as the u.s. government continues to bring morell money, $1.6 biion through the merit initiative over three years, that s a big step. also the united states government needsp to continue to shore up its borders and i think president obama certainly showed that by putting on $600 million more into the supplemental for this year. it will bring more resources to the borrowedder and also national guard will be a significant asset. julie: mexico is experienced one of the most significant levels of violence on the globe, 28,000 killedn the last four years. what if this violence spills over into the u.s. and what is our u.s. government need to do to solidify our border with mexico to pvent that from everha happening? you re right. 28,000 deaths over the last four years i as significant. greatest amount of deaths and loss of life anywhere on the globe. but i think clearly the point that needs to be viewed, that has not spilled over into the united states. that s not to say there is not a ce
are way, way above historical levels. whate need to do is not focus on trying to rais more money. we will raise more money if the economy grows. what we need to do to get this under control, to give confidence to the rket, confidenceo business people to invest is get the size and scope of the federal government under control, to establish a tax plan that is consistent andbl predictable which means extending the bush tax cuts for everybody for a few years. if we do that, people will start to invest again and jobsot created. thank youoth for being with us. thank you. julie: a flip flop by iran s government costing anmerican woman her freedom. originally saying sah would be released today, evenresident ahmadinejab was backing the plan. but iran s justice department is now saying her case is being held up by, quote,er unfinished legal procedures denying her release. she and two fellow american
gregg: thanks. julie: as we mark 91 here at home, our troops fighting the war on terror overseas are marking the day as well. american servicemen and women io afghanistan paying tribute to their fallen comrades with a memorial run. re than 4,000 soldiers have lost their livesn the front lines since thebe war on terror ago. nine years conner powell is streaming live from kabul, afghanistan. hi,ny conner. in many ways it s a new war here in afghanistan after eight or nine or so years here, the war has changed dramatirlly in the past 18 months or so. for years, commanders on the round here complained there weren t enough troops or resources or money to fight this war properly. that s all changed in the last 18 months or so as 30,000 additional u.s. troops have come intorc the country and resources and money have flowed in equally tr additionals the troops. many ways the war here is changed because of the additional troops, but also
isn t that what i should be doing? gregg: why not call it a stimulus? congressman, since the first stimulus failed to keep unemployment below 8% as he promised and since most americans, according to polls regarded as a waste of money, is this latest stimulus linly to go nowhere in congrs? first of all, the first stimulus was in 2008 when president george w. bh decided he was going to send everybody a $600 check. and that went nowhere. $168 million later, people pyaid off debt because tynew that the country was quickly going down a fiscal rat hole and it was. and so then the second one, when i was in the news business, we actually didn t determine whether or not it was a failure or a success unti we lood at the whole picture. some of the stimulus is a success. we haven t dug ourselves out of it yet. whether or not this is a stimulus or not, the reality is we have over $500 billion in infrastructure improvement we have to make in this country. those are roads and bridges built by dwi
it s for our national t defense. what we really need too is take those items away from the budget. that needs to be part of capital budget that s written off over 20 years. not something written offll in one year. so if we re going to be honest, all of that expenditure in our infracture written off er a 20 year period, the same as small businesses do and large businesses do. not play a charade with how theyre written off. gregg: i m sure when you were in the news business, they had president obamaing data, which is what i reverend to. senator, instead of raising taxes on anyone, including businesses, why not cut back nonsecurity spending, let s say to 2008 levels? if you look at historically where americans have spent and raised money, the federal government, it s beenetween 18 and 20% of gdp. that s been the range of txes collected and revenue spent. right now we re running a little below that on the tax side.f about 16% of gdp and federal revenues coming in.