there. Just to give context to his comments. Guest how many times has president obama vetoed a bill sent to him by congress . Adjuncty have been one to the spending portion of a debt limit deal, but other than that, i do nothing the president has vetoed anything. Harry reid has been a good blocking back to the senate. My hope is that will change next year. The president may have to look at some bills and the side, do i tolly want to veto a bill restructure the irs. These are things he will have to deal with. I would not regard them as poison bills, but protections for our citizens. Lets look at executive orders by president s over the years. President obama, 182 so far. Resident george w. Bush, 291 the first bush, 166 serving only one term. Were you upset when president george w. Bush took executive action . Guest the ability to do so is in the power of the president. The problem occurs when the president decides to pick and choose which laws. The president did give bill clinton the power of veto and that was rejected by the Supreme Court, saying that was not a power that could be given over to the executive branch by the legislative ranch. The president is essentially using a lineitem veto for things that do not appeal to him. Incorrect. I go back to the point if the president can pick and choose whatever parts of the law he wants to accept and in force, gives Unlimited Power to the office of the president. In thissomething country we have always faithfully guarded against. Debbie is watching in philadelphia, good morning. Caller good morning to everybody there. Bush ther president second delaying part of that Medicare Part d. I may be misunderstanding that. It seemed like he changed the ruling on when people could. Pply i may be confused on that. You can probably respond on that. Is in the papers today making the comparison. The part i recall, that was delayed was the sign up date he extended, as they did for the Affordable Care act, that is, people who had not signed up by may 10 would have a 10 surcharge on their Insurance Premium if they signed up after that date. There was an open enrollment time which i believe was extended. I have got to be honest, i mentioned to the secretary that right after the big push came to start signing people up for part d, what happened, we had a hurricane of biblical proportions washed into the louisiana gulf coast. All of the resources were suddenly focused on helping people who had been impacted by that storm. One of the secretarys trips through dallas, i said there has got to be delay and he said, i do not have the authority to do that and we will be ok. Was a position of, it is not just inconvenient because i have got an election coming up. It was inconvenient because we had one of the worst hurricanes that is ever hit the country. At the same time, the department of health and Human Services redoubled their efforts and got the job done. Host albuquerque, new mexico. Caller i just wanted to speak about this. It seems like the Republican Party is more and more bigoted. I guess the kkk is infiltrated or something. It is crazy. Theyre going after president obama for doing his executive orders. It just seems crazy. Are you saying this is because of his race . I definitely do. Definitely disagree. I will likely support ben carson. Make it about race if you want, but it aint. Host why ben carson . The most is one of thoughtful people ive ever encountered. His life as a pediatric surgeon means he has been a productive member of the country. I look around at the United States government and people come to it from parts of life that are not so productive. We need productive people in the federal government. We need people who know how to get things done and run a business, run a medical practice, run a hospital. In the space of two minutes, he , healthbout hsa accounts, giving every child born a healthy count, he talked about a flax flat tax, he references the bible, here is a guy who is the same as i am. Host a fellow doctor like yourself. Guest that does not hurt. Host serving his sixth term elected in 2002, represents the 26th district of texas. We will go to robert, independent caller. Good morning. Congratulations. This president has been a disaster. What is goingve on. You shouldve done this a long time ago. Everything he has touched has turned into goo. Poo. I cannot believe they continue to use this crutch of racism. They will use this thing for another thousand years. Efforts inor your trying to straighten the country out. Robert says it is about time. Guest thank you for your comment. Move,rything was meant to there would probably be more power taken by the government and not reserved for people. The government does not work as intended by the founders. It is sometimes clumsy and ineffective, but it was the way it was set up. The column today in the Washington Post, he says sarah palin was right about impeaching president obama, not that the president should be impeached, but she is correct in arguing that for those who assert obama has grievously abused his second his authority, impeachment is the proper course of action. To ask yourself what youre trying to accomplish. This lawsuit, which we will begin to hear testimony on today, is a reasonable approach to the overreach of the executive branch. If the president has set himself up as a ruler, if the president has set himself up as the Supreme Commander of the United States, the argument will be litigated today in the rules committee. There is no reason to pursue a course of action that will never does isvessel if all it further divide the country. We have an opportunity today to reestablish the proper balance between the branches of government and i think that is the appropriate action. When will this get a vote . How much do you expect the lawsuit to cost . We are having an informational hearing today. A markup on the resolution that would allow the beaker to bring the lawsuit would likely occur next week or the following week. You know how things go through the courts. It is not rapid. It is important to answer the question. People say it could be answered after the president leaves office. A good vegan one of the things Jonathan Turley stressed when he gives testimony in december, it could be a republican president next who overstepped his powers and would you not want that checked . The cost, what did it cost the president to bring the lawsuit he just lost last week on the recess appointments . Lawsuits cost money. Lawyers unfortunately do not work for global fees like doctors do hear it the cost is very difficult to estimate. At the same time, this is important enough Going Forward and it is not just for this president. I want to stress that. Several of your callers seem to feel i am focused on this president. It could be the next president bush next term. Beld you still want there to no limits on president power if there were a republican president named bush in the next term or one named cruz in the next term, or clinton or one in the next term. It does not matter the gender or the race. What matters is that the constitution be followed and the people be able to depend upon those limits the constitution places on their elected government. Host robert is a repellent in ohio. Go ahead. A republican in ohio. Go ahead. Caller i totally agree with you about dr. Ben carson. Second of all, just as an i am not inican, the interworkings of what you do everyday, but just looking at this, it looks like a cowards way out. Congress has the power and they could have done something about benghazi, they could have done something about fast and furious, they couldve done something about the irs, the list goes on. Instead of standing up and having a backbone, you guys try to take this layout . This is putting politics ahead of our country. Host lets get an answer to the powers first. Guest fast and furious is making its way through the courts. There will be an answer on that so that has not stopped or gone away. October 1 ofber last year, we exercise the power when the majority leader of the senate said we are not talking to you anymore. A better way to approach the power in my opinion is a regulatory process. That is something i got significantly diverted under speaker policy. It has been slow to come back. That is what is happening right now. We are working our way through the appropriations bills. For anyone who sat up late last night watching cspan you could see a number of amendments that were offered to restrict or rein in the activities of the Internal Revenue service. Complaintsear the offered by the other side. If i were responsible for an agency like the Internal Revenue service, if i were the head of the department of treasury, i would want there to be the faith that the people have in that agency. That is the one agency that intersects with every single one of us. No one likes it does it is the taxman, but to allow it to have languished with this blemished reputation for the 14 or 16 months that this has gone on, the president should have had the presence of mind to fix this. His initial comments let us to believe that he would, but he did not, and as a consequence faith in the Internal Revenue service tax attorneys back home only that their opening salvo in court is to show me that you did not target my client and it is very difficult for them to do that. We are really damaging the structure of the institution. No one likes the taxman, but we all recognize that it is a necessary part of the function of our government. Lets do what we can to restore the faith of people in that agency. Host john, republican, new york, youre on the air. Playing the race card with president obama, i am an african american. I dont think why people are president prejudiced against obama. If they was, he would not have one. But there are 15 , 20 of whites who are prejudiced. Dont forget that. Would like to ask this gentleman, why are you all holding up the president s bills , fixing roads and bridges i went to d. C. It took me 30, 40 minutes to get through d. C. Because the freeways are too small for todays population. Host all right, well talk about that. Guest in fact, last night the house passed the funding bill to carry highway funding into next year. Not ideal, certainly, but it stopped the problem that was just around the corner. The house has passed i forget the number, but it is almost 300 separate bills dealing with jobs and job creation. Those have been stacking up on the desk of harry reid. Just last week he let one loose call the skills act. We agreed to it, it went down, the president signed it. The problem is not with your humble lower house. The problem is with the vaunted upper house. With the majority leader the senate who controls the traffic of ross the senate floor. He has not seen fit to ring any of the house job bills into the senate to allow for votes and amendments. Again, the skills act came back to us amended. Ok, send it back. That was easy, wasnt it . Democratic line. Melvin, fort lauderdale, florida. Good morning. Aest wanted to ask you couple of questions. Who expended the time for sending in the income tax this year . I never heard who did that. Hold on, we didnt understand the first part of that. The time for submitting income tax was extended because of extenuating circumstances. Who authorized that extension . Host under the Affordable Care act . Caller no, no, income tax. The problems with the weather, they extended time for income tax. Host ok, all right. Caller they indicated that the republicans suffered as the result of obama changing it, but they indicated that he one more seat. Host ok, we will take that point. The positive outcome, how was that an injury . Guest the damages to the institution, rendered irrelevant. It does not matter the laws the congress writes. It does not matter the laws the Congress Passes if the president can simply decide when and where and which parts of the law he wishes to enforce. Remember, again, Richard Nixon made the statement it is not against the law if the president of the United States does it. He got in a great deal of difficulty for doing that. It does make a difference. Thats why we make hearings. Thats why we have the votes in the rules committee and on the floor. So that this has the opportunity to touch many hands before something is written into law. The president then has the decision whether or not to sign that. He disagrees with it . He does not have to sign it. The president cannot just decide which parts of the law are reasonable and will be enforced and which parts of the law will be ignored. This is not the only instance of that. But this is an instance that is so clear and direct, the speaker thought that this was where he wanted to go forward. Rock, arkansas. Anthony. Independent caller. Caller hi. [laughs] how are you . Representative, you seem like a decent man. That. Ect you for however, i think that when you deny the impetus behind what you all are doing maybe not you personally, but ethnically your whenagues, many of them you say that there is no racist tone or prejudice behind it, i have to disagree with you. I think you are either being willfully disingenuous or naive. When the president was elected you know, most of the country he was electedn many republicans came together and decided that they were going to block anything and everything that he did. Him as an is not for individual. I think it is sad and that he has had to and i feel bad that he has had to endure what he has had to endure for these two terms, but the hate or whatever it is for him that runs congress toes prevent, block, and do just tong anticongress hurt him and his legacy. To me it is really sad. You cant take his name out of the history books, obviously, but if you can ruin his name or impeach him, you can say he was a terrible president and it is like inviting him to the card table to play, giving him a fixed hand, and then talking about him when he loses the game. Not you personally, i dont know your record, but your party has done everything they can to make this man look bad and we suffer as a population for it. Host we have got your point. Caller when the president was that heit was no secret had the most liberal record of anyone voting in the u. S. Senate. Maybe Hillary Clinton was second, but he was the most. It was no secret where the president s affections lay and where his dividers were likely to take him. As a conservative, that was not good news to me. Had it been hillary, it would have been the same approach. Do what you can to stop the things that you think are going to be deleterious to the future of the country. We are talking about the Affordable Care act this morning, but who can forget when the speaker of the house ran through a cap and trade bill in late june of 2009 and people of across the country were what they horrified at congress had done. The president was anxious to sign it. The senate lost their nerve. They never made it up for a vote in the senate. Thist was no secret that was the most progressive, liberal individual who had ever been elected to the office of the presidency. Why would the conservatives not stand in opposition to that . That is what i was elected for. That is what people in the 26th the district of the state of texas wanted us to stand against. Host phil, independent, massachusetts. Morning. You know that ben caution is a jail of a witness . Also, ted cruz cannot run for president because he is a canadian. Even though he resigned his citizenship, he still cant run for president. So, stop trying to push him and his craziness. Keep him in texas. We dont want him running in the United States of america, all right . The Republican Party are destroying our fabric of life with lies and deceit. You want to have more of our money, but there is no money for us to have. The middleclass is broke. The rich are getting richer. Corporations are getting more powerful. Yet when we need more money as far as the minimum wage, you said [indiscernible] jobs. Host first off, ben carson and own ted cruz run their races. We will see where all that goes. Is the sixth year of this administration. If wall street is doing well, they have the administration to thank for that, and i hope they do. The fact that the recovery has been an even and has not benefited all portions of society equally is a problem. To the extent that you can restructure in the tax code, the fact that you can stop with activities that pick winners and losers reference to the import export bank here, there are things that are being done at the level of the United States congress, but lets be honest. Land of opportunity . Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness does not guarantee success. That is up to each of us individually as americans and that is our call to action and our task. Host the next all from maples bill, illinois. Caller lat you brought up the issue of honesty. My question is directly related to that. Take us down memory lane again and tell us how well the Republican Party did in 2000 to 2006 and if in fact you take over congress in 2014, which i hope you do, i am not happy with this administration either, what can we look forward to when we lost 14 tree and in personal wealth of the American People . Tell us what good things we could be looking forward to directly. Host we had two recessions. To recessions. One that began under clinton. That one recovered in 2003 and was held by some of the changes in tax policy that were affected by the house and the senate that year. , which had crisis arguably been generating for years and was a result of mortgage lending practices that were frankly unintelligible led to the downturn in 2007 that unfortunately caught a lot of people in that. We are hearing this morning in the papers that the Banking Industry and housing industry have all recovered nicely. Great, thats good. Otheror some of the segments of the economy catching up. To the extent that the house has been able to pass bills working on job creation and the senate has been ignoring them, that is a problem. Tom, texas, republican caller. Caller good morning. I would like to raise the issue on what has been going on since 2000 the wto has been tearing our industry to pieces and allowing our jobs to leave this country and go over there. That was brought in by the overwhelming majority of democrats. With regards to the speaker of the house issue and the lawsuit, i think that is a good idea, however i dont think it is going to have much weight as far as getting a favorable outcome because there needs to be some more and i have read the issues there needs to be more issues placed in that suit. Host congressman . Guest on the lawsuit part first , you are correct, tom. There are just so many things from the president who started off this term with an inauguration speech that literally touched every progressive idea that had ever been held. I remember Chris Matthews saying that thesnbc, president is going to confuse the republicans by flooding the zone with these ideas. Two years later we have the zone flooded with scandals and it is hard to pick the one that should rise to the top of the stack. Be and ieems to have looked at it a lot of different ways, this seems to be a reasonable approach the speaker has taken. It is simple and direct. The timeline, lawsuit may not rulingt that we get a while the president is in office. We all recognize that it is a possibility, but it is important to set the stage for the protection of the institution and more importantly the protection of the constitution into the next administration. Before we go, the hearing this morning with the cdc director, with the situation with anthrax and other dangerous the front here is page of usa today. Worse than we thought. They obtained records showing that things are much worse than what has been reported. First off, since we outlawed cloning, it will be difficult to be in both hearings at once. I spoke to the administrators at the cdc last week about some of these things. At that point we did not know that the other shoe to drop, the virus being sent to labs under not know thatd that was actually in the works and we did not know i honestly dont think that the administrator new people knew in the cdc but they had not yet told him. I am sure that that is unfortunate news that he received after our meeting last week. But this is an important issue. The issues of Communicable Diseases, people are concerned about that. The cdc has to have, has to have credibility to be able to speak the things. Aght now, unfortunately from variety of areas the credibility has been eroded. Beenof these things have sent out to be evaluated. Are these just tragic misapplications of protocol . Are there really structurally embedded problems within the agency that need to be fixed . Either way, fix it and restore the credibility, because we need a believable cdc because of the threats that we face. Not just with Communicable Diseases in this country and outside this country, but those that may be affected by an uncontrolled immigration, we need a credible cdc. The rest of the world looks to us. If there is a problem, the cdc has asked to participate. The World Health Organization has asked to do what they can do, but they would not be able to do what they do without the cdc as a backstop. They need to get it right. Which is why i called for the hearing a couple of weeks ago when the first story about anthrax being in the wrong laboratory came up. As to whether or not it went through the for through the worker flow and others being exposed, these were Serious Problems that could not be happening in the Number One Agency responsible for their control. Host anyone interested, go to our website, you can watch it on our website. You cannot be in two places at once, the House Rules Committee is also taking up the issue of the lawsuit against the president with a hearing that starts at 10 a. M. We will have live coverage of that on cspan three. Guest thank you for having me on. Appreciate it. Next, fortune magazine, we will look at those issues next as part of our spotlight on magazine series. 9 18 a. M. , an update on the violence in the middle east that this our. Israel is intensifying attacks on hamas could targets in the theystrip one day after rejected a ceasefire plan. Today the it is today the Israeli Military targeted the homes of four senior hamas leaders and told tens of thousands to leave ahead of more strikes. In the nine days of fighting the Palestinian Death toll is above 200. Back in the u. S. , economic news, u. S. Producer prices rose. 4 in june. Pushed upoline costs the prices received for goods and services, but overall inflation remains tame. In the past 12 months Producer Prices have risen 1. 9 , in line with the inflation target of two percent. There are new federal guidelines on job discrimination against pregnant erkers. That anyded rules say form of discrimination or harassment against pregnant workers is a form of sex discrimination and is illegal. Those are some of the latest headlines on cspan radio. We are at the Henry Wallace country life center, south west of des moines. This is the birthplace of Henry Wallace. They consist of three generations. The patriarch was known as, fondly, as uncle henry. He was the founder of the wallace farmer magazine. , wason, Henry C Wallace the u. S. Secretary of agriculture under woodrow wilson. His son was born on this farm in 1888. Andent on to become editor was then asked by Franklin Roosevelt to serve as the secretary of agriculture, which he did for eight years. In 1941 to 1945 he was roosevelts vice president. About hers. Secretary culture. He is known for the agricultural adjustment act, the first time that farmers were asked not to produce. At first people could not believe the things he was proposing. But then as prices went up they started to listen to him. Read that still refer to him as the genius secretary of agriculture. Explore the political and Literary History of des moines, iowa, on cspan two and cspan3. Washington journal continues. Host on wednesdays we take a look at reason magazine articles as part of our spotlight series. Oday, the cover of fortune magazine, bigtime Companies Moving overseas to dodge billions in taxes. Allan sloan wrote this piece. Lets just again with the technical word for how companies do that. That is in version. What does that mean . Inversion is a polite way of saying that the company desserts the United States and moves their headquarters to another country, but Everything Else stays the same until they owe taxes. Host how are companies hagel did do this . Able to do this . Guest because it is not legal. Because it is legal. Typically a u. S. Company purchases a Foreign Company in a kind of reverse transaction. In what was called the allan it wasorporation tlc incorporated into a different country. Nothing changes except the paperwork. How much does this mean to lost revenue for the treasury . Knows. Nobody it is clearly billions and billions. There was a projection that the joint committee on taxation did that said that if these things 20not stop, it would cost billion over 10 years. Everyone i spoke with said that the estimate was very low because it did not anticipate what was going on now. The short answer is that no one knows, but it is a lot. Story is figure in the an estimated 19. 5 billion and you call that conservative. Why do you call that conservative . When those numbers were done, and i dont know the inns and outs, that was done before this big wave of inversions started. They were just taking a guess on how Many Companies would invert if they were not stop. Their guess is clearly low. There is no point in getting hung up on this number, it is then the only number there is and it is too low and it makes no sense to obsess over it. 20 billion is a lot of money, it is even more than im worth. And it is just not what it is about. So, why are companies doing this . What has been the trend . Doing it toare improve reported earnings per share which interior gets there stock price up. A lot of them are now starting to do it as they are afraid the train is leaving the station and that there will be legislation and if they dont do it now they will not be able to. All of their competitors are doing it. Sort of like a land rush in reverse. People use the lineup account of the United States and established laces here and immigrants coming in. Now it is the opposite, a mass exit of wealthy, powerful companies that decided they would leave. Right now there is very little to stop them. How Many Companies are were talking about . Give us some names. Mutt guest most of the names are not people you would know. Maybe garmin, the gps people. A Company Called medtronic, a big medical device company, is making a deal to leave. Walgreens, which has stores everywhere . They are in the middle of trying to do a deal to leave. Pfizer tried to leave, but that deal blew up for a variety of technical reasons. To allanare speaking sloan about his cover story, Companies Moving overseas to dodge billions in taxes. We want to get to your questions. Mr. Sloan, it looks like your story, which also appeared in the Washington Post on sunday, is getting some traction. The president is urging action to limit these inversions. The Obama Administration reportedly joined the growing debate over u. S. Companies reincorporating overseas, urging lawmakers to pass legislation to limit the moves. What can congress do . Congress can do two things. They could do something quickly and simply. Sander levin was in the house, carl levin was in the senate. That changed some of the technicalities and made it hard to invert right now. The right thing, the United States tax code, it is more attractive for companies to stay here right now and less attractive for them to leave. I doubt they will actually do this. Some way to throw a harpoon into the countries that have already to used i am supposed that word instead of deserted. I have no idea if that will happen, but that is what should happen. Host i wanted to add that we have a fourth line for Business Owners this morning. 2025853883. Join the conversation about the Corporate Tax rate overseas. You call it positively unamerican. Why . Because it is. Again, it is not my title, i did not write that line, by embrace it. The companies that are deserting the country, they still want to be american, right . They want to have a voice in our politics. They want to benefit from our system. They want to trade their stocks in our market. They want to have our legal system. They want to have our educational system. They want protection by the military. They want their employees children to be able to live in good laces. So, they want all of these being anat go into american, but they just dont want to pay for it. I think that that is unamerican. What about their fiduciary responsibilities to their short their shareholders . Guest it depends on how you define that. I best for the enterprise in the long run. The long run does not mean undermining your country to get the stock price up today. And alternately undermining the markets where you do a big part of your business. I think that this definition of judiciary duty as get the stock price up today, which ishat shareholder value has come to mean, is just nonsensical and a distortion of a valuable concept. It is propaganda. I just dont want any part of it, which is why i wrote what i did. Up first in annapolis. Republican caller is on the air. Thanks foraller taking my call. I take great issue in what the gentleman just said. I would like the board of directors to do whatever they can to increase shareholder value. I think that the outrage should be directed at the tax system. I dont own the corporation, but i paid personal taxes. I dont even pay at the highest rate. The state, the local, the property tax that i pay . Upwards of 50 . The government is confiscating the property of the few people in this country that worked to pay for the needs, wants, and frivolities of the people that dont work. Where corporations are wise to do this, i just wish that there was an analog of giving up citizenship that a person could do to protest the high tax rates in this country. I would be interested to see what the gentleman has to say guest sure, a lot of people to take taxes. 47 paying nothing, that is nonsense. Democrata registered or republican. I dont take sides in any of this, but i do know how to count. And my retirement, most of my net worth is in United States stocks. Companies to do this. You want your companies to do that, i dont want my companies to do that. I have the same ability to express my opinion as you do for yours. I just dont buy the argument that this makes the company better. I dont buy the argument that it makes the economy better. I have written for years that the tax system should be fixed. It annoys me, but i dont leave the country in protest over the fact that i dont like the tax system. I stay here and fight for what it for what is right. You are someone who knows how to fight, so go to it. All right, virginia, democratic caller. Caller the unfortunate reality is that america has become nothing but a business where no one seems to really care about the goodness of our fellow thezens or countries in long run. It is all about greed and the here and now. Unfortunately i believe that even if the republicans in congress believed that we needed to do this, to stop corporations from this inversion which i dont think they will, by the way, they will take their Campaign Money and do nothing to stop this. Just the fact that obama would support it means they would not do it. We have so many problems in this country with gerrymandering our political system is broken. I dont have an answer, but keep fighting. Implies thatler congress doing anything, whether it is stopping inversion or overall tax reform is not going to happen. Happen, not going to why would these companies be leaving . Well, i dont know its going to happen. You dont know its going to happen. The companies dont know whats going to happen. I dont think the people running iese companies are evil, think they are misguided, i think they are wrong. But if you really believe that you have to do this, the time to do it is now, when it is still simple. You or i or the caller thinks will happen does not determine what will happen. That is just not how things are. I think it is really unfortunate that this has gotten to be politicized. I think that it guarantees that little is likely to happen. I think that that is a bad thing for a while. I thought that this might get fixed. And it still might, people might surprise us. I have been reporting about this for a while and have any number of conversations, oneonone with people on different sides. They are not that far apart. The question is whether they can second up and deal with this and overcome what i sure will be immense lobbying to do nothing and get something done. If i were not an optimist, i would not do what i do for living. I would go and sit in my cellar. I want to think that something can happen and that maybe some of our callers and possibly my articles and your shows can help people to do the right thing. Sloane, you say the Companies Might be motivated because the time is now, what do you mean by that . What would complicate it . Any sort of legislation. Any sort of new rules. Who knows what kind of legislation the white house or treasury might dream up to throw into the mix. This stuff is very, very technical. I dont pretend to understand the technicalities. I understand the process, but not the technicalities. I dont understand the technicalities of or for taxes either. But if you think you are a company and that you have this obligation to do it, you had better do it now because it is easier to do it now than down the road. Philip, nashville, tennessee, hello. Caller the numbers that you started the show off with, is that on top of the Corporate Tax cuts from republicans and democrats . A bush tax . The second part to it, the money that is shipped over there, that is taken out of the americans tax bucket, do you think that that would be equal to the amount that we are in debt to . Is the National Debt the amount of they are taking away from it . We are giving banks trillions and trillions of dollars. The average person can go to a bank and obama borrow money. I did not hear the previous show, i am not familiar with these numbers, but one thing that i do know is that several years ago i actually sat down to figure out how much all the bailouts of the Financial Institutions had caused cost the u. S. Treasury. To my surprise i discovered that the treasury had actually made money on them. Not a tremendous amount of money , given the risk that was involved and the amounts of money involved, but the treasury came out solidly ahead. I am just not sure that i understand the question. But i am answering is best i can. Host the second part of his question was the money that is going elsewhere, into the United States, is that the equivalent of the National Debt . No, no, the National Debt is 16 trillion. More than the corporate profits for the whole year. To the extent that the treasury is collecting less money than i think it ought to for companies that have been converted, that increases the deficit and the debt, but it is not enough to explain the national that. It cant even be remotely close. It is just not possible. David, martinsville, independent caller. Caller i am not an economist either, but i feel the system is dependent on the middleclass working. If the people who have the money dont invest enough, dont pay enough taxes, however you get it middleem, to keep the class working, the system does not work. They pay the deals for the rich and the poor. Host what about that central sentiment . , we need to have a middle class. For heavens sake, i am part of it. Maybe the upper half. Something. Pay people with high incomes pay a lot of tax. The middle class is shrinking for a million Different Reasons and it is a terrible thing and it is a problem. There is no question about it. The inversion thing is not what is causing that problem. That is caused by a zillion other fact or is. What about the Corporate Tax rate . Is that the problem . Guest maybe. 28 years ago, 1986, the rate was cut. Business was thrilled, everything was great. They lowered the rate and broaden the base. 12 seconds into that people began looking for loopholes. And then the world changed. Now you have companies sorry, countries all over the world with lower rates that are basically trying to bribe our companies to go there because whatever revenue they get from our Companies Going, that is found money to them. Here it is lost money for us. It again in an ideal world. Than 35 , you would eliminate many of the loopholes and make it very difficult and a million technical ways that i dont pretend to be able to understand or explain for companies to invert. That is what we ought to do. I dont know that we are going to do it or do it in time to capture a lot of the companies that are lining up, but that is clearly what we ought to do. What is the difference between a company that inverts and a company like apple or ge that siphons earnings out of the United States. Guest that is actually the question we asked ourselves when we put this article together. Ge, apple, some of the Big Tech Companies are notorious for taking what any normal person would consider to be u. S. Somehow getting them attributed to subsidiaries in other countries where they pay little or no tax. The difference is that apple, ge , some of the Big Technology companies, they are still in this country and they still pay some tax. Believe me, for technical reasons i am not sure i can explain, it is a lot easier toes if the u. S. Operation was part of a Foreign Company. Better andplay them take even more money out. The fact that these companies have decided to stay in the United States is a good thing. I dont give them a free pass on theythey do, but at least have not deserted the country and they should get some minor credit for that. Host john, you are next, minnesota, independent caller. What is the situation and puerto rico . I know many Drug Companies moved down there several years ago. I have trouble understanding puerto rican tax law. I mean, i have trouble with u. S. Tax law, but i cant grasp puerto rican tax law as a at all. I know the same as you do, a lot of u. S. Companies that have set up subsidiaries there somehow profits that look like u. S. Profits, the big puerto rican profits are taxed at a low rate, maybe not at all. That is maybe all i know, but this has been going on forever. That does not mean it is good, but it has been going on forever. If you look at the financials and puerto rico, they clearly have big problems despite all of this but it isnt entirely. Ifferent puerto rico is not part of the United States, but it is part of the same operation. It is just a different thing. We are talking about al. Loan about his cover story inside the piece, these are the top 10 american corporations, Corporate Tax of reuters. Take a look at that as we go to roger england bill. Go ahead. Good morning. Thank you very much. You are an interesting man, mr. Sloan. [laughter] i kind of think you are an elitist. If your company, if all the Magazine Companies had to pay 75 tax and the workers had to pay 85 tax, what would you do as a company in this country . Why not ask if we had to pay a 112 tax . The answer is that that is not the situation. Is not the situation, there is no point in answering your question. Those are numbers that you just made up. Strange, but i am interesting and i still know how to count. Younot even going to tell where i went to school or give you my credentials, but if you bothered to look up my biography on the internet some time, you will see that im not exactly an elitist, i dont exactly come from money or go to fancy schools. Host kent, democratic caller, los angeles. Caller first of all, i would like to congratulate you on your stats over the u. S. Companies going abroad. I also agree with you. These Companies Going abroad, they do it with tax money that we need in this country. Say,ther thing, like you , theyord the detection still want to take the jobs and the money to other countries. Employing other people in other countries. I dont know what can be done about it erie it i just wanted to call and. What can the sec do about it . I have no idea. It is the job of congress to deal with this. Hope that someday they are able to do something rather than posturing and shrieking at each ads. And doing attack maybe if they sat down and did some work, that would be nice. What is the excise tax . Is that not a deterrent for inversion . Ok, thisll be complicated, so bear with me please. When a company inverts, it is treated as though it was a sale, as if the company were sold. It is taxable to you. However, if you have Stock Options, the right to buy stocks for certain time, or if you have restricted stocks, stocks that you may one day get that dont have now, you would not owe tax on that because you dont owe it. But as a special provision in the law if you are a director or a Top Executive of a company that is inverting, you have to pay a 16 excise tax on the value of your Stock Options and the value of your frequent shares. That was designed to be something to stop companies from doing this. However, nobody thought to write into this legislation a ban on Companies Making the directors and executives whole for the tax they have to pay and then doing what is called grossing them up, giving the money to pay the tax on the tax subsidy payment that they get. To some extent about medtronic in my article. And i am sureg, that it is too low, this would cost ultimately 60 billion for picking up the tab for its executives and directors excise tax. That is what this is. This is something that seemed like a great idea but it doesnt work. Charlie, arkansas, independent caller. I just wanted to say bob of believe. Knoxville, tennessee, independent caller. Myler thank you for taking call. It is my opinion that the have an companies problem and of themselves. As opposed to those countries Just Companies being unamerican it is the historically unamerican tax policies. Historically going back to the founding of the country, that would be my assertion. If americans acting in response to what they perceive as inessive taxation is acting an unamerican way, i suppose that mr. Sloan would have to describe the founders of the country who fought the revolutionary war as being unamerican as well. Guest all right, again, forgive me for i dont mean to insult you, i dont think you mean to insult me, i hope you dont, but this is just propaganda. When you have people that dont pay any tax individuals who dont pay income tax and benefit from being americans and have all sorts of programs, you would probably call them takers, as opposed to the makers, like people like knee and you who pay taxes. Companies are doing the same thing. If a company is going to benefit from being in the United States, it ought to pay for it. Be able to go offshore and then continue to get all the benefits it would get, including in the cases of many of these Companies One of their biggest customers, the federal government. Businesshappy to do with the federal government, they just dont want to have to pay taxes. I know that minimizing taxes is the american way, but the stampede out of the country by companies in the last few years and especially now is a whole new phenomenon. This does not date back to the revolution or 1913. This is only a few years old. I dont like it and you shouldnt like it. Georgia, robert, democrats line. Being sohanks for brave as to appear today. I will tell you what i mean by that remark. You dont seem to be one of the 99 that occupies wall street. Old. 58 years when i was facing the draft and 73, they tried to keep me out of the country from going to vietnam. Those people who did leave the country were antiamerican. Man wholike to hear a industry and big business. I appreciate that. Tell me where you stand. Should these corporations be prosecuted for being antiamerican . Do you think that occupy wall street could find some other solution . Where do you fit in that sliding scale . Guest first, i am flattered that you think i am in the one percent. I will have to commend my wife, she is very good at picking out suits and ties. I dont represent corporate america. I work at a magazine that onresents reports corporate america, but i dont represent corporate america. These companies are doing is legal. There is no reason to prosecute them. There is no cause to prosecute them. What we need to do is change the law and change the incentives. That is what needs to be done. The idea that there is something that we dont like, therefore someone should go to jail . I have opposed that for years and made myself very unpopular in a lot of places by saying gee, here we have this financial meltdown, why isnt anyone going to jail . I say that stupidity is not a crime. For whatever its worth, i am somewhat older than you and i actually reported for induction into the military for vietnam, but i failed the physical. Did not go offshore. I stayed here, even though heaven knows i did not want to go fight in vietnam. Andi stayed, i did my duty, i got lucky. This is my idea of how you handle these things. Host don, independent caller, go ahead. Caller mr. Sloan, thank you very much for your article. I have been following the astrazeneca story and it has been of keen interest. One of the ways that this whole issue can be mitigated is that we start passing people taxing people who are in their earned income rates, tie it to the median family income. If you make over 50,000 on Capital Gains and dividends, you then pay earned income rates. Because most of the people who are truly benefiting from this inversion are the people who made their money through Capital Gains and dividends. Lees comment. Please comment. Of my a few years ago one colleagues, who is very conservative and well dressed and eels with corporations all the time, and i, who am as close as you could find among the ranks of the senior people the opposite, we were assigned to fix the economy and the tax system. One of the things that we decided to do, jointly, would the to propose that Capital Gains be treated just like any other kind of income. That would eliminate your has come from income investments and labor. Everything you are then saying becomes much simpler. Mark, maryland, republican caller. Caller thank you mr. Sloan. Kind of like a race to the bottom . If we cut our Corporate Taxes, another Company Another country will cut theirs and then we sort of tried to see who can hit the lowest rate quickest . Host sorry, i thought you were done. That isguest actually what i wrote. If you go online to find the fortune version of the article, i assume that this was in the Washington Post version as well, that is the very problem. And it cannot just the on rates. It cannot be done. Host democratic caller, ohio. Talkingyou have been about the mast exits of corporations. From what i have seen in the manufacturing area, it has been a mass exodus from down south to mexico and for 40 years. Talk about this increase and u. S. Terrorists. You can talk about why you have to call it in version instead of desertion. Also, talk about comparing u. S. Tax system is to say, for instance, germany or china. Are the Corporate Taxes that high in the u. S. Compared to other western nations as opposed to, say, for instance, china . Host host guest china, given the air in the water, all of that, they dont want to go there. Rate is stated tax higher than all of our competitors except, i think, japan and germany, which is fairly high also, but you can set yourself up relatively soon relatively simply and switzerland and get a rate that is extremely low and you can negotiate with a particular equivalent of a state, you can sort of negotiate a deal there. You can apparently negotiate a deal in england. In ireland the rate is 12. 5 as opposed to 35 . I think that you could probably do better if you bargained something with somebody in ireland. High. Mbers are just very i mean, it did not seem high at the time and it is probably lower than my actual tax rate on each additional dollar that i make, but it is high, competitively. Host lets get one more phone call in, if we can. Make it quick, joe, the house is about to come in. Ok, if a corporation leaves the country, i think that they should move their patent rights. Host mr. Sloan . Well, you know, who knows. We ought to do something to penalize them. That sounds as good as anything, but i dont know enough to have an informed opinion. Only the one from my gut. What is the host role of the s p . If you could answer that real quickly. 500 index is a huge, important index. 12 of allike 10 , ownership of these 500 stocks is index funds. They used to throw you out of the index if the company moved out of the United States. In 2010, for perfectly understandable competitive reasons, they change their policy and you could still be an American Company even if they leave the. Meeting your stock price does not get a big hit. Host i hate to cut you off like that, but thank you for your time this wanting. Thank you very much. Guest thank you for having me. Host now, live coverage of the house. [captions Copyright National cable satellite corp20