the presiding officer: anyone wishing to vote or change their vote? if not, on this vote, the yeas are 91, the nays are 3. the motion is agreed to. the presiding officer: under the previous order, the senate will proceed to the consideration of h. con. res. 90, which the clerk will report. the clerk: house concurrent resolution 90, directing the secretary of the senate to make a technical correction in the enrollment of s. 1356. mr. mccain: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from arizona. mr. mccain: i call up my amendment number 2796. the presiding officer: the clerk will report the amendment. the clerk: the senator from arizona, mr. mccain, proposes an amendment numbered 2796. strike the matter following the resolving clause and insert the

following. mr. mccain: mr. president, i move to waive the reading. the presiding officer: without objection. under the previous order, the amendment offered by the senator from arizona, mr. mccain, is agreed to, the resolution, as amended, is agreed to, and the motion to reconsider is considered made and laid upon the table. mr. mccain: mr. president, i suggest the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call:

acon on on on on on 6 quorum call:

quorum call:

quorum call:

the presiding officer: the majority leader. mr. mcconnell: i ask consent that further proceedings under the quorum call be dispensed with. the presiding officer: without

objection. mr. mcconnell: mr. president, what is the pending business? the presiding officer: h.r. 20 2029. under the previous order, the clerk will report the following amendments by number. the clerk: the senator from kentucky, mr. mcconnell, proposes amendments en bloc numbered 2774, 2775, 2776, 2779, 2781, 2785, 2786, 2787, 2788, 2789, 2795, 2794, 2798. the presiding officer: under the previous order, the question occurs on the adoption of the amendments en bloc. all those in favor say aye.

all those opposed say no. the ayes appear to have it. the ayes do have it. the amendments are agreed to en bloc. mr. mcconnell: i ask unanimous consent that the brown amendment 2801 be called up and agreed to, the kirk amendment number 2764 be withdrawn, and the senate vote on the kirk amendment number 2763, as amended. further, that following the disposition of the kirk amendment number 2763, the bill, as amended, be read a third time and the senate vote on passage of h.r. 20729, as amended. -- h.r. 2029, as amended. the presiding officer: is there objection? without objection. the clerk will report the brown amendment. the clerk: the senator from kentucky, mr. mcconnell, proposes amendment numbered 28 2801. the presiding officer: under the previous order, amendment 2801

is agreed to. under the previous order, amendment number 2764 is withdrawn and the question occurs on the substitute, as amended. mr. cornyn: mr. president? mr. president? mr. tester: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from montana. mr. tester: i want to urge my colleagues to vote for this military construction-v.a. bill before us. thank yous are in order. i want to thank to the chairman, senator kirk, and his staff, bob heinke, doian letari and patrick magnuston and also teen that alvin and chad sulkin -- and it's his birthday -- tony mcclean and all the other staff who worked on this bill. this bill does right by the veterans and i'm proud to have worked on it with colleagues this in this chamber. thank you, mr. chairman. the presiding officer: the question on the substitute, as amended. if there's no further debate, all those in favor say aye.

all those opposed say nay. the ayes appear to have it. the aye ayes do have it. the substitute, as amended, is agreed to. the clerk will read the title of the bill for the third time. the clerk: calendar number 98, h.r. 2029, an act making appropriation tion for military construction, the department of veterans affairs and related agency for the fiscal year ending 2016, and for other purposes. the presiding officer: the question now occurs on the passage of h.r. 2029 as amended. is there a sufficient second? there appears to be. the clerk will call the roll. vote:

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vote:

the presiding officer: are there any senators wishing to vote or change their vote? if not, the ayes are 93, the nays are zero. the bill as amended is passed. mr. mcconnell: mr. president? the presiding officer: the majority leader. mr. mcconnell: i ask that the chair lay before the senate the house message accompanying h.r. 22. the presiding officer: the chair lays before the senate a message from the house of representatives.

the clerk: resolved, the house insist upon its amendment to the amendment of the senate to the text of the bill h.r. 22, entitled an act to authorize funds for federal-aid highways and so forth and for other purposes, and ask a conference with the senate on the disagreeing votes of the two houses thereon. mr. mcconnell: i move to disagree to the amendment of the house, agree to the request from the house for a conference and authorize the presiding officer to appoint conferees, and i send a cloture motion to the desk. the presiding officer: the clerk will report the motion. the clerk: cloture motion: we, the undersigned senators, in accordance with the provisions of rule 22 of the standing rules of the senate, do hereby move to bring to a close debate on the motion to disagree to the amendment of the house, agree to the request from the house for a conference and authorize the presiding officer to appoint conferees with respect to h.r. 22, signed by 17 senators. mr. mcconnell: i ask that the reading of the names be dispensed with. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. mcconnell: i ask unanimous consent the mandatory quorum call be waived. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. mcconnell: i ask unanimous

consent the time between 2:15 and 2:45 be equally divided between the two leaders or their designees and that notwithstanding rule 28 at 2:45, the senate vote on the motion to invoke cloture on the compound motion to go to conference. further, that if cloture is invoked, that the senate agree to the compound motion to go to conference and that senator wicker be recognized to offer a motion to instruct the conferees and that there be up to four minutes of debate equally divided on the motion and that following the use or yielding back of that time, the senate then vote in relation to the wicker motion, that following the disposition of the wicker motion, senator blumenthal be recognized to offer a motion to instruct the conferees, there be up to four minutes of debate equally divided on that -- on the motion, and that following the use or yielding back of that time, the senate vote in relation to the blumenthal --

mr. mcconnell: i ask to withhold my request until senator carper arrives. mr. mcconnell: mr. president, i have four unanimous consent requests for committees to meet during today's session. they have the approval of the majority and minority leaders. i ask unanimous consent these requests be agreed to and their requests be printed in the record. the presiding officer: without objection.

mr. carper: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from delaware. mr. carper: i understand that a request is pending. i'd like to reserve my right to

object. the presiding officer: is there an objection to the majority leader's request? mr. carper: i'd like to object. i have a statement i'd like to make at this point in time. if this is an appropriate time to do it, then i'd like to do it. i'd like to speak for maybe ten minutes. the presiding officer: is there objection? mr. carper: reserving the right to object. the presiding officer: the senator from delaware. mr. carper: we are preparing to

to -- mr. inhofe: will the senator yield? there's a lot of mumbling going on. i'm not sure what we've decided to do. mr. carper: i'm going to speak for ten minutes on trrntion and then we'll have our caucus lunch. mr. inhofe: all right. now, is -- all right, i would ask unanimous consent that after the conclusion of the remarks from the gentleman from delaware that i be recognized for up to ten minutes. the presiding officer: is there objection? without objection. the senator from delaware. mr. carper: all right. thanks, mr. president. mr. president, something came to my atons today that i hadn't seen before. actually, it a blog written by ben bernanke, the immediate

past-president of the federal reserve, and he wrote it for brookings institute. he talked about a pay-for. one of the pay-fors for the transportation bill that we're going to be sending confer yeas off to discuss -- confer yeas off to discuss later -- conferees off to discuss late today. the house passed a six-year authorization bill -- six-year authorization for transportation, roads, highways, transit, and funding for three years. sent that over to the house and they came up with some knew pay-fors. -- some new pay-fors. frankly, it is not user fees. it is not even pension smoothing. iit is not like stealing t.s.a. fees or customs fees but something new. and found money, about $40 billion or $50 billion, in the federal reserve and said, why don't we use that for transportation spending? interestingly enough, the chairman of the federal reserve -- former chairman has written

today and i understand "the washington post" among others has editorialized on this today. and this is what they say. i'll just read a sentence or two out of his comments, if i can talking about his new pay-for, where we're take money from the -- where we take money from. "more substantively" -- and it is what i want to focus on today -- he puts "paying" in quotes. paying for highway spending with capital is not paying for it at all in any economically meaningful sense. he says, "rather this maneuver is a budgetary sleight of hand. they would count money already designated for the treasury as new revenues. here is what the house has said. normally -- so this extra money that the federal reserve has, they actually turn it over to the treasury. in fact, maybe about as much as

a half trillion goes into earnings that the federal reserve makes and they -- at different points of the year they turn money over to the treasury. what the house language says here, mr. president, is that we're going to reduce that amount of money that would normally go from the treasury -- from the federal reserve to the treasury and we're going to simply pull that money out and use it for transportation. now, that money was going to go to treasury anyway. it was going to go from the federal reserve to treasury anyway. and now we're going to sort of like slip in and pull that money out and say, no, no, we're going to use it for roads, highways, and bridges. it is a sleight of hand. j.o. is blowing the why whistlen it as well. i'm glad chairman bernanke is calling it for what it is. look, we had the opportunity, mr. president, to pay for transportation projects. we had the opportunity to pay for roads, highways, and bridges

and to do it the old-fashioned way, and frankly in a way that the chairman of our committee, chairman inhofe, is in favor of. that is, we have a tradition, a history in this country of things worth having are worth paying for and users and businesses that use roads, highways, and bridges here in the past, we said they art to pay for the use of them. now we are looking at a transportation bill which has -- says, no, we're going to take money from t.s.a. -- t.s.a. fee increases and i stead of using it to make our skies safer, aviation safer, we're going to steal ten years of t.s.a. revenues and put it over here in transportation. we're going to take money that ought to go to fortify our borders, to make stronger, more better-equipped our border crossings where we have tensions of millions of traffic going through -- trade going through every day. instd of fortifying those and

enabling us to do a better job of finding out whether what's in those trucks is really produce or some or product, instead of doing a better job, we're going it take those refuse use in and put them over on transportation. the idea of taking money out of the strategic petroleum reserve where we paid $80, $90, $100 a barrel and now selling it for about half that and we'll use the proceeds of that, buy hierks sell low, and use that money to -- buy high, sell low, and use that money to pay for transportation. now, in this latest trick from the house to take money out of the federal reserve, it's going to go to treasury anyway. it'll go to treasury anyway. instead we're going to to take that money away from the federal reserve and pretend like it has to consequence. well, actually, that $50 billion or $60 billion would reduce the deficit. that's where it would have gone. this is not the way to do it. this is not the way to do to business. we had the opportunity to fully fund a robust transportation

plan. several of you senator durbin, senator feinstein and i introduced legislation that would raise -- very much like bowles-simpson -- would reduce the purchasing power of the gas and diesel taxes. since 1983, the gasoline tax deduction has been 18 cents. it now worth less than a dime because of inflation. the diesel tax is worth less than 15 cents, nominally 23 cents. meanwhile roads, highways, bridges, more expensive. asphalt more expensive. steel more expensive, labor more expensive. instead of being able to fund transportation in a genuine, honest kind of way, we're spending about $50 billion a year at the federal level for transportation. it is about one hiferred of what's spent nationally. but we are out of that $50 billion, we're only raising $35 billion through our user fees. and the rest we go out and borrow the money.

and when we run out of money in the general fund, we go around the world and borrow money from china and other places. so that we can build roads, hoirks and bridges. and when the chinese are mucking around in the south china sea and other places, we say, you can't do that. hand they say, we thought you wanted to borrow our money? or if they're manipulating their currency or dumping their goods on products on our markets, we say you can't do that. they say, we thought you banted to -- we thought you wanted to borrow our money. we should fully fund transportation projects and we can do thasm the legislation that senators durbin, feinstein and i offered would gradually raise the tax on disild and gasoline by four sent cents a year for four years and index it going forward. that would generate about $220 billion, about $220 billion over the next ten years.

we have -- we got a d-plus, the global aids our roads, highways, bridges get these days because a quufort our bridges are in bad shape and the service of our roads and highways are as well. people say, you don't want to pay anymore money for user fees or gas or diesel. about 30,000 gas stations across america last week, people pay less than $2 a gallon for gasoline. less than $2 billion. my friends, as it turns out, if we actually did raise the price for gas and diesel by four cents a year for four years what would the effect be in 2020, four years from now on most constituents, or most average drivers? the cost, the impact out of pocket would be about a cup of coffee a week. about a cup of coffee a week. meanwhile, because our roads and bridges and highways are in such

lousy shape, the average cost for danch t damage to our vehic, tires, steel, rims of our tires, is over $350 a year. over $350 a year. that's not my number. that is not -- that's a real number. the other thing that's going on here, we sit in traffic a lot in our country these days because we're not dress our -- addressing our bottlenecks and doing what we ought to be doing in terms of building and operating roads, highways, and bridges. texas a&m does an analysis every year and what they do is they look at how much time we sit in traffic in this country. the average driver in this country now sits in traffic 42 hours a year. 42 hours a year. in cities like washington, d.c., the number is more like 80 hours a year. not moving, just sitting there. wasting time, wasting fuel,

polluting the skies. and we don't have to do that. we don't have to do that. and instead of doing something that's intellectually honest, what we're doing is really i think shameful. i think it is shameful. and initially i was just confused by what the house wants to do with the federal reserve and moving $50 million, $60 million out of there. now that i understand what they're doing, it is even more shameful. we can do better than that. and the american people deserve better than this. they deserve better than this. our friends at mackenzie global institute have spent some time last year and they tried to figure out if we actually were investing robustly in our roads, highways, bridges in this country what would the affect be on g.d.p. and what would be affect be on putting people to work? and if we're willing to make robust investments for the next ten years instead of frankly not

much at all in terms of investments, here's what they said. we would grow g.d.p. by about 1.5% per year for the next ten years. 1.5% g.d.p. growth per year. so i far this year it's been between2% and 2.5%. we're not going to come close to making robust investments. mackenzie global institute also told news terms of new employment if we're actually to invest robust any roads, hoirks bridges in this country, we'd put about 1.8 million people to work building transit systems. but we're not going to do that. we're not going to do that. i think of what the global -- mackenzie global institute was calling for. it would actually grow g.d.p. by 1.5% per year.

increasing employment by 1.8 million people. we're not even close to that. what we're passing here isn't even close to the four cents for four years. we're not even close to that either. that produces $220 billion over the next ten years. what we're doing is barely -- barely keeping funding -- federal funding at $50 billion. barely. barely. and the way that we're doing most of that is by sleight of hand. and by things -- using money that has nothing to do with roads, highways, bridges, nothing to do with businesses and people who use those transportation modes to pay for them -- nothing. and now we're about to name conferees and go to conference on that kind of deal? the american people aren't stupid. they're not stupid. and, you know, if a bunch of states around the country, like 12 states in the last two years,

states were finding they're running out of money to build their transportation systems in their states, you thoug know why did? they raised their users fees. you know what happened when they had elections last noser? 95% of republicans who voted to raise user pheeses, they got reelected. 90% of democrats who voted to raise user fees, they got reelected. they didn't pay a penalty for t they got reward for it. the people who voted the other way, voted not to raise the user fees, they didn't do as well. people aren't stupid. people aren't stupid. mr. president, we're going to have an opportunity here to name conferees and go to conference, and i just want to say, this man sitting next to me, jim inhofe, good man, chairs our committee, the environment and public works committee, we reported out of our committee a very good six-year authorization bill. he's proud of it.

senator boxer, who worked on it i worked on it, other people who worked on it, are very proud of what we d i want to commend smore inhofe for a great one. that's the authorization piece. and if we could just stop there, we'd be fine. but, unfortunately, you have an authorization, that's only half the game. what's the old picture, the guy that you had out here on the floor not long ago, mr. president. the father was wearing a big hat, cowboy, laying back to sleep. the caption says "all hat, no cattle." well, when you have a big authorization bill but no real money to pay for it that's really all hat and no cattle. and i don't think there's a better example of it that i've seen than the legislation we're going to be conferencing on very soon. i wish i could sit here and say that it's all going to work out and we'll do just fine. but that ain't the truth. and we have a lot of great opportunity -- and we have let a great opportunity pass us by. we're about to let a great

opportunity pass us by. we're worthy of a better opportunity than that, and frankly the people of our country deserve a better effort than that. with that, i will yield the floor to my friend from oklahoma and call -- the presiding officer: is there objection to qut? -- to the request? the presiding officer: without objection, so ordered. the senator from oklahoma. mr. inhofe: let me say just in response, a couple of times my good friend from delaware has said -- has observed that the american people are not stupid, but the american people also want highways. that's one of the big things that -- in fact, if you read the old wornout document called the constitution, it says we're supposed to be doing two things here, defend america and building roads and bridges. i think we both agree in the significance of that. mr. president, i'm hoping i will have time to get into something because our state department of the united states of america, is getting involved in burundi in

their election. they had a duly qualified election, the constitutional convention declared that the president had a legal election and we ought to stay out of their business. now, if there is time, i do want to elaborate on that. i know i'm competing for time. let me just mention this, on the gitmo message that the president had, we have -- i'll give you a little chronology on that. on january 22, 2009, obama signed an executive order to close gitmo within a year. on february 3, the same year, 2009, i introduced a bill to permanently prevent gitmo detainees from being relocated anywhere in the united states. at that time they were even talking about relocating in parts of my state of oklahoma in the fort sill area. in may of 2009, i authored bipartisan legislation with senator dannyaway to -- danny inouye to block funding to close

gitmo and move the detainees anywhere on u.s. soil. that passed 90-6. every year since, congress has blocked the attempts by this president to -- and his administration to close gitmo or move terrorists detainees to the united states. every year, congress has passed laws that continue to limit transfer of these detainees including the conference fiscal year 2016 ndaa bill. that's what we're talking about right now. it prohibits the transferring of gitmo detainees to the united states through december 31 of 2016. now, that tightens the restrictions also on the detainees being transferred to other countries. the fiscal year ndaa also included language preventing closure of gitmo through december 31 of 2016. however, this is not -- this has not prevented president obama from trying to empty gitmo, releasing these terrorists,

detainees to any country he can pay to take them back and now threaten an executive order to bring them to the united states to the states of colorado, south carolina and kansas against the will of the senators from those states, the house members from those states and the american people. this is not the first time the president has gone against the will of the american people and violated our laws. the president violated the law last june when he transferred the taliban five from gitmo in exchange for sergeantberg dawl, if you remember that -- sergeant bergdahl, if you remember that issue. he said we had to notify congress 30 days in advance of any transfer of terrorists to any facility. his failure to adhere to the law that he signed placed our nation's security at great risk. let me just mention to you -- and i carry this with me to let people realize who he turned

loose, the taliban five. and this is a statement that was made by the taliban commander. his name was mulah khan. he said, and this is a quote, his return -- he was talking about muhammad fassil. keep in mind, he was arguably the most dangerous person, terrorist that was being held in gitmo. he said his return is like pouring a 10,000 taliban fighters into the battle on the side of jihad. now the taliban will have the lion to lead them in the final movement for victory in afghanistan. this is the kind of people he's turning loose, and according to the office of the director of the national intelligence, 29% of the detainees transferred out of gitmo have either been confirmed or suspected of returning to the fight and killing americans. that's how serious this thing is. gitmo is outside the sovereign territory of the united states which means detainees held there do not have constitutional rights, but you put them back in

the united states and very likely they would have those rights. in fact, i have a quote from former u.s. attorney general michael mukasey. he said the question of what constitutional rights may apply to aliens in government custody is unsettled but it's clear from existing jurisprudence that physical presence in the united states would be a significant if not decisive factor. i'm also concerned about the security of the people here that would be -- would have to guard these terrorists when they leave. back when thompson, illinois, prison was discussed, that was in 2009, representative mark kirk, at that time he was in the house before he was in the senate, called to move the unnecessary -- called to move an unnecessary risk and other illinois members who were concerned that the transfer of prisoners, some for trial and some for indefinite detention, could make the state a target

for terrorists. mark kirk was then and is correct now that prisoners holding these detainees will become magnets, and there is every possibility that these detainees will recruit more terrorists. you've got to keep in mind that a terrorist is not a criminal. a terrorist is someone who trains other people to be terrorists. that's what we would be seeing happening in our courts. f.b.i. director robert mueller said there is very little real possibility that gitmo detainees will recruit more terrorists from among the federal inmate population and continue al qaeda operations from outside the -- the country. state of the art, by the way. those of us who have been, i have been several times as has the occupier of the chair, they look at the humane treatment of all detainees. when i was down there, the biggest problem they had of the detainees was oversight, they

are all -- was overweight. they are all obese because they are eating so well. it's fully in compliance with the geneva convention and provides treatment and oversight that exceed any maximum security prison in the world, as tested by -- attested by the human rights organizations such as the red cross, attorney general holder and an independent commission led by admiral walsh. it's a secure location within the population centers and it has a 12 million expeditionary legal complex. that's a courtroom. you can -- you can't use our courtrooms because of the confidentiality of information that was -- that is extracted from these individuals and used in the courtroom, so they used expeditionary legal counsels. the last thing i would say is that it's clearly that the -- and this comes from the former c.i.a. director leon panetta, he was talking about the fact that our president was talking about the way they're able to get the

bad guy and what they refuse to understand is the information that they extracted at gitmo was used in order to actually -- osama bin laden capture. so anyway we don't want that to happen, we can't afford to let that happen, and we're going to do everything we can to keep the president from having -- this has become an obsession with him, and we're not going to let that happen. lastly, i do want to mention that on this whole issue in burundi right now, it's something we have to understand in this country. there are other nations who have their own systems of government. they're the ones who have their elections. in this case, i happened to be there in burundi when the court declared that the incumbent president aziza was qualified to run again, even though they have a term limit, the first term was not a complete term so that

didn't count, according to the court. and for us to come in afterwards and say well, we think -- we think the court was wrong, we don't think he qualified to run and we're going to withhold things from that country is completely -- it's something that we should not be doing in this country, and i can assure you the six members that went with me over there all were on the scene and agreed that aziza should be legitimately elected and we should stay out of their business. with that, i yield the floor. the presiding officer: under the previous order, the senate stands in recess until

senators will take up the highway bill and vote upon that at 2:45 eastern today. no legislative business in the senate tomorrow, the live coverage of the senate will resume when they return on c-span2. part of our veterans day coverage, c-span presents job opportunities for veterans at 8:00 eastern, here is first lady laura bush on the pressures faced by families of veterans and how opportunities come about for the whole family. >> service men and women are deployed, there spouses take care of the families at home. they care for the children, they manage the finances and the praise that there has beens and wives will return home safely. master sergeant rodriguez and

his wife marlene joined us at our ranch in 2013-14 at the bush center and you will warrior 100, when marlene talked about service in the air force, she said we, i say we served 25 years. i lived every deployment with him, every trial and tribulation but today i said yes to him. i didn't realize the impact he was going to have on me and that is why it is important to make sure while our service men and women receive the support they need we care for their families as well. as we have heard this morning, employment support is the perfect place to start. studies show host 9/11 veterans face higher rates of unemployment and their civilian counterparts and the consequences of that unemployment are underimportant

are not only financial. and of course, went one family member is suffering the entire family suffers. >> the conference title hiring our hero's features thomas perez, labor secretary and medal of honor recipient, the u.s. chamber of commerce and george w. bush institute host the event, it starts at 8:00 eastern. and more on veterans day, a former congressman patrick kennedy challenging president obama's handling of veterans and their mental health struggle. we're coming up on veterans day and the president ought to pay more than lip service to veterans, he said the key urged the president to force the health and human services secretary into approving addiction and mental health care services for military and personnel and civilians. you can read more about that at thehill.com. >> our next guest is former rep in the indiana, republican who

served 1995-2000 and currently the club president, david mcintosh, good morning. club for growth, what is it? what is your purpose? >> we are the premier advocate for free market limited government policy but most of our work is through our affiliated pack that helped elect champions, folks like pat to me, ted cruz, marco rubio, rand paul, tom cotton, about half of the freedom caucus members, we supported with our pack, contributions for them and a super pac that spends money on those races. our belief is when you have champions on capitol hill pushing for lower taxes, less spending, fewer regulations, we will get better policy. >> host: donald trump agenda in? >> guest: he is the opposite, the worst type of politician who is pretending to be a conservative but his record is

very liberal. >> host: your organization put out a white paper on donald trump and some of the things you said, he will come out against obamacare maintaining government must paper universal health care, call for lower taxes but supported the lowest tax increase in history, one place where trump has been consistently troubling on trade, repeatedly called for harmful government tariffs and especially ones that would provoke a trade war with china. >> exactly right. we look at people's records and he hasn't been in public office but decades more interested in making statements on public policy and they are all very liberal and he decided to run in the republican primary so i will say i am a conservative but he is not and our job is to point that out. >> host: have you put out ads against donald trump to get even out at against other people? >> guest: what we do in the presidential race is publish white papers on virtually all the candidates. in the case -- we think several

were really good options, we haven't endorsed any when candidate the pointed out which ones have good economic policy. donald's case we end ed up saying he is pretending to be economic conservative but the research shows he really isn't and we did end up putting ads out in iowa, the early caucus, spent two weeks telling people about that record. the polls showed before and after he was in the lead and after, voters knew the truth, he had fallen into second place so we are confident as primary voters and caucus goers, they know what trump is really about will decide to pick one of the other good candidate. >> the take credit for that? >> guest: we do. washington you take credit for everything so i am careful how i do that but i think it had an impact. the idea works when voters are well-educated and they know what

the candidates are really about, they make wise decisions. >> host: as far as tonight's debate, it is about business, economic issues, what will be highlighted? what are you interested in hearing from as far as economic claims? >> guest: there are several that could make a difference. you have marco rubio, ted cruz, rand paul, they have innovative ideas on the economy and how to spur economic growth and i think hearing what their ideas are will be helpful. you have got people who are new to politics. carly fiorina has not sold out many of her plans and we are still researching it, in her past she had some good things but also complain some questionable things. i am looking forward to hearing how she comes out, ben carson has yet to spell out the specifics of his tax plan or entitlement reform plan so for

me it is an opportunity for men and women to shine and show people what they would do. >> host: if you would like to see more of those papers as far as campaign 2016, the web site you will find, that site, donald trump's white paper and others. if you want to talk to our guest, ask about campaign 2016, 202-748-8,000, democrats, the thousand 1. for republicans, because in 2. and you can pose questions on twitter. the wall street journal has a right up of the various tax plans for the candidates. you mentioned marco rubio. he proposed limiting tax on capital gains, dividends for new investment and raising tax credits for people with children, part of his bid is appealing to middle-class. >> guest: you have seen a combination of the economic approach creating a larger incentive for investment in capital and that will spur

growth for millions of americans. a very ambitious one with capital gains and dividends to eliminate the taxation on that and a lot of people then will say what about the middle class, what do they get? he has done something we did with the contract with america where we have a child tax credit, he has basically lifted and raised the amount of deductions intitled tax credits for families as a way to create what he sees as balance in the tax plan. >> host: what about lowering tax rates altogether? tax rates are complicated. would you endorse this? >> guest: yes. the nice thing about this is you are seeing several different approaches by republicans, the balanced approach of growth and benefits to the middle class. other people like ted cruz and rand paul said let's just lower their rates for everybody and go to a flat tax and have a couple deductions but make it very

simple to fill out the tax forms for individuals and corporations. that is another approach that is pro-growth as well. >> host: calls for you coming in, first call from sarasota, fla.. go ahead. >> caller: good morning. i hope you would support the effort by started by president reagan and bush to use -- when you sign the alternative motor fuel tax in 1988 to allow methanol to be sold at the pump without a subsidy and without mandate. that effort was supported by johns hopkins university, the mit study of what to do with natural gas, and of course nobel laureate from setting california, the methanol economy, unfortunately eat the law of 2005 stopped, literally

prevented even the sale under any circumstances of methanol at the pump and i would like to give a quote to give you a feel for the reasoning behind it. first, this is a few sentences from president reagan that statement. why would he supports such a thing? energy encouraged by this bill, already losing methanol. for example it is used in the indianapolis 500 and other race cars because it is simultaneously enhances performance and safety. cars that run on methanol have the potential to reduce emissions by an amazing 50% and improve the efficiency. >> host: let our guests respond. >> guest: you know how to tug at my heartstrings with the indianapolis 500. i agree with you, thank you for bringing that up. what it points to is the disastrous policy we have since the 2005 bill of preferences for ethanol that has terrible effect on the market for food, terrible

effects in the market for energy because it actually takes more energy to create ethanol than it produces, it is the net loser in terms of how the consumer can benefit with cheaper portable gas prices and with decline in the price of oil and decline in the price of natural gas, let's do that. i would be in favor of removing those regulations and removing that artificial government preference for one type of fuel over another. >> host: this is jerry from houston, mississippi, you are on with our guests. >> caller: long before you, referred to former speaker, he is supposed to be a farmer, not a lobbyist and i am confused

because he kept referring to democracy and a representative republic, i am not -- i know i have been to washington and potomac and joy i know because i do, i have been on a motorcycle and other things, i'd do what i do and i am supposed to but i got common sense because the creator gave it to me, not some club. i don't resent anybody, i just am tired of people pretending to the principles and they are not. there is only one principle and you know him and i know you do because i see you smiling and it is true. you can't make up what you don't have to, so represent the republic under god which we stand and there won't be anything left.

>> host: >> guest: you are right. shared faith and our creator, that to me is very important. that the club for growth that i lead, focus on the economic issues and for that, that is what we report about the leaders in washington and i want to mention a hell of thing you sntd mention a hell of thing you sn d that happens time and -- their ambition is to hold on to power and position and their corrupted by the process of responding to the washington constituency, the lobbyists and not the folks back home. we can't change that system if the club for growth, we report on what you are up to so our scorecard lets people seed did they vote the way they promised

they would vote for less government, less spending, lower taxes, more freedom or did they line up with the establishment in washington and become part of the problem? our view is tell people what is going on and the people outside washington will decide to send somebody new. >> guest: democrats planning to respond to darius tax plans, republicans making the case, they plan to provide the biggest benefits in households and balloon the federal deficit quote make your receding this bidding war among republican candidates, the most aggressive tax cuts with that debate taking place outside any sense of fiscal reality, the center for american action progress. >> guest: the question democrat responses to go to class warfare. president reagan's tax cut shows when you create economic growth middle america benefits the most. when you have a system of taxes

the try to punish people who are successful and the big welfare state you end up where we are today, sluggish economy on a very little hope for the future, for young people, a huge percentage of young people are unemployed or underemployed today. their response is more of the same old message that has failed us in the last eight years. >> host: from columbus, here is scott on the democrats' line. >> good morning, gentlemen. mr. mackintosh. it is very odd how you left out the name of who use of force in the very beginning, you oddly left out mr. scott walker and the club for growth in wisconsin obviously spent over $9 million to make sure mr. scott walker was still in office. you were one of his biggest backers. to make 250,000 jobs in his

first year and after the first term after four years having created half of that that, his record is abysmal. we are losing jobs all the time especially compared to other states like minnesota, illinois, it is a terrible track record especially in wisconsin. part of the john doe investigation, dark money, shadowy -- >> guest: there's a club for growth in wisconsin but it is a separate entity, not part of the group that i had. wheat said scott walker at very good strong record on pro-growth policy. in may not have created an to 50,000 jobs but if he did have of that, that is 125,000 jobs more than before he was there and that reverse the trend where businesses were leading because they realized they were going to have to have a huge tax burden

with all of the massive spending programs in place. what americans liked about scott walker before he dropped out of the race was he said he was going to change the bargaining system to make it more fair, less people keep more of their money and not have more compulsory federal or state employee union dues and he did it and did it in the face of huge protests and personal threat. people are looking for leadership like walker who will stand up and say this has to be done. we know something is wrong and we have to change it. i know i will get attacked for it but he was willing to take a leadership role and do that. >> host: mary ann on the independent line. you are on, go ahead. >> caller: good morning. i was wondering, how can they have -- how can ted cruz the

running for president and he was not born in america? he was born in canada. >> guest: he is an american citizen. that is why he is qualified to be president. >> caller: these are not the things that was originally by the constitution. the lot that they decided, a born american. >> guest: i think the intent of that was someone who came to america and was originally a citizen, that was the intended bar by the congress at least for when they set that will about being president. >> host: talking about ted cruz and his tax proposals wall street journal said he and mr. paul want to eliminate payroll and corporate income tax in favor of a national tax on consumption via of value-added tax at on businesses and absorbed in wages and prices. what do you think of that

approach? >> guest: any economist will save value-added tax is more efficient. i am the redoubt creating that structure because i trust senator paul and center crews to keep rates low but i could see 20 years from now a liberal president deciding this is the easiest way to raise taxes, people won't notice and prices will go up gradually so that increase that, that is what has happened in europe. that is -- part of a plant i think they got to explain how they make sure it doesn't end up with the runaway engine for the federal government. >> host: how should corporate taxes be treated? >> guest: the best thing to do is you start to eliminate the double taxation, where they are taxed as a corporate entity and shareholders and passed on to consumers.

the idea of lowering the rate is a tremendous place to start because one of the effects we have seen of high corporate tax rates here is companies are keeping their capital overseas because they are not taxed when shipped overseas. many of them would like to bring that money back to the united states, create new jobs, working, manufacturing jobs but the tax code is the biggest barrier for them doing that so the general idea, let's lower the rate. >> host: repatriation tax is said to be applied for investment in the united states. would you agree with that? >> guest: the ideal is lower the rate that has the same effect when you bring it back. .. when they bring it back, it would be a reduced tax rate that they pay on it. you would see a tremendous benefit there. host: from new mexico, temp, independent line. caller: hello, david. first of