If you are in favor, let us know who you would like to see lead that effort. You can give us a call. If you dont think its time for an independent candidate, there is a phone number for you. You can also catch up with us on social media. Very good monday morning too. Much of the spark for this conversation about thirdparty candidates came last week from a Facebook Post by a senator from nebraska. Majority. Ed the theaid if you think president ial front runners are he is convinced many voters would be open to an additional option besides Hillary Clinton and donald trump. Why shouldnt we draft and honest leader who would focus on 70 solutions. Most americans can be for limited government again. If you want to check out more from that Facebook Post. We are talking about that conversation. Is it time for a thirdparty candidate . There is one already in the race. One of those candidates is the libertarian gary johnson. He was on this week yesterday. I think it is a real opportunity. I think clinton and donald trump are the two most polarizing figures in politics today. When 50 the clear themselves as independent, i think they are libertarian and they just dont know it. Responsible, small government, freedom, liberty. A person should be making choices. It seems like youre going to take more votes from donald trump than Hillary Clinton. Do you agree with that . Absolutely not. Continues, in that poll i took more votes away from hillary than donald trump. I think it draws from both sides. At the end of the day, 50 of americans say they are independent. Where is the representation . Johnsonat was gary yesterday. Libertarians will pick their nominee later on this month. Jill stein of the green party is in the race. The Constitution Party is on the ballot in well over one dozen states. One of the people leading the effort is bill kristol. The headline is neither clinton your trump. He that is bill kristol and his piece on the Weekly Standard and do you think its time for a thirdparty candidate . Who do you want leading that effort. Texas. Tart with jc in he says it is time. Good morning. Caller good morning. I cant support donald trump or Hillary Clinton. They are the most polarizing figures in american politics. Candidatelibertarian terry johnson. If you look at his record, he has never once raised taxes in new mexico. He was in favor of school choice. Office, his state was in surplus. He has a record i can support. He is socially liberal. I think thats a good compromise. Reason people say he doesnt have a chance is because he doesnt get the airtime. My message is to give them airtime. Listen to what he has to say. Krapp they than the are giving trump and clinton. Host alan is up next. Democrat from minnesota. Caller good morning. I have voted thirdparty in the past. There are two people i can name who would be good thirdparty candidates. One and thers is other is jesse then trip. Josh ventura. Host what do you like about them . Caller they are different from the standardized candidates. I was supporting of writing candidacy in 2012. Pretty wants to have a democratic revolution. They would get my vote as a third kennedy candidate. I do not want to waste my vote. Host how you know when you have a good chance . What needs to happen for you to consider a candidate to have a good enough chance that you dont think youre wasting your vote . You can judge by the candidacy. Stands, i would hold my nose and vote for hillary. I did not like bill clinton, but he was the best of a bad situation. I call this the lesser of two evils. Host for those who dont think its time for a Third Party Candidate, bruce is an independent. Good morning. Caller good morning. I disagree with his thoughts. A third party as viable. I dont agree with his narrative of limited government. It was republicans who have increased the government. They invented Homeland Security with 40,000 government employees. They are procorporation. They are antiworker. This is why trump is so strong. He is appealing to the proworker sentiment. He is appealing to the anticorporation sentiment. Governor publicans dont get it. You think they will come around to donald trump . There was an editorial in the Washington Times. I will read you the headline. Do you think the Republican Party will come around to donald trump . Caller i think it will come around and lineup behind him. They really dont have another choice. He is tapped into something. Thats something they have a norton. Themselves, realign get away from attacking Social Security. Theyve lost their way. Procorporation they cant see that their socalled conservative policies are killing america. Tireds tiled of it of it. Thats why they are lining up with trump. Host how long have you been an independent . Caller all my life. Host do you usually vote for one of party or the other . Caller i vote for independent, republican, democrats. Host lets see what a republican thinks about that. Anita is in North Carolina. Good morning. [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, time. i think its we need to agree with this input on how america should be run. The public wants to have a voice. I think thats great. Timberlake andn jayz working together. They are trying to figure out how to solve things. I think we have a wonderful situation here that the American People are commanding everyone has a voice. Another thing i want to say is we started off by winning. I think that was a bad thing. We need to be older. I think that would help make better decisions. On republicans, gregory is in missouri. Caller good morning. Congress believe is a petri dish. Im tired of the dynasties. I do believe that individuals make up the congress. Let them settle their differences. Like ron paulne or rand paul or ross perot, that takes votes away. It throws more wrenches into the mix. I think they ought to work it out in congress. Not enough people are informed to vote people out. Would you vote for in 2012 . Caller that was romney. Again,f he were to run we are talking about a Third Party Candidate, there are reports say that bill kristol met with mitt romney, mitt romney would change her mind . Host i would not vote for him. Caller i would vote for donald trump. I have always thought that president obama wasnt scrutinized. Romney had a business. I do believe the businesses are losing out. Taxes, too much government. I dont believe romney is the right choice at this moment. I do believe donald trump is. Hes got some ideas. The petri dish is in congress. If they want to stay viable, they have to make it work. On mitt that reporting said hebill kristol recognizes romney said he isnt interested in running. He turned him down. He hoped to get the governor to line up behind whatever candidate he might find to run. This is a quote from the Washington Post. Romneys support would be very important. He would want to get his wisdom. Through all of this discussion. We want to hear your thoughts this morning, who you think should lead a thirdparty effort. Robert is in california. Good morning. What do you think . Never have is never ed for an independent area in my life. Mentionedow, you just romney. Maybe romney. I dont think hes viable. I have voted for him last time. I was very disappointed in my obama vote. I think mariano rubio. I am open. Its someone who is viable. Someone who is patriotic and doesnt have the baggage that both the anointed have at this time. I have never felt this way before in my life. I am a lifelong voter. Of that is my point of view at this point in time. Rubio,ou mentioned marco they have 10 candidates at the top of the never trump list. We talked about ben sasse. We mentioned gary johnson. Tom coburn of oklahoma. Nikki haley of south carolina. Rand paul is mentioned in that story as well. We want to hear your thoughts of who would make a good third party standardbearer. Is it time for a thirdparty candidate. Tv is in massachusetts. He is on the line for people who think its time. Caller good morning. A lot of people would. I am not beholden to money. Money is the third that we have today. I liked ross perot. We have to admit the middle in this country has been corroded away by the money. Third party factionalized is the twoparty system. I also like donald trump. I like sanders. I voted for elizabeth born because i like smart people. The covert nature of the thirdparty is money. I think they occupy the and they occupy the Republican Party. I think its an actual party at this point. There are a lot of people who could make good it candidates. Who could actually break through this twoparty system . Who has the ability to get Media Attention and raise money and get the organization together . Are their names that come to mind for you . Sanders. Rump and they are not beholden to the money interests. They are more like thirdparty candidates then are the actual front runners. These are not common party people. Becausee such power they have the vote. I think we are missing the boat with the question. The question should be do we have a de facto thirdparty . I would say the answer is yes. Host a few tweets on this topic. What would be their position on illegal immigration. Thats the issue thats going to decide this election. Allow the corrupt parties to run the country, they deserve what they get. What do you think . Caller good morning. Yes. I am for donald trump and for the people to come out and to greet him and say hes not ready to be president. He is saying what the people want to hear. I believe the man can do what he says. A thirdparty is out of the question. This man has worked hard. I believe he would run this country and bring our nation and our people back together. You think hes going to be able to bring the Republican Party back together . Will the party coalesce around him . Caller i do. Its going to take time. The people have spoken. They want a new president. He is going to be one. He has never said he is going to do anything. He lied to the people. Need no moret people like that. Hillary clinton is another one. She tells people what they want to hear. Persontrump is a true that will work for the people of this country. Do you think Donald Trump Tells people what they want to hear . He tells people what he is going to do. Host all right, thats taurus in kentucky. The lead story in the new york times. Trump is issuing warnings. In a series of interviews, donald trump demonstrate little interest in making peace with party leaders. If you want to read that story, its the lead story in the new york times. Chris is in maryland. Go ahead. Caller good morning. First off, the are well overdue for a thirdparty candidate. It, i dont think anyone entering the race right now or in the summer would be a viable candidate. I think that if for some reason Bernie Sanders does not win the democratic nomination, he would be a viable candidate in a threeway race. Stock among of his independents and republicans. You will hear plenty of republicans say they like Bernie Sanders. Donald Trump Supporters list him as their number two. He already has an extraordinary following. He already has the Media Attention. He said the only reason he ran as a democrat was because it was impossible for a Third Party Candidate to get the exposure they needed to become resident. Host how to go from saying that to running as an independent candidate . Caller thats a great question. He could say that the system and people have argued this, the race was rigged for hillary. Its not that hard to see the support she gets out of the mainstream media. They have all lined up behind her. I want to be the democratic nominee because i most closely aligned with democratic values, but the party was to corrupt for me to become a viable candidate. Lastcoordinated hillary september. Host would he be a spoiler . Would he throw the race to donald trump . Are the republicans that would support him . Host donald trump has split his party. Think the bernie or bust movement is just as big, they are not paying attention. I foresee him taking a large chunk of the disenfranchised voters that are not pleased with the donald trump vote. He would take votes from hillary. We know he does incredibly well with independents. Its a spoiler for hillary and donald. But he wins in the end. I dont think he would just hand it to donald trump. He is the most liked candidate in history. Hillary is probably number two. If there was ever a chance for a third party to actually win, we should. Host mention there are plenty of mechanics and getting involved in getting on a president ial ballot. If you dont take the ballot space by the green party or the Libertarian Party that already have ballot space, its very complicated. We can walk you through parts of that process. This is a Washington Post story about it with a map showing the balloting deadlines to get on the ballot. Mistakes require a certain number of signatures. That is tied to turn out in the previous election to prove you have the resources and support you that shows when the timeframe is you have to prove you have that support. Example, today is the deadline for an independent to file in texas. The application must be accompanied by 79,000 signatures. The candidate must have a running mate picked in texas. Texas and North Carolina are the earliest deadlines. The darker blue shows with the later deadlines are. Kentucky,i, arizona, north dakota have september deadlines. Here is later june. Is it time for an independent candidate . Vincent is in delaware. He is a republican. Caller good morning. Host go ahead. Caller i believe its time for a third party. Thelieve that since resident only has two terms to serve, congress has voted on that in 1945. Believe that we need to term limits in this country. There are millions of people out there that could do a better job than what we have right now in washington. Is main thing we need to do bring in people. Have a referendum. Let people vote on a term limit. If we let Congress Vote on it, we will never get term limits. Everyone will have a better shot at representing the government. We have mayors and have been in office 28 years. When you have the cards stacked against you . Host how do you feel about your congressional delegation in delaware . Do you like them . Caller i feel like some of them are doing their jobs and some of them are not. We need am here is erse of five thing diversified thing where we have more people running for office. These people need to go back to whatever they were doing. We cannot have people stay in office for 25 or 30 years. It doesnt become a Democratic Society anymore. Its a dictatorship. Keith is an independent in ohio. What do you think . Caller no. Good morning. There should not be third party running. The democrats arent pushing for as much as the republicans. The republicans are being stupid. Tothey want Hillary Clinton elect Supreme Court justices . The Supreme Court is huge. They are going to give us some very liberal things come in it. That should be our number one thing. The republicans need to calm down. They are not thinking this through. If there is somebody who is going to draw a lot of republican votes, they are going to be the high and moral ones. They are being stupid. Just get rid of all that stuff. Get to the meat and potatoes. Republicans have been hung up on social issues a bit too much. There are some bigger fish we need to deal with. One argument is coming in the Washington Times today. It would guarantee a Hillary Clinton presidency. Also in the wall street journal, bobby jindal former governor of , his column in the wall street journal. Hiswant to read hes piece, its in the wall street journal. White you think that, tom . I am trying to get my thoughts together. Thank you for cspan. People need to go back to textbooks and look at history and the constitution and how our government runs. Its a form of checks and balances. Im in an dependent. Locally i have to vote for republicans and democrats. It depends on if i want to get my street paved or my garbage picked up. Difficult. S is very you have to go through party a lot of annoying people. If people would just understand, obama cant make laws. Congress makes referendums. Referendums, vote for the local guy that will start speaking their mind. Lets take care of priorities sense wase obama in a an independent. He had a presidency that had no congress. He had a conservative court. Look what happened for eight years. His first four years he had a congress, the second he had nothing. How lawsed to realize are made and how each branch of government checks itself. Unless you have them sitting across the table from each other , that is my feeling. Host marie writes on twitter. One other tweet from john steinbeck. You can follow along. Will for your teeth as we continue to take your calls and comments. Republican. Barbara, what do you think this morning . Caller i dont think we did a third party right now. Thatsave a person ahead. I think mr. Trump would be great for the country. Everybody is voting for him here in issue can. Everybody loves him. I dont understand why paul ryan and everybody is against him. I think they should embrace him. Do they really think that people voted for mr. Trump are going to vote for a new person . Nobody that i talk to is going to do that. We all love trump. We love what he stands for. We think he is going to fix the country. Do you think he is going to change his message or what he says for the general election . Will we see the same guy in the general election . I dont know. He might change a little bit. I think he loves the country and he really wants to do good for the country. Instead of hillary and sanders. Hillary is trying to pander to people. She tells them what they want to hear. Sanders does have some good ideas. That cannot be done. We cant have everything for free. Us middleclass people that owned businesses, we have been suffering. Taking they need to concentrate on the middle class. Mr. Obama helped all the welfare. Im glad that you people like that do need help. They gave the banks money. We still cant are a money. Millionsave the banks of dollars. They went and had a party. Host stick around. We will be talking about that topic at 8 30 a. M. We will talk about bank regulation. Is the president and ceo of better markets. We want to get a f more colors in this segment. Is it time for a thirdparty candidate . What you think . Caller good morning. Think its not time for a thirdparty candidate. The way they have treated president obama, even with the , areme Court Appointment third could not get anything done. Problemated this because of them shutting the government down. Governing is the reason why we have this problem. Whats the problem . What do you mean . Congress has not done anything over the last six or eight years. The senate has been stifled. They have filibustered so many things. They even shut the government down. We lost our credit rating. The candidates that the forward,n party put donald trump is simply not president ial. He is feeding on hate in this country. Go to church on sunday and go to a lynching right after church and it was posted in the papal. Let me ask about the candidates in your party. Are they bringing the Democratic Party together . This is the deal. Clinton hashillary been at the forefront of the Democratic Party. Thats why shes been attacked for so long. President obama became president because he was against the iraq war. They thought hillary was going to be the nominee. Anybody the last since 1982, you have a generation of people that have grown up and all theyve heard this, hillarynton clinton this. Donald trump, thats unconscionable. Development recent is the email server issue that continues to dog her. The investigation from federal authorities. Does that concern you as you look ahead to the november election with her possibly being on the ticket . Thing that was the same that Condoleezza Rice used. Its the same thing powell used. Youve got to realize they are attacking her since 1992. Anything shes done, if there was anything in those emails that they couldve hung her with, it would have come out. Was on face the nation yesterday and she was asked about the investigation. Let me play for you what she said. No one has reached out to me summer, i made it clear im ready to talk to anybody anytime. My assistance to be forthcoming. I hope this is close to being wrapped up. Nobody said we would like to talk to you . Not at this moment. We are looking at a general election context. Some voters may be paying attention in a different way. What is your answer to those people who think an fbi inquiry is a big deal . Its a security inquiry. I took classified material seriously. There was never any material mark classified that was sent or received i mean. I look forward to this being wrapped up. Host in light of those comments, lets hear about maryland. What do you think . Go ahead. What do you think of the comments Hillary Clinton made about this fbi investigation . Does that concern you . For ahat open some space third party or an independent candidate to find room . Caller i dont think so. I think this is a nonissue. Said,he jolin before me it would have come out already. Theyve done everything they could to let it come out. Think theres something is going to affect me and my decision. Theres something thats going to affect my decision. The thing about the thirdparty 30 vote. ,aving a thirdparty candidate people will keep asking. People barely vote. A third party when people are not voting now . Lets use a we have now. I understand trump is a horrible candidate. Hillary is not likable either. Giving bernieot sanders as much attention. They keep saying his plans are not attainable. It would not be bogus if we give him a chance. One viewer on twitter says that. One other tweet from roy this morning. We have time for just a couple of more calls. What do you think this morning . Caller good morning thank you for listening to me. Past, i voted my for democrats. This time i would love to see bernie run as an independent candidate. He is obviously the peoples choice. Not the washington insiders. Remembrance ive never seen these washington insiders give 600 votes to Hillary Clinton before the debate ever happened. Its really unfair. Host you are talking about the superdelegates . Caller yes. Superdelegates. There were 600 they gave to hillary right off the bat without any input from the people. Thats totally unfair. I would tell bernie he should run as a separate candidate when this is over. Unless somehow the party turns around and decides to be fair to the American People. Also an independent. Good morning. Party, the only way you can get a thirdparty is to get on the ballot. Be three choices. Gary johnson will probably be the libertarian choice. A lot of them will find they are libertarian. The two previous callers talking about Bernie Sanders. Thirdparty, run that would be the only couldility that trump beat hillary. The polls show he is 14 points behind. Host you are talking about the spoiler run. Caller my point is its time to that we political body are disgusted with the system. I think the libertarians could send a message. They have never drawn more than 2 at the top. If they were to take 15 , that would send a big message to both democrats and republicans. They need to rethink what they are doing. We need to rethink our politics. Host john is in maryland. Is it time for a thirdparty candidate . In 2020. Erhaps i think the media should do its job. They did a great job of getting in the nixon crannies of the republican convention. About therd anything democratic convention. They havent talked about it being contested yet. Its not being talked about. I think its time for a third party. Not until the democratic nominee is selected. There are lots of things going on right now. I think theres a difference of 290 delegates. The time to talk about democratic process. We can talk about the future. Matchedanders has now Hillary Clinton. Thats from small contributions of individual americans. Thats great news. Caller, up next is frank gaffney. We will talk about how the campaign is influencing the foreignpolicy debate. Willter, Dennis Kelleher be at our desk talking about the dodd frank financial reform act. Thats coming up here on washington journal. Madam secretary, we proudly give 72 of our votes to the next president of the United States. Washington journal continues. Host we are joined i frank gaffney. Lets talk about Foreign Policy as it relates to the president ial campaign. Weve seen a bit of a role reversal. The likely democratic nominee seems more inclined to get involved overseas and the Presumptive Republican nominee seems less inclined than the democrats. Bit morethink its a complex than that. I think its true that the hillaryic candidate clinton has a track record of engagements overseas. Its engagement of a kind that i think its been profoundly troubling. There has been a theme of engagement but im other peoples charms. Terms. Consensusternational or anything her own sovereignty. Expressedte view is by donald trump. There are things about his policy line that i think is consistent with people like myself. There are things that are a little bit unclear. I think what we will have happening in the next few months is clearly going to be a lot of sorting. My guess is you will see a lot of republican candidates having. Ome more robust host [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, you listen to Donald Trumps foreignpolicy speech. But do you make of it . Guest there are some things that stand out. Strength. Fined easter that was a theme of president reagan and ted cruz. That americaiew needs to rebuild its military. We need to have secure borders. That the United States is going to continue to engage in onesided trade agreements. There is a formula for a transnational governing arrangement. Those are very positive things it seems to me and worthy of debate at the highest level. Note are some things i am so keen on. It should be refined to the point where they are changed fundamentally. What is the idea of america first. That is a loaded term. That speaks to a sort of isolationism. I dont think thats not what he has in mind. Host the National Security apparatus will not get behind trump. What do you mean by that . Guest the concerns i expressed our worrying it to us. Nato is an example. Its an important alliance. Its one that if we did not have it we would have to create it. Fly zoneputins aggressiveness in terms of our aircraft and ships and in ukraine in syria. This is something that is hardly ever discussed. It is really alarming. Russianoing to see the Nuclear Force modernized. Touched ours since we started engaging in Nuclear Testing in 1992. There been some upgrades of very old systems. Onre is a real worry here the part of a lot of us that we are entering a phase involved in one aspect or another of National Security for 40 years. This is the most dangerous time i have ever seen with the russians and chinese in north koreans. These are all places where there are Serious Problems for National Interests and National Security. These are the sorts of things that require a steady hand. Im hoping that donald trump will provide that. Host we are inviting our viewers to join the conversation. Have you had conversations with the Donald Trump Campaign . Guest the Ted Cruz Campaign left all of us. Ive had conversations with people who have worked the campaign. Bobby jindal has a piece in the wall street journal today. I think its indicative of my view. I am opposed to Hillary Clinton. Organizationofit that isnt partisan. Personally i think the continuation of the kind of program that they have engineered for the past eight disastrous from a National Security position. Is donald trump will offer a very pronounced course correction and do so in a way that will be consistent with what i think are the National Security interests of our country. Host john is in pennsylvania. Caller good morning. Thanks for having me. Yes, you got me here. Im doing it right now. [coughing] yes. Donald trumps Foreign Policy suggestion so far seems reasonable. Basically, pat you can, his Campaign Agenda is pat buchanan without the social policy. The United States are not the worlds policeman. Diminishing returns as far as we get in return. Trade deals that are disastrous for us, industrialized, and what is some of the republicans who are abandoning ship, such as william kristol, who basically really never was much of a republican other than the proisrael interventionist Foreign Policy, middle east, and because stop donald trump is rejecting this interventionism, they now want a thirdparty candidate. It is horrendous. Host we showed the column earlier in the show today and here it is again. A chance to respond. Isst i think there something to of the caller just said. There is a similarity between some elements of a trump platform as it has developed so far, and those of pat the canon. An old friend of mine, we disagree mightily on some pieces of this, particularly the idea of engagement from the world disengagement from the world. I do not think we are the worlds policeman and i do not think we can safely be isolated amid either. There is a happy balance to be struck airtime convinced the world is a lot better a place when our strength is not questioned, something donald trump is talking about, and when our allies have confidence in us, something he is also talking about, and when our enemies are persuaded there is no profit for. Hem from acting aggressively that is something he has talked about somewhat. Bill kristol is also an old friend and a colleague. I think you have done him a disservice but i do not think the way ahead is for a thirdparty candidacy. I think that will result in the. Lection of Hillary Clinton host ron is in New Hampshire. Caller thank you. I am honored to speak with your guest here. The thing about donald trump, he really scares me because he reacts off the cuff. That brushedets i think if i were president , i would have the jets shot down and i believe donald trump probably would have as well. To a not the thing to do ship that has been in a sensitive area and a situation. And that things can happen. Thinking itly through, i would have given the order to shoot the russian jets down and i think donald trump would. Trumpk the donald presidency will lead to disastrous wars. I do not think he thinks things through. I think he does things offthecuff. I think that will come back to bite us. It remains to be seen. If he is elected president , there is some reason to be that a combination of not being terribly steeped in International Affairs and interNational Security on the one hand and being somewhat impetuous, could produce undesirable results. On the other hand, the fact is the process of becoming a candidate and running for office and possibly being elected to the commanderinchief goodioned, combined with counsel from people around him, including the united its military, could attenuate that. I will say the kind of behavior we have seen so far, if this is we want set by barack obama and Hillary Clinton, it has given rise to the kind of her provocative behavior you describe. That ship was operating in international waters. By one orzed 20 times two Fighter Pilot planes of the russian air force. In what is frankly an attack profile. The truth of the matter is, if you want to say to the russians, think do this, do not about asserting your power in ways that are going to be harmful to us and frank, i inc. , interNational Security interests, we have to be signaling a degree of opposition that we have not appeared it is not enough to simply say this is not professional behavior. That is what gives rise most immediately to miscalculations and possibly conflict. Host jason and washington, d. C. He is when youad factor that republicans and democrats are parties of war and intervention. The idea of the founding others going back, it seems very clear. The whole idea of the United States and policeman in the world or getting involved in places we should not be, the ukraine for crying out loud, lets be realistic here. Folly of the middle east, this is a middle east civil war that should be handled by the middle east and not the United States. The term, america first, is that something that is appealing to you . Do not knowecause i what that is. You have much defined that enough to have that be clear. Trump uses minimal terms descriptions. He lets people mentally fill in the details with what they want. Technique,ales nothing different than selling so. From your guest and the previous rise of the thirdparty, the American Public has had enough of getting involved in foreign and paying for it. Do you want to know what is wrong host are you with us . The phone cut out. There are certain aspects of Donald Trumps thinking and policy approach that are not adequately clear at the momentarily hopefully will be learning more about them as the campaign progresses. Want to speak to the central point. When our founders talked about no entangling alliances, they have the luxury of being effectively island nation, by a large open large ocean separated from the dangers. That is no longer the case these days. The line about, you may not be interested in a war, but war is interested in you, i think that theore true today with shrinking of the planet and the ease of access of people to the as to Strategic Interests all over the globe, which are all over the globe. We tend to lose sight of that. How much of our economy is dependent on Foreign Trade . The indispensability of our ability to have freedom of navigation so the trade can continue unimpaired, the degree chinese, as an example, are taking up positions in the south china sea, one of the critical lines of communication, and points from africa to latin america, to literally around the globe, all of this has its purpose, being able to confine and interact if necessary, our vital trade operations. Outave a new book coming which tries to distill all the evidence of what chinese are doing to prepare for conflict. It is not to say they will exercise the option but it is a real option throughout the day. Host what is your group . Host guest secure freedom. Org. It is an organization i started with a number of my wrens, many from the Reagan Administration, people i work with from capitol hill, about 28 years ago now. The purpose was to try as the Reagan Administration wound down to maintain the philosophy and capacity that reagan described as peace through strength. We have done that on a host of issues over the years. We have been most particularly agaged since before 9 11 on global jihad movements and the threat that represents and trying to help people understand why weious that is and have got to be clear eyed about its true nature, its catalyzing force, and how to best defeat it. Earlier this year, it was referred to as a hate group. It has gone to an experience antimuslim mouthpiece. I do not remember fondly the kinds of comments that were previous about my reputation. There was a lot of criticism because people thought i was a hardliner in terms of the nature of the soviet union and what we need to do to deal with it. It is not about namecalling. It is about facts. Of my friends and colleagues recalls from his time as a federal process at her every conspiracy begins with a can is worried. The difference between just a theory and an actual conspiracy is that. People have acted on the theory of how they could run mafia operations, perhaps, or run a and i wantn she had to give you a copy of this. I is the most important we published, the explanatory memorandum. It was something introduced by the federal government as evidence in the Holy Land Foundation trial in 2007 and 2008. It was the most important document in persuading the jury to convict the conspirators in that case who were charged with raising funds for hamas. Much ofment lays out what the Holy Land Foundation was about. What the brotherhood itself was involved in. There is violent jihad, which we are all familiar with. There is a phenomenon of the colonization we see in europe, for example. Fundraising,nd of tithing for jihad, among other things. And there is a civilization jihad of the Muslim Brotherhood. Doing is trying to destroy western civilization from within. By their hands, and the hands of believers so that gods religion is made victorious over all other religions. Subversivethy and techniques, chronicled in the book, do not take my word for it, read it for yourself, and you can read it at securefreedom. Org for free. Pdfs are available there. This is the Rosetta Stone of what were dealing with. The center for American Progress or other groups on the red part of the axis, try to suppress our freedom of speech in describing the facts matter what the conspiracy is all about and moves it to an actual threat to the country, we need to stand up against it and not allow our freedom of expression to be stifled. Callers to allow our ask questions. Henry, a democrat, good morning. Caller good morning. This call is not about policy. It is about influence. It is my assertion that todership will not be able really have much hold or get halfway through first base with trump. I look at his endorsements to substantiate the assertion. On, cspan asked if it means something. Does parrot it is uncomfortable. In conjunction with, and this is really what is in the back of my mind, as well as other items i is wednesdays endorsement. It has not been repudiated. It is of donald trump. It is meeting a historical context, i am concerned here and i am concerned of the Republican Leadership that the Republican Leadership is going to influence that is my comment. Guest i am nowhere near Republican Leadership me list to the phenomm part of part of the phenomenon of donald trump is a widespread rebuke of repulsion leadership. Youre probably right, certainly with his current discussions of with paul ryan, sticker of the house, he does not seem terribly interested in the views of the republican establishment. As i have indicated already, im concerned about america first, if it does translate into what historically it is now, and isolationist attitude. We will puteant is americass interests first, whether it is trade negotiations or our dealings with the orsians or the chinese, jihadists, i am good with that. This is one thing that i think desperately needs to be clarified and im sure the next couple of months will do that. Host davis in pennsylvania. Good morning. I have one, and one question and i will get off the phone and listened for the answer. I are as Foreign Policy goes, think the United States should form an alliance with russia and get out of the middle east altogether. Goes, lasty question year we spent 600 billion on national defense. Yet all i hear is that the military equipment is falling apart. Where does all money go . I will get off the phone and listened. Thank you. Two important points. There are a number of folks like yourself including in the Trump Campaign who think that a partnership with russia could make sense. Russias sharing a problem that we do. They are considered to be infidels by the jihadists and are therefore a target. Southern parts of russia and increasingly elsewhere. About that. Perhaps that is simply because i have spent a lot of time studying the russians and trying to understand what makes a guy like Vladimir Putin tick. It isk it is clear rampant hostility toward the United States. The greatest catastrophe of the 20th century was the fall of the soviet union. You have got to overlook a lot of bad things that happened, including to the soviet union itself. That to beconsider the worst thing that has occurred. Andanimus toward the west europeans and nato and the United States, all of whom he for thesponsible collapse of the system he served, makes him a very unreliable partner. As to the question of whether we will find ourselves able in the to basically come home america or not, i think the answer is only, look to history, experienced we have when we try to do that in the past. It has not worked out. Typically what happens is we have diminished our expenditures on the military and you asked where the money did go. Increasingly, is going to fixed costs. It is a and benefits for an all volunteer force, which is very substantial. It is the medical treatment for those personnel. It is the other kinds of housing and fixed costs and so on. We spent a fair amount of it on the various conflicts and as a result, when you combine that with what i believe has been a wrecking operation by the Obama Administration against the that hasates military, deliberately sacrificed readiness, and compounded are there when the budgets are not adequate for training purges purposes, it has essentially pushed off indefinitely most of the necessary modernization programs. We are using increasingly obsolescent equipment. The Nuclear Forces i spoke about our a particularly egregious example. But it is true of aircraft and ships. To . why do they want can telle only thing i you is when he came to office, he said he was in the business of fundamentally transforming america. I believe one of his core convictions is that strong United States military has gotten us into trouble or at least has inflicted justice around the world and therefore restrained and diminished. I have come up with nine words which i think describe his doctrine. And bull than our enemies. Undermine our friends. And diminish our country. When you look at what has been done to the military and most other instances of national power, and our allies, and what has been done to really encourage our enemies to think this is a year of living dangerously for the United States, it really adds up to a fundamental transformation. Host on our line for independents, grant. Caller i wanted to quote frank, who said, most of the Muslim American groups with any prominence in america are known a matter of fact, hostile to the United States constitution. It is on page 211 of a book, big israel. One little note in a 336 organizational ecosystem it raisesrael 4 billion a year in this country and that hearts a war on hezbollah and hamas for the u. S. To attack iran, etc. I get frank, he does not like muslims and he wants americans to be afraid of them. Lets give frank a chance to respond to some of those statements you made. Guest that is simply not true. Of the secret plan, written by a top Muslim Brotherhood alternative operative. This has an attachment under the heading, our organizations and organizations of our friends. 29 groups on it. Even 25 years after the document was written, they represent the of the Muslim American organizations in the uned states. Byt group has expanded probably at least the size you would contribute to the socalled israel lobby. This is a Muslim Brotherhood driven said column in the country. In their own words, they are trying to take us down. Those who would assigned to me or anyone else a similar kind of a friendlyehalf of nation, one of our most important allies, and ignore or or try to solely me for pointing out the facts, they are themselves part of the problem, frankly. Host pat, youre up next. You to i would like really adjust the issue of interventionism versus isolationism. I do not think a policy of nonintervention and not willing our troops all over the world, in defense of people who do not share our values and do not really want us there, is isolationism. I think we can maintain relationships, alliances all over the world, but isnt it time to face the fact that it is not 1965 anymore . We do not have the economy we had been. Be to ourill we allies or to ourselves if we run ourselves and to the Ground Fighting everybodys fights for them . I agree with the basic thrust of that question and i think it is what i was saying earlier. It is a question of balance. I am not interested in having American Military personnel fight needless wars, especially with rules of engagement which ensure their lives are at risk for not much profit and not much benefit to the country. That is what we have been doing too much of. Idease had idealistic that if we did successfully intervene and address threats that could help build nations and build democracies, clearly, there are very important limitations on anybodyss ability to get anybody else to organize their society along democratic lines. I do not think we should be in the business of trying to do it, except in circumstances where the intervention is absolutely security to our interests. I think most reasonable people would say, that is sensible. We will probably always have debates as to what are those circumstances and i was a supporter of removing Saddam Hussein from power on the belief he was actually engaged in on thiso get revenge country for the intervention that removed him from kuwait. I believed and still believe, that he had access to chemical and other weapons of mass destruction technology. He had it in the past and he knew how to do it and it is a simple matter to get more. I think the bigger mistake was not a dressing at the same time when we had a substantial number of troops on the ground, the fact that was a perennial one in iran. Does that mean trying to make a democracy of iran, no. But does it mean china to prevent iran from being the threat that is now will be ofinitely worse as a result president obamas deal, which transferred 150 billion to a regime which has since 1979 never stop saying death to america, and now will have Nuclear Weapons. Host a lost opportunity for an invasion at the time . Guest we have the opportunity to project power into iran. Think about what Muammar Gaddafi did when he was looking at what the United States is doing to hussein. Saddam he decided to get rid of his weapons of mass destruction. He turned around from being a big part of the problem to being a guy who was relatively, reliably, on our side. There was no question iranians were frantic about what might happen if the United States were to turn its eyes toward china to destabilize that regime. I think we missed an opportunity to do that. I do not think it would have her wired and invasion. But it would have taken the requirement of stopping what they were doing. Since, namelyever waging jihad against the country, including attacking us again and again. Fact, but a fact, is the involvement of the iranians in 9 11. Iat is the kind of thing think we will see more of if we keep turning a blind eye to the iranians. Supportingnvolved in the saudi hijackers in training them and equipping them and otherwise enabling them to carry out the murderous attack engaged in an against this country in 9 11. This is something our federal judge has documented. We are waiting to see the role the saudis plate as well, but i think both were indeed involved. Host connie is in kansas city, a democrat. Respect,ith all due you seem very french to me. I just checked you out on wikipedia. Anded to be a republican reagan kick you out, the pentagon kick you out for your french beliefs when they were trying to drive down Nuclear Weapons with russia. There is a lot of stuff on their the American People need to read about you on wikipedia. Are playing into packins hands, that russia has been really firing up the far right wing groups in europe to in refugeesaking and migrants . He is using that and there has thissome articles about for people to check out. He has been doing all he can to as ao break up Europe European Union by causing a lot of islamic hate and making these people, you know, fight each other in europe. Are in theize you way you are really playing but inflamingds the American People. Host got your point. Guest you sound like a conspiracy theorist. I think if you believe everything you read on wikipedia, you will conclude that i am, too. Wikipedia is an open source repository of information. There are people who have made it their business, i am sorry to say, to defame me and do it regularly and have done so years. On wikipedia. I respectfully suggest there are other more reliable sources of information about me. It is a matter of judgment and fact. I believe what Vladimir Putin is up to his hostile to our country. I believe what he is doing to our middle east is destabilizing it further. I think that will be a problem as well as our interests in the region. The reality is whether i say that is so or not, we will can rent, i am afraid, and ,ncreasingly emboldened putin made more aggressive by two considerations. One, his economy is in the tank as a result of the decline of oil, and he has nonetheless put intomense amount of money building up Nuclear Forces, and he is talking about using those forces and he is threatening of us and others and our pretending that is not a problem and that is a guy we could safely partner with is the height of folly. Gaffney is the founder of the center for Security Policy and freedom. Org as well. Joined bye will be the president and ceo of the markets better markets, Dennis Kelleher. Selling bad mortgages ahead of the financial disaster 2008. And a reporter of the wall street journal will be here in your weekly money segment, that is coming up. Tonight on the communicators, Michael Orielly on several key issues like net neutrality, which is currently in the court, and he also comments on the political divide within the fcc. He is joined by daily executive senior editor. Classes include the chairman to take the most aggressive, leftists approach to policymaking care the little ground, when that becomes the first primary goal of the item, when the policy and the direction becomes the first goal rather than any consideration of to develop attempt consensus, you wind up with the scenario we have today are when there is little interest in bringing my opinions on board, you will find im less likely to be supported and i will express my views. Watch tonight at 8 00 eastern on cspan2. Washington journal continues. Ist Dennis Kelleher, what better markets . Guest a Nonprofit Organization and washington, d. C. Of thet for the security American People by fighting for a stronger and safer banking system. Of us offs often think as a fighter for financial reform and that is true and they think of us as a watchdog and that is true your our core concern is Economic Security and prosperity of the American People, which as we all saw in 2008 when the Financial Sector crashedof control and the Global Economy and almost caused the second Great Depression, there is an immediate connection between what happens on wall street and the economic wellbeing of main street. We are trying to bring to the washington policy debates, the executive branch and regulatory agencies, the perspective of to fight for main street interests and those policies that rebalance wall street and financed so it actually works, for the real economy to create jobs and grow rather than be a threat to the real economy. That is what better markets does. The crash was in 2008. The president and Congress Passed the financial reform law called dodd frank. In the fall of 2010 come we created better markets to fight the wall street lobby machine, which was trying to bend policy and law into new rules to advantage them. Counterweight here we bring the public perspective, we have a seat at the table and a voice it every debate among policymakers where what is fundamentally at stake is not just the safety and soundness of the finance system. Not just controlling recklessness on wall street. What is ultimately at stake is the standard of living of the and their jobs and economic growth. That is where we are at those tables fighting those for those interests. The Justice Department prosecuting those responsible for selling the shoddy mortgages and those that contributed. Some of our viewers might have recently seen this headline, Goldman Sachs pays 5 billion to settle allegations that it sold you called it a victory for Goldman Sachs. What we have had is a charade of settlements over the years instead of actual punishment work on ability. The recent settlement with the department of justice illustrates the problem we have had over the years. Billion is objectively a lot of money. It is a lot of money to 320 million americans. It is not a lot of money to Goldman Sachs. Even 5 billion frankly. Lets go through why this is a victory for Goldman Sachs and frankly a real unfortunate defeat for the American People and something that will be a black mark on the history of the department of justice written years from now. First of all, in 2006, Goldman Sachs was punished quote in 2005 at settled 2007. 2006, Goldman Sachs net revenue was almost 40 billion. In 2006, its net income was almost 10 billion. Its bonus pool in 2006 was almost 5 billion. We have nine years later, Goldman Sachs gets to keep all of the revenue and the prophets it receives in 20052 thousand seven from its illegal conduct, inflating the housing bubble and the derivatives bubble and contributing to blowing up the Global Economy. It gets to keep the money for nine years. It pays the settlement nine years later. 5 billion. Over half that is taxdeductible. It is not 5 billion. It means the rest of us will subsidize the settlement. On top of that, there is no individual accountability. Banks do not commit crimes. Bankers commit crimes. Individuals. Not a single individual at Goldman Sachs or any of the other major wall street too big have been punished in connection with the crimes. Host i want to give our viewers a chance to call. I will put the numbers on the screen this is how Benjamin Wagner describes the settlement you were just talking about. One significant step in an ongoing Enforcement Effort that resulted in admission of wrongdoing and compensation for some investors and will deliver muchneeded relief to dennis. By law, goldman can not deduct any on the fine side. It is a matter determined under tax code and it has nothing to do with the settlement. That is true. About half of this, two point 2. 4 billion was a fine. The department of justice can for knowing, fine concrete, illegal behavior. It is not negligent, we do not know what we were doing, we did this and it hurt these people. Settlement ise actually a recognition of conscious, knowing wrongdoing of incredibly serious levels over many years that had to involve hundreds if not more employees, executives, and supervisors at Goldman Sachs. 2. 4 billion fine is not taxdeductible. Really good at math, but if you take 5 billion and subtract roughly 2. 4 million, you end up with 2. 6 billion. That is over half and that half is taxdeductible almost certainly. If they have a Corporate Tax rate of 30 , youre looking at almost 1 billion that will be deducted from their taxes, not paid by them, paid by the rest of the American People who are dont believe its. They are ripped off with the subprime mortgages and observed this, which then get distributed by the space like a Conveyor Belt by the Global Financial system and that is the embedding these timebombs that then blow up in 2008, crashed the financial system, almost caused the second Great Depression and here we are. Now here we are not years later and evelyn will pretend we will punish goldman with an ittybitty slap on the rest. Now the American People will subsidize the settlement . Peter is in new york, a republican. Caller thank you for your work. Say, if anyone is really interested in understanding what happened during the financial crisis, they should read restaurant gretchen mortensons book, reckless endangerment. A nonpartisan look at what is going on. Proverb, failure is an orphan, republicans and democrats are running away from this and they are all trying to blame someone else and the banks. There was a lot of pressure from the social justice people to pressure banks to lower origination standards so they could give more ittgages to poor people and banks to not cooperate, they would be punished, and that set the ball rolling. The Clinton Administration expanded the mandates on fannie 55 percent ofp to their purchases of subprime mortgages, that started the ball rolling. In 1999, they got rid of glasssteagall in any kind of legislation that was there on derivatives. President bush continued the in the 2000 and that is when there was a crash. Thank you. Thank you. You are mostly right. The deregulation of derivatives and the removal of the protection of glasssteagall separating commercial banking gambling, investment banking, glasssteagall was repealed in 1999 and it took a way that separation. They came together, which supercharged the big banks. That laid the groundwork for the financial crash that happened because president bush accelerated those policies. Book,en did write a good but there are a bunch of other , including books seven deadly sins and a bunch of other books that show in fact, the Public Policy of trying to expand homeownership the on the traditional narrow area was actually not responsible for the financial crash in any significant measure. Underwriting standards associated with Community Reinvestment act lending, have actually had almost nothing to with the financial crash because almost none of the institutions involved were actually subject to the cra. That these of it is folklore built up by an ideological wing that is incredibly wellfunded in washington, d. C. The core of your point about deregulation is a on the money. It is a huge problem we are still fighting today. The financial crash was caused by massive deregulation. Financial reform law was intended to do is to reinject some modest, sensible, targeted reregulation so there actually were protections between what happened on wall street and the economic wellbeing of people on main street, and that is the fight we are still engaged in now. Anthony line for democrats. Caller i would like to point out to your guest, a prime case president bush had revoked the pardon of what was andcally a banker developer, putting people in housing, any other types of moneys that would be made available for first time home buyers and what have you. The pardon was revoked only after scrutiny by the press and i do believe the attorney had sat in the bush white house, as well as set on the 9 11 commission. It was a major conflict of interest but what you have is a predatory economy that has been socialized by Bank Bailouts over and over again, whether it is savings and loan, no matter what in then obvious attitude banking sector, as well as the blueblood elites in the country that have socialized dubious dealings and doings to the average, common working man or you look at the president ial pardon that was revoked and it was so blatant. That is why for the first time in history, the one banker, the one home predator, was bailed out. Why do we even investigate or go after the people if they just get a president ial pardon in the know the case. O it is interesting example. The core point you are making is right on the money. But lets put it in context. There are roughly 6500 banks in the United States. Only about 30 that have more than 100 billion in assets. There are only 11 which i referred to by the regulators as, lets just call them way too big to fail. We are talking about a very small number of banks that pose a unique threat to the country and the people of the country. Are right that socializing their losses, and that has been the problem, the handful of too big to fail banks that were allowed to become really huge and tooly too big interconnected, too leveraged, they had too much far owing and frankly to politically connected to fail. Is, befores in 2008 2008, they got to take all the gambling risks they wanted and they got to keep huge, historic bonuses, before the crash. Is crash happens and there no accountability. They get bailed out with no strings, like text their money, tax tears go on the hook and suffer the consequences because of the economic crash that crushed this country. In september of 2008, lehman crashes. By october 2009, the underemployment rate was over 17 . 27 million americans in october of 2009 were either out of work or working parttime because they could not find fulltime work. The economic catastrophe that fell on this country did not fall on the too big to fail banks who get bailed out and we basically socialize their losses, and that is a big part of what better markets is now trying to do and has been trying to do for five years, put back in place sensible rules that prevent their losses from being shifted to the American People. Bettermarkets. Com if you want to check them out online. An independent, texas, good morning. Caller are you familiar with naomi prince . How accurate is she . Some of herned to interviews on youtube and she is kind of scaring me. She is terrific and smart and has written a number of books. I have not Read Everything she has written and i have not gone to youtube to be completely honest with you, naomi prince has been a strong voice calling out and identifying some of the fundamental fault lines in finance for a number of years. Forused to work in finance a number of years. She guest to the fundamental issue that many other people have also raised, how do we do two things . How do we rebalance a financial completely out of balance . By roughly 2007, 44 of all corporate profits in the united dates were being consumed by finance. If you think about finance, which is supposed to be the support structure of the real economy, it is supposed to be what people want and need. Tangible things. Finance is supposed to be the tol that enables businesses identify those wants and needs to produce process services. If the support structure for the real economy is consuming 44 of corporate profit, it is no longer supporting the real economy. It is a parasite sucking the blood out of the real economy. Somewhere in the neighborhood of 20 of corporate profits be a we need to get finance rebalanced so it is back to a traditional role of point percent of corporate profits supporting the real economy. It is one of the things she talks about the other part of it is we have to end too big to fail. To end this ability of the handful, too big to fail, to threaten and threatening banks, and firms that pose a direct threat to the economy. Have got to reregulate those banks so they cannot pose that unique threat. Host we direct our viewers to our website and you can watch some of her appearances on the network. On twitter, trying to understand better markets. Is better markets goals in alignment with those of Elizabeth Warren . Ofst there is a fair amount overlap. We are a nonpartisan organization. It puts us in a somewhat unique position. We criticize and praise people based on the merits of their position to you might be a democrat or an independent or a republican. We are incredibly tough critics of the Obama Administration when we felt they were falling short on financial reform. Equally tough critics of republicans when they tried to roll back financial reform. Been a clear, has strong, really important voice, shining a light on some of the gross abuses of finance and shining a light on some of the really important things that have to be done in financial reform. We have done that from a nonpartisan perspective. Our interest in goals ultimately overlap quite a bit. Host paul, a democrat from North Carolina. Good morning. Caller i would like to follow on what anthony spoke of earlier. I want to add to that. The occupy wall Street Movement was comprised of a lot of people coming together, organizing to see that justice prevailed and that something was done. Of the media coverage, we are painted as a bunch of leftwing nuts and so forth. That. Lly swept out of host did you participate in occupy wall street . I was an engineer who was a victim of what took place in 2008. A result, there was nothing really done in the way of justice for the criminals. Banks andwent to the gm and all the different bailouts instead of helping the very people that lost their jobs and lost their homes and lost their retirements and everything else. The media have played a terrible enable thising to pardon that has taken place. Terrible, it is a parasitic thing with too much political ties. It is unreal. You make a number of great points and let me quickly hit them. With the media, you are right that it has been one of the most disappointing performances of cspanpposed to be is a notable exception, having reported quite well and covering the issues quite well for a long time. Dean starkman used to be at Columbia Journalism School and now is a reporter for l. A. Times, he wrote a book and book about this, call the dog did not bark, on the complete failure of the media in covering the buildup to the crash and what happens afterwards. On occupy wall street, you are right. The media lysed to polarize things and put them in neat little categories and then dismiss some and not others. I know saying that will cause a , i getcriticism for me all of that, but read the book and more importantly, look at what you see all the time. Profileyork times did a in better markets and it refers to the occupy wall street suit wearing cousin. We are in policy and legal debates and we are fighting at everywhere from the regulatory brashes to the executive to the media, trying to provide a counterweight to the industry were policymaking really gets made. The last thing i want to mention that you raised is the cost to the American People. Better markets did a substantial report on the cost of the crisis, which i will hold up. You should go to our website. Shows that we did the cost of the crisis to the United States alone, the crash of 2008, will be more than 20 trillion. You are absolutely right when you talk about the issues impacting the American People and the fact that they have not broken through in the media. On whether the American People are ready to forgive some of these things, we started the segment by talking about 5 billion fines, last week, news , getting into the Retail Banking business, how do you think that will go for Goldman Sachs . I think it is important for the American People to six thousande are 500 banks in the United States and we are talking about a handful of incredibly large an incredibly dangerous banks. Goldman sachs is a good example and citigroup is another. Fromn stanley, we can go 1030 really big banks that pose this threat. Pays 5, Goldman Sachs billion, a slap on the wrist, and that is because they wanted to get that behind them and move on and what they really wanted, it is quite remarkable, they want to be your local community bank. They want your savings and checking account. There are two does very important parts to that story. , that is part is evidence that financial reform is working. Goldman is one of the highest risk, high flying investment banks before the crash. The core business is making huge bets and basically gambling and finance. Happens, they shifted the downside to the taxpayers of america. What financial reformers do is require Goldman Sachs and the city banks of the world to internalize and assume the cost of highrisk high risk behavior. Rules on capital liquidity and technical subjects are meant to make them bear the downside as well as the upside of their Business Models. All the sudden, Retail Banking looks more profitable than what they were doing. The old rules, when there really were not any rules, those businesses were subsidized by the american taxpayer. We are trying to prevent that and they have to look for profits elsewhere. Shifting the Business Model from a gambling model to be more diversified in traditional and commercial banking, where they do savings and lendings account. It will be a fascinating test to see whether or not the incredibly disreputable reputation that these handful of too big to fail banks have Goldman Sachs in particular because of its egregious behavior, will be able to overcome perception of their behavior and actually get people to give them their money and their savings. Host taylor is in washington dc, republican. Guest caller good morning. Tonk you for alerting folks a lot of the problems with dodd frank. I am confused about one point. When you talk about goldman being able to write their settlement other taxes. The way i understand things is ill gottenn has gains on the balance sheet. They are to pay taxes on those. The government is reminding to four said those. Forfeit those. They no longer have the income that they once had, so why would they not be able to write those off their taxes . Beingainly understand upset with goldman in this instance, but not for being able to read that other taxes. Guest when you are settling a case, the terms and conditions of the settlement are entirely between the parties. Although we argue in the pace of these handful of too big to feel this is a public issue. There should be a public vetting of what happened there. The department of justice has conveniently in their own selfinterest made sure that theres no independent scrutiny. Definitely the issue you raise is a complicated tasks tax issue. What happen in two dozen five to thousand seven, its true they were taxed at that time on their corporate profits and the 5 billion in bonuses paid out in 2000 2006. They were also presumably taxed. Nine years later, when Goldman Sachs settles a case, typically settlements, corporations are considered ordinary and normal business expenses that have traditionally and typically written off their taxes and the business expense was incurred. Goldmanness expense for this year amid the charge at last her, currently the business expense occurs in connection with the settlement, so they get to write it off currently and there is no reason, not at all that the department of justice did not write in a settlement that you have to agree, you are not going to write it off in a taxes. Host have they done this 20 settlements . Guest question no. A 5 billion settlement, people think thats a lot of money. How much illgotten gains did Goldman Sachs get from 2005 to 2007 . You dont know. How much investors lose 2005 to 2007 . Nobody knows. Because the department of has the fact oh colluded with wall street banks to obscure information. It is help these banks prevent the public from seeing what they actually did because theres almost no information in it. That defense not only accountability of Goldman Sachs, for prevents accountability the department of justice. So lets say Goldman Sachs made 1 billion from its illegal behavior and it paid 5 billion. We would think wow, thats a penalty. What if they made 100 billion and they paid 5 billion . We would think, not much of a penalty. Why didnt the department of justice tell the American People how much money Goldman Sachs made question mark why didnt they tell the American People how much investors were ripped off . Why didnt they tell the American People the names of their executives and officers and supervisors who participated in this years long multibilliondollar illegal scheme . This is the big question. Why dont we know where those people are now . Presumably, not only did they get to keep their bonuses from all that illegal conduct, but presumably they are still in positions and probably have been promoted since then and are literally in significant positions and finance today, not just for goldman, j. P. Morgan chase, citigroup, and all the other big banks. The department of justice didnt require the banks to tell anyone any of that in connection with any of the settlements. Host you can find the statement of facts at justice. Gov. Here is the release from the april 5 billion settlement with Goldman Sachs. About 15 minutes left with Dennis Kelleher. Is in cleveland, ohio. An independent. Go ahead. Caller could you touch on the agencies the rating have not been allowed to change their habits. We have not learned anything since the enron days. They are getting a live with murder getting away with murder. Those are all good points. Your absolute right of the rating agencies. Hopefully some of the viewers saw the big the movie the big short. Its been criticized because didnt provide a full story. It wasnt meant to, it was meant to tell a story to the lives of these five individuals. It is a great scene in there about the rating agencies. The senior officer the Rating Agency has unless sun and couldnt even see inside. You are absolutely right. The rating agencies have got off scott free. This goes back to whether or not these big banks have been sufficiently punished or whether or not the American People have been afforded about what they did. When you look at what goldman did in the abacus derivatives deal that it was punished for, when you look at what citigroups did citigroup did, there was a corruption and a collusion with the rating agencies and with other gatekeepers like cdo managers. When you look at those cases, wyatt is the department of justice could not find a single individual, not one person at a major to big to fail wall street bank that they could hold criminally or civilly liable. Eric holder was the former attorney general recently quoted defended the department of justice saying dont you think that if we couldve found somebody to prosecute, we wouldve done it . Have the worst financial crash since the great crash of 1929 that almost causes a second Great Depression and is the worst economy since the Great Depression and the department of justice could not find one individual on it any major politically connected, wealthy, powerful wall street bank to prosecute either criminally or civilly . , orer you are not looking you are grossly incompetent. York aoungstown, new republican. Cliff, you are on. Caller this moves into my point. Theres a third option. That this crash was government incompetence. If there hadnt been in place to sell those mortgages, the banks never wouldve made the mortgages. Fannie were buying every single one of those that they could possibly put their hands on. Alan greenspan and the Bush Administration came to congress two years out, theres a housing bubble. Force forn years out so theres a housing bubble. And yet, there it was. The big Bank Bailouts, that bad bailout was forced on the banks. They all paid all that money back. The reason nobodys being prosecuted is because if they ever went to jail, the government collusion and response ability this would be apparent to everybody. Why dont you bring this up . Letter to bring up how government incompetence and capitalization rules where mortgagebacked bonds were rated at 75 as opposed to stocks and bonds 50 and cash at 100 . How they force these guest thank you, cliff. Better be somewhat fair, markets is not only a wall street watchdog, but is a government watchdog. If you look at our record, we have been pretty critical of the government both republicans and democrats. In terms of government causing the problems. On the one hand, you are right. I talked about that. In the late 90s when they , italed glasssteagall act was lobbied like crazy for citigroup and others, but in the end of the day, the government did it. Similarly, the government deregulated derivatives. They didnt just deregulate, they prohibited they prohibited the regulation of derivatives. The use of derivatives went from a must nothing to trillions of dollars. In terms of the bailout forced on the banks, if you are given a ,hoice, you are a Bank Citigroup which has been billed out three times. Citigroup faced a choice like aig faced a choice, they could come to the government for money or they could file for bankruptcy like lehman brothers, lose all of their money, their net wealth, their jobs, their reputation, their shareholders would get zero, their creditors would get haircuts which means they wouldnt get there debts fully paid off depending on where they were in the debt structure. It is a myth to think that these banks were forced to be bailed out so that they would not have to go into bankruptcy. They were dying for being billed out. Host talking about Goldman Sachs in this segment. How much bill might bailout money did Goldman Sachs take . Guest i dont know off the top of my head. The point about goldman is the degree at which they bailed out, its the amount of illegal conduct that they engaged in. Let me say one thing about the bailout, Goldman Sachs and more and Morgan Stanley received the biggest bailouts in the United States. They were unregulated investment banks before 2000 eight. When lehman brother crashed on monday, september 15, 2008, by that friday, Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs were going to go bankrupt. We have an email from saturday, the saturday after lehman crashed that reflects a phone call that Morgan Stanley made to the new york fed. It says we are probably not going to be able to open on monday. If we dont open, Goldman Sachs is toast. That is an email. So what are the federal government do . Bailout Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs to become a Bank Holding Company with an application that was literally written on a napkin in the fastest time in history they were allowed to be a Bank Holding Company. Why was that so important . Because only regulated Bank Holding Companies had access to all the red facilities, including the discount window where you can bank out bailout programs, support mechanisms. All of those programs immediately became available to Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley when they were magically made a Bank Holding Company. For a minute, if the government was that creative and aggressive in helping homeowners who are facing foreclosure. Who were helping the 27 million americans out of work or working parttime in october of 2009. Imagine if the government was as creative and quick and aggressive in helping the American People as they were in helping Goldman Sachs. Hollywood, florida. Democrat. Thomas, good morning. Caller good morning. I have a hundred percent faith you are doing everything you can to shine a light on these egregious errors. Id like to know from your perspective information, what part mr. Boehner played in this bailout that magically appeared over the weekend. In my mind, mr. Boehners been involved with banking since reagan got Merrill Lynch involved in the white house. Im revel in mr. Reagan made the announcement that he was setting ball free and loosened and mr. Boehner was standing right next to them along with the ceo of Merrill Lynch. Thank you again. Guest thank you, tom. I encourage you to go to our website that markets. Com to see what we are doing. In terms of former speaker boehner, i think id rather talk more broadly about the massive concerted effort of these handful of too big to fail, too dangerous, to politically connected banks on wall street. They amassed Enormous Economic is,r and what theyve done they have use this to buy in normas plug power. They are always the biggest spenders on lobbying, campaign contributions. The banks own this place. That is a huge problem. The Campaign Finance system and the lobby industry in the city is in many significant respects funded by wall street added exerts an undue political influence. As one of the things better markets is attempting to be a counterweight on. If i could quickly say, in terms of whether or not and this goes to the prior question, whether or not illegal behavior was really part of this. The cost of the crisis report on pages 78 and afterwards spell out why we believe there is ample evidence for the department of justice prosecutors and regulators to actually go after hundreds of forviduals at these banks illegal conduct. There is no question there was massive, years long illegal conduct and we spell that out starting on page 78 of the cause of the crisis available on website at better markets. Com. Host ray is in litchfield, New Hampshire. Republican. Caller good morning. Thank you for taking my call. Just stepping back to retrieve guest aboutvious conspiracy theories breed conspiracies. I was wondering if you could touch on countrywide home mortgages which is now on by bank of america any friends of angelo program. That being Angela Moselle open yet the son of nancy pelosi, you rainesple like franklin at fannie mae. Afterught is, if you went is itselle open that you think they arent going after these people . Because highranking centers and consummated fall as well . I think its more subtle than that. You are actually right. Ceo of countrywide he a vip friends list were knew politics of manys of years. I dont believe that was unique in the industry. Your subject from of the revolving door which is former government officials working on the Public Interest getting paid in government jobs and then quitting and going right to work for the industry to lobby the government to do with the industry wants rather than the Public Interest. And then you have the Campaign Finance system, all of which conspires to give the wall street too big to fail banks a leg up and allows them to get their way in washington dc which is what better markets spent his entire life and is dedicated doing is being a counterweight to that industry across the board. Host better markets. Com. Denis kelleher thank you so much for your time. Guest thank you, i appreciate it. Host in our weekly your money segment, we will be talking with Richard Rubin, a tax policy reporter with the wall street journal. Theoins us to discuss billions of dollars in federal taxes that will go unpaid this year. Thats coming up just a minute on the washington journal. Recently, our campaign 2016 bus made a visit to pennsylvania stopping at grove city, college. Washington and Jefferson College and harrisonburg area Harrisburg Area Community college. Visitors were also able to share their thoughts about the upcoming election. We visited tamminen middle school for their winning videos and the studentcam competition. Partners things to our comcast and armstrong cable. You can see all the winning document as it studentcam. Org. Washington journal continues. Week in this segment of the washington journal, we take a look at how your money is at work in a different federal program. We are joined by Richard Rubin who is a tax policy reporter with the washington explainrubin, first what a tax gap is. Guest it is the difference between taxes owed and taxes collected. It is how much unpaid, uncollected taxes there are out there. These are federal taxes, that is a oneyear number. To put it in perspective, the government collects over 3 trillion a year. As of this is a gap on top of that. That means the government collects 80 to 85 of taxes now and leaves that other part uncollected. About 387 billion due to underreporting, 39 billion due to underpayment and 32 billion due to on filing. Explain underreporting versus on paying underpaying and on filing. Guest underpayment is you know you are taxes and you just dont have the money to pay. These are accounts of the irs is trying to collect. They are like a private Collection Agency would be. Finding trying to get people on payment plans to start paying what they know. Its an agreement between the taxpayer and the irs. You have people arent filing which if youre making money, i dont recommend doing that. People who are earning income enough filing their taxes. And the irs is able to sort of track who those are. Then we turn to the biggest which is underreporting. Theys people who say that made 25,000 last year when they really made 40,000 last year. And in some ways you think that should be pretty easy for them to figure out how to deal with because they can find those people and audit them. But there are a couple barriers. The iris of had their budget cut for the past five or six years and so they now only audit less than 1 of individual tax returns. They were over 1 for quite a while. The second thing is how does the irs know . , youu are a wage earner have taxes taken out of your youheck withholding and know that your employer is going to send the government your w2. That theyre going to send her government the , youre notour w2 going to report that you only made host its pretty easy to get caught. Guest exactly. You see very dashing when you dont have one or both of those things and there no information reporting or withholding, or neither, thats when you have a real significant underreporting problems. Host were going to see if wouldnt get callers who of underreported, not filed or underpaid. Want to hear your stories. Why and how you did it. Phone number for those of having paid taxes before in a previous tax year is 202 7488000 202 7488003. Otherwise phone numbers as usual. Democrats 202 7488000, republicans 202 7488001, independents 202 7488002. Richard rubin is a tax policy reporter. Talking with the tax gap. Is goingof the tax gap to eventually be collected . How much will the iris eventually did to pay up . That comes from 2008 2010 estimates. They say about 458 million billion dollars in those years are the gross taps cap tax gap. Through both enforcement and collection after audits and the iris calling people to get them on payment plans, eventually that 52 billion of that. Thats what the irs staff does. Its voluntary and the sense that youre paying without being prompted to or audited, but you also know you might get caught. Its sort of voluntary. About 50 billion gets collected eventually and that net tax gap is about 406 billion. Host could the federal government collect all 450 billion if they wanted to if they put their resources into enforcement and collection . Would it be worth it . Guest they were asked about this a few weeks ago and he said look, if you think the irs isnt intrusive is intrusive now, you dont want to know how intrusive we would be to collect those. You have some people who cant pay. They try to get them on installment plans. That can be eight challenge. The other thing is finding people. You would need a much more aggressive, intrusive, heavily auditing irs to be able to get anywhere close. Now, there are plenty of ways to get that number up, more irs staff would get that number higher. A simpler tax system might get things a little bit higher because people wouldnt have difficulties filing. There may be people who underreport unintentionally. Theres people who take the classic case of underreporting is a business that get some of its money its a cash business. You take in 100 in cash receipts and you just only report 80. Thats flatout tax cheating and you cant do that. There may be people who were underreporting because they are confused. Host what to hear that story on paid,who havent underreported, underpaid or havent filed in a previous tax year. , otherwise phone numbers as usual. Democrats 202 7488000, republicans 202 7488001, independents 202 7488002 in this segment of the washington journal. Bob is in minnesota, a democrat. Caller thank you for taking my call. I have a question for you. I was wondering how much of a burden on the tax system is is that undocumented workers dont pay any taxes . Guest thanks for the question. Undocumented workers to pay fair amount of taxes. , lot of times would you have your undocumented workers were paying into Social Security system and medicare system if they are using fake Social Security numbers. They dont necessarily file returns to claim those taxes and get the money back and. There are people who do that as well. Ists a big controversy undocumented workers are you someone elses Social Security number to work and get an individual taxpayer Identification Number and file their tax returns and get refunds. It sort of a both ways kind of thing. There are cases where undocumented immigrants pay in and dont get benefits back. And theyre certainly cases where they are able to claim sometimes legally, sometimes not, tax benefits. That 458 breakdown billion dollars gap tax gap number. To thatho contributes tax gap. About 319 billion comes in individuals and their income taxes, including Small Businesses in partnership. Comes from nonpayment of employment taxes. And 44 billion comes from corporations, either on filing, underpaying or underreporting. Zach is up next from boston, a democrat. Caller good morning. Ive just a couple of comments. Plan ie payment guess the underpaying issue i think is easily solved. The last and i checked, the irs says you have to you can only go on a payment plan once. Which i personally think is absurd. The other thing is that ive requested the irs to audit me i usedfelt that turbotax, i felt my tax burden was too high. Wont do an audit on request either which i think is also a little bit odd as well. I think if you could fix those two policies in some way, i think that would reduce some of the money not being collected. I registered to hear your thoughts. Guest i dont know much about the one time payment plan thing. With their audit, theyre trying to use the limited resources in the best way they can. Theyve got a whole system for how they do audits. It is called the tiff score. They use computers to match documents to look for places re there is mitch match mismatch. Theyll see his other indicators. You cant fight out exactly what theyre looking for. Of you taking a lot homeoffice deduction. That may be an audit flag. Dohink it be reluctant to audits on request because they want to target their limited resources at the areas where they are most likely to be able to find noncompliance and cover more money. And even that, i hear from readers all the time to get audited and go through a long intensive process of hiring someone to help them through the audit and in the end of it coming out with no change in the return at all. So the irs struggles with that as well. They publish stats about where youll go through that whole process and come out with the same amount. They try in a to refine their audit flags and their procedure so theyve a few of those as possible. Host try to get some numbers for thest caller asking tax contributions of undocumented workers in the United States. The tax policy think tank the institute on taxation and Economic Policy had a paper out from february of this year. They found the 11 million undocumented immigrants collectively paid 11. 6 4 billion in state and local taxes. The institutes and now hes analysis says there cant division nationwide on state and local tax countries would increase by eight hundred 5 million under full implementation of the administrations 2012 and 2014 executive orders and 2. 1 billion would increase under comprehensive immigration reform. It is there it is i tep. Org. Kenny is on the line for those raven paid paid taxes in the past. Go ahead. Havent paid my taxes and about six or seven years. Im on disability and that and i make just under 13,000 year. I really dont make much. Im barely getting by and i think last your when i checked, i didnt even check this year. Last euro wouldve owed about 125 because i dont have any tax taken out. How much trouble can i get in 125 . T paying can i apply the earned income tax credit . Ive never checked it out. Guest a couple things. So the earned income tax credit. That depends on your family situation, whether your children the house, with your married or single. The earned income for childless worker is fairly small. Let me preface this by saying i am not a tax attorney or accountant, so you should seek professional advice not from a journalist on your own tax situation. Its always a good idea to file rather than not to file. Even if the amount you oh is relatively low. A, you may have the calculation because of credits like that, you may have other benefits of your over 65, all sorts of pieces of the code that can be tricky. And the other thing is the penalties can be significant for failing to file. Your qb were not only by the tax, but about the penalty consequences. Host who is the irs more likely to go after . Kenny and is possibly 100 24 in unpaid taxes . Or the corporations that contribute to these tax gaps . Guest there are three groups that are really heavily audited. One is the largest corporations. Work have had irs people in their offices and are in there continuously. Are consommepanies audited. Does a difficult audits because they are really well advised, they have really good tax attorneys capable of coming up with complicated across the border structures. The second group is high income individuals. Maybe audit rates are eight to 10 to 12 for people reporting a Million Dollars and up. People are very frequently audited. Its challenging because the irs has resource challenges and the taxpayers have their own advisors. People like kenny, i dont know. The third group that tends to be audited is people who get the earned income tax credit and claim it. For a refundable tax credit low income households. It goes up as your income goes up and goes down. Its structured as a way to incentivize work and it works. It encourages people to work, andalso prone to error fraud. The irs has been trying to find ways to limit that fraud. Sometimes that fraud is not even the taxpayers fault, its tax preparers who are out there pushing for the aggressive the itc claiming strategy. If you are filing for big refundable credit there, you are more likely to get audited. Wage earners in the middle who arent taking a lot of deduction , not that you wont get audited, but your chance is much company, highg income individual or ei tc recipient. Left we have 25 minutes with Richard Rubin of the wall street journal. At 10 00 billetica twin event with the National Administrator happening right after our show ends today. The next minutes want to get your calls and. We have a special line for those havent paid taxes in past years. Sheila hasn independent from rochester, New Hampshire. Good morning. Thank you for cspan. I will tithe a group of people who should be audited. Hairstylists into who going to booth renting, i have people who will call my salon who do booth renting trying to switch over my employees to their salon to booth rent and only declare half their income because is no way because most the time its a cash business. Those of the people who should be audited. They make a lot of money. Trust me. Host an industry that you looked into . Guest not an industry of looked into but thats classic cash business underreporting. If that kind of thing happening all across the country. One thing thats changed in the past few years since the study as done is Congress Passed revision that says Credit Card Companies have to report the total amount of receipts for each retailer to the irs. There, someiness people are paying with credit cards, the irs would get information returns would show they had 100,000 in credit card receipts and we know that hair salons in New Hampshire tend to card andsh, 25 credit so if the return doesnt show the commensurate level of total gross receipts income, that would give us more reason to question it. Weve been talking about we havent seen the effect of that yet. This has a lifetime, the study just came out. When the next version comes out we may get some clue as to how well that credit card report information has been doing in trying to indirectly go after cash businesses. Host what are some of the biggest cash Business Industries in the u. S. . Guest i think its all sorts of retail. Any sorts of retail transaction, think about home repair, contractors. As an individual think about the things you pay for in cash or check anything to pay for by credit card or bank transfer. ,nything with third parties that get theres either automatic information returns like this credit card or theres the ability for the irs to go when in track some of that down. Cash from onely person to the next, its much harder for them. And you think about what you do youll have a pretty good idea of where the tax gap might be. Maryland, rone, good morning. Fiver this happened about or six years ago and i basically went maybe three different years where i was a contractor and had not filed. When i finally was trying to get this together and work with an accountant and the irs to settle , it toldt filings about 50,000 dollars, after all the penalty and interest and because it took so long, it ballooned to do what are thousand dollars. It was insane. To 2000 ned 200,000. I had two fulltime jobs and i was proactively making these payments to the irs. I think i was paying 3000 a month proactively. Once i started with a caseworker with the irs, i had put together a complete binder of all my expenses to work out a payment plan to show them this is what i could pay. They really does kind of threw that out and they totally took into account what i was making because i have the two jobs and i had all these travel expenses because i was working in i. T. And i had to travel and pay extra expenses. They did not care about that. They said that is not our problem. You got yourself into this situation, its your fault. And you have to pay. Up to be 10,000 a month that they wanted me to pay. It was insane. Talking to ared bankruptcy attorney because it was just, i couldnt play it. Host how did it end . I got i caller another job. It was insane. I got very lucky with a contracting job that paid a lot. I downsized and moved out of my our place. Jobs, threeg three fulltime jobs and ill did this for two years it was insane. I had a family and i told him i do family. And they did not care. One thing that was a saving grace was the Taxpayer Advocate office. That was the only person throughout this whole ordeal that had some sensitivity that i was a human being. Negotiate ore helped me at least, they wanted on my house. They were going after me like that was a criminal. They talk to me like i was a criminal. I was going there in good faith trying to pay this off and they treated you like i wasnt a human being, like i was some sort of criminal who should be locked up. It was the worst experience of my life area from that i dontive never even try to do the 10 99 engagements because its way too risky. Host we appreciate you sharing your story. Thet Taxpayer Advocate is dash service in the irs. They are not part of the irs, but their mission is to help taxpayers through that kind of situation through Identity Theft which we havent talked about, through any sort of problem where you run into irs bureaucracy. They are government workers and they are not going to find ways for you not pay her taxes, but they will try to help cut through some of the burden. I often direct my readers to them and i get calls. The other thing to think about isyou listen to rons story the penalties. This is a cautionary tale of if you dont pay and you of the tax , its not just the tax youve been avoiding, but those penalties and interest really cascade. We can congress in the past two years because they been reluctant to raise taxes, theres much more interesting congress to raise fees and mindset ifecause the youre a politician, water one attacks hardworking people, i want to put as ron points out, it didnt feel like a tax cheat. Thats the political argument. Those penalties can be really tough. Host ron colling and for those who hadnt pay taxes in the past years. Want to hear your story, 202 7488003 thats the number for you. Otherwise lines as usual. 18 minutes or so before show wednesday. Larry is in amsterdam, new york, a democrat. Good morning. Caller minus similar to the guy before me on a much smaller scale. I was beginning a business and i was not making much money, thesely 15,000 in nearly and i had not filed income taxes for three years. Someone convinced me if you need to not file, theyll catch up with you sooner or later or you can file. Owedfiled my taxes and i them 2700 and we save set up a payment plan. I paid 50 a month. At the end of two years i o than 3700. , iwe increase the payment ended up paying them back close to 10,000 and it took me years to do it. Grace of filing and getting that behind me was that i knew when i got a letter from the Internal Revenue service that i was not in trouble because i dominoes posted do. Penalty were and killer. As ron was talking about before, the alternative to payment plans and interest and penalties is the iris can put liens on your assets and levies which means they can take money out of your account and garnish wages. They have pretty aggressive tools to go after taxpayers. Anyone im not an accountant or attorney, its always better to file rather than try to escape for years and years on end. Sabbath a writer on the for the wall street journal. How often do you get calls . Ive been covering tax for nine years now. I get calls and emails from readers all the time. They want some understanding of why things the way they are and vice and how to deal with it. Host we are talking about Richard Rubins recent story beforehe tax gap, hundred 58 billion dollars in taxes that are likely to go on collected again this year and in Previous Years. Used to come up with a compliance percentage. , that is the81. 7 latest compliant percentage. Down as theoing years go by. Thats mostly changes in the way they do the estimates, its not to assume from that that people are complying or paying less. The trend definitely has not been going up. We not seen greater compliance. The way they do the studies is they do random audits. Are donehe audits based on something on your return. This there are research ones that are done separate. They try to see where there might be underreporting. Thats how they come back and create these estimates. For john is on the line those who havent paid taxes in past years. Good morning. Taxes. I paid my my question is on scheduling. The irs went after me because they said they were scheduling and using the money for illegal purposes. How often does that take place and how do you stay under the radar of the irs if you pay your taxes in your bank account host so i should use your not having paid your taxes. Guest what hes talking about is structuring. That you cant move transaction transactions in increments more than 10,000 or so. Youve to report transactions above 10,000. Theres a crime called structuring where you set up transactions that are under that fornt and so your paying 9,000 deposit. Theres been some controversy. And the irs has gone in seized Bank Accounts because they see this structuring, even though theres not an underlying offense. And so the irs has changed policies in the past year to be less aggressive and there are some efforts in congress to join clampdown on that even further. Theres a dairy farm in the Washington Area thats run into problems. Its the foot set of cash businesses where businesses come in and say we went to the bank and it happened to be three or four deposits of slightly under 10,000. We are not trying to hide money. This area has been a very controversial piece of the law in the past couple of years and theyre been bipartisan efforts to trying get the government to be a little more sensitive to taxpayers. Host back to the line of those 11 paid taxes in the past year. You are up. Caller my name is charles. I faced similar situations as previous callers. I was the language on three delinquent i was on three years back. I set up a payment plan and what i found out talking to the representative of the irs that i would end up paying for the rest of my life at 64 a month. I owed 4200 and what happened is i went independently to quote some people outside the irs and they told me an offer compromise may work on my behalf. I went to these different institutions looking for help and i found they had a limitation on some of the amount of i couldnt make more than twice 500 2500. They cap me i was making 4000 in my pension now. I myad to do was, andings for the federal and it up paying back more to the irs yearly and in the last two years i was able to pay that off at 4200 because i want up my taxes bumped up my taxes. Return whichwhole was like 2500. And from the Previous Year i paid 1900 back. I was able to pay it off in two years, but they dont seem to have a plan even when an offer of compromise, the person i went to which was a professional law taxes. Y representing they wanted 1000 off the top just to represent me. That doesnt seem to be something that fits the average person who wants to make good on what they open. Host thank you for the story. Fees he talks about the some professional services will charge. Youll see these ads for tax defenses all the time. This is the work they do. They will represent you in trying to negotiate payment plans. This paisley in agreement with the irs where you say you oh 5,000 and they say lets call it quite 4000 and call it a day. Each cases individual. But its that kind of thing where you get debt wiped out for paying somewhat less than the ultimate amount being otherwise. And these are all casebycase. What we hear consistently from callers, i havent heard anyone ng thrilled where they didnt file and found themselves in the situation with the irs. Host a cautionary tale. Guest most people have real. Ardship if youre choosing between paying the government and paying for a bunch of other things, its not an easy call to make. Host heading out west to california. Mark is a democrat, good morning. Cspan andd morning thank you for the service that you provide. I have been a disabled vietnam and i assume 2000 that since it is not earned income, its a pension more or disability, do i have and or notyear even pay taxes, or pay taxes . Am i supposed to file on 1000 i get every month . To preface is again, youre not a tax advisor. Guest let me also note, for irs. Gov the internet, has a lot of great information. If you go in and look for do i have to file, it will give you a checklist of things that you need to know or to go to your library you can look up the same thing. If your incomes above a certain level. There is a threshold under which you dont file. I dont want to do that for the caller. That something you should look fewer should be up to look for on the irs website or elsewhere to get that they do have a lot of information on what the rules are and to trying get people to comply. The irs, its hard to get someone on the phone there. Of of the consequences cutbacks is that Taxpayer Service side. They some walkin offices. Not nearly as many are as well staffed as they used to be. About twoten talks sides of the calling. Theres a Taxpayer Service, that outreach where here perfectly reasonable questions like the one the caller had witches do i have to file if i have this Disability Income and only 1000 a month and you want to really get some information without having to pay a tax the flipside of that is the enforcement, the liens in the levees in the payment plans and the audits even talking about. Host the debate on capitol hill less important when iris is the budget cuts and has seen the budget cut in recent years. Guest republicans oppress the thets for a couple reasons, blowback the problems the irs had a couple years ago when they were giving extra scrutiny to some Tea Party Groups and that still i became using 2013 as a still and is still cascading. The service got 290 million increase for this year and were able to hire a bunch of people to get people on the phone so people could call in and im one of the tollfree lines. They recently announced because enough people have left on the enforcement side of the irs they are going to hire up to 700 people over there. Host this is the first time they seen an increase since 2013 and after that. Guest the first significant increase in hiring. There are forcing staff is down thousands of thousands of people nationwide. Gets in scope, the budget for the irs is what 11 billion a year and the agency has somewhere in the agency of 85 thousand employees. Ont rick is in tennessee the line for those 11 pay taxes. 96, i wasck in listening to politicians and tv and if you make minimum wage and they said if you make minimum wage he didnt have to pay. They took out about a thousand dollars out of each of our checks for Social Security and then we owed any federaltake out taxes, but we ended up owing onut 1500 in taxes and 5. 25 an hour, you will not gain much. I ended up wearing the bill out stuffned Income Credit like that and also the stimulus checks that were being sent out by bush, i didnt get those. They went straight into my taxes. Whenever they had the crash eight years ago or whatever it , they froze my bank account which had 100 in it and i called the lady, i called the regular irs and i talked to some lady. She and froze my bank account. I just told her the truth, im laid off now and it dont have any money. She said we will unfreeze your bank account. If you do get any money, we are getting it. Of earned income tax credit being sacrificed, i ended up paying it off. The main thing i learned is it is a crime not to file and it is a crime to avoid taxes, but its not a crime to be too poor to pay them. Guest right. And eventually likely heard from so many colors, youll have to pay. You get these payment plans and youll have future refunds taken back and your tank and bank account is gone after. To put it in a little bit of context, youre a taxpayer whos is actually paying. If youre complying then the burden of government is falling more heavily on you and not on the people who arent filing and arent paying. The irs as his real challenge of trying to be sensitive to the real hardships that people face when a lot able to pay their taxes will let the same time trying to be respectful to people who are part complying and are paying and maybe making up the sacrifices to be able to pay their taxes. Thats the balance theyve got. Mark has been waiting in reno, nevada, and independent. Good morning. Caller i was just wondering with all the cost and hassle to taxpayer for the filing of taxes and the cost to administer irs, would we be better off trying to shift some of that tax responsibility do things like property taxes and sales taxes . Guest those arent always easy to collect either. Their attacks and ministrations every state and local government to try and assess and calais collectors taxes as well. The irs has the advantage of scale and the customers are used to it. ,ith each kind of tax you have the burden is somewhat different. If they are regressive a fall more people who spend more of their income. Property taxes can be difficult for people who are older and live in fastgrowing areas with her house mightve gone up but theyre inclined income is relatively flat. Betweenthis sort of mix property and sales tax is generally for local governments and income funds is for state and federal government. Overall they are both progressive and regressive taxes that are part of that whole system. Anytime you plan on making a shift like that, youre to think of the consequences for how the overall tax policy would be change. Host if you want to follow Richard Rubin on twitter we appreciate your time. Host that will do it for we will now be taking our viewers to the Brookings Institution this morning where nasa administrator Charles Bolden is getting set to talk about the future of Stem Education in the United States. We will see you back here tomorrow for another washington journal at 7 00 a. M. Eastern 4 00 pacific