congress. however, since 2011, there have been 60 attempts to do the same. it is sunday, february 1. the budget, taxes and spending expected to dominate much of the debate in congress this week. congress calling for higher taxes and doing away with sequestration budget cuts. we want to get your comments on all of this. (202) 748-8001 for republicans. (202) 748-8000 for democrats. (202) 745-8002 for independents. you can also join in on the conversation, send us a tweet send us an e-mail. good sunday morning to you. let's look at what the presence budget will include -- 7% increase over sequestration level 530 billion a nondefense spending. cuts according to the white house would be evenly divided over the nine-year. . now, white house saying they want to undo the requester nation spending. we will get your comments and questions in just a moment. first, jonathan allen. guest: is my pleasure to be on. host: let me go to one of the court points of your story, available online from bloomberg. you talk about companies, like apple, or microsoft, which has over $9 million of profit outside of the united states and if the white house were to put in place it's plan, they would oh taxes. host: they are calling for an guest: they are calling for a 19% tax. a lot of companies have ways of getting around u.s. corporate tax rate. of course, when i say getting around, they are using what is available to them through the tax code now and will end up paying much smaller rates sometimes in the single-digits. this would be i knew 19% minimum tax for those full on incomes that they are making overseas. in addition to that, the white house is proposing a 40% tax on profits held overseas. what that means is -- i sort of think of it like if you have a bank account the government is taxing past profits, what is sitting in the account overseas. that is the 14%. the 19% is future earned. host: the president also calling for tax breaks on middle-class americans and raising taxes on wealthy americans. all of this part of a $3.9 trillion tax plan. me ask you about sequestration. they essentially want to do away with it. how likely is that in a republican-controlled congress? guest: i think what we have seen over the past two years is a willingness of the congress and the president to finally ease sequestration a little bit. doing away with it entirely, to say to do basically what the president is proposing -- increasing discretionary spending by 7%, you will not get that. what you might get is a smaller number. etc. $74 billion and this -- and discretionary spending you may see $30 billion or $40 billion. that is the fight. basically, the president's budget arrives on capitol hill and congress has the prerogative to ignore it if they want. really, they do not entirely ignore it. what the president does here is sets out his agenda and priorities. in the case of discretionary spending, the sequestration cap, basically lays out his marker from which he is willing to negotiate. he will -- they will be negotiate down from that 7% increase. congress, where a lot of republican sports bike to cut below the sequestration level will be negotiating from some position -- either keeping them in place, or a little bit below what figure station calls for. my guess is that they will end up with something on the bill above where planned spending is. the president has some moments am right now in terms of a growing economy and shrinking deficit. that means that there is probably a little bit more money to be had. host: jonathan allen, we heard from someone testify before the senate armed service committee last week, one of the roles -- admirals in the navy saying they are down below three 2001 areas. they are worried about a hollowed army. does that lends support? guest: absolutely. what the white house would like to do -- they never really believe that republicans would let the military suffer. the series and the white house is that if you put enough pressure on republicans on military spending, they will be willing to spend more on domestic programs in exchange for morris and niches in the military. over the last few years, we've seen a has not worked well as the white house would have liked , that strategy. as time goes on and people from the pentagon show up and plead their case more and more, you'll probably get more and more sympathy. the other thing you get in this budget is -- at the same time the pentagon funding for overseas contingency operations, with which is not counted against the deficit. it pays for the wars in afghanistan and iraq. that has been coming down. so action money that is available to the pentagon, over the last several years, is shrinking. that is sort of a stick. the carrier is the president's proposal to increase pentagon spending by $3 trillion. what democrats care about is transportation programs, education, scientific research, things like that. host: jonathan allen washington bureau chief for bloomberg news. thanks for that. this will really be the debate front and center in the white -- on capitol hill this week. jonathan allen story is available online if you want to check it out. we are also getting your comments on our facebook page as the president outlined his spending blueprint. you can join in on facebook. also, this tweet from bill saying that people are still trying to move a long in the white house want to suck more money out of the economy and redirected. this is also being written on in politico -- obama 2015 budget $3.9 trillion. let's get to the phone calls. joe, good morning. caller: steve i want to thank you. thanks to c-span, you have made me the number one caller in the country. steve, we have to cut spending. the only way to do that is elect more taxpayer champions like cruise and mike lee. we sent a good guy out there from purdue, i think you will be at taxpayer champion, but steve we are spending too much money. the rich already pay -- i think the top 5% spend about 70% of taxes. that's the last thing we need to do -- punter success in america. i don't know how much you make steve, by what you to make more, and i don't want to punish you. host: what about fixing the tax code? caller: we need to do that. host: how can we do that? caller: of flat tags. you had on steve forbes, steve moore -- i go with them. you are supposed to give the lord 10%, i think 10% is enough to give the government. we need to cut taxes, spend less. that's the answer, steve i have -- we have to cut spending, my dear friend. host: joe from georgia. he calls it once a month. we do after callers to wait 30 days to colin again, so we will hear from you in about a month. our next caller -- caller: i cannot understand most of these right wing republicans. they do not want to pay taxes or serve in the military. i served in the military. i'm 80 years old in two months. i served in the military from 1951 to 1954, and we made a measly $75 per month. now these right wing republicans want to throw the whole government under the bus because they hate the president of the united states. i'm a white guy, and i do not understand why they don't want to pay taxes to support the military and the poor people of this country. it is not make any sense. they don't want to serve in the military. they don't want to pay taxes. they want to have everything to themselves. it is just beyond my believe that any patriotic american sits down on a soapbox and says that he is for the government because he wants to cut taxes. host: mel from minnesota. another viewer saying, have you noticed that the rich are make -- wealthy are getting richer with no trickle-down. a piece on bernie sanders -- "bernie sanders, alone in his outrage." bernie sanders is our guest on the "newsmakers" program. he is the ranking member on the house budget committee. here is more on our conversation with senator sanders from "newsmakers". [video clip] >> i think one area of common agreement is -- there is widespread understanding that our infrastructure is crumbling. our roads bridges, water systems, airports, you name it. according to the american society of civil engineers, we have to invest trillions of dollars just to bring our infrastructure up to par. we are way behind europe and china as far as the percentage of our gdp that we invest in infrastructure. i know that conservative republicans understand the importance of rebuilding our infrastructure. legislation would call for a trillion dollar investment over five years. i would hope that in that area we can come together and say that we have to rebuild our crumbling infrastructure, and in the process, we can create millions of jobs. that is one area where i hope we can reach agreement. host: bernie sanders is our guest on the "newsmakers" program. the full interview at 10:00 eastern. back to the budget plan, the president calling for increased spending and raising taxes on corporations. daniel from ohio, democrat. good morning ques. caller: i agree with senator sanders. i think we have to do our infrastructure. i'm for that being done. i don't hear them hollering about all that money spending in iraq and afghanistan. host: thank you for the call. from the "chicago tribune" -- the proposed and to the budget cuts to rally democrats for fight. david from north carolina. caller: it is like obama has gutted the insurance program. now we have to work on making new insurance program and tax program. the thing about the taxes is we all pay into taxes one way or another. it would be nice to receive something for those taxes instead of having to buy -- have many layers of taxes and insurance is. i love to see them all combined into a slot trade tags. -- sales tax. and be able to secure my possessions without having to pay rent on them every year. host and thank you for the call. we will go next to phil from new york. on the democrats line. good morning. caller: good morning. i agree with the president rapoza wholeheartedly. i would like to point out one point that neither deem -- democrats nor republicans mentioned. the social security program and medicaid programs have never and her history run a deficit. deficits h are due entirely to military and imperialist spending overseas. there is no deficit caused by social security or the others. they are fully paid for by taxes and we are fast approaching the time in which the social security taxes and medicare taxes are higher than income tax revenues of the country. host: thank you for the call. from the washington journal, reporting on this with this headline -- "obama budget proposes 7% more and spending above sequestration caps." that is on the washington journal website. another viewer with this opinion -- cut the pentagon to pay for the infrastructure. our next caller from washington. caller: good morning. i have been trying so hard to get people to look at how we are allowing our military complex to run rogue and not be accountable for anything. they are not -- they are almost a review -- reflection of what is going on with the mainstream citizens of this country. the vets are the bottom of the barrel. it is the guys up at the top who are today am old to fight anymore and they are ripping us off. they are not paying the vets what they need. they need housing, counseling, and health care. we need that with regular civilization here in america. host: thank you for the call. inside the "washington post" -- as the measles scare continues out west, you can see this map. the darker areas of california and arizona are where measles cases had been reported. about 64% of the cases are considered part of an outbreak. our next call from new york city. is the -- what you think about the president's budget plan russian mark caller: here is what i think -- you would be great as the anchor for cbs news at 8:00. i want to give warm buffets tax plans for the united states. i teach at the mda school. i am a senior professor in the most boring of all courses -- market value accounting. host: what is that course? caller: it is having assets on the balance sheet. in other words, do you do it writing it down or based on market. if you own a building, rather than write it down, from $100 million to $10 million, you go out and get a market price -- say it is 4 million. it is a more accurate reflection of your position on the balance sheet. is this too boring for you? host: no, absolutely not. caller: so the big argument worldwide is the telephone company writes down its asset for its building on broadway in manhattan. they bought it in the early 1900s, and put it in the balance sheet but really the ratepayers have a $300 million game, and they should really reduce what you pay for telephone bills. i don't want to make it boring. you should run for anchor on cbs. let me give you the warren buffett comment -- we did the calculations on oil going down 50%. what they missed is that it does save you $100 per month in gasoline. most families have two cars. that is $100 per month. what they leave out is that your oil bill, i have a home in the hamptons, it is like $400 for a month -- now it is down to $200 per month. the tax game, or the increase, is about $4000 per year. i' want to give the buffet solution. he says the following -- why should my son, who did nothing when i die, get $70 billion tax-free? no person should in the united states who has a child get more than $100 million. above that, it would be roughly a 95% tax rate. host: michael, we need to move on, but be quick. caller: the point being that solves your tax problem of the super rich now contributing to the rest of the middle class. host: ut to nyu? caller: columbia. host: thank you for the ivy league lesson. we appreciate it. this is from the denver post -- caught between minds and votes. colorado a key swings they in 2016. a look at jeb bush and his use of marijuana. this is in the boston sunday globe. from the "chicago tribune" -- inside rahm emanuel's political cash machine. mark joining us this morning from virginia. good morning. caller: good morning. i just thinking about some of the incredible hypocrisy and irresponsibility coming from the republican party. the very wealthy are the ones who are in a position to take advantage of our highways and roads, and they make money. they make money because of the educational system that we have that educates our young. they are the ones who really should be paying more. we cannot have a decent infrastructure or educational system if it is not paid for. i also do not like redistributes isive hypocrisy that they come out with -- they always talk about money for the poor. but it is always the opposite, money goes from middle class to the very wealthy. it moves in the form of a tax that the wealthy do not pay their fair share. thank you for your time. host: another point of view -- our military is totally incompetent for sucking all of our tax money for overseas wars which they lose. the numbers are on the screen if you want to call in. if you are overseas, (202) 748-0003. a piece point out that when the president met with republican -- democrats in philadelphia, he made a case for his budget. this is from the huffington post. a general airing that set -- sentiment as he testified. [video clip] >> this is just the example of what we have done before sequestration has kicked in. when it returns, we will be forced to reduce another $70,000 out of the active component $35,000 out of the national guard, $10,000 out of the national reserve. we will be forced to reduce monetization levels over the next five years because we can simply not drop down any quicker to generate savings. the impacts we -- will be much more severe across the acquisition programs. there will be a overall monetization increase of 40%. training will be severely underfunded. our institutional support will be forced to drop over 5000 seat , and over 1000 seats in our pilot training program. our soldier in family -- and family readiness programs will be weekend. the air force -- will be out of reach. host: part of the testament -- testimony by the army cheap -- chief of staff. talking about the potential impact of sequestration. moving ahead, the president calling for $38 million in additional's pending for the military. also proposing changing the tax code, especially for outside corporate interests. sticky of politics, bloomberg politics out with this headline online -- "governor walker surgery in iowa poll as bush struggles. this shows governor walker of leading with 16%, up from 4%. senator rand paul of kentucky at 4%. former governor jeb bush at 8%. new jersey governor chris christie is in even worse shape. this whole 30 is available online. john from lakeland, florida, independent. what you think of the budget plan? caller: good morning. in 1960, president kennedy had an idea to lower taxes by $10 billion and you would stimulate the economy. in 1964, it was enacted. for every dollar -- for the $10 billion of lower taxes, the governor got back $20 billion. lowering taxes, you get more because the dollar -- you know you buy something that is tax and he goes on. can i make one more point? host: sure. caller: the gas tax. when you buy your $10 worth of gasoline, and you pay tax on it, that is it. the trail stops there. like i think the professor was saying, on the other end, you have less expenditures and more profit. that is good for the economy. that prophet will be given to the shareholders or your own business, and you will spend that. host: we talked a week ago about the possibility of raising taxes . speaker boehner saying that is in nonstarter. one viewer saying -- i think we should outsourced to china. the front page of in your times on what is next for mitt romney now out of the race -- "from jeb bush, front runner status comes with caveats are co- ." republicans have a tradition of picking an anointed one early. the establishment candidate almost always end up with the nomination. the piece also outlined some key donors, including a chicago private equity executive who has announced with romney out of the race, he is working for jeb bush. virginia fundraiser raised more than $4 million for romney saying they are in for chris christie. by the way, he is spending the first part of this week in great britain for a trade mission. our next caller is joining us from cincinnati. caller: my name is kendall anderson. i am with a radio show. one thing that we talk about is that this is nothing more than crafts work -- warfare. this is nothing new. the president had put this budget year before, and is always demonizing the wealthy 1%. i think that is wrong. we should have a flat tax. we do not live in a caste system. we allow people to improve their lifestyle. i think the president needs to get away from this and realize that for all americans, they should have a flat tax. host: what was your radius it -- station in cincinnati? caller: w dzp. host: think you for joining in on the conversation. good luck with your program. we are going to susan on the republican line. caller: good morning. i would get nervous -- anyway, a couple of comments. who is to say what is fair? i get so tired of people talking up a fair share. who are we to decide? if you want to make $20 million, go ahead. i will not be jealous. i want to keep my own money. the number one responsibility of the government is defense. we lose sight of that. let's take all the social programs, epa, parks and rec's, although slough programs and move them back to the state. that is how we were founded and that is how we should run. $8 trillion, we race that the on infrastructure. should -- for obama, show already is not really shall ready. wiry dogma infrastructure again? host: thank you. michael has this point -- strong bench for the gop going into 2016, while the dems wait for hillary's coronation. a headline coming out this morning -- "cameron to meet with big mouth presidential candidate, chris christie during three-day visit." they call the london mayor big mouth. on the democrats line, then from ithaca, new york. good morning. caller: good morning. everybody who has been calling in is right. i think this whole conversation -- and it is indeed important. in blankets, or hides, the real underlying problem. the next -- best example is perhaps in sweden where they have high taxes at the same time, they have very little crime. there are some instances of that . at the same time, the money that we are talking about, the finances, our printed pieces of paper they're supposed to represent something. as far as i can tell, we can sit and talk about it together however, until we actually have a redistribution of wealth, we will not have equity. if not mean that some people have should more others less, it is not the point. my uncle said something -- when you point your finger at some of the blame them, very often your thumb is pointing at you. if the money were to stop being printed and we did a redistribution of wealth, everybody could still have power and have different things. nothing would change. thanks for your time. host: thank you for the comment. this is from the sunday review in the new york times -- the power of blue state republicans. white will be very hard for a far right republican to win. if you're just tuning in, we are focusing on the president's budget plan. $3.9 billion -- trillion. this is a headline from the alley times -- l a times -- obama budget to propose a passing spending limits by $74 billion. steve is on the line. caller: good morning and thank you for c-span. my, it is -- comment is -- i was born in 1960, and when i was growing up i noticed that people have gotten less generous as more companies have become privately owned. as more people buy stocks, the return -- as more people become holiday, and sell stocks, the people who buy stocks, all of us, we become more interested in our stock returns. that means that companies know that workers will show up every morning, but if investors are not making enough, they can invest in a strip club down the street for a higher return. the only reason that there is wage differential is because they are being suppressed for higher returns for the investor class. you had to have returns for the investors to have any money. so my advice is for people to buy docs -- stocks. that's my comment. host: thank you for your call. "cq weekly" -- democracy has become a cash cow. this is the front page story. our next call is judy joining us from townsville, north carolina. on the republican line. that morning. caller: my question is -- can you name one president that has raised the budget and demanded more money than this president has? it has to stop and it must stop now. we cannot tax the people that are already overtaxed. thank you have a good day. host: judy, thank you for the call. the front page of the new york times this morning -- "scrambling to add romney donors." also "as a bull that ed, focus turns from death to life." next call. caller: i just want to say that about -- many people do not know that we still have a base from when the japanese attacked pearl harbor. parts of the airplanes have been made that they don't even want. you do not have to give more money for the military to spend to spend it more wisely. if you really want to make the tax code more fair, just raise the number of kids that a family can claim on a tax return. if you have five kids, you can only claim to on the tax return. how is that fair? host: thank you for the call. next is sheila from georgia. good morning. caller: good morning, steve. i would like to address the millions of people out there who are on social security. it is able to their local social security office tomorrow and ask how much money did i pay -- the same with medicare. go ahead and add 5% on to that. then ask both social security and medicare, how much have you paid out for me? i think it would be a rude awakening for a lot of people out there. as far as what president obama wants, before we get into this discussion, i want to know, what exactly is in the discretionary's ending? host: sheila, thank you for the call. if you want to go to the council on ford relations -- many of you calling on military spending. it is available online. this is what the piece looks like -- you can see in a chart below what the spending has been over the last 20 to 25 years. there was an uptake in the george bush administration and coming back down over the last three years, in part because the sequestration. richard from laurel, maryland. good morning. caller: good morning. thank you. i would just like to comment on the amount of taxes in proportion to what an individual learns. an average individual like myself. 20 years ago i had to work five months to pay my taxes. i was receiving no income at all. host: richard? hello? we lost the call. we will go on to charlie in north virginia. republican line. you get the last word on this. caller: my last word is -- this is all the shell game. the establishment picks, everyone is paint -- playing it safe. promising everything to everyone. i hope americans are starting to pay attention and wake up. economically and socially, we are not getting anywhere. this thing is broke. it is time for people to get involved and engaged, talk to others. stop playing safe. let's get real. let's be adults about this. in this great exceptional usa. host: again, to recap the president, tomorrow outlining a $3.9 trillion budget plan. one viewer saying you should ask callers how much do they pay in taxes. obviously most all have any idea. the u.s. ends more on defense then the next eight countries combined -- according to latest figures from the peterson institute. we will continue with this tomorrow morning. next, we will turn our attention to the affordable care act as the house of representatives is again set to take a vote on repealing the affordable care act. philip klein of the washington examiner will be here. later, the head of the afl-cio. the present document unions during his state of the unit address. first, "newsmakers" this week with bernie sanders. he talked about sequestration and the budget. here's a portion. [video clip] >> i think is widespread agreement that sequestration makes no sense at all. it does not say we should cut here and spend more there. it is an across-the-board the duration. in my mind, it should be done away with. i think the president is right. obviously, the debate will take place over the details. >> senator enzi, what do you make of his ability to work with you to get that in place in the budget? >> i have known him for many years. i like mike and look forward to working with him. >> cider, the president announced on thursday that he is not only looking to end sequestration, he will call for 7% increase over the cap. will that be dead on arrival on capitol hill? >> you will have to ask the republicans who control the house and senate about that. my own feeling is that at a time when the middle class continues to disappear, when we have the highest rate of child poverty in the industrialized world, when millions of seniors are struggling to get food on the table and pay for medicines when young people can't afford college -- i thing is clear that we need to start investing in the future of america. we have to protect the most motorola people in this country and that will cost money. as the president has indicated you say to the wealthiest people, who are doing phenomenally well, say, sorry, you will need to start paying your fair share. >> center, are there areas where you and republicans can find common ground? >> one area of common agreement is -- there is widespread understanding that our infrastructure is crumbling. our roads, airports, you name it. according to the american society civil engineers, we need to invest trillions of dollars just to bring our infrastructure up to par. host: we hope you tune in ford c-span's "newsmakers" program. it follows the washington journal. it is also available anytime online at c-span.org. it will rebroadcast tonight. philip klein is commentary editor for the washington examiner. good morning. on tuesday, the house is again voting on repealing the affordable care act. the first vote in this congress, but the 60th vote since 2011. what can we expect? guest: i think we can expect it to pass. when they say 60 votes on repeal, that is somewhat misleading. a number of the repeal votes have been to undo certain aspects of the law. there has not been as many the had been full repeal. either way, this will obviously be vetoed by president obama if it passes the senate and gets to his death. you have a lot of new members coming and who have not had a chance to vote on repealing obama care, they ran and campaign on repealing obama care . this will be their chance to vote against it. they will probably move on to other targeted types of legislation. host: the way it has been written -- not only repealing affordable care act that instructing key committee to come up with an alternative. can you explain? guest: i think this is necessary. this new book out -- "overcoming obamacare. co." in talks about moving things in a more free market direction. the problem up until this point is that there are fundamental differences among republicans on what the alternative would be to obamacare. as a result of that, it has been easier to not release an alternative and unify around repealing obamacare, which everyone agrees on. however, as i argued in my book, i think they are misguided because if obamacare and other health care programs are allowed to go on autopilot, the government would take a larger role in the economy. eventually, democrats will, when they are in charge again, will have the opportunity to implement an even more top-down government run health care system. if republicans will prevent that they have to present an alternative and start making the case for it. also quickly, there is a supreme court case coming up that is expected to be side by june that has huge ramifications for obamacare. depending on how that is decided, there could be a lot of pressure on republicans to have some kind of fix or alternative. this is the decision that could theoretically strip away federal exchange subsidies for millions of people. if it is decided that way, and republicans do not have an alternative to present, they will be sort of force potentially into trying to sign on to a so-called fix that would further entrench and sign on to obamacare. that is why i think you see a number of things that are now forcing them to realize that this may be finally the year to present an alternative. host: i want to follow up on the president's comment in a moment. in your book, you talk about key players, including the new chair of the house ways and means committee, paul ryan, what will he and his committee propose? guest: it is unclear. all ryan in the past has signed on to various alternative health care programs. however, that was before obamacare. obamacare has changed the playing field. now, republicans have to deal with the question of what to do with people who have some sort of benefit from obamacare regardless of the fact that there were many losers from obamacare. there are also people getting subsidized health insurance. what you have among republicans is a divide around several issues. issues such as candidate now be fully repealed? does any sort of replacement of obamacare have to account for the beneficiaries, whether it is some sort of transition a relief or is there another way to assess that people to purchase health insurance? another big question is -- what budget baseline to use. this gets a little wonky, but as you known washington, there is a way that the congressional budget office announces proposals against the baseline of what taxes and spendings would look like if those proposals were not implemented. now that obamacare is in the books, the questions for republicans who have opposed all the taxes and spending is whether they wipe it all off the books and start from scratch, or if they work against the a slide that assumes the obamacare taxes and spending. if they do that, they can still have some sort of alternative that spends money and raises taxxes. on that point, paul ryan, when i spoke to them a couple of months ago, he said that he thinks that all the spending and taxes should be wiped off the books. if he sticks by that, it could affect what kind of alternative you can produce. host: responding to what the president said in philadelphia last week. [video clip] >> the bottom line is this, we need to make sure continues to work. we need to protect the progress we are making. i heard the revolt -- republicans are making their 59th or 60th vote next week to peel be affordable care act, i have lost track. is that reaches my desk, i will happily be to it. host: again, a veto threat by the president. you can hear the frustration in his voice. guest: i think this is part of the strategy for republicans looking towards 2016. republicans have to say what they are for. i think this is another reason why it is important to advance an alternative. what republicans have to do -- if you look back to democrats as an example when they took over the house and senate in 2006, and bush still controlled everything, what they did was passing lots of pieces of legislation that were popular. they made the case for them. bush vetoed them. then when hillary clinton and obama, and all the democrats were on the campaign trail, they were able to say, if you elect a democrat as president we will be old design these pieces of legislation. republicans need to do that. that is what they are doing with the keystone pipeline. i think that they should do it with a number of other issues. i think they should do it with an obamacare alternative. you have to show people that you are not just in there to oppose obamacare, but actually you have an idea to make the health care system better by giving them more choice. republicans talk about that a lot, but they have not had the debate. people do not think -- there was a recent poll that said many americans think they do not have an alternative idea on health care. they need to change that. even if obama vetoes it, you take your sites to twice 16. host: philip klein is with the washington examiner and author of the book, "overcoming obamacare." thank you for being with us. we will get to your phone calls and just a minute. here are five questions that phil kline is putting on the table from his article in the washington examiner. first, does obamacare need to be fully repealed? how broadly should any alternative expand access to health care coverage? should republicans return taxes and spending? how should the tax code tree health insurance? how should an alternative handle employer-based insurance? these of the questions we will focus on. mark is joining us from michigan. caller: i would like to say something. host: mark, turn the volume down on your tv set and go ahead with your comment or question. caller: ok. all these people in the government get their medicare free. why should i have to pay double car insurance, double medical and they get it for free question mark guest: i would say that clearly medicare is one of the largest component of the budget. this is one of the reasons why republicans need an alternative. if they do not advance health -- a health care alternative. then, other aspects will continue being the driver of our long-term fiscal challenges. i think that medicare -- i would not put it quite like the caller, but i think medicare is in need of reform. host: the next color is from chicago, herman, a democrat. good morning. caller: good morning steve. i have two comments for your guests. it seems like every time that the democrats come up with a social program -- social security or medicare. there about -- the republicans never have anything. right now, they do not have an alternative for obamacare. they just do not like obamacare. they will have something like obamacare but with another name. that is disingenuous to democrats who have done something for the american people. republicans all they have done is fight obama for the last six years. the american people -- they were tired of some of the rhetoric to get along with obama. they will make the same mistakes in 2016. -- they are going to make the same mistake in 2016 and hillary will be president. guest: the caller bringing up fdr shows that the trepidation among republicans for expensive government programs has gone back a long time and it isn't just -- it doesn't just have to do with obama. i do agree that republicans should have an alternative to obamacare, which is why i wrote a book on it, but i think that the alternative is also -- is about bringing up the market. right now, the government controls nearly half of the health care spending and they have put a lot of restrictions on what type of coverage people could buy. i think there should be a system that gives individuals more control over their health care dollars. i think that if we had that type of system, it would improve people's choices, it would bring down the cost, and it would improve quality over time. one distinction to be clear on is that it is not that republicans haven't released any alternatives. there have been individual members of congress who have released many alternatives actually, over the last five or six years. the problem has been, for many of the reasons that i outlined in my book, republicans haven't been able to agree on a single one. i think that is an important distinction to make. host: this weekend in the new york times -- "the new york times," the white house seeks to limit tax troubles. the white house according to its assistant treasury secretary is saying that up to 6 million taxpayers would have to pay a fewe. the fee is $95? guest: $95 or as much as 1% of income. host: they could ask for an exemption and exemption rules continue to be pretty loose. guest: there are plenty of hardship exemptions that have been added. if you can't find health insurance that meets us are level of your income or -- you can go on the hhs website and look at the hardship exemptions. it is a growing list. the dilemma for democrats is that, on the one hand, they don't want all these headlines of obama having to issue all of these taxes on people who aren't very wealthy, who are middle-class, when he is talking about middle class economics, if you are taking money from millions of middle-class people because they did not pay for health insurance then that's a problem. on the other hand, if you are very lenient with the exemption, then it undermines the whole purpose of the mandate. the mandate is in place to try to encourage people -- it is a cudgel to try to get people to purchase insurance. the idea being that if they purchase insurance and there are enough -- a broad enough, large enough, diverse enough risk pool with a lot of young and healthy people, then it could stabilize the insurance market and offset the cost of forcing insurers to cover older and sicker people and limiting how much they can charge. so, basically, either they end up taxing a lot of middle-class people or they end up undermining the central plank of their health care law. host: our guest is the health care editor for the "washington examiner" and the author of the book "overcoming obamacare pickup our phone lines -- "overcoming obamacare." our phone lines continue to be open. 6.4 million total enrolled for healthcare.gov, the affordable care act. thanks for being with us. we will move on to jennifer in southern new york, independent line. good morning. caller: good morning. a couple of questions. interesting program. i do work with health care. this gentleman talks about trying to offer more choice in the market, for one of the reasons that he would like to repeal the act. my question is what about so many that don't have or can't really afford that health care? this is what we were seeing coming into the hospitals. this is what we were seeing in terms of patients not being able to take advantage of the tests that were ordered for them because they could not pay for them. and we have seen a difference, interestingly enough. so, that is my comment. my next comment is, when you talk about obamacare, are you talking about the entire act the patient protection and affordable health care act, or is there a particular portion that is really something you would want to repeal? host: thank you. we will get a response. philip klein? guest: first, i'm talking about the whole affordable care act when i discussed obamacare -- discuss obamacare. one of the issues you raised about what to do with people who can't afford health care, there are two issues. one is that this is actually a big disagreement and debate within the republican party. how much of a role the federal government should play in trying to ensure people for affordable coverage. there are some people who say if the government is currently doing a lot of things that are driving up the cost of insurance and if you take them away and create a truly free market that offers more choice and competition, then that would naturally drive down prices. if you have a lot of -- if you look at the phone of the -- phone a lot of people carry around in the pocket, it can be a camcorder or radio or cd player, an alarm clock, many things that would have cost you thousands of dollars a short time ago. the point is that, over time, innovation has driven down cost and improve quality. that hasn't been true in health care. in health care, we have a system where people assume that either the government or their employer are picking up the tab. the debate among republicans most people agree we want to move to more of a consumer-based system. the debate is how much assistance should republicans -- should the government be giving to people who can't afford it. some people would say, well, it is good enough to move up -- move toward a system in which we have something that would be more like a catastrophic health care system, where you maybe give people who can't afford it health-care policies that would prevent, in the event of some catastrophic case, going into financial ruin, but that wouldn't necessarily have to cover every routine expense. there are other people that say, it is a state by state function. the federal government should not be involved in trying to address this issue. each state should have the flexibility to tailor their own solutions, such as high risk pools, which would be a way of helping to cover those with pre-existing conditions in a less disruptive way than obamacare does. and so, those are some of the ideas. i don't know if it totally answers your question, but the point is this is something that is debated among republicans. host: "the los angeles times" ba -- based on kaiser poll. most americans don't feel the affordable care act has impacted them. most still know little about it. few want repealed. -- few want it repealed. good morning. caller: good morning. most of the people who are guests have health care. their families have health care. i'm 74 years old. when i went to sunday school, i saw that jesus taught for the poor to have health care. he was feeling all the time. -- he was healing all the time. these people who don't want people to have health care are antichrist. republicans have faith involved in everything they do, but it was said that the worst thing in the world is the see of ignorance and conscious stupidity. host: thanks for the call. a lot of comments, not many questions. go ahead. guest: i'm not going to speak to jesus, but i would say that conservatives don't believe you define compassion by your willingness to use other people's money to give benefits to a certain party. in the case of obamacare obamacare raises taxes by one dollar ==-- by $1 trillion. it is easy to be generous and say i'm all for spending when drilling dollars of other people's money -- spending $1 trillion of other people's money to finance health care. it is fine to say i'm willing to remove certain health -- medicare benefits in order to get people insurance. that is other people's prerogative. conservatives would define compassion by what you as a person individually do to help other people, not your willingness to spend and tax other people's money. host: this is a story from the "washington examiner." a quote from congressman kevin mccarthy, the house republicans leader. "we will begin the month on -- renewing our commitment to individual freedom and opportunity." michael on the independent line, good morning. caller: my comment is, we subsidize congress. they have one of the best health systems in the country. i would like to have that. we subsidize some of the biggest corporations in america. there is too much profit in health care. it should be a basic right for all americans to have a good education and good health. that's my comment. thank you, sir. host: thank you for the call. let's move on. florida, independent line. good morning. caller: good morning. my comment is simply that the obamacare really doesn't help the multiply disabled. it has caused more confusion. having medicare, medicaid, then a supplementary insurance -- it is becoming more and more difficult for disabled people to get even the medications that they really need. so, where is obamacare doing its job? they have made it more difficult not less. host: philip klein, as you listen to these colors, what are you learning, what are you hearing? guest: i think there is sort of a mix of frustration with people watching, both with republicans and with the law. health care is obviously a very personal issue. there is nothing more personal than how people interact with a health care system that has control over the health and well-being of themselves and their loved ones. it is obviously a very emotionally charged issue, which is another reason why it is constantly going to be an issue and republicans can't really sit on the sidelines without having an alternative. host: let's go to hugh on the republican line from pensacola florida. caller: thank you for answering my call. i appreciate it. have a comment on medicare tax -- i have a comment on medicare tax. at the moment, medicare taxes limited once income up to $118,000 500 and -- limited to one's income up to $118,500. if someone makes more than that, they are not held for medical -- medicare tax above that. that is a potential fix for medicare. guest: raising the cap is something that goes along with medicare and social security. it wouldn't necessarily be an easy fix. first of all, you would have the economic consequences of higher taxes. secondly, you would have a situation that completely changes the purpose of the programs, which are medicare and medicaid, the idea that these are supposedly things that people helped pay into and finance as they went along. if it turned into -- and that has made them different and distinct from typical most other entitlements that are a simple transfer of wealth. the wealthier to the less fortunate. if you change those programs, then medicare and social security would cease to be the sort of middle-class entitlement as we know them today and it would become another major redistribution of wealth. that would sort of change the dynamics of the program. host: let me ask you about the supreme court case you mentioned earlier. the ruling is expected sometime in june. this is the headline from talkingpointsmemo.com. "republicans are at a loss on what to do if scotus nixes obamacare subsidies." what is the potential? guest: we can back up again. this gets a little tricky. and just explain what the case is. obamacare expands insurance coverage two main ways. one is to expand medicaid. one is to set up these exchanges that we heard a lot about, where they give subsidies to people and people can go on them and use the subsidies to purchase insurance, regulated by the federal government. what happened is that the way the law was written, it gave people the option of creating their own exchange st-- it gave states the option of creating their own exchange or defaulting to the federal exchange. 37 states have defaulted to the federal exchange. the text of obamacare says the subsidy money can only flow to individuals living in states that have established their own exchanges. there is a big debate over the case -- over the case. it challenges whether or not the irs said subsidies should go to every state then acted illegally because they violated the text of the law. if the supreme court determines that these subsidies in these up to 37 states are illegal and in valid, then you would -- an invad invalid, you have people who would be stripped of the subsidy money and exposed to the full cost of the insurance. this could be a talking point for democrats -- for republicans to clear up the language. that's what obama would be pushing for. there are millions of people standing to lose subsidies. you can just fix it by passing this one page bill. however, the problem that republicans have is that there are a lot of other ramifications to the subsidies. one ramification is that the subsidies trigger the employer mandate. the employer mandate, which is the requirement that employers purchase -- offer insurance to their employees or pay a tax that is triggered if one of their employees gets health insurance on an exchange and receives subsidies. if there are no subsidies, there is no employer mandate. as i spoke about earlier, there are exemptions to the individual mandate based on the affordability of available health care. if the subsidies are strict, more people can't afford health insurance and thereby can claim that exemption to the individual mandate. so, what republicans would be doing by passing this so-called simple fix would be that they would be re-imposing subsidy money that would cost $700 billion or hundreds of billions of dollars to restore all of the subsidies. it would also be restoring the employer mandate in all these states and reinstituting the individual mandate for many people. host: if you go back to when house democrats passed the bill on christmas eve, 2009, the plan was to make some of these changes. then losing that seat in january, the seeds going to scott brown, -- the seat going to scott brown restricted them. guest: one of the key sticking points in the supreme court argument is going to be what the intent of congress was and whether or not they actually did intend for this to be -- withholding the subsidies to states that did not set up their own exchanges. was that intentional in order to provide states for a reason to set up their own exchanges or was it an accidental drafting error? that is going to be one of the things that they debate. just to sum up, republicans will be put between a rock and a hard place between obama pressuring them to have a one-page fix or, on the other hand, passing a one-page fix the three institutes and re-enshrines, and trenches obamacare -- a fixone-page fix that re-institutes and re-enshrines and trenches obamacare. it is good for republicans to have an alternative so they have something positive to advance in advance of the supreme court decision. host: the five biggest obstacles to republicans agreeing on obamacare alternatives. recommendations being put forth by philip klein. a couple minutes left with your phone calls. the independent line. good morning. caller: good morning, gentlemen. last count, i think they figured it was over $1 million spent on this health care website. -- $1 billion spent on this health care website. they could have said every citizen in this country $1 million and we could have gone and bought our health care from wherever we wanted to for the rest of our lives. and still not have spent the money they spend just setting up this website. guest: i don't agree with the caller's math. host: we will go on to kevin in akron, ohio. good morning. caller: good morning. thanks for taking my call. i'm just amazed at the republicans' view on the free market and insurance. there is a free market, and it won't change. the problem is they are just upset at the obamacare. the affordable care act just allows people to be able to afford health care and doesn't allow the people providing it to strip -- to make it so high that you can't afford it. this just helps the market because more people are buying insurance, and republicans don't like it. guest: i disagree. one, i disagree that this is just about obama. it is certainly, during the clinton era, republicans opposed expanding health insurance through the government. republicans and conservatives disagree with the federal government controlling health insurance. so, if you have a problem with that, that is fine, but i don't think it is consistent to just say it is about obama. on the point of obamacare making insurance more affordable, i have to heartily disagree. obamacare does a lot of things that increase the cost of insurance. covering people with pre-existing conditions, for instance, however popular, what that does is it brings more people who are older and sicker into the insurance pool and it actually dries up the cost for every -- drives up the cost for everybody else. people might say that is equitable and fair. i disagree. however, it is not fair to say that it doesn't drive up the cost of insurance. there are also a lot of benefit mandates that obamacare has. about $1 trillion of taxes. there aren't more choices under obamacare. under obamacare, you can only purchase the type of insurance that the secretary of health and human services says is allowable . and i don't think that is how it should work in america. i think in america individuals should be allowed to purchase the type of health insurance that they want, not the way that the government tells them they have to purchase it. host: our guest began his career at the "washington examiner." before that, in reuters in new york. he is a graduate of george washington university, earned his master's from columbia, and his commentary editor for the "washington examiner." republican line, good morning. caller: i don't mind a new name. i'm opposed to obamacare. i think its's quality affordable care act, yet it has very large deductibles, so i don't know how many people would actually get to use it and not pay huge out-of-pocket costs. the other thing i'm opposed to is hypocrisy of the members of our government. they seem to think, especially republicans, that the private sector should take care of everything but they granted themselves subsidies that they were not entitled to after they couldn't exempt themselves from obamacare. the subsidies are $44,000 for single, $92,000 for families. their income far exceeds that. also, they think the private sector should take care of everything, so why did they grant himself public pensions? host: -- grant themselves public pensions? host: we will get a response. guest: whether you like it or not, members of congress are employed by the federal government. i think there is a distinction between people whose employer is the federal government and the federal government is providing insurance to its employees just as in other industries the employer provides health insurance. that is distinct from people -- from the federal government providing health insurance to everybody. i think there is a distinction there. host: we will go to edward in jacksonville, florida. good morning. democrats line. caller: good morning, steve, and good morning mr. klein. glad to be with you. host: we are glad to hear from you. caller: mr. klein, it seems that alter government, everything gets subsidized, right? i imagine you can write a book on anything you want to write a book on, about how we taxpayers subsidize capitalism, part of it, corporations get subsidized, right? i see where you can pick and choose things you don't like within the government, even without congress. they tend to pass laws and exempt themselves from the very laws they have passed for everybody else, insurance laws and stuff like that. and i'm pretty sure you get some kind of tax credit when you file your taxes. we all kind of subsidize everybody. i would like to get your perspective on that. thank you, steve. guest: i agree with you. i think we could have done a whole other show just on corporate welfare. i think we have, coming up shortly, a vote on the renewal of something called the export-import bank. what this is, it essentially is the idea that it is supposed to help promote u.s. exports, but it is basically a bank that gives taxpayer guaranteed loans to major corporations. actually 2/3 of the loans that come out of the export-import bank go to boeing, which i think could operate completely on its own. so, i agree with you that republicans should be consistent and they should go after corporate welfare. and there is plenty of other areas that deals with discussing corporate welfare that we could have gone over, whether it is agricultural subsidies or -- obamacare actually is another example of corporate welfare. these hundreds of billions of dollars of subsidies to purchase health insurance are ultimately going to health insurance companies. it also mandates that people purchase insurance. what business wouldn't want a law that says we are going to mandate that everyone has to purchase your product and then we are going to give everyone subsidies to purchase that product? host: our last call is john from manchester township, new jersey, independent line. quick question? caller: i wouldn't have an expedition as to why in the budget they put in fdic has to cover everything the banks are doing. they complain about the deficit but that is going to raise the deficit even more by another bailout. and all they want to do is cut the social security disability by 20% next year? everything for this country is just going to the corporations and not the people. host: thank you, john. guest: i mean, i would say there is a growing sentiment on both the right and the left that the government is doing too much now to help corporations and i think that actually is an area of agreement where potentially the right and left could get together on ending corporate welfare. host: the book is called "overcoming obamacare," and the opinions of philip klein, who is with the "washington examiner." thank you very much for being with us on this sunday. we appreciate it. we are going to turn our attention to organize labor and the head of the afl-cio, richard trumka, will be here to take your calls and comments. later, a change in leadership for saudi arabia. what is next for u.s.-saudi relations? you are watching and listening to c-span's "washington journal" heard on c-span radio coast-to-coast. we are back in a moment. >> the political landscape has changed with the 114th congress. not only are there 43 new republicans in 15 new democrats in the house and 12 new republicans and one new democrat in the senate, there are also 108 women in congress. the first woman veteran in the senate. keep track of the members of congress using congressional chronicle on c-span.org. the page has useful information including voting results and statistics about each session of congress. on c-span, c-span two and c-span.org. >> tonight on q&a dr. francis jensen on the recent discoveries of the teenage brain. >> they do not have their frontal lobes to reason. the cause and effect of consequences actions are not clear to them because the frontal lobes are not at the ready. they're not as readily accessible. the connections cannot be made as quickly for split-second decision-making. also, a lot of the hormones are changing in the body of those young men and women. the brain has not seen these yet in life until you hit teenage years. the brain is trying to learn how to respond to these new hormones rolling around and locking onto receptors of different types. it is trial and error. i think that this contributes to this roller coaster kind of experience that we watch as parents. >> tonight at 8:00 eastern and pacific on c-span's q&a. >> washington journal continues. host: we want to welcome back richard trumka. take you for being with us. the president keeps talking about raising wages and boosting the middle class. how do we do that? guest: we have to recognize there is a problem. raising wages is going to be the singular standard by which everybody judges leadership. at every level, at the state level, local level and federal lever. fetch federal level. one is to increase the power of working people and lower the power of multinational corporations so you can increase the minimum wage. we can fix comprehensive immigration reform because a broken system is being used to drive down wages for every american. whether you are at the bottom of the scale or you have an advanced degree. we can advance social security and medicaid. we can give everybody the right to bargain with their employer for a better wage, what you have a union or you do not you ought to be able to come together and ask your employer for more of what you are producing. the most salient fact of our generation productivity has continued to go up and wages have stayed flat or falling. one other thing i should say is negotiate good trade deals that will increase jobs and the standard of jobs in this country, rather than fresh and -- flush them down. host: the argument from the cup -- the chamber of commerce, if you raise wages, you must cut jobs. guest: corporate profits are at an all-time high. they are not finding their way down to the workers. as long as you keep productivity and wage -- there is no reason for that. if your productivity goes up, the share of labor in it decreases. if you raise wages as you increase productivity, there is no effect like that is going to cost jobs. when you put the money in people's hands, our economy is 72% driven by consumer spending. when you give them more money, they buy more. when they buy more, they create jobs and demand more. increase the standard of living for the american worker and they will be able to create more demand. increase the standard of living for workers in mexico or canada and they will buy more of our product. host: there is an interesting debate between democrats and republicans. republicans, siding with the president to have trade protection authority. the u.s. trade representative trying to push this idea. democrats saying this is a bad idea. let me have you respond to what he said in washington as he called on congress to give the president trade authority. [video clip] >> strengthen this congressional oversight by requiring consultation and transparency throughout the negotiation process. the previous legislation was passed over a decade ago. an updated bill is needed to address the rise of the digital economy, the increasing role of s o ease and to reflect congressional views on labor environment and access to medicine. it also establishes a timeline and process to be reviewed not only by congress but also by the american people. tpa is congress's best tool to make sure there is time for scrutiny. host: what is your argument against tpa's? guest: it is a nice part -- it is a nice phrase. trade promotion authority is what it stands for. it is dangerous and undemocratic. think about this. every piece of legislation out there, you can go to your congressman and they can offer an amendment. it comes than committees, gets changed in committees. it gets amended. if there are different versions in the house and senate, they get melded together. everybody's interest gets taken care of. with fast track or tpa, it circumvents all of that. the president or our trade representative, they go in the closet and negotiate a bill. the bill comes out and they vote it up or down. let me frame trade policy because i think it is important to understand that. every other country uses trade policy as a way to advance their economy. we use trade policy as estate or foreign policy for other interests that we are going to advance. when we have an economy that has so dwarfed the rest of the world, we can do that. we cannot anymore. we need to look at trade policy as economic policy and protect the interest of our country just like every other one of our trading partners. i'm not saying struck down trade. i'm saying, make trade work for everybody and look at examples that have happened. you remember a few years ago, we used to have a thing called permanent normal trade relations. china did not have that. every year, we had to vote on whether they would get normal trade relationships in we could use that vote every year to force them to make changes. force them to do things in a different way, to comply with things. force them to a dress currency manipulation and other things. the president came along and said no, give them permanent normal trade relations. even though you do not have that vote every year, it will force china to change. how is that worked out for us? we have a $5 billion deficit with china every year, every month i mean. it is expanding outward. using trade policy as foreign policy or state policy does not work. that is the argument the president is going to use when he comes to the transpacific partnership. host: china is not part of this current deal? guest: that is the whole point. he is going to say with tpt, we have to do this to corral china so that china does not become the world's leader. that is the whole fallacy of it. china is not part of it. china will be able to send their products into all of the countries that are in the tpp and they will be able to get their products here without having any of the obligations that are supposedly in that agreement. host: where does this put you and other leaders of organized labor when you have a president who praised unions, democrats for donnelly get union support and you have a president saying i need this authority? guest: whenever he is right, we support him and when he is not we do not. it is like having a disagreement with your spouse. you do not always agree with your spouse and you have a disagreement, you talk it through and try to come to a resolution. on this one, he is already made up his mind unfortunately. he is on a trajectory that will send a product out. we have been trying to make sure the tpt or the transpacific partnership is worthy of the american people. that it does not drive wages down. every trade agreements that is been negotiated by every president has driven wages down for the american people. it is time to reverse that process and use trade to lift up the standard of living of workers on both sides of the trade agreement. host: richard trumka. our phone lines are open. you can also send us a tweet at c-span w j. rich is joining us on the independent line. caller: i am watching this guy. i've written three books about the rise and fall of the labor unions. i just turned 57 and grew up in detroit. both my grandfathers worked for ford. i grandfather on my dad's side was one of the first union reps. my uncle was a teamster. my other uncle was in no right. -- a middle right. i look at the evolution of the labor unions and after world war ii, the guys that came back used the unions. it was a sweet fdr creating all these laws. you have a group of people that becomes the labor union. 35% of the workforce. that labor union was in place until the mid-70's. the vietnam war ends. all of the anger from the country goes away. then comes globalization. now you have 35% of the workforce, 1% of the population that controls nothing. we are number one in the world in education and health care infrastructure. labor unions collapsed because when the vietnam war ended, all of the anger left the country. that was a catalyst of keeping the link that labor unions together. 1% has 57% of the wealth. you have rogue states in this country stealing money from the rest of us. states like texas. you go to the east coast you have wall street in connecticut with the billionaires. you are talking about currency wars. host: you put a lot of issues on the table. guest: i think you showing a lot of anger from a lot of workers and people in the country. host: let me take one part. it goes to the point about the decline in you labor -- the most recent figures about 14.6 million union workers. a drop over that time. guest: what is your question? when you -- when unions were 35% of the economy, we were growing. as they started attacking us you have seen us do worse and worse. when we negotiated the contract in the steel industry, all workers got a pay increase. what is happening, we have not gotten a pay increase in the last 25 or 30 years. the standard of living is going down. unions are nothing but the workers that are on the job. we want to see every worker be able to negotiate with their employer. we ought to get some of it. we ought to be able to have workers come together and get a fair share. we ought to be able to work together instead of talking at each other. figure out how to develop and make better products so that we can take on people around the world, rather than fight with one another. anger is geared around the fact that the american economy is working for the top 1% perfectly . for the rest of america, this economy, with the rules that drive it, are not working for workers that are out there. host: our guest is a graduate best a graduate of penn state. he began his career with the united mine workers and is currently the president of the afl-cio. rosemary joining us on the democrats line. caller: good morning. i would like to thank the union's for decent pay. the benefits. i worked in a grocery store in 1957 and had health care, double time on sunday. if you work on your birthday, which was a holiday, you were paid doubletime. i am upset with people like mr. klein, who received a phone call with a caller suggesting that on the medicare tax, mr. klein made a five-minute comment on why it would not be a good idea not even knowing that everybody pays medicare on their wages, no matter how much they make. part of the taxes he was complaining about is the .09 on single-payer's making over -- single people making over $400,000. in $450,000, married, also paying the .09 surtax. i am upset that you have people on that do not write a book or note they -- that write a book and do not know they are talking about. mr. trumka knows the benefits. my husband worked in plumbers and pipefitters and made a wonderful wage. he ended up being disabled from an automobile accident. some guys on cocaine. he for that, he was business manager of the union. i am so upset when people talk against the union. there are a lot of people that do not have the ability to go in and discuss the wage. they are afraid of losing their job. they sit quietly. host: thank you for the calls. afraid to talk to their employers about their wages guest:. guest: if you do not have the right to negotiate with your employer, they can fire you. every worker, whether they have a union or not, ought to be able to sit down with their employers as a group and say, we make you a lot of profit, you ought to be able to give us more of that. i think that is a fair thing. you have workers across the country that are terrified. many employers for did you from talking about your salary with anybody else. they do not want workers comparing to reiterate do not want workers to say, why does he make 50% more than me as a woman and we do the same job? that should not happen. one other comment about what rosemary said. she talked about her husband being part of the plumbers and pipefitters. the best-known secret in the country, other than the military , america past labor movement provides more skills and adult training than any other group out there. more than anybody. our members are the most skilled out there. not only did we give them a five-year apprenticeship, after they become a journey person, we bring them back and retrain them each year on new methods and ways to do things so they are the most skilled out there. we are proud of that. our workers are the most skilled in the world. other countries are coming to us , ireland, england australia and saying, how are you giving skills training to people as well as you do? it gives us a competitive edge. we are more competitive. we are to be able to make more money. raising wages is such an important thing in the country. host: leo in westminster, california. caller: i wanted to talk to you about the carpenters union. i belong to that union for over 50 years. what i got out of the union -- out of the military, half of it was in korea in the 50's. i was not able to get the job anywhere until i finally got into the carpenter union. i worked carpenters ever since then. people do not understand what union is. i know, because i worked 20 plus years in the trade. the rest of it, i tart -- i taught carpentry. people do not understand what union is or what it does. that was happening in my high school students. they did not understand the pay the benefits. when my apprentices came in whether it was the first period or whatever, they did not understand what their benefits were. host: leo, thank you for the call. guest: leo, i'm glad you brought that up. what is he union? a union is nothing but the workers coming together at a site and using their collective power and voice to be able to deal with their employer as an equal. we can do that. when we do at the right way, we come up with better products more productivity and other things. unions also bring better wages. on average, our members make a couple hundred dollars a week more than their nonunion counterparts in the same industry with the same skills and background. he other thing we do, carpenters is a prime example, the carpenters union has a tremendous apprenticeship program that gives the greatest skills with all the new material. how to do things the best way, to their members. a give them that skill every single year. they retrain people so that whenever times are tough and you have to go into a market, you have more skills to take with you. the union brings you that. it brings better benefits, better health care and pensions. those are the things you get with the union and if you are looking at a country whose wages have been falling in flat, you need to say, we need to raise wages. there are number of ways. if you want to have the most flexible way to raise wages that is to give workers the power to sit down with their employer as equals and bargain for a fair share of what they produce. not to impose some standard you could not accept. for us to say here's what they expect from us. whenever times are bad, they say you have to take cut in wages and we had been willing to do that. we have been willing to stand up with our employers, restructure pay packages and benefits, so that our employers can compete. then, when times are good, everybody gets amnesia. it is been 30 years since american workers have had a rise. our standard of living in this country is no longer the world's tops. we are not even in the top 10. upward mobility in this country is collapsing. we used to be number one for that. we're not in the top 10. all of those things can change if we decide that we are going to create a society and economy that works for everybody and not just those that have the money to buy a congress or those at the very top. host: james sure says the unions are selling a product that has not changed much since the 19 union -- as the 1930's. today's workers are not that interested in perching what unions have to sell. -- purchasing what unions have to sell. host: that flies in -- guest: that flies in the face of reality in this country. you see fast food workers demanding $15 per hour in pay. home care workers, college professors, doctors, nurses professional people, all saying this is not working for us. we need something different. we need to be able to come together. you see nurses, coming together to protect their profession, not even talking about wages or benefits, to protect their profession. so that they can provide quality patient care and be an advocate for patients and they use the process of bargaining as a group to be able to do that. while he would like for that to be true, actually, that flies in the face of today's reality is you see more and more people standing up saying, this economy does not work. we need a fair share of what we produce. host: lewis, joining us from indianapolis on our line for independents. caller: good morning. host: you're on the air. caller: my point is, i am a truck driver. we have not gotten a raise since the 1970's. my point is, we have all these people, fighting for the country supposedly overseas and they get wounded and come back and they expect citizens to take care of them and set of the government -- instead of the government. what is the point of doing that? being the police of the world? we have not accomplished a dam thing. instead, we are creating chaos. guest: lewis, i asked that same question. there are a number of groups that if sprung up to take care of -- that have sprung up to take care of disabled veterans. the question is, when we say as a nation we support our troops, what does that mean? it should mean that, whenever they come back, everything they need is taking care of. every form of rehabilitation, their families taken care of. we have had veterans hood been evicted from homes while they were overseas -- who have been evicted from their homes while they were overseas. that is not supporting our troops. we think veterans ought to be able to come back to a quality job, support their family after they get back, have the medical care that they need to take care of -- whether it is try to or a severed limb -- trauma or a severed limb. the country owes them far more than what we've provided to the american veteran. i think we need to do much more to help them. host: this program is heard on xm channel 120, c-span radio. our guest is richard trumka. sam is joining us from auburn, georgia. caller: good morning. thank you for what you do for the working man. we really appreciate it. a working man with a good pay gets the economy going. the epa is trying to kill the unions. ditto do not want people to have money to buy stuff. -- they do not want people to have money to buy stuff. one power drill per village. stuff like that. they are destroying the unions because they think it's hurting the earth for the working man in the middle class to have extra money to buy anything. we are never going to get it unless we put this epa -- get it right with them. host: thank you, sam. guest: there is a balanced be struck. there is an important part for the epa to play because you have to admit in this country unfettered corporations are polluting the world. the epa has a role to play to stop that. it can also go too far. the balance has to be struck between -- it is a false choice to say you either have to have a clean environment or jobs because you can have both if it is done right. that means all of us have to get involved. we have to let our interests be known. i will go back to fast-track. that is why it is so dangerous. in an instant like that, it does not let everyone's interests be known. it comes out of the closet as a pronouncement, voted up or voted down. host: will the afl-cio make an endorsement in a democratic primary in 2016? guest: we are going to stick together and we are going to have candidates come in from both sides, democrats and republicans. we want to find out who their economic advisers are. you get the same advisers you get the same results. i know you are empathetic about wages and you want to raise wages and i know you want to decrease income inequality, tell us how. what policies are you going to employ to do that so that we can measure them and make a decision on who is best for the american worker? will we make an endorsement at the end of primaries? it is possible, but not likely. will we make an endorsement in the general election, it is likely. host: under the clinton administration, nafta was put in place. europe and critical of nafta. if hillary clinton runs and she has some of the -- if hillary clinton runs, and she has some of the same people, how would you respond? host:guest: it decreased wages on both sides of the border. we had a surplus, we now have a deficit with both countries. it has not lived up to what was supposed to do. we need a different paradigm. epic with a look at what her is. if she comes in with the same advisers that would be to off because we know the results of most of those advisers. some of them can change their theories. larry summer, who was with both presidents, president clinton and president obama has changed his thoughts on trade. he said we need a new paradigm. that is a positive thing. i would not say that if you have the same person that it is always an automatic know, but if it is the same economic team, it will be tough because we know the results. it has not work for working people. host: from madison, wisconsin bill is on the phone. caller: good morning. mr. trumka, with all due respect , i think you are a dinosaur. unions are like typewriters. they were once needed, but not anymore. i think all they do now is protect responsible workers. you came to my state to try to defeat governor scott walker. his reforms are working. governor walker would make a fine president. guest: i'm glad you raised me up to the level of dinosaur. you think this economy has been working for the american worker? 30 years without a raise? power concentrated in fewer people? i do not know if you are conservative or not, but you want to concentrate that power on fewer people that are -- that answer to nobody? make corporation stronger. unions are nothing but the workers coming together and using their collective power to say, let us figure out how we can create and make a better product. the cliches you just hurled at me, then i am a dinosaur, you did not hurled those at me, those are the american workers. your saying the american worker does not deserve a voice on the job. you're saying that everything is great and corporations do not need a counterbalance. i flatly disagree with you. i think workers need a voice of a job. there has to be a strong counterbalance to corporate america. he only way that happens is when workers come together economically as well as politically. host: our guest has been president of the flc i/o. reginald, good morning. caller: good morning. i have a question. i work for a company for 22 years. all of a sudden, i went to work last week and i was told you were released. no compensation. host: released from his job? caller: i was terminated. on the spot. they got another guy to take my place. they said i was laid off, even though in six months, i would like to retire. host: we missed the first part. caller: i told them i would like to retire in six months and they did not give me -- correct this kind of a on justice. -- this kind of injustice. guest: you raise the bunch of issues. right to work laws we can workers and lower pay -- we aken workers and lower pay. chances are the person he kept was a younger worker. i do not know what you do, what your job was. you ought to look at that. we try to eliminate age discrimination in this country so that older workers do not get laid off for a younger worker to take your place. when you have a union, you're able to stand up and recognize what it is and stick together as workers to prevent that from happening. host: here's what the president said it up organize labor during his state of the union address last month. [video clip] >> to give working families a fair shot, we need more employers to see beyond exporters earnings and recognize that investing in a workforce is in their company's interest. we still need laws that strengthen rather than weaken unions. [applause] but, you know, things like child care and sick leave and equal pay. things like lower mortgage premiums and a higher minimum wage. these ideas will make a difference in the lives of millions of american families. that is what all of us were sent here to do. host: that shout out to organize labor, was that a first for this president during the state of the union? guest: no. early on in his tenure, he talked about unions. . had to be done. the president made a noble step forward in doing this. no one figured that will obamacare, if that's what you want to call it or the affordable care act was the end of the line it was the first step. if you look at the monopoly board past start past go if you will. now, we have to work to make it better. the] tax that correction was just referring to>>cadillactax that correction was just referring to is a tax on people who have good quality healthcare and above a certain level. if your employer has to pay above a certain level you have to pay a tax on that. it punishes people who have good care and actually forces you to have less healthcare less coverage. now, that to me shouldn't be the goal of any healthcare plan. the goal of any healthcare plan should say we want to bring everybody to the level of healthcare up, not just to a minimum that's acceptable but to the highest level that society can really have. other countries engage in that process. germany, france a number of other countries. >> cadillac tax is going to be very, very harsh. we are hoping to look at different things, try to make some amendments to approve the healthcare act and move it down the line a little further so that we go to the third or fourth or fifth square on the monopoly board on the way around to getting quality healthcare for every american host: tom dayton ohio independent line thank you for waiting. good morning, sir. caller: god bless you guys. a union member from the past got laid off. i would like to, the next time richard comes on there, to bring all of the men and the minimum wage for the top 10 countries because, yes you are right, the country ain't number 1 and i don't think any moring. that's one point. i would like to see the wages. i have heard $21 an hour, $18 an hour and this is really an important question. we have all seen what happened this summer in ferguson st. louis, i am dad-gum sure that losing all of our manufacturing jobs 70,000 manufacturing plants out of our big cities and millions of our workers throwed out so we can appease other current tries, pleasing them guys by sending our jobs to them. it's got to stop. i watched sons of liberty the other day. how many people thought samuel adams was a hero because he went out and throwed all of the (bleep) out in the ocean? host: thank you for the call. guest: i think several points to me makes is when you lost your manufacturing base and the good-paying jobs and wages started stagnating people starting losing hope. and they started turning on each other. it used to be in this country, we would say: i have a pension, and you don't. how do we get you a pension? and now the thought process is: i have a pension. you don't. and you say, how do we take yours away? it's to bring it down. >> does result until tensions in cities. and, you know, tom, i would say this to you: you know racism in this country, when you talked about ferguson is alive and well and it keeps evolving. it sort of becomes immune to the latest anecdote that we have so that it finds a way to creep around all of the efforts that we make. as a country, we really do have to come together have an open conversation, and we do really have to figure out a way to end racism and different thins that divide us rather than bring us together. the last thing i would just say about what he said steve is: you are right. all of the trade deals sent jobs out. trade promotional authority or fast-track will send more jobs out and tpp, if it comes out the way its currently designed or what we have heard, because we don't know what's in it but if it comes out the way it is it will send even more jobs out of the country. it's time for us to look at trade policy as solid economic policy and put our country first rather than using the foreign policy and state policy and try to use it for some other reason. host: in our final minute george gets the last word from columbia south caroline. the president of the afl-cio, george trumka. george good morning. caller: good morning, mr. mr. trumka. guest: good morning. caller: my name is calvin. you have a beautiful opportunity to do a lot. i know you remember back to the day when you would send people out to businesses and send people out to companies to promote what you are doing. you are not doing that. you are not. i don't see nobody at nigh job promoting, you know, the unions. i don't see that. we don't see that. host: we will get a response. guest: george, you are absolutely right. we have a large array of people on the other side trying to destroyun youngs and trying to distort us trying to paint us with some kind of -- as some kind of dinosaur when all we are as a group of workers at the worksite doing stuff. let me tell you what we are going to do, and you can join in. we just had a raising wages summit at the afl-cio. we brought together groups of people academics, workers, politicians, a little bit of everybody to talk about how we raise wages in america. we are going to have one of those summits in each one of the first four primary states. i with a south carolina nevada and host: new hampshire. guest: -- new hampshire. we will have a summit to talk about raising wages and hopefully create raising wages as the standard as every politician who wants a worker's vote is going to have to answer not just say i feel your pain. i want to end income inequality. but tell us exactly how you are going to raise our wages, how you are going to decrease income inequality, how you are going to trade, do things better for us end mass incarceration. how are you going to end the fiasco of a failed immigration policy that's currently used to drive down wages? how are you going to reverse that so that we have to debate on the issues and not whether i am a good person or you are a good person or whether you you know, you said something stupid when you were in high school or something. let's let there be a battle of ideas and let the american public decide which one of these ideas really is going to raise wages. which one of these ideas is going to be better for us. host: i want to follow up. the event elizabeth warren senator from massachusetts spoke. do you take her at her word? do you think she is not going to run or would you encourage her to run in 2016? guest: she is one of those rare politicians who has a set of values and actually acts on those values. and so i would hope that every candidate out there acts on those same set of values because we share those. and the vast majority of americans share the same values that she has p would she get in the race? >> going to be her decision. if she says she isn't i do take her at her word because i have never known elizabeth warren to either tell me something that wasn't accurate or even exaggerate something that wasn't accurate. she's always very very precise with facts and what she does. i have tremendous respect for her. and i admire her. there will be other candidates out there, and hopefully, they will have the same values and hopefully, they will be able to say, we are going to go raise wages for american workers and it's time to eliminate income inequality. this is how i am going to make the country more responsive to the bottom 90 percent, not just the top couple %. host: richard trumka president of the afl-cio. thank you thank you. guest: i appreciate it. host: we will continue this conversation and turn our attention to foreign policy in particular saudi arabia. the former u.s. ambassador will join us from boston to talk about what's next in our relationship with that key ally in the middle east for this sunday morning february 1st, "washington journal" continues. ♪ we spoke with two consumer experts. chris reilly with mozilla and at&t hank hultquist. >> we believe at the end of the day, the internet sneedz strong rules to preventotect net neutrality. those need to include subject to reasonable network management and they need to be effectively enforceable? 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"washington journal cottons. host: joining us from boston james smith, thank you very much for being with us. call guest: it's good to be with you this morning. host: let me begin with the piece that time magazine wrote this past weekend and it begins with the center piece of what we want to talk about, the kingdom at the crossroads can saudi arabia find a middle path? with the death of king abdullah and a change in the kingdom of saudi arabia, what is that? guest: continuity of u.s.-saudiri relationships. it's going to be, i think, a continuity in their corrector toward modernization, continuity with a focus of the region. saudi arabia is in the eye of the storm with crisis all around. host: in terms of our relationship with saudi arabia some have called it at an important crossroads. why? guest: i have heard that term. our relationship has been present consistent since it was first sounded in -- founded in february of 1944, with the meeting between king abdullah and aziz and president roosevelt. it's based upon much more than oil. based on shared interests in the region, and the saudis were allies in muja hadin in afghanistan and continues today with shared interests in the region and i suspect the relationship will continue based on those shared interests. host: let me read a portion of what karen house writes in "time magazine" because she says while the installation of the new leadership is intended to send saudis and their neighbors a clear message of stability and strength, the reality is that the regular -- the regime is threatened from all sides and all domestic pressure from fundamentalists and modernizers inside the country. can you explain? guest: yes. ken is a wonderful writer. i am her avid reader. she is describing saudi arabia is faced by challenges external and internal. external, the conflict with iran to the south in yemen with the houthis supported by iran to the north, isis the remnants of al-qaeda in iraq. so saudi arabia sees themselvesto surrounded by threats. eternally, i have a scuttle between the organizers and the supporters. it has been their relationship with their conservative religious community. so, their challenge, always is to balance those two. and, you have to provide support to the base, which is the conservatives that the you also have to be on a path modernization to balance that. the pace on focus on modernization will continue to crease for any number of reasons. first of all, every young person in saudi arabia has multiple black berries or iphones. so for the first time in history, they have access to global information. and that was never true before. secondly with the king appearbdullah scholarship, you have students studying abroad 100 here in the united states -- 100,000 here in the united states. you have a generation going to university because they have increased their dmreftic universities from 8 to 32 just in the last 10 to 12 years. you have now a generation that has access to global information, and for those stud studying abroad, access to critical thinking which has never been a part of their education process. so this pressure for responsiveness of government will continue to weigh on the sawedtheis so the pressure toward modernization is likely to continues unabated. host: our guest is james smith, ambassador to saudi arabia t a senior counselor for the cohen group. our phone lines are open: sent us a tweet at c-spanwj. dr. smith as you point out, if you want to call it the fault lines between, for example the sunni and the shiites. this is nothing well. this dates back not only hundreds of years but well over a thousand years. so how does saudi arabia come to terms with that? and what is the role of the u.s.? >> guest: for the saudis, i think there their real contribution on the con frequent conflict over extremim and extremists lies in their self-appointed role of the two holy mosques. the islamic world looks to saudi arabia for lead he wereship. for most of the last 40 years, they have exported their brand of islam which is wham some would call it wajadism. ultra conservative unyielding, uncompromising in terms of culture and religion. at a time preaches support for the government. this is a part of the mohammed alwahab that goes back to 1744. when you export this intolerant brand of religion, then it morphs in to what we see now as extremism. the unintended consequence of saudi arabia's investment is the extremist movement which is both ultra conservative in terms of culture, religion but also very aggressive in terms of its political and support for undermining existing governments. that is not saudi arabia's intent. it is the unintended consequence. the most important contribution the saudis will make is a leadership role in the thought process of islam to readdress to readdress what are the values of that religion. this extremism should not deflect those values. host: our guest is a graduate of the air force academy who went on to earn his masters at indiana uniform. he served in the first four years of the obama pad minstration. we will go to al vin joining united states from haynesville, louisiana. good morning to you. caller: hoecht. host: alvin, go ahead, please. caller: good morning, people. i would like to address -- hello hoeflt. host: al haven't, please go ahead with your question or we will have to move on. caller: i would like to address about the peoples that building the pipeline over here in texas and on up north. they cut the pipeline off over there after the start of relimingous war, they are going to make america build electric cars and a lot of people going to invest their money in electric and we would be rich in the next five years. host: okay. i am not quite sure if there is a question there. ambassador smith do you want to respond? guest: well, steve i didn't quite understand the question. the host: the larger question about oil prices and he mention he is from louisiana. i would suspect maybe oil is one of the issues driving his discussion point here. but as we have seen oil prices falling, what impact has that had on the saudi economy? guest: so far no impact and it probably will not have for several years. he braham al assad has been very diligent in his approach to building cash reserves. saudi arabia is one of the largest holders of u.s. t bills so they have a pile of cash to be able to ride through for several years. i think alvin's question had to do with the u.s. energy and saudi arabia energy. if you look at the u.s. economy, there has been a condition tonight focus over the last six or seven years to expand u.s. energy so that we are energy independent, some would say, actually inter depend event. in reality, we import a very small fraction of our oil from saudi arabia. so, the relationship with saudi arabia has very little to do with oil that we receive from the kingdom. it is also frewtrue that a large portion of the oil goes to alneys europe and asia comes from saudi air i can't. it's very important we are in a position to protect those lines of communication that allow for the free access of global energy. i think, though that the advancement in our own energy infrastructure in this country is very, very important in terms of the global energy market because for decades, opec defined the price of oil for decades. on the upside and the downside. that's not true any more because with the united states being a large producer we have no tennism by which we can control. with the u.s. as a large producer now you are seeing more and more energy prices are going to be defined by a market, not by opec or other producers. host: let me ask you about this photograph treaty tweeted out by secretary of state john kerry as he was en route to riyadh including james baker from the bush administration and condoleezza rice also from the george w. bush administration. what message did this send the saudi kingdom, also the fact that the president was already in india changed his plans to attend the services on tuesday? guest: well if you look at the delegation that went to riyadh to provide condolence for our government for the passing of king abdullah first of all, it was very large. about 30 people. but it reflected about five administrations in the u.s. government. it shows a continuity in the relationship, the bilateral relationship between saudi arabia and the united states. and it showed a commitment to continuing that relationship based upon our shared interests. host: mrs. obama drawing headlines. she did not wear a head dress, a scarf, as she greeted members of the saudi leadership. how significant was that? guest: it reflected a silliness in the media. there were two issues: one about her not wearing a scarf and the other was that men did not shake her hand as they did the president. let me take a second one first. no culture, a man would never be so aggressive as to be the one to initiate that contact with a woman. so, if she offered her hand certainly, a man would have shaken it. but it was not culturally acceptable for a man to initiate that he knew change. you would see people nodding, put their hands over that are hearts as a token of respect and welcoming. so that was a non-issue. the scarf is an intriguing one. the u.s. government position on women who are in the embassy hors d'oeuvring in an official capacity is that they may wear one but do not have to. they may wear a scarf but do not have to. my wife never covered in the four years that we were there. when she was representing us in an official function because there as an american. when she was out with her girlfriends, shopping, she would carry a scarf around her neck, but she never covered. so this was a non-issue. the first lady would have been warmly accepted by the community there. not just the individuals at the reception, but my guess is she was very warmly received by the people of saudi arabia and particularly, the women of saudi arabia. host: brian of shaumberg, illinois outside of chicago. good morning. caller: good morning, gentlemen. i have a couple of quick points. first, talking about the worldwide world market. the reasons why americans are paying $2 a gallon for gas is because because of decisions made by the saudi government. they want to try and drive all of these alternative oil sources, the fraccers and the canadian tar sands out of business because you are not factoring in production costs. it's verichi cheap for the sawedeesaudi saudis to produce oil. 14 bucks. oil has to be above $80 a barrel for these producers in the united states or the canadian tar sands to be economically feesinal. they are doing that to drive those people out of the market. also, they are driving oil prices down on their own decision to hurt the iranians and the russians. host: we will get a response. thanks for the call. ambassador smith? caller: yeah, brian. i have heard that argument. is this happened once before and the saudis at our question cut their production about two million barrels a day. the net impact of that was that the saudis lost customers. they lost revenue at home and their position this time was: why should we be the only ones to suffer? the argument about them trying to drive shale oil out of business is interesting but the reality of it is it would take a very long time to do that and i am not entirely sure that the sawedee saudis would be effective at doing that. some of these producers who are heavily leveraged that will suffer in the long-term, i think, though that the industry will survive in the short-term. but i don't think the saudis have the capability to actually drive the industry out of business. there has been some discussion which says the saudis would agree if there was a consortium of countries that would agree to cut production. and this would include russia and the united states. the challenge is we don't have a mechanism. and the russians aren't likely to cut production because they desperately need the revenues. so again we are looking at the price of oil being driven by market forces as opposed to intent by any government. it's true that this impact countries like iran and russia much more than it does our government. the saudis in terms of their foreign policy have not done that throughout history except for the oil embargo back in '73. and while they may agree and support the unintended consequences of the negative impact on iran and russia i don't necessarily believe that that was the intent of the action. i think the action truly reflects that the world's energy will -- world energy has fundamentally shifted from an environment based upon control to one that is more based on market forces. host: our guest -- guest: in other words the saudis can't do much about it. host: our guest is ambassador james smith who served saudi arabia during the first four years from the obama administration. it's joining us from boston and ben is joining us from sterling virginia. welcome to the conversation. caller: good morning, ambassador. my question is that in my personal opinion i view saudi arabia as a destructive force in the middle east. my question really is that it has got aggressive policies social policies, a lot of wealth but they don't lead the region in social policies. and it spends a lot of, you know controversial madrases. it has funded isis militants to fight against syria and, so why is the u.s. so tolerant toward saudi arabia? is it only because of the peace with israel and oil market or is there -- there is nothing in common with our two countries. host: thank you. we will get a response. guest: it has been written that in the u.s./saudi relationship we have shared interests but not shared values. and while i don't agree completely with that assessment there is some truth to it. i, for one, wish the saudis were more pro-active in their foreign policy and in a positive way. having said that ne feel -- the government very much feels incumbered by its relationship with the ultra conservatives in saudi arabia and that limits their ability to be pro-active. i don't necessarily see the saudis as a destructive force in the same way that you did. there is no funding by the sawedees of isis. >> that's a misnomer. and, in fact in my very close connections with them in the lead up to syria which started april, may of 2011, there was a keen focus on the part of the saudis to make sure that money and weapons did not go to al nusra, al-qaeda in iraq and moved in to syria and morphed as isis. and after the global gee addists under obama bin laden attacked the saudis that was their goal the government, and attacking the united states was a way point towards that. the saudis realized that there their funding was going to extremist organizations and, eternally, they made a series of significant moves to undermine support for extremism. the zirkot was no as longer allowed to be given at the individual's desire. so, there was a focus on funding both from the government and by individuals to make sure that that money did not go to extremists or terrorist organizations. that's been in the last decade. their attention to the muslim brotherhood, other extremist organizations, has shifted and i think our government is very much aligned now on their support for modern elements in syria and support for the counter isis campaigns in iraq. having having said that, the one issue we would hope to see more proactive leadership is in undermining support for extremism. now, again, they have done a very successful job of countering support for extremism -- export extremism from saudi arabia. how do you extend that beyond that are their borders? king abdullah started an inittive in terms of the religious dialogue in vienna the center in vienna. he called the head of the muslim majority countries together in ramadan in 2012 to address the issue of why are muslims killing muslims? we have heard recently support by others toward the same objective. president as sisi, king abdullah ii of jordan. we are seeing the government of the region start to stand up and say, the islamic community at home has got to address this as well. that's in where i would home you would see this. host: host the managering edit of foreign affairs with an extensive interview with king asad. he said he is too delusional to make peace. it's available online at washington post.com and the interview is available at the foreign affairs website. let's go to barbara next in royal oak michigan outside of detroit, democrats line. good morning. thank you for waiting, barbara. caller: good morning. good morning. my question is a little bit different. host: okay. caller: i hope he can answer it. on the oil -- off of the oil and what-have-you. i am very serious: is saudi arabia t.v. showing all of these beheadings, or are they too busy beating up on people? what i would like to show is our media showing nothing on that except a quick column on terrorists and start calling them what they are. cowards and baby killers. host: thank you for the call. ambassador smith. guest: barbara, i think we have two different issues you have addressed, the beheadings saudi arabia and the extremists outside of saudi arabia if i get you correctly. the capital punishment practices in saudi arabia has always been a source of friction between our governments. they base as their constitution the quran, they base their punishment system on what is written in the quran. our view is that is akin to our judicial system and punishments being based upon leviticus and even though it's written there we do not behead or stone people anymore. so we are often at odds between our two governments over this practice. the problem we have barbara, is that on many issues like this the argument on our part has to be based upon some moral authority. and the challenge that we have in addressing the issue of beheadings comes -- presents a challenge for us because our own policy of capital punishment. the issue of arrests in saudi arabia because of our own incarceration rates here in this country. an additional form of capital punishment, both of our governments real involved in that. the -- on the issue of the extremists, there is a movement now to change the no, ma'am enclature that -- and not everybody is a terrorist if you look at isis, you really are looking at rogue bands of murderers. and the central focus as best as most of us can determine is that you have young men who just enjoy the killing. and this is a much different than calling them terrorists. host: from humble, texas on the republican line, tom is next. good morning with ambassador smith joining us from boston. caller: hello. host: good morning thomas. caller: hi. i am not republican. i am independent. hey, listen. on benghazi is that a witch hunt? and as far as saudi arabia they can build their own navy. they are building motels. let them build their own navy. host: okay. thank you, tom. guest: they do have a navy that operates in the arabian gulf and the red sea. the issue of the navy is a much more strategic than one of our navy doing what their navy should do. our navy is the only navy in the world that can guarantee freedom of navigation in international waters. >> is a global responsibility that our nation and our navy has undertaken for well over 100 years. so, if you look at the straight of hormus. it is very important to our government and our navy that no one closes the straits of hormus not just because of oil coming from the region but if they are closed you have, you have established a precedent which would allow the straits of malarka to be closed and undermines our responsibility in guaranteeing freedom of navigation in an international waters. so, the presence of our navy in the arabian gulf transcends the issue of doing the saudi's navy job for it. the saudi navy is very much in the business of protecting sawedees' interests, vis-a-vis iran to the east the u.s. navy's responsibility goes well beyond that. host: the caller also talked about -- guest: yeah. benghazi is a much more complex issue, and i come at that from the point of view of someone was in place that weekend why the attack on benghazi took place. i am much more comfortable talking from the perspective of someone who was there as opposed to someone who was back here in washington. but at the time we saw the same information, intelligence, if you will that susan rice expressed at the sunday talk shows, we were dealing with an information set that said there had been riots in cairo because of the movie if you remember that was defaming islam and the prophet muhammad, and we saw these riots in egypt and therefore, when benning benjamin hit, we saw this in the context of what we have seen in egypt two days before. i remember adding that together and we did a careful analysis of the information that we were receiving, our relationship with the host minister of interior and felt very comfortable that we knew all of the potential threats and were comfortable with the host country the we billed in to given a chants for this to blow over. it took some days after benghazi for us to realize that, no it was not a riot that then became a terrorist event. it was a terrorist event from the very beginning. at the time, i did not believe that there was any possibility of calling a re -- causing a reactionary force to responds to that. an ambassador must make decisions on the interest of u.s. employees, government employees and by extension, americans in that country. we were comfortable with the information we were receiving, with our relationship with the host security forces. and because of that we move out into the countryside. if we had any question about either of those, we would definitely come in. your physical position is based upon your comfort with the information there was no host agency providing intelligence and there was known conflict between the warring tribes in benghazi. so, for those of us who were dealing with it there was great question in our part of what the ambassador would have put him and other americans in a position where they did not know the context of what was going on and were in no position to react to it. unfortunately, the ambassador who was extremely capable individual, we are not in a position to question what his motivation was. but again the single person in any country who has that responsibility is the am at aboutsbassador, himself or herself. >> with he have about five minutes left with our guest, former ambassador james smith who served in saudi arabia. we will go to america's georgia. sandra is on the phone. good morning. caller: hello, c-span and good morning, america. host: good morning, sandra. caller: yes thank you so much. i am calling from southga, and i want to say that the year i graduated from high school 1975, that gas was .44 a gallon. and if my memory serves me right, after the iran hostage situation, we saw the gas prices suddenly start to sky rocket. i want to know: how can we reconcile the fact that in 1975, gas was about $0.44 a gallon until just a few months ago, it was almost four to $5 a gallon. how can we reconcile that big jump? opec was in charge. hoeflt. host: thank you for the call. we have a minute or two left. we will get a call from ambassador smith. thank you t guest: sandra, it's good to hear from you. my mother went to a university in america. it's great to be talking to someone from back home. most people would say that back in the early 'septembers, oil prices --early '70s oil prices were well below the value of oil and that they were held down at an unreasonable rate. it's also reasonable to assume that the cost of producing oil has gone up significantly because in the early years, the news of extraction are much different than much less complicated than it is today. it wasn't the iran hostage situation in 1979 and, oh, by the way, the take over of the holy mosque in mecca that same month, november of 1979 that drove prices up. it was the two oil embargoes. first in 1973 and then later, i think, in 1978, that drove prices up. they came back down. it's been over the last 30 years they have crept up. then we saw a spike after 2011 because of the crisis in the region which threatened oil production in saudi arabia and libya and iraq and iran. so, i would say there is in addition to the natural increase in prices because everything has gone up in price over that time accounts for the increase in price the community at large, including the saudis would say natural price for available oil is somewhere between 75 and $95 a barely host: what do we need to know about the new king of saudi arabia? king salman? guest: he i think salman has shown a great capacity for administrative work. he was governor of riyadh for nearly 50 years. we have a very close relationship with him. every ambassador going back to that time in our government. he is a very hard-working individual. he seems to have surrounded himself with experts in at a time bureaucracy. we would expect a continued focus on modernization within the kingdom and, hopefully, we get a positive balance between this issue of stability versus modernization more in the direction of modernization. host: ambassador smith who represented the in saudi arabia during the first four years of the obama administration joining us from boston on this sunday. thank you for being with us here on c-span. guest: steve, it's good to be with you. host: tomorrow is budget day. the president will unprevious his $3.9 billion budget plan. we'll cover it on "washington journal" at 7:00 a.m. eastern time including congressman john de-lanny a member of the joint economic committee and congressman tom rice. from south carolina. he is a member of the budget committee. republican lawmaker and we'll talk about sequestration. is the president calling for $74,000,000,000 in additional spend that would end sequester cuts? william hoagland served and is vice president of the bi-partisan policy center. some of our guests. your calls and comments tomorrow morning for the monday edition of "wall street journal" of of "washington journal." enjoy the rest of your weekend. have a great week ahead... for being with us. let me introduce our reporters who will be asking questions. richard rubin covers the budget for bloomberg news. >> i wanted to ask

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