results we committed to. so the president made a commitn't to put $6 million on aids treatment. given the cost structure of that we have a budget that has flexibility to do that. we have a commitment to eliminating the transmission of hiv/aids from mothers to children and budget that supports that effort. the president's made a commitment to support the global fund and this reflects that as well. and this reflects areas like malaria, maternal and child health, where we've essentially been seeing very, very good and very cost effect i results in terms of saving lives. $7.9 billion we're maintaining a very strong commitment to global health on behalf of the president and secretary. >> great. thanks, everyone. >> thanks, josh. >> thanks.

the president is proposing to increase the state department and other international program spending by about 9%. that includes foreign aid for iraq, afghanistan, and pakistan. it keeps major military aid programs to israel as well as egypt and jordan. and the spending plan sets aside funds to create a new middle east and north africa incentive fund to promote democracy and good governance. the proposal maintains billions of spending on international

projects including aids and on the saving side the budget cuts aid to eastern europe and you're asian countries by 18%. it also cuts state department personnel and overseas construction programs. we posted the president's remarks today on his proposed budget on our facebook beige and we want to let you know that you can weigh in, let us know what you think about it. we've posted the question, what are your priorities for next year's federal budget? and you can let us know at facebook.com/c-span. our coverage of today's reaction to the president's budget plan will continue shortly as top democrats on the budget committee will respond to reporters' questions. we will have that live coverage at 2:30 eastern. and in the meantime, a look at the cost of prisons around the country. every monday here in the

last hour of "washington journal" we turn to your money talking about taxpayers dollars. that's when we put a special focus on your money and different types of federal programs, state programs that are out there. today's segment we look at a new report looking at how much cost -- how much it costs states to operate prisons. joe joining us from new york is michael jacobsen, current executive director or the very institute of justice. and, mr. jacobsen, the very institute out with this new report about what really goes into the cost of prisons for states. can you tell us what is the headline from this report? >> well, i think the overall headline is that everyone sort of had a sense that prisons were expensive but they're more expensive than most people imagined just because there are so many costs. a lot of states, not every state. that support prisons that are outside the prison's budget.

>> on average, i think i saw a figure in one of the stories that came out after your report did. the annual average taxpayer cost in states where you looked at the cost of prisons is about 31,000 to the taxpayer. does that surprise you? >> right. >> it didn't surprise me a lot. i've been looking in this field for a long time so i know it's expensive. $31,000 is an average figure. there's a great deal of state variation. you have states in the south like louisiana or kentucky that are, you know, if the area of half that cost. you will have a lot of states in the northeast, new york, maine, connecticut, that are significantly more than that cost. wherever they are, there are very expensive proposition to use. >> you looked at the reason why this is making headlines is about there are costs that are not being calculated by the

state. what are some of those costs in. >> well, the big ones, again, i think it's important to remember, some states do calculate all the costs and show them in their prison's budget. other states like new york, for example, and a lot of others have big costs outside the prison's budget. those tend to be things like pensions and fringe benefits, prisoner health care, unfunded pension liabilities, so it really depends on how states have traditionally budgeted those costs. but we thought it was important to capture all of them to have some kind of apples to apples comparison across states. >> let me put some dollar figures on that. we were just showing our viewers, undercutting costs to the retiree health care, about $2 billion. enemployee benefits, $613 million. pension contributes, $600 million. hospital care for inmates, $335 million. are these average for across the

states? right, i mean, those are big costs on average that layout side state corrections budgets where they are outside states corrections budgets. they're not all outside. so you do have those states that i had mentioned, especially, connecticut, new york, illinois, that have those big costs that are budgeted centrally so it's not like the government itself doesn't know those are costs attached to prisons but we really want the taxpayers to get a sense of the real cost, the real price of operating these hugely expensive institutions. >> so let me put some dollar figures on what we said for these states. new york, $60,000. maine -- these are the states with the highest costs per inmate now. per inmate. $60,000 for new york. maine, $56,000. new jersey, $55,000. connecticut, $50,000. so what does that mean then, michael jacobsen, what is the solution here? >> well, the real solution, and

again, i think it's important to recognize just the variability around the country and, you're right, most of those states that are above the average tend to be in the northeast. washington state is the one exception probably on of the west coast. i think our real is to not look at the per prisoner cost. make the per prisoner cost cheaper and there are a couple of reasons why i say that one is to run a good safe constituti constitutional well programmed prison is an expensive proposition. there are 24-hour seven-day-a week facilities. people require every possible need they have include for that population a large degree of physical and mental health needs. on a per prisoner basis, i don't think there's anything wrong with having a high cost. the real issue is on the bottom line. how much do states and taxpayers need to spend on prisons in

totality. and we're of the opinion and et cetera not just vera. we over use prison. we have too many people in prison for too long for things that are not threats to public safety. this is a call, especially in these financial times, to really examine that. let's look at how we use prison, how much we spend on prison, and try to use that parsley. it's a very expensive, very punitive sanks. it's perfectly fine to use it for people who require it but we shouldn't be over using it. i don't think states that have a higher than average cost have to try to get lower than average cost but they do need to look at the bottom lines. >> do we know how states are making up the shortfall? >> well, you know, states are doing what they do to make up shortfalls, especially now. it's one of the reasons why we put out this report. state economies are severely

depressed right now. revenue picture is pretty bleak. it will be for a while. states are enacting all sorts of cuts to all sorts of essential programs. some including prisons. but one of the things that is interesting about the field of corrections is that there's a lot of ways to control costs to lower costs, and increase public safety at the same time. that's not true in a lot of fields. you know, usually lowering costs, if you layoff teacher or firefighters, for example, there's nothing good about that. you can actually shrink these systems and have more public safety and fewer victims. we think it's important for states to look at that and, in fact, a lot of states have been working very hard on doing exactly that. >> before i get to phone calls here. here's the front page of "usa today" with the headline, spending by states and cities declines. the budget restraint in s. the most in a decade. so what do you think this headline means for budget, state budgets for prisons?

>> i think there's going to be a lot of atlanta tension on state budgets. again, it's one of the reasons we did this. we think states should be very care fur about how they look at those budgets and really look at the big policy and sentencing decisions that will really control costs and if done correctly protect public safety. we don't think states should cut at the margins and eliminate calories for meals and cut essential program that will keep recidivism down. but corrections is about 7% on average of state budget spending across the country. that's a big chunk of spending. it's gone up more than any other state function in state budget other than medicaid, and it now is really time to look and take a really mid and long-range look at how to control the costs and how to drive down crime at the same time. >> is this primarily a state issue? do states get any federal money for their prisons?

it's about 4% or so of state mob any. money. state prisons are one of those more pure state taxpayers supported functions in the country. >> a democrat in dallas, texas. kathy, before you give us your thoughts here i want to show you from the institute's report here. your state of texas, there are -- this is the average daily inmate population, about $154,000. $3.3 million is the taxpayer cost of prisoners. and that averages out to be about $21,000. the average annual cost per inmate. go ahead, kathy. >> yes, i would like to say that really don here you have people locked up for no reason at all. my thing is i think these prisons are privately owned and that way they're, you know, their budgets are making money

off of just keeping people locked up. and they're not trying to rehabilitate people anymore. they're just locking them up just for money purposes group know fellas want to get out. felon, they can't find a job. so there you go. they're back in prison again because they have to make a live og try to do something. >> okay, kathy. private versus public prisons. >> i think there are several interesting points that she raised. one is about 7% or 8% of all prisons are private. privately owned. mostly in the south-southwest. there's been a big debate about what are they better or are they cheaper. it's not clear at all if they're better or cheaper. one of the things that private prisons do do, however, is the people alone will be effectively for longer sentences and more prisoners because they get more market share that way. so they're a real player in this

field. for me it's one of the obstacles to reform, actually, because it's one of the reasons as your caller said, that prisons keep going. the other point she said is that we do have people in prison, especially low level anders who have very high recidivism rates. the united states more than half of everyone who comes out of the state prison is back in that prison in three years. that's a hugely high and costly recidivism rate. it's not good for finances, it's not good for public safety. it's one of the reasons why we think that state policymakers and the public have to shine the light in reforming a lot of these systems. >> here is something from the justis center about re-entry facts. federal and state corrections facilities held over 1.6 million prisoners in the end of 2009. 95% of state prisoners will be released back to their communities at some point. more than 729,000 individuals

were release frds state and federal prisons in 2009, an increase of 20 prz and in a study of 15 states two-thirds of state prisoners released in 1994 were rearrested and more than half returned to prison within three years of their release. tell me about the costs, though. do you have a dollar fig tour put on that? >> it's hard to have an exact dollar figure but i can tell you for the 40 or $50 billion we spend on prisons, a huge chunk of that in some states, more than half, are due to people who have already been in prison who are coming back to prison. that's why that recidivism rate, that failure rate of over 50% is a huge problem. it is not a huge problem for public safety. and that's one of the reasons why states are now putting more and more money into prevention and after care and re-entry after people come back. finding a way to target investments to we lower that

recidivism rate will actually result in huge taxpayer dollars savings and, again, if you do it correctly, if you lower recidivism rates you get more public safety, less crime and fewer victims. >> our next call comes from michig michigan. when you look at michigan, the average daily inmate population low compared to what we saw in texas. 45,000. the taxpayer cost of prisoners, about $1.3 billion. and the average annual cost per inmate is $28,000. james, independent from michigan. what's your question or comment? >> caller: i'm from washington state. i used to be a parole officer in the state of idaho and i did any internment ship in college in washington. a more practical way to get people to look at this issue for what it really is, and that's most people put more money in their budgets than education budgets. and that has a lot to do with the fact that you've got too many of these law enforcement unions that put a lot of

pressure on the state legislatures and there are no real re-entry programs for these people. they come out of the prisons. they come from extremely dysfunctional backgrounds, completely segregated from society. and then they come back on the street, kind of like in the middle of the lakes. you know, sink or swim. >> james, let me take your play about unions. >> sure, absolutely. you know, it's the same sort of political dynamic as private prisons. you know, some public employee unions, california has probably the most well-known ones, but new york, a lot of northeastern states have very powerful corrections yun younions and a them, again, not just better benefits for members and benefits have very hard jobs. they deserve to be renumerated. it's very difficult work. they also lobbied for things like longer sentence, more tough

on crime laws because they result in more jobs. i think that's changing a little bit as a lot of the labor issues become also around expanding prisons and more around just individual benefits and especially lowering violence in over-crowded facilities. that's a big issue for labor unions now. for some even more important than trying to expand. i think a lot of those unions have the sense now that states are really going to take a look at this function. they're going to try to reduce costs. they're going to try intelligently to reduce the overall size of their systems. but historically there's no question that powerful public employee unions are one of the many, certainly not the only, factors that prisons have grown over the last 30 years in this country. >> michael jacobsen, a tweet from don richie. saying its costs are low because we spend -- we send more people to county jail than to private-state run pri sons and we have strong unions here, too. can you talk about county jails

versus state prisons? >> sure. michigan does to that. a lot of states, louisiana, i believe, is sends the highest percentage o-state prisoners to county jails. there are a few problems with that. it is probably cheaper as your tweeter says. however, county jails are not meant to hold longer-term prisoners. they do not have the programs that prisoners need. it's not good corrections policy. it may be cheaper but my bet is they are probably not as well run and it will be interesting to know what the recidivism rates are for people who lead them. it is a way to keep costs down in the short term but in the long term i would get it's not. >> let's go up to new york where the average cost per inmate for taxpayers in that state,

$60,000. john, democrat caller, go ahead. >> how are you doing? well, if there's one thing that i just can't stand is hypocrisy and hypocrites. and there's nothing that makes me more ashamed to be an american than this phony hypocritical drug war which is glutted our prisons with addicts. now, if an addict commits a crime, then he goes to prison. steals something to support piece habit. send him to prison. you have a lot of users and addicts that should not be in this system. you know, thank god for ron paul. you know, i mean, i'm a democrat but i would vote for him in a minute because he wants to legalize and tax these like they did with booze. if you don't understand america that this is just a replay of alcohol prohibition, you're a stupid i hypocrite. >> got your point. michael jacobson, let me ask you

this. is there a less expensive prisoner or is are there degrees of expense when it comes to your crime that they're in for and the age of the prisoner and the gender of the prisoner? >> you know, once you're in prison and, again, if you have high levels of, let's say, drug use and mental health issues, the expense will be higher because it costs a lot of money to deal with those problems. you know, once people are in prison, those institutions are responsible for all your needs. and the sicker you are, for instance, the more you'll cost. but everyone is more expensive. some are more expensive than others. i think your caller's point, though, a number of points there, but one of them is that it is true that the number of drug users in prison, drug possessor, or low-level dealers has increased dramatically. probably by about 400,000 or

500,000 people over the last 15 or 20 percent. one of the things about that population in general, especially the low level user or sellers, is that there is criminologists call almost a one for one replace amount effect. that is when you put a low-level seller or user in prison, someone else is going to be on that street corner selling drugs and we know that it doesn't deter participate from using drugs. so those are one of the types of folks who stage really neat to look at. it's not like you can ignore them. public health concerns and public safety concerns. in the end you want to deal with their drug use, addiction issues, and all sorts of research has shown that those folks when they come out of prison go back to prison in huge numbers. there were other thanks that node to do other than put huge numbers on it. big time dealers, yes. kingpins, obviously.

but the folk that are just using drugs, we have to deal with that issue but we know that prison is not a successful response to that. >> michael jacobsen, let me get your response to this headline in the "new york times" raentsly. the number of elder inmates grow, stressing prisons. the report found that 65 years and older group, more than 90 times the rate from 1,0007 to 2012 while the number of these older inmates crease to 63%. what's the impact of this pop plaks place on costs? >> it's huge. some states have prisons that are essentially geriatric prisons. tough on crime, mandatory life sentences that we passed. certainly in the '80s and much of the '90s, so we now hold people for most of their lives at a time when they're not a threat to public safety at all. all the research shows that once

you hit 50, even before 50s, but certainly once you hit 50, your days of committing violent crime are over. so we have huge numbers of people in state prisons that are not a threat to public safety, who are very expensive to maintain because they have these health issues. it's a growing problem because n prisoners are going to keep getting older and they are more costly than the average prisoner. it's a huge problem for states. again, it's one of the impacts of passing tough on grime legislation. most of which sounds good and intuitive but a lot of which, like this, has huge unintended not just social and social justice consequences but huge taxpayer con fences as well. >> average daily inmate pop plaegs in the state of maryland. $22,000. independent from baltimore. go ahead. >> i would like to say that in

my opinion the prison system in general is evil and inhumane to put any human, a member of our family, $70 billion on heart from my family members, adam, and our mother eve. if you took that family members in jail and to tell him that he's not worth -- punishing h him -- it just shows how -- and republican built on people's citizenship, men and women under the law. we don't view it. we view them as untouchables, like a cash system now. oh, you're a prisoner, we talked about them as if they're not

even equal to us anymore. >> okay. mike is a democrat in philadelphia. what's your take, mike? >> good morning. i first want to bring up the fact that the prisons, that is one of the callers taking the wind of the of the sail on that. also, i have a son, oulder son, spent three years fighting in afghanistan. came back with a heroin addiction. he had gotten caught buying some drugs and got sent to prison. he is spending three years in prison. i just want to bring up the fact that -- i just want to bring up the fact that how many men and women are coming back with these addictions. we need more counseling and more help for these men and women. >> okay. here's a tweet here for you. why do we imprison more than any other nation?

are we the most criminal society on the planet? >> it's an excellent question. no, i don't believe we are the most criminal society on the planet. all we would think it given the number of people we imprison. the figures are we have about 5% of the would's total population, 25% of the world's prisoners. there are a lot of reasons for that. it's hard to remember this if you're a certain age. 1960s, crime was not a political issue. it's one of those issues that was left to eshs perts to deal with. it was regarded as a complex social problem and not one to be politicized. that all changed in the late '60s, early '70s and the '90s. most parties found you could make huge amounts of political capital by being tough on crime, more mandatory imprisonment. spreading criminal penalties and length of stay out almost

indiscriminately. when you add all that up, all those efforts over the years, here's what you get. right? the most incarcerated country on earth with the most taxpayer expense on earth with a recidivism rate of 52%. that's where we are today. it's not a reflection of us being the most criminalized society. these are policy choices we've made. it's obvious, everyone knows somebody who has been a victim of a crime or violent crime. there are some people who need to be away from society at least for some period of time while hopefully we try to make them better. but by no possible count does any expert on this thing we need $2.4 million behind bars in any one time. >> we're talking about state funding of prisons with michael jay consent, he's the expectative director of the vera institute of justice out with the report of the actual cost that goes into prisons. we'll hear from ray next.

republican in syracuse new york. go ahead. >> how are you doing? i work at a prison. and i had close relatives -- >> we are going to leave this and you can find the rest of the conversation online at c-span.org. taking you to capitol hill where top congressional democrats are holding a press conference on the president's 2013 budget. are we a little early? so we'll wait a few because we said we would begin at 2:30 so we will give people a chance to be here on time.

i apologize for being early. i'm from north dakota. i never got it out of my dna. i think i better give one more minute for people.