Transcripts For CSPAN Washington Journal 20141215

,isplay an islamic flag igniting fears of an islamic attack. This story noting that police have cordoned off several blocks around the cafe as negotiators try to defuse one of the biggest security scares in australia in decades. It will keep you updated on that story if anything happens this morning over the course of the show. In the meantime i want to focus on this question of the u. S. Economy. Average and for viewers our question for viewers comes from this headline in the hill newspaper. The story noting that president obama is increasingly touting the rebounding economy as part of an effort to define his legacy on the heels of the strongest month the jobs report the white house has seen in years. Obama has used a series of features and Television Interviews to highlight his and ministrations stewardship of the economic balance. Senior administrators are expressing confidence that after fits and starts, the economy is ready to be supercharged by falling gas prices and is set , and they growth promise to make that a critical part of the message. It will be embedded in everything we do, a Senior Administration official said. We want to hear from our viewers. Should he be doing that . Should the president be taking credit for the improving economy . Do you think he is getting credit for the improving economy . If you agree or disagree, the phone lines are open. Host we highlighted those jobs numbers from earlier this month. Other indicators that have come out in recent days, a new gallup poll on u. S. Economic confidence. The index is at a 17month high, according to the latest gallup report. The gallup report noting that the index remains in negative territory, at negative eight, but it is the highest monthly reading. The pop closest it has come to positive territory in some time. For those who dont know what the index is made up of, it is an average of 2 components how americans view current anditions of perception perceptions of whether the economy is Getting Better or getting worse. The Economic Confidence index moving upwards since 2009. We are asking our viewers, should the president a credit for the improving economy . We will start with gainesville, virginia, on our line for democrats. Caller good morning. I am from gainesville, virginia. Thank you for taking my call. I think president obama did a magnificent job improving this country from the brink of collapse to what it is today. He came to office in 2009, our deficit was around 1 trillion per year and we were losing something on the order of 900,000 jobs a month. Wall street was broke. Pretty much everything was broke. That is what he inherited. And then he managed to pull us out of the brink for the first two years having all the houses he needed. Since then, republicans did every thing possible to turn him into a onetime president. So yeah, were sitting pretty, but had republicans given a little more support to him, we i will sayng more things to his credit host what specific actions do you agree with . What are the reasons you think the economy is where it is today . Caller well, first and foremost, the money he pumped into the economy at the time it was collapsing. I think it was nearly a trillion dollars to pump money back into the economy to stop the bleeding. Beenince that, he has legislating as best he could. The only thing he couldnt legislate was the holes in the tax code, where the billionaires and trillion years get taxed and trillionaires get tax cuts. Some of the biggest companies, like oil company, made well over 20 billion profit and didnt pay a single dime in corporate tax, whereas People Like Us pay tax everyday. Callingts go to luis in from fredericksburg, virginia, on our line for republicans. Caller i think he should take dit for the inflating housing and car prices. They are still quite expensive. And since the wages havent increased, we have been and 45,000 average for most americans. That means more than half makes less than that. Reinflatinghat by the prices, they did put money in peoples pockets and kept the stock market running up, but what they have done now in the senate with in the congress, with the derivatives bill, that will probably help considerably readse it is actually ng ofating reregulati the commodities market and it regulates to where in users are the only ones will be able to be in that market instead of the speculators. So that will be a big help over the next couple years. Yeah, sure, he should take credit. I mean, he kept the states and City Employees from going broke with 872 billion. Yeah, he should take credit for that. Host louise calling in on our line for republicans. Bringing up the derivatives section, the 1. 1 trillion spending bill, if you want to read more on that provision, paul krugman writes about it in todays New York Times in his column. The headline, wall streets revenge. We are talking about the Economic Situation right now. Should the president take credit for the improving economy one of the naked as was the jobs numbers that came out, 321,000. Obs added in november that kickedl story off this section, Republican National Committee Chairman rice riebus said reince p should0 21,000 jobs gain be routine, not because of obamas policies. Betty is waiting in gaithersburg, maryland, on our line for democrats. Caller thank you for taking my call. Of course you should take credit. I dont even know why you are asking question because president s take credit for the economy or blamed for the economy. Has listened to very good advisers, both republicans and democrats, but he listens to his advisers and he follow the policies necessary and many, many statistics right now on the economy are heading upward, good shape, so host you think a president should take credit. Do you think he is getting the credit he deserves . Caller only from democrats. The republicans are not giving him enough credit, no. Do you hear any republican congratulating him for the increasing strength of the economy . Twitter, christian seems to agree with you. Why not . If the economy was going in the other direction, he would be given the blame. The president of the Mellman Group who has worked for Democratic Candidates and causes if i were writes, president obama, i would be enormously frustrated. The country is treated more than 200,000 jobs each month for the past 10 months and the Unemployment Rate has dropped to a level that is lower than it was when the president was first elected. Yet the president s Approval Rating remains stuck in the low 40s, which caused his party grievous damage in the midterm elections. Why hasnt been Approval Rating been higher, given the Economic News . Voters look at different, less positive data. As ive discussed here before, there is no consistent relationship between Unemployment Rates and electoral outcomes. Voters look at their lives, how much money they are bringing in, and what you can buy. The economic statistic that most clearly reflects that realities change in real per capita disposable income, how much money people have to spend after taxes and what they can afford to buy with it given the cost of living. On that indicator, democrats is not very so well. Mark on the line for republicans. Good morning. Caller yes, i disagree with the fact that he should be given credit whatsoever. First of all, were looking at december. These months are always a larger your november,so december months are always larger hiring months. That fact is a little bit weak. Also, when you look at falling gas prices, that right there is stimulating the economy in huge raise. In huge ways. How is it that he can gain any kind of credit for that . I dontin general, no, see how he can be given credit for if there was a policy created, that would be a different subject, and i cannot name one policy one of the earlier callers brought up the stimulus effort after the president came into office. What do you think the legacy of the stimulus is . Caller well, the stimulus was agreed upon beforehand from president bush. Thats agreed upon was agreed upon, and yeah, he did have an effect, of course. I think it was something that he be givenso he could credit for some of the stimulus, yes. Host all right, we will go to justin waiting in maryland on outline for independents. Justin, good one. Hi, thank you. Like the last caller, i disagree that he should be given any credit. Look at what is changed here one of the callers brought up derivatives being slipped into the economic bill. We have seen some trends where the economy is bouncing back, moving and a good direction, but at the same time we are having these old issues coming back up. Wall street is biding its time andl it can swoop back in take us all by surprise. Thank you. Host on our twitter page, the top 1 , they are doing fine. The rest of us, not so much. A few other polling indicators on the economy, courtesy of the inside the beltway blog on the a poll thatimes, came out earlier this month. Is of americans say it still possible to start poor, work hard, and become rich in the United States. 32 disagree. 54 say overregulation in the u. S. Is the biggest in appearance to economic growth, 30 say there is too little regulation. Is thee the economy same, 26 say is getting worse, 30 say is Getting Better. System the u. S. Economic is fair and gives people equal opportunity to succeed, 45 disagree. Lets go to javier in florida. Javier, good morning. Caller i just want to tell you, sir i know the republicans say he is cooking the books. I mean, come on. Lets face the facts. This is history. This is reality. The other things, republicans can make a point, immigration, and i am right in the middle. Yes, a lot of americans such as theyd make it a felony. Thats only way the only way illegal aliens, breaking the law, they could care less about american law. Lets make it a felony. Americans, we break laws but we go to jail, and illegal aliens break laws and get rewarded. I mean, come on. Avier, we will be talking more about immigration policy and the efforts of customs and Border Patrol in our last segment today on washington journal. In our your money segment, we will talk about customs and border Virtual Funding and now he as grown and how he does grown. Should president obama take credit for the improving economy . Our lines are open, republicans, democrats, an independents. George is on the line from frostburg, maryland. Caller good morning, sir, how are you . Host good. Caller and happy holidays to you. Host same to you. Caller i hope you dont cut me off and let me finish. Three social illnesses in this country. The social illness of agreed, the social illness of corrupt power, and the social illness of castration. Thats reality. The unfortunate fact is, the heublican party has decided wants to do everything he can to destroy mr. Obama image. All over the world, people are rebelling against our country because of the screen, while people down on wall street are stealing money and the trillions of dollars. A guy up in Staten Island is being murdered for selling cigarettes. ,his image of my country promoted by the Republican Party, is destroying the good image this country once stood for. To bee got to find a way like we preach what we practice. That is what i want to say. Host on twitter, yes, the president should get credit did he is up against a strong Propaganda Machine so he will not get credit. The president has 2 years left in office, that point being made galston, a senior fellow of government at the Brookings Institution who served as an advisor to clinton during his administration. He says in my be a bit early for president obama to tell the ou the economy and other accomplishments. Thesuggests that administration is starting to look back instead of looking forward. That is how the story that kick off our discussion ends today. Ralph in wilmington, delaware, on our line for democrats. Good morning. Ralph, you with us . Caller i definitely think president obama should get credit for the improvement of the economy. After all, it was going south and they would be all over him about that. ,ne thing i have to say, though i was a retiree and i was picking up trash and cleaning up at a bank parttime about two and after they build up those banks, some of the people that worked have a picture of president obama on a food stamp. He rescued the banks. The nerve, i thought. That is all i have to say. Thank you very much. In wilmington, delaware. An interesting story on who gets and doesnt get credit for the, coming from cnn from last week. That he gets no blame for the economy putin gets no blame for the economy get the russian economy is tanking after a bludgeon of western sanctions, but it is not president she Approval Ratings in either country. Poll,ccording to a cnn disapprove of president obama, while 85 of russians approve of putin, according to a november poll in that country. Kelly in texas, our line for republicans. Should the president be taking credit for the improving economy . Caller good morning. Thank you for taking my call this morning. I do not believe that the president should take credit for the economic job boom. My question is, what kind of jobs are being provided . Jobs at minimum wage cannot really help the economy. Specifically what kind of jobs come that is what i am concerned about. So many of the hardworking americans that are making minimum wage on government subsidies, which is on which is understandable, given the cost of living. No, i dont think he should take credit. That is my comment. Thank you so much. Host more of your calls in a second, but the Senate Report on interrogation that came out last week and made so many headlines also made some of the headlines from the sunday shows yesterday, and it is now those interviews that are making the front page stories of several of todays papers. He was the lead story in the New York Times. Defending cia, cheney revisits bushera debate. I would do it again in a minute , he says in support of his legacy. Presson nbcs meet the and he talked about the report released last week. [video clip] seriouslyort is flawed. They didnt talk to anybody who knew anything about the program, anybody in the program. The best guide for what in fact happened is the 1 the report that was produced by the three cia directors and deputy directors of the cia when the program was undertaken. It lays out in very clear terms what we did and how we did it and with respect to trying to define it torture, i come back to the proposition that torture is what the al qaeda terrorists did to 3000 americans on 9 11. There is no comparison between that and what we did respect to enhanced interrogation. Another voice from the Republican Party on the sunday shows yesterday was john mccain, a man who has personal expense with torture from his time in captivity. He was on cbs face the nation and here is what he had to say. [video clip] i make of a whole range of motors from people who were so understandably whole range of motives from people who were so understandably alarmed and angered by the attack of 9 11 that the first motivation is to do whatever is necessary to make sure there is never repetition. All of us felt that. Someng to now, frankly, because of history there were violations of the geneva conventions for the treatment of prisoners, there were violations of the convention against torture, which Ronald Reagan was a primary signatory of. And i think in retrospect, some of these practices fly in the face of everything that america verizon stands for. Values and stands for. Thes far as i know, you are only republican who thought it was a good thing to make this report public. Well, frank, i also had some mixed emotions about it, but the reason why i came down and thatthat we should is is what america is all about. We do things wrong, we make mistakes, we review those, and we found never to do them again, thisrankly, this idea that is going to make our enemies more likely to attack us, i dont think so. They are beheading americans right now. That part of it i dismiss. What we need to do is come clean. We move forward and we vow never to do it again. That is what we did after abu and other times in our history. We are not a perfect nation but we acknowledge our mistakes and we move forward. And we are not going to be inhumane. More we will be talking about that senate interrogation report, specifically its impact on u. S. Foreign policy efforts, in our next segment of upshington journal coming in about 15 minutes. We will be joined by Steve Clemons. He is the washington editor at large of the atlantic. We have until then to talk about this question we ask you, should the president take credit for the improving economy . Should he do it, can he do it . What specific policies would help if you think so . If you dont think so, tell us why. Rick is in columbus, ohio, on our line for independents. Caller good morning. Thanks for taking my call. I fully believe that president obama should take full credit for the economy recovery. His stimulus package come his immediate actions right after taking office got things moving again. Businessese u. S. Havent done their part to actually, you know, show their investment. They are not increasing wages. They are stalling hiring when they need to hire. It is the american businesses themselves with greed and selfinterest have jeopardized our economy. The republicans did everything they could to stop him from having any success at the detriment of all americans. They were working to do anything that they could regardless. When they tried to play brinkmanship, when you had to spending cuts because they would not act for their own special interests. That is all i really have to say. Thank you. Host all right. Rick not the only caller to bring up wage issues. Also brought up by mark mellman in the column we read earlier. Here is a New York Times story on the latest numbers that came out. After jobs report, obama takes a little credit. Despite the fact that the economy has added jobs for 57 straight months, the president has until now steadfastly avoided a triumphant tone. That is because the job growth has not been matched by wage growth, which is meant that Many Americans are not feeling benefits of the recovery. That may have changed with the november employment report. In addition to a betterthanexpected growth in the numbers of jobs, workers are finallyly wages rebounding as well. Lets go to vicki, who is waiting in california on our line for democrats. Caller good morning. Yes, he should take credit. Hes done a wonderful job, despite all the attack in a stick and hateful the antagonistic and hateful cooperation he gets from republicans, mostly white people, some ignorant black people. Yes, he should take credit for it because he has also implemented a stunning a minimum wage implemented us getting a minimum wage. From bigt get help businesses like walmart, macys, wendys. When you are paying people minimum wage or under minimum wage and you are not even giving them fulltime hours. Host charlie is in in new york on our line for republicans. Charlie, good morning. Caller yes, good morning. This program really should be on the comedy channel. All of the jobs created our parttime, minimumwage jobs. The Unemployment Rate is dropping because people americans dropping out of the workforce. The real on a claimant rate is unemployment real rate is as high as any of the worst years of the great depression. Under obama, our Credit Rating was downgraded. Under obama, china has taken over as the strongest economy in the world. This is the wonderful job this president is doing. Give me a break. Host charlie in new york. Rites iner, carol w that many of the states that are doing well are red states with governors who have turned their states around. We will talk about more of the Economic Situation in the states and the state budget outlook for segment. Ur 8 309 15 rolyou want to tune in, ca and others, to watch that segment coming up in an hour or so. Reggie is in washington on our line for independents. Caller good morning. 2010, when the economy was that, the president took the blame. When the economy is doing better, i think the president should get credit. Thank you. Host what specific policies do you think are the reason for the economic turnaround . What actions by the president do you think helped the most . Caller i think the stimulus package back in 2009. Host that would be your number one. Do you have others . Caller no, that is my number one. Host reggie in washington this morning. Clarksburg, west virginia, on our line for democrats. What, wees, i tell you got to give them credit because he designed the cars to get good gas mileage and all the things with conservation. But first, i must say that cspan, thank you so much. We dont have any regular press anymore. The conglomerates have taken over cnn, nbc. Headline news isnt even Headline News and more. Anymore. I watched the senate pass this thing. I disagreed with so much on saturday night and you were the only ones who talk about it all evening. I dont know what america would you without cspan. Have a nice day. The newspapers talking about a spending bill you would talking about, that 1. 1 trillion spending bill we have been breaking out since it was first released late last tuesday night. Still some bits and pieces billg from that 1600 page as reporters go through it. Heres a story from the New York Times today. Food and belching cows are the winners. The National Cattlemens Beef Association is scored several victories. A program that was championed by Senate Majority leader harry reid and las vegas casinos, that specific provision was hilighted by senator ted cruz, who blasted it is corporate welfare. Said,i checked, mr. Cruz casinos were very profitable endeavors that didnt need taxpayers helping them out. 1600page budget compromise that was passed by the house last week in the senate on saturday. The wall street journal today, the lead story in that paper calling the budget deal a rare bipartisan success. Read more of that in the wall street journal. Jay is up next, winstonsalem, North Carolina, our line for independents. Caller hello . Host hi, jay, you are on washington journal. Caller oh, fantastic. Let me thank you for taking my call. Lets go back to the beginning. Here is a president who in the beginning of his term said i want to work with everybody. I dont have all of the ideas and anybody who has ideas, lets come together and get everything on the table and make the best possible decision for the American People. Ok. Mitch mcconnell, several other people came on board. Look what happens. After he find out what the president agenda is, he was back to his party and he is doing estimate doing that. That is doing this, doing that. That is the most disingenuous stance that any politician politicians, how about representatives . Politics is again. If it does not reflect the people, it does nothing for the people. Ever since the time this guy took office and wanted to generally Work Together, it has been nothing but dissension. Date is the big it is the biggest i hate to use the bigoted is but a better word. How they are looking at the president , how he cannot get anything done. Yes, you should tak he should take credit for the economy, because when it was blown straight to hades, what should we do, what should we do host on the racial component, we had this brought up before in the segment should do you think it is a racial issue or do you think it is discriminate by the president s desk this agreement by the policies he is putting disagreement b about the policies he is Going Forward . Caller it is to fall. I would say it is purely racial, as i see it. Host why do you see it that way . First, heres the person who holds the metal of power virtually for the world. Everyone looks to america, looks to america. If everyone is looking to america, first they called him up black president. Let me correct that. Barack Hussein Obama is the first kenyan president of the message, because his father was from kenya, is grandmother was one of the head women in their villages. Adont know if anyone has tribal understanding of being a head woman or respected elder, very big thing in a tribal traditional community. You haveat happens is this guy, finally america elects their first black president , but instead of working together, it has been total dissension. No one likes his policies, no one likes the health care. They offer no alternative. It is still take take take take take, and if nothing. Ththe e makes schwa sound, i dont know the American People this, the American People that. Means we, everyone within the sound of my voice. , everyoneeans we present at this moment. One is exclusive, one is inclusive. I believe that when he uses this theythe American People, are not thinking about me. They are hardly thinking about you, depending on your social economic status. Host talking about going back to the president , the beginning of the president s time in office and comparing the is what devont then did in a letter to quad city times. Give obama the credit hes due. President barack obama inherited a 1. 4 trillion budget deficit, 14. 2 real unemployment. Now he has a 485 billion budget deficit and 11. 5 real on employment rate, 50 straight months of privatesector job growth. 50 straight months. Other good Economic Indicators . 18,000,was all most u. S. Many fracturing booming, and economy continues to expand at around 4 . Does obama get any credit . Not update. All we hear are angry old man screaming that obama is destroying capitalism. It is like a mob complaining about the weather when there isnt a cloud in the sky. Alabama on our line for republicans. Thanks for calling washington journal. Caller hey, good morning. The way i look at it, i dont just go by the unemployment numbers. 1. 1 trillion budget. 18 trillion in debt and climbing. We have 54 million americans on food stamps. I hear all the time on tv where people are saying we have got to feed the hungry in america. This is what they say. 20 million children go to bed every night hungry. We have working poor and poor without a job. They know that for them there is no american dream. The jobs they are creating, like that one caller said, most of them are parttime jobs, lowpaying. This is all you can get. They consider 30 hours fulltime now, and you have to go through a temp program. This is not progress host how are you seeing that specifically in alexander city, alabama . And theabout your town Economic Situation you are seeing since the president has been in office. Caller it is about the same could i have rental properties so i see it. These people are struggling. We have got a lot of little businesses coming in, but they dont pay more than eight dollars. I have people getting paid 7. 30 an hour. Of course they are glad to have a job, but they are working 20 hours a week. Had one who was working 28 and they cut her back to 23. This is what is going on in the real world. I dont. The stock market is 18,000. I dont care if the stock market is 18,008 the Little People are not feeling it. I dont blame obama or give him credit. I blame all of them up there. They are filthy rich and getting richer as americans are suffering. The one thing i really, really dislike about obama, he was asked one time, what is the one thing you regret not getting t done . And he said he was allowing amnesty for illegal it was allowing amnesty for illegals. What is he doing . All these americans are still suffering and now he is giving amnesty to 5 million illegals so they can come out of the shadows and compete for these jobs, which i really jobs anyway which are not really jobs anyway, with struggling americans. Host alexander city, alabama. Bringing up immigration once again, we will be talking with customs and Border Patrol in our segment whenmoney we talk about the budget over the past decade and Staffing Levels and issues within cbp. That is at 9 15 this morning. Five more minutes in this segment of washington journal this morning. Capitol heights, maryland, on our line for democrats. Caller how you doing . First of all, i want to thank this program, because this program has learned me to respect other peoples opinions, right or wrong, or different. I do think president obama should get credit for what he has done with the little help that hes had. I also feel that america has become very selfish and ungrateful for all the things that we have. We needed to grow up and be honest and stop fighting each other. Everyone is looking at us as a pace. And we set the all this bickering and fighting and disagreeing on small things we want accomplishments. We are keeping our eyes on childish things and not looking at the big picture for the whole world. That is all i have to say, man. Host before you go, we have been asking folks who say that the president does deserve , what specific programs that the president has moved over the past six years do you think were the biggest factor in where we are today economically . Caller for me, just for me, it is hard to say because he had to do so much, had to implement so many things. Shown of policies double shown implementation of policies, so much has to get done and one is not more powerful than the other. I cant tell you what policy i personally feel made the difference, because he had to do so much. Twitter, her specific reasons why the president deserves credit. President obama deserves credit for the economy bailout,lus, the auto cash for clunkers, mortgage programs, jobs act the u. S. Back to u. S. David on our line for independents. Caller good morning. Host go ahead, david. You are on washington journal. Caller i feel like the people that deserve credit for the t improved economy are the entrepreneurs that entrepreneurs in the communities, hardworking citizens that Work Together to provide for their families every day, pay their taxes, support the churches and the families and friends and everybody who, even though they are poor, people who receive public , that spend money in the communities and provide for the families. Host do you think that politicians and president s cant take credit for what is happening with the economy . You indicate had it comes from the communities and the taxpayers and job workers themselves. Caller yeah, i think that the government is a representation of what the people need. People like entrepreneurs, black people, strong people who carry the community and help their families and friends, they are the ones who deserve the credit for improving economy. Host and nancy is in logan, ohio, on our line for republicans. Good morning. Caller good morning. You know, i believe we have the lowest participation since in the 1970s. Isnt that where we are at now . Host yes, job for dissipation levels i will get you numbers from the latest report Participation Rate in november held at 62. 8 , and it has been essentially unchanged since april. Go ahead, nancy. Caller pretty low, isnt it . Pretty low. That is how we run our government the money comes from the people that are working is not where the government debts or money . Get our money . You know that, dont you . Host you talking about tax dollars . Caller how do we pay for things . Isnt it tax dollars . Host its your time, i want to let you talk. Caller and what im saying, how much money are we printing today . And how much are we borrowing . We talk about improving economy. Im sorry, weve got the lowest work participation in 50 years. We are borrowing 70 billion a month or printing that. That is backed by what . Backed by what . When you just see printing money. And are borrowing 18 trillion we have not even seen what is going to happen with this health care that is going to come down. Nothing has happened so far, as bad as it is. Next year, when the employers start saying i can pay 20,000 a year for Health Insurance for my employee or i can pay 2000, what is that going to look like . We have not seen anything in the regulations. We have not seen anything yet. Lowest participation, borrowing 78 billion a month, borrowing money to pay our way here. When all that is cut off, whats going to happen . Host nancy in logan, ohio, our last caller for this segment of washington journal. Want to give you an update on what is happening in the senate, from the wall street journal. Senate republicans and them up as a sport in a 10hour session, majority leader harry we took the opportunity to advance harry reid the opportunity to advance nominations this week including a nominee for u. S. Surgeon general and another nominee, linken, passed by president obama to be get the just be deputy secretary of state, and the nomination of sarah saldana, assistant secretary of Homeland Security, in charge of enforcing u. S. Immigration laws, and a few others noted in that wall street journal store if you want to check that out. You can watch the Senate Action on cspan2. Votes expected around 5 30 this afternoon. Up next, we will return to the Senate Intelligence committees post9 11the cias interrogation entertainment program. Atlanticons of the tells us what that means for president obamas Foreign Policy efforts. Detailingew report the Fiscal Health of the 50 states. We will get to that in a second. Last week the Cato Institute posted an old a on surveillance examining issues of National Security, Law Enforcement, and civil liberties. Heres a bit from that event. [video clip] 66 of americans expressed concern that the nsa was over surveilling. 69 of americans say that google is surveilling which we are not. The good news with that question is that you can ask me and i can answer definitively, and the answer is no. The data shows up in the course of normal operation. And you use that data business model. Fair . Thats fine. For americans who are concerned, what can you say to them about google and the way private sector as a general statement, people are very concerned about privacy, and i think that the recent illegal disclosures of personal information and photos, ttack, Jennifer Garner attack, and so forth, heightens this sense that is dangerous. The normal person says i just dont understand this, why cant you get this fixed . And we are working on that. Aret of these questions coming back to am i safe on the internet, and my about to be attacked by a virus, is my personal information about to be disclosed to everyone . I think that is what is driving it. That is what is driving concern in europe. People are correctly worried that incredibly important , privateon about them information, will get released. We have a whole bunch of mechanisms. We have a page which will allow you to control what we retain about you. I invite you to take a look at it. It is called the dashboard. Tore is a way in chrome browse called incognito browsing where no data at any time is maintained about what you are doing. Those arele services that have been around for a long time. Part of my answer to the question of googles role here is that we need to maintain a certain amount of information for our systems to work, but unlike many others, we make it very easy for you to delete that or avoided entirely. Washington journal continues. Host you can go to cspan. Org. But now on washington journal, we are joined by Steve Clemons, washington editoratlarge of us forlantic, joining discussion of president obamas Foreign Policy agenda for his last two years in office. We want to start with the release of the senate interrogation report and how it was deceived by u. S. Allies and adversaries last week received by u. S. Allies and adversaries last week. Ally of the United States like germany or england or france or others is going to have to square with its own people what role it played or didnt play as part of the interrogation program, and part of this program that is not received as much attention is the extraordinary rendition program, where we ran a fleet of cia planes around the world and countries cooperated with us for secret prisons in places like poland. These governments are now on the line with their own citizens and it does impact them in different ways. Germany has a much larger debate brewing about a lot of these issues, from intelligence and surveillance and things going on that they have been studied with United States frustrated with the United States. It puts pressure on allies. It depends on which ones we are talking about. If it is a country like russia, preceded by the soviet union, and those that still celebrate it say that all big countries do this sort of thing, so it is a validator. Other countries like iran or north korea, some of the gulags and treatment of its citizens there, essentially it is trying to basically shined his big as they as big a light can on with acs and american labs in human rights protection, because we could as i see a lot of other nation we criticize a lot of other nations and the generation would point to the u. S. And what it did in violating the human rights of the people that it detained. Host speaking of u. S. Allies, how long do you think the u. S. Is going to be dealing with the fallout from this report before they can move on and further their foreignpolicy objectives without this overhanging what they are trying to . Guest i think right now, when it comes to large challenges out there, like isis, in which you have a large group of nations that have come together, that is an immediate problem and i dont think this report will undermine those relationships because strategic relationships happen on different levels. There are nearterm challenges we have to deal with that are midterm and longterm. I think that this discussion about detainee interrogation, abuse, and essentially grey wars arswhat happens with grey w is they are not official wars, they are between the laws and rules we have set up. At some level we will be struggling with this for a very long time. When it comes to war fighting and things were doing with isis, this wont be an issue. And at who offered his perspective on what this means for our relationship with our allies, cia director john brennan guest in light of it. Host spoke out at a press conference last thursday. Heres what he had to say. [video clip] ive spoken to many of my foreign counterparts over the past week to allow them opportunity to prepare for the and theof this document event that there was going to be any implications for them as a result of information contained in this document, and then could be correlated with other information that is out there, and speculation as to what their countries, the governments, the services might have done. Yes, ive spoken to many of them, and there was strong concern. There are things that we do with our Partners Services under our authorities that we have covert action authorities, and covert is something that they were hoping was going to remain such. But what i told them is that it is important for our partnership to move forward and be strengthened in the years ahead is of the challenges we face it because of the challenges we face and i am making sure we are able to do that. Host john brennan there saying he spoke to allies before the report came out. How much of a heads up was given of what was included in the report . Was anything in their shockingly new for u. S. Allies . Guest i wouldnt say shockingly new, but a lot of people who take a look at what we are isling the torture report that this debate has been chugging along for quite a while. The journalist jane mayer of the new yorker won a Pulitzer Prize for her book the dark side, which went into fights in the white house and divide in the Bush Administration. The Bush Administration was not cohesive around these policies. There were different schools of thought and battles fought around that. This is a return, if you will, of a debate that played out previously. Gibney, the film maker, won an oscar for his still taxi to the dark side, which was prison and the allegations made at that time. We have seen this before. Dana priest of the Washington Post won a Pulitzer Prize for exposing the secret prisons around the world that we had in mind that we had denied. Secret wehighly see that highly secret, classified material has been revealed and we go through a process with allies that is often uncomfortable. I remember the foreign minister refused to confirm or deny the secret prisons inside polling, which inside poland, which dana priest had uncovered. Host went to the site of one of those, photos from outside. Guest it was extraordinary, and extraordinary journalism that we dont often think about. Emerging isebates should any of these people within the cia, which even john brennan has a knowledge has acknowledged my past with a loud should there be any indictments, any Legal Process attached to this, and there is a great group of americans who think there should be and others who think that this was a grey area. Of theu are in that muck discussion, which i think is important for the nation when you look at our allies and what they are dealing with and what they may have connected to come it creates similar things within their country. Everything happening here creates echo effects in their media and among their citizens and voters, and to the degree that there are people who allow or disallow corporation with the United States in covert programs, this will create political realities that have to be digested in these other countries. Host among those in the last category of those who did not think the report should be released, senator ted cruz, and in one of his statements after the report was coming up, saying the problem is that it will ensure that our friends know longer trust us and our enemies no longer fear us. We are talking about u. S. Foreign policy efforts. What happens to them in the wake of the socalled interrogation torture report released last week by the Senate Intelligence committee. We are talking to Steve Clemons of the atlantic. Phone numbers host we will start on our line for republicans. Andrew is calling in from glen rock, new jersey. Caller good morning, steve, how are you . Guest doing well, andrew. Caller nice to see you. Does the fact that no one directly involved in implement the cia program was consulted for the report make it less credible . Secondly, do you think that people have said bad things about the program would make it more difficult for the cia Going Forward in prosecuting the war though, as ien understand it, most of these specific programs have winding down . Thats it, thank you. Guest on the subject of the interviews, if i were running this investigation i would have made every effort myself to try to talk to those who had authorized the program, run the program, and been part of the program. The scale Dianne Feinstein has been incredibly defensive over this point the scale of the investigation,emos, with a cia that resisted and entire intelligence establishment, in fact, that resisted every aspect of what the senate was trying to do, to the degree that it spy on the computers of Senate Staffers were looking at aspects of the panetta report i think when you look at that and the hostility between these two branches of government, i can forgive that. I dont think the credibility of the report is undermined by not having done the interviews. But of course, if you could have done those interviews, they should have done this interviews and it would be great but i find it a small point. Host a massive number of references and footnotes. They basically did an incredible, sort of, that. Hensive, java doing it requires a topsecret security clearance which i do not have. Mean what does the report in our efforts with the war on terror . Guest that is the debate on the front page of the New York Times today. Does, essentially, the expression and revelations that we have done this prevent it from happening in the past . The answer from dick cheney and the door is still open for future president s and future cias to engage in that are in the interest of the United States. As opposed to creating a legal infrastructure that would prevent all of the methodologies we have seen unfold, under this president , these methodologies are not any longer in place, but they could be in the future. Inre is nothing, either terms of criminal indictment or by a change in the law that we have that i think prevents the use of these techniques in the future. I do not happen to believe that these methodologies are useful in the socalled war on terror. There is a film that has a very powerful commentary from other league in lead investigators and the fbi and other intelligence establishments above the methodologies the United States has used in the past. A variety of other forms to bring information from those people detained in highstakes situations for the nation. Host can you talk about with the release of the report means for the closing of the prison at Guantanamo Bay . Efforts that the president has tried to do from the beginning of his presidency, the prison at guantanamo also being impacted by the spending bill that was passed by the house and senate on saturday. Here is the headline from the Washington Times this morning guest i think a lot longer. The reality is, a lot of people want to close it up your why did we not . It is because the notion of moving people out that are considered highly dangerous to another arena, even a highly secured facility in the United States, would not be funded right congress. Have the ability to withhold any of these business within the geographic United States. They want to give the prisoners in this gray zone, in cuba, because the notion of perhaps our laws do not apply there and we can live in a zone with these detainees and not be subject to the same kinds of human rights and Legal Protections that we would afford anyone within our borders. Congress intervened. I think the report makes those politics even more dicey. Particularly with Election Results we sell recently, it is not likely that that impulse of moving them also the notion that he gives, at least a Republican Congress, the ability to criticize the president over detainees, and ongoing political story. I think guantanamo will remain open for a long time, and i regret that appeared i think it remains one of the biggest items that helps terrorist recruiters recruit against the United States and to go to war against andnd kidnap our people wreak havoc around the world. It simultaneously will not be closed, and yet, for those people who talk about the National Security of the United States, it is abhorrent that it continues to be there. Next president will have to deal with this legacy, as well. We have a call from rhode island, line for democrats. You are on with Steve Clemons with the atlantic. A hard subject to decipher up you look at john mccain and he was a prisoner of war during the vietnam war. Should be held to a different standard. On the other side, when i look at what is going on with isis, beheading people in whatever, they do not have any rules. We, as americans, i guess, we tried to hold ourselves above that. I am not the type of person that would torture anybody. It would make me sick maybe there are other methods we could use to get information out of them. Maybe a little bit of sugar is worse than something better, you know, make friends with them, talk to them. But i do not think, at the same time, that we should prosecute people that for doing this in the past in this situation. Mccain is set to be the incoming chairman of the Senate Arms Services committee in the 114th congress. Make of the voice he is going to bring to the president s foreignpolicy efforts over the next two years . Be onejohn mccain will of the most fascinating senators in this congress. He has an incredible key point of conscience on these issues of how to conduct war, how to deal with enemies, how to deal with human beings to me even if they are the most abhorrent fighting a spirit in part, because of his experiences, but in part, because he has a very cop looks understanding, in my view, of both strategy and how to deal nearterm things like isis and struggle through these debates. These are not binary choices we have some people in white hats and some people and black had spewed United States is a complex place people and i hear about Ted Cruz Making a binary statement, saying sometimes we need to be bad to deal with the bad, that is not the way the world is put together. I admire senator mccain quite a bit for bringing a seriousness to these debates. When it comes to the broader effort, i think he will hold the administrations feet to the fire on strategic questions. Any president any presidency struggles between being a maker of Foreign Policy with very clear, elevated strategic goals versus becoming a reactive Foreign Policy that reacts to problems that appear and pop up often times. Think mccain sometimes holds the administration to account for either reacting are not reacting. Sometimes i think senator mccain is unfair in what he is doing her but he is also basically saying, what is the strategic course and direction, lets have a debate in the nation about this. I cant criticize, and a constructive way, senator mccains part of that i can criticize, in a constructive way, his part of that. With isis, i am old enough to remember well a lot of the tensions of the cold war and the struggle of the United States with the soviet union. The things we read, the book darkness at noon and other things show that the soviet union did the kinds of things were talking about today and the United States was a beacon on the hill. The world had a choice, darkness or light . They could be part of a world where people had rights and could engage in trade, could send your kids to be educated, to do greater and Better Things based on merit, then there parents did. Or you have a different social and society choice. Host the white hats again . Guest that is right, scandal. Commenting about isis, a lot of people like what Vice President cheney did yesterday, saying because isis is the heading people, somehow we need to engage in equally horrific behavior, that is absolutely wrong. Terrorists are trying to look like theyre trying to achieve legitimacy in the eyes of an audience and there is some big problem appeared the way to shut down terrorists yes, kill them. That is fine. But you need to steal their audience from them. You do that by providing a very , teaching theive lessons of how Civil Society works to help. Do is not sugar, but it is much stronger and more compelling in the world than what we see from isis. No one wants to live under a regime of isis. Host former Vice President dick cheney we showed a clip of him from the sunday shows earlier in the program. Here is a story from usa today. A key quote from an interview yesterday on meet the press were talking with Steve Clemons, washington editor at large for the atlantic and senior fellow and founder of the American Strategies program at the new America Foundation. He is here for your questions and comments. We have a call from South Carolina on the line for independents. It has been a while since i have called, so please give me a couple minutes to first of all, dick cheney dont have no credibility. There is a book called secret war for the cia. The cia has been around for years, bypassing the congress, doing all these things. The last point is on Foreign Policy. Iraq, Saddam Hussein had to go. Look at iraq now, chaos. Go, chaos. Had to mubarak had to go, chaos. Now they want to move assad. Our full our foreignpolicy is a disaster. Do not understand where are the military leaders at . We cannot do all this by ourselves. Host he has several points there. Guest they are interesting. He made some strong points. When the United States was at war with germany and japan, the aftermath of those wars in which bad regimes were knocked off required the United States to essentially adopt those nations fully, bring them into their economic climate , this political it in japan, we had u. S. Government officials involved in helping to write the japanese constitution. We established bureaucracies and japan to administer key parts of the state it same thing happened in germany are today, as we have engaged in regime change and removed helped create the conditions to remove qaddafi or saddam his and, the kind of level of responsibility as anued ownership almost state for which the United States has ultimate ponsibilities securing that is something we are debating. Some want to do that on the cheap. Others look at that kind of colonization, if you will, as being something that does not work in todays world. I think he raises a very interesting point about whether we can engage in that kind of activity at the level of funding and whitenot at it was interesting, in afghanistan, we were spending upwards about a hundred 20 million 120 million a year. He would say, couldnt you buy and sell the country eight or nine times over in its entirety for the amount we were spending on the military . We were Training Afghan soldiers at about 12 billion a year. It shows the disproportionate costs and effects in some of these countries. Now as we pull out, youre seeing warlords rise again. You are seeing the kind of security marketplace, if you will, around afghanistan, be shaped like and yet, by pakistan, and other players. So the level of costs for the United States to deliver the sort of permanent security for any of these countries that are in complicated neighborhoods is very, very high. So if you knock off a leader, it can lead to chaos, can lead to something else, unless the stayd states decides to there very permanently. That is one of the issues john mccain has been raising. I think we need to be more cautious, like the viewer said, because it engages in a responsibility for us later on but i think the americans and republicans are not willing to pay for. You have to remember that this is beginning to end. Host what about the timeframe for getting all u. S. Personnel out . Guest all combat soldiers are supposed to be up by the end of this month. That will not be the case. We will have a residual troop presence continue which was going to be a thousand or 9000, but it will now be up to 15,000 troops are larger. There has been an order signed by the president where they called a secret order that is no longer secret in which some of the combat functions of some of those troops and soldiers will be maintained, and they will be permitted to continue to go after the taliban and engage in special operations and actions throughout afghanistan. Our ongoing military presence will continue in afghanistan into 2015 and probably longer. For west virginia, a call republicans. Good morning. You are on with Steve Clemons. Caller good morning. You know, it is easy to criticize 10 years after the fact. But my mindset goes back to the morning i watched those planes fly into those towers and people jumping out to their deaths. You know, my mindset was at that time, give me a knife and i will show you how to cut off a few heads. And it is easy for these senators to come up with a report like this. The report i am waiting on is the report of how many of these senators encouraged lois lerner to sale to silence the people and how many people in the white house told lois lerner to silence the people. That is the report that i am waiting on. You not be a hypocrite lets talk about that. Brings up 9 11, as dick cheney did in his sunday show appearance yesterday, and of course, several others have since the interrogation report was released. Guest i think people reacted in a lot of different ways on 9 11. I was hosting a program in the u. S. Senate that morning. I was in the senate and we were evacuated out to her later that morning, i jogged over and saw the pentagon and went right up to the pentagon were the plane had crashed you could sort of athe in thee bre smoke, and fuel. I hope that the United States stood strong by its values per we were attacked in a way we never had been before. It is times of strap that stress that shows the rest of the world what youre made of. I respect the viewers reactions, but we need to respect that a lot of people react in different ways. I also watched my friend, james woolsey, former director of the caa, the come the first person on tv to allege that Saddam Hussein may have been behind those attacks. We so what happened as a result of that line of thinking. We saw a kind of overreaction to her john mccain, when i worked in the u. S. Senate for a democrat, john mccain was a friend, and he would say it is always a disaster when the United States and its government react emotionally and immediately to many of the things to we have to be careful of the mistakes we make are with all due respect, i would just say that in those moments of high tension and high emotion, it is important to remember what ande made of as a nation why we have a constitution and rules and laws that make us different from every other nation. Host what year was that in the senate . 1995 to 1998, i was with jeff bringing to him. Host we have a call from South Carolina on our line for democrats. Caller good morning. This is my first time calling cspan. I pray she what you are doing. I am retired in South Carolina, originally from pennsylvania. I want to talk about the revelations of the war crimes of the United States by our own. Overnment their soldiers like Bradley Manning that they exonerated. Thank you. Host for viewers who may be in clear on Bradley Manning guest Bradley Manning was a member of the military who got access to massive numbers of sensitive and classified intelligence files and got those two Julian Assange and wikileaks. Wiki leaks essentially was born in large part, but not , nowsively, out of Bradley Chelsea mannings, work in the military. He was held accountable for those rings, and now he is just for those things, and now he is serving. I will share my thoughts on this because a goes into the question of Edward Snowden and the topic of official secrecy. Have seen evolve after 9 11 to some degree is a very large state, National Security and intelligence apparatus. Has been called the intelligence Industrial Complex its a large, so sprawling, so everywhere that it is nearly impossible to have accountability. Even people in it do not know where all of the corners of the establishment works in. I think there is an interesting challenge in that. When you consider things like snowden, who i do think when over key lines we were having a debate about intelligence, and in the right social contract about National Security between citizens and the government, people can have different views what is clear is that the apparatus has grown so large that there will be a Market Reaction to over secrecy. If you have so much that is the great. If you have, in the case of Radley Manning and what was put out there, you had cases where innocent iraqis were killed at checkpoints inside iraq, often. Y defense contractors their information about their loved ones was considered classified and held secret from them. The death count in iraq was considered a classified or secret. It was in that material. When you look at the efforts of these emilys to learn about people that had been killed and were in this it in this conflict and the United States did nothing to really help them, i look at that as information that i want to know about as a journalist and i look at as fair game to getting out there, regardless of Bradley Mannings responsibilities inside the government, regardless of his motivations. When you have so much that is made secret that should not, then the u. S. Government has walked across lines that it should not have. I have encouraged president obama to try to look at that and try to create a walked back, if you will, of those things that are considered secret versus nonsecret, and to create a greater right for the public to know that this president came in with a commitment to transparency. Is that allowing the secretkeepers to decide what remains secret or what should not . Should be more involved than it is pretty truth is, the executive branch of government is the most important brains that did branch that determines were that line falls. There was a view that we needed to create a security state, that there are really bad people other that want to get us, so all of our efforts to protect the nation do not need accountability and are justified in their own right. That is unhealthy for the kind of checks and balances a democracy has. Host a call on the independent line. Caller i have a quote from George Washington should any american soldier be so infamous as to injure any prisoner, i do most earnestly enjoin you to bring severe punishment as the in normandy the crime may require. Proportional,be it brings shame and ruin to the country. I would like to say that, my own personal opinion, i feel like two wrongs do not make a right. Diana patriot. I have lived for my entire life, born and raised here. I am a patriot. But it does not give us the right to torch them a cause of the things they did. They should all be accountable for their actions, including dick cheney. Thank you. A great New York Times oped. I obviously agree. I respect the different views out there. When it comes to what makes the United States vessel and different special and different, when you go back and watch the old war movies about germanar ii and the good concentration cans or german prisoner of her cancer what the japanese did with the death folks invarious indonesia and throughout Southeast Asia that were held by the japanese in various camps. There is a big movie called unbroken right now about this very fact. Believe it is propaganda or not, the notion is there was Something Different in the way modern, western nations those, both prisoners of war, whether they were outside and you are fighting them or the way in which we dealt with people trying to undermine our own societies from within, that we created a code of justice and laws and protections that do not exist. We were the nation that was going to end impunity. I think that this notion, and i heard it very loudly and dick cheneys comments, and eye for an eye. Say is what i heard him theodore the things we did, no matter how abhorrent, were justified. And we had nearly a quarter of those people attain that were mistake,and it was a and we had a hard time getting rid of those people. That is something the United States really needs to look at. As i told people, i imagine, and i may be wrong, but i speculate every president of the United States has had to make a tough call behind the scenes that is highly classified that we will not know about for a long time that involve potentially the lives of innocent people. We do not put that on a Conveyor Belt. We did not create a system for those, what we hope where exceptions are when you put something this horrible on a Conveyor Belt, you have to know the systems of laws and embrace it. Put dick cheney and others together was a Conveyor Belt for dealing with this that existed beyond the laws and norms of the United States and, frankly, the western world. I want to give credit to people like george bushs general others, including general counsel at the state department, those individuals tried very hard during the Bush Administration to keep the Bush Administration from going down the track that it did. It is worth paying attention to that debate. It is the same debate we are having a public today, but they had it in the Bush Administration and there were real heroes that said this is not america, not what we do. Host were speaking with Steve Clemons and trying to get to your calls spirit lexington, texas, line for democrats. Caller good morning. All this torture . I mean, you think the cia is really going to say, oh, yeah, we did this . And bring them justice . Come on, i do not see how you bring them justice. See how. I mean, you know . Of course, we torture them. It is payback for the gulf war. Is it right . It is not right, absolutely not. That is all i have got to say. Yall have a nice day. Host what do you think justice is in this case . Guest i think what we have now is an important process where we show, as a country, how we deal how uncomfortable truths, we sort them out, and that we respect the different voices. I respect john brennan and respect those people making the tough calls over this. I understand the emotion after 9 11 of what they thought they needed to achieve the we need to step back and appear great look at, did these techniques that some people thought were useful work or not work . I think it is ambiguous. My view is they probably did not die think Dianne Feinstein and her team have done a good job of outlining that. Even my view is they probably did not. I think Dianne Feinstein and her team have done a good job of outlining that. I worked with peter bergen at the new America Foundation who found bin laden before the cia could find him in 1997. I was hanging around with the sort of bin laden hunt crowd for some time. I have to say that the vers techniques we have today, such as test particularly in the Digital World where it has become so much easier to track and trace and find folks, hopefully make this kind of methodology that comes out of some sort of dark age nightmare book less and less relevant to the way in which we can preserve and protect our security in the future. Host jeffrey is in denton, texas, line from republicans. Caller thank you. I want to know about the cia and this interrogation report in most americans see all these other agencies we have in this country and we do not know what they are really handling. Do you think the cia is on the right track . I no interrogation is not a number one goal, just something they might do. I do not think we should interrogate anybody, but if they answer our questions, it will probably go a lot easier. Were trying to save lives. What do you mean by on the right track . Caller somebody has to be responsible, sir. Theyre not asking questions 7eleven question like these are serious issues. Everybody wants to call and be openhearted, and i understand that. But somebody has to be accountable. What we are doing overseas and here in this country has to be forward. What i want to know is them and if you think about the cias position in the country now, is it going in a positive progression . Guest i think it can go in a positive direction from this point forward to it one of the regrettable parts of this episode is it gives us this notion that this is all the cia does. That is not true. The caa is engaged in incredible ofounce amounts intelligence activity. And we have the National Security agency, which is part of this picture. The Defense Intelligence agency. There are lots of other intelligence parts of the puzzle. The cia is one key one. Theyre looking at lots of arenas of threats and figuring out how to identify and manage those threats and informed the president on how to take action. Ofy scan a vast number things. What were seeing is not even in play today. Everyone and knowledge is that whatever tactics were used during this particular time during the Bush Administration are not being used today. Have a lot of friends in the cia and have tremendous respect for them and their sense of purpose and duty for the country. Hopefully this will be, in my view, and anomaly we will look at. We could go back to a time where we look at some of these practices and we should worry about that, but on the whole, i think it would be wrong to step out of this and think that the cia is some cancers institution that is not serving the nation. It is doing a great deal of good. Criticisms isr the degree to which were remotely involved in intelligence gathering. We used to sort of be the experts in human intelligence, have people on the ground and feted in various places. And we do. We are not about to talk about that. I think the balance has moved toward the electronic and digital intelligence, those kinds of things, which are so different from what we are debating a talking about today to we should remember that they are doing very good things, and they are not in the torture business. Host Steve Clemons is the washington editor at large at the atlantic. You can follow him on twitter scclemons. Next, we will look at a new survey on the Fiscal Health of the 50 states. We have the executive director of the National Association of state budget officers, Scott Pattison for later, we will look at the u. S. Customs and Border Patrol. We will be right back. Tonight on the communicators, the ethics raised by Internet Companies using personal data and Academic Research on that information. It is a great question. For all of us, as somebody who uses a computer every day, we have expectations when we fire up our computers about who sees what were doing, who we are sharing information with. And at any moment, the expectations i have are shifted because i realize that there might be another party who sees what i am doing, say, for example, if a message pops up and asks if i would like some. Elp making a purchase there are certain lines that we do not know we have crossed them until it is too late. That is true for researchers and true for companies. Sense ofnot a clear it. One person talking loudly on her cell phone in a park has no problem with somebody standing next to them on a bench and listening to that conversation. At the same time, you could have someone trying to have a private conversation and they will go somewhere that is completely secluded. You are not just dealing with the culture context. Youre dealing with individuals different preferences. Tonight at 8 00 eastern on the communicators on cspan2. Washington journal continues. Host the National Association of state budget officers recently released its fall survey that looks at the Fiscal Health of the 50 states. Scott pattison is the executive director of that group in enjoys us now. What is the outlook for fiscal 2015 for state budgets and for spending . A rosier outlook this year than last . Guest yes and no. State finances are really stable. I think what is interesting about this report is what it shows is that states are in the same position that most households in america are. In other words, budgets are tight. They do not have enough money to get everything they want or are required to spend money on it so they will have to make tough choices to the state legislatures meet and get the governors proposed budget in about a month in most states, and they are going to have some really tough decisions. Host what are the key indicators of good Fiscal Health in the states . Look at how many states have to cut budgets after they have enacted a budget, and very few have had to do that. That is positive spirit i think the most important indicator is, what level of growth are you looking at . The fact that there is growth, growth for the next year will be over year. Ar that is good. It is stability, it is positive. Most americanso money is tight. Host and there is increased spending. About 750 billion being spent in the fiscal year. What is that being spent on . Mostly, people are spending more on education and more on health care. Most programs will either be most of the money goes to health care and education. Host here is a chart that goes with the fiscal survey of states. You see the orange line education spending will be increased. Spinning on education, about 11. 1 billion expected in fiscal 2015. Medicaid is the secondhighest, an increase of 8. 5 billion compared to last year. Guest exactly. Host can you talk about medicaid and health care spinning and how the Affordable Care act is impacting how states spend on that . Certainly people also know that Health Care Finance and the United States, especially for state governments, is externally complex. You have so many different sources of funding. Medicaid is a program for the lower income individuals and provides health care for those folks. Part of the Affordable Health care act creates an expansion of that should a state choose to do so. So you are seeing some expansion in medicaid in some states and not in others. The bottom line for states is that Health Care Costs, even though you see a little tempering of the increase, Health Care Costs for states are still growing faster than the amount of tax revenue income they are getting. Newbottom line is a lot of dollars have to go to health care, and if we do not get some of those costs under control, that means less money for either otherts, education, and things. Unfortunately, health care and other parts of the budget are kind of knocking it against each other, each wanting the additional dollars. Host talking about Fiscal Health of the 50 states, joined by Scott Pattison of the National Association of state budget officers. Talk about your state and what is happening in your part of the country. Our phone lines are open guest i want to stick with what states are expected to spend their money on in the coming fiscal year and what they are not spending money on. The main category that is down, in theng to the chart sectors you track is public beistance at shouldnt surprising that public assistance is down by 600 million in fiscal 2015 . Tending to putre a lot more and to health care and less into social service programs, at least relative, so you are seeing a decline in public assistance. You are seeing a decline in state spending on public assistance since the welfare back in 1996. States tent bit less into the social programs a lot of things for lower income individuals outside of health care that tend to be from the federal government, such as food stamps. So you are seeing less state funding for those types of social programs. Compare what were seeing in this chart in terms of what states will be spending their money on in fiscal 2015 two just, you know, five years ago while coming out of the sta Great Recession. Guest the recession was very tough for states. They were cutting every part of the budget. To the extent you saw some increases once the recession ended, you started to see a lot of money go to k12 education and also medicaid and health care. All other areas of the budget have only started to see some increase in the last couple of years. Host you can see this chart, according to the fall 2014 summary looking at general funds spending, fiscal years 2008 through 2015. Heres the 2010 year where spinning with the lowest, 623 billion. Here we are fiscal 2015, estimate at 752 billion. Were talking about the Fiscal Health of the states. We want to hear about your part of the country. We have a call from massachusetts on our line for independents. Good morning. Forer hi, thank you cspan. I want to ask of the legalization of marijuana in washington and colorado had any effect on increased revenues . Guest you know, that is a great question, because Marijuana Legalization is a big issue now and a lot of states will have it on their ballots during the 2016 president ial race. But it is too early to tell, believe it or not. There is a bump in revenue as a result of something that was the legal now being taxed. But there is Law Enforcement costs and increased regulations that outweighs some of those costs. What is good is what you are seeing is an experiment in washington and colorado, which allows us to examine the financial impacts, good and bad, of legalization of marijuana. Frankly, it is a little too early to tell as to how that will even out. You legalize it and tax it, but there are additional cost for regulating and Law Enforcement and Health Care Costs that come as a result of increased use of marijuana. Tot might be a good time explain how you do these Fiscal Service and how you put them together. A big year in one particular state can show a larger trend about other states around the country. Guest it is interesting, because we go out and get the information from all 50 states. Always joke, it takes a while because we want all 50 states to think it is very important. But there are certain things. Seth if something dramatic in a canain state occurs, change transpired a couple of years ago when both california and North Carolina had tax increases in the sales tax that actually sunset, that created an aggregate decrease in overall access for states because of two states having an action which decreased sales tax. Host which specific states of the best physical health and which have the worst . A good question. I would have answered a little differently a month or so ago and the strongest states, at least until recently, were those pumping oil out. Areou can see, gas prices going down and oil prices are down to states like north dakota, alaska, texas, new mexico, they were doing really well as a result of those revenues and are now starting to see a decline. Overall, most states are doing well. It is relative to her northeast, not quite as well as other states. Is not mean they are doing poorly, but theyre not as strong and robust as other states. California has really come back compared to five years ago. There is a little weakness in the southeast. Overall, states are doing very well. Our viewers, if youre seeing those trends in your states, our phone lines are open. We have a call from maryland, democrat line. Caller good morning. Im calling from maryland. I work for a prudential provider. I heard the comments from this morning. I wanted to make a comment that getting Health Care Costs under control, i think, is a little bit more complex than just controlling the dollar that is issued out for a health care service. I wanted to make sure that whoever is overseeing those efforts in respect to states that have expanded their medical assistance, i think they need to pay close attention to how these llcs, commercial insurance is managing state money, do so. They have a ridiculous amount of power. And the change the fee schedules that the state sets to use a marketbased approach for health care and what that is going to evolve into is extremely poor quality across the board. Thank you very much. Host do you look into more issues besides the overall spending on health care . Which metrics do you track . Guest we do. Obviously, it is such a quandary for he is right or the complexity of health care in the nation and the way states and federal Government Funds it involves a lot of tough choices. Bottom line is, what states are really trying to do is try to figure out ways in which they can contain the costs for example, trying to encourage doctors not to do tests that are questionable or and is theres that unnecessary. That is tough. The problem is, as im agent, Health Care Costs continue to go up for states. Bottom line is they will continue to be forced to really look at those costs. Out, thereer pointed are tough choices to be made. Providers might not get choices they would like. Perhaps the Health Care Activities are not fully funded. There tough choices because it is so much money. Host were talking about the 2014 fiscal survey of state spirit explain your group. Guest the National Association of state budget officers. We represent all of those who work on state budgets and state states, as all 50 well as the territories. We even have america and some away and guam members American Samoa and guam members. Host we have an independent caller. Good morning. Caller good morning. I want to ask about the unfunded liability situation that states face, specifically regarding pensions. If you could address that, if we are making any progress or decreasing that load or not . Guest a really good question. That is a huge issue to the states. In households, you have some significant loans you have to pay off over a long amount of time, and you have lability in your household. Even for states, they have fairly large liabilities in terms of future pension costs have to deal with. The good part is that pensions are over a long period of time. It is not immediate, that it is something states have to deal with. They have to continue to set aside money to ensure that future pensions are covered. So theres no fear right now that any pension in any state would not be covered to but over time, states will have to be more aggressive to make sure they can cover it. The good part is the Recovery Period after the recession, a lot of states realized that pension liability was a problem. Well over 40 states made significant changes to their pension systems to try to shore them up for the future. You have seen action, but i think states will still have to do more. But there are a very few states with an immediate crisis situation for pensions. Twitter user would like you to break it down among party lines. Guest we get asked that a lot. The data does not show any correlation between who is actually managing or running a state. The reason is there are so many other economic factors that impact the states. Virginia is actually seeing significant budget cuts, but a lot of that is declining Economic Activity as a result of federal budget cuts. And virginia has a lot of military bases and a lot of federal contractors. As a result, you are seeing a decline in their tax revenue run a decline in Economic Activity because of federal cuts that have affected the state. There are a lot of actors that influence. Maybe over 10 years, you could look at the data and study and come up with some correlations, but we have not seen any match to who is running a state to how well they are doing. There are so many factors. If you have oil and gas, the price of oil and gas. So many things impact what is going on in your state. Host how long have you been doing this report . Guest for 38 years. We will continue to this is showing, kind of compared to that period of time, a little lackluster growth, not as robust as our average growth. But at least states are growing. Host if you want to follow along with the report, it is available at nasbo. Org. Were talking with scott paton and Scott Pattison, executive director of nasbo. We have a call on our line for democrats. Caller the gentleman was saying they cannot figure out the costs yet for legalized marijuana. I saw a program saying colorado increase revenue by 1 billion because of the increase in marijuana. And he said the cost of lawenforcement, it looked like that cost would go down also, because now you do not have people going to jail with 10 or 20 worth of pot in their possession. That means a jail being less crowded and you can put the real criminals in there. I would like a response on that. Guest you have a really good point. I tend to be a green eye shade finance guy. I look at the math. Basically, those are all true statements per the question is, will that continue to be the case Going Forward . The 50 nice is with states, you can experiment with the fact that colorado and washington have legalized marijuana, so we can watch what happens there, can look at the data, and we can look at how the money plays out. Then we can make a good determination as to whether it will then if it or not. It is a little too early to tell. But you are right, the revenue has gone way up. Here are other questions will other states legalize . Will it decrease the amount of revenue colorado receives because people do not have to go there to utilize the marijuana that is legal there . There are just a lot of questions. Theyre still determining the costs they have jeannette out for, for example, regulation and other activities, to determine if it is a net benefit. Perhaps one of the data points you will be watching is spending on corrections and prison spending and states. What have we seen in recent years on that . Guest prisons and corrections have been an interesting area. Outside of california, most states of cap to their prison spending flat or they have actually declined. Stateseing dates start to try to get nonviolent offenders out of prison earlier. Theyre trying to do things that, maybe 20 years ago, they had not considered. Theyre trying to bring more money into social services for inmates such as decreasing addiction. So there are some positive things happening out there. Again, a lot of these things took years to occur. But were seeing more focused attention to try to get prison costs down by focusing on ways that they can keep people either out of prison or let nonviolent offenders out earlier. Host we have a call on our line for independents. Good morning. Caller thank you, and thank you, mr. Pattison. I apologize, i just tuned in when you were speaking about marijuana and the states it is legal. Twotiery have a question. We are in utah. Marijuana is still such a nono and a social some can benefit medically from it. Even our former attorney general who was undergoing horrible cancer treatment, at one point during the treatment said i am going to look into legalizing marijuana for cancer patient spirit of course, when he got well, that went to the wayside as there is no appetite for the legislature and the population just does not [inaudible] host were losing you. But she is also bringing up marijuana, an issue that several of our callers have brought up. Again, from my standpoint, especially looking at the costs and the benefits again, my job and our organization looks at the numbers, and i it is still a little too early to tell her the legalization is in two states and is still in an early process. In a year or two, we will have better data to determine the costs and benefits. Are a lot of issues that are beyond just the money. Sometimes you have to analyze is it a good thing to do because it might assist Cancer Patients . There are a lot of other issues and factors. Want to your about the fiscal situation in your part of the country to it were talking about the report that came out last week from nasbo on the Fiscal Health of the 50 states. Here are the numbers this usertter wants a case study on kansas. What is the future finances and how will they look . Will the tax cuts pay off . Agreed that on the same day of this New York Times story out today, tax cuts not set in stone as kansas faces a budget shortfall. Interestings is an case study. It is similar to the marijuana issue you need a few more years of data for the impact. Host for folks unfamiliar, what has been happening . Enactedn kansas, they some fairly significant tax cuts in the last couple years. The idea is that it will be good for the economy by keeping the taxes low and attracting either more individuals or more businesses to the state. Of course, a counter to that, at least in the immediate term, there has been a fairly significant shortfall in the amount of tax revenues. This is one of those things that becomes very controversial, but i really think what it points to is what you are seeing in a lot of states. Kansas is experiencing what you are seeing in a lot of states. What type of choices do you want to make . Because money is tight summit theres not a lot of money for tax cuts are for new programs, more money for health care, k2 k12, not enough money to go around. So the question is, what choices do you want to make . Do you want lower taxes, therefore you have less money to spend on other things . That might be the choice in a state like kansas. Other states might say, you know, im willing to pay higher taxes for more spending on other types of services. It is a tough political tradeoff that has to occur as we go forward to determine how to spend our money. It is tight. I keep referring to the average household. Were going into the holidays and i am not going to be able to buy as many gifts as i normally would. Money is tight. There are so many other things that states and, of course, individuals want to or need to spend money on. Looking atll start state Budget Priorities when many of the governors budgets come out next month in january. Back to the phone spear to more, maryland, line for democrats. Caller good morning, mr. Pattison. Listen, in recent months or recent years, my state, the state of maryland, just had some casinos and the lottery. Out trying to figure that how is it how come our budget is so high . Yet, we have massive casinos and the lottery. Could you try to answer that for me . Actually, what is happening with regard to the gaming and gambling type of revenue that states get, even through casinos or other types of activities like lotteries, it is actually, in many ways, starting to flatten the part of the reason is the competition. I am old enough to remember that if you wanted to gamble, you went to las vegas or atlantic city. But now it has changed particularly in the midatlantic and northeast states or a lot of the western states, you have quite a bit of opportunities to go and gamble at casinos. As a result, there is less money to go around, less revenue, and you are seeing a bit of tempering in terms of the amount of revenue coming into the states as a result of gambling. I think that will continue to cause the competition and the availability to gamble has increased. There are more opportunities. And there is only so much discretionary income. You will start to see that the not that there are not significant amount of revenue coming into states as a result of gaming, gambling. But, again, i think that because you have got so any venues number you can gamble, the overall amount that each state get is somewhat decreased. Host what about in the state of maryland . Maryland, you have seen a fair amount of money that in asarted to come revenue from casino kindling. It is really important, and this is true across the country outside of nevada, gaming revenue is really a tiny percentage, sometimes less than 1 , of their overall money coming into the state. It is an important factor that it brings in money, but is is not as significant as others would think. I should mention, for example, if you look at all the states and not all states have income taxes, almost 40 of money that comes in two states, and in some cases a lot more, it is just from the income tax. Most of the money that states get is really just income and Corporate Income tax. Gaming is really a tiny part of that. Even though it gets a lot of publicity. Anthony on our line for democrats. Caller good morning. Just a couple comments. I live in the delta. We are in the mississippi delta. What i want to recognize is one of the things about gambling, it pulls revenue from a state. We have mississippi nextdoor to us and they established casinos. Money from arkansas and this area, he goes out of the state to that area. On the economy locally, there are certain entities that are. Ot want the economy to improve are about these areas that established and are keeping the economies from coming into the community . Finally, the penal system is going institutionalized, privatized. I suppose that is saving the states or areas quite a bit of money that are privatizing their penitentiaries. Can you comment on those such areas . Host a couple different topics. Guest i think what it shows, too, is there are some intractable social problems and issues and challenges that not only occurs for state governments but also for the federal government. As i mentioned, money is really tight. It creates the incentive to want to expand revenue and perhaps bring in an additional casino gambling. I think what needs to happen, not only in the mississippi delta but elsewhere, is to ensure that there are very good analysis being done of what is that official to a particular economy and what is not. Sometimes i think there is a rush to do certain things that may not be beneficial to that particular area. As far the decisions made about whether casino gambling should beand it is different then maybe 20 years ago. I think it is a little more of an issue where you have to do some significant analysis whether or not it will benefit area are not. To t on twitter, wanting municipal en governments are faring . Guest the way property taxes are raised, they tend to smooth out over time. Host during the Great Recession . Guest yeah, i shouldve said. I think what is happening is are seeing states outside back from areas of education, they may not be providing local aid like they did in areas outside of you will see think k12 is a priority that will continue. Why the question is other areas have states provided funding that they have cut back on and they may not restore. Host about 15 minutes left with Scott Pattison of nasbo. Next from up connecticut, an independent. Caller this question refers to states they do not have income tax. They do it . How do we balance their budgets without an income tax . Florida laska, maybe tourist revenue. A good question. As you said, some states may forms of revenue oil, gas, other things. In other cases, they actually spend less. It also goes to the tradeoffs, do states wanted spent on programs, and how much taxes to be. There also tend to be fees and other sorts of things in other parts of the economy that the state may have that do not occur in other places where they raise revenue. Local taxes may be a little the state tax. There only nine right now they do not have tax. Caller asked about balancing the budget. Guest thats a good question. Is one thing that think important with some exceptions like california or illinois most states the cally do not violate federal government. Mean is if they do borrow, its for longterm asset like a bridge. Thats the main consequence of the balancedbudget requirements. Really e you said, they differ you might have, in california, the government may just have to provide a balanced budget but in the course the not necessarily be balanced. Line is and i really believe this the balancedbudget requirements at fair tate level creates a amount of fiscal management responsibility. Part, they know for what is coming in, they can spend it, but they cannot really been more than what is coming in. Host you mentioned illinois. What happens in illinois . And california other states operating expenses, bbut for the most part, it is very different than the federal government. Host we have about 10 minutes left with Scott Pattison. Its time for you to give us a ring about the situation in your state. From new o to jerry jersey, a democrat. Caller good morning. I would just like to say that the problem with anything from is wall street. Our president should not have tax breaks of or getting these people out of the money situation that they are in. Wall street these people control this country. Congress should be ashamed of themselves. Or republicans to by and resolve this issue giving breaks and giving them out of the situation that they got themselves in. It makes you think, how many congressmen are involved with this wall street mess in this country. Thank you. Host Scott Pattison, this may to talk about date Tax Collections, specifically on Corporate Income. Host an interesting point from caller is that those are actions that take place at the determining l how to regulate banks. States are very dependent on federal government they get about a third of their budget from the federal government. If you look at state Tax Collections, they are very if they have tax on the wealthiest individuals that is not always talked about. A very small percentage of the upwards of 50 of the income taxes that come into the state. For the income taxes can be so volatile. In bad times, when people are not doing well, tax revenue goes down. Is interesting. Corporate thing, income tax as we have more globalized economy youre actually seeing a decline in Corporate Income Tax Collections at the state level. Only looking at 6 or 7 . Returning to projections on state spending. Guest its interesting because a lot of states have to not issue a lot of bonds for infrastructure. Dont omething they always do. Sometimes you see a large expenditures for capital as a result of issuing bonds. I think most states have been very cautious lately. As a result, youre not seeing as much Infrastructure Spending as you might otherwise. Of course, economist talk about than a set of Infrastructure Spending. Of course, their bridges that tracking, all holes. On the other hand, there is a concern for debt. Host so when we see on your spending ansportation up 1. 4 billion, that falls into the infrastructure that we are talking about . Guest yeah. Most infrastructure is funded debt instruments similar to a Mortgage Loan for your house you would use a loan to get a bridge built, and last for e hopefully decades. Guest Scott Pattison is the executive director of nasbo. Were talking about the report, you can visit nasbo. Org. Host up next is Garrett Graff. The t is 9 10 am, miami herald reports that december 15 is the last day for consumers to sign up for the Affordable Care act. Coverage starts on january 1. Others can sign up for coverage on february 15. People who sign up for 2014 be automatically reenrolled in their existing plan. Healthcare advocates say the consumers who allow themselves taking a nrolled are risk because insurers adjust plan premiums and benefits from yeartoyear. Turning to the situation in australia. Trying say that they are to do nothing that can jeopardize the hostages being held by gunman in a sydney cafe. Please are negotiating with him but have not released details. Former cia director, in remarks earlier today said that it shouldnt surprise this happens here. Former president bush pay the tribute to the 9 11 museum. At 6 pm ed last night while the museum was still open to the public. Source says he appeared moved by an exhibit called the final column. Tonight on the communicator, mary gray. The creepy question, its a great question. I think for all of us who uses computer every day, we have certain expectations when we up our computer about who sees what we are doing, who we are sharing information with. At any moment, his expectations have are shifted because i realized there may be another im doing sees what say for example, if a and asks if i p make a ke help there is certain lines that we do not know we have crossed until he make them. There is not a clear sense of what is creepy because i was so culturally specific. One person talking loudly in a problem with someone standing on a bench and listening to them. At the same time you can have someone who may be trying to have a private conversation and to Great Lengths to be somewhere that is secluded. We are dealing with individuals different preferences on privacy. Tonight at eastern on the communicators. Washington journal continues. Host dduring this segment of washington journal we look at how your money is at work. This week we are focusing on customs and Border Control. Politicos d by Garrett Graff. I want to start with the green name er, and where the comes from. Guest the Green Monster is a nickname internally that about the proud tradition that the Border Control has of these dark green uniforms. These green uniforms are the core identifying marks that to the 1920s. It has always been a key part of their identity. Big fight or of tension when in 2003 the u. S. Customs and being control were merged together, as part of the department of Homeland Security reorganization, into what we border w as customs and protection whether the patrol would use the green uniforms or moved to a blue uniform . Host that is the green, where does the monster come in . They the monster is use a playfully and ruefullly notice unmanageable saying i use it in the piece to talk about how uncontrollable and unimaginable it has become since 2005. Host i want to talk about the explosive growth. Lets get to the numbers. Their annual budget . How is it impacted by the bill that was passed last week and cost . Guest to understand where we are today, you need to go back little bit understand that of our history we now see border politics is so politically divisive, but for most of our history, the United States is secure our borders. The er control was up until very small a portion of the immigration and naturalization services. Inadequate ully Staffing Levels. After 9 11 ly only really only a part of the of the department of Homeland Security that we began to really build up the of the Border Patrol. Went from patrol the g like 4000 agents in 1990s 9000 agents in 2005 just four ng in add 00 agents now 21,000 agents, as part of a border customs and agents about 60,000 total personnel. Billion annual budget. One of the was speaking points right now budget going the forward because the government the overall bill funds the government for most of 2015. But, the department of homeland good until only february because the Republican Congress is still trying to want to ut how they respond to the present immigration action. Sense of give people a action on conjoined aborted, you talk about how much has been spent since 9 11. Estimates of upwards of hundred billion dollars. Host 100 billion since 9 11. Some context we now spend more annually on Border Control and immigration on the ment that we do fbi combined. It is a stunningly huge amount of money. We get to talking about any proposals in Congress Border and secure the even further. Host what are some of those proposals . The t the proposals run gamut from the reasonable to the insanely large idea that we Border Patrol again border rds of 40,000 patrol agents. So weird is is one of the only agencies that covers month l law on for second of ways it is one of the across encies ive come that says, dont give us more money. If you talk to people in Border Control, they think they have all the funds that they now need to secure the border. The challenge is allocating the have more that they effectively, bringing more technology in. You talk to them, and they think that the Border Control may actually be a little larger. Host you make the point that the rapid growth in recent years may be one of the causes of the problems you highlight in your story. Guest tthis is where we go into the title the Green Monster. In many ways t encapsulates what has been at pening in washington large you have, the best intentions and worst impulses the Bush Administration security homeland spending spree mixed with the sezfaire management of Obama Administration. The bush demonstration report all this money into customs and Border Protection because they that we underinvested for decades they wanted to get as mmuch money as possible out there. Way, they thought anybody in the field was better than nobody. In that agreement that strategy was that we are going to make a fix. The one hand, government agencies, and on the Companies Like uber. It is very hard to the right personnel in. In customs and Border Protection, it means they hired thousands of the wrong people. People who could not and should not have ever been given attached to enforce the border security. Host yyou highlight some of in most egregious examples your story. Guest the most stunning there was is that, nearly won officer or Border Patrol agent who was arrested every single day for misconduct. Thousands of people were arrested for misconduct at that time. Pattern that could still continue today. Host were talking about Border Protection, border spending on the money segment the washington journal. With Garrett Graff. If your questions or comments, please call. 2027488001 republicans 2027488000 democrats 2027488002 independents kerry is up next. Caller it sounds like this is overblown. Of agencies from Homeland Security to hhs going to is unfortunately, my senator voted for. Of y fully funded all up the president s i was very disappointed that they would do Something Like that. A just shows that there is real problem, wwhich is why the is so huge party and growing democrats and republicans both voted for this ridiculous disgusting spending. Something has to be done about it. To ple have to continue speak out and hold their income it accountable. Thank you. Host do is talk a little bit more about where things are at. Guest what is challenging about this is facing this decade of management challenges. The obama seen under administration is this strange at the top of cbp. It is the secondlargest source of revenue for the u. S. After the irs, because of the customs duties that it collects. With a largest Law Enforcement air force in the world. Guest that air force is actually larger than all of brazils air force. It has been very poorly run for years now. It was only in march of this border hat customs and protection got its first Senate Confirmed leader. Five years and two months into the administration. A very well respected large police chief leader. He has been chief of police in seattle and buffalo. He is the right person at the right time to try and clear we backlog but, where are at with all the challenges budget is the budget uncertainty in the federal government is making very hard for Agency Leaders to find and operate efficiently. We can get more into those issues that he had to his first days on the job, by want to get to more calls. Frank is calling from new mexico. Caller good morning. Im listening with some amusement. To the se of us close border, the border country now extends 100 air miles from the border to the north. Since mr. Obamas of better for lack theres a great deal more of traffic coming through. In new mexico, were at the top of the chihuahua desert. This is the prime time for travel. Is pretty rough. The rio texas, along grande, i hear this a lot greater. Even though the Border Control a lot of guys they could almost stand along the border hold hands people are still coming in on droves. It comes down to a lack of will on the part of administration. It could be stopped. It should be, but i do not see anything coming from this administration. Guest i think that is a very common reaction. To people within border radius ile this is true, a very weird in force the Border Patrol Legal Authority actually extends 100 miles into the United States. That means, about two thirds of americans live within the Border Regions that the Border Patrol can enforce. Of is a very strange quirk statutory authority. These areas see in like the Rio Grande Valley, or the rgv as well as in like tucson, arizona it is this very weird mix. People both feel overrun living within this hundred mile range both in ilLegal Immigration, but, they also feel overrun by this militarized Border Control. This agency with its tens of of dollars of technology and infrastructure created a militarized zone. Ways, quite literally Border Protection has number of technologies including predator act es and surveillance from afghanistan and iraq. Installing them over the Rio Grande Valley to help them out securing the border. Host you can do some these questions of militarization in the story, the Green Monster. In politico magazine. Garrett graff joined us for the hour or so. Jason is on the line. Caller good morning. You for cspan. I have two questions. What amount of the border are agents and resource support to the mexican border, as opposed to other areas of the border you mentioned two thirds of the border is under the jurisdiction of course, that includes maybe the coastal areas. Most of problems are on the southern border, as we know. The second question is, you the tsa i ioned believe it is housed within dhs as well can you compare the size of of those organizations . Most people have much more contact with tsa. Thanks. Guest its a great question. This gets into some of the challenges that Border Patrol policing the mission handed e government has it iin round numbers, 21,000 the Border Patrol, about 3000 of them are on the Canadian Border it is actually much longer border than the southern border. While the Border Patrol has a en refashioned as Counterterrorism Agency over the post 9 11. , on a daytoday its primary responsibility is enforcing legal migration across the southern border. I think that has created a within the agency. Its resources are so heavily the southern real r, which is a very challenge, aand definitely the larger challenge for the government in terms of migration. However, you saw all the debate this summer over isis making the southern border i in ked to a number of people this field at various levels of the government the st no one believes southern border is ripe for exploitation by terrorist. If you look at the history of islamic jihadists coming into the United States, it has the st always been across northern border or arriving by commercial airliner. There has actually never been a documented case of a terrorist the southern border. A d yet, the Border Patrol on daily basis is told that its Number One Mission is the terterrorism along southern border. Caller brings up the second question besides the tsa. There are personnel, some similarities. Comparison to draw are not tsa officials gun carrying authorities. Caller said e mmost americans will interact much more with tsa. Host thomas, good morning. Caller good morning. Ive lived on the border for all my life, 80 years. Ive been a Public Servant im an attorney local for 20 years all a e people up here find is laughable manner. Been overstaffed, bloated, they travel around the county. The Border Control drives around doing nothing, and doing it very well. For me, its just a great big bloated thing from government. Years said, i spent 20 in local government, and local government is not loaded. Who serve atives here, my remarks were probably not be appreciated by then they are on the Border Patrol. It is a joke. The local people who are in the know considered to be a joke. Very i think that is a common response. Points to as we find that tax payers the challenge for the border ppatrol at this point is not money. It is a rare agency where money is not an issue. The need leadership, strategy to actually build out what theyre trying to accomplish. Here in onnect is that its very hard to vote against giving Border Control more money. Its very easy to win political points by saying lets give more money to Border Control. But, thats not fundamentally the challenge. Lisa from massachusetts. Caller good morning. My concern is or im listening to how much money is being spent on the border. Would be funny if we werent control in ice to technically feed, change diapers, and show for these people all over the country. I do not understand why were paying these people to do that. Theyre not even at the border, they are miles away from it. Being xactly is the money spent on . Thank you. Host lisa i believe talking up of undocumented migrants. Guest the unaccompanied minor crisis tens of thousands of Central America migrants flowing into the Rio Grande Valley. This really pointed out in a lot of ways tthe challenges faced by the Border Patrol. This is an agency that is primarily focused on terrorists drug topping very violent cartels smuggling, but at the same time it is responsible for across g anyone coming the border. I got lost things about that uac crisis this summer, sending these kids border was actually a very integral part of the drugg smugglers strategy. All is kids for intensive purposes would have been treated the same hat they across a formal port of entry, staffed by the guys in the blue uniforms. If these kids walked across to these official officers and turned themselves in at the here im seeking asylum, they would be treated effectively the same. Through sending them where drug thats to tie up were able more to control resources by these ing and processing kids thereby leaving chunks of the border uncontrolled for smuggling operations. Host in terms of protecting from drug y smugglers, on twitter, someone know can those agent shoots and what are the circumstances . Guest this is a bad talk about our great link in the article. The Border Control has a very is hard ure it part military, part Law Enforcement. The Border Patrol has, during this hiring search, you see a dramatic escalation in both Border Controls use of force a fourth xcept complaint. In the very early days, this a good thing. Homeland tary of was in y when he office he was touting the the border the control is taking back control of regions from drug smugglers. The region was ringing a lot more attention, there are doing gents out there their job. The challenge of that, even as the Border Control has settled their roles Excessive Force complaints have actually grown. And they have a very poor for forget investigating them. The Arizona Republic to the big investigation last year and least four und at deaths that it was able to the border ecause of control, who were not accounted for in the official Border Control statistics. In a weird and troubling way, we do not actually know when under what en, aand circumstances the Border Control is using lethal force along the border. Host susan is on the line from republicans. Caller good morning. Question is for years the mexicans the immigrants across our coming borders. Everyone can understand their needs, there are no jobs, they the their money home to family members to keep them from starving to death but, why cant we encourage them to to go back once they have learned traits here. Why cant they want to go back and change their country . Change mexico. Of drugs ehavior sorry, the cap fell behind me them e whole issue of coming across. They wouldnt want to come across if they felt like they could make a change in mexico. Guest i think this is part of where congress has a role that he could play. Help uld in some ways Border Patrol more than giving up more money. Our very broken system at large makes it very hard for these Migrant Workers to come into work nited states to do when needed and return to mexico or Central America. A functioning Guest Worker Program that could help alleviate some agricultural the u. S. That has, i think rket the immigration system makes sense could provide more resources to the Border Patrol. Frankly, to the extent that chasing migrant the workers trying to cross border illegally, they could devote those resources to stopping actual criminals and smugglers. Host lets head to texas with margie. Caller good morning. First of all, i want to say that i agree with a lot of what gentleman is saying. That we could stop it immediately if we put the blame on the businesses in the u. S. That are hiring these people. They dont want to stop. They are working for a lot less money. They want to keep it the way it is. From the 00 miles border. Well hear a lot more about activity down there than the the of the u. S. All of killing, gangs. In one instance, they came across the border and killed a lot of americans. People forget that. Were nk of the businesses made i mean, give them time hiring or something for these people. Guest this is obviously a big part of this debate. What the caller is referring to is called worksite enforcement. That is often left from the Border Control to immigration and control enforcement ice. Host and ins was the one agency that went away after 9 11. Guest when you look back on that the ic problems attacks uncovered and recommendations about there was only one agency that was destroyed in the of an post9 11 reforms, immigration and naturalization. The Death Penalty for its mishandling within a variety of problems in the pre9 11 rubric. It was broken into three different agencies customs and Border Protection, immigration Customs Enforcement, aand u. S. Citizen and citizenship services. That agency is now in charge of doing the legal applications for green cards, citizenship, naturalization. That will be a very big part of action sence executive well as ice, n, as which is in charge of the interior enforcement of immigration laws. They are the ones who are really in charge of the worksite enforcement that the caller was talking about. Obviously, very controversial. On both ends of the spectrum with the le agreeing caller saying that we need to do more worksite enforcement. These people were not come over if they can get jobs here. The flipside being, the employee is arguing that they have no other way to get the that they need. Are able to understand sort of guest that r attract the labor they are relegated to hire the immigrants. Host joe from hawaii. Caller hi. Nice to meet you. You have a great conversation going. My focus is on citizens getting pulled over to corruption. Problem for me. I think this is not the only money coming in through the southern border. Up t the caller bringing corruption issues. Guest this has been an endemic and systemic problem for Border Protection customs at large through this hiring of the people that were hired as part of the search did not undergo full background checks. Not given the that border eening patrol today for instance when applied to new hires. That the ant was you have gangs , and drug cartels actually hired into the Border Patrol criminals hired in. People hired in with backgrounds not necessarily the integrity that you would want for someone who is operating in such a corruption rich environment the southern border. In many ways, the fbi has been very concerned about this workforce. Rightly enough, it is worth saying they explicitly, the vast majority of the border are great people. Theyre very hardworking, patriotic americans doing an incredibly difficult job with very real challenges. But the same time, there are thousands of people involved who should not be. Weeding those people out now on the force is the top challenges that obamas new commissioner has in this area. Host lets head to new mexico. Caller good morning. I would like to begin by making comments you, john. I think it would be very informative if in the future up your cameras at the in el paso and watch port of entry, and watch people coming across the border back and forth every day. There laborers who paso going into juarez and visa versa. It is lovely, your background with the capital, but you should look at that exchange that happens every day. The same token, santa teresa goods port of entry for from mexico. Most people do not have a good idea of how active this border is every day with goods and services. Host i appreciate that suggestion. What is your question for Garrett Graff . Idea r i guess the whole for labor the thing i would like to point is that our capital knows no borders. Our capital can go across the border to mexico and jobs to be created their. They talk about those jobs, their lowwage jobs. If the capital were required to pay those laborers what they earn here in the United States, there would not be this problem at the border. Guest i think you have a great topic here. The challenge of customs and Border Protection. On the one hand, Border Patrol is doing almost exclusively border violators people ports ng illegally across of entry. The Customs Enforcement officers work, the in the blue uniforms, challenge an enormous facilitating the commerce between the United States and mexico, and the United States and canada. These are some of the most economically viable and important borders in the world. When i talked to the seven men the have worked as commissioner of border since its creation, the ry one of them said same version of the same thing. Something they didnt took the d before they job the amount of the job it facilitating n legal commerce making sure your seaports were, making sure your airports work, making sure the land ports work. These are tremendous challenges. Small e dealing with very percentages of smugglers or contraband at the sports. You do not want to make it so cross the border back, t we negate, or cut or impede that important commerce that takes place across the board. Host don wants to have cameras across the border. One debate going on is body Law Enforcement officers. Guest the new commissioner who started this year and who is responsible for cleaning up poor management hes been relatively strong proponent of body cameras. They are currently testing body cameras for for the virtual offices. They are beginning to think about how they can work those out into the field. He understands that they could very Important Role out in the field. The challenge though is works often patrol in difficult environments. They worry that the cameras may the be as effective in texas brush, as they would be in a street. Host were time for a couple more calls. Were talking with Garrett Graff from politico. His piece, the Green Monster is in politico. To our democrats line. Caller i have a couple of questions. What kind of data do you have on what the Mexican Government on the border . The second question would be, a numbers comparing the Current Administration to the previous four administrations as far as deportation . This illegal s all immigration and no margie touched on the lack of managers and or corporate eexecutives for hiring Illegal Immigrants what kind of numbers do have from the past administration, the past four, on prosecutions and deportations . Say, the ike to wholeness that jobs that americans will not do that you need a Legal Immigration is a of horse hockey. Guest this is one of the most surprising aspect of many people in this debate. The Obama Administration has supported more people than any other administration in history. You hear so much about the Obama Administration being soft on immigration. But, the truth of the matter is the Border Patrol had been responsible for more deportations each year than just about any previous period in american history. A at has made obviously but a dent. Part of it today in the Obama Administration has been a shift in the way that they had enforced those interior deportations. Theyve been trying to move neck from the white catching anyone and importing be more trying to in used, and more pointed the deportations to ensure that they are focusing enforcement on convicted criminals. Actively e who are breaking laws, in addition to being in the country illegally. The Obama Administration will leave you alone. They want to focus these deportations on what they say are the actual criminal elements. Lets see if we can get in darryl from maryland. Darrell, turned on your radio. We will come back to darrell if we can get him. You talked about concerns of corruption in cvp. Prosecutions for corruption and the use of force issue. Discipline of cvp officers