Transcripts For CSPAN Washington Journal 20140906

The country protested this week to raise the minimum wage. Theyre looking for 15 an hour. Should the minimum wage be increased . Call us and tell you what you think on the democratic line, 202 5853880. The republican line at 202 5853881. Independent line at 202 5853882. A special line we set up this morning for minimumwage workers 3. 202 585388 you can also join the conversation on social media. Or send us an email. Our first guest this morning is steve jamison, a reporter for the huffington post. Good morning to you. Caller good morning. Of these were at one fast food worker protests in South Carolina earlier this week. Tell us what you saw and what it was all about. Caller i went to charleston, South Carolina. This was about workers who were demanding 15 an hour. Its a living wage. And union recognition. I followed about two dozen workers. Many of whom were declaring oneday strikes. Others had the day off and joined the protest and they took part in civil disobedience. They protested alongside the road ended up blocking the freeway in charleston. They were all cited for disorderly conduct. That u tweeted saying what is the concern about this not necessarily being a real protest or real argument . Caller this is a union backed movement. The Service Employees international, a Union Representing workers in the lowwage service industries. A lot of people have called these dismissed them as union orchestrated stunts. Unions, orchestrated by in concert with local community groups. When you go out to these things, you do see that these are workers who are there. Many of them are on oneday strikes. I take issue when people are saying this isnt really worker generated. I do think it is want to go out there and see what is going on on the ground level. Host what was different about this weeks protest and where the campaign is now . Ir the size and scope was in charleston, South Carolina. I wanted to go there its an interesting place. One year ago, this sort of thing was happening in big places like new york city and chicago and los angeles. That make sense because there is a lot of organized labor infrastructure there. Charleston is a different type of place and its notable that these things are happening in places like that and places like rochester, new york and kansas city. It is spreading. Its important to keep in mind, these are pretty small. It was a couple dozen workers. Minority strikes, you might call them. They dont really disrupt business the way we think of traditional strikes. Not enough to shut down a store. This is more about drawing attention to the cause and growing the numbers in the ranks of workers who will join them. Over the recent months, they have had success in doing that. Host do you think they had enough momentum or garnered enough interest to push forward any action on capitol hill . Caller it is harder to get enough action to do anything on capitol hill. You really cant dispute that its had an effect in terms of legislation on the city and state level. We have seen a lot of minimum wages go through. That willnimum wage go into effect in seattle. Partumber 15 is probably a of direct reaction to this movement. Change atbeen some city and state level. As far as capitol hill goes, republicans dont have much appetite right now to take up the minimum wage bill. It probably wont happen this year, but it is becoming a campaign issue. Host you mentioned the cities and states taking on this issue. Is this really a campaign thats cured more at local initiatives . How many jurisdictions have we seen take on the minimum wage issue locally . Caller i cant give a firm number on how many cities and states. We saw a whole bunch of States New York state, california, illinois. They have all recently raised their minimum wages. D. C. Ust did the same in it is really widespread. And whenat the numbers you ask the public, more than two thirds of them are going to say they support raising the minimum wage. Outside of capitol hill, there tends to be more support for raising the minimum wage. When you look at these protests, people generally have a lot of sympathy for somebody working and making 7. 25 an hour. In South Carolina, there is not a state minimum wage higher than the federal one. To a worker who made more than 7. 50 an hour. Most of them are earning right around the minimum wage. What about the argument that raising the minimum wage would increase unemployment because employers would not be able to employ as many people because they are paying their existing workers more . Caller this is the discussion we have whenever we talk about raising the minimum wage. Hadas a discussion that was during the Bush Administration and clinton administration. I understand those concerns and franchisees make up the most of those restaurants. Concern thatthe you raise labor costs, that will come out of somewhere. Smaller orts will be you raise prices. Its a legitimate concern. At the same time, it only goes in one direction. It only goes up. Weve had it for 70 years now. It has never crashed the economy when its gone up. Businesses find a way to withstand the rays. Raise. Stand the host thanks for joining us this morning. He mentioned the Popular Support for raising the minimum wage. Cnn produced a poll that shows strong support for raising the minimum wage. 71 of those surveyed favor raising the federal minimum wage. There were former to 35 total 435who were polled thei total people who were polled here. ,ur first call is from tom independent from vermont. Good morning. Caller good morning. We need to bring the minimum wage up to 50 an hour 15 an hour so it has some reflection on the cost of living increases we have all felt over the years. Look at gasoline. Andas quadrupled in price it didnt bankrupt any businesses, supposedly. The people that are working for afford ge now cant and they are all basically collecting welfare as well. 80 of the people i work with that are making nine dollars an hour were still on welfare. Host what industry do you work in . Caller i did work in the road construction. Companiesing is, the that are doing federal inernment work, one company particular was paying everybody nine dollars an hour and they were doing federal work and the federal prevailing wage was supposed to be 18 an hour. We got a hold of the Government People and nobody would do anything about finally, after six months, the company was there to pay the people backpay at the higher rate. I spent probably four months working with the government, trying to get them to enforce the davisbacon act. It was nothing but a big runaround. The people in government are totally incompetent. Is bill onext caller the democratic line from cleveland, ohio. Hi. Er i dont believe the minimum wage should be increased. I think the workers should get a pay raise. The way we would do this is to a sector in the american economy. Worku have the people who and they together come equally own the enterprise they work in, that would probably go much further in solving this wage issue that raising the minimum wage. Host more of a Profit Sharing plan . Caller exactly. Go with the coop sector. Have the people who work in enterprises equally on them. Equally own them. They can set their own wages to market demands. I think the problem is structural more than trying to legislate pay. This is an avenue that the nations should consider. Host our next caller is paul on the republican line from orlando, florida. Caller good morning, cspan. First of all, the minimum wage was never meant to raise a family of quattro. Our. Family of f should it be raised . Yeah. Im not smart enough to know what the equilibrium is on that. Let me throw this out to you folks. Wage toise the minimum 50. Ok, lets do it. 215. Lets raise the minimum wage to 15 a year. You give up your staff cards, you know longer qualify for the earned income tax credit, you no longer get free obamacare. Those people who want a 15 an hour minimum wage, are they willing to give up the government benefits that they for more personal responsibility . I would love to hear how other people will answer that question. Another great topic. Host that is paul on the republican line. We have some tweets as well. The minimum wage was also the topic of Vice President bidens comments this week in his weekly address. He spoke about the need to bo t the economy by raising the minimum wage. [video clip] it is time for us to invest in Educational Opportunity to guarantee that we have the most highly Skilled Workforce in the world. Jobs,x out of every 10 some Education Beyond High School will be required. It is long past due to increased the minimum wage. It will bring millions of families out of property and produce a Ripple Effect that boosts wages or middleclass and spurs Economic Growth for the United States of america. Things, these and other wages will go up and we will increase the gross to met the product of the United States. We know how to do this. The Gross Domestic Product of the United States. It is the way we used to do business and we can do it again. All the middle class in this country wants is a chance. No guarantee, just a chance. Host should the u. S. Raise the minimum wage . That is the question we are posing to you today. You can call us and let us know what you think. Democratic line at 202 5853880. Republicans can call 202 5853881. Call 202 s can 5853882. If you are a minimumwage worker, you can call us on a special line at 202 5853883. You can find this on social media. Find us on social media. Or send us an email. We are taking your calls right now. Our next one is on the independent line. Jackie from salisbury, maryland. Caller thank you for taking my call. Thatld like to point out raising the minimum wage will probably raise the cost of the products. That will decrease frivolous spending. We dont need to buy fast food. The previous caller stated that the increase in gas prices did not affect the economy. We have to by gas. We didnt have a choice. Fast food, we do have a choice. Its too expensive, we wont buy it. I agree with the previous caller about personal responsibility. You can get an increased minimum wage and continue to get government entitlements. Jackie from salisbury, maryland on the independent line. Our next caller is jim on the independent line from North Carolina. You are a minimum wage worker. Caller yes, my wife and i work at mcdonalds. Industry in the coal and we got laid off because of stiffer penalties and more reducedons and we were to me having to work mcdonalds. Now, we are living in a motel and we can barely say afloat. We are living paycheck to paycheck. Host did you participate in the protests this week . Caller no. We cant afford to miss a days work. Host how are you staying afloat . Cans on daysk up off or in the evenings. I do odd jobs to keep us going. It is hard to pay your rent, and buy groceries because you cant get Food Assistance because you make too much to qualify or you get too little, so why bother . You are just out more than you are making. You just cant do it on minimum wage. Host do you receive any government assistance at all . Caller we signed up on food stamps and we could not afford tomake the trip back to town sign up for them because we couldnt afford to miss work. We can have that option. We cant have that option. Host previous callers have suggested that it would mean less support from government assistance or food stamp programs and obamacare. Would you be willing to make that tradeoff . Caller yeah. If i can get more on the dollar, im not going to go sign up on food stamps or any kind of government assistance. I like to stand on my own two feet. I dont like asking for help from the government or nothing. Host jim, thank you so much for sharing your thoughts this morning. Fromup is eric calling florida on the independent line. Caller i would like to say thank you for taking my call. This is really a nobrainer. Forever. Bout this we talk about legislation to pass this or past that. If we empower the people at the , the purchasing power is increased. Your previous caller talked about, he doesnt want to get these benefits. We talk about government spending. We want to keep the government costs down. If we would empower these people , it seems like a nobrainer we would increase productivity in this country. We would pick up a substantial amount of people a previous caller mentioned this concept of ownership of associates. With lowes, home depot, walmart, they call them associate firms. Yet, they are still making barely livable wages. , we are always alluding to this is just the minimum wage workers. We are all gauged upon that minimum wage. A College Graduate making substantially lower wages than he would be getting at a higher rate. It affects everybody throughout the industry. There are a lot of people in this country who work for not a livable wage. They are dependent on government programs. This is a nobrainer. We want more guys going out and buying a yacht or 2000 people going out and buying fishing boats . Why do we have such a debate in this country about the minimum wage . Host eric from florida on the democratic line. On twitter we are back to your phone calls now with tommy from oklahoma on the democratic line. He is making the minimum wage. By a majorasnt void oil company employed by a Major Oil Company. I had retirement. Im supposed to live on 300 a month. 65 just a little below the i worked at a motel at the minimum wage for almost as coyears. Years. Almost two now, i have no money in the bank and know nothing. My car blew up. No money in the bank and no nothing. They would keep me under 40 hours a week. I could not afford to buy a car to try to find a better job because i would have to go out of town to do homework or whatever. Jobs, theyum wage try to get around even paying the minimum wage to motel workers. Its a scam that these hotel owners do. They try to get you to sign a contract and then they work you under the minimum wage. People who own businesses that do this to people. Five years of college. Im not stupid. When youwas it were making the minimum wage . Caller i saved every penny i could to get a car so i could better myself. The money does not go far. Almost ast job two years ago. Everything is gone. I didnt gamble or drink. I dont have any vices. It is very hard to make ends meet. You can have a better job unless you have a car and you cant buy. Car on 7. 25 an hour and live host now, you are unemployed. How are you making ends meet . Caller i have the papers to go get food stamps on monday. 300 a month from a Major Oil Company for 30 years surface. 30 years service. Im going to job interviews. Im going to have to get food stamps. Im not going to be able to pay the 250 it takes to park my motorhome in the trailer park. Thats how it is for a senior that needs to get back in the workforce. I used to drive a truck. They dont want to hire you. Ithink she is a bit old want people to know these things because once you get down come its hard to get back up. Thats want to get down, its hard to get back up. Host next call is devon from greensboro, North Carolina. Republican line. Caller my comment was, there is more than enough for everybody in america. , Natural Resources resources and money. Without either or, we can function. We cant function. The Natural Resources will still be around. System backs in the 60s, people were making 10 an hour in entrylevel jobs. After years of greed and , people have gotten away from what is really going on. Says, we lost 1 trillion and we dont know where it went. Hillary clinton leads the secretary of state office and we dont know where the funds went. Past have in the spent trillions of dollars, and we dont know where it goes. There are a couple hundred people who are spending trillions of dollars. We had to get back to by the people for the people. Agriculture and economic sector. S not going anywhere science has given us ways to engineer food. Technology has given us ways to store energy. We are selling hamburgers for a dollar. Host the star tribune has this report. Raised its bill for custom or is with a minimum wage fee. , wewner of the cafe said are shocked at whats going on. We are appalled at the response eared we are doing what we have. O do to protect the employees. We are taking your calls today and wondering whether or not you think the country should raise the minimum wage. You can call us on the democratic line at 202 5853880. Republican line at 202 5853881. Independent line at 202 5853882. Or, for minimum wage workers, 202 5853883. Facebook, twitter, on or send us an email. Eff from South Carolina. Caller im calling in support of raising the minimum wage. I make much more than that, but ive listened to your callers. What of the callers mentioned theireople that did have minimum wage raised, they would lose government assistance. Thats what this whole thing is about. To get people off government assistance so they can support themselves. You talk to a couple people who are making the minimum wage were very little each month and my heart goes out to them. These are people who are of bolts, Senior Citizens and theyenior citizens are having to resort to these lower skill, minimum wage jobs. ,heir minimum wages were raised mine would not have to be raised. That would raise their standard of living and they could get off Government Support and everybody would be winning in that situation. Journal the wall street , David Newmark writes this article or oped. Who really gets the minimum wage . Meanwhile, in the hill, a law professor writes in support of , arguing theage late workers a our next caller is dorothy, calling from louisiana on the democratic line. I believe you make the minimum wage . Caller yes, i do. Host tell me about your situation. Caller im 71 years old. Im trying to raise a 13yearold grandson. I had to go back and take a job and the job pays the minimum wage. I dont get subsidized housing. Allersen to these colors singh they will lose this and that. I dont get it. I dont get all that. They seem to think only black people are in subsidized housing. Everybody. To hurt i dont get these things. I have to get out there and work. I have been working all my life. It makes me want to cry to hear people put down people like that. Some people out there how are you supposed to be there raising your children when you have to get out there and take 23 jobs . Somebody is not going to be at home with a child. With that child. Lees, have somebody in your pity these, have some please, have some pity in your heart. Host read from washington. Republican line. Caller i want to make a quick few points. If you are talking about the cost of living and what the quality of life is and how minimum wage relates to that, you have to think about it in equations. The cost of the spending power we have is probably more important than what an actual dollar amount is. 55 and i make 10 an hour and Construction Since the start ago. Gh school 40 years the economy has changed so much in terms of the competition, which jobs have been outsourced. Think about the global picture, that is one of the major problems. We are competing daily for jobs that can be outsourced at a certain level. We have had a lot of wealth for a long time. I remember back in 1981, people had good credit. Lots of areas were building. California would put your name down on a slab of homes being built and make 30,000 in 90 days. There are periods of ups and downs. This has to be measured. So americans have a chance. I dont see how someone makes an on minimum wage. Makes it on minimum wage. Ive been selfemployed my whole life. Was 24 come i made two or three times what the minimum wage is. I work out of my home making 125,000 a year. A lot of it has to do with being motivated and working hard and knowing you have to make something out of your life. Host reed from shelton, washington. On twitter caller is danny from louisiana. Independent line. Good morning. Caller good morning. These salaries are all part of reaganomics. Weve been here before, america. Time republicans get in charge, the institute blind side economics. Making the rich richer and the poor poorer. The republicans never wanted a minimum wage. Not only do the minimum wage workers get a raise, but Everybody Needs to get a raise. It will not put people out of jobs. The greedy and ritual have to cut back on some of their profit margin. We could pay off our debt. Spiral thatwnward the Republican Party always gives to the american people. Wake up. The Federal Reserve this week released its survey of Consumer Finances that included this chart on the distribution of income and wealth. The share of wealth for the top 3 has steadily increased since 1989, including increasing between the ears of 20102013. Where is the share of wealth for the bottom 90 has declined since 1989. Particularly declined between the recession and the end of last year and between 2010 in the end of last year. That goes to the callers point about the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer. Our next caller is andrew from los angeles, california on the democratic line. Good morning. Should we raise the minimum wage . Caller yes, we should. Im a democrat. I was in the navy. Its been difficult to get a job, but im trying. Im hoping to find a job downtown in l. A. Applying is a difficult process and doing more than that next we getting the job is even harder. Im hoping the job will come soon and that i will start working. Know hoping cspan might how i can get that job and then hopefully the minimum wage will be raised. Would 7. 25 salary stop you from taking a job . Caller i would be willing to work for 7. 25, but if you want to hire, that would be much better. I was in the navy. I anticipate the job will come soon. I dont know the exact time and when. If someone hiring for 12, that would be great. ,ost next up is anita independent calling from san antonio, texas. Caller of course, i think we need to raise the min wage. For 30ave been stagnant years in this country and the economy is based on supply and demand. There is no demand that people have no money. There is no demand if people have no money. We dont have any growth. If we have more growth, we will have more employment. Host you are saying there is a synergistic cycle . Caller yes. For too long, what weve done is weve been funding the supplyside, the top 1 or moneyer make more or more more and more money for 30 years and our wages have been stagnant. Ff fromext up is je texas on the independent line. Youre on the air. Caller i know everyone is talking about the pros of raising the minimum wage. The big picture has to be looked at here. If you raise minimum wage for lowest earners, one thing those entrylevel jobs, it will if its scalable if you raise the lowest people, everything will cost more. That money has to come from somewhere. The people who own the companies arent saying we will take less profit. They will raise the prices of the products, which will cause the suppliers to raise their costs and fees and everything goes up the board. So, you have to raise everyones rate. There is no real difference. The real solution is to target the problem. Not just giving more cash out of people. Host our final caller will be elizabeth on the independent line as well calling from duluth, georgia. You have the last word. Caller good morning. He just said what i was going to say, but i will add something to that. They talk about all the wages would rise and the gdp will rise. It will rise because of inflation. No one will end up doing any better. They will just be paying more. As far as his comment of targeting the problem, hes exactly right. One of the activities going on with this raising of the minimum wage is the effort to unionize all those minimumwage workers. Unions i can speak to this because my grandfather was a labor union organizer. Theythey were organized, did something for families. They put in protections for safety in the workplace and guaranteed their rights. Today, they have become nothing other than a lord that takes a percentage of those peoples wages. Thoseeed to target efforts and money with developing trade programs that bring in better opportunities for their workers. They needed to build educational programs. Go to massachusetts avenue in washington. They have a nice building that they have built for themselves. Host elizabeth from duluth, georgia. We will continue our discussion on the economy in our next hill whoith patrice will break down the august jobs report for us. Reid wilson will tell us later on in the program. We speak to mary kate henry, the president of the fciu. [video clip]an. Or werest food workers inspired by the work that walmart workers were going. Were hoping we will be able to work in coalition with other partners in the Labor Movement and the retail sector, which is largely nonunion and employs 4 Million People in this country. One of thets Fastest Growing jobs in the u. S. Economy is home care and Home Health Work in this country because of the aging of our population. We want to do a lot more work to allow home care workers to join together and have a voice in their jobs and in the care they deliver. We think Early Childhood education is a sector where women who were the primary providers of care in this country have been totally underpaid for entire generations. We want to raise wages and bring those jobs that we think build the brains of our young people and get them ready to school needs to be valued again. 15 would be a home run. About taking minimum wage to inflation . The fight for 15 in the s a living wage fight. To continue to bargain for other things. 15 may have sparked a minimum wages rising across this country, but we are not just about raising the wage. We want workers to have the ability to bargain living wages across the Service Sector in this nation because we know when service jobs become good jobs, we are going to help create the next american middle class that includes everybody this time. We want to continue to work with brothers and sisters in the Labor Movement on raising autoparts jobs and walmart jobs. We all have a lot to do. The fast food workers have made the seeminglyt impossible could become possible again in this country. Washington journal continues. Ost our guest is patrice hill here to discuss the august jobs report. Thank you so much for joining us. The Labor Department reported yesterday that the pace of hiring was 142,000 jobs added to the economy in august. Thats lower than people expected. What happened . Guest it was not a huge mess. Huge miss. There were several factors. In the auto area, they saw a fall off in hiring. Most people think that is temporary. That the economists , all of the crises that have broken out in the last couple of months in europe and russia and ukraine in the middle east and so on, that might have puthis put a general a general wet blanket on the economy. Manufacturing, youve had a followup in hiring which is reflecting the auto sector. There were some other special factors and reports. May not have an as bad as some people thought it may not have been as bad as some people thought. This is not reflecting a major slowdown in the economy thats occurring. Other reports are showing a healthy growth in the economy. Iveof the economists talked to or not worried about the sort of slowdown we saw. Saw lower though we job creation than weve seen the past, the Unemployment Rate toll l 26. 1 still fell 6. 1 . Host in thi guest as weve learned, sometimes when the Unemployment Rate falls, its not for good reasons. In this case, it was once again because youve had a number of people leaving the labor force. Generally, that suggests they are discouraged and are unable to find work. This decline in unemployment is consistent with the Slower Growth in jobs that you saw in the payroll survey. You mentioned some sectors where we did not see job creation occur. Are there certain sectors where we did see strong job growth . Guest this time, i didnt get as much into those details. Professional services, health care, the usual suspects are where you saw good job growth. Construction continued to have a good job growth. It was not an acrosstheboard falloff. It was really concentrated more on certain sectors. There was one other special factor. Grocery stores had some layouts or strikes or something that led to a falloff in retail employment. Economists were writing that off as a onetime thing. Host we are talking with patrice hill, chief economic correspondent at the washington times. You can join the conversation as well by calling us. Democratic line at 202 5853880. Republican line at 202 5853881. Independent line at 202 5853882. And by finding us on social media. Or by sending us an email. Several lawmakers have responded to the august jobs report. John boehner had this tweet that said the latest jobs report and the cbo forecast equals a pattern of weakness in the obama economy. Sayingthis tweet something quite the opposite. Added 142,000 jobs. Good news, but more to do. Democrats will help move us forward. Where are we exactly in this recovery . Are we moving ahead or falling behind . Guest we are just beyond the halfway point. The economy has recovered back to where it was before the recession. It took us five years to dig out of this huge hole created by the great recession. Most indicators, the number of peak the prerecession just this spring. Consumer confidence past the prerecession peaked this year. , weve justures come back to where we were before the recession in 2007. Thes why a lot of economists think the economy is getting into the real expansion phase. The one which feels better. We have not felt that good about the economy. Upre just running to keep and get back to where we were. Now, we can start expanding and start making new plans come expecting to be able to find jobs more easily and that sort of thing. This sort of expansion is what most people like it is the one where you get the big booms and so on. This thing expansion has been one of the slowest. ,t does not get overheated which is what often spells the end of expansion. It was Morgan Stanley that predicted it could be the longest expansion in history. Which would mean it would have to pass the 1990s expansion. Long. Not robust, but guest its like the hare and the tortoise. Host we will take some calls now. First one from richard in california. Youre on the air. Richard is gone. We will have ray from pennsylvania. He is unemployed and you are on the air. Caller good morning. Im retired. Host youre not working right now. Caller no. This 6. 1 figure is nothing but a bogus figure put out by the government. You have all these people on welfare, their unemployed. They are unemployed. You have those who have dropped out of looking for jobs. They are not even counted. This 6. 1 number should be up around 18 or 20. During the Great Depression, they counted everybody who was off. Figure, at the height of the Great Depression was 35 unemployed. What you try to tell the american people, you can do whatever you want up there. That theres a lot of people unemployed, a lot of people losing their jobs. Every day, i talked to different kids lost their job or the people lost their job. Numberare getting this from the obama ministration Committee Bogus figure Obama Administration, its a bogus figure. Guest i hear that argument quite a bit. There is a problem with that argument. We are measuring unemployment the same way we have for decades. We have not changed it under the Obama Administration. The way same calculated it was under the george Bush Administration. If you want to include all the people you are talking about as unemployed, you would have to do that going back decades. You can just do it under obama and then not do it for george w. Bush cant just do it under obama and then not do it for george w. Bush. You will have to add 6 to the george w. Bush unemployment e, to bank and so on Unemployment Rate, too. If you are discouraged, youre not included. If youve gone on disability and are now longer you longer looking for work, you were not included. That has been the case for decades. There is some truth to what he is saying in the sense that you go back to the depression, people did not have welfare programs to fall back on. One thing that you did see in this recession was a lot of people didnt seem to have some sort of resource where they could drop out of the job market. You look at the old millennial generation you look at the millennial generation, a lot of them move back in with their parents. In one of them decided, i will move back in with mom and dad and go back to school or Something Like that. They are not included in the Unemployment Rate. Clearly, they are jobless people. Americans did find a lot of ways to fall back and did not work for a wild during this recession and recovery. The welfare programs did play a role to expand you had an expansion of food stamps that enable people to live on less cash earnings or less cash if you are getting an unemployment food unemployment check, plus stamps, plus, say, medicaid or something, you can probably live for a lot longer on those funds than you could have in the 1930s when you had no food stamps, no other kinds of welfare. In that case, you would have to go on the streets and just grape up whatever you could, so there is some truth to what he is saying. Host the points you bring up to highlight the broader issue, which is is the Unemployment Rate still a good measure of the health of the labor market . Guest that is a good question. It is something that may be the experts should look at more carefully, but as i said, we are using the same one. It is very consistent with what we have been using for decades now, and so when you talk about 6. 1 now versus 4 at the turn of the century, this is the reason. It is the same measure. It has not been changed or anything like that. Make one point on our farm i. We have actually switched up the lines for the segments of the if you are employed, you have a job, you can call us at 202 5853880. If you are unemployed, you can call us at 202 5853881, and if youre underemployed, you can call us at 202 5853882 to make the phone lines more topical to this segment. Fromext caller is jeff fresno, california, and he is employed. You are on the air footste. Caller my question is i heard there is a breakeven point for jobs that you need every month, and i believe it was right around 320,000 or 350,000. It seems to me when i look at the job numbers over the years, we hardly ever hit that, and i dont understand how this employment rate can fluctuate down when it seems like every month there is more people that need to get into the labor force, and the job numbers are not hitting those numbers, and isseems to me like somebody cooking the books somewhere, and i think a lot of people are thinking that, too. I do not think i am just the only one. One other thing i dont just think it would be the Obama Administration. I would think every administration would try and cook the books on that. Not just the democrats i would think everybody, which is not very good, but that is just how i believe. Thank you. I agree with you there is a change that has occurred in our labor market. It is not the same labor market as it was 10 years ago or seven years ago the for the recession. I dont think it is a result of cooking the books. I think you have profound to change in our labor market so that, for example, you dont have to have as many jobs not to have full employment and to put everyone to work who once to work wants to work. Why is that . So many people are dropping out of the labor force. A large chunk is the babyboom going to retire. Way is happening in a big right now, and that is not going to change. That has profoundly affected our labor market because the baby boomers are a big chunk of the labor market, and they are starting to exit, and it is slowing down the growth of the labor market. The growth of the labor force. And you have also had basically a shutdown of immigration. Immigration has always contributed a huge amount to our Labor Force Growth in the United States, sometimes as much as 1 point or half usually comes from immigration, and you have had almost a shutdown of immigration and five years, so that is not a source of growth for the labor market. So there have been some profound changes, and what it amounts to is it does not take as many jobs now to put everyone to work who is actually looking for a job. At first, people thought well, it is because these millennials are dropping out, and this is a factor. Other people who were laid off and they are older have decided to go on disability or retire early or something. These are all factors, which are causing this kind of damper on the labor force, but i think by this point, after five years of very consistently seeing this slow growth, yet the Unemployment Rate coming down at the same time, most people are concluding there has been a change in the Labor Force Dynamics and a change in the way our labor force works, our labor market works. Quick tod not be so blame people for cooking the books. Attention have to pay and learn from what we are experiencing in our economy and try to understand it rather than blame people or find criticism. Actually, for years, people have been, economists have been warning that when the baby boomer tires, the economy is not going to be able to grow as fast, and i think that is a big part of what we are seeing now, so you are going to have to have more immigration, find other sources of growth in the future if you want to have the same kind of Dynamic Growth in jobs and the economy as you had 10 or 20 years ago. Host this question from twitter about a comment you made earlier from roger green that says can you explain what you mean back tobs are prerecession numbers . Does not make sense if adding population growth numbers. Ifst i am talking about actual numbers of jobs came back to the level prerecession. Off theot to take top of my head with the number is right now, but i am saying in terms of millions of jobs is the same as it was before the peak of the recession hit. It is true with population growth of that is still not enough, and that is why you are seeing that is when we had this many jobs and the Unemployment Rate was closer to 4 than 6 in 2007. That is reflecting the fact that you had population growth and there are more people out there who need work today than in 2007. Host our next caller is mike. He is retired and is from missouri. Caller thank you for letting me have my time on here. It is a good program. I enjoy it every day for stop i would like to challenge ms. Hill. Sectors, her about and she responded with a lot of information. She also just commented about immigration and that we stopped immigration. I think i saw, the numbers that president obama has overseen as much immigration as we have ever seen. I am just not sure if she is behind her numbers or if she has got good facts. Sector of now in this time that we are in, we have to help people that are creating jobs. Recession, an employer to provide a 40hour work week with benefits and medical, and recently we have taken the ability of an employer, someone who signs paychecks, to provide a 40hour work week, to provide benefits, and made it near impossible. We really have to bow down to people that will sign paychecks and make it easier for them, not harder. I am retired military. I have received lots of thank you for your service, but right now, people who can sign paychecks are people we need to help, not make it harder for them. I workout at a gym with lots of people that run businesses, and they cant wait to retire because they are tired of , constantly system struggling to sign paychecks in this environment. Host all right, mike from missouri. Guest well, i am sorry you do not trust my figures. On immigration, i am talking about a net flow of immigrants. Obviously every day you have immigrants coming into the country. One of the things that has sinceed that is unusual the recession is you have many leaving the country, so you have a huge exodus of immigrants. So i am talking about the net figure of immigrants entering the country and joining the workforce. That is what has come down to close to zero in recent years. It may be taking up a bed. I have not looked at it in a month or two, but when i said i was not that familiar, it is something i have not focused on four sup yes, i did look at the report, and i do know generally what it said, so, you know, i believe you can trust my figures. I am sorry you dont. But it is a fact that we do have have had a big falloff in immigration and the number of immigrants joining the workforce. From maine. Are you underemployed . Caller yes. My husband and i are both underemployed. My husband works at a bigbox store. I work as a Seasonal Employee that normally can work about nine months a year. , my questionknow would be does the employment include parttime work . Are you looking up parttime work . It, theook at government has come down, where my husband used to be able to work 39 hours a week is now able to only work 29 hours week, but if you look at his employer, instead of being able to employ one employee, they now have to employ two. 20t brings his hours down to hours a week. Therefore at 20 hours a week, that is not a living wage. There is belief that that was brought down so that if you are making 20 hours a week, you are the not making enough to be able to afford insurance. That ben puts you into that then puts you into medicaid if your state has a. My state has not agreed to it, which is fine because my state cannot afford it. We are now looking for now you have to have two parttime jobs. You still dont get the medical or the benefits. What this has done is really my husband and i make twice 5,000 a year. We do not get any benefits. We do not get food stamps. We do not look for a, we do not want it. We just want a job and to be bills, be able to eat, and maybe do something fun every once in a while, which we do not do. We work, we come home, that is it. And it is basically because of obamacare, has dropped our hours governmente of the are now able to make those hours whereas before we might not have had insurance, but at least we had a living wage. Host all right, that was denise, and i apologize for not getting your location correct. Guest i feel like she put her finger on exactly what is wrong with the job market. You are getting jobs created, but they are part time instead of fulltime. There is no benefits, the pay is across the is not board. You are getting some good jobs and everything, but this is the plight of many of the people who the last fivek in years was up they may have left a job that was a very good paying job, lets say in finance , which there were a lot of people in Mortgage Finance before and during the housing boom that were out of work after wars. Lets say they ended up having to flip houses for a while and maybe onethird the pay that they used to make as a mortgage officer. I think what you are saying is we certainly sympathize and understand what you are going through, and this is definitely a part of what is still a problem in the job market, although we have seen a pretty dramatic improvement from where we were five years ago. Host you wrote a story recently germanstyledline of partnerships could supply u. S. Economy with bevy of skilled workers. Can you explain a little bit what this coming looks like it is trying to do, and how they can benefit the labor market . People think because the Unemployment Rate is dropping back to levels that are more normal for our economy that the kind of on employment we have left is what they call structural, which means these are going to be people who are good timesloy in and bad, and one of those groups is definitely young people coming out of high school and college to have no work experience. Those people always have more trouble finding a job, experiencedhan an workers with skills, on the job training, etc. A problemployment is everywhere. It is a much worse problem in europe. You have Unemployment Rates in the youth up to 50 or more in greece and spain. It is definitely a problem here. The middle east, some people say that is behind all the unrest you see in the middle east. So youth unemployment is a problem, and one way it can be addressed is through this german system of apprenticeship. Although we had more apprenticeships in this country many years back for some it is an old way, not a new way, of helping youth get skills that they need so they can land jobs. What it is is simply what it sounds like. The employers make a Program Available so young people can learn the skills they need on the job, and they get paid a little bit while they are working and practicing their skills, and then at the end of the training and it is very elaborate nowadays, up to three years, almost like going to college. In the volkswagen plant, it takes three years to graduate with a degree in various kinds of basically an engineering degree, and you are then able to work in any volkswagen plant around the world, so the germans have a system in place in their own country, and theyre bringing this to the United States and trying to bring it elsewhere in the world. It really has the potential to solve the youth unemployment problem. In germany, the youth unemployment, i believe is somewhere around 7 versus 14 in the United States, so were basically twice what they have. Yeah, there are ways to address these unemployment problems without juicing the economy like the set has been doing, to try to get faster growth, and some people are saying this is the way we should be going in the future. Have a chart of the breakdown of the jobless by gender and by age. You can see the Unemployment Rate for men is 5. 7 , for women it is 5. 7 as well, and for teenagers in the u. S. , it is 19. 6 , so quite a big difference when looked at, broken down by gender and by age. Our next caller is bob from tennessee. He is employed. Bob, good morning. Caller hello. I appreciate you taking my call. My deal is the it is the policies that the democrats come up with that is hurting our country, and the epa because if you take the re these companies, they could grow. It is the policies of obama lets strain the people and make them meet us so we can keep staying up. That is what i am saying. Instead of helping, why not get then thatobs because would free up and it would make the republican guy look like he knows what he is talking about, but if you keep people poor, they need you. That is socialist, and that is evil. That is not gods word. Host all right, that is bob from tennessee. Our next call is lily from north dakota. Lately, you are out of work. Caller yes, i am, and i and very upset about it. I am not impressed with your guest because i think she is talking numbers. She is not talking people, and when you consider that what she is missing the biggest point of all. When nafta came in, nafta allowed our jobs went overseas. I am not chinese. Morehave to do it little for themselves. We are the one to put our soldiers on the line to die for another country, yet we send our jobs away . No what do you make for a living . How much do you make a year . Patrice. Right, some color callers have brought up the issue of the money not trac trickling down to the average worker. Guest there has been almost no wage growth. We mentioned this in the jobs report yesterday, but it confirms what we have had for five years ago, which is average wage growth of 2 over the last year, which is basically just keeping up with inflation. So that is the thing at this point that actually is the work aspect i guess you say about the a 100 of, it affects the workers, not just the 6 that are still unemployed, so i realize you are unemployed, it obviously anyone in that verytion it is a personal thing. It is not a statistic, and i am sorry if i sounded like all i do is go about quoting statistics. That is my job, but i have been in your situation in the past, and i know exactly what that is like. I have written quite a few stories, if you want to look at twitter account. You will see i have written quite a few stories about people in your situation and what they are going through and the pain that is involved. Up is em you bring you talk about we are sending our jobs to mexico or to china. I wish it were that simple where stopuld just decide to doing that. Unfortunately, we as a people, like in the sense of the american public, are not making that decision. Those are decisions made by individual corporations and ceos of corporations, and they are choosing to locate some of their plants in china or mexico, and so jobs are going there and not here. That unfortunately is not we have, collectively even, a lot of control over. It is in the hands of his misses, and this is reflecting the globalization, the period of globalization that we are in. I dont know exactly what to say. It is not a new factor. It has been there for several decades now. We are competing now with workers in mexico and china, and that is one reason i would suspect that wages have not gone up because corporations can always find a worker in another country who is willing to work for less, even though we are making the same or less than we did before the recession, so this is kind of the hard knocks of the job market that we are living, the times that we are living in right now. Is johnr next caller from maryland, and he is employed. John, you are on the air. Caller thank you, and good morning, miss hill. A couple of months ago, there was a jobs report that came out that says Something Like 200,000 but 500,000eated, andtime jobs were lost 700,000 parttime jobs were created. You couldering if give us some more numbers, if ift was an aberration or that is typical of what has been going on in the job market. I believe it is like 12 million jobs that have been created since either the bottom of the recession or the Obama Administration took over. If you could give us some numbers, i would appreciate it. Thank you. Elevateds, there is an level of parttime employment. That has occurred during the recession, and it has continued to be elevated since the recession. It is something that everyone is focusing on trying to understand why this is. The fed chairman yellen suggested that one factor could be we are creating more service jobs like in retail and less of the, lets say manufacturing and hard, sort of bluecollar jobs, which are fulltime. Retail tends to be more you will see more parttime work there. Retailers also are the ones who seem to be trying to avoid, for example, some of the march on to someving to provide of them are trying to avoid having to provide health care and keeping people parttime rather than move them to fulltime, so you are seeing sectors,ome and that may be a factor. If you have my story, i actually quote the number of parttime i believe it is in the 3 million range. I am sorry it is too early in the morning for me to remember all of these figures, but i believe we have about 3 million parttime workers working parttime who we would like to have fulltime jobs. So it is a lot, but we have more than 100 Million People working, so it is not a huge part of the labor force. It is a problem. It is something that people are looking at closely, and there seem to be some factors that, for example, as people suspect, obamacare could be a factor with to keeployers choosing people at parttime rather than fulltime. Davidour next caller is from chicago, illinois. David, you are unemployed. Go ahead. Caller i am unemployed. Patrice, i hope that you in your reportingss or report on the fact that we have newwed in 17 Million Immigrants since the year 2000. That is about 1. 2 million each year. Dropsuring the worst recession since the Great Depression, our congress and president did nothing, and so 7 million new potential Foreign Workers have flooded into the country while everybody is wringing their hands about how to create jobs for americans. You know what is really shocking . Most of the job growth, especially since the recovery, has got the immigrants. For instance, the total number of working age immigrants holding a job increased 5. 7 million for the First Quarter of 2000 two the First Quarter of. 14, while declining 127 jobs to the First Quarter of 2014. Jobs have gone to immigrants, not to american citizens born in this country. Until we started dressing this act, this is all just a bunch of kabuki. I have a friend who is an engineer who is counted as working when really he is not working the way he should be. Just to put a broader point on this, wages have been adjusted for inflation since the mid90s 70s, and wages for s. T. E. M. Workers have been flat. Whenever he talks about s. T. E. M. Worker shortage, that is a lie. The latest revelations of job antitrustession and by the top Silicon Valley and tech companies, we have seen how the labor market is being rigged, and if you doubt that claim, just listen to what Alan Greenspan said in 2007. He said we paid the highest Skilled Labor wages in the world. If we would open up our borders to Skilled Labor far more than we do, we went attract a very substantial quantity of Skilled Labor, which would suppress the wage levels of the skilled because the skills are essentially being subsidized by government, meaning our competition is being kept outside the company. The labor market is right. Alan greenspan has admitted it. And if congress and the president were really serious about creating jobs, they would put a stop on a 7 million that have flooded in since the 2008 crash. That is what you and other responsible journalists should be writing about. Guest where are you getting your figures . Some of the figures you are quoting, since people are questioning statistics that have been thrown around here, i am questioning yours. There is no question that the period of the 2000s decade was a period of very strong immigration into the country. The 1980s, 1990s, and 2000s were all very strong growth of immigration. When i said that immigration has slowed or stopped, that was since the recession, which started in the late 2007. You have seen a net slow down to almost no zero of immigration, so when you say from 2000 to this increase in immigration, im not sure about the statistics that you are using, but it could be reflecting mostly the very strong growth you had between 2000 and 2007, which was still Strong Enough to keep it in net plus, even since the recession. You know, i know it is not popular, but immigration has played a very Important Role in our country, and our labor justt, not just now, not since 2000, but throughout our history. If you look at the statue of the huddleding masses to our shore, people have been coming here looking for jobs, looking to start a new for, looking to live here more than a century, and it is a tradition in the United States. Also,just a fact that, hugh see a correlation between strong growth in our labor market, strong growth in immigration, and we are seeing that. A lot of people do not seem to like immigrants right now, although i think most of us did come from immigrant families at one point. Important role in our labor market. If you want to just shut down the border, youre going to get Something Like the slow growth or worse than we are having today in terms of the economy. That is just a fact that economists will demonstrate to you. Host we have time for one more caller. By rent from maryland. Can you make it fast . Caller yes. I have a lot of friends and family who are engineers will stop if you are an engineer and you can find a job, you are either lazy or you are not willing to relocate. Those are insane numbers that you throw around. If you take clinton, who allowed through his bill, jobs be taken out of the country, and you take romney, who is the architect of shipping jobs out of the country, and you put those two guys together, that is something for the democrats and summit for the republicans. A lot of them are teaming up to take this country down. Byronall right, that is from baltimore, maryland. Patrice Hill Committee last words . Guest we still have a long way to go before people feel good about the job market, and i think that is one thing you always learn from talking with people. Although there has been a take up this year. People are feeling a little better about the job market a more optimistic about finding jobs. Obviously there are so many problems that your callers brought up, and i would be the last one to say that is not the case. Host patrice hill, chief economic correspondent for the washington times, thank you so much for joining us this morning. Up next, we will have read wilson of the Washington Post joining us to talk about several issues being decided in the United States this year, and later, you may have heard about some of the scandalous photos that were stolen from some account. Es icloud we will look at Cloud Computing lewisames willis james from the center for strategic and International Studies was up and we are featuring the history of wyomings capital city of cheyenne. We are looking at the career of wyoming senator lester hunt. Became in the late 19 40s and early 1950s one of the most significant politicians in the country whose name is not remembered. Part of the problem is that the nature of his death overshadowed the accomplishments of his life because in 1954, there was enormous stigma both about homosexuality and about suicide, and lester hunts widow made it work to make sure that the story of his suicide was never told. She went so far as to threaten premieror of the wyoming history textbook that if he put anything about the suicide in his textbook that she would sue him, and so although he knew part of the story about the black male, he left it out, and so for all of these years, students of wyoming history have read a book that on page 521, and who gets that far in a semester, but on page 521 of dr. Larsons book, it says overcome by personal and political problems, lester hunt took his own life on june 19, 1952. Returningngress monday, here is a message to congress from one of this years cspan studentcam competition winners. Foods that are genetically modified art to it may does, food, and soybeans. Corn and soybeans are probably the most common. According to the usda, proximately 90 of all corn and caught in and 93 of all soybean crops landed in the United States are genetically modified. And despite suggestions of noble intent they are genetically modifying rice to treat vitamin theficiencys throughout world. There are people starving in africa, and if we can get them the food that they need, i say why not . Both the safety and nutritional value of gmos is a googler seven highly disputed. There is no difference between if you ate all organic or regular food. It is not going to improve your life or health or nothing different. So who is responsible in determining whether or not gmo food should be labeled, band, or simply ignored . You decide. Join us next wednesday during washington journal for the theme of the cspan 2015 student cam competition. Washington journal continues. Host we are joined now by read wilson, a staff writer for the Washington Post. Reid, you wrote a story for the Washington Post about several new Ballot Initiatives that will be considered during the midterm elections about spending by some theyrations and some paths are doing to promote them. Can you explain to us what exactly a Ballot Initiative is . Guest caller it is a measure guest it is a measure that voters vote on. It is not for a candidate. It is about advocating Public Policy and can range anywhere from taxes to abortion to gun rights to gun control. Anything like that can make it on the ballot. The Ballot Initiative started in the early part of the 20th century as part of the Progressive Movement on the west coast. Elected local officials were upset that corporations had so much influence in state capitals weather in all libya, washington or salem, oregon, or anywhere like that, so they allowed citizens to put legislations on the ballot themselves post up over the last century or so, there have been about 2000 Ballot Initiatives around the country, and the number of them are actually increasing. This year there will be at least questions,s measures, referenda and 40 one states across the country. There are sort of three buckets this year and different kinds of initiatives that voters will face. One is the monday and, minor fixes to government. That wants totate change the name of its state auditor. There is one state that wants to allow the Lieutenant Governor to hire his own legal counsel, minor things that nobody is going to get excited about or spend a lot of money for or against. The second bucket is partisan issues, and i include every thing from the so called percy vote amendment, which would forne a fetus as a person the criminal code in colorado, to minimum wage increases on the alaska,states like illinois, and south dakota among some other states. Those initiatives, which spanned the political spectrum, are used in a lot of cases by Political Parties and candidates to gin up turnouts. At the moment, congress is as unpopular as it has ever been in american history. Because of that, the voters are not going to show to the polls to vote for their incumbent senator or the other challenging candidate, but they might show up to the polls to vote for a minimum wage increase, and any case of minimum wage, democrats believe that those voters are likely to be democratic voters who would otherwise sit on our hands, not vote on election day. Parties can use these initiatives to turn people out to the polls. They will do so in a significant number of states. On the other hand, the personhood side, republicans will use that to turn their voters out to the polls. There are other instances in which republicans have used this will stop the most famous was back in 2004 when republicans put a number of bans on samesex marriage on ballots in key president ial battleground states was up a lot of republicans think that helped george w. Bush get reelected back in 2004. The third bucket to consider is the corporate bucket. In a lot of cases despite the fact that the initiative was created to rein in the power of corporations, these corporations are now able to find and finance campaigns that will directly benefit their bottom lines. Whether it is something that gives them a tax break or something that prohibits one of competitorsors avenues. Spectrums,e three voters will get a lot more to vote on this year than just a number of candidates. They also get to vote in a lot of their own states. Host are the number of Ballot Initiatives being considered in november set to help democrats or to help republicans . Guest it depends on the states, but as republicans were able to leverage Ballot Initiatives in 2004 on their behalf, to their advantage, democrats have made a more concerted effort this time to put some of these initiates on the ballot. Just last week in arkansas, the minimum Wage Initiative qualified for the ballot will stop the secretary of state said yes, the supporters have gathered enough signatures that inwill go on the ballot november. That is excited to help senator mark pryor who faces a difficult challenge from the republican challenger there. Pryor needs every possible vote to hold onto his seat. And then the men wage vote in alaska and some other states as well, will on balance help democrats, but it varies a state. State by state. Host does this help even that balance . How much of a boost do you expect to see . Guest it boosts partisans. Democrats orpport republicans dont always show up. That was the theme in 2004 when use it in ohio, specifically. Some republicans credit it with a george w. Bushs 100,000 vote win in ohio. On the other hand, in a midterm election, as you say, turnout is far lower than it is nationally in a president ial year, so is that going to force people to come out to vote . Itould say on balance yes, will get more people to the polls. However, you have to run a good campaign. Let me take one example. In florida, voters will vote on whether or not to legalize marijuana for medical use. Or 27th be the 26th state that would legalize medical marijuana essentially. The supporters have raised a whole bunch of money, and they are running television advertisements. They will run mail programs for sub it will call people, they will register new voters and try to turn them out, and in every case, they are targeting Younger Voters, and that is because in the Gubernatorial Race between governor rick scott, the the other, and candidate, the race is going to be so close that the big swing turnout is not a question of whether or not you can persuade a voter to vote for you, it is whether or not you can persuade a voter to show up in the first place will stop everybody already knows who they support they just do not necessarily plan to show up at the polls will stop Younger Voters overwhelmingly favor medical marijuana, and they are the ones overwhelmingly likely to be targeted by the promedical Marijuana Campaign to get them to the polls. Younger voters also overwhelmingly vote democratic in florida. That essentially could be a margin of the victory or defeat if the medical Marijuana Campaign is able to get those voters to the polls. As they are going down the ballot, they will vote for terry crist first, and then vote for medical marijuana further down the ballot. Host let us know how you plan in your state for that we are back to our political breakdown on our phone line, so democrats can call 202 5853880. Republicans can call at 202 5853881. Independents can call at 202 5853882. On socialn find us media on twitter cspanwj, on facebook at facebook. Com cspan, or send us an email at journal cspan. Org. I want to take it back a little bit and get to some of the mechanics here. Can you explain the difference between a proposition, and initiative, a referendum, and some of the things that might be under consideration here . Has differenttate roles, and some of those rules allow citizens to directly petition the government, to collect signatures and turn in those signatures and have whatever they want on the ballot. , the initiatives, referenda, propositions, etc. Have to come from the state legislature. The legislature can say we want to do this, but were not entirely certain. They kind of pond inlet the they kind of punt and let the voters decide. There are so many different ways of what is required and what goes on the ballot. Generally speaking in states where citizens can petition to get on the ballot, they need to get a small percentage, usually 3 to 5 of valid signatures of the number of votes cast in the previous gubernatorial election. In a state like california, to get a proposition on the ballot, they have to get approximate 500,000 senators. In Washington State, they have to get somewhere around 140,000 valid signatures. Arkansas, where the minimum Wage Initiative qualified, theyll have to get 60,000 signatures because that is an appropriate percentage that their legislature has decided. They collect the signatures and by the way, i am sure we will get into the money discussion later, but one of the big money drivers in this is the people who are in fact a professional signature gatherers who can charge between three dollars and five dollars in some states for one valid signature. That tells you how much money it takes just to get on the ballot before you advocate for or against your position if you are just spending five dollars for one signangle signature. Host you write in your story that for the for some in history, spending on approximate 125 ballot question facing voters and 41 states is going to talk 1 billion in Campaign Spending this year perhaps much more. Oil and Gas Companies in alaska spent more than 100 70 for every vote they want in a Successful Campaign to reject higher taxes earlier this month. Is it the cost of getting those signatures going up or is it the amount of push that corporations and other companies are doing . Guest it is a little bit of both. Especially in a lot of the states where they have a competitive midterm election. If you have a Senate Candidate who has already spent 1 million on his own advertising, there is a finite number of ads you can up, so the ad cost goes the more money spent did it on television. And a lot of these cases, the two expensive examples were competing corporate sites facing off head to head. An example in california this year, there are two propositions on the valley, 46 and 45, both of which have to do with the amount that health care costs, essentially. Not your health care or my health care, but how much of somebody can receive for a medical malpractice award. Caps. Nactual pain i am forgetting the name now. I am completely blanking on the term. The cap that somebody can get not for the injury itself, but for pain and suffering afterwards. Those numbers have been static at about the 250,000 for a couple of decades. Now supporters want to increase that limit and raise the cap to 1. 1 million that somebody who a suffered for medical malpractice can actually receive. Lawyers the trial really excited. They really want that. They really want the higher caps. Doctors really angry. They dont want that. When you pick doctors versus trial lawyers, two of the wealthiest spending Interest Groups in american politics against each other, there is going to be a lot of money spent for the other initiative has to do with how much the actual premium caps can raise. In that case alone in california, the two sides have already raised 93 million. We are in Early September here, so it is going to go north of 100 million, probably north of 150 million, and that is just one pair of issues there. There are several other initiatives that will draw big money. There are a number of gambling concerns in california, in colorado. The colorado one is pretty interesting. This is generally how began playing initiatives to work. In denver, there are a couple of racetracks, and is ballot 67 tive, proposition 57 or 68. This is the problem with Ballot Initiatives. There are a lot of them. In the denver area, the proposition would allow these racetracks to set up slot machines. That is great for their owners for stop it will bring millions of dollars to them, it will create a bunch of new jobs in the denver metro area. However, there are a number of casinos up in the rocky mountains, the three towns that thatlegalized gambling, vegasstyle resort not on the scale of las vegas, but generally big casinos will stop they dont want slot machines in the denver area because they want those denver tourists coming to their mountain to wns and spending the money there. The sides have raised over 20 million to fight on the Ballot Initiatives, and we will see that repeated in states like rhode island, maine, nebraska, and even south dakota where they want to legalize gambling in the town of deadwood. Is such a huge issue, and it is so determinate to a companys bottom line, that here in the washington, d. C. Area, we here we advertising are in washington, d. C. , if you are watching commercial television, you live in either maryland, washington, or the northern suburbs of virginia, one of the most hotly contested battleground every four years. In 20 12, we saw more advertising in the washington, d. C. Market for question seven, which was a gamble he initiative adid allow a past new casino about 10 miles south of us here in maryland than we did for mitt romney or president obama. It is shocking. Mgm spent 40 million. Spentr Gaming Company about 40 million against it 80r, and those two million, 90 million in advertising in this market alone. Host i want to bring in some of our callers to share their thoughts will stop the first is mary from boston, massachusetts on the independent line. Mary, good morning. Are there initiatives in your state that are up for consideration this november . As four is what i hear, they are talking about, oh, i think the minimum wage here, which i think they are kind of doing it in a couple of , but my question was you have all of these people that are talking about this, that, and the other thing, medical minimum wage marijuana. You know what, what happened to the old conversation . The economy. Hello, people. Jobs. Minimum wage is good, but i just do not think it is the right time to do it. Why are we putting so much pressure on the people that are hiring the people . This is one thing i just do not understand, and as far as medical marijuana, i totally disagree because i used to smoke pot, and it does end up leading to worse drugs in almost every case, so when people say that over one, you know when medicalay that marijuana is a good thing, yeah, but you are not going to be able to control it, and the people that are supposed to get it are going to get it, so these children that are coming up, even more their parents are going to say you are wrong, yet the government is going to say it is right. Guest mary, you bring up a really interesting points, and i want to talk for a minute about the realworld impact of the initiatives that will be on the ballot this year. Marijuanaking about legalization for medical purposes only and florida. However, there are two other states that through ballot marijuanas legalized totally full stop it is now legal to purchase marijuana for Recreational Purposes in Washington State and colorado, and the two sides in both cases, the governors were not terribly thrilled with the initiatives. They did not want them. Both democratic governors. They opposed them. Ended up backing these legalization measures in both cases. It has presented states with a really serious regulatory challenge because they have to write regulations for something that has never been regulated before. When was the last time that happened . It was automobiles in the earlier part of the 20th century or liquor in the 19th century. It has been so long since a government has had to regulate an entirely new industry on such a huge scale, and they are approaching it very differently for stop colorado has a regulatory mechanism in which it treats marijuana completely differently from any other product. It requires that sellers actually grow their own marijuana so they can be more accountable and all that, so that it can be all homegrown. In Washington State, they chose to regulate it like alcohol, so somebody who sells marijuana cannot grow their own. They have to go through a grower. There is a Distribution Network and all of this stuff. The outcomes have been dramatically different, so other states are watching how the two sides are choosing to regulate marijuana, how the two states who have done a have regulated marijuana, and that presents this policy problem as you are sitting here as the next estate and there is a Marijuana Legalization on the ballot in oregon this year. As they are contemplating how to do this, as the citizens are putting together their initiative, they have to think how would it be regulated . It is not oh, marijuana is legal, we will pass out joints at the airport or Something Like that. They actually have to set up a whole economy. It is really fascinating. The positives and minuses of each of these ballot issues and reverberation in other states and other legislatures in other areas like that. Host this comment from twitter living in florida, hate seeing medical pot influencing education. Pot and not jobs important to youth . Smart politics but sad. Lori, you are on the air. Weler in michigan, collected enough signatures to put on the ballot a minimum wage proposal. The very last day of legislation, the legislature changed the amount that we would wondering if it would be possible to renew and of course they passed it so 2018,uld go into effect in which of course i know people can wait that long to get the wage increase. I am sorry, i have forgotten the amounts, but it is a miniscule amount. . 25. K it was is it possible for initiation to be made again to change that . And also, our legislature is really crappy. Night passtood of the right to work, and that is why this republican is voting for democrats from now on. I see the way they abuse poor people that really need to make a living. In regards to that, i hope you can answer that question, whether we can renew that again. Guest sure. What happened in michigan and what is happened in a number of other states, missouri most notably, is that the Ballot Initiative rules allow a legislature or the courts to remove an initiative from the ballot if something similar has already happened, so essentially if the legislature has already acted on something. Thosent to give kinds of laws are meant to give the legislature a chance to adopt whatever the citizens want. If somebody turns and one million signatures for something that is really popular, maybe the legislature wants to do that thing and take political credit for it and all that stuff. What has evolved in the last few years, though, is that oppose whatever is going on the ballot will pass toething nominally similar force the initiative off the ballot, and in their minds , but in middle ground essentially minds if this rate the purpose of the Initiative Also in michigan, the ballot race would have raised the minimum wage by a significant margin over the next few years. A minimum wage happens is it will increase . 50 january 1 and another dollar the following general refers, etc. , until it hits whatever cap they have written. So the structure that would have raised the minimum wage far less over a much longer period of time, so they are moderately raising the wage, maybe only a little but above the federal minimum host and then knocked the Ballot Initiative off. Guest yes. The same thing happen in massachusetts this year, although what they passed and what the initiative wanted was much smaller. Point, cane callers the voters go back and bring another initiative . Guest they can, but they have to do it next year, and they have to collect all of the signatures again. It is a mammoth process. Something happened in missouri that i think is worth the spotlighting. Citizens put a Ballot Initiative, they got enough signatures to get an initiative on the ballot that for the first time would create early voting, and it would have created six weeks of early voting, that would have allowed anyone from early as overthrew election day to wander into a county election office, cast the ballot, and then they did not have to worry about on election day, which can save long polling lines and all that kind of stuff was happy state legislature, passed and version, six days of early voting if the legislature decides to fund it. Well, if the republicanled leaders is not want to find early voting, then there will be as opposed tog, the citizens initiative, which would have required six weeks of early voting whether or not the legislature wanted to find it. So the legislature put the six days of early voting on the ballot, kicked the six weeks off the ballot, now they essentially initiativeated an that attracted enough signatures to make the ballot, so this happens in a number of different states for number of different reasons. Host next up is john on the republican line from massachusetts. Caller hi. How are you this morning . Guest hey, john. Listen, you kind of brought up a couple of things on the phone that tie into what i did. I put a twitter post up, which i think they never read, and i think the only Important Initiative that is on a Ballot Initiative in new york. You dont have to comment on that one way or the other, but these issues sort of tiein to everything that is kind of going on right now. The drug issue in these kinds of ,hings, and the wage issue since the next an era and he lowwage china and the things that came into the country has caused some hazards to this thing, and the drug issue having anything to do with anything other than prohibition. I i want drugs to be completely legal, all of them. I hate drugs, but i want to get the money out of it. People dead in0 mexico with the drug wars and the violence it takes. Cannot see or remember the whoh squads in el salvador were saying military people who trained the iraqi police, and they cannot see the moral hazards going on here. Callers are of the assuming that just because these initiatives go on the ballot, they will pass. Of the 2000 or so initiatives voted on in american history, less than half have passed. A number will pass this year with 90 of the vote because nobody cares what the name of the state auditor will be or whether the Lieutenant Governor can hire his own legal counsel. That will pass by a wide margin. Marijuana legalization will be closely fought. These are actual policy questions voters get to answer. I think that is kind of cool. So i enjoy coast guy the history of the Ballot Initiatives and all that. Host are there certain issues that garner the most voter response . Marijuana is one. Guest marijuana is one. I would point to my home state of washington which is going to have a tough fight this year over two initiatives. This is a fascinating quirk of history. Two Ballot Initiatives that would either dramatically expand the number of background checks that happened on gun purchases or prohibit the state from conducting any background checks on gun purchases. Here is what happened. Progun control advocates filed an initiative and started Gathering Signatures for a 594,t measure, initiative all the states have different ways of passing initiatives, of numbering them rather. You get question seven in maryland and initiative 594 in washington. It is confusing. The guncontrol supporters are trying to extend back run checks to include gun sales at gun shows. The gun show loophole is one they have tried to close for a while. The progun side child an initiative that would prohibit the state from conducting any background checks beyond what is federally required, essentially not changing the gun show loophole and not expanding background checks at all. Early polls suggest both are passing. What happens when two initiatives the conflict with each other of pass . Both past . I suppose those who wrote the code never thought Washington State would be weird enough to pass inflicting amendments, conflicting initiatives at the same time. In other states, this has happened before. It has happened several times in states where it has to do with the economy or abortion laws. Ist generally has happened the side that gets the higher number of yes votes will get more attention, more consideration from the courts. If both measures pass, they will go to the courts. There will be a long court fight. It will go to the Washington State supreme court. In the past, the bulk of those initiatives in those cases have been decided in favor of the side that the higher number of yes votes. Host this goes to appoint one of our twitter followers wrought up brought up. Guest yes. Let me start that again. No, there is not. But she brings up an excellent point. A number of initiatives are written to be confusing. I will take the example of a Cable Provider in montana this to pass anas trying initiative. They did not get enough signatures to get it on the ballot. But they were trying to pass an initiative that would have exempted them from allstate texas all state taxes. The Cable Company would not have paid any state taxes under this proposed initiative. They pitched it to voters as a lower your cable bill kind of thing. It does not cost too much to get an initiative on the ballot in my tenant in montana. It is a cheap market. You can run a campaign for 5 million or Something Like that. The first year, they would have saved 13 million in state taxes. They would have essentially gone taxfree, bolstered their bottom line by 13 million plus a year and recouped all of their year. Ng in less than a the good people of montana would have had slightly smaller cable bills. In colorado, the two casino sides facing off, the Ballot Initiative would allow some of the taxes the government generates from casino revenue to go to schools. The casino operators that want to include slot machines will say this is a pro school amendment, but for schools. It is not a vote for schools. It is voting to allow someone to operate a casino in the denver suburbs. The only people who oversee ballot language is secretary states or attorneys general. It is a state thing, not a federal thing. There is no federal overseer. They are confusing and written to be that way. Host our next caller is bonnie from florida on the republican line. Caller i want to thank you for pointing out how these things are written and given to the public. Yes onoing to vote medical marijuana. The more i started listening to talk shows i started finding out theres more to that ballot in florida. Website to vote no. Ande are a lot of loopholes problems in the initiative they are turned to pass. Theyre trying to pass. They have all sorts of loopholes. You would have to read it yourself. This time around, im going to vote no on medical marijuana. A lot of people i know are voting no because they are afraid of it. I would like medical marijuana but it seems it is too lenient now. If it is written differently, i might vote differently. Business. Riving it still maintains a good income. I am a Business Owner. On about that business, it was for me to help improve the lives of the people that work for me. I believe the wage should be 10 an hour. Not one of my employees makes less. Morecan, i give them because they are my business. I dont put it in my pocket. I believe the Larger Companies and people complaining dont want to give up their luxuries and my style to improve the lives of other people lifestyle to improve the lives of other people. I agree with 10. I dont think it should be phased in. If i am a Business Owner and paying an employee 10 an hour and they are not doing their job, i know there are people that will and i can hire a better person for 10 an hour. There are a lot of things you are hearing on the republican side. There are people on the ground that do pay their employees well. Maybe people will lose jobs. But i think they will lose jobs because people will not pay 10 an hour to people that are not worth 10 an hour. I agree with that. I am probably going against the tide. While i am a republican, i feel more tea party. I do believe in the right to bear arms and those other things. When you get down to brass tacks with republicans on the ground supporting mom and pop businesses, i do believe employees deserve 10 an hour. If you dont want to pay your employees 10 an hour, you need to find an employee that is worth it and take less for yourself. I thought bonnie said labeling at the beginning. I did not realize she was talking about the minimum wage. Anstruck something becoming issue in two states i wanted to mention if i could. , votersn and colorado will be deciding whether or not to label foods that include genetically modified ingredients. These are called gmo labeling laws. These are going to be some of the most an expensive initiatives in the entire country. Fritos have ayourr gmo label, right . The big corporations that , they dont food want to see those labels on food. They say it would increase the cost of food and let people know their stuff is not is different from the products that dont have gmo ingredients. When a Similar Initiative came up in Washington State in 2012, the two sides spent more than 40 million on it. Most on the antigmo side, the people who did not want to see labeling, fritolay, coca cola, those corporations. They spent more than 30 million advertising against it. A Similar Initiative in california was just as expensive , more so because everything is war expensive in california. Campaigns kicked the gmo labeling off the ballot. The initiative lost. Those products did not have to be labeled as gmo. They will go to a vote in colorado and oregon. It is a lot of money spent on whether or not the chips you buy at the store will have an extra label or not. Another thing to consider on the Ballot Initiative fight. Host we have a few minutes left for a few more colors. The next is george on the democratic line. Good morning. Caller good morning. Speaking on the legalization of marijuana, when someone says it leads to stronger drugs, i wonder if people have thought of people who smoke marijuana first drink alcohol. So maybe alcohol is leading to the use of further drugs. Cigarettes as well. There are too many people in prison. Why would we want to leave drug dealers who have become possibly and let the government controlled substances . I am a democrat, but rand paul and his father made perfect sense when they said they wanted to legalize all drugs. The heroin epidemic, if they labeled five milligrams instead of people not knowing how many milligrams they got, perhaps there would be less College Students overdosing. One of the kennedy sons overdosed in the 1970s i believe. Host lets leave it there. We want to get in one final caller. That is alice on the republican line. You are on the air. Caller good morning. My question is this. They say our Unemployment Rate is 6. 2 now. They say that is good. But what about the people know longer able to collect unemployment . What happens to them . We have to give them food stamps and welfare. I dont think that is correct. I think it is unfair they are not incorporating those into the on and were the Unemployment Rate of the United States. Ballothe question on initiatives, are there any under consideration in your state . Caller not that i know of. Guest was she in pennsylvania . I dont think there are any in pennsylvania. There are some in michigan where george is from. The ones in michigan and maine fall into a fourth bucket. They are initiatives intensely personal to a few people that dont get a lot of attention from the rest of us. In michigan, it has to do with wolf hunting. In maine, there is a question about whether or not to use various kinds of bait like dogs in their hunting bear hunting. These are intensely local that generate angry feelings on both sides. None of the rest of us Pay Attention to it. That is the cool thing about Ballot Initiatives. If someone wants to change their state law, they can do it. They dont have to run for office or raise millions of dollars. They can just get a bunch of signatures and get something on the ballot. I think that is kind of cool. For joining usou this morning. Email . Do you use perhaps you put that on Cloud Services. How secure is that service . James lewis will be taking your questions about Cloud Computing security. [captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2014] [captioning performed by national captioning institute] cspan debate coverage continues with the north senator andumbent her republican opponent followed by the california governors race between incumbent jerry brown and Neel Kashkari at 1 00. At 2 00, the connecticut governors debate. 2014, more than 100 debates for the control of congress. With congress returning monday, here is a message to congress from one of this year student cam competition winners. Corn and soybeans are probably the most common. According to the usda, approximately 90 of all corn and cotton and 93 of all soybean crops planted in the United States are genetically modified. Despite suggestions of noble intent they are genetically modifying rice to treat vitamin a deficiencies throughout the world. There are people starving in africa. If we can get them the food they need, why not . The safety and nutritional value of gmos is inconclusive and highly disputed. There is no difference between all organic and regular food. It is not going to improve your life or health as long as you eat fresh. Who is responsible for determining or not whether gmo foods should be labeled, band, or ignored . You decide. Wednesday or the theme of the 2015 competition. Washington journal continues. Host our guest is james lewis. He is with the center for strategic and International Studies. He is a program director. Thank you for joining us. Youre here to talk about the cloud and security in light of recent breaches of celebrity accounts in which they had scandalous Photos Leaked onto the internet. Exactly whataining the cloud is and how it works. Guest it is pretty simple. It could be aice, phone or computer. That device connects to the internet. The storage, the memory, the place you put files or pictures, is somewhere else. This is remote memory you can access from anywhere in the world or from any device. It has a lot of advantages. The advent of highspeed networks, you dont know where your data is. It might only take a second to get it even if it is in ireland or california, so the cloud is just distributed storage. The ability to call stuff up is so fast. It is simple. Way we use the cloud personally different from the way businesses or the federal government might use the cloud . Guest the main difference is businesses or the government might have their own cloud. You are using a consumer cloud that some company is running. A lot of companies do it, too. Companies you would not think like amazon or salesforce are huge cloud providers. Agencies and Companies Use them. What you are using is probably a consumer level cloud. It is the same technology. It is the same stuff. It is just a question of do i keep it in my own company or put it on an extra no cloud. That is a business decision. Host what is the level of security generally for Cloud Computing versus desktop computing . Guest the answer to the question of the level of security for anything is it depends. If the companies doing a good job, the level of security is high. One of the commercial cloud providers, amazon, they provide Cloud Services to the cia. The cia does not get around when it comes to security, so amazon must be doing something good. May be secured is you want when it comes to consumers. Consumers need to look at the contract. You dont know what they are promising you. They may not be promising much. It depends. Big companies and agencies should be able to demand good security. Consumers, you might find out the hard way. Host we want to hear from you. You can join our conversation by calling us on the democratic line, orthe republican on the independent line. Twitter. Weet us on find us on facebook. Or email us. Lewis, what is the impetus behind the rise of Cloud Computing . Why is this a preferable service and so prevalent . Guest money, it can be cheaper. It is are a company, called a storage farm where you have racks of Computers Called servers, special computers where you store your stuff. If you have the secret formula oto coke, you may want to keep it really tight. If it is payroll or mailing addresses, it is cheaper to put it in the cloud. This is purely money. Technology has created a new way for companies and people and agencies to save money. That makes it a business decision. If it is cheaper and you feel safe, do it. If it is not cheaper, do something else. Host there were some leak ofons around th he the celebrity photos that maybe it was not a hack on the cloud system but maybe some people were able to figure out passwords. Does that make a difference . How are hackers getting the information . Guest it makes a bit of a difference. When you hack the system, you have access to everybodys account. When you hack the password, you only have access to their account. It is not like the whole cloud system was preached. That is a big concern. Companies usually try to make sure that does not happen. When they get your password, it is straightforward. They own your account. Passwords to not work anymore. We have known that for a long time. There was a movie in 1995 starring a teenaged Angelina Jolie and some other guy, i dont remember him, where they brute forced passwords, 1995. That is what happened last week. 20 years we have known passwords are breakable. That is a problem for people because we still use them. People like them. You give it your dogs name. Easy to remember. Easy for the hacker to guess. Host what is to be done if passwords to not work anymore . That is the main way we secure our accounts. Guest people need to think how hard you have made your password to guess. Everyone uses their birthday, pet, best friend, or put an exclamation point for a one. There are programs that can guess that in a second. You have to think about more complex passwords for things that are valuable like online banking. A password will not do it. Most banks have used to doing two sessions. You use your password and have to answer questions. Passwords do not do it anymore. Host we heard this week there were several other attempts at hacking or infiltrating networks, home depot, the site was in the traded infiltrated. How high is the threat . Guest you will not be mugged, but this happens every day. We are just seeing more attention to it. Found 870 one survey Million People around the world lost their personal data. That is when they hack into a system. In i thought was funny was south korea where a hacker was able to breach a network and able to steal personal information of 70 of the Adult Population of kora. This happens every day. Fortunately it does not cause a lot of harm for consumers. There is no physical harm. There is usually no financial harm. We have built a complex system that provides a lot of benefit. It is just not secure. Host as we put more of our lives into the cloud and on computers and digital format in digital format, it seems there is more chance privacy could be compromised. The boston globe had this story this morning. It says the latest set of Identity Theft may not come from Retail Stores or big banks but from your Doctors Office or the local hospital. They are stealing patient records to file insurance claims, obtain prescription medication, or sell Social Security numbers. Officials disclosed thursday there was a militias software on healthcare. Gov. Is this something we might see become a bigger problem in the future . Guest it is not going away. It will get worse. It is a growth industry. Right now, most criminals never get caught. They do not live in the u. S. Andou are a cyber criminal live in the u. S. , the fbi will probably catch you. The same thing in countries where they have good police forces. There are other countries that like cyber criminals. Russia is one. China is another. They will not be catching these guys anytime soon. If a russian breaks into your account and he lives in russia, there is nothing we can do. He will turn around and see if he can make money. That has been true for a long time. Theres not much we can do other than try to make the networks harder to break into. Host we will go to our collars. Lets bring in christine from North Carolina on the independent line. What is your question this morning . Caller how close are we to coming up with something that will protect us . It is crazy. Everything you do online, you have to create a password how do you protect your password . How do you do that question mark if you write them down, they can be found. No person can remember every password. It is crazy. It is scary. I recently sold a home. I put my money in the bank account. God forbid they should hack into that. It is scary. I find credit unions, the Pennsylvania State Employee Credit Union has a good system. If you forgetard, your password, it is very hard to get in, so they have a really good system. Guest ok. That is a good point. Passwords are hard to protect. You have to change them more often than you like. You have to make them hard to guess. Because of industry federal regulation has put a lot of effort into making it hard to break in. When you look at banking, i do online banking. I dont worry about it. But i do change my password and make it hard to guess. When you get to other places like photo storage and services with little celebrities with the celebrities, you never know, so it is a problem. Long, someone will come up with a solution longterm, someone will come up with a solution. A lot of companies are trying to figure out how to make it harder to break in. I have been doing this for about 18 years. We have been working on this problem for 18 years and have not found a solution. May be in the next few years. Host the Photos Leaked of the celebrities were from apples icloud system. Jay rockefeller had this to say on iCloud Security. Is expected to introduce a new version of its iphone apple argues this was very targeted. Do you think there is a broader hole apple is exposed to . Guest a lot of Companies Share this problem. You have rapidly had it happen to you. You go to a website and type in your password, and it is wrong for the third time, it locks you out. That is irritating. People do not like it. Someone can try over and over again until they hit the right combination. There are basic steps we can take to improve network security. Right now, some companies do it and some do not. The senator has been a leader in cybersecurity. The senator is right. We have to get better insight into how the public is being protected by private Service Providers. Host a couple of questions from twitter. I think they are really good. Is the cloud being monitored by the nsa . Wants the information leaves her home, isnt it Public Domain . Guest both are great questions. The cloud is being monitored. Problem with the snowden stuff is a gave you the impression that only nsa does this kind of monitoring. Are four orn, there five countries that monitor everything. When you get on your phone in washington, you should say high in several different linkages. Inyou should say hi several different languages. Nsa cannot monitor without a warrant. That does not apply to other countries Intelligence Services, including some of our allies who probably do monitor it. With the internet, there is not a lot of privacy left on it. Is your data of the domain when it leaves your house . This is a really good question and a difficult one because when you put something on the net, the law would say unless you have given permission for someone permission to have taken it or look at it, then no, it is still private and you own that data. The rules are fuzzy. When you put it on icloud or other Photo Services you can search and get other peoples pictures, is that public or private . It is probably public. It is a blurry line. We are still working off rules designed for print. They dont work for the new world. Host our next caller is marge from bay city, michigan, on the republican line. Good morning. Caller good morning. Welcome to mr. Lewis. The topic is interesting to me. I am on the trucking jobs board where you can go search for a for the last 17 or 18 years. I was kind of around for the beginning of this. I was the first of three trucking jobs boards online. We did not know about each other for a long time. Amazons came in and the baking systems got on board with it, that brought my attention to security. In the last seven to eight years, i put the burden on employers that advertise to take the job applications. I asked but never required Social Security numbers. Online is a very easy place for hackers to get into from what i can see. Company, i dont take that risk. I just dont take it. But my question to you is, and you may not know, if i were taking that risk today since i am not taking that risk today, how much liability is on me if the company they click to to go apply on the employers website, do i have responsibility if their information is stolen . Guest the short answer is liability is a hard one. We are seeing an increased interest in making companies liable when they lose your data. There has been an understanding that you are giving them data, they are protecting it. They dont, are they liable . Increasingly, the answer is yes. Because you are an intermediary, i think people would want to taken the you have necessary steps to make your own website safe. Were you the one that was broken into and stolen from . If you are doing the right thing, you are safe. If you are opening yourself up, you could be liable. Watch for liability to increase the next few years. Bismarck,us from north dakota, on the independent line is next. You are on the air. Caller good morning. Businesses cand make choices to make sure they are more secure. User, are their options with can employ to make sure our information is more secure . What are our options . It is almost mandatory now that you have information out there. I work in the Nonprofit Sector and students use a lot of cloudbased services to manage their information. To there ways for consumers evaluate where we are putting our information and are there other means for us to protect ourselves . Guest the question. I dont think you have the option of being offline unless you want to disconnect from the electrical grid and go back to the 19th century. It is just not going to be possible. You can do two things as a consumer. Best practices each individual can use. Antivirus you can get for free, a firewall, passwords. You have to be careful in the sites you visit. Some browsers like mozilla or google might warn you when you are visiting a dangerous site. Will make you 100 safe . No, but it will make it harder. So many people are vulnerable that cyber criminals will say i will go after these. Guy has not done anything, it takes 20 seconds. Make yourself a hard target. For the companies youre buying services from, you have a reputation. You might have to look at the Service Agreement and see what they have said they will do. It would not surprise me if in the near future we have Ratings Services appear online that rate each of the different clouds in terms of security. Put in your security provider, google them, see what they have. Host as the federal government opts to more Cloud Security strategies, what are measures they are putting in place to ensure the government information is secure . Guest hacking is not rocket science. Areuccessful hacks using basic techniques that have been around for years. It is always surprising when you read about some of these things. Someone was just not doing something basic. It is like not putting your seatbelt on and the car. Why are you surprised when something bad happens . The government is trying to get the agencies to take the basic steps. Make sure you update your software. Make sure you patch your software. Make sure you monitor your networks. Monitoring is not something you can easily do at home. But for an agency, see what is going on on your network. Realize how many devices are connected. One of the larger federal agencies did a survey and found a couple of hundred computers nobody knew about. They were plugged in and somebody left. That means they were not updated. Their protections were not updated. That means hackers have found a vulnerability, wanted to get into this agency, and now had 200 different ways to get in. The government is trying to move towards making the basic security of agencies better to eliminate these flaws. Darpa ares like looking at Science Fiction technology to make it harder. But we may not see that for a few years. A few years from now, we might be in a safer place. But it will take a few years to get there. Host a recent article said three years after the first cloud mandate, federal agencies are still struggling with implementation. They pulled 286 Government Technology leaders. They say their agencies are continuing to struggle to implement cloud strategies three years after the initiative was first launched. Gaolans submitted to the for approval in 2012, only one had been completed. 12 failed to report performance metrics. Less than half of managers were familiar with their agencies cloud strategy. Is is a blessing in disguise considering the vulnerability of the cloud . Is this something the government should be pursuing, this cloud first strategy . Guest the business advantage of using Cloud Services is it saves you money. I think we all agree it would be good for the government to save money. The second thing it does is it helps you perform better. If you do it right, it delivers better customer services. It would be great if the federal government could move faster into the cloud. There is no such thing as the government. There are dozens of agencies and hundreds of offices all doing their own thing and loosely coordinated. The sizee problems is of the rules you have to meet. I was in a meeting where someone said im going to bring in all the federal rules that apply to agencies for cloud. They needed a hand truck. It was literally this high. It was incredible. The iching . T likely it was to make the point we have not come up with a sufficiently streamlined way to make it easy for people to do. This is a place where the government could catch up to the private sector. Government has more responsibility. You dont want them losing your data. You dont want them losing National Security data. Of course, they will move slower. But we could pick up the pace. People have been trying. It is really hard. The government still prefers paper in many instances. Is still prefers phone calls and it still prefers phone calls and faxes. That is so 19th century. Host valerie, youre up next. Caller i was trying to find out with all this hacking information, is there any way once you have been hacked that you can retrieve that information back . Guest [laughter] no. I am laughing. I know how you feel. One thing with the internet is once it is out there, it is out there. Copies. An make 1000 particularly for cyber criminals. Were a lot of people dont know is there is a thriving black market for this stuff with thousands of participants. A bazaar where people can go and bid on it. They are not going to give it up. It is a real pain. You have to change passwords. You might have to get new credit cards. But there is no way to get it back. Host bill from kentucky on the republican line, good morning. Caller good morning. I have a question im out about how secure the Fingerprint Technology is that apple uses on the latest iphone or even the iris password. Youre talking about changing passwords. Do you change fingers . How does that work . I may, i might ask your guest also what he thinks about all these new Security Companies that come out. It seems like every day there is another ipo that specializes in security, especially dealing with the cloud. I was just wondering if he was encouraged by that or depressed. I was curious about that. Guest i am encouraged. I was in Silicon Valley about a week ago. Everywhere you turn, there was a new start up with 12 people trying to come up with a fix for cybersecurity. When you have hundreds of companies trying to find the answer, one will eventually get it. I think it is a positive development. That is called biometric identification because it is your physical self. The problem that i have had is your fingerprint, only you have it. You put it on the computer and it turns it into computer text. Once it is a digital copy of your physical fingerprint, anyone can use it. The people who use these systems like apple, iris scans, fingerprints, they put a little more effort into security. But right now, it is more a convenience and safety. Than safety. Governments use it. Iris scans. Fingerprints are more realistic. You have to Pay Attention to how well the data, the image of your fingerprint, is secured. A lot of times we dont know. This is a thing i dont use myself. I do online banking. I use passwords. I dont use biometrics. That is a choice. A lot of people do. My kids do. The cityjanuary, committee introduced a bill called the Data Security and breach notification act would provide a federal standard for companies to safeguard consumers personal information throughout their systems to quickly notify consumers if systems are breached. It would also require the ftc to issue Security Standards for companies that hold consumer information. In the case of a breach, companies would be obligated to notify customers to protect themselves from the risk of Identity Theft and fraud. Do you know the status of this proposal and what Else Congress toht be considering either increase protection for consumers or force companies to enhance security measures . Guest the other thing that is interesting is companies do not usually like being regulated. You cannot blame them. Theyre saying no federal regulations. What happened is the states, i think about 45 came up with their own rules. If you are a big company like apple or google and work across the country, you now have 45 different rule sets you have to meet. Now companies are saying we would like a single federal rule. It probably wont make it this year. It is hard to see any legislation passing this year. I think the Defense Authorization bill might pass. Everything else, dont hold your breath. This is a problem that is not going away. It would not surprise me if we got something in the next congress. Talk about consumers beefing up their personal security and taking more responsibility. To what extent is this our problem to fix versus the companys problem to fix in terms of enhancing Security Systems . The wait is phrased as there are usually 20 or 30 russian speaking groups, russianspeaking criminal groups that are as good as the nationstates Intelligence Services could you will have a hard time beating these guys. Theyre probably not interested in you unless you have a lot of money or you are a big company like target. They are going to win. As a consumer, there is not a lot you can do more than what we have already talked about. There are basic steps that can make you a harder target. You should do that. But if one of these groups decides they want your stuff, they will get it. We just have to live with that. The place we might have to think about strengthening our defenses is at the Service Provider level, the people who provide you Internet Service. They see everything that comes in and goes out. We dont want a monitoring our traffic and what we are doing. But it might be possible for them to identify an attack. They might be able to identify it. There is a little bit responsibility on consumers. At the end of the day, it is the Service Providers and Companies Holding your data, that is where the responsibility falls. Steve is calling for West Virginia on the democratic line. Caller my wife and i travel a lot. You wind up on Public Networks which are not secure. When i do, i use a Service Called tor if i find myself having to do banking or anything else. I would like to know your opinion of that and if i should use that on my home network when i get into banking and so forth. Guest that is impressive. People probably do not know what tor is, but it is a way to anonymize yourself, hide your home address, to make it difficult to take data and track it back to you. It was developed by the navy and then made public. Tor is good but it can become located. Right now it is funny. Some of the later phones, you can turn your phone into a wifi hotspot. You can turn your phone into a wifi hotspot if you were a criminal in an airport and collect information of everybody who logged on. I am not making this up. I had this happen to me in another country. I plugged in just into the Hotels Network and started getting ads for all kinds of things. When you travel and use Public Networks, you are at risk. At home, a little less risk. At home, it would make you safer to use tor but you might not have to do it. When you travel, expect to use it. Host the next caller is sander on the democratic line. Good morning. Caller i dont have a computer or anything. From someoneletter i went to get a test done. It says they have been their computer has been targeted in one of those cyberattacks. They believe some of my information was abducted. What do i do . Guest the good news is there is a law that limits, a federal law that limits your liability on credit cards to 50. I always use my credit card because i know the most im going to get hit is 50. Most Credit Card Companies will just eat that 50. They will absorb the cost. If you used your credit card, it is annoying. You will know it is hacked when you get the new credit card in the mail. But youre probably safe. This gets back to an earlier callers question about going offline. You are offline but all the people you are Getting Services from are not offline. Medical facilities have become a good target. There is not a lot you can do. Watch to see what you get from your credit card company. You dont even have a computer, so youre probably safe. This is one of the cases we are talking about. Even using are not computer, you can still be a victim. Host you can call in and join our conversation on the democratic line, on the and on theline, independent line. You can tweet us. I am reading them. On facebook or email us. Aboutve talked a lot russian groups or russianbased groups that might be perpetrators of some of these attacks. What can you tell us about the hackers and where the threat is coming from . Guest i am not being too i . Omy and my am the benefits outweigh the risk. I do everything online. Dont go away from this depressed. You can stay online and not experience many problems. The hackers themselves are among the best programmers in the world. Particularly in russia where there is not necessarily a lot of jobs, this is a great way to make money. Some of these people might be making 300,000 a year for a few weeks of work. It is a lot of money. They have zero chance of going to jail. That sounds like a good deal. But you have to have those programming skills. They tend to be young. They are not always smart about their behavior. I was looking at one russian hacker. He has a facebook account. Where he lives, one of his hobbies is hacking. Of them, the fbi and Justice Department have indicted some of the hackers. In the indictment, it says hacker x. That means we dont have a clue who they are. They are young, highly skilled, they live in countries that tolerate or encourage them, and they make a lot of money. Host in terms of the global marketplaces for the actual data, what can you tell us about that . Guest there are black markets on the internet. You have to know somebody to get in. It is not like you can just type in cyber crime blackmarket and find data. You can do that and they will likely review off. It is a black market. For people who know other criminals and the secret handshake, you can buy amazing stuff. You can buy personal information like credit cards or Social Security numbers, driessen drivers license numbers and lots of 5000 or 10,000. The prices is going down because so many have been stolen. You can buy fake storefronts. Souvenirs. Com looks real. You go online to buy your kid a totally bogus, totally criminal. , highlye Rating Systems sophisticated market that is accessible to these highend Skilled Cyber criminals. Host we will go back to our calls. Milton is in pennsylvania on the democratic line. What is your question . Caller i would like to address to mr. Lewis the concept of bits bytes and how that converts to servers and the internet concept. Guest ok. Type on the screen is not what the computer sees. You probably know this. Up being the computer language is basically 1s and 0s. Program words and the translates it into a language the machine can understand. It happens instantaneously. It has been around for years. That is what gets sent when youre doing something. You could imagine you could somehow tap into the internet. That is an old concept. And see words flowing by. That is not what you see. You see little electrical imp 1s andat represent 0s. The ability to translate is one way hackers get in. We have been using the same Technology Since the 1970s. At this point, it is probably too late to change because there are so many of the systems out there we are kind of stuck with the original model. Host next we will hear from steve in california on the democratic line. My questionlewis, or comment i would like to hear about is i work with older adults and lower income people. They have no idea what they are doing on the computer. For the seniors, i think they will never really understand this. Can maybe on some committee so you can see just how big this problem is . Do you have any ideas for addressing the people who do not understand technology at all . Thank you. Uest i have that problem i gave my mom a computer a few years ago. She will be getting things that say your computer is infected and click here to clean it. I go, mom if you are at home, dont click on that. I think youre right. Seniors will always have trouble. Shows it. Uestion the services under easy to understand. Under it is a complex technology. That means for seniors, the Service Provider has to take more responsibility. The people who provide your Internet Service might have to do more. Your grandmother is not going to be able to beat cyber criminals or the chinese army or whoever they are coming up against. People,ger lower income this is something we have not done a good job on. There has been an effort for a few years to teach people how to think about cybersecurity. It has not worked that well. It might be better to start in evenschool board or junior high because people use it so early now, just letting them know the basics. Here is how it works, here is what happened, here is what you need to do. The same way we have drivers ed classes. That is not my idea. It is an old idea. We have just not done a good job of implementing it. More work for the Service Providers and more training for the young people. Host our next last caller is nate from delaware on the independent line. Caller my question is towards bitcoin and what james lewis things about the technology of the queen bitcoin, not necessarily the politics of central bank versus nonfiat currency. Technology. Erging guest say that last part again . Decentralized items . Host are you still there . Coinr decentralized, the community is working on something called decentralized i. D. s. Your personal information does not go along with it. Bitcoin does not bother me much because it is basically a commodity. In the gold rush, you would bring gold in. People might bring in bales of cotton. It is just trading. You have a value assigned to the commodity, and people make money off it. I do not know what lies behind bitcoin and that makes me a little nervous because it is not transparent. The idea of hidden identity is like tor. That sells like a great thing to do. Bitcoin, the jury is still out. I dont use it but a lot of people do. Host james lewis at the center for strategic and International Studies, thank you for discussing cybersecurity today. Next, we will be concluding the washington journal. We hope you will join us tomorrow at 7 00 when we come back. [captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2014] [captioning performed by national captioning institute] itnext, a form on tell as and issues facing minority students and then a discussion on the caused and benefits associated with the health care law. After that, look at some of the Health Issues faced developing countries. The ucla civil rights project brought together College Professors from all over the country