Transcripts For CSPAN Washington Journal 20150429

In baltimore. Hundred of people remained in the streets. We want you to weigh in what this is. If you support them, 202 74880010. Baltimore residents we want to hear from you at 202 7488002. You can join the conversation at http twitter. Com cspanwj force in this an email journal cspan. Org. The phone lines are open. The front page of the baltimore sun. Unsettled peace. The governor in the mayor disagree on the timing of calling the National Guard into the city. They find Common Ground in restoring order. This is contrasted with street dancing. The commissioner is finding the curse you has for and that city is stable. President obama addressed this yesterday at the white house who is holding a joint news confere teammatence. Six very lengthy comments. We want to show you so the president has to say. [video clip] president obama our thoughts continue with the family of freddie gray. They want answers. The doj has opened an investigation. It is working with local Law Enforcement to find out exactly what happened. There should be full transparency and accountability. My thoughts are with the Police Officers who are injured. It underscores that it is a tough job. We have to keep that in mind. My hope is that they can heal and get back to work as soon as possible. Point number 3 there is no excuse for the kind of violence we saw yesterday. It is counterproductive. When individuals get crowbars and start prying open doors to loot they are not protesting. They are not making a statement. They are stealing. When they burn down a building they are committing arson. They are destroying and undermining businesses and opportunities in their own communities that rob jobs and opportunities from people in that area. So it is entirely appropriate that the mayor of baltimore who i spoke to yesterday and the governor who i spoke to yesterday work to stop that kind of violence and destruction. That is not a protest. That is not a statement. A handful of people are taking an advantage of the situation for their own purposes. They need to be treated as criminals. Point number four, the violence yesterday distracted from the fact that you have seen multiple days of peaceful protests that were focused on entirely legitimate concerns of these communities in baltimore led by clergy and Community Leaders. They were constructive. Frankly, it did not give that much attention. One burning building will be looped on television over and over again. The thousands of demonstrators who did it the right way have been lost in the discussion. The overwhelming majority of the community and baltimore has handled this appropriately, expressing real concern and outrage over the possibility that our laws were not applied evenly in the place of mr. Gray and accountability needs to exist. We have to give them credit. You have some of the same organizers now who went back to try to clean up in the aftermath of a handful of protesters criminals and thugs who tore up the place. What they were doing, that is a statement. This is the kind of organizing that needs take place. They deserve it for it. We should be lifting them up. Host president obama making a distinction between the peaceful protests in the right use all. We are getting your take on that. We want to know what your message to washington is. What should be done Going Forward . Kathleen on the line for support. Go ahead, kathleen. Caller i support what happened wholeheartedly. We are the true hebrew israelites. If you are a negro and you came on the slave ship you are a tribe of judah. I support people for standing up. We are still in captivity. We get tired of being treated like animals. They are destroying us. I am so proud of your people for standing up against all of this oppression. Host do you disagree with the president . He says they are criminals. Do you agree . Caller i do not agree with throwing rocks in looting. Do not get me wrong. Who got the stolen goods . We got the stolen goods. You are being oppressed. Youre being picked. Back in 1990 my kids was young. Police would just throw them on the ground and treat them like animals. I had to call the mayor and address the problem. I was so afraid for my kids to even walk outside because the police, the people supposed to protect and serve. I believe these police are descendents of [indiscernible] host that is a broad statement to make about all outpatient policeman without evidence to back it up. Caller this is what you get when you lead from behind. This may or is just fol lowing what the president has done. We are in a chaotic situation. The people there who really need jobs now do not have job now because of the burning and the looting. If this thing had someone in charge she knew what they were doing, this would not have happened. People who are nice people would have a job today. Host they are also questioning his is in charge. They write this morning that after monday afternoon and evening mayor set the rulings of blake was nowhere to be seen for hours. It did a merge the news conference. Her demeanor was calm to the point of being flat and expressionless. They are making sure the executive order mandating this was just right and the only time she did become animated was defending her bungled statement for the weekend were it suggested the city had allowed some space from acts. My word should not be twisted. They said they do not really the mayor was feeling permission for them to loot and pillage. We doubt they heard what she said or would have cared if they did. It goes on to say that if it meant to those who rioted it means a lot to those begin to wonder who was in charge here and what was she thinking . They are asking that they activate the National Guard. They say that they and by saying he has softened his commitments by suggesting that he turned over and may not be immediately made public. He created expectations that may be unfit build. Baltimore has already suffered incalculable damage. This is going to require real leadership. Caller i am a high school or. We have had a discussion and her ethics class about the protests. We agreed on the first night of the writing in the torching of the Convenience Store there were people who did not have teenagers who wanted to be a part of something big. There were three main western that the protesters thought to bring to light. They didnt know how else to bring attention to it. Number one of course is the apprehension of freddie gray. Number two, are there any legislative measures or new Police Training that could help stem the amount of homicides during arrest . How can Law Enforcement combat perceptions of Police Brutality in the future . What we thought for the third question that would improve relations between police and citizens would be to educate them on what is seen as probable cause. For example, looking a Police Officer in the eye and taking off a vest a probable cause for arrest . This is should be educated. Educate them on how to participate in the democratic process, how the City Government works. Sometimes the educational systems in the city are not exactly efficient in doing that. Maybe that is no ones fault specifically. Host amanda, a sophomore in high school. You have interest in this whole topic in pursuing it in college . Caller yes i i love politics. Mean i have been following it for a while. I wanted to take this information opportunity to call cspan and get our take your it was the sophomore calss take on what is going on in the community. Host did your class agree . Was there to send . 00 th dissent . Caller and at its class we present Current Events and then we ask questions. Yesterday i was leaving the discussion. Ia sked asked questions. There was dissent on whether the apprehension of mr. Gray was justified. They argued that Police Training was already effective. They should not try to scream out people. In order to have effective policing, you have to be colorblind. This could have happened to any person of any skin color. It is unfortunate that we do not know what happened. You are on the air. If i dont have my uniform on im treated the same way they treat these young people. They treat you with no respect. They put you on the grounds with the arrest you. Why do they have to slam you to the ground . Why do they have to let you sit in the rain a . Treaty with no respect for you wonder why people are retaliating . This is not a retaliation is only incident. That is why the problem is not going to be solved. You look at one incident in the retaliation is due to the wind event. It is a combination on how you treat the individual and the community. Host earl caller wait a minute. You can talk later. You talk about jobs being lost in the city. You get there and sees who owns this this this. These grandchildren are not working in the businesses. They come to your community to work. They are not working in our communities. They are run by the koreans and they do not hire black children. Host can i get your reaction to Michael Fletcher . What you really need to know about baltimore from a reporter who has lived there for over 30 years. He starts by saying it was only a matter of time before often work load it. Exploded. It has been a mix of poverty crime, and homelessness. The two false floors have mostly gone from reconciled. There are roaming gangs and finds in it demands that something be done. This is expending back to frederick douglass. Black cops can be held on them. What are your thoughts . Caller that is affirmative. That is the attitude. As long as i have my uterusni from o they respect me. Ifn i have it all, i am treated a 60 fire old man, like a common criminal anytime they do with me. Host you get that from black Police Officers as well . Caller black as well as white. You saw what happened in the black officer. They stood there and he did not act. I am a retired firefighter. I have to stop police from hitting my patients because they retaliated under lack of medication. Host what can be done . What needs to be done . Caller like any problem, you need to understand the origin of the problem. They talk about the career fields. The root of the problem, the inability of these politicians of religious leaders. Once they know the problem they tell us we need to do this and do that. They never do it. They are always going and never gone. Host we are going to get more of your thoughts. First joining us on the own is a democrat and maryland. Thank you for your time this morning. I want to begin with your reaction to what you solve monday and tuesday in baltimore. 202 7488001guest it is good to be with you. It was a difficult day. It was not the community that we know strong neighborhood of baltimore. It was circumstance really hurt our city badly and hurt our neighborhoods. We know we have a lot of work we need to do. Host were you there monday and tuesday . Tell viewers about this neighborhood in particular where the writing took place. Where most of the activity took place. Was it just this neighborhood . If you were watching on television, you have no its happening in the rest of the city . Caller guest it was widespread. I go home every night. I commute. I was in baltimore. I know the neighborhood very well. It was very close to where i grew up. Im a lifelong resident of baltimore. The neighborhood is well known. The Shopping Center is well known. It was a circumstance where i think most of baltimore people could relate. Host what is the root of what we saw . Guest first of all the looting and such theres no justification for that. The first thing is to make sure it that we can restore public order in baltimore. There is no justification for the type of looting and violence that is done. We want just ice. It is an independent investigation. There were Peaceful Demonstrations done. We support those rights of people to expr their views in a peaceful way. We will not tolerate it. Host what can be done . What needs to be done for baltimore and other inner cities around the country . Guest there is no one answer here. The immediate concern is public state deep. The immediate safety. Immediate concern is just as in regards to freddie grays tragic death. The immediate concern is to restore the confidence of communities with Law Enforcement. Communities in Law Enforcement will not be effective the most theres confidence that they are working with the community and not again community. One way to do that in my view is to make clear that it will not be allowed. I introduced legislation that ends racial profiling at all levels of government. I think that would help. Federal relationships between the police and community is essential. There are problems that need to be addressed. They give hope to the community that there is future for their children. Host can that realistically get done in congress . Is that a role the federal government can play . Guest the United States is the greatest nation in the world here at there is more opportunity here. The answer is yes. We need to Pay Attention to the areas of job growth and training that allow people to take advantage of the opportunities of this country. Yes, we need to be focused on that agenda. We have not. Host there are important debates happening in congress here as well. The senate is looking at trade legislation and iran. How are you balancing the demand that you have here in washington and what is owing ongoing on in baltimore . Host guest every day we are seeing some improvement in terms of public deep. There has been incredible support from the community. I think the circumstances are a lot better today than they were yesterday. We hope it will continue to improve. This is critically important. We have had conversations with the attorney general and congressional deliberations. With that conversations with the government. We are at conversations with the mayor of baltimore. Our delegation is engaged to do anything we can to help restore the type of growth in baltimore. Were going to work really hard to restore that type of confidence and partnership of working together. Host we will let you go. Thank you so much for your time. Guest it was good talking to you. Thank you. Host lets get your thoughts on this. We will go to barbara in new york who supports what she saw in the protests. Caller good morning. I apologize for calling on the wrong line. I cannot see the numbers before. I support the protests. What the president said himself. He said when the protesters were peaceful they did not get any attention, including his attention. One building burned and now hes on tv making is beach. I do not recall him saying anything when the 12th rajoy was playing cowboys and indians got murder. I do not hear from him when walter got shot in the back. Once property starts burning than the president comes out. He is duplicating that lack of attention. As far as maryland politicians. Omalley is running for president. Van hollen is running for senator. If i dont hear more from the democrats that i hear from rand paul, it should not expect me to show up on 2016 fully trigger. All right. Stephen and baltimore. Go ahead. What do you think of this russian caller i have to defend the mayor. I was among the protesters on saturday. It was peaceful saturday. It was all peaceful. I was very surprised the last couple of days. She was caught [indiscernible] as for as the young people who are doing the looting and the violence these kids in these neighborhoods have nothing. I mean absolutely nothing to look forward to. You do not threaten them with jail. They will say ive been in jail eight times. It doesnt matter. They have nothing to look forward to there. Excuse me. Im a little nervous. Host you are doing great. Go ahead. Caller you have to realize that he has been in this town, and this is not part of the new city, it is nationwide. I have seen the abuse from some of the police that payout to begin people. I remember standing one evening on the corner. The actually came up and snatched this young mans cell phone is that he could not record it. He was yelling. This is a problem in the United States. People prietend it is not happening. It is happening. We have to do something about monitoring the police with body cameras or some form, a way of trying to let them know it is not ok to treat their citizens who pay them to protect us this way. Host let me put some numbers about what you just said. The kids in your neighborhood where the writing started. Social characteristics of freddie grays neighborhood versus baltimore. This the percentage of the population 25 and older without a high school diploma. In his favor hundred it is 35 compared to 10 . Michael fletcher this morning also takes a look at economic characteristics. This is the percentage of residents 1664 not working, over 80 . The Median Income is a little bit more than 20,000 compared to 40,000 and the rest of baltimore. Families receiving welfare is nearly 25 . The rest of baltimore is a little bit over 10 . Go ahead. Were resident. You are on the air. Caller hi. I live 10 minutes away driving from where all of this happened. I am a former drug addict. I use the in that area might frequently. It is not just black or white. It is the police system. The woman i just heard from new york she does not know what is going on. I was downtown every day this week. The peaceful protests were totally muted. Everybody knew it was going on. Everybody is mad. The adults, black people adult laypeople. Everyone is mad about the ri oting of the kids and drug addicts. It is an excuse for them to get free drug from the pharmacy, clothes, money. I have best friends that live right down there in that area that are black. When i go and knock them off because they dont have cars, they dont have jobs or money but my one friend im trying to help her out. All four for teenage kid are not running around doing selling drugs and mugging people i have. Been monday. I have been robbed. My exboyfriend who was white had noting on him the exact area where freddie gray was eaten up he had the police searched in. He had nothing on him. He was in front of about 10 women. The police took his coat off in the middle of winter, pulled his pants down so he was standing there completely naked except for his chest for about 20 minutes. The polizece also, the onetime i did the interim t get in trouble their statements were the like. The lawyers just take your money into you on probation. If they would have pulled cameras they would have seen that everything was a lie. The police said they chased me. Not that ever happened. Host we will hear from aj in annapolis, baltimore residents. Where are you exactly . Caller i have been a maryland e all on myr life. I have lived in baltimore the past couple of years. I work currently down and charles village. Im friends with a lot of networking of people. Doctors to laborers and even last year i used to go to restaurant to restaurant hauling biological waste. I feel like i have a pretty strong opinion of what baltimore has then my wife. Life. Growing up it used to be on the eastern shore. We would talk about taking futures into the city. We always thought baltimore would the safe. First of all, you are in maryland. You have home base safety. Dc was always more dangerous and baltimore throwing up. I have watched the evolution take place of baltimore becoming a more risky place to go, even right there in the inner harbor. When a certain hour strikes, everybody clears out. It is unfortunate. We could be the city that never sleeps are the big apple except for the fact that we have allowed some things to go too wrong. , it would sound like i was on the side of people that are trying to maintain order and handle these protesters and looters. To be honest with you, while i think the way they are handling everything and the mayor included, that is her Job Description it is not necessarily lining up at this part of your moment. They are handling everything is peacefully as they can. I really appreciate the lack of violence and retaliation that really could take place even with the National Guard where it is. We keep asking the wrong questions. The lines we are drawing in the stands are irrelevant because some of the biggest issues. It is not just the Fact Community for people in the lower income brackets. People who are under educated. People who are forced in the category of these things are not available to you because you are not white or heterosexual or whatever it might be. We are ignoring a lot of issues from education all the way to police treatments of the public. What is a Police Officer . What is the mayor . Public servants being asked to do things that are not serving the public. There are the oral arguments before the Supreme Court yesterday on Supreme Court marriage. Divided justices are over right to gay marriage. Justice kennedy sends conflicting signals yesterday in his questioning of the lawyers. No slamdunk for gay marriages. They are not going to be rushed into anything. The Prime Minister of japan will be up on capitol hill this morning on a joint meeting of capitol hill. He will be speaking around 11 00 a. M. Eastern fired. You will have gaveltogavel coverage of the house of representatives. He is saying the u. S. , it japan and eric. They are touring the Lincoln Memorial yesterday here in. Their editorial the japanese Prime Ministers speech is justice for the comfort women. He speaks to a joint session of congress. They have many demands for a policy. Among the most deserving are from the thousands of women who were pressured into sexual slavery during world war ii. Korea and other countries are watching closely. He talks about and apologizes to the women on the front page of the Washington Times as well. Here is the headline as well. He said he will run for the president ial nominations. The wall street journal with this headline. The senate dealing with iran review legislation. This is on the budget blueprint. Will go to louisiana. He are calling on the wind force of or does the protest. Caller please give me some time. I am a very, very, very angry black woman. Once again the victim. Africanamericans are being called thugs criminals and trash. I resent thug and criminals. The issue is about thes day years of hundreds of freddie grays by please brutality against african dust by Police Brutality against if the issue is about 50 years of hundreds of freddie raisedgrays against Police Brutality. This is not going to change anything by calling us names. They are focusing on the wrong issue. There is a slaughtering ever african americans. America is going to have a revolution on its hands. We africanamericans are beyond tired. Host heroin and cocaine addictions and the street trade remain. The homicide rate has they high in baltimore. It was about eight times new york city. These are tied to a lamp post. Scores of real houses are boarded up. That is from the Washington Post this morning. Also the Washington Post about a test. Loretta lynch was just sworn into the job last week. It says that the Washington Post says the administration offered to send representatives over the weekend that the mayor said it would not be needed. He did not think he would have to declare a state of emergency. He said it had to happen. A couple of hours later he called her again. It prompted a flurry of activity the more she took over. Following the example of her predecessor factoring in the protest in ferguson. Baltimore, go ahead with your thoughts. Good morning. Caller there has been noticed just what absence of comment on baltimore. I have been done town trying to get a meal at a restaurant. All of this broke out. I have a hard time getting home. There was c circulated on social media to high school and middle School Students that there would be a purge. According to the movie that came out. The kids that came out i saw a kid on my way home roaming around just committing vandalism randomly. These kids that i saw were not kids from freddie grays neighborhood. Ok . These kids were children of middleclass people, not privileged but not impoverished. Well dress, smartphone carrying kids. They were out there. What i am saying, the point i want to make, this is just a systemic problem. It has little to do with freddie gray. It was just a catalyst to get these kids killing. Any little thing like a movie that kids are more in tune to rather than a real social issue could get them going. Host ive got to liveeave it there because were running out of town. I want to get in lewis who opposes these protests. Caller yes, i may be got on the wrong line. I think people should have peaceful protests. Im over 80 years old. I am a baltimoreian. When i was a kid we could it get jobs at the local cleaners in the corner stores. Now most of the Small Businesses are owned iby foreigners. They do not hire the black kids. They take most of the money send it to Western Union overseas to their own p it is notarents. Wrong but they do not participate in the communities and activities. They take a lot of money act. The other problem is host i want to point out the Washington Times this morning the product of deep dysfunction. You heard lewis going through these companies that are left. Factories closed one after another. There is a lot of the papers about the situation in this. The Public Schools were closed on tuesday day. The impact of that was they were there. They qualify for free and reduced price lunches. These were scheduled to open today as usual. A lots about the history and economics of racial tensions. We will have to leave it there for now. We will speak to representatives john duffy on the investigations. We will talk about the budget debate in the house. He will be here to talk about us hostage policy and terrorism. This was a constituent of miss mr. Delaney. Later we will talk about suicide election as well. Dave johnson was yesterday on capital hill. He talked about u. S. Counterterrorism efforts. Heres a little bit of what he had to tell lawmakers. [video clip] counterterrorism remains the cornerstone of the mission. It is the reason it was formed. It is the reason i excepted service. My view the global terrorist threat has evolved to a new phase. It is more complex. It is more decentralized. It is harder to detect. We need a whole of government approach that includes the department of homeland security. We have a phenomenon now of foreign fighters who lead their own countries go to places like iraq and syria and return. We need to track foreign fighters from countries for which we do not require a visa. My staff is developing a follow on to what we did last summer. Greater security measures that can be taken regard to travelers for these countries. We continue to focus on Aviation Security and want to build preclearance capability. We are working daily to do that. A lot of our efforts continue around airport security. We directed a number of things due to airport security. We are engaging state and local Law Enforcement given the nature of the homeland threat which involves the threat of the lone wolf, it is much more important that we work with City Police Department and commissioners state Law Enforcement as well. We have our engagement in the community to counter violent extremism. I personally traveled to this is like minneapolis, boston, los angeles, chicago to engage Community Leaders about countering violent extremism. [end video clip] host if you missed the hearing you can go to our website www. Cspan. Org to watch if youre joining us this morning we want to welcome back congressman sean duffy republican from wisconsin to talk about the 2016 budget debate. The house would like to keep that often get a conference deal. There seems to be a hold up. Gop budget dodges fight over entitlement and a defense. Forget about the medicare privatization plan, never mind offsetting defense spending increases. In almost every instance they describe the budget deal in which political practicality beats out ideology as Republican Leaders attacked for the party center. Guest it is impressive that we will get a deal this early if the cons. It has been decades since we have had this kind of bicameral negotiation. It is absolutely fantastic. Listen. We understand the process. We look at ideology. We look at how much we can get done. This will resolve some of the challenges we face as a country. We have an 18 trillion debt. In the long run 240 billion dollars a year. It is half what we spend on the military. You cannot get everything you want. You see the struggle between those two happening right now. It can be messy. Politics is. At the end you will get a deal that will work for the American People. Host the budget blueprint serves as a vision of the parties. Republicans now control the house and the senate. It is not a binding document. Doesnt concern me you that the vision of the Republican Party looks like not dealing with the drivers of the entitlement . Guest and the house we have dealt with the drivers of the debt which is entitlement. You see a lot of ads. We are not afraid to put out big ideas. I do think it is important that we continue to address the drivers. We have both chambers. We have certain problems in the senate. We do not have 60 votes. We will need a democrat buyin. Do not always get everything you want. In the senate you do not control everything. Host republicans were able to increase the money for the pentagon putting money in the socalled Emergency Fund for National Security concerns. That is ok with you . Host there is a concern all of us have with the strength of the military. Around the world there are raisinising threats. There are Serious Problems we face in the world. America has to have a strong military. I would prefer that we do have offsets. It becomes very challenging to find a pathway for Whose Program are we going to cut . I think it was news to goshen i think it was negotiation for spending at putting it on the american credit card. That is part of a problem we have seen for decades that puts his that 18 trillion debt. When we come back to a problem when he does with our military are building out infrastructure, one of the primary roles of our government. When you go through all of these entitlements, all of these programs, budgets get tight. Incident putting money into the spaces we should as a government like monster in a first we start to have debate of where it is going to come from. We have to have a conversation as a country if were going to be responsible where is reform going to come from . Is it smart to get this from our military we live in the most dangerous world . We need to make sure we have a strong military. We have to look at the entitlement system. We want to make sure we get away from the system that can encourage a lifetime on these programs. And encouraged people to use them and get off the program. It hopefully saves the federal government a lot of money. That is the larger conversation. Host let us get jenny involved. Go ahead. Caller good morning. I would just like to say that i accessed [indiscernible] the Financial Data excel file. I was looking at the revenue columns. Are you there . Can you hear . Guest ryan here. Caller from the mid1970s. Corporations used to represent 65 to 67 percent of our revenues annually. 5 would come from excise taxes. The remaining 30 would come from Small Businesses and individuals. That is directly from ombss historical business. As we came yourforward, 12 to 15 . The left from individuals and Small Businesses. My comment is that if you look at the actual numbers for revenue, entitlements were entitlement driven but we have done a flip flop. Small businesses and individuals are more than paying their share. We can afford Social Security for ourselves. We can afford medicare. The book of the revenue is coming from individuals and Small Businesses. Guest i have not seen the data for years and why are we raising taxes . We have to recognize that we do not just as in america and compete with america. We are in the Global Competitive environment. We have all heard about that American Companies look for a suture overseas. This is not what we want to have happen. We want to have a competitive tax code that encourages this is to stay in america. We have to be competitive. This does bring up a good point. When you have a tax code that is difficult to navigate, the interests have come to hear to carve out portions of the tax code. We do not know what corporations are paying. We need to streamline the codes and make it far simpler so we know what everyone is paying. We know what corporations are paying as well. Host Houston Senate democrats have said they have been left out of negotiating process of the 2016 budget. The house wants to vote on a deal thursday. Does it include anything to do with what you are talking about tax reforms or Corporate Tax reform . Guest i am speculating here. I believe it will be done in a different package as opposed to being put in the budget process. I believe comes the paul ryan is working on that. Host we will go to pittsburgh, massachusetts. Brain go ahead. Caller china builds military equipment 90 cheaper than us. That is one question. Last year we let 10 Million People in the country on visas and 40 million in the last five years. Why are we letting sony people in this country . No wonder why so many people are working. Guest there is a tension in immigration. If you argue that you allow this to come in with or without documentation, you are competing on the autumn and of the wage bracket. That is why wages are not coming up. There is a great supply of low income workers supplied from a lot of immigration. That concerns a lot of us. In wisconsin we have a lot of dairy farms. There are a lot of jobs that we cannot find enough fo willing to do some of the toughest and dirtiest jobs out there that some americans will not do. Some of these immigrants performing some of these tasks. To another point i used the trucking industry. We have a lot of haulers that have trucks and they do not have enough drivers. You can get commercial drivers licenses for 30 days and get behind the wheel and make anywhere from 40,000 a year. We have to look at what is happening in our culture where theyre not getting connected with the people who have the jobs, better paying jobs. I think what the answer to that is, we are not quite sure yet. Host youre on the air with the congressman. Caller good morning. How are you all on this Beautiful Day . I have got two questions here. Please allow me to answer. I believe that you carry problems is a republican phenomenon. Back when bush took over, bush 43, he became president. We went into two wars and you all just cut taxes and we have been in a dive ever since. Those rats that were in baltimore, can you explain the difference between the way police handled him and the way they handled the monday ranch situation. The light guide you guns on police and nobody got arrested and missed all millions of dollars. One last thing, america, you all look out for our military and god speed for all their endeavors. Have a great day. Guest listen, going back to the wars referenced in the early 2000s, it was costly. Still time to address these issues. The problems left to barack obama today in iran and with isis and in iraq and afghanistan. In regard to income, we have more money today than we ever have in our history. People say there are all these tax cuts drop in revenue in the federal government, that is not the case. We are hitting historic highs with the revenue. We do not really have a revenue problem. We have a spending problem. Saying listen, the revenues are not their care were not taxing enough fear that is not the case. That means, what is happening on the spending fund, we always talk about what we talked about earlier. On the medicare side, modern medicine means people live longer, it is a beautiful thing. Health care costs keep going in. All of that together is putting a ton of pressure on medicare. Unless we get our hands on how we keep our promises to seniors and also what reforms need to happen, this thing will implode. Host what are your thoughts on the situation in baltimore on what role congress can play dealing with economic and racial attention in the city. Guest they have every right to be outraged. I was a prosecutor. It is important for every prosecutor in the country and when they are not, we have to have internal reviews to make sure what happened and why it is happening. Do you look at the response and instead of peaceful protest they change the culture of the community and you have i do not think it is the answer. You also see, people want to throw money at problems. It makes them feel good we now want to be done with this problem. We have done our part. Well throwing money at problems is not how we resolve the problem. I look at baltimore and and i think from my perspective, im a wisconsin guy and im an outside observer, i think our education has failed these young kids and i think our families are failing. If youre going to have a Strong Society and a Strong Community you have to have a good education. I think we need to take a deeper look and say throwing more money at a School System is not the answer. Lets look at changing a system to see if it works. Throwing money is never the answer. It is an easy solution but will not fix the problem in baltimore. A deeper conversation is, what is happening in the community where there is a fundamental breakdown and families, where you do not have moms and dads raising kids. We saw continuing on new sloops the woman who was up and giving her young son, i think he was 15 years old, saying, get your but home. That was one mom, and she had six kids and was raising them by herself. That is tough. I have seven kids and i raise them with my wife and that is tough enough. There is great tension and great anger there. We have to look at the people and it will not be an easy solution. We can set up a system to help support them. We have to look at the fundamentals of education and we have seen people who dig it dig in their heels and do not want change to the education system, even if it does not work. I think democrats and republicans are likely to say listen, we have to address the problem within the system and reform it. It is not about union spirit is about young kids who need to get an education. Host thomas in fresno, california, a republican. You are on the air. Caller good morning, mr. Sean duffy. How are you . I have got a question about the budget control act of 2011. It was inspired by the president and now he does not want to follow that anymore. We have to understand something here. When we, the people address the recourses we try to follow and are successful, and then have nothing but the same actions with ryan digging their hands into the money then youre trying to outspend a problem that will never go away. Host we talked about this earlier. Democrats republicans want to lift the bug it budget caps and have done so and this budget deal will come to the floor this week in the house. Guest what thomas said, i used to do lumberjack sports and the best contest we had was in fresno. I am fond of fresno. Yes, listen, we have a great concern on the military front. He see isis beheading folks and iran on a pathway to get a nuclear weapon, no matter what the president says. Our growing military in china. You have russia in crimea. They are advancing their old cold war footing. A weaker america with less resources i think is begging for more global conflict. There are republicans that have that concern. The caps on the military side have been broken. They put more dollars into addressing that in the long run. By spending a little more money today and having a stronger American Military, we will offset future cost, which will be far greater. Caller good morning, representative duffy. I respect your very evenhanded i like that. Anyway, i will disagree with you. Our seniors have put in a lifetime of work to fund these programs. They have basically said, well, sorry. I understand they will get more than they put in however, it is an Insurance Program and come on, we knew this from the 30s when it was put into place. They had medicare in the 60s. Guest the president would even disagree with you. And republicans have said the same thing. We will talk about addressing these small slivers, you cant fix the problem unless you get to spending. Were not talking about seniors in retirement or near retirement. Were talking about the next generation of retirees making modifications to make the program stable. It is a hard conversation. You have people in congress who want to tell americans what they want to hear instead of telling the truth. Telling people the truth, a hard political conversation. But if we do not have the conversation, in the president 10 year budget window, we see interest on the debt alone approaching 1 trillion. There are a lot of roads and bridges you could build with 1 trillion on bridges alone that we paid out this massive debt. Getting the hands around it and getting our hands around entitlement is imperative. If we do not, the debt will eat us up. Host we will go to baltimore time tom on our line for democrats. Caller i have a question about coulter of spending versus a culture of saving. I worked for the Correctional Department here in Baltimore City as a contractor. It seemed like every year we got to the end of the budget year and we had extra money, and we decided to spend it on some pretty silly things. I do not know if this is rampant throughout the government, but it just seemed if we changed the culture and may be reward contractors or department to save money every year, maybe we could get a handle on this. Guest a good point, making sure we are incentivizing to spend less and give it back to the government, as opposed to right now, to spend up to the last sent we give them. Oftentimes, you see folks in agencies buying the new computers and ipads and the money goes out the door. That is a small part of the problem, but the larger part comes from the entitlement system that is growing with the baby boomers and increased cost of health care. Host dan, independent caller. Caller im calling because i am wondering when they will finally pass the law, food stamps and welfare. The majority of them are on drugs or selling food stamps for drugs. Host where have you read that the majority do it . Caller it was just an expression but a lot of people do it. People on welfare and food stamps. Guest these are state issues. Each state on a statebystate races can look at it. If you are at home and doing drugs, you will not be able to get a job or get off social programs. I know people in wisconsin that are working two jobs and on friday night and saturday, they look for jobs to make and sleep and they pay taxes. And they want to help people who are helping themselves. It is important. If folks are on the system and not working to get off, they are doing drugs, we analyze, what do we do . We say, we are willing to help and not willing to subsidize a standard that will never get you out of entitlements. My once my one concern is about what we do about kids. A jug abusing parent and lack of food on the table hurts kids in the home. How you split that, i am not sure. Host what percentage of the budget is welfare and these types of payments . Guest it is a smaller percentage. I am not sure the exact percent. Even on reform funds, it becomes challenging with entitlements. The farm bill a year ago, if you an ablebodied man or woman and youre not working and have sound mind and sound body, we think you should have to do one of three things. Get a job, go to school to and a skill, or get a volunteer. You cannot be a 33yearolds single man sitting on the couch. Taking money out of the mouths of babies per folks will go to the lowest common denominator. Most folks would say, you cannot just sit at home and get these. That becomes a harder political conversation. The other side will all the sudden throw in babies and kids and that is not who we were talking about here at making sure we have an honest conversation on these topics is important. Host illinois, a republican, good morning. Caller i have a question. Im a vietnam vet and i see something curious going on here. Every time you guys want to push the keystone pipeline, you guys neglect to say that the Koch Brothers own 1,500,000 acres of tar sands in canada. Just off the table. I do not know how you answer that question. Not only that, the Koch Brothers will give you 900 million to the Republican Party and 1 billion for your nominee, when there is one nominee. I do not know how you will answer it, but i was a on the line and listen. Guest i do not know what parties have what interests in the Energy Sector or what democrats have interest using trains to haul Energy Rather than pipelines. We want north American Energy independence. That oil to come from canada and saudi arabia. If you are an environmentalist listen, i know that canada has invested billions of dollars. If we do not build a tech a pipeline they are still taking it out of the ground. With happen regardless what we do. The question becomes, how will you transport it . Train or truck is more dangerous or you can use a pipeline that uses less carbon and is safer. I say lets build a safe route by building the energy into our american system and make sure we do not buy oil and energy from people who do not like us very much. If you see the Energy Revolution and what it has done in the world, we dropped oil prices because of greater supply, it puts countries that are bad actors in the world, one being russia and iran is another, it puts us in a tough spot. Because they do not have now all of these resources to support the failing economys in failing governments. I look at American Energy not just as an energy play, but as a global play that affects that actors to do bad things in the world. Host clyde in new jersey democrat. Caller good morning. There is a question i have got to ask the congressman. I think the budget thing will reach be between democrats and republicans. Another question i have got to ask is, i think that ride in baltimore is a total disgrace riot in baltimore is a total disgrace. Guest there has not been a great deal of agreement on how we set up a budget. Republicans have said, we want to try to balance the budget within a 10 year window. That is our end goal. Democrats of said we do not have an interest in ever balance in the budget here we do not want a budget and the spending pan final ever bring us to the point with balances. You have an idea like that and you try to get a budget to matchup between the two parties, and it it it it gets challenging. At one point in our future come we should try to balance this thing. That is what we are trying to do, to put out reasonable proposals. You hear people say to just tax more, more revenue. The stork highs in revenue, and i think more taxes, mean less productivity less jobs, and a tougher time for america in a Global Competitive environment. Lets look at a strong and smart task code but also spending reforms that allows balance. Host the house and Senate Passed their own individual budget blueprints for 2016. Negotiators were named from each side and they were meeting to come up with a deal and they have one. Senator corker has been holding it up because he does not like what he calls gimmicks used by his republican colleagues in this deal, which lawmakers are hoping to get to the house floor by this thursday. Democrats, for their part, object to the gopss spending heist, saying they should be matched dollar to dollar with more mastic spending. Democrats also complain the republican budget would cut health, education, and programs. That is to take place on the house floor later this week, possibly a vote on thursday. We are talking with a republican of wisconsin about that and other issues. We will hear from mike next in oklahoma, independent. Caller i like to think im fairminded when it comes to this. And you probably need to make cuts to entitlements. We have got an overblown deficit. But the way i see it, you republicans come you deserve to control the budget process. With that power comes responsibility. It does not seem like, and i have been watching cspan, youre not allowing democrats to buy in on that budget process much. He said at the beginning of the show that yes, you did need democrat by in. If you are expecting that, it just seems like you do not cut nothing from the rich, youre cutting all these programs that help the poor and middleclass it just seems that if you wanted a process where you could get something done, get a grand bargain or whatever you do, you kind of allowed the democrats guest first off we do have a budget that has come out earlier than we have seen in decades which means we will start an appropriation on the spending process earlier than ever and hopefully get it done before the august recess, which i think is positive. We do want the democrat by an, but as ive mentioned, we have two fundamental differences and our side actually wants a point of balance, and democrats never want to bring the budget to balance. If they did, we have asked for the proposal. How do you actually bring a budget to balance in 10, 15, 20 years, and they never bring out proposal. It is hard to get it because fundamental views are different. Host it is also about economic growth. One of our viewers on twitter, saying military bending his ways. Spending on education is an investment with a great return. Guest i think building up infrastructure is really smart in the congress. But it affects growth in the world and america when you have bad actors that feel emboldened to do bad acts. One force in the world i think helps read piece, the American People in the American Military. So many threats in the world, to think we will cut back our military to have less capabilities does not make sense. I think you want a safe and strong American Economy and also a peaceful world. And if it will not be us, who will fill the void left by a dilapidated American Military . Will it be china or russia . The answer to those questions is yes. I prefer to see america filling the vacuum. That is the conversation we will have. It is not an economic driver but i think piece is an economic driver. That is what we are looking for with a stronger American Military. Guest the budget deal does not deal with entitlement reform. On twitter, raise the cap on Social Security before the start. Guest that is one solution. What we talked about is the next generation of wealthy, young individuals, mark zuckerberg, a facebook billionaire that he pays into Social Security and will draw that money out. We want to look at the top end. If they made more money, let them draw a little less or all the while, those who paid in in the middleclass if you make those shifts in the way Social Security works, you get the same net outcome and save Social Security. A different way to do it but the rich will get a little less. Host lets go back to call spared fredericksburg, virginia, a republican. Caller we keep hearing infrastructure and it is always roads and schools. But, in fact, we need a deeper infrastructure. We need reform of business government and this is local and state governments also it we need reform of the School System. We do need to educate people without all of the bringing the children into it, because we are the guardians of the children but the children do not have a say in education, and they should not. We are adults. What i am trying to say is, you keep talking about infrastructure. We have a moral infrastructure deficit. We neglect the small country towns in this country. We see peoples boardedup houses and boardedup stores and young people standing on the streets and waiting for drug dealers. It is happening all throughout the country. All you have to do is take a trip down 95 to myrtle beach and you will see all of these closed places in these small areas. Guest i am from a small town myself in wisconsin. My district is rural. It is harder for Small Businesses to actually expand and grow and create more jobs, not because the competitive environment is that much more difficult, but it is more challenging for Small Businesses to deal with rules and regulations. Small guys cannot navigate that. If you are the small guy, the rules and regulations have a dramatic impact on you. If you look at multinational corporations, they are not really moving into northern northern wisconsin. It is the Small Business guys growing and expanding and fighting every day to stay in business and their the ones under attack by this new massive government growth. If you want to support small, rural communities, lets make sure we have a limited government set up in a way that Small Businesses, whether in role or urban america, can actually build up their business, instead of the business of dealing with the government. Host next, pennsylvania, a democrat caller. Caller what has not been spoken of yet is the real root of the problem and that is that citizens united, Unlimited Campaign contribution allowance. The coke others spending 900 million, that is bribery, not contribution, not helping the country. It is hurting everywhere you go. You cannot run for office, practically, unless you are a millionaire. You have to raise godawful amounts of money. Of course there will be bribery. You will not control the budget until you get that under control and we get a Congress Full of good people. The whole senate practically is millionaires. How can we have confidence they will deal with their problems . They do not. It is ridiculous that very wealthy people are allowed to i elections. That is what is happening. Host we will take your point. Guest i am not one of those but money in politics is a real stress point. Barbara brings up a good point of how you work on getting money out of politics. You have one side that says, you know what, there is a Funding Source for republicans, lets go after that Funding Source of money, but do not touch mine. Republican say the opposite. If youre going to get rid of money in politics, do it across the board. I have had very competitive races in wisconsin and the pastor i see the outside money flow in and i get all the negative advertisements. I would love to see less money in politics. How we do it is important. If you look at the amount of money raised by barack obama, he raised far more money than his republican challengers. That does not seem to be a problem for those who talk about citizens united. It is just you have to be evenhanded and say, you a few want to get rid of money in politics, you have to look at both sides and where the money comes from. If you only want to attack one side, i do not think you have credibility. Host i want to ask you about your role on the financial services. You are the chair on the subcommittee. Got frank legislation five years coming up. What effort are you going to be making as chair of the subcommittee . What is next . Guest we look at the Credit Unions try to get out of the regulatory machine and dodd frank. If you do not have banks and Credit Unions that work in america, smalltown do not work. If they are not there, big wall street banks do not come and fill the small bank role. On the oversight side, one thing that concerns me is where the fdic and potentially other regulators had a program to say, there are certain businesses that are legal in america and we has the bureaucrats do not like them, and we will actually go after them. They encouraged banks to stop banking. They have gone after gun dealers, all of them legal it all of them have done nothing wrong and because the highranking bureaucrats including, the chairman, who sat by complicit we as this has gone on, they put pressure on banks to stop doing business with these lines of industries. In american credit, if you cannot bank, you cannot have interest there is a crafty way to put pressure through the Banking System on industries you do not like there that is not how the system in america works. We have laws in the legislature sides what is legal and what is legally functioning businesses. That is not the role of the fdic. They should make sure our banks are safe and sound, but should not try to implement healthy by putting pressure on banks. It is hard to deal with bad actors. It is hard to say, listen, i will legislate this pair you have to rule out that actors and we want to make sure we have people who believe in the mission of the insurance policy that comes from the fdic. If you do not believe in that, you have got to go. Host can i ask you about the flash crash of 2010 . One person was arrested where investors lost a lot of money. This one person was a less arrested and monday arrested recently. Are you going to investigate how one person could have that much influence over the market . Guest it is interesting. We have operation control point. The fdic, the Monetary Policy leak that took place as well a few years ago. There are regulatory issues we have to take up. Financial services, we have Capital Markets and wall street and all the banking from big banks and small banks, housing, the federal reserve, Monetary Policy, we have a very small team and we have to figure out what spaces we can get into their there are so many issues out there, but instead of having 500 people, i have five people on our team that does all this work. We have got to pick and choose but we will take a look at that. Host rick in florida. Independent caller. Caller one guy called in about testing welfare recipients. We had tried that in the great state of florida. People did not pass the drug test but i want to say, you are talking about educating the young. The last president ial election, all the republican candidates were cutting the department of education. What you say about that . Guest the point is making sure you have eurocrats in washington driving policies that affect wisconsin, alabama louisiana or texas, it does not make sense. We want to reempower our states and municipalities to educate the kids the way they see fit. You frankly have a Democrat Party who is unwilling to tackle the Union Problem within the School System. If you have a School System failing, it is not about the union. It is about the kids. We have to stand up for kids that are not getting proper education. I think we should give People Choice to go, listen, if i am in the innercity, and not getting a good education, give them a choice and let them go to another school that works for them. Democrats say, i have got poor kids in the innercity and some of them might be immigrant families, legal or illegal. And if you do not have a good education come you do not have a pathway up to the middleclass. Folks in the Democrat Party say listen, i will not stand with us kids and give them a ticket to spot to prosperity and give them a better education in schools. Instead, i will buy out to the unions of the schools and make sure those kids based on their zip code are stuck in failing schools. That is failing the kids. Lets make sure we have competition. Lets have some of us come in and say, listen, ive got a better way to do it at we will educate your kids more effectively. They will get your kit up in the middleclass. But right now, you see democrats pushing back on that. It is more of a union and money issue as opposed to standing up for the kids in america. Host thank you for talking to our viewers. Coming up next, we will talk with congressman john delaney democrat of maryland. He is here to talk about u. S. Hostage policy, as well as terrorism. His constituent was the victim of the drone strike recently and we will talk about his efforts there and policy coming up. We will later talk with judy collins about Suicide Prevention, joined by john of the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention. We will be right back. [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. Visit ncicap. Org] [captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2015] the new congressional directory is a handy guide with color photos of every senator and house member plus ill information. And twitter handles. Also, a foldout map of capitol hill, and a look at congressional committees. Federal agencies and state governors. Order your copy today. It is 13 95 cents plus shipping and handling through the cspan online store at cspan. Org. Here are a few book festivals we will cover the spring on booktv. In the middle of may, we will visit maryland for live coverage of the gettysburg fest. Tom davis and martin frost, as well as the former Senior Adviser president obama, and then we will close out may at book expo america in new york city where they showcase upcoming books. In the first week in june, we are alive for the Chicago Tribune fest, including our threehour live program, including Pulitzer Prize winning author lawrence wright. That is this spring on cspan2 buses booktv. Washington journal continues. Host we want to welcome back to our table congressman john delaney, democrat of merit of maryland. The president talked last week, he was a constituent of yours being held hostage by al qaeda. When and how did you learn about his death . Guest we learned about it the day before it was announced from the white house. I learned about it about the same time as him. I was just heartbroken. I never met warren, which i feel sad about, but i have really gotten to know the family incredibly well. Elaine and ones daughters. Weve we worked very closely on strategies. A terrible ending to what as what has been a difficult situation. Host what was the effort like . Explain u. S. Hostage procedure. Guest i think the men and women who work in the various parts of government that touch the hostage situation, the fbi, they have primary responsibility for dealing with hostage the matter what the circumstances around them being taken are. And the state department and other parts of government. Men and women who work on those they work really hard. But in truth, we do not do a great job as a nation in terms of coordinating all the resources we have to bringing these people back. We do not develop the customized strategy needed. Every one of these situations is highly unique there a lot has changed with the hostages. A lot of what we apply is dated back to the time when most hostages were related to drug cartels by capturing americans and wanting ransoms. We now have these nonstate actors taking american hostages. They do not really want the money. They use them as propaganda, operating a country that do not control their borders. It is a different set of facts we are dealing with than what we are used to. We have to change our headset and we need a much more customized approach where we develop specialized capabilities that could take advantage of all of the assets the United States has. Technological assets, all the wonderful assets in our military but importantly leverage the relationships we have in the region with other countries him countries. It is a person who wakes up every day and has a whiteboard with different strategies and how to advance the ball he day. It also involves new capabilities with the government. Host walk through your efforts specifically and explain what that is like that what did you do and what did the administration do . Guest we worked very closely and when never wanted to get ahead of what they want to do. Making sure every aspect of the government is being utilized. We thought we could do more to help in the efforts to get him back. We did specific things to the congress to push the government of pakistan to cooperate more fully with the fbi. That is something, in my own opinion, there is a chance we might of had a different outcome. There is an example that really surprises me. Pakistan with millions of dollars of aid. When i heard that effort, we learned that information we wanted from the government. I was like, this is ridiculous. We also be getting this information to were asking them to cooperate with the fbi as it relates to american hostages. That was one example. The other example where we got involved, very instrumental in helping get americans back. We started to get the conversation going again, not changing u. S. Policy. I sport we do not favor hostages. I support that but we connect to get them back. So we started those efforts. I was surprised we were not doing more as a country. Im not saying he can pay the ransom. But like a lot of governments there are different relationships. They know it what is going on on the ground to some extent. They have people they work with who may be able to negotiate like they did for curtis, a terrific example, a private citizen who has taken up hostage release as a private mission p are he has worked on many of these cases and the Washington Post had a good story about this last year when they talked about how a private citizen actually played a really Important Role without paying any ransom. Host what was the to medication like between the al qaeda operatives holding mr. Weinstein hostage and the family in the government . Guest there are a few public medications, as you know about, but in terms of other communications, im generally very respectful the family into not want to talk about any specific communications they might have had. Host what efforts can other families, who have family members being held hostage, what effort can they make on their own . Where does the government limit them and what they could do to try to free their loved ones . Guest our policies we do not pay for hostages. We also have a policy that private citizens are not paid for family members and loved ones. There is talk about that being reviewed. That is an interesting conversation to have. The policy that we do not pay for hostages i totally support. Whether that should apply to families or not, i think that does merit a conversation about whether there is evidence to support whether that will change how Many Americans took us choose. That is open for debate. But i think, unfortunately if we did a better job, and i do not want to criticize individuals, the men and women who work and really care about these people, but if we really did what i want to do, have a hold have a whole new effort create committee on the National Security council that the most important parts of governments you have state departments, fbi, intelligence, military, the attorney general, they are all on this committee and the committee is chaired by a fulltime prison whose sole responsibility is to develop strategies and get hostages, find out where they are and work to get them back. They would be able to speak for the capabilities of all of the members on that committee. It would be a totally new approach and a much more effective approach, i think. Host that we would need in your opinion a hostages are . Hostage czar . Guest the family knew and government knew, but the decision was made early on not to go public because they thought, strictly considering the juice faith, it might be counterproductive. Then what then when al qaeda was sent open videos to the media, the decision was to go public. There are estimates there are several dozen at any given time and how many of those are the oldfashioned drug cartel, versus the middle east, it is probably an even split. I am not talking about building a whole new department. Im talking about taking the resources we already have in the government and creating a way for them to be court native more effectively. We do not need, as he said, there are only several dozen hostages at one time. We do not need to build a whole new bureaucracy. We need to build a capability that can develop hostage specific strategies and all different and customized based on the facts on the ground, and then have the ability to cut across government, grab what is needed, and i secured against those strategies. Host we will go to joy california, a democratic caller. Caller i am down here in the garage and i can hear you guys talk, but when i first saw the headline of terrorism i thought of gitmo and im curious why that situation is still going on. The second part of my comment is with terrorism, you know, i read a lot about isis and what is going on with that and i just think the media overemphasizes the threat that that is to the United States. Host im going to have the congressman jump in and take on that. Guest i agree about guantanamo bay, it is not clear what role that is playing anymore. As it relates to isis, think i have a different take on it. I do view it as a very significant threat to the United States. In this area, id take them at their word. If you listen to their words they are saying they want to find americans wherever they are, including here, and they want to kill us. And that is what theyre doing with the hostages overseas. So i think this is a threat we have to deal with as a nation. And we can see by their actions where they have done is incredibly brutal killings of the hostages they have had. It is just a moral awful act. I think it is a serious threat and they say they want to do more of it wherever they can identify americans before other people in their pool particular cause an approach in the world, the majority of the world. I think it is a very serious threat. Host texas, steve, independent caller. Caller yes, i was wondering what the difference between the state being established for israel they were terrorists at the time, the commies were terrorists at the time, and what are your thoughts on those policies being implemented in the context of this world order right now . Guest i do not agree with the fundamental premise that the juice state or terrorists organized this were terrorists. It is hard for me to make any comment. Host we will move on. Matthew, in massachusetts, an independent. Caller good morning. I wanted to make a few points. The first is the funds will be used to kill more people including our soldiers. If anyone has any doubt about that, where do you think money is going . That is where it is going. The change in the policy, one after another of individuals turning themselves over here they are already leaving to go over and join these terrorist groups. Now, a video in the basement, i have been kidnapped and 90 need money. And the money these families will be able to provide it will just increase tenfold. It will keep increasing. Guest just to be clear, there is no proposed change in u. S. Policy as it relates to terrorism. I certainly do not believe we should a known in the government has proposed that here no one on capitol hill has proposed that. You made one part of the argument, but the utter death the other part is people think if we start paying for hostages, we will just make more of them. In addition to the money being used for purposes that are terrible and immoral etc. What has been talked about is, right now, American Families whose family members have been taken hostage, and they talk about using their own funds to make ransom payments, that they have been threatened by our government, that they will be prosecuted if they do that. There has been talk about maybe looking at the policy. That is a very different policy. There are implications to that. I think to the extent we were to make any changes to that policy, we would want to be very comfortable at the changes do not change the rate of americans change taken hostage. I think it is a good discussion because we have seen situations like the family threatened by the government when they were trying to do things because their son brought back compared it just underscores the point in my mind, which is if we had a more centralized capability to deal of finding hostages, and that is the key part, we talk about what we do with terrorists i think there is a huge gap. Warren weinstein, my constituent who is held hostage an unfortunate we recently killed he was held there for three years and we could not find him. The real failure of his country when you consider the capabilities of the military the capability and our ability to put pressure on our partners in the region, to help us find these hostages, if an american can go three years and not be found in the middle east, that is a breakdown of our capabilities and that is the area i want to focus on. We have a lot more options but at a minimum, we will not bomb places where we know what they are. Host you wrote that you are saddened and disappointed and outraged. Where was the failure . Intelligence . Are you saying our intelligence did not know where he was at all during those three years . Guest we had a sense he was along the pakistan border, but that is just because that is where our sense all of these people were taken. A different train, we do not have a lot of capabilities there. But you are right, where i think the breakdown was was on the intelligence side. The intelligence broadly defined. It is not that our Intelligence Agency are they listening, of course they are. But it is also working with pakistan to see what they know. Do they have people who have information, and are they letting us talk to them . Are we collaborating with other partners in the region . I think it was a breakdown of the United States of america and all our capabilities which, relative to the rest of the world, are staggering. We cannot find americans taken hostage in a limited art of the world. Part of the world. Host you are on the air, our line for republicans. Caller we have a 10 more on Chris Hannity in the country because the area of baltimore where the rides are currently taking place no one is speaking about the overtake of the Islamic Community as primarily normed northern states that have poor economic support and they are just basically reaching out and no one is speaking out to bring about hey, we are, our homefront is under attack. We are focusing on more the smoke and mirrors about a bunch of crips and bloods who have no injunction in the country to speak of. Guest i think it is really important that when we speak about people practicing their faith in islam, the overwhelming majority of people practicing that faith live up to the core tenets of that faith, peace and love, which we find in other faiths. We have to be careful when we talk about people practicing that religion in our own country. As it relates in baltimore, it is a very different situation. A lot of different protests. What appears to be happening all over the country to poor innercity black communities. They want answers as to why some a mic fred why someone like freddie gray die the way he did. It is inexplicable to all of us that he would die based on what has been said. The community and the family wants answers. We are heartbroken for them. Most of the protests were very peaceful and really raising this question in an appropriate way. Criminals got involved in the situation got out of hand and that was terrible, but the core situation in baltimore is not what you are focused on. The situation of baltimore, what we saw in other parts of the country, which is, these black communities, underinvested in and in many ways are the product of a failed and broken criminal Justice System in this country our laws being applied unevenly to citizens in those communities . That is a legitimate question that has to be answered. And then what do we do to improve the situation in these communities when you could be talking about these communities not just around these crises, what types of criminal justice reforms are needed so we could break this cycle of poverty and crime and despair and bad relations with the police department. Those are all the issues coming out of the situation in baltimore. What is remarkably being handled in a very peaceful way. Protests, 50 or 100 religious leaders involved, and peaceful protests. Tensions were high in this situation and the situation becomes inherently dangerous. Things got out of hand very quickly. Host i will go to josh in florida, a democrat. Go ahead with your question or comment. Caller good morning, congressman. The question i have is simply this. Tell me what you suppose would happen if when a hostages taken the United States cut off all ties, all support to that country until the hostage is released. I will take your answer off the air. Guest i like where you are going with your question or and i do not think i would go as far as you are going. But here is an example. Warren weinstein. I will tie it all back to my constituent. That is who i was really working for for the past couple of years. He was captured. The question is, where we getting enough cooperation from the Pakistani Police who have a lot of contacts in all of these villages and things like that where we getting this cooperation . What we were doing, what we were working on in cooperation with the fbi and other parts of our government is threatening to hold back u. S. Aid, which is where you are going, unless we get the cooperation. You and i thematically are talking about the same thing. Finding pressure points with various contacts, or touch points these countries have with other countries, and making sure were getting 100 cooperation. The situation in pakistan around hostages is really very difficult. The former Prime Ministers child was taken hostage. It is probably a little unreasonable, but should we say things like, we will not provide you aid unless we get 100 cooperation from your various police authorities, military authorities, because these things tend not to be as well corrugated in places like pakistan as they are here, so you could get cooperation from military and not police, should we condition our aid on getting 100 cooperation from police and the military as it relates to information related to an american hostage . The answer that question is yes. Host the house is going to come in right now and start their legislative business. So we are going to put the conversation with you on hold for a minute here and we will go to coverage of the house and then we will come back and continue our conversation here with representative john delaney. Security sleep of the chambers. Pursuant to the order of the house monday, april 209, the house stands in recess. Host the speaker of the house gaveling and legislation. The plan is that you heard there from the speaker that in a joint meeting of congress that these senate and house lawmakers will be meeting in the chamber at 10 45 a. M. Eastern time i had of the japanese Prime Ministers remarks at 11 a. M. Eastern time where he is talking about strengthening ties between the United States and japan. And of course, we will have coverage here on cspan of that speech. You can tune and then. Back to our conversation with congressman john daneil ek john delaney, he is here to talk about hostage policy. This constituent one weinstein was a hostage and was recently killed by the jones strike. We started out this conversation with what changes you would like to see. Can you outline them again for our viewers . Guest what we are proposing a committee of the National Security council being established. All the principles of our most senior people within the agencies are within the arms of government relative to the hostage situation. Like the fbi and the apartment of department of intelligence. This committee will be chaired by an individual whose fulltime responsibility is to work on hostage related matters. This person will likely be referred to the hostages are. As a hostage bizarre. Czar. It will include putting pressures on countries in the region, mostly referring to the middle east that would help us. It would thereby deliver a much more coordinated and efficient hostage strategy. We will have someone who wakes up every morning and goes into the office and has a whiteboard on their wall with the names of all the hostages and their developed individualized strategies for each of these situations. And every day, they are seeing what they can do to move it all former. What capabilities do they need from intelligence, what do they need from fbi and the state what pressure do we need to put on pakistan, etc. We can do three things find these people. That was the problem with weinstein. We never found him over three years, which i think is a huge failure of government. Once you find these people, find options for negotiating release. You can go to rescue them. You can avoid calming where you know they are bombing where you know they are. We have seen an uneven situation with respect to families. We are not giving information they need and it is coming in and it just one invention. A disjointed fashion. Put a small team in place, but that team has lots of power to cut across all parts of government to get what they need to get better results. Host is this something the president can do on his own . Guest yes. We have in talking to the white house extensively. They have announced some steps in this direction. Things have been a little confusing in the terms of a fusion cell that creates a better way for different agencies to coordinate. Our proposal goes further. I think our proposal is a much better solution. Directionally, i think we are heading in the same way. I look forward to working with them and with our legislation and hopefully coming to an agreement that we all can say that this is what she should be doing. Best we should be doing. What we should be doing g. Host lets go to chuck, and independent. Caller why are we always giving money to Foreign Countries that hate us and our jihadist . And then they bombed their own country like china . I dont understand that. Host we will have the congressman go on. Guest the total aid that we provide all of the world is much smaller than people think it is. Its less the 1 of the total budget of the United States. It is not like we are providing a significant amount of dollars. The budget of the u. S. Is very big. As a percentage, all the aid is less the 1 . My opinion is that the aid is really important. A lot of it is for humanitarian needs. It is in many of these nations where they are dealing with inhumane crisis sees where children and people are at real significant risk. I think it is the most powerful and wealthy nation in the world that we have an obligation to help out. Some of it is to help build the economy is in these regions, which has been proven to be one of the most stabilizing factors in the health and stability of a nation which by the way, is in our best agers, because we have stable nations, we will not have terrorist groups form. Most of it is for securities for nations that are key partners of ours. I think the foreign aid strategy of our country is well thought out and effective. We dont provide money to terrorist organizations. That is prohibited and no one in the government would do that so we are not doing that. Some of the countries where we do provide aid are countries where the government has a hard time controlling their own borders. They have terrorist operations going on within their own countries which they are trying to fight and we are china to help them fight. A lot of our foreign aid is designed to create an environment where we can be more effective at that. I think the foreign aid budget of the United States comes encompasses multiple objectives. I touched on the human terry reasons. Want to create martic gets we want to great markets create markets. We are much less likely to have terrorist threats. If you look of these countries some of these countries have shockingly high unemployment particularly among the younger population. 50 to 60 to 70 Unemployment Rate among young people in some of these countries. That is exactly the kind of environment where terrorism breeds and a lot of our aid is designed to prevent that. Host lets get a handful of more phone calls. Lets go to marysville washington. A republican. Caller good morning, congress and. Guest good morning, harry. Caller my heart goes out to the families of the hostages. Secondly, i like to ask you do you think theres a parallel between what was going on in the 1990s when president clinton was also using jones drones to fix a problem that we couldnt put our finger on and now they are doing it and it seems to me that is just as ineffective as it was back then. The difference being isis is a disease that is spreading a whole lot quicker than what president clinton was dealing with back in the 1990s. Host we will have the congressman answer. Guest i grew with the about the threat of isis. I think it is obviously incredibly a scary situation with isis. We need to be incredibly determined and committed in defeating ices. I said to the earlier caller that i take them at their word and that word is to continue to attack and kill americans. We need to fight them and fight them on the ground where they are. We need to work with our partner nations in doing that so that the countries where isis is that that they can get control of their countries again and we can eliminate this threat. I think there is an important discussion about our drone policy, but they have been largely effective. Drones need good intelligence. One of the problems with the weinstein situation is that the only four people in the compound, but it turned out that there were six. I think the intelligence that was done was their phone thorough and careful, but it obviously wasnt enough. That is why i want my intelligence around hostage identification so we wouldve known where warned was. If it was as good as our intelligence capabilities, we wouldve had the same discussions about battalion staff. That is also strategy. Strategy. A tragedy. The reason that i like drones is that it puts fewer americans at risk. When we do mans operation, we are putting american folks at risk. With drones, we dont have to do that. It has to be done in cooperation with really good intelligence. Host vermont, a democrat. Caller good morning. Send their delaney, i do believe senator delaney, i do believe that there should be provisions all over countries in the world, especially pakistan. That president compared to other president s got bin laden. My comment is about baltimore. Im sad about what happened. The government should also assist of respectful sites. If a Police Officer are supposed to be asked respected, they should also respect our rights. There are Police Officers in every situation. They put their life in danger. Children have lost their fathers and husbands. Policeman have devoted their whole life for this country. Not supposed the judge all Police Officers we are not supposed to judge all Police Officers. Host thank you, caller. Guest the question dealt with two topics and it had a cooperation common theme which is cooperation and respect. The first part of your question was about pakistan and generally about the cooperation. It is really important for us as government to have cooperation with other nations where we have common interests. And pakistan is a good example. We have it love, interest with pakistan. I dont think as a nation that we have always held them to a high standard. He can have relationships with nations and cooperate with them and have respect for them, but you also have to make sure that they are living up to their end of the bargain. Cooperation and respect are the Core Principles of foreign policy. Every once in a while, you have to be tough. We have to be tough on our partners to make sure that they are cooperating with United States in a way that we deem acceptable. That is kind of a complicated area, but dramatically i agree with you. With baltimore, you talk about the situation in baltimore. Look, it is a tragedy what happened to mr. Gray and his family demands answers. As do a lot of families of afton american men africanamerican men in poor communities and feel like they have had an even treatment from the police. Youre right. He also have to be incredibly respectful of our Police Forces around the country. Many policemen were injured in the baltimore situation and our hearts go out to them as well. As the president said the other day, it is a really tough job. Being a Police Officer is a really, really tough job in this country, particularly in some of these communities which have been broken the cycles of poverty and other failures in our criminal Justice System. These communities have a lot of violent and a lot of crime. They are very high risk for Police Officers. I think youre right. There has got to be a Mutual Respect or trust or none of this is going to work. Host within a few more phone calls lets get a few more phone calls. This is al. Caller i two questions for you. It sounds like from your synopsis that you have just given about proposed changes youre making that you are going to be politicizing the process. In that vein, i will like to ask you i dont really agree with that. Lets see if we can if we politicize the process, what would happen if say, these right wing newscasters and congressman get often demonize the victim as they did in the Bowe Bergdahl case . Host we are running out of time with the congressman. Guest i think im doing the opposite of that. Im not sure what you are focusing on. Im known to be one of the least political members of congress. Part of that is i spent my whole career as an entrepreneur and taking businesses public. That is my political business. It is an operation business and strategy business. That is how i think about the hostage situation. I think we have a management issue. We have to mend us resources and the government that are designed for big engagements and big endeavors and left of activity. But then we have a hostage situation which is fortunately only a few handfuls of hostages at any one time. Each situation is very different and highly customize. When i put my management hat on, when i see and this was based on very specific writedowns that i saw with respect to warn weinsteins case. I think we can set up a Management Structure that takes advantage of all the assets that we have as a nation and the capabilities that we have a people around the world and deliver a better product or solution to the American People. What im talking about is creating an effective and efficient way to do so develop highly specific strategies for hostages and cut through the bureaucracy and grab whatever assets are needed in the fbi or state department or intelligence communities and bring it there to find the hostages and hopefully get them rescue and can indicate that it was the families communicate better with the van was. There is no politics at all the solution. I never talked about it in a political context. I only talked about it in the context of helping families like the wind seems in Getting Better information in finding their loved ones who are held hostage and, god willing, getting them back to the United States safe. Host thank you very much for your time this manner. Morning. Coming up next, we will switch years and welcome to the table judy collins, an awardwinning singersongwriter. She has written about struggles with depression and she will talk about efforts with Suicide Prevention. She will be joined by john madigan, Vice President of the foundation for Suicide Prevention. We will youre right that. Be right back. This weekend, the cspan cities to her has partnered with Cox Communications to learn about the history and literally life of topeka, kansas. When the act was signed in 1854, the very act of signing it and that piece of paper was viewed by missourians as an act of war. When northerners decided that the popular sovereignty would decide to leave kansas, were going to send people to settle. That was viewed as an act of war by many missourians. Because they assumed it would all be theirs. There were letters back across the kansas border almost immediately. In may, john brown and his sons and other followers dragged five men from the cabins along the pottawatomie creeks and they were shot to death with broad swords. That effectively cleared the area of southern settlers. Topeka, if you look at the School Standing outside, you would be very hard pressed to determine whether white students were africanamerican students attended because the School Boards really did provide all the same materials that the white schools offered. What is even more interesting for most people when they come to visit as they find out after graduating from elementary school, africanamerican students attended integrated middle and high schools. While they certainly were no supporters of segregation and obviously saw the injustice of having to attend separate elementary schools, the Africanamerican Community also was very proud of their schools because these were excellent facilities. So while there was support for the idea of integration there was also some resistance especially from the teachers and the local chapter of the naacp that fear the loss of these institutions and the loss of those jobs. Once all of our events from topeka saturday and at noon eastern on cspan two but tv. And on American History tv on cspan3. Announcer washington journal continues. Host and we are back this morning. We are focusing for the remainder of today on Suicide Prevention. We want to welcome to this conversation judy collins, an awardwinning singersongwriter and author of books. Welcome. Thank you for being here. We are also joined by john madden, Vice President of Public Policy for the American Foundation of Suicide Prevention. Thank you, sir, for being here as well. I wanted to start with the first, judy collins, and just talk about why this is an important cause for you personally. Guest im a suicide survivor of my own Suicide Attempt as well as a survivor of the suicide of my son. And im here because i believe that education is the best way to deal with suicide, breaking the taboo of discussing it which also has been a part of our culture, part of our history part of the Human History for so many decades and we are beginning to break through that. Because this foundation has been so helpful in bringing it into the public view and also letting people know that the thing to do is to talk about it, educate about it, and be part of the solution. Host what do you hope to copper state that by educating a cop was the compass by educating accomplish by educating . Guest they will tell doctors what they will pay for. My old friend who i became very close to after my sons death start of the first Suicide Prevention hotline and 1949 in l. A. They said to him, youll want to take the word suicide out of there because we cannot say it is a suicide in public. That is how bad it was. He also said that what is happened is the Insurance Companies in the medical communities hijacked the brain. I was lucky because i had there. I had there to you for as long as i needed it when i needed it and it was prayed for by my insurance. People cant that that today. Best get that today. My view is that a lot of the Insurance Companies, some of them have to stop living up to their idea which is to make more money than god to pay for the health for the people who need help with Mental Health needs have. That is my purpose here. The only thing that i know about Suicide Prevention is how i prevent a my own suicide and i will share that if you would like. Host i want to welcome my viewers to start dialing in. The phone numbers will be on your screen and we are going to divide them regionally. John madigan, layout for our viewers how big of a problem this is. Guest it is a big problem unfortunately. Suicide is now the 10th leading cause of death in this country. It is going the wrong way. We know of 40,000 plus suicide each year. It is the second leading cause of death for 1024yearolds. It is a big big problem and i fought the cancer wars, the alzheimer wars, and to judys point, i think it is time for the country to understand that you cannot separate the mind from the body. The good news is that the Mental Health parity law went into effect last july 1 so Insurance Companies by law must now treat physical and Mental Health issues equally. But again to judys point, it is when to take some time. The Insurance Companies are studying the rags. Basically if you are allowed to visit your heart dr. For 10 visits, you will have to be able to visit your Mental Health provider for at least 10 visits. We are making great strides. I think it is the final health issue in the closet so to speak. We didnt talk about cancer in the 1960s. We didnt talk about aids in the 1970s. We didnt talk about alzheimers quite frankly until about 10 years ago. I think it is really clear that we have to have people understand that Mental Health issues are no different than diabetes, heart, whatever, and is ok to talk about it, and better yet, it is ok to get help. Host what are the challenges with Mental Health parity . You say we are not there yet. The law was put in place. Judy collins was talking about it as well. We are not seeing it yet. Guest there are a bunch of challenges. Mental health professionals, for example, right now, some of them feel they are not getting reimbursed at the proper rate. Many of them dont take insurance. So you have to go pay for their care of front and then submit your bill to your Insurance Company and get reimbursed. For some families on a tight budget, that is a real problem. Is a multifaceted issue and we are working on it. The good news is that Mental Health is a bipartisan issue. We have friends on both sides of the aisle. This went to the a major bill introduced to congress by tim murphy from pennsylvania and senator cassidy from louisiana and senator murphy from connecticut. Major Mental Health care reform. First major bill and 50 years. Host what will it do . Guest it will look at the whole range of Mental Health services and how they are delivered reimbursement fees for doctors how patients are treated, and it will be monumental. It is a long time coming. I think we will make some major strides. Host judy collins, before we get to calls, tell our viewers your personal story and your personal struggles with depression over the years. When did it again . Begin . Guest it began as a teenager. I had a lot of demands on me. That is not a reason. Like presents terrible problems that have to be solved. My parents it wouldve destroyed them if i wouldve succeeded. I know that now. Of course, i was 14 and i took a lot of pills and i survived. Nobody then talked about it. My son was as i am an alcoholic. He was recovering. Im recovering for many years from alcoholism. Active alcoholism is a good have to suicide. We have to start with education. I would say that in one way of course, my son had seven years of sobriety before he be lots. In the relapse, he took his life. It is the same way his fathers father has taken his life. I have to Say Something about the things that are available that dont cost money and that dont take insurance. There are a lot of things that are available. People talk to, people that are your friends to talk to, groups that are free to talk to. You can go online and find recovery groups that you do not have to pay a penny for. You can look at your diet and clear out the junk and clear out the booze. You can go to a place to teach you how not to drink. How about to use the kinds of things people who have diabetes have to face it on a daily basis. Sugar, and cods and grains in johns and john a danger for some of us who are allergic to the things that constitute alcohol. Alcohol is a depressant. Drinking means that you are liable. It is one of the options that when youre drinking quite friendly. I was suicidally bans all the years that i was drinking for 23 years. I know that there are things that are homeopathic and helpful and free. But i think the combination of getting some help from a professional and doing the things are that you can do to save your life are vital to Suicide Prevention. As i said, i know the most about my own Suicide Prevention. As a suicide survivor, i am dozens times more likely to take my life. I treat that as first and foremost as my job today is to stay healthy and active and connected and stay involved and to try to tell my story somewhere to help somebody and to not take my own life. Host i know our viewers want to get involved in the conversation. The phone lines are lighting up. Let me go to john in huntsville, texas. Good morning. Caller good morning. My question is apple giving examples. Back in 2001, i took a whole bottle of xanax. The reason for that was and i was a survivor. I didnt die. They took me to the hospital and i got there in time. I got an trouble with the law back in 1994 i serve five years probation. But i have a criminal record that is overshadowing me. Every time i go to apply for a job, my application gets thrown to the side because employers can use your past against you. To me, that is discrimination. There are a lot of people in this country that are in the same predicament i am who can never get ahead in life because our system has pushes down and here we are trying to better ourselves. I went to college and got to College Degrees and i still to this day cannot get out of the rut that im in. Because of my criminal past. Host im going to have john madigan take that up. Guest i feel for your challenges. I think part of it is the stigma around Mental Illness and addiction disorders. That combined with criminal backgrounds i think that is why judaism town here. She is here to talk and elevate the conversation. If you are diabetic, you have to deal with diabetes everyday. With the Mental Health disorders, you need to do the same thing. You need to empower your physicians and people you work with to understand that you need help. And that is ok. It is no different than diabetes. Reach out to me after the show and i will figure out where in texas we can get you some help and connect you with people back home to work with you. Host daniel in bellevue, florida. You are next. Caller good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Let me get this out of the way. Judy blue eyes, you are as beautiful as ever. Guest thank you. Caller i am of your generation. You are one or two days older than i am. Nevermind about all that. Never escalated her age. Escalated her edge. In a sense im a suicide survivor both ways. One time, i wanted to bless my head off, but it turns out i didnt. My nephew and god rest his soul he came up against the crisis he couldnt deal with. He killed himself and that is the only detail i know. I never asked anybody about what happened and how we did it or whatever. Anyways, suite judy blue eyes, i wish that younger people of the current generations were familiar with your music in your compliments and you are a compost mix. God love you. And your soul is eternal. God love you. Host yes. Guest he was blind. Caller if people aendure such an inconvenienced consciousness guest thats a good way to put it. Host you are not suvvrccesful with your attempt, but your son did commit suicide. And it did destroy you. First of all, i understood. It is the central philosophical quandary for every human being on the planet. Suicide or homicide. Those of us who have suicide ideology and whether it is a condition or acquired or genetic we dont know that. But depression is genetically transmitted. Has to do with conditions of imbalanced. I have dealt with it since a teenager. The depression led to my temp and also rage and resentment and anger. A lot of things contribute to this. Having somebody to talk to is essential. Joan rivers called me after my sons suicide and she said first of all, there are no guilds and suicide. I knew this, but it is important have somebody say that to you. You cant cure. You could not have controlled if you could not have stopped it because its not your issue. It is the individual who does the act and it is their responsibility for taking action on his or her own behalf. You try to do the best you can. But unless you are dealing with a person who is under 18 and you have control over what they do and where they go and whether you put them into treatment, you dont have a lot to say with adults. However, the other thing that joan said to me was that you cannot start stop working. I wanted to stop my life. I put all my concerts on hold and said canceled all. I have finished her. She said that you cannot do that because you wont recover. She had a suicide in those days that was rather recent. She said that you cannot stop working because if you stop working, youre not going to heal. Ive found and i to say that music is feeling. People who come to see me often say that they have gotten through difficult times because of my music. Well, ive gotten through difficult times because of my music. That has been a huge meal at best healing factor in my life. Host john madigan, i want you to pick up on what she was talking about. And that is genetics. Your group has done funding into what causes Suicide Attempts. Guest first of all we have a bold goal. We want to reduce suicide by 20 by 2025. We going to a couple should by several ways. We are going to have people like judy collins come on your show and go around the country to talk about it. By the government investing more money. Right now, the government only spends 40 million a year on Suicide Prevention research. It is attempt leading cause of death in our country. Compare that to 3 billion for aids and hiv. 2 billion for cancer. Capitol hill has to get the message now. They have to increase basic Research Dollars so we can figure out why people are killing themselves. Two judys point, 90 percent of people who complete suicide have an underlying depression or mental disorder. It is impacted of course by alcohol and Substance Abuse disorder and Financial Issues a whole litany of things are going on. Theres no one cause. In the end when you look back, you can probably connect the dots. First and foremost, we have to get people talking about it. You will also hear the congressional spouses for Suicide Prevention education. A bunch of nonpartisan spouses getting together in washington to say that there mental issues are no different than heart issues and we have to Start Talking about it now. Host 40 million for Suicide Prevention. The cost is 44 billion in lost cost for United States each year. Burning, good morning. Go ahead. Caller my name is bernie and i am an author of a book. Im a suicide survivor myself. Im diagnosed bipolar. I really get concerned when the words prevention and intervention are interchanged. You dont present a disease prevent a disease when you already have it. That is intervention. I would like to see people start prevention by doing something. My book is about a system that i call attitude control. I really believe that like an alcoholic, we have to fight every day to counter blessings and see the Positive Side of life instead of the negative. I think it has to start when we are children. I would like to see the schools start an attitude control program and start prevention. Once you have a cold, you dont start taking on shoes that. You take on shoes to prevent the call. Host john madigan, do you want to jump in . Guest you have a great point. My friend Patrick Kennedy talks about everybody has to have a checkup from the neck up. We are advocating that when youre going to your kids kindergarten shots, your doctor should ask you then how you kid is doing mentally and what is going on. The day that they start school, organization our organization is working on mandated teacher training. We are getting people to look at signs if the kids depressed and get it reported right away so kids can get the help they need. Youre right. Whether it is intervention or prevention, it is all the same. Some of us get lost in nomenclature and words. It is often the right reasons to get people talking and get the help they need. Host dave in albuquerque, new mexico. Caller i wanted to get both of your opinions on the hereditary factor. I have bipolar disorder. I was homicidal and suicidal and all that. Because i have optimistic side, i didnt go through with it. My father had depression and he used alcohol as a Substance Abuse. My brother had depression, too and he committed suicide. I wanted to get your opinion on the hereditary factor. Guest im jumping in right here with all four feet. Yes, hereditary. It is something that we know a lot about and oppression, of course, is a chemical imbalance and it is hereditary. Father to was an alcoholic. Thats my father to was an alcoholic. He was a depressed man like yours. Thank you god that ive not had a drink for many years. I have to say that there are things i have to point out for myself. Ive been sober since 1978. Ive not taken an opiate. I dont take giants. I dont take antidepressants. I dont take anything that is going to come in between the emma attitudinal changes as you pointed out. I think there are things we can do for ourselves. Stangl from negativity. It is a good thing that you are not to miss. My father was an alcoholic who is depressed and he woke up smiling every day. He woke up singing and happy. How that happened im not quite sure, but he did. And i believe in exercise. I believe in that management. I believe in keeping clear of all opiates and all drugs. We cannot be handed a bunch of antidepressants and the relievers to avoid situations that come up in life. I dont believe in controlling our issues with drugs. I simply dont. I think that pharma has sold us a load of problems. I would be dead if i was taking any kind of drugs for any of these conditions. I take synthroid i admit. There are things that we can do. We can involve ourselves with this life. We can cooperate and coordinate and try to be of service. Join an organization that helps people out. Try to make our lives an example of what might possibly do some good for someone. Get interested in one another. Do things for kids. There are thousands of things to do. Keep your mind on the solution. For me, these are physical mental, and spiritual situations. And they have to be taken seriously. Host john mack again. Guest i would add that one size does not fit all. In many cases, if you are now back a diabetic, you can take care of the disease and dont have to take insulin. A judys case, she has looked closely at her life and what she can do. Our recommendation is that you visit with a medical professional and have it open and honest conversation about your situation. Figure out what is best for you and your family. Host lee in minneapolis. Good morning to you. Caller i have a suggestion that i like the Mental Health industry if they would take up. And that is that everybody who has been in counseling for suicidal depression knows that you have a plan and what theyre talking about is that you have a plan to kill yourself. I like the industry to turn that around. The question that needs to be asked do you have a plan . Any need to make a plan to live. Guest absolutely. Wonderful. Thank you. Host john mack again. Madigan. Guest i agree. Get a plan together to live and figure out how youre going to stay on this earth and be all you can be. Guest yes. Host gary in memphis tennessee. You are next. Caller i would like the guests to address the issue of veterans. They have twice the rate of suicide that the general population has. It seems Congress Tries to address this with the clay hunt Suicide Prevention for American Veterans act. It said that it would cost 2 million, but congress only appropriated zero dollars for the act. Host youre breaking up so i will have john mack again jump in madigan jump in. Guest it was sponsored by senator mccain from arizona and blumenthal from connecticut and jeff miller from florida. As i spoke at the top of this program, congress is now recognizing that Mental Health issues are a big national problem. I urge all of cspan viewers today to call the representatives and urge them to double, triple quadruple funding of veteran Mental Health programs. Last are, we got 900 million in the excellence of Mental Health act. It provided services to judys point earlier. In some cases, theres a that you can get in free stuff. Go to a fsp. Org. I can hook you up with people on the ground in her hometown and home state and we will get you the resources you need. Host dennis and santa rosa california. Caller who am i talking to . Host youre talking with judy collins, awardwinning singersongwriter and author, as well as john madigan who is with the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention. Caller it sounds like you are couple of irish people. [laughter] caller my last name is murphy and i happen to be a pretty good singer. Judy, im a songwriter, too. And fact, i put words to the entertainment of the movie the sting. They are professional words. If i had have them out there with the movie was first up on the screen, i wouldve been making money. Anybody that is considering knocking themselves off first of all, they are little goofy because you cant knock off god. God is the one who is letting you breathe and walked down the street every day. Host i want to jump in at that point because i want to show viewers this statistic that your group has put together. 90 of those who died by suicide had a diagnosable psychiatric disorder at the time of their death. How important is that and what can be done because of that figure 90 . Guest it is very important. My sister was diagnosed with manic depression when she was 14. She died when she was 37. The people that i talk to and judy can attest to this is that when youre living with depression, the pain is so unbearable that in many cases the physical pain associated with heart and diabetes. In many cases, my sister and her son made the decision that it was better for them to free themselves from this pain and to die. And that is an incredibly tough decision. You have to get them the hell. Again to judys point, one size this not fit all. In some cases, counseling. In some cases, changing your diet and exercise. And other cases, accommodation of that and medication. That is not right for judy. But for some people, it is medication. Is all too often medicaid first. It is all too often they medicaid first. Medicate first. First it you can google anything. You can type in your situation and get 10 Different Things that might work. You have to talk to people and figure out what your future is. Host more phone calls you. Let the people want to talk to. Caller good morning. Host you have to turn your television down and talk to our guests. Caller ok. Host you are on the air. Give us your question or comment. Caller my question is im concerned about people who teach peoples children to confuse them what to get these oriented best disorientefd and divide themselves from the community. It causes children to end up committing a special crime on themselves. Also, what i want to tell is that i came here and i got all these awards. Host caller, youre breaking up a bit. For those who want some help . Guest go to adfsp. Or and we can hope you afsp. Org and we can help you out. Go to the national Suicide Prevention hotline. If youre a veteran, hit one and your connected to a veteran hotline. It is staffed by veterans who know how to talk with veterans. Again to judys point, there are lots of Free Services out there. If you go to a fsp. Org, we will point you to many areas to get help you. Host rockford, illinois. Mike. Caller my question is about the suicide rate. After watching a documentary about a few months ago, they had four soldiers from the iraq war. They were talking about during wartime is about how they would have to become a made soldier by a kill. After watching the documentary it carries on when they are back in civilian life. Is there a way that we can help if you know what i mean . Guest theres a great new group in town. It is called the iraqafghanistan veterans of america. They focus on four areas health, housing, employment, and setting a safety net. Right now, we have one in five suicides among veterans and we have got to stop that. The way to do that is to judys point again. Connect with your community or church or whatever your sphere of influence is. There is help out there. I left i88. Org. I love iava. Org. Guest i didnt know there was such an organization. Guest they were actually going to give them an award in june because they demonstrate. It is all free. They connect the dots. That is the most important thing. There are thousands of people and groups providing services. You just have to connect the dots and let people know where to find them. Host we have had record on this program talking to our viewers many times. We will go to keith and frederick, maryland. Caller i want to follow up on the gentleman who called about dealing. You talked about how you cannot stop working. Not to sit in the misery u. N. , but society is finding you. It is in your face every day. Ideally depression and suicide everyday. If it wasnt for my son, i wouldve done it already. When you are labeled a felon society has to get away from using that to assignee and put you down and keep you down. Host you have any thoughts on that . Guest the taboo of being mentally challenged is an old problem, but we are dealing with it. One of the things ive learned in my life since my sons death is that having a group of people to talk about it to share their experiences is vital. That is why i love the idea of the iraq Veterans Group were people connect with others who have had the same experiences. If you consider down in a room with people and hear somebody else tell you that this is what im dealing with and this is what happened to me guest i know what youre feeling. Guest and how does that work . It is magic. It is about community. We are here on this planet and we are not alone. There is a reason for that, so we can help each other get through these things. It is a very powerful force. As far as governmental ideas about who should be in jail for what, i think the whole situation is slowly but surely examined. One of the things that happened 20 years ago or so with our penal system is that we decided we wanted to put everybody away for a long time. Three strikes youre out is very much against us. It strikes many many people in a place where they are vulnerable and the places where they have committed mineral crimes minimal crimes and theyre putting them in incarceration for long times. Guest our jails are the new hospitals. Guest we dont know much about recovery. Host lets hear from just nuts. Jeff next. Caller we made a big mistake a long time ago and this country by doing away with facilities. Ive got to say in my opinion, they should take all the das in this country and because the states have to have them and turn them into facilities for people who have alcohol addictions and drug addictions and other types of addictions because they dont work for veterans. Let the veterans go to the civilian side of the house and get whatever has to be done and turn all the das into facilities and man them with the best people that we have so we can help these people. Host lets talk about that. Guest there is a group out there called triwest. They have been hired by the v. A. To connect veterans to Mental Health professionals outside of the v. A. System. We are making strides and it is important that you called your senators and representatives and urge them to tell them that Mental Health is the 10th leading cause of death in this country. Suicide is a template because of that this country. Until we get a handle on the Mental Health issues in this country, addiction issues, alcohol issues, we are not going to turn the tide. This is a really a war on Mental Health much like the war Richard Nixon commenced on for cancer in 1972 and the war of hiv and aids in the 1970s and the war on alzheimers. We have mobilize best to mobilize. People are there and they care and they want to help. Lets do it. Host maryland, go ahead. Caller thank you for taking my call. I was driving into work today and i listen to the topic. I want to comment and say it is important that you guys are talking about this issue right now. How much money is being put into this issue. I just wanted to say that i was diagnosed with depression at 13. It was a quick diagnosis from my doctor. I made a Suicide Attempt. Since then, it has haunted me for many years. I think about doing it again when i have issues going on in school or friends. I just won the say that teenagers wanted to say that teenagers in adolescence deal with this a lot and Suicide Attempts to really go through most of time. I think that no matter how much money we put in it depends on the individuals getting help if they wanted. That is just what i wanted to say. Guest there is help out there for you. I want to tell you that. There are other people who are having these issues. I am so impressed with my friend here. Im getting educated and finding out resources that i didnt really know where they are. There is hell. Help. There are other people that can be helpful to you. Dont give up hope. Guest thank you so much for calling in. Your situation is no less than having diabetes or a heart issue. You are speaking out and getting the help you need. We love you. Thank you. Host im going to try to get one last phone call. We have to make it quick. Steve in ohio. Can you go ahead . Caller my name is steve good i just have a comment my name is steve. I just have a comment. It is the stigma of the jails and felons and everything. Life is about choices. He chose to go down that path. He chose that lifestyle or whatever. My childhood was rough. I knew exactly what i didnt want to be when i grew up, but those alive choices that i made our life choices that i made. Host we are out of time. I want to end with having them give us final thoughts as he and this conversation. Guest i