promising a more modest and humble foreign policy. and explicitly disavowing any intention to do what is called nation-building. now the phrase nation-building to me is an oxymoron, like the phrase orchid building. you don't build orchids and you don't build a nation. they are products of long, complicated natural organic evolution. so the idea a nation can be built the way we built with something pulling the parts about and putting them back together was all going in and certainly refuted by the unpleasant experience we have had trying to put iraq back on its feet. the eve of invasion of iraq, remember the pottery rule, if you break it, you own it. and we owned it for years. host: what is the state today?

guest: iraq, so far so good. there are unresolved questions, the kurds in the north are essentially an independent country, they have their own flag and passports and oil. and the question is will iraq tolerate this session there. and second, once the united states is gone wield the bitterness that has prevailed there for generations continue to subside or will there be a resurgence of it? i don't know. >> host: florida is our next question on the democrats on. >> caller: good morning and thank you for taking my call. mr. will, i understand you do have a vast amount of knowledge of this world, but personally i consider you one of the vanguards of the party of no.

you have a lot of proposals for the administration all the time, but i have never heard you seek a solution. now, just like the house yesterday in the senate came up with a health bill, four pages long and they were shaking it in front of them. they came up with nothing, they told us the only thing, this is a proposal. but they did not tell us anything and that is what i consider you -- you are telling us a lot of things but there is no solution for what you are saying. thank you for taking my call. >> host: we will take your answer. >> guest: first of all, the word no, it appears that our constitution for example and the first amendment the five most beautiful words in english language -- congress shall make

no law. in the bill of rights is a series of nos. says there are things the government simply may not do unreasonable searches and seizures, take away our guns -- no pity so no has a role in politics where is in the rest of life most new ideas are bad, most new ideas are false and the truth is less pleural than all the errors in the world so saying no is a perfectly acceptable thing to do. but beyond that i like to think i have solutions to a lot of america's problems, not all of them but i certainly got ids. they don't involve expanding the government. now some people say that if you are against expanding the government you are generally negative -- that's not true. i am for the market, high import indigent -- individual initiative and unleashing on japan your initial up, and health care for example which

the caller mentioned insuring the uninsured is the simplest thing in the world come and give them money, give them money in the form of subsidies, vouchers, a debit card it loaded up with a certain value -- that is the simple part of it. that empowers individuals and does not make them as a madrid the coming health-care bill would do depend on the government. >> host: and i am wondering in your life you said a great deal of its and 74 as a columnist for the washington post put before that your writing and part of that teaching -- did you ever consider running for office? >> guest: not seriously but i live in maryland and have been there since the mid-70s and about 1982 as i recall some republicans wanted to know if i was interested in running for senate and i said no because there are only two republicans in maryland as far as i could tell. i was one in jeanne kirkpatrick was the other. it's a very democratic state and for the more i have a metabolic

urge to write. i can't write an explosion and therefore i would find the life of public office almost interminable hearing where you sit and listen to other people talk, it would be tiresome. >> host: philadelphia next for george will, independent line. >> caller: mr. will, first of all, you are one of my favorite commentators. there are a couple blind spots with global warming and that kind of thing. i want to go back to their original discussion about today's column about tobacco and i think it is mary -- it is really fascinating to me the dichotomy they are talking about here. the there is a diggs solution here that nobody is -- not nobody, it is going to be bigger and bigger topic all the time and that is the legalization of

marijuana. that could replace all cigarette revenues in the space of about a week. surely you know another of the history of this country, you know who harry is lawyer was and william randolph hearst were through and the great megalomaniacs of this history and that there are responsible for it marijuana being illegal. i like to know your take on legalizing marijuana as a simple common-sense solution to the revenue problems in places like california. thank you. >> guest: it is going to be an issue soon. it will be an issue particularly at state level, medical use of marijuana and a less and will be a national level and should be. with a look on the one side of tobacco it kills, tobacco related illnesses kill former thousand americans a year, more than vehicular accidents, cocaine, heroin, alcohol, combined. it is far and away the largest

cause of preventable death in this country -- tobacco is. compared to which marijuana looks relatively benign. there are intelligent men and women of goodwill who insist it is a gateway drug to worst drugs, but i tend increasingly to believe that my old friend and employer, bill buckley, and his magazine national review were right when more than a decade ago conservative magazine national review said that drug war is lost and we have to find something to do besides introduction -- that is fighting the drug problem on the supply side in. instead we have to deal with the demand and may have to particularly make more careful discriminations between the things we have prescribed -- marijuana is not cocaine and its affect and social cost of all the rest. so i think the caller raised is interestingly going to be within

the next five years and discuss the bill issue. >> host: the hearings got under way on capitol hill for the outlines of the health care legislation and the last sunday you were talking about health care on the program getting ready for discussion and i saw quite a bit of olive -- kuala commentary so i thought i would show to people who did not hear your points and then come back and talk about where you think the debate will go. here it is. >> the president tried to maintain this above the fray, he is lying of the principles that he wants and doesn't want to lay down bottom line is that even though he has preferences there is that going to work? >> no, because this is a single issue argument about whether or not on a slippery slope to a single payer system. that is about the public auction and the president has said it you were starting from scratch, he said he would go to a single payer, that his government as a single provider of health care.

now there are four arguments for the public auction. one is in the president said he will keep them honest, the government is a lagoon of honesty and idea refuted by anyone who reason a budget of any administration. second he says it will play by the same rules as the private insurers and will drive them out of business so it will play by the same rules as you said to the secretary, what is the point? third, it's necessary to get what secretary sibelius' said joyce to the consumers, there are 1,300 entities offering health-care plans in this country and other one isn't going to change that and finally the argument american people are not smart enough to handle something as complicated as health care and have a competitive market. they have done rather well in computers. >> host: mr. will, where do you think this debate will end up in the overhaul of how we approach health care? >> guest: i don't know, it was complicated because congressional budget office

which usually big times year, usually taken as to the authoritative score of the cost of business came out this week and said this is a trillion dollar enterprise. the reaction of the advocates of radical health care reforms and maybe we are not quite to take the cbo this time, look at our estimate from the office of budget which is to say will get within the obama white house which is to say we don't want it is interested that estimate of the cost of this thing. furthermore, this whole debate is taking place in the context condition by one great iraq and that it was it was either the pew or kaiser survey, i have forgotten which one, says that a percent of americans with their health care good or excellent so there really is no clamor in this country for a radical change of health care. lots of things could be done. i have ideas that are more radical than barack obama's what

to do with health care, but we have to understand the american people are not clamoring for and this, either his approach or mine. >> host: ideas that are even more radical without giving us an idea does make john mccain have the right idea which is give people money coming give people control their attacks as compensation which it obviously is the biggest tax somebody in the budget. tax as compensation, employer provided health insurance but make up for that tax by giving people tax credits and refundable tax credit for the 40 million who pay no income taxes, refundable tax credit, a $500 for individual and $15,000 for a household two go out and buy your own. furthermore of savings accounts -- that is if you buy a high deductible insurance policy you are then eligible for tax preferred savings and of which you pay you're everyday expenses

and that will turn americans into shoppers. well i'm giving talks around the country i frequently ask the audience on a show of hands, they go to the doctor and i thank you have to have the following test or x-ray, how many of you say how much? and no one does that because we have a third-party payer and don't care. the american people have died of a mentality about health care barrett we have already paid and we will eat all this crap, let's do it. we need to do is turn people into shoppers and price sensitive and make them above all sensitive to the amount of health care problem we have in this country that is voluntary. that is the results of a known risk behavior. obesity, type two diabetes caused by obesity, all of these problems. the quickest way to reduce our health care bill is to start making sensible choices. >> host: here is one by twitter, are you on twitter? >> guest: i merely using e-mail. >> host: someone immediately responded to what you said and

wrote there is clever changing health care, a change in the cost. >> guest: short, the american people have thought about this and come to the conclusion that would like to have 2,009 medicine in 1959 prices -- i'm sorry they can have that. the practice health care has become more and more expensive because it's becoming more and more competent and able to do things. it 1965 we had enacted medicare -- do know how many coronary bypass operations paid for that year? zero. the same number of hip and the transplants paid for that year. medicine is much better. that's the mccoy in the american spectator has a very interesting article in which she makes a number of good points -- this one however is paramount. in 1960 the american people take for big expenses -- food, housing and energy and health care. a 53% of their disposable income and for those four things.

today with a 5 percent over those four things -- in other words essentially unchanged. the composition however as unchanged, energy is down, housing is down, food is down, what has gone up as health care but it has, because it is a lot more competent than it used to be and we want that. >> host: next is diana, thank you for waiting on the republican line. >> caller: i would like to reflect on a comment made by the previous guest rep duty eras, he mentioned in talking about protections for consumers and that credit card contracts need to be modified and understanding that you said i don't even understand my own contract. i'm not a person of exceptional intelligence, i understand by credit-card contract the and so my question has to do with public education than the last 30 years which has obviously

deteriorated. the uc any parallel between the deterioration of a public education, the insights of the general electric and the quality of people will are legislating in both our federal and state legislatures? >> guest: let me get to education in a second. one of the antic moments in recent american politics was one the president came out and said scandalous, credit-card applications are so complicated and with the federal government are went to clarify them. this is the federal government that has given as a tax code with 3.5 million words in its and 4 million extra words and as exegesis for the 3.5 million and it is still a tax code still complicated that's significant numbers of his cabinet can't comply with it so the idea that credit cards are going to be improved by the federal government as an agency of clarity is to say no more amusing but beyond that on the subject of education -- we know what the problem is in

education. it basically we have a school year of 180 days. 195 in most of the european nations, 200 days in a year in germany, 220 in korea and japan. now, just take 100 difference between those school days, the 15 day difference. multiplied by 12 years grades one through 12 -- essentially the german children with a european children are getting a full year extra school over americans. americans on a drizzly hard workers but not work your children hard enough. >> host: britain next is from patrick democrats line, good morning. >> caller: good morning. alan like to address several things but i like to touch on what the lady just now said. and happens to be an educator and one of the things that bothers me about my own

colleagues is that we keep hollering we need a raise, we need a raise. i keep trying to tell them and explain to them that we do not need a raise. what we need is more educators to wear when we have a classroom, i teach fourth grade an homage to a class, and at one time i had 26 kids in my classroom, that makes it very difficult because to get anything accomplished. now, the reason that i wanted to call-in talk to you about was that right now we are facing a huge problem with north korea. north korea and then nuclear proliferation him on the question that i have is what do you think their main intent with this is? and i feel personally that china is acting with north korea, so is russia, and i just feel in my heart of hearts that they are on

their way to once a day -- we have already reached hawaii and alaska, once they can get a missile that will reach the west coast there are going to bomb and there are going to put japan at a business. what do you think about that? >> guest: japan i think the conventional wisdom is that japan has nuclear weapons in this sense that it has the knowledge and the components and in needs to put it together to have nuclear weapons and there'll come a point and we may be near that point where japan becomes candidly openly and officially in a clear power because of the very threat you are talking about. north korea is to meet more worrying as a nuclear power that iran it is because of the north korean regime is to say no more opaque and arguably not. so it also presides over a country that is destitutes and

one of the things they can do to raise money is to sell these weapons to interested parties around the world and there are plenty of them. >> host: question and from twitter, this gentleman wants to know if he thinks we should be expanding the war in afghanistan with the history of that nation? >> guest: excellent question. put it is 140 characters? i am getting some much. anyway, afghanistan is a problem we just sent over 20,000 more troops in the process we will bring in up to 60,000. the new york city police force is about 40,000 so we are talking about enormous nation with a barely is central government, indeed, barely a central government in its history. a central government offensive in the sense that it is from one port to another. past the secretary of defense

some months ago whether in my possible for the united states to achieve its objectives in afghanistan offshore, that is using thrones, cruise missile strikes and the rest. our objectives in afghanistan being simply to prevent it from becoming a staging area for more terrorist groups which is to say our objective in afghanistan assuredly is not nation-building in surely is not to give them a happy pluralistic macedonian democracy. the secretary of defense said, no, we could not do it and he knows a lot more about this than i do, but i think the important thing is that we avoid what is called mission creep, to understand our objective in afghanistan is to enable afghanistan not to be a threat to, not to turn it into a shimmering city on a hill. >> host: alabama, you are on with george will.

>> caller: thank you for taking my call. i do -- tonight abc has especial and there is a lot of criticism going around. will there be anybody representing any critics of the health plan or is it really going to be a pro obama policy seminar? >> guest: short answer is i don't know but i think i am going to be taped this afternoon with some thoughts some of which i have given here that will be presented to mr. obama during the broadcast and some of his people so since i am not an enthusiast for the president's approach to health care reform, there will be one quiver in tiny little voice and least a mile descent. >> host: on health care, one heard your solution and said they want to solve it by throwing taxpayers' money at it,

how much will it cost? is the sick and service solution? >> guest: is clearly the healthcare system we have now with the uninsured been free riders of the rest of us getting substantial health care but sort of off the books with cost shifting from the taxpayers already paying. the question is conceptually simple to solve the problem of the uninsured -- you do that by giving them money. now the question is is that money well spent? we can argue about that and there's also a question about mandating health insurance something again and nation with a libertarian streak that we want to preserve is comfortable with. >> host: louisiana, this is shelley on the republican line for mr. will. >> caller: mr. well, i am sure

the and it is pretty large insurance company. my husband is working. i am disabled and he makes less than $20 an hour. our deductible is $5,000 each. now, in order for us to get any medical help we have to pay that $5,000 ahead of time in order to get any medical treatment so the only thing they can afford a is office visits and the doctors around here, they will not accept us, as we come up with that $5,000.1. i don't know where you get your information from. we are in short, is taking over a fourth of his income to pay the premiums monthly plus we have monthly visits that we have to pay for with our copays plus

medications. we can't afford the deductibles to get medical shipment so we are no different than the people who are uninsured. my daughter is under the same insurance company. i'm not going to name them. her deductible is $300 and i don't know if she has to come up with that first on not. >> host: why such a big difference? >> guest: . >> caller: i have no idea but it is the same insurance company, she works for a bigger company was mike thank you this mack there is a lot we don't know on the question you just act of $4,700 difference in the deductible which must be explained and i'd also like to know what the insurance provider market is like in louisiana. this seems to me one of the things we ought to do in this country as a people in louisiana ought to be able to buy their health insurance from new jersey providers. i don't know what we have this antique sort of federalism in restraint of real competition to

give people like our last caller in a range of choices to pick from all of the 1300 health insurance providers in this country. >> host: we have 13 minutes left and none of our questions including mine have brought into the subject of the tar program and the financial markets and what you think of mr. obama's announcement for reregulation. >> guest: on his announcement i don't know. i don't understand all of these instruments that are going to be regulated. this much i would say, the idea that the federal reserve board system on to the systemic risk regulator. it alarms me because of federal reserve properly understood it has one duty and that is to preserve the currency as a store of value, that is to prevent inflation which is a monetary phenomenon. edessa that that is quite enough and in order to do that the fed

has to be independent. technically it is a creature of congress, technically congress could stipulate the money supply growth, that's the last thing we want is two have politicians with their eyes on the electoral calendar stipulating money supply in this country because they will only stipulate lose money to get them past the next election. we have these things every two years so we would constantly have lose money. the problem is that when the fed is involved as it now is in allocating credit when we have it printed as a public utility, the quantity cost which will be determined in this town washington, i don't see how then can be remaining independent. >> host: how do you feel about the direction of the economy is going right now? >> guest: in the economy or economic policy? >> guest: economy as a result of it is my the so-called stimulus money has been spent

under 10% i'm pretty sure that whenever his happening can be credited to are blamed on stimulus. the markets go up and the markets go down. in the early years of the last century someone's on jpmorgan on the street and said mr. morgan, what will the market do and he said fluctuates. it is fluctuating now, it is down three days in a row, it will be back. my worry is this -- that the stimulus money, throwing trillions of dollars of the system is like a defibrillator. it is going to restore the pulse of the economy, the trouble is you can't live on in the liberal leader. the problem. is that true in all this liquidity into the system will probably cause inflation. too much money chasing too few goods is what inflation classically is defined as one some my worry is that just as we begin to in a heartbeat and just as we begin to get so, the green

shoots of the economy coming up high long-term interest rates dictated by an inflation premium will snuff out the vigor of the recovery. >> host: max call from the washington suburb on the democrats' line. >> caller: hi there. i have a couple points to make. you just recently spoke about the stimulus package, you said we'd only spent 20%. >> host: yes our. >> caller: but yet you have forecast, all these economic issues on the right. >> host: i thank you got

anxious about expressing his thoughts so let's move on to ornis telephone caller from washington d.c.. >> caller: yes, ma'am thank you c-span 2. usually i call it college on the radio and is very educational. >> host: thank you. >> caller: you're welcome. i have an opinion about health care plan, mr. will, in proposing. it is amazing how you don't understand the american working-class and middle-class public interest. you report that you say senator mccain's plan, the tax reform health care. in it is not to the american working class and middle-class people wan