we are spending on education and incarceration more than we are spending on anything else. we are dropping a lot of money on the back and just imagine if some of these programs that you mostly work in or want to start just imagine if you had $50,000 you could buy a house per year that money just poured down the hole because what happens is the about the political forces going on in the country to come up and say walking up. three strikes and you're out and they wonder why they are vagabonds when they come out and can't get a job or student loan. they can barely get access to their own children and then we wonder why. they don't have anybody in their life. you see it. you see how this thing happens. it's a couple of small decisions that become big. >> that is a short portion of tonight's programs on social workers in america. you can watch the entire program starting at 8 p.m. and that will be on the companion of work c-span. now today's edition of washington journal. first up we asked viewers their thoughts about the obama administration's efforts to help veterans and we also got an update on the topic from a reporter. this segment is 50 minutes. >> postcoital get your thoughts in just a minute for joining on the phone this morning is leo shane congressional reporter with the military times. but begin with the report leo shane. what is the headline coming out of this independent review? >> guest: thanks for having me back. as you referenced they had been connected to the long wait times at the phoenix healthcare system. would be a ig with the ig found is that they couldn't connect to any patient deaths were veterans who passed up a problems with the delay in care. and in the scandals in recent months. but that doesn't mean that it is a very good report for them. it still details a lot of mismanagement and confidence at the phoenix va. we saw some cases where folks had pretty serious diseases, looking at cancer diet because he's still have to wait months because some nine weeks, some nine months to get any sort of follow-up appointment scheduled. i got a chance to talk to the deputy secretary of the va earlier this week and he said that it's still a bad news report and and harassment for the department. >> host: how extensive was the investigation? >> guest: this was a pretty in-depth report. they spent the last four months combing through the thousands of files working and not just on their own but working in the department of justice and the fbi on possible fraud and obstruction cases that could result in criminal cases down the line. that's what they found was, you know, barely widespread problems and at some point a lot of the facilities turn up the same issues of the mismanagement and problems with how they occur at the facilities and some systemic cultural problems for the va has been struggling to address since the spring. >> host: what did they find out about suicide and suicide prevention related to the care that they get at these facilities? >> guest: it's something we've heard a lot from the veterans organizations over the years. the story is a lot of different medical issues. when the veterans can get in and be seen by someone and get the care they need for medicare is awfully good but the problem again seems to be getting in there. we saw some reports in this review of folks who had some serious mental health issues that we but we put it off for weeks and months so follow-ups that could have been key in addressing their issues and helping stabilize their condition. >> host: so you mentioned the cultural issues are something that's been brought up repeatedly about what happened at the va facilities. so, what do they recommend to address culture at the va? >> guest: they've got 24 recommendations in here. the va has signed off on all of them saying they agree with some and are already working on them. in terms of the cultural issue, it was hard with the va taking a step back, looking at this issue is going more in depth into the cases, seeing which employees made mistakes and whether those are incompetent or were their folks who covered up folks. we heard from secretary mcdonald and other officials that they will hold folks accountable. now, so far we have only seen a handful such as the secretary said yesterday that there's been 30 personnel actions against the various employees. but that will be with the lawmakers and outside groups want to see next is who is losing their job if he winds in kuwait that facing some pretty severe punishment. >> host: ahead of the report can a president obama in north carolina announces steps that he's taken, his administration, to address care and other aspects of the va care, veterans care. what did he say? us to cope it was a wide range of speech before the annual convention. he unveiled about 20 new executive orders. on a variety of topics expanding from some new mental health programs and pilot programs that deal with suicide prevention, some programs that deal with transition issues for veterans looking for jobs or trying to deal with student loans, mortgage loans and things of that sort. it's so a grab bag of issues. it's been fixed and folks claim that these are nice steps but nothing revolutionary, nothing that's going to change the landscape. but the president said these are important steps and it's important to keep moving forward to find ways to fix the problems facing the va and the veterans. he ended the speech with a long -- talking about american involvement, not just the government can't solve all these problems come it will also take community involvement and bringing the idea of teamwork together which is something the president has said in the past, but in light of the scandals facing the va and the concerns of care with a new emphasis on all of us, all of the country needs to come together and rally around veterans. >> host: leo shane, what are the biggest issues for veterans? >> guest: right now the biggest issue is trust in the va. veterans groups are being shaken by this. they see the va as a critical tool for them moving ahead and there's always talk about whether or not the entire system is outdated and whether or not the private health care can fill the void and other services can be there. those groups certainly don't want to see that. they love the va and they want the va to be a strong resource for them. but in recent months it scared a lot of folks and they are worried about the veterans won't have the faith in the system to get their disability benefits and go deal with the red tape to get their education benefits and seek medical help. the leader in ptsd and. they want to see themselves a leader but right now that is going to involve fixing the image, convincing them that they can be treated with respect and they will be treated the right way if they go in there. >> host: we are going to be talking with our viewers about this and steps in the administration and what else needs to be done. the fourth line for veterans. phone numbers are on the screens would start dialing now. this is from the speaker of the house yesterday. unemployment among post-9/11 veterans is an unacceptable 9.2% that would help those stuck in the senate. what is the situation with joblessness in veterans? >> guest: especially the post-9/11 veterans that's been bouncing around quite a bit of the bureau of statistics admit it's tougher to get a handle on because they are sample sizes but if it is a tough job market for the returning vets with a little bit of the executive orders he has made this a point in the recent years wanting to find jobs for truck drivers or medics returning to make it easy for them to find what they need to transition to the job market. it's been a little bit better than the number of the last couple of years. but as you know it's an issue in every sector. especially for the younger guys just returning from afghanistan. those that have multiple tours in iraq. it's used not only to rework the service but these are the skills they bring back with them and take advantage of the leadership and the reliability and also the service of the specific skills they bring home. >> host: leo shane, reporter with the military times, thank you. now let's turn over to george who is a veteran and independent in georgia. you're on the air. >> caller: yes, good morning. how are you doing? i matter the va in georgia. i have some issues with -- i go to mental health and i've been dealing with post traumatic stress. i was approached by captain robinson with the va police department. and last year he threatened that if he saw me at the va from him and other police would have me arrested. i've been having nightmares and i haven't been doing back there which i receive medicaid because i may social security beneficiaries with 37 years work history. i went in the military in 1979 and got out in 1980 but i got shot at with various chemicals and i see a cardiologist, pulmonary doctor, do little to just come up via trade -- >> host: does the va paper that? >> guest: i've been sighted at 80% that i received a letter directly from the director threatening me that my claim was erroneous in 1979 and 1980 there was a evaluation and i got cited with multiple diagnosis of some of the things i just mentioned like hypertension, heart disease and my claim was that the last three years when i got out i filed with the american legion. three months after i got out of that some of those entitlements are due to me. >> host: okay george. diane in tennessee. democratic caller. what do you make of the steps to improve the va healthcare system? >> caller: they need to because my brother died in 2005. the disease he had from agent orange. i watched my brother suffer. they had him waiting. they were full right now. but the first thing they should do to improve this, this happened when bush was in and now all of a sudden we have to wait for people to come out and let us know what's going on in the system. they want him to fight for this country but when they come back they throw them aside. veterans are homeless, we have people walking around the streets talking to themselves. there's something wrong with this country. it's been happening all the time. then god we have people up there that put it out so we can see what's going on. >> host: take a look at what the administration is proposing on executive action. new recruiting campaigns to fill the shortages of doctors and nurses, automatically enroll military personnel receiving care for mental health conditions. undertake a study designed to protect people whether they show signs of being honorable to suicide or posttraumatic stress syndrome. 34.4 million in the suicide retention study involving 1800 veterans at 29 hospitals, 80 million to treat diseases including posttraumatic stress syndrome and electronic medical records and partnerships in five cities to further reduce homeless veterans with services like job training and agreements with lenders, banks for active-duty troops to reduce mortgage interest rate and monthly payment. that is some of what the president announced his administration is doing to help veterans in the country. patrick, what do you think? >> this is a typical in-depth reporting. they didn't happen to mention the military times. it's one of these self-appointed people in dc. most of the va benefits go to the long service related injuries, prostate cancer, lung cancer, diabetes. when i did my time, part of the benefit of doing time in the military is you got medical care so you could go in. i walked out when i was 22 and i had benefits )-right-paren. three years down the road if i had a gallbladder i could go to the va and have them pay for it. and all these deaths in arizona, were those service related injuries from iraq or afghanistan? do you even know that? >> host: you are welcome to go and look at that report. you can google that and also probably find it on our website the inspector inspector general's report issued yesterday after president obama announced several steps before the national convention. we are getting your thoughts on that. >> caller: the veterans could help with medicare because i'm sitting here with no teeth, i have six teeth and no dental health. >> host: they don't have one is that right plex cocoa >> host: independent scholar in louisville ohio. >> caller: i think you should for touchscreen backup. obama is going to give it looks like $100 million. the to all our cares are sitting on $250 billion from apple is is hundred $75 billion in cash to get when you manipulate from a dollar 25 a gallon up to $4, that takes about 250 to $300 billion out of the system. warren buffett is probably sitting on $100 billion so first of all this is similar to treating workers because you can't judge the society how you treat the workers and soldiers and if you've seen how society treats its workers it's similar to the way it treats its soldiers in iraq to end with this it was political and i'm sure the va has many faults but there's probably ten areas that are excellent but this is political and it's going to backfire in time not waving the flag for the democrats. again there is a a couple trillion dollars into this is typical you're going to get $100 million. >> host: what about the 16 billion-dollar bill president obama signed into law earlier this month? here's the headline obama signed veteran's law and to overhaul the department of veterans affairs what amounted to a rare display of bipartisanship in the congressional gridlock assigning that took place in virginia kept off months of negotiations and it's been passed with bipartisan majority which doesn't happen often in congress. the president said it marks the first step fixing the problem including entering veteran homelessness and the backlog of the claim and helping more veterans get jobs and also to confirm several nominees for the va's post. >> guest: that's going to fix the problem that was started when bush went into afghanistan and iraq illegally. but you literally have five states in the country responsible for all of these wars. the state of texas, georgia, virginia and connecticut and maryland. i gave you 90% of all the military bases, although military contractors. if you want the people to pay for these veterans let's go to the states that are responsible and have the military contractors and military bases. >> host: the bill president obama signed into law authorizes the clinics, provides funding to hire more healthcare providers and allows veterans who faced a wait to see doctors out of the va healthcare system. it also makes it easy for the secretary to fire or demote officials accused of mismanagement response that they falsified records to make it appear they were meeting agency goals or providing care. >> caller: i appreciate president obama taking the lead. republicans have repeatedly used instruction tactics. i recommend the new new deal and inside of the house of representatives. it's ridiculous in detail the opposition to all things obama and veterans care. they spent more money on investigations which were bogus and ridiculous and more than they did on the veterans. john mccain is on the sunday show so frequently the care started in arizona and he hasn't been looking in dc he could have checked on the veterans who were not receiving care. >> host: here's a response from a republican of florida whose the was the chair of the committee and the house to the president said yesterday. the white house claims the va is improving when it comes to accountability and protecting whistleblowers don't add up especially when no one has been fired as a result of the scandal and goes on to say the department is still sitting on the 113 requests from the house committee on veterans affairs and whistleblowers are still in during the retaliation. that's the response from the top republicans on the house va committee. >> host: davenport iowa democratic call. >> caller: jesus said what you do in the least you do unto me. the problem is a divide and conquer. if they would be concerned about the least of america that don't have insurance or healthcare than they would be taken care of. i'm told we learn to do that, we are all going to suffer because it of his one bad thing to the next and when it comes to health care i worked 30 years to make sure everyone had an opportunity to have health insurance and we see to it that all these people that have health insurance have good healthcare. >> host: we are going to keep taking thoughts on what the president announced yesterday. executive actions about 20 of them to improve care for veterans and the countries on dealing with factual care who suicide prevention and others are job training to help homelessness as well as use mortgage rate for active-duty soldiers to reduce their monthly payments. get your thoughts on all that but first other headlines this is in "the wall street journal" this morning israel and hamas agreed to a new cease-fire, this is open ended with more than 2200 people killed. it is holding for now and more talks are planned in cairo next month. on the domestic side on the front page of "the new york times" on climate change carl davenport has this story obama pursuing in lieu of a treaty the obama administration is working to sweep its agreement to compel the nations to cut the fossil fuel emissions but without ratification in congress and in preparation to be signed in 2015 and negotiated the meeting with diplomats and other countries to broker a deal to commit some of the world's largest economies to enact laws to reduce their carbon pollution but under the constitution a president may enter into a legally binding treaty only if it is approved by two thirds of the majority of the senate. president obama's client negotiators have what they called it politically binding deal that would name and shame countries into cutting emissions. it would face strong objections from republicans on capitol hill and poor countries around the world negotiators say that it may be the only realistic path on climate change. this story is the lead banner on drudge's website as well as huffingtonpost this morning. also in "the new york times" is this story mobilizing allies the united states has began to mobilize potential action in syria and is moving towards expanded airstrikes. they said he was broadening the campaign against the militants of the islamic state in iraq and syria into the decision to -open-brace airstrikes along the northern iraqi town home to the members of the minority the talent of 12,000 has been under siege within two months so trying to rally his allies around the fight. by the way this is another headline in the papers this morning about the situation with the islamic islamic state here is the headline american comfort fighting in syria u.s. officials said tuesday american who traveled to serious has been killed in the fight and the circumstances surrounding the death of douglas mccain. 33 remain unclear. he was killed as rival militant thought thoughts but they couldn't say whether he was fighting she was fighting for the islamic state or another group. that is douglas mccain on the screen. this is in the article fighters are a major concern for the u.s. and european nations and they fear they may return home battle hardened to launch attacks in the west and they are tracking eight dozen or so former fighters are returned to the united states. that's from the "washington post." so warnings given from the un about those airstrikes on libya from the financial times this morning we believe interference exasperates the current democratic transition the u.s., france, germany, italy and the uk in a statement issued by the department says admiral john kirby for the pentagon confirmed egypt conducted strikes in libya but declined to give the give diesels and the chills and there were reports that said officials had funding for the army of the libyan islamists said that is in the financial times this morning. i'll leave that has written extensively on foreign-policy issues has a piece on the defense one website where the bombing is a game changer and he writes if you believe the obama administration had no idea they were about to launch airstrikes i have a bridge you might want to buy. the reliability may wax and wayne but it's been a steady partner as well as a quieter of military hardware. air force participated in the 2011 no-fly zone over libya that led to the overflow from the overthrow of nomar gadhafi. they would now go behind washington's back to launch an attack against islamist militants or threaten to undermine the success of the 2011 operation. that is from defense one. democratic call and veteran. we are talking about the report and the president's announcement yesterday that he's taking several steps to improve health care for brother ends debate could lead to veterans. >> my feet are buying, my back was in half and i have other conditions. i have no problem with the medical system once you get in. in virginia they treated me like an old i don't know it's because i'm in category one above even congressional medal of honor or missing in action but i do have problems on the benefits side. there's two sides to benefits side into the hospital side. benefits side is service connection. if you have a service-connected injury that's when the va picks up and you go into the system and get taken care of. the others go in at a reduced level. they have to pay for their own medicines at a certain discount into that kind of stuff but those are the ones complaining because they go in and tell these inspectors who do the medical evaluations you can't do that. you have to have service connections and that's something they have to start looking at. i'm not picking on my fellow soldiers. i know the economy is bad and social security get hit hard but my problem was with social security they fought me since 1990. i've asked the va to help me and i've asked the american legion and disabled veterans of america i'm a lifetime member of the disabled vet and american legion and i said i need a lawyer because i was sent out of europe and i couldn't work and that's the whole thing about social security you have to be out of a job for a year or so were permanently disabled. they kept stonewalling me up to 95 so you get the first five years but you have to keep going in. i went in and they never gave me the right to appeal. i learned the appeal in the va system but social security never gave me the chance to appeal i saw two judges the last one said we owe you 21 years of back pay. i went to school and i got 3 degrees the va paid for. i've been busy. i'm not lazy. it took me a while because like i said my feet are dying. one time i was in a power chair. >> host: what changes do you want to see? >> caller: i want support to help out with social security because how can it be 200% in the va and social security i've got bipolar, ptsd, my back is totally perfect together and i went to the last meeting -- >> host: i'm just going to leave it there. thank you for the call. .. a little bit about what the last guy just said. i have been a veteran since 1976. i was hurt during basic. my neck was busted. my back was busted. i was laid up in the hospital for 6-8 weeks. it was release from the hospital, sent to medical hold, ordered to sign paper work and sent home. i've been fighting for my medical and my come pep sayings benefits for 38 years. to no avail. v.a. keeps putting it off and putting it office. i finally got a hearing coming up and even the v.a. doctors have service connected me. but the v.a. administration in montgomery, alabama keeps saying no, no, no. most of the doctors that i have seen with the v.a. with the va health v.a. administration are great doctors and they will fight for you and do whatever they can for you. i've got ptsd. posttraumatic stress plus, i've got 16 aneurysms. my neck blasted, my back busted, my leg busted. congestive heart failure which they're trying to treat everything and all well-documented that i am service connected but i don't deserve anything because i wasn't indo during a time of wa? i want to see them change that. >> host: all right. ken. let's hear from the veterans affairs secretary, robert macdonald who took over for eric shinseki. he was with the president yesterday in the american legion conference in north carolina. here is what he had to say about investigating people in the health care management system. >> since may 1st, 2014, we have taken over 30, over 30 personnel actions and investigations are ongoing. two members of the senior executive service have resigned or retired. three members ofed the senior executive service have been placed on administrative leave pending the results of investigations. over two dozen, over two dozen health care professionals have been removed from their positions. and four more gs-15s or below have been placed on administrative leave. >> host: the va secretary bob mcdonald yesterday before the american legion talking about what the va is doing under his leadership to investigate those that have been at fault within the va health care system. nicholas in virginia, democratic caller,ia active duty member. nicholas, go ahead. goodhe morning, nicholas, you're on the air. >> caller: good morning the how are you? >> host: go ahead with your question or comment. >> caller: this is question about the efficiency of the system. the biggest thing, i'm about it separate here but the biggest issue i definitely noticed without question is lack of efficiency within the military it seven. i'm not trying, obviously bash the military. i love my job and absolutely what thebu system is set up in o many different layers and levels within that unless you're 200% disabled and obviously put to the top of the list, then the time frame for what you're trying to deal with is quite arduous and there is extended process that goes t with it. and it isn't simple as go to the va website and put it all into one place. there arela so many different, u know, layers that you have to open through and open the on one and go through every single one. it is pretty expensive. one of the biggest problems you go along with that where you are before you separate. i'm lucky enough to be separating onshore command where i'm abl fe to access internet ad access medical care. so i consider myself lucky even though there is still some difficult times with that. on the flip side of that i have friend overseas, or friend out on the ocean, that are trying to separate at the same time, becauseat they know their contrt is ending when they are still on a sea command and, you know, the problems there are just massive. partially, largely because of a lack of efficiency within everyone of the systems along it. you don't simply go to one step and step two, step three, steps four. it is step one and then you branch from there to two other steps and six others from there. it is a huge checklist. almost needs a flow chart to go to try to follow the entire process. it is quite arduous. >> host: nicholas, thank you. tom a democratic caller in frankfurt, kentucky. >> caller: good morning. taking my call. i want to bring forward a situation in the camp lejeune, north carolina, where the water was contaminated back at least as far as 1953 with over 70 different chemicals, including agent orange. and in order to be compensated for an illness, you have to connect it to that water. andha many situations, it takes0 and 50 years for these illnesses to come forward from these chemicals. and when you file for compensation, it is hard to connect it to that water and, which you must do. and i think that they should make these diseases presumptive where, you do not have to make that connection. and, in my situation i have, i'm dying fromav als and, i have a s keep mick heart disease and symptoms of the many other 15 illnesses that arere covered don there but, they need to make these, this presumptive where, if you have these illnesses and you have served down there, which i did on two occasions, where we can get compensated for this before we die. >> host: all right, tom. val, minneapolis, independent caller. hi, val. >> caller: how are you doing, greta? >> host: morning. >> caller: morning. listening.cials are i had four brothers who were veterans and, the, they had mental illness and, two of them committed suicide, i mean official suicide and i have thought for a long time that mental illness is, was really lacking and they couldn't get it. my one brother was homeless. he was a hopeless veteran. and it was hard for the family to stay connected with him. we found out that he died online. my sister was looking up things and gene ology website and found out that he was deceased. i had to go off to california and take car ke of business and stuff, and we didn't have any idea that he was in california. but as i was going through his business stuff, what i realized was that, he was getting medical care. he was being overmedicated. and i realized that during all this time the government, they knew where he was. >> host: okay. >> caller: but family never did. >> host: the va was providing drugs? >> caller: va was providing medical coverage to pay for those drugs and they were giving him really, they were overmedicatingwe him. he would go to get these drugs and he would just, overuse them and, you know, he would go back again. he hadk some illnesses and so what we were thinking was, he was probably overmedicating himself for the pain and then, after that, he just, he just, i just --t: >> host: val, no effort by the va to reach out to you or your sisters? >> caller: , no,no honey, there was none of that. the government, the va, were the only people to know where he was. >> host: okay, all right, val. duane, in virginia, independent caller and a veteran. duane, go ahead. >> caller: yes, ma'am, i want to talk about the emergency room care. i live in stanton, virginia, have to drive over 95 miles to the emergency room in salem. >> host: we're listening, duane. the president signed into law was supposed to address that issue, that you were allowed to go to private care thats was closer to you. >> caller: that is not happening. apparently i got latest bill from the 4 emergency room and didn't put the emergency room in the 40-mile thing. everybody that is 100% total and permanent, should also be 100% social security. i have a 10-year lapse before there was such a thing as ptsd. ptsd wasn't recognized till the 1980's. i was screwed up from the moment i i left view vietnam. >> host: all right, duane. yesterday, when president obama announced these new steps he is taking,st the administration is taking to address veterans care he made them in north carolina where senator kay hagan, the democrat there. jon: up forde re-election. we read the story yesterday how the senator had to make a decision whether or not she stood next to him. you can see there they hugged as the presidentxt makes his way through the room yesterday to announce these new steps. it also, from "politico," shows that the senator met president obama at the airport. their headline. kay hagan hits and then embraces president obama. senator kay hagan beat up president obama before he arrived a in town and showed up and gave hymn a kiss on the cheek. she is popular in some parts that helped her win in 2008, but dragging her down so much elsewhere, she is one of the democrats most vulnerable incumbents. the senator tweeting this out yesterday about va saying, approval of leases for four digs medical space at jackson va medica.al centers will allow moe veterans to receive the care they havean earned. senator kay hagan with that tweet yesterday, as she meets with the president after he makes those, before he makes those announcements at the airport and then again at that event before the american legion national convention in north carolina. we're gettingin your thoughts on president obama unveiling these latest efforts to improve care for our nation's veterans. we'll keep taking your thoughts here for ans few more minutes bt first, i want to show you the headlines this morning in the papers about burger king and, it is merging with that canadian company, tim heart tons. burger king gets grilled from "usa today" money section. with a new base in canned today burger king merger was quickly lumped into the growing public outcry over taxax inversions whh allow u.s. companies to lower tax bills by reincorporating a in a company with lower tax rates with merger by foreign firm. midday, several thousands comments flooded burger king's facebook page. similar tweets numbering in the hundreds. moveon.org online petition quickly gained more than 13,000 signatures by tuesday. the corporation, though, burger king is saying that tim heart tort ans pays equivalent they paeny in taxes. he was noted, saying to reporters, that the corporate tax rate paid by tim heart tons in canada is in the mid 20s percentage wise and burger king's blended tax rate, it pays globally, including u.s. taxes is in the mid 20s. so when we look at combined company we don't expect there to be meaningful lower or higher tax rates than we had before. that is coming from the ceo of burger king. way, many of you know that warren buffett is part of the financing for this deal of burger king merging with putting theird headquarters in canada. that i is in the papers this morning. also in the papers this morning is this headline, about, mark pryor, and his re-election bid. he is also a vulnerable democrat out of arkansas. pryor invokes ebola in new campaign ad. the spot labeled, alarmist. i want to show you that ad. read a little bit from the "washington times" this morning. arkansas senator mark pryor's re-election campaign unveiled a new advertisement warning his rival, tim cotton opposed government funding to protect the country against the ebola epdem pick that killed hundreds of people in africa. the democratic incumbent ad which starts with breathless tv news clips, goes on say, some compared it to the infamous daisysy commercial, i am flying that republicans barry goldwater want nuclear war with the soviet union. take a look at ad. >> i'm mark pryor, and i approved this ad. >> the ebola outbreak is vastly underestimated. >> tom cotton voted against preparing america for pandemics like ebola. >> congressman cotton cut millions from the emergency program. >> only arkansas congressman to vote this way. >> he was h only one to vote against children's hospital. >> he voted for billionaires funding his campaign. >> rather than helping our families. >> host: mark pryor, latest ad to win another term. mr. cotton, republican challenging him, says that the charge is bogus and sent out fund-raising email, that mr. pryor is accusing my of helping spread the ebola virus. seriously? i seen crazy over over the top political ads in the campaign but this is the most ridiculous one yet. this is from tom cotton challenging mark pryor for that senate seat. zelda in georgia, democratic caller, what do you make of what the president announced yesterday at y american legion convention in north carolina? >> caller: speaking of veterans, my husband retired in 2008. he also went overseas to, at the first time of the 9/11 when that happened. when we went to the va here in georgia, it was chaos. he couldn't even, the a year. so we had a choice. we go to augusta. and we get in with no problem. if you're that sick, also go to a private doctor. show your tricare card, your i.d. card and get in there with no problem. if there's a fee, then deal with later on with your tricare. right. allht right, cell today. upland, california, a democrat and veteran there. >> caller: yes. i'm speaking. >> host: go ahead. >> caller: i spent 30, 26 years in the marine corps. the va hired me and one of my jobs was to go to the bases to give veterans getting out their benefits. and they alwaysen talked to me r asked me about jobs. and i said, go to the va. now, right now, we've got doctors that are getting out. someone in the va should be, and i've tried to get ahold of va public affairs, somebody should beff going to or, even in the local paper of the service, of the service like 29 palms has their own little paper, put an advertisement in there for those doctors or have somebody go down there and talk to them. hey, you getting out? we've got a job for you. >> host: okay. caller, the president did announce he wanted to start a campaign to address the doctor and nursing shortage within the va. >> caller: yes, but that place there, they're getting out. >> host: okay. >> caller: they're getting out. and they're. going to be looking for jobs. >> host: we'll leave it there. a couplile more headlines about primaries yesterday across the country. four states had them. arizona, this is a headline from the "new york times." about the congressional races, it says thatac the in second congressiol district based if tucson martha mcsally, retired air force colonel handily won the republican nomination. her victory sets stage for rematch of 2012, where she lost to ron barber, a democrat, less than 1%age point. mr. barber was picked to run for gabrielle giffords seat after being forced to resign after being wounded in a mass shooting at political event in 2011. in florida, from "the new york times," governor rick scottro ad his chief opponent, former governor charlie crist, both handidly defeated opponents in their primaries on tuesday. from vermont the burlington free press, courtesy of the newseum, cruz cruises to a win to face governor shumlin in november. in oklahoma, russell wins the gop nod. the u.s. army veteran to face macafrye in the fifth district race out of oklahoma. quick primary results for all of you this morning. >> white house spokesman josh ernest scheduled a briefing today. he will answer reporter questions starting at 12:45 eastern and we'll have it live when it starts on our companion network c-span. later we hear from "new york times" reporter matthew rosenberg who was recently expelled from afghanistan writing what the afghan government deemed a divisive article. he is at the national press club, life 2:00 p.m. eastern on c-span. at 4:00 p.m., look at digital campaigning in advance of this year's mitt term elections. speakers include representatives from president obama's campaign and mitt romney campaign as well. hosted by george washington university. that is live on c-span. >> this weekend on the c-span networks, friday night on c-span native-american history. then on saturday, live all day coverage from the national book festival science pavilion. saturday evening from bbc scotland, a debate on scotland's upcoming decision on whether to end its political union with england. sunday, q&a with judge robert katzmann, chief justice of the second circuit court of appeals. he shares his approach to interpreting laws passed by congress. on c-span2 friday at 8:00 p.m., in depth with former congressman ron paul. then on saturday, all day live coverage of the national book festival from the history and biography pavilionses. speakers, interviews and viewer call-ins in authors. and sunday at 9:00 p.m. eastern, after words with william burros, talking about his book the asteroid threat. american history tv on c-span3 friday, a nassda documentary about the 1969 poll low 11 moon landing. saturday on the civil war, general william tecumseh they were man's atlanta campaign. sunday night look at election laws and supreme court case of bush versus gore. find our television schedule at c-span.org. tell us what you think about the programs you're watching. call us at 626, on twitter, use the hashtag c123. email us at comments at c-span.org. joining c-span conversation. like us on facebook. follow us on twitter. >> now it's a discussion on a recent usda report about the cost of raising a chide here in the u.s., now estimated at $245,000. spoke with a reporter who wrote about that. this segment is 45 minutes. >> host: we are back with danielle kurtzleben. business economic correspondent with vox dot-com. here to talk about a headline from her piece, the 245,000 price tag for raising an american child. what bows into this number? >> guest: this number is very specific and it's a little bit complicated but this is something the usda comes out with every year. they do a report how much it costs to raise a kid for 18 years, a childit raised in the prior years. so this is a child that was born in 2013. and how much it will cost to raise that child. in $2013 up to age 18. and this is middle income, two-parent family. that is also a very specific family. this includes everything from birth to 18. it includes food, it includes housing which is the biggest component. child care, food, transportation all of that.do it doesn't include prenatal care and cost of college which we all know is heavy price tag. >> host: they stop before you get to the price tag of college. we're showing our our viewers 1960 versus 2013. >> guest: sure. >> host: housing makes up 30% in this price tag. it made up 31% in 1960. >> guest: right. >> host: whatme happened it prey much stayed the same? >> guest: the part the price of everything all together has gone up since 1960. it has gone up around $60,000. that is adjusted for inflation. so prices have gone up since then and we all know it but part of itno is you look at how the other parts of that pie have shifted. for example, child caree is one really big thing. not every family goes out and pays for child care around education but some do. and that cost has gone up nine fold since 1960. it has gone from 2% of the budget to 18% of the budget. when you have something going up that much it squeezes out other pieces of the pie. >> host: is that because you had, typically in 1960 did not have both pains working. >> guest: right that is definitely one component of it. more women in the workforce. that means of course, you have more homes where they have to find someone to take care of the kids. but also, really the cost of child care itself has been vastly outstripping inflation for quite a while now. child care is, costs for that are spiraling out of control. >> host: simply because of demand? >> guest: it is demand, there is something that there is a lot of speculation on. some people say it is regulation, that, child care facilities simply have high demands of number of staff per child, and how, you know, different regulations for what the space has to r look like, tt sort of thing. that is one component of it. it is higher demand. it is really all sorts of things. it is families are willing to pay for it of course. >> host: you've got added component, families in 2013, couples have to work to pay for the other things on this pie chart. >> guest: right, absolutelily. as long as one parent's income outstrips cost of child care, even by a bit, that can mean that child care costs can go up even while more parents are working. >> host: you have the cost of health care, 8% in 2013. health care was 4% back in 1960. what's going. on here? >> guest: as we all know the cost of health care once again has offben outstripping inflation. the other thing i should point out these charts don't include government spending on children. so that would include medicaid. so what that means you do have, so that might even underestimate a bit on the amount that is spent on a child, especially for lower income families. >> host: then food. we heard from our callers. heard other people say the cost of food is going up.he >> guest: of course depending what kind of food you're buying, yeah. i don't remember off the top of my head. the charts show right there, the cost of food actually has held relatively steady over the course of time if i remember correctly. . . lower versus high income family, how much they spend on food, the variation isn't that big. it's in other components that families find variation and how much think spend on their kids. >> what are those? >> child care is a big one. other really big difference is the category called miscellaneous. that includes all sorted of ins dentals, the cell phone you buy your kids, the hair cuts. it includes any entertainment you buy for them. and wealthy families spend a lot more on miscellaneous than poorer families do. >> you're looking at this >> host: you are looking at this chart for 2013 and the price tag of raising a child born in 2013, $245,000. this is for two parents. what about a single parent and the cost of raising a child? >> guest: that is something to keep in mind. single parents will end up spending a bit less than a two parent family and i worked out the averages overtime and a single parent family if you are looking at their general median income will spend something like 1-third of their income versus one fourth of the income for two parent family and that is just one calculation but ask any rate single-parent family will find themselves a bit more strapped. >> host: what is going on? just one income? >> there is not the option of one person staying home and taking care of the child so they have to pay for child care and expenses and you have that lower income and you end up shelling out a bigger portion of it. you still want to spend on your child's welfare and make sure your child has everything you can give them. >> host: look at the chart, single-parent 64,000, family expenditure from birth to age 18 for single-parent and husband and wife households, $2,013 looking at $176,000, little over that. >> guest: that chart i should point out is the usda chart. looks at families that take in i believe it was less than something like $61,000 a year. what is interesting is you are going to have a lot more single-parent families taking 61,000 and two parent families so that throws off a bit more. you have more single-parent families who are strapped for cash. >> host: the department of agriculture did this report. why did they do it? >> guest: they do it every year, sort of they take consumer spending chair survey data and extrapolate what it costs because the department of agriculture has a hand in a lot of these programs that help children, school lunches and that sort of thing. this is sort of one area of the usda has data and know how. >> host: how much it costs to raise a child and the numbers from usda, and it cost them to 45,000 republicans, and independents, 202-585-3882 and send us a tweet, c-span w. j.. business and economic correspondent, let's talk about this third chart that you cite here from usda. it was expensive the more children you have. >> that is common sense to a certain degree. the usda calculated, this can vary a lot but the family was three or four kids roughly 22% per child, not altogether. we all know what happens, you do hand me downs for clothing, kids share bed rooms and you go to costco and buy food in balkans that a smaller portions of there is a certain amount of intuitive and as in the same household. >> host: the average spending on one child is anywhere from $16,000 to $19,000 depending on the child's age but that doesn't mean it will cost $35,000 to have two or $50,000 to have three for all sorts of reasons as you said. the additional kid costs less. above is an example for three hypothetical families of the and two parent and middle-income, having more kids costs more spending per kid falling from $16,000 to below $11,000. another one you have in here is where you raise your kids to be less expensive. explain. >> guest: the urban northeast is the most expensive by far, far and away the most expensive and it is followed by the west and the midwest and south at the bottom in terms of regions but then you have a whirl areas at the bottom. that is just cost of living. we all know new york city as an expensive city, washington d.c. is an expensive city. you go to nebraska, houses costa lot less in a rural area than they do in a big city of that is a big part of it is housing. it costs a lot of things in rural areas, the cost of food, the cost of all sorts of things. >> host: jim, independent caller, what are your thoughts on this? >> caller: it appears to me that the system we live by is not very free-market system, pretty much lower income families, get yourself a chastity belt because you can't afford to have a child and that is just the way it works these days because making a profit just seems to be more important than human life. >> host: it is an issue of wages and the slow direction of wages? are you there? >> caller: yes. what about the wages? >> host: you are saying it is because wages for low-income people? >> caller: yes. we live in a society where if you have enough self-esteem to believe that if you get up and go to work hard for someone that they should pay you at least enough to live on. >> guest: and like i said i will point out that this report doesn't include a lot of things the government will spend on for a child's. public education is a big one and also medicaid and that sort of thing but tim does make a great point that i have written a fair amount about. one of the ways that a low-income family is that hard is in the area of child care. i was talking to a woman a couple weeks ago who was looking for job, but couldn't take just any job, she had to look for a very particular job in order to be able to afford child care, so she could work that job and not only that but to look for job, she had to find a babysitter. it is the 1-2 punch on child care. >> host: what were her wages like? >> guest: she is unemployed but a lot of these were part-time jobs. i would love to work, and i would just can't take a part-time job. any particular job to support my child. >> guest: >> host: hi, david. >> caller: i am raising a child and looking at all this that i am obligated to be engaged with such as the insurance market, the tax market, communicable infection market, trade and everything and he is looking at a rough thing unless we get it all streamlined a little bit and get rid of all the layers and layers of extra bills we are getting because they all outweigh what i make and goes to work to make them. >> host: what i you doing to get by month to month? >> caller: i am working but we are held -- i am working a little bit, i am held ransom to a technology patent. i can't have free energy of like it should be available. we should get off the fuel. i am looking at his future. let's get to work. >> host: richard in massachusetts, independent call. >> caller: how are you today? what i say is to raise a family, you have to live within your budget. no matter -- the trouble with people out today is they buy everything. they can't wait to have cellphones, a kid's going to school in sixth grade or fifth grade, you have to be conservative and live by your means, you don't look at what your neighbor is doing, look at your household. this -- i don't believe that thing you have on the screen. that is my opinion. if you can't afford a child, don't even have one, as that is what i say. >> host: danielle kurtzleben. >> guest: the numbers talk to you a bit. low income there's a certain degree to which these numbers stair as that testament that some families of living with a budget and a tight budget. low income families spend less than a middle-income family and some have much bigger budgets. high income families, their spending outstrips low-income families, i am raising a child. >> you put that chart that you put together on that that is showing dark blue is less than $51,000 that folks make, the lighter blue is $61,000 to $160,000 and the red is people nick $160,000 and you can see they are spending on family expenditures. are these all types of expenditures? >> all sorts of things. everything i said, zero to 18 but not including college and you have the age of the child here. there's always a caveat and part of that is why is your family higher-income? if you have two earners may be have to spend more because you have child care to pay for so there's a circular loop going on but still those numbers do serve as a testament for high income families. >> host: independence caller. >> caller: i just want to say i told you the math, $1,000 a month, that is not too bad. i have two twin boys. it is costly but with that other call, you have to live within your means. we cut cable, we live -- had the opportunity to buy a larger house and bought a smaller house. that was in the budget. we literally have our cable bill is $15 and they are shocked and you don't need it. if you are working and busy and you don't have time to watch tv. that is not bad. they all seem to be doing well, swimming lessons and buy clothes at garage sales but we are not poor. we are not on any snap benefits. we try to make above average and bring household incomes of 80 to $100,000 but you have to live within your means. it can go quick if you don't watch what you're doing. >> host: you don't have cable? >> guest: >> caller: we have the very basic, $9. >> host: you still watch c-span. >> caller: i listen to it on the radio. it is 40. >> host: should people count the cost of the house for the expense of a child. you have a house you have some sort of dwelling. >> guest: the usda takes this into account when they factor additional children, they don't factor in the fact you might trade up houses for example to accommodate a new child. they use a lot of economic modeling to figure in the cost of a new bed room. these numbers are not realistic in that sense. you can't go out and buy another bed room for your existing home. but yet you are right, in real practical life the numbers don't work exactly the way you think they do but to his point about this not being a big price tag that is an excellent point to be honest and is something worth thinking about leaving them to $45,000 you think i don't have that kind of money of course you don't because that is spread out over 18 years and the wall street journal had a really good rebuttal to this point that it is an expensive number. online 9 courage anybody to read this, it is about the point you made about housing and also spread out over a lot of time and when you think on a per month basis it sounds more manageable than 245 k. >> look at how it is broken down in brackets. it can cost you $12,000, almost $13,000 per year, almost $13,000 per year from six to eight years old and 15 to 17 years old you are looking at $15,000 per year. those most be the most expensive years you are looking at to raise a child. >> it gets more expensive as the child grows. the other thing is if you get into the cold hard economics, this is your child you're thinking about. who doesn't want to spend on their child? of course the costs of paramount. >> host: we go to kimberly in washington, pa.. republican caller. >> caller: i would like to know where you got your figures from because everyone i know that is making $7.25 in southwestern pennsylvania they are not making that much money, $60,000 a year. >> caller: >> guest: these are from the usda and where they get most of them from our the consumer expenditure survey which is something the department of labour i believe does so they take those numbers and extrapolate estimates for low-income middle-income family for average families. word might better be typical in modeling how these things are done. >> host: let's talk about a factor in these numbers. you have the federal reserve in jackson hole, wyoming, recently and the federal reserve chairwoman talking about wages and she doesn't see, she sees the economy progressing but when it comes to wages it is not progressing and she's worried about that. >> absolutely. wages have become topic 1 not only at the fed but that central banks. this is something u.s. seeing, the wages and they go hand in hand. in that speech janet yellen got into a lot of bonds one hand arguments getting into the confusion of what is going on at the labour market and the fed admitted in the last year that it is more complicated than an unemployment rate did -- wage growth has been pretty depressed, bumping along at 2% and she was getting at the question of why they aren't going faster, she put forward a lot -- a few different arguments as to why that might not be happening. >> host: what are they and what do the fed's plan to do if anything? >> guest: one big one is something economists call downward wage rigidity and what that means is during the recession, the theory is during the recession employers wanted to lower wages, give people the opposite of a raise, a pay cut. but they new workers would try to leave etc. so employers didn't do that so they were essentials waiting to give people pay cuts and the idea that what you are seeing now is essentially a pay cut in the sense your holding people's wages steady and making up for everything that happened before during the recession. that is one idea but it is one of a few. if that is true that means we could be holding on all longer for the labour market to tighten up before the cost of labor can go up again. >> host: what about the company reported record profits when keeping wages of their employees flat? >> guest: absolutely and part of that is the cost of labor. part of that is rather that you have this much, the favorite word, slack in the labour market. think of that in supply and demand. one reason might simply be a have all that slack in the labour market, an excess supply of labour and employers can pick and choose who they would like and maybe not offer the kinds of salaries that they used to. >> host: we will hear from ashley next in pennsylvania. thanks for hanging on the line. >> caller: i am 19 and a single mom and don't get child support or anything like that. i want to have a family, my parents gave me up when i was young. i would like to see the cost of raising a child is hard for me, i want to point out different situations everybody. the price that you guys have would be about right but for someone like me it is nothing like that. i only bring home all the old over $800 a month and get paid weekly. it is definitely hard but that is because i have the determination to get out there and work for our income. my generation now has a hard time and there are a lot of single parents, like we weren't raised right or something. >> host: what are your monthly bills? >> caller: i am that have to live off of my friend's mother. i just realized there is a lot of government programs out there that can help out and i have been trying to get in contact with a lot of these programs and not getting an answer back. i have to stay on top of it. >> host: we hear from genes in illinois, republican caller. >> caller: how are you? good morning. i would like to make a comment mostly about the job market in reference to those who are getting higher degrees, bachelor's and master's degrees in today's market and their capability of being able to get a position for a job in their field that can support a family. it seems today in today's market is much more difficult for those with higher degrees to obtain employment within their fields. many families with a icing will or double income people have to bring in money by obtaining possibly two or three part-time jobs. this is an issue in our society we are dealing with because there are massive cutbacks in budgets in certain fields where these people fought they were going to get positions within their specialized fields and i don't know what we can discuss or do about this issue in the american market today that it is an issue. >> guest: great point about the job market. not being worth what once was. one memorable chart from the pew research center, they have done great work on this and when you look at what you earn from getting a bachelor's degree, it used to go up pretty quickly and now has leveled off. the question is always what is the alternative. the problem is that has gone down. the caller is absolutely right that the bachelor's degree and a master's may not be worth what it once was or have the promise of employment it once did but in terms of wages, it is far better than the alternative, the unemployment rate is elevated for everybody but for people with bachelor's degrees, people with less than that it is up here so the question is the trade off. >> host: we are talking about the cost of raising a child in 2013 and in general but usda puts on a new report recently that showed a child born in 2013 from birth to age 18 will cost $245,000 for a two parent family and we are talking about that and all the issues that go into raising a child, healthcare, housing, food, transportation, education, etc.. we have ten minutes left here to get your questions and comments, republicans 585-3881, democrats 585-3880 and independents and all others 585-3882. on twitter, today's segment is about income redistribution. government has lowered wages with state and local taxes everywhere you turn. does this calculation take into consideration taxes that you have to pay? >> guest: i don't believe that it does. once again, also, wages drive what people spend on their kids. once again there is a circular thing going on. suddenly all families especially lower-income families were earning more than they would start spending more. there is a certain amount of circularity in these figures as well. >> host: portland, ore. independent caller. >> caller: i have listened to you guys talking about the wage stagnation and the reason they are staying low is not because of a difference in the labor pool, a different mentality at the top of business. >> host: what do you mean? >> caller: they are piling up money. the depression, the economic problem we have. >> host: the recession? >> caller: yes, ma'am. they stopped spending money at all. >> guest: the mentality at the top of business, that mentality of how much to pay your workers, this is something that employers, it is the great debate, a lot of minimum-wage discussions on capitol hill. you want to spend more money on your workers it could hurt your bottom line but again you might have been knocked on affects, i am not paying my workers that much, i have to retrain someone new. i have gone e-mails from the gap, via paying our workers more and uping our company minimum-wage so to speak. but really, that is one way of helping the company's bottom line. it comes down to how the ceo of a company or the c f o thinks about how to keep our workers around and how do we once again get the biggest return on investment for all our workers. >> host: on twitter, if parents making minimum-wage can -- if parents are making minimum-wage can they afford to raise a child? parents can't afford to is paying. >> guest: part of that is the government. these of food -- these denting could outside spending. if there are generous grandparents or something like that, that helps out. government support for school lunches is a big one. that also can defrayed the cost of raising a child, at least from a day to day basis and that is not in these numbers. >> host: independence, from phoenix, arizona. welcome to the conversation. >> caller: my question is kind of unusual. i often hear the argument put forward that if wages are based on supply and demand and birthrates for american citizens, less than two for family and has been for a couple decades and my question is would it be more expense or less expensive if there weren't immigration that we have now? >> host: big question. >> guest: i am not sure i am qualified to answer is that but something to ask my stenographer experts. >> host: independent caller. >> caller: in line with what the last caller said, over 1 million persons legally in the united states, and 5,000 in here illegally. they are looking for jobs and there are 8 million jobs held by illegal immigrants and yet the restaurant owners and food service people and construction guys are clamoring that quotas the increased and then in the high-tech region, they want these people with degreeses in scientific fields, so that really lowers the wages for our own graduates in science technology. >> host: where did you get the $8 million figure? >> caller: it is very widely held. the center for immigration studies is a good place but some people say $7.5 million so i made it eight. rayburn house office building.5. >> host: got your point. >> guest: the big point i want to get out from what he brought up is the higher end of the spectrum, what he is talking about, tech jobs, high skilled tech jobs. this is something that is one of the most interesting debates in the economic and labour market community, the stem shortage so to speak. a lot of smart people say there is absolutely we need to bring people from other countries into jobs. some people say really not happening. it is arguable whether calling it stem is meaningful because it lumps together a lot of different professions but regardless, he is getting out one important question that really hasn't been answered and that is sort of a lot of companies are arguing for these h 1 b visas to get more workers in. >> host: bolognese in baltimore? >> caller: it is elena actually. one caller talked about people working three jobs. i am a single mom. i work three jobs. i have a full-time job that had two part-time jobs and work seven days a week. what i have noticed is i am always owing taxes at the end. just make ends meet i am taking more exemptions but end up owing more money in the end when it is tax time. i wish states would take into consideration -- i don't know how that would work but i'm finding myself going state taxes instead of federal taxes just to make ends meet so we can have a little bit more money in my check to take care of my kids. it is tough out there. i encourage everybody to keep your heads up and say afloat. >> host: danielle kurtzleben? >> guest: i can't speak to state tax on its own but in terms of ways to alleviate the burden on callers like her who are clearly plugging along to make ends meet, the earned income tax credit. expanding that has bipartisan support. that is a tax credit that benefits particularly lower income families and i don't exactly know but it sounds like it would benefit her. this is a major idea lot of experts and politicians think could boost families and a lot of politicians sees this as he does support the minimum wage often sees this as a sort of way to alleviate poverty and also raise of families that really are struggling. that could answer the tax question, alleviate tax burdens on people like elena. >> host: republican caller, hi, jerry. >> caller: i have a question for your guest. she is talking about the costs of rearing children, she had calculated any of the government assistance in that process and her figures? >> guest: these figures include what families spends. they don't include what i spend on kids. and visa not my calculations, these usda calculations, i can't claim credit for them. >> host: in texas, independent caller. >> there was a dictator in yugoslavia. they got together every week, management and labor, as far as i am concerned government has said i don't -- too many people and the government now can't afford any of their bills and the lot of is something about a dollar draft which our people could work but they don't take paid vacation days or paid holidays or benefits. one of worked at a hospital, only taking the day's salary, no benefits, got from private sources, i don't know how this will end. i am hoping it will turn out right for everybody including the children. that is not it. >> host: danielle kurtzleben. >> guest: she's getting at this question of wages, we are talking janet yellen trying to boost people's wages. boost inflation to a certain degree. the fed has been trying for quite a while with all of its easing, trillions of dollars, they get the point has been trying to fight deflationary and now it appears in the last few months we are seeing wages tick up word and some economists think this wage growth we have seen around 2%, we are going to see it start to increase at 2.5% towards the end of the year so that is great news. the question is how long does the fed continued doing a stimulus of maintaining low interest rates and those low interest rates of course are intended to boost consumers', boost spending on a mortgage, boost lending and that sort of thing. the question is when the fed dials that back and the fed is afraid of inflation getting out of control, now that it is a round 2% threshold so to speak. >> can congress do anything about the wage issue, inflation issue and does the fed want them to do something? >> guest: the fed, one of the things you would always see when ben bernanke went to capitol hill, he would sort of chide congress about if fiscal issues are edging into too much fiscal restraint that you can't diamondback too much. ..in terms of what congress cano about inflation, that is more the fed's realm. there are those who argue that you should increase the minimum wage. that is the most obvious thing congress can do about wages. that is really about where their realm lies. guest: an individual -- host: an individual tweets in -- ricky from syracuse, new york. democratic color. caller. democratic caller: we talk about the wages change and everything. if you look at the history of the united states of america, we were thriving in the 1950's. 50% of unions and then we started cutting unions and the corporation started making more money and they started sending money overseas. corporations are not people. they want to hold onto their cash. they don't get it. we should stop building in america. that is the problem. host: joe in annapolis. republican c what are your thoughts? >> caller: thank you for c-span. i listen every day as i drive to work and it occurs to me just about every topic comes down to someone have comments about taxes. so earned income credit is $4 billion from fiscal year 2012 of fraud. a lot of what people send in is not audited it's almost an honor system and there are people that will abuse the system to two to $4 billion i sympathize with the young lady that said that she's having trouble making ends meet. at the the government is writing checks it can't cash a cause we are 40 cents on the dollar of the federal spending that has to be borrowed. my last thought is that federal agencies like the department of agriculture that comes up with this study. it's an interesting point i don't know if we need to have government bureaucrats write a report about how much it costs to educate children. if that be done at all the state can do it. they should stop spending the people's money money and the department of education that didn't exist a few decades ago and is now in the business of telling local governments how much food and what kind of food to feed their children. it is just exasperating. >> host: did they get an explanation why they do this every year? >> guest: to be sure i'm not sure what the rationale is. i don't recall we do this because of xyz. you can make the argument of course this is part of what government does in order to better serve. it isn't just about coming up with the headline number. $245,000 makes headlines of course but that's not everything this report does. those numbers that i got how much is low income versus high incomes and this idea of the cost of childcare going up. there are plenty of things in the report bureaucrats use them to better serve people. >> host: good morning to you. >> caller: too many programs don't help. beatty incentivized instead of in sympathize. if we learn to take a lot of those programs and put them together and to subsidize people according to how much they make and if they are working full-time one person per head of household. say for instance you make $15,000 a year we try to get everybody as close as we can so you would get 400 to $500 a week if you are making 35,000 cubic get 100,000 a week direct subsidy. you could get from a lot of your food programs and if you couple that with the business and flat 10% income tax and you got rid of half of the foreign aid i guarantee you will have more left to incentivized people. it would do a lot for this country. >> caller: >> guest: if i understand correctly you give people money instead of these programs into that sort of thing. i have a colleague who's written a fair amount on this idea come it is a bit bigger but the idea of income people just automatically getting a certain amount of income and the idea of this what it it would've to incentivized and work as the caller said. so the caller isn't alone. this is something you have a certain number of opponents of the idea of incentivizing versus distance of devising and something that is a bit more complicated sometimes i think dan is always giving credit for. once again i sort of go back to this example of in order to be incentivized and not take unemployment she needs a job that pays pays for pays her well wild so employers do need to incentivized people to take those jobs so they can raise their kids right. >> host: you mentioned the unemployment rate has been a concern and what kind of action they take. the unemployment rate has gone down. president obama said recently that 200,000 jobs have been added every month over the last six months. so what kind of jobs have been added to the market and what are they paying? >> guest: she really covered everything but this is a big thing among the labor econ us to this idea of the job polarization. you have high income and high in skilled jobs. in the middle those are sort of they just aren't coming back into the recession and the recession is exacerbating the trend. healthcare has done a growth industry and at the other end, the retail food service and that sort of thing. that's where a lot of the jobs are coming back. this is one sort of caveat. >> host: correspondent with vox.com you can go to the website to follow her reporting and also go to twitter and hello danielle there as well. thank you very much. we are spending in some communities on education and incarceration more than anything else. we are dropping a lot of money at the back end. some communities for become a $50,000 a year. just imagine if some of these preventative programs you mostly work in or want to start, just imagine if you had $50,000 you could buy a new house per year but that money is poured down the hole because what happens is we allow the political forces that are going on in the country to come up and say walk them off and then when they come out they can't get a job, can't get a student loan. they can barely get access to their own children and then we wonder why they don't have anybody in their life. you see it. you see how this thing happened. now if you look at targeting in advance of this year's midterm elections in november from today's washington journal, this segment is just shy of 40 minutes. >> today marks 69 days until election 2014. so all week on the washington journal we are breaking down modern day campaigning. today we are taking a look at voter targeting from presidential campaigns to the congressional races congressional races we will take a look at how candidates running for office obtained voter information and use it to turn out voters and the ceo of the largest campaign technology firm in the world john aristotle phillips is joining us here on the set. thank you very much for your time this morning. voter targeting sounds odd to some people. >> guest: it's been around for a long time even before the advent of computers. it's you have a certain number of people that can express their democratic well on election day and the day and the idea to identify those that support you and then get them to the polls and those that are undecided for the candidate with a cause that we are supporting independent get them to the polls and leave everybody else alone, so it's looking for the people that will support you and getting them bear on the election day. >> host: why is it important and how you get that message out to a certain voter? >> guest: it's important because you don't have unlimited resources, the most important of which is time, not necessarily money. there is a lot of money in politics but you don't have time to convince everybody to the time and some people you are never going to convince anyway so it's important you don't spend time persuading those who are not going to support you or those who are already going to support you. you want to make it as easy as possible to vote for the candidate so the limited resources that campaigns are like a business, like a small business in many ways you have an uncertain cash flow and you need to know who your customers are. it's like a one-day sale. early voting and absentee voting changes things and makes it a little bit more complex but all those factors come into account as they planned a campaign strategy. a >> what are the campaigns doing, what information are they gathering to find the voters that they want to turn our? >> guest: great question. the data itself, the registered voter data is available from its public record and available to those engaged in the political campaign process. it doesn't matter what your affiliation is. that is the base information. on top of that you add information such as what the polling is showing for instance were ways to contact people. if you meet voters on the campaign trail you ask them for their e-mail address and you can communicate with them. that's an example of the kind of communication that gets added into the party ends up with a rich role that can be used to influence or get out the vote. >> host: what information is in the public record in the domain that you are gathering? >> guest: the core information is the name, the address, the street address for instance where they are registered to vote and then if if there's a party affiliation if the party is affiliated with the democratic party and then the sum of the key information in addition to that is the voting history so companies like aristotle spent a lot of time and money going to get if the person voted in the primary or the general election. we don't know how somebody voted but we do know generally speaking if they cast the ballot in the primary of the general election and based on whether they cast the ballot you are able to assign a probability as to whether they are going to vote again with little effort by the campaign they are going to vote anyway. those that have to come to the polls it's worth voting so it is the name can be name committee addressed by the history and the party affiliation. >> host: so that tells you that they voted and there's a probability they might vote against it doesn't really tell you how they might vote again. >> guest: so that's the mystery. it's to figure out how can i discern if this particular voter is going to vote for my candidate or against my candidate or just sit this one out. if if they don't frequently they are more likely to vote in the future. on the polling data for instance people with this education or income groups believe in this particular issue are going to support my candidate, there is a good guess this person is going to vote the way you want so that data the data is imported and it's about the contact that i have a website set up and i'm inviting voters to express their opinions and volunteer support and there are the proactive things the campaign can do so proactively we seek tv commercials intended to drive the voters to the website either purchased or the support, get a yard sign from the campaign come up in their front yard were offered to offer to drive other similarly minded voters to the polls. so the information to voter provides to the campaign is useful because there is nothing more accurate than what the voter himself or herself is going to say in whether they can support a candidate or not. there is also very valuable information that aristotle maintains as whether the voter has become tradition to the campaign. and increasingly mobile devices. mobile phones and templates and the like that can travel with the candidate so the voters that want is a book i support you how can i help? at that moment of the voter is likely to provide an e-mail address or other information and that's where the revolution is taking place this year. websites have been around for 15 years in terms of using these in politics. what we are seeing is the candidates that are innovative or using mobile devices to be able to capture the enthusiasm right on the spot when the candidate is doing the county fair where the hog judging contest where the beauty queen. when the voter comes up that is a great time. >> host: okay i want to give you money and then take your credit card out and you are seeing technology today like foursquare you can swipe the card and gather what information? >> guest: that is what happened. a taxicab driver -- we participate in tests with the company in the 2012 presidential election and it's great for certain things for capturing the contribution that it was fairly limited in terms of the type of information you could capture. this is called amp and fits on any smartphone or tablet and what it template and what it will do is allow that candidate or his or her assistant to capture the information from the swipe of a credit card or driver's license or type of id card and that immediately will tell the candidate the identity of the voter and whether they are likely to vote based upon those demographics that we spoke of so this is like a square on the steroids. if they say i like what you stand for congressman i want to support you if this particular voter is somebody that gives a thousand dollars to campaigns traditionally you don't want to ask for $25, you want to ask for more. if they are 25-dollar donor you don't want to offend them by asking too much. with this you can capture it. another way that it works is off the campaign trail elected officials and others have constituents coming up to them all the time saying i didn't get my social security check. with the other form of identification with the identity can immediately be entered into the congressional constituents casework. so right there on the spot you can get it started to help the voters into the constituents resolve whatever issue they have with respect to the government. so it is a very effective way of letting elected officials communicate with their constituents in order to get the greatest benefit for the constituents themselves or herself. >> host: the ceo we are talking about voter targeting. take your questions and comments now. republicans 585-3881 from democrats (202)585-3880 and independent 585. join on twitter or you can can go to facebook.com/c-span and send an e-mail journal@c-span.org. you are talking about this has been around for a long time to voter targeting has turn out a long time talking about the technology it raises privacy issues. how do you protect all this data? >> guest: is significant with this type of data and of course it isn't medical information. there are types of private information to the registered voter record as a public record and it necessary for elected officials and party organizations and individual voters who want to get involved in the party to have access to that court information so the voter files are protected under state law and are allowed to be useful for political purposes. political purposes and others are not so much so. this information should be restructured to the exercise of democratically constitutionally protected speech rather than marketing. >> host: so the public voting and polling and perhaps somebody has given a donation and you have that information. then are you going down to one voter at a time to target them with the campaign ad or some sort of solicitation? hell doesn't work how does it work when you've gathered the information? >> guest: the campaign provides tools to allow the campaign to sort through that information and make those determinations as to whether or not this particular voter is interested in the particular issue for instance if the voter has kids in the household and they are less interested in retirement issues and on the other hand if their kids are gone, no kids in the household they will be less interested in education issues. you might want to but that isn't really the issue that's going to get these people to go to the polls so they have software tools which we provide to allow them to know what to concentrate on the database. >> host: and they can zero it down into their districts and then how do they take that information from the software that you provide and act on? >> guest: they can get it down to the certain districts in households for instant and they can pinpoint which voters to talk to. if they volunteered their e-mail address for instance they can sometimes bypass going into direct mail or using the telephone to communicate by e-mail. but the holy grail is to be able to get into a one-to-one communication with the voter area television is very effective. it's an emotional media. it's effective but to really engage one to want to get them to tell you what is really on their mind and what they really want to hear from you in order to consider voting for you that's where technology is going and campaigns are going not just in the united states but around the world where aristotle is active in the emerging technologies to help elected officials and those who want to be elected officials and vice versa. >> host: we'll talk we will talk more about that but first i want to go to maryland, republican caller. go ahead. >> caller: i am independent. i have a question for mr. john aristotle phillips. is there a website that has accumulated information of all the candidates so we can have a better idea of who we are voting for like more in-depth information on the candidate? >> guest: that is a good question. there are quite a few websites which are sponsored by the parties communicating with what they be read is the position of the various candidates both the ones that are supporting and the ones that are not editors also websites like democracy.com where you can actually go and get some information about who the candidates are. so if you google the voter information you will find the secretaries of state maintained websites they list website they list the candidates and campaigns. aristotle maintains a website called where i vote.com where you can find information about the campaigns and also find out where your polling place is. >> host: when did you start doing this? >> guest: i was thinking about this as i was about to come on 332 years ago my brother and i started and we were both out of college and we were nonpartisan and to enable candidates to communicate with the same resources and raise money, contact supporters and be able to compete to level the playing field in the contest between the one type of political speech and one person's point of view and another. there is archive of my brother and i at the time actually doing the election they broadcast. since ronald reagan has used a product that aristotle makes with thousands of elected officials and party organizations and challengers, trade associations and advocacy groups. it really runs across the spectrum. thousands and thousands of people purchase the products and services and uses them in their campaign. >> host: your offices are not too far we are showing the viewers not too far from the capital. why are you located a few blocks from the nation's capital? >> guest: we've been there ever since we founded the company. so that is a long time in that location. we've expanded into some of the adjacent buildings and we have offices in san diego and atlanta, the data center in london for some of the work that we do. we are close to the capitol because that's where the customers are. probably the only business in the world with congressmen said they want to see with the latest innovation is for the campaigns. many members of congress and the staff politics is their life and so this is very important to them and we'd like to see what the latest is. >> host: so when a member of congress sits down in your office what are you telling them? >> guest: usually they are asking the question. they want to know how they can use their mobile phone him up at the best techniques are held to raise more money is a big factor, how to report the money accurately and legally which is a critical requirement. campaigns are regulated business and reporting the information accurately is vital to the campaign. so they have lots of different questions but many of them want to know what's next. these are politics in the united states. it's survival of the fittest and these elected officials are quite adept at figuring out how to survive in the system and advanced and so part of that is knowing what the latest is and knowing what the competitors or others might be using against them and what they should be using to advance their cause. >> host: what are the platforms they can use and what are the most important? >> guest: sure. we have a website called voter rates online which is where any political candidate can go once they've been identified they can purchase the actual data for the district. no charge for that and they can create a map to see where that constituents are the constituents are if they choose to purchase the data he can do so with a credit card. we have amp that we've been talking about which is a small mobile device that plugs into a standard tablet or mobile phone. then we have something called campaign contribution.com and that is an online service anybody can put on their website that allows them to take american express, mastercard, discover as a campaign contribution. the voter iq is for organizations with the party or outside of the party mainstream they can use the voter iq much as one would use for the get out the vote effort. i mentioned where i vote.com and then we do a lot of work internationally as well. >> host: once they get it how do they use the campaign and what of the platforms? >> guest: it's been constantly updated. we are already working on the 2016 version. it keeps the registered voters, the party officials see you get a 360-degree view of the registered voter and you have the ability to make sure they are targeted and relevant to the voter. you are able to then select and sort out the voters you want to reach and communicate with them in the most efficient way as possible by e-mail and phone depending on what they opted into. >> host: go ahead. >> caller: i voted yesterday in florida and it just occurred to me i've heard so much about the voter id and i asked around the voters that were off walking around. what do you think of this we have to show our drivers license or whatever and how many states don't do this? i would like him to explain the whole thing about the voter id and why people don't want it. we've been doing it for years and i never paid any attention to it. >> guest: i'm not an expert so i have to confess i can't explain that to you. i know that is an issue people have strong opinions on but it's not something i know much about. >> host: is that information being gathered and collected and stored somewhere in the public domain? >> guest: i don't know the nature of the law specifically and that isn't something that aristotle is involved in. up to the moment that you vote at the polling place, we are involved. it's the state and county and local officials enforcing the law. >> caller: i have a question. he thinks that his product or his services help level the playing field or does it enhance the ability of candidates with a lot of money to continually be reelected and i will let him answer the question. >> good question. incumbents have a built-in advantage when it comes to running the elections except when they don't. when they don't is when they're at home it is able to mount an effective campaign targeting those voters so i would say it doesn't make use of the latest technology or make efficient use of the resources we talked about time and money. it's going to be a disadvantage. i used the analogy earlier small businesses that don't use computers these days to keep track of the customers and be able to send out they don't do as well as companies that manage to for instance out of our san diego office is for customers to campaigns that use technology will be added to advantage reporting the money accurately and then the voter targets. >> host: how do you predict the behavior and how accurate is the message? >> guest: it depends on the situation. sometimes the voters are changing their mind up to election day. 48, 72 hours before the election and some big up their mind long before so part of this is to try to sift through those that have like the lady that called earlier that already voted. if you can identify those that already voted and moved them from the pool they might have voted by absentee ballot if we moved them from the pool of people that you're talking about only into the election day you will be able to vote them. you use polling in your own intuition and the interactions you've had with the voters. if somebody is saying they are supporting you and making contributions and you leverage that support for social media for instance on the facebook, twitter, you can use that. have them help you convince their friends and associates which is one of the things the software program does. you will be using the media effectively. >> host: thank you for taking my call. i just have a few comments. she made questions why people have settled on the voter id law or requirement. my statement is basically in terms of the question how many the literacy that was applied to new immigrants in the 1890s keeping them from voting was so pervasive and so nefarious many people when they hear the idea now i have to have them other barrier just to vote it just brings up the connotations or when there is so much discrimination in terms of the suffrage for any american. how many bubbles in a bar of soap. that is the question that i was asking particularly in the south after they've met all of the requirements they go to the polling to vote. who can answer that question? >> host: let's talk about john aristotle phillips, the demographics of the country and when you look at race does a certain race put them in a category of not likely to vote? >> guest: i don't think the campaigns that are eager to motivate are going to write off anybody because of their race or ethnic background or their age. if you move it to the question of the demographics for instant on age and some campaigns might write off the boat because young people are less likely to vote than people that are older. that is an established pattern. those that do are vulnerable to a challenge or independent group that's going to try to motivate and communicate with and connect and motivate younger voters to go to the polls and what happens often when there is enough set when an incumbent is comfortable , they do not expect the kind of nature of the well-organized challenge of the type we've been talking about and they've often written off the key voting blocs because they miscalculated whether a certain group was going to come to the polls. that very thing which is identifying who's likely to vote and support you if you miscalculated that which is another reason why the technology is so important to be integrated in a campaign strategy and it happens all the time. >> host: fort myers florida independent caller. >> caller: what stopped it from "because that is an issue in the current system. >> host: that is not a public right-click the windows we voted for. >> guest: there are competing interests between who is a registered voter for instance, the name of the registered voter and the arguments on both sides if you are running running the political campaign and the party were engaged in the political speech outside of the campaign, you are entitled to access the same information in incumbent congressman or senator or governor has access to and backwards to restrict access to the information unfortunately our efforts by those that have access to the information they don't want their political opponents to get access to the same information. that information is a public record and who is registered to vote is a public record. how you vote, nobody knows. >> host: eric cantor lost the primary bid for the election and one piece in the paper reported that his district had been read john to include more republicans but for the congress didn't take into account is that those would be the republicans that would vote against him in the primary that they like the idea of the opponent. is there a way of looking at the data to see this person is more of a republican that this but this person is 14 party affiliated in what you might see as mainstream republican candidates. >> guest: there is probably more than one explanation for what happens in the race. probably much of it has to do with the capabilities of the team that won the election as opposed to the decision piece of the campaign strategy on the part of the incumbent. but i suspect it's through a combination of those things. voters sometimes change their mind and the most redistricting can sometimes work to the disadvantage of the person that thought he or she was drawing a line to their own advantage. another thing that happens is a lot of movement. people move in and out of state so states like nevada if you are not taking into account voters from california who made them register as republicans in california and now they move to nevada that have not yet registered if you are not reaching out to those people before the election you are missing it with the voter registration drive. if you are running the campaign for the democratic in the congressional district for instant you should be talking to people who moved into the state with a significant number of people. it's one of those instances they try to be very effective. travis in vermont. >> caller: good morning. mr. phillips i have a quick question with regards to how your company helps determine that they are together voter is going to sway and i was wondering if you purchase information from internet workers in the companies that mine internet for the information about people and then sell it off to other companies. we provide the tools to the campaign manager software and the campaign has their own strategy and they figure out which voters to target based upon most commonly the campaigns strategy as to who they are going to target and who they are not going to be focusing on and one thing to determine who is likely to vote which the technology is very good at discerning who's likely to vote and likely to make a contribution. the contribution. once you have determined that, then it has to do with polling. our company provides information to the pollsters for instance when they pick a sample most that sample from the registered voter filed utilize the data in some form or fashion in order to make sure that when they call the voter to ask the random sample generated from a registered voter that they are actually talking to somebody that's registered to register to vote. very helpful for the pollster to note if a person on the other end of the phone line whose expressing an opinion on this particular evil action actually is registered to vote and voted in the last election. sometimes people ask are you registered to vote even when they know the answer to that question to determine the veracity. so the polling is key and something many campaigns rely upon. >> host: you collect 500 data points that sounds like a lot. what does that mean? >> guest: it starts with that core piece of information we spoke about and then there's other information so for instance if the person has made a contribution if they need not just a campaign that they made a contribution for instance to the nonprofit groups somebody that has given for instance two in animal rights group or religiously affiliated organization people who make those types of donations are better prospects for the campaign to approach if the candidates position is aligned with the voter's position on a particular issue. this is true with respect to second amendment issues. it goes across the board. so not every record has 500 data points but those that the campaign are looking for if you want to find somebody that's going to donate to the campaign you are way better off going to somebody that donated in the past and we do maintain a list of all of the people that is a public record. collecting the information who's made a conservation to any candidate or political cause for instance instance going back almost a decade in certain areas so you are able to see people who make contributions on a frequent basis. >> host: arlington virginia republican caught. >> caller: actually conservative. on the integrity by oversight is theft and other problems online. i'm extremely concerned when you say to the audience of the c-span audience that you are using public data. i'm aware of the data mining that's going on and a lot of the data that is being referred to as is being mined by international companies. many are being investigated by the ftc. there was recently the situation of unlocking the cell phones. i happen to have the personal experience of traveling to a place i wanted my phone unlocked. they asked me questions nobody would know what. 30 years ago involving people i have no history with but i knew enough to then address the situation of where the information is coming from. it's these sites that your entity and those like you say it's public information. actually it's not. it's information that's been aggregated and is now being used as a major problem. >> host: let's get a response. >> guest: i'm not familiar with the companies that you mentioned that the voting record itself is a public record and access to it is constitutionally protected. other types of information that you mentioned i don't know about them but i do know that aristotle provides a service that is evaluated by the federal trade commission in the area of copper that stands for the child online privacy protection act and this is called a safe harbor which aristotle has been designated as and it requires the law itself requires companies that wish to collect information from children that they obtained the exclusive consent from the parent and this is an area of the law that is evolving that we think it's very important and we have a solution for companies or government agencies that want to collect and get that explicit consent to collect information from the kid. >> host: what are the international clients compared to the american clients? >> guest: that's interesting. the notion is that some of these international clients are running less sophisticated campaigns running less sophisticated campaigns than those in the united states. our experience in the countries such as tunisia or afghanistan or elsewhere where the campaigns are gearing up for instance mobile phones exceed what the standard is here in the united states through the sophistication of the voter targeting and the voter collection. each country differs and the circumstances so a country like tunisia that's come out right after arab spring just being able to get your tv commercials if you are the opposition is very, very difficult debate in our case to beat in our case working with the secular candidate in and the muslim brotherhood was on the other side. it was very difficult to communicate using traditional means that using other means like mobile phone for e-mail those methods of communicating with voters to get rid of whoever is in power sometimes for them to increase the support we've been involved in the campaign and the continent and when we first started the company we were brought in and the philippines so we learn as much from these international engagements which are generally speaking we will bring in the poll and media consultant and the team together to run the modern western-style campaign that we learn as much from these engagements as anything. >> host: do you think that it's helped to turn out the voters? >> guest: this device was first experimented with more than a decade ago. it was an entire handheld device used for the mayor of london where he wanted a solution to be able to harness these people that came up to them when he was walking down the street saying i want to support you say i like what you stand for and they had no way to collect that information except the people writing on the index cards so that is an example of the technology. thank you for your time. i appreciate it. >> matthew rosenberg was expelled from afghanistan for writing what they deemed a divisive article. he's at the national press club this afternoon and you can watch that live at 2 p.m. eastern on our companion network c-span2. at 4 p.m. it's a look at digital campaign in this year's midterm election. speakers include representatives from president obama reelection campaign and the mitt romney campaign. on today's washington journal we finished up the program by opening up the phone for viewer comments on any topic. this is about half an hour. >> host: the u.s. is mobilizing its allies to widen these possible strikes. the united states has began to mobilize the allies against the military action and serious and is moving towards expanded air strikes in northern iraq. the official start was broadening the campaign against the sunni militants of the islamic state in iraq and serious and nearing a decision to authorize strikes of food and water around a northern town of iraq. so what is next for syria the "washington post" relies on the basis in the persian gulf for the airstrikes in iraq. craig is reporting the u.s. military is relying on the basis of the persian gulf and elsewhere in the middle east to carry airstrikes but is masking the location and other details about the units and aircraft involved with embarrassing partners in the region. they have long hosted u.s. forces to bolster their own security but most have shied away from acknowledging the presence and they are even more reluctant with the targets in iraq. the story goes on to say in the next column over that at an airbase in qatar the outgrowth of the war in afghanistan and the 2003 invasion of iraq is the home to about 9,000 u.s. troops and contractors and its principal unit is a 379 air expeditionary wing which has more than 90 combat aircraft and support claims at this base in qatar. president obama when he was speaking before the american legion national convention in north carolina yesterday talked about the strategy in iraq and serious. here's what he had to say. >> the answer isn't to send large-scale military deployments that overstretched the military and lead for us occupying countries for a long period of time and end up feeding extremists rather than military action in iraq has to be part of a broad strategy to protect the people and support our partners to take the fight. so we are strengthening our partners and military assistance to the government and kurdish forces and modern opposition and serious. we are urging the iraq used to forge the government that can deliver on a national unity and strong security forces and good governance that are ultimately going to be the antidote against terrorists. building the coalition including the allies to support iraq east as they take the fight to these barbaric terrorists. >> yesterday in north carolina before the american legion audience where he announced next step on veterans issues and their outlined his thinking on what is happening in iraq and the u.s. strategy as well as possible airstrikes in the area. charlie in new york a republican called. go ahead. >> caller: thank you. a general comment if you don't mind. obama wrote into the white house on the backs of stupid people and the media that has completely abandoned the standards of journalistic integrity. given the current approval numbers, only the very stupid are still supporting him. 25 years from now historians are going to ask how is an anti-semitic american hating racist elected president of the united states? but they are going to do is look at the 2008 election -- >> host: can i ask you why you pick those claims about the president? >> caller: wide-awake those claims about the president? you don't know quite >> host: if your opinion but tell us why. >> caller: why would he gave money and weapons to terrorists and walk missile shipments to israel if he wasn't an anti-semite? why would he release onto the streets tens of thousands of illegal alien criminals including murderers and rapists if he didn't hate us. >> host: herald, hollywood florida democratic called. >> caller: hello. i was going to comment on something else that i was listening to the previous caller and the only comment i am going to make is simply this, there are people like that out. they scare me and i feel like eventually one of them is going to get me. the reason i'm calling is this. a couple weeks ago you had experts on the field of education. i'm a retired teacher and i was trying to get through and i do appreciate you taking the call but i want to ask one simple question. have you ever worked in the classroom and i don't mean to go in for one day as a guest speaker i mean day after day year after year. everybody it seems to me is an expert on as an expert on education. why? because everybody is in school. it's a matter of how much and with training and what kind of degrees they have but i just wish that some of these people who think they have every possible answer would simply say i taught for this many years. a friend of mine and i were having lunch and swapping stories one day and i said to him do you think anybody would be interested in reading this and he said absolutely not. get the check and let's start writing. we did get the book published, it is in paperback and i won't say what it's called -- >> host: go ahead. >> caller: it's called classroom classics. it's in paperback and all we did is really some of the experiences we had expressed from opinions about what's going on in an education and i just wanted to get this out of my system -- >> host: we appreciate that. shreveport louisiana. republican called. >> caller: it's good to talk to you. i haven't talked to you for a while, but i'm calling about this climate change mess. we aren't going to get a treaty in this country, thank god, because we are being forced by obama who can't run a country and is destroying america and the borders are open and we have had jobs for the fuel problem and everything else, but this is unreal. .. all right. wayne is referring to the front page of "the new york times," obama pursuing a climate accord in lieu of a treaty, because that would require approval by the senate. "that is not realistically going to happen, the president negotiating some sort of politically binding deal with these other countries to try to name and shame them into lowering emissions. out that is the front page of "the new york times yuriko richard, -- new york times here, -- new york times." i think that the obama presidency is 100 times worse than what we are willing to admit. c-span,like to see "washington journal," do a program on -- i keep reading these reports about troops being brought into the country and trained here for urban warfare, stationed at aces close to federal lands, that is where they are training. if c-span could get enough people to really verify or deny this, but it looks to me like this possibly could be a serious threat against the people. >> host: okay. we are in open phones this morning for the next 30 minutes. you can start dialing in. public policy issues, and you can talk about what's happening in iraq and possible airstrikes in syria, as well as domestic issues, what the president announced yesterday on veterans affairs and trying to improve care for our nation's veterans. let me show you the front page of the "washington times" this morning. -- "the washington times," this morning. on that american citizen, here's a picture of him, an american who converted to islam died during clashes in syria while fighting the islamic state. mike in sturgis kentucky democratic color. go ahead. mike? open -- good morning. >> caller: what law wasn't that george bush passed that we would get these people coming over here, these children? president obama has deported more people than anybody else. back home i talk to people here in kentucky. [inaudible] people say the ports are wide open. released barack obama didn't speak spanish when he was working, running for office. thank you. >> host: bryant in michigan, democratic caller. >> caller: hello. i don't understand the fox viewers that called in on both democrat and republican long. i'm getting tired of hearing that line. this president has accomplished more in his last six years than most presidents do into terms. the other thing is, he hasn't had anything more done because the republicans refused to vote. they said the first day he was in office, before that they wanted to stop him. they have been doing a real good job of it. so all you people out there that voted republican, you ought to think about it. all these people are dragging their feet. >> host: we will hear from jody, a democratic caller. >> caller: i just wanted to say, he is right on. i worked for 40 some years and i'm retired, and there's a toddler teacher, i would give anybody the opportunity to go and put snow pants on 14 toddlers, and not just for one day, as he said. you know, it's very hard work. it's underappreciated part of society and i also think the legislators should have to volunteer in a comfort zone that they are not comfortable with. that might give them an opportunity to see what the world really is. >> host: do you mean teaching? >> caller: teaching or just volunteering out of their comfort zone. i think the legislators also need to get their tailback to congress to help the president out of. >> we will hear from robert next, republican caller. >> caller: hello. i just want to let people know that the irs scandal going on right now, it's probably the worst thing to happen in this country since watergate. it's 10 times worse than watergate. the reason is the conservatives and the tea parties are having to vote against the federal government, having to vote against the unions. we are having to vote against the obama supporters and the union organizers and all the organizers that obama did. it makes it kind of hard for the conservatives to control the federal government and all the spending. they are over extending on the spending because we can't control it. we are having to vote against all the federal workers that want all this to stay in place. so we are having to vote against everybody else that doesn't think on the conservative line. it's really in bad shape, this country is getting in. >> host: gym in pennsylvania, independent. >> caller: hey, i'm a veteran of the united states honorable discharge member. we had standards according to the geneva convention the none of these terrorists even on any of that. and i think we need to do something about it. i think what got to do is when they kill an american, behead an american they've held hostage, we ought to go to guantánamo bay to these guys have been convicted and execute them and send, live stream, over to these countries. we have supported syria, iran, iraq, afghanistan. we have supported these terrorist groups over the years, fight these regimes they did one in the we armed them. we funded them. look what they do. it turned around and do it. so i say at the foreign aid for all these countries, and if we going to country and we fight and save the country, that it should be claimed as a territory of the united states. then we don't have to worry about that country anymore. >> host: all right. "washington times" front page. the washington times," front page, "arizona vets didn't died due to waitlist." detailing what happened at health care facilities, including the one in arizona. >> host: president obama ahead of yesterday's report by the ig before the american legion at the national convention in north carolina put out several executive orders, about 20 of them. here's a few. new recruiting campaign to fill shortage of doctors and nurses at the hospital's. automatically enrolled military personnel who are receiving care for mental health conditions. he also says the administration would undertake a study designed to detect whether people show signs of being vulnerable to suicide or post-traumatic stress syndrome, and 34.4 million will be set aside for a be a suicide prevention study, involving about 1800 veterans at 29 hospitals. you also have 80 million to treat diseases including post-traumatic stress syndrome -- host: >> host: the va secretary, bob mcdonnell to come was also with the president yesterday in north carolina. here's what he had to say about investigations into the management of people at the va facilities. >> since they first, 2014, we have taken over 30 personnel actions and investigations are ongoing. two members of the senior executive service have resigned or retired. three members of the senior executive service have been placed on administrative leave pending the results of the investigations. over two dozen, over two dozen health care professionals have been removed from their positions. and for more gs-15's are below have been placed on administrative leave. >> host: the va secretary robert mcdonald took over for eric shinseki after the va scandal broke about the facilities across the country with wait lists. also inspector general's report investigated suicide at these facilities. the "washington times" has this, 77 patient at the phoenix va who committed suicide -- host: >> host: angel in hyattsville, maryland. go ahead. >> caller: hi, good morning. i'm calling on independent line but i am what you describe as conservative but not republican. i felt voting republican when republican party stopped being conservative, they spend money we don't have. so i'm an independent now. what i'd like to say is listening to c-span, listening to the republicans calling in, this just nicely of what my dad did. [inaudible] dumbing down america. we call in on a radio station. we don't have our facts. the president come is to come he's done quite a lot. let's just stick with it. he has done a lot and now we have a terrorist not come here. he's taking the fight to the. i'm comfortable within killing themselves over there, i'm sorry. i'd rather have them do that than to bring the fight here. economy is doing much better. the dow jones a fantastic. the s&p is great. we should stop being so hatred and deal with facts. until the republican party goes back to its values of being conservative, of not interfering in other countries affairs, i will not vote republican. >> host: all right. arizona, independent caller. >> caller: hello. >> host: go ahead. >> caller: hello, good morning. i just want to make a statement of fact. number one, there are people in the congress, and this is documented, that they swore an oath to try to stop everything that the president did. number two, polls have been taken with 45% of america, voting america, a racist. and number three, over 30,000 death threats have been made towards the president, more than any other president in the history of the united states. and people are calling in, saying how bad the president is, and they are just using their reasons for hiding the truth. they do not like this man because he is black, and they hate the idea o of the good job that he is doing. >> host: lending and prescott, arizona, democratic caller. >> caller: good morning. a couple of things. in the 1980s i worked for the number two tv network news, k. abc-tv in l.a. when rupert murdoch started by little stations in los angeles, he absolutely ruined it all. excellent news reporting but he started to say what to call democrats. is telling reporters what you words to use. is remember fox news, it's not news. it's faux news. the second thing is, philosophical, christ would never be invited to the republican national convention because his platform is exactly the opposite of what republicans want which is to make the rich richer. my concluding statement is this. obama is doing a fine job. let's go back in time. 9/11 happened on the republicans watch. you know, the super national defense people. then the patriot act where george w. bush literally wiped himself of the constitution. crash the world economy on his watch, legalized torture, abu ghraib you, guantánamo bay. the president, our president did not do any of those things. and just remember, fox news, they are not journalists. they are fascist. >> host: sacramento, california, democratic caller. are you there treachery yes. sorry about that, greta. you know, the previous callers on the democratic line and independent sort of stole my thunder. when it comes to president obama, he has done an excellent job. i'm a retired marine and i've seen this country go and i've been retired 35 years. but i'm 74, and i see nothing but hatred coming from the republican party. i mean, i've never seen so much hatred since the 1940s and '50s as far as -- >> host: lecture from republican. somerset new jersey. go ahead. >> caller: now it's not a new idea i think. [inaudible] we have to make sure these places on syria or iraq, whatever, our friendly, good people taking the place. another point which i think i want to come across is all the people which you may find who went to fight for isis, or any other terrorist organization should be stripped right away for postmortem of their citizenship. >> host: okay. tonia fort lauderdale, florida. independent caller. good morning. >> caller: thanks for taking my call. i listen to the program with the james carafano yesterday. and he was saying that isis is pretty well-funded. he said by some foreign nations, but he didn't mean the foreign nations. i would like them to come back and name them. it is syria. it's not iran. it's not saudi arabia. it most probably is qatar and maybe others. can he explain why there funding isis? >> host: do you know what? you might be interested in "the new york times" piece this morning on the front page about obama trying to rally the allies in the middle east. because inside that they toggle a bit about which countries have been known to be funding these terrorists. so look it up there. i will try to find it as well as would take more phone calls. baltimore, maryland, independent caller. go ahead. >> caller: as i've listened to some of these callers i've changed the subject of what i would like to speak about. the same that appalls me, first of all on 87, i'm a world war ii veteran, and i enlisted on my 17th birthday. but the thing that people are overlooking so strictly is we have such great hope for the u.n., and the u.n. has become virtually helpless in the light of all the activity that we see in the middle east. if they are going to be helpless, they should also be found less. we can use the money much better to our allies defeat outfits like isis. that's all i have to say. >> host: all right. nicole, baltimore, democratic caller. >> caller: good morning. >> host: good morning. >> caller: yes. my husband and i are both on ssi. we're both disabled. we recently got married in july and i will back to social security. when i reported that we got married, we are receiving less than what we had before. they are taking about, let's see, about $400 out of a check each month. i live in baltimore and the price of living is like so high where i live that. we are barely making it where we live at and everything. we can't not go out and work and everything because social security would basically cut are so so security and everything and cut our benefits. so i'm kind of like in a jam right now on what to do with that and i'm kind of upset with the government because they put us between a rock and a hard place. >> host: all right, knuckle. the previous caller was asking about what countries are known to be funding some of the isis of terroristic this is from "the new york times" that says that -- it goes on to talk about the other intricacies of our getting allies to join up in efforts with the united states if they are going to be possible air strikes in that country. so that's a little bit from "the new york times." you can go read more from their front page story. john in brooklyn, new york. democratic caller. >> caller: good morning, c-span, and thank you for taking my call. i want to comment about how our president, barack obama, i believe he is a very efficient president. the nickname they give them as a scaffold president is a very good description. since he's been in office six years i think he is very thought-provoking and thinks things through, and that is the reason for some of the things that have happened. for example, the stock market has almost doubled. we have had up to our border security. is trying to take on the challenges of the war in a very detailed and thought-provoking manner. that is my opinion of her president. i like a president who thinks things through difficult situations around the world. the last point i would make real quick is about energy. i think the world and mankind has progressed with energy use going through renewable energy because we have 6 billion people on the planet and a lot more to come. we have -- mankind has to advance it's thinking about the future use of energy. and thank you so much for taking my call. >> host: from the "washington post" below the fold and this one is the headline -- ," post "top drug official is michael, and he's an alcoholic." >> host: so that in the "washington post" this would. you also have this in "the wall street journal" this morning. ys morning, the executive pick to run healthcare.gov, kevin kahneman -- host: >> host: take a look at the picture there. is now taking over management of healthcare.gov. joseph, providence, rhode island, independent caller. >> caller: hello, good morning. hey, i want to talk about iraq. you know, iraq, iran, syria, ethiopia -- not ethiopia. egypt. of all of them countries get together and come to america and take over america, i would be the happiest person in the world. i would be the happiest man in the world because the united states -- in washington, d.c., you have them on the ground. i know where most of them are at a goes on the one that works under the building. i could show everybody everything about washington. >> host: miami, florida, independent caller. >> caller: yes. if you want to see a for the black community is, ask them their opinion on gay civil rights. i think it bites you lived of prejudice. when i was on the march in washington 92, the most while things so that people were by the black churches along the routes. thank you. >> host: we are in open phones for a few more minutes so we can keep taking your phone calls this morning. the front page of "the wall street journal" -- street journa, agreed to new cease-fire. cairo truce talks are planned for next months,ndin that in seven weeks of conflict in more than 2200 people who had been killed in that. so taking your phone calls here for a few more minutes. start dialing in. warnings on libya in cushions. that's a headline in the a natural times this morning. here's a quote -- s on libya incursions, this is the headline this morning -- >> host: so a little bit about qatar's role in all of this as well. the uae and egypt through these airstrikes suppose that the u.s. knowing but a column on defense ones website saying that there's no way the united states did not know about these airstrikes, given the strong ally that egypt and the uae have been. tony in indiana. go ahead. >> caller: yes. this is tony calling. i guess calling on the line. i was basically station in florida manage but the subject at hand i just had to call in because i listen to a lot of you guys, you know, different people from across the region and they talk about the issues at hand. currently being i voted for barack obama, now i think about it, he is totally lied to the american people. i am totally sorry. i am a single father and i am a black american, and from what i've seen, a lot of things have changed and he is no different from bush. i mean, the region, the wars that's going on. it just seems like it's expanding government. i'm not a tea party if it or anything like that, but it's just so many different issues going on as far as amnesty, the border. how quick they so take care of ourselves if we are letting more people and? >> host: missouri, democratic caller, go ahead call me yes. i want to kill everybody if they want to go back to 1999, we had a budget by clinton. nobody knew that bush was going to go to war. he took medicare part d come he didn't pay for. he didn't pay for the war. he didn't pay for the veterans to come home. from iraq. somehow somewhat over eight times. >> host: i'm going to get done in quickly because we're running out of time, illinois, independent caller. >> caller: how are you? >> host: good morning. >> caller: the point i want to make is i believe that obama is his father's son. the biggest secret that's been kept is what did his father do for a living? and what he did, he was an international communist organizer. and the kid lived with his old man until he was 16 years old. >> host: i have to leave it there. we're out of time. >> is look at what's coming up today on c-span2. next to me congressional hearing on brain injuries and elderly. and hearing on the veterans transition to civilian life. later and "washington journal" segment looking at the destruction of chemical

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