policies, that's the nice thing of being an agitator. i have the freedom to criticize and say you can make these things better. but for vp, no. if you want to lose money, bet on me for that one. >> maurice goes on to ask, what are the causes of high gas prices, and how can we remedy them? >> well, the biggest cause, and unfortunately this is the most boring topic in the world, monetary policy. the biggest cause of high gasoline prices, high oil prices is the cheap dollar. we should have learned this from the 1970s. when you trash the u.s. dollar by printing too many dollars as the federal reserve has been doing on and off for ten years now. it started under the bush administrations, continued with vengeance under the obama administration, you get higher commodity prices. you see it in the gold prices. you see it in oil prices. in the 1970s, oil went from $3 a barrel to $40 a barrel because of printing so many dollars. and when reagan finally stopped

that in the early '80s, oil went from $40 and stabilized to 20 where it remained until the fed went on this binge again ten years ago. so now it's gone from 20 to $100 a barrel. so a, number one, have a strong and stable dollar. john kerry sa john kennedy said the dollar should be good as gold. clinton understood it. we have a lot of unexplored availability of gas and oil in alaska, offshore, onshore with the natural gas. we're having a huge natural gas boom. so if we don't put unnecessary barriers in the way, within less than a decade, for the first time since the 1960s, this country is going to be a net energy exporter. it's phenomenal. huge turn because of technological breakthroughs in

drilling for natural gas and also coming with oil. more and more oil as well. >> just a few minutes left with our guest, steve forbes, who joins us from our new york studio. richard is a republican in middletown, new york. >> caller: yes, mr. forbes. a little over a month ago you talked on this show. and one caller asked the candidate with the best plan. only another candidate ron paul, you said to me that you liked ron paul's ideas, but not all of them. but he is the only one with a plan. he is the only one that beats obama. in the polls there, even though romney comes up even, ron paul wins. i mean he had 8500 people at ucla with people hanging out of trees, i called it the tree of liberty. but now we've got these things like comprehensive annual financial reports, which is really like a double set of

books. you can have a budget. but unless they look at the assets of the municipalities -- >> all right, you know, richard? we got the point about ron paul. steve forbes, your views on ron paul. >> well, in terms of the race of the 33 contests we've had, states, primaries, and caucuses, while we had a lot of enthusiastic supporters, he didn't win one of those contests. and so he is nowhere as near to getting the nomination. what i like about ron paul is his views on the dollar. he is the one candidate who has some comprehension of this boring subject, but critical subject of the dollar and monetary policy. and so rather than run for president, i think he should run for chairman of the fed and i would gladly support him for that. he is one candidate who understands when you trash your money, we pay a huge price for it in breaking down the social order, reducing standard of living, reducing real wages in this country.

that's something he profoundly gets. and i hope governor romney and others pay more attention to ron paul on that critical subject. >> tommy tweets in to you, mr. forbes, what do you think the real employment situation is? and will the representative ryan plan help the overall economy? >> in terms of employment, i think the american people now understand that the unemployment rate in and of itself hardly gives you a complete picture. a lot of people have jobs that they take because they have no other choice. a lot of people are working part-time would like to work full-time. and a lot of people discouraged, have dropped out of the labor market. so the situation, even though we've had some gains in recent months is nowhere near what we need to do to get a really good employment picture in this country. in terms of representative paul

ryan's plans, i think they are positive. tax simplification, he would have two rates instead of one. 25% and 10%, which i think would be a huge improvement over what we have today. i mean he's got very positive proposals on medicare and social security. and, again, the emphasis is for people who are on medicare and social security and are about to go on it in the next five to seven years, ten years, you're not affected by his reforms. it's only people who are younger. and since the systems, democrats off the record, most of them will tell you, especially those who served on simpson/bowles will tell you the two systems, medicare and social security are not going to work for younger people. so while we still have time, make reforms now so that younger people have something when they become of age. so it's a positive approach. don't take away anything from people who are on those systems today, but put in new systems that give something to younger people.

so i think he'll clarify the rules which will help job creation. and with the more vibrant economy, that's the only way to get resources to meet commitments in the future. >> derek, independent line, you're on the line with steve forbes. >> caller: good morning. >> morning. >> caller: you are the man. i've watched you on fox business on saturday. i saw you run for president. i wish you would have switched to the republican party because obviously they aren't very conservative, as we all know at this point in the fiscal management of our country. now my question is this. do we need more cpas than lawyers as our representatives? a. b, why do are they talking percentages? mitt romney paid what, $3 million in taxes? $3 million in taxes is what may be 5% over a lifetime paid. why are they talking percentages? where is the logic?

>> well, in terms of cpas and the like, i'm not so concerned with what the profession is if they understand, actually understand incentives, positive incentives, free markets enable people to enjoy a higher standard of living as lincoln put it, and improve their lot in life. so if they get it, i don't care what their profession is. and in terms of republicans, a lot of republicans have not behaved very well fiscally. and that's one reason why the tea party rose up. and a lot of those republicans did not win their primaries. and you're seeing some of that play out this year as well. so i think, again, the bottom line is the american people are ahead of a lot of their political leaders in knowing that things have to be done. and it's not austerity in terms of throwing grandma off the cliff or any kind of that nonsense. what it is, if you do positive things now, you're going to have a much better future and a more

prosperous future and will avoid the horrors that are unfolding in greece and the rest of western europe. we don't have to go down that path. >> we have time for lisa in sacramento, california, a democrat. lisa, we have about 30 seconds. >> caller: oh, good morning. peter mr. forbes. i just have three questions. one of them you already answered. he says he don't support affordable health care with obama, but obama adopted it from romney. second thing, you say you support the paul ryan budget. and the third thing is how do you start a business when you're unemployed and have no money? thank you. and you have is a wonderful day. >> mr. forbes, we have about 30 seconds. if you can take that third question on starting a business since we've discussed the other two. >> very quickly, if you have an idea for a product or a service, a lot of people have started a business just by producing that product and then going to

friends or family and start raising money. you can even go, even though i'm not a big government guy, you can go to the sba, small business administration and see if you can persuade them or others and start bootstrapping capital. and a lot of people are able to do it just with an idea going out there. they don't have to have a lot of capital at the beginning. and the key thing is you come up with something, then you persuade others. and that's how you bootstrap it up. >> steve forbes has been our guest for the last 40 minutes here on "the washington journal." as always, we appreciate you taking calls from the viewers. >> thank you. two things. one is this is such a complicated conflict that we have never, ever fought a war like this before. it is really complicated. the second thing is that what's referred to back here in washington as nation building really is very, very targeted war fighting. >> david wood has spent decades covering u.s. military operations for various news

organizations. and this week won a pulitzer prize for a series "beyond the battlefield" for "the huffington post." he is one of the many pulitzer prize winners named this week that you can watch online at the c-span video library, a list that includes john lewis gattis. find over a quarter century of american politics and public affairs on your future. from the colonial era, prohibition to today. drinking for better or worse has always been a part of the american landscape. saturday night live on american history tv, a history of alcohol in america. watch our simulcast of "back story" with the american history guys. ed ayers, and brian bellow regail with tails of spirits. part of american history tv this weekend on c-span 3. included in this week's series of hearings looking into a general services administration conference in

lave was one before a house infrastructure subcommittee. witnesses included a former gsa official who attended the conference and the administrator who first alerted the inspector general about the conference. this part of the hearing is a little more than three hours. >> two weeks ago the inspector general released a scathing report on gsa conference that cost taxpayers nearly a million dollars. seen a lot of reports about the las vegas lavish vacation, the spending. and i appreciate mr. cummings, ranking member cummings on the government oversight committee, as well as chairman issa for discussing in great detail those lavish expenditures and the wrongdoing that happened with the las vegas vacation. the purpose of this question is to talk about the systemic problem, how deep it goes, the corruption, the fraud, the waste

that's not just within the western region, but within gsa as a whole and possibly within other agencies. this committee is going to lay out a timeline of how many trips, how many people, how much money. we're going to talk about how big of a problem this is and how deep within the administration it goes. now you heard yesterday the testimony of mr. robertson, the chief of staff who is also the white house liaison. and was on senator obama's personal staff. we're going to hear today from mr. peck, who for the last year and a half i have asked, i have requested on a bipartisan level with ms. norton, we've sent e-mails, memos, held hearings, and asked for a budget that is outside of congress's purview.

we've been held up for far too long, and i'm here to tell you the buck stops here. we're not going to hold up any longer. the american public demands to see the budget on the public building's fund, the federal buildings fund, and how that money has been spent. this slush fund is no longer going to be used for personal uses. when federal buildings -- when agencies pay rent into this personal building fund, it is meant to redevelop. it is meant to sell off, which we've been attempting to do for the last year and a half, sell off the properties that are unused, underutilized, and redevelop, put people back to work where we can by utilizing these funds. the public has a right to know how much money is in this fund, where it's been used, a full

accountability of the past, and most importantly, what is going to happen in the future. we're going to hear from the new administrator this morning. about what has been done to reprimand those that have been involved. but again, this goes much deeper to what has already happened, those that have been fired, those that have been put on administrative leave, those that have resigned. the american public deserves to have money paid back. and where crimes have been committed, people will go to jail. and if we have to have future hearings on this topic, you bet we will. this is about the distrust of the american public and its government. this is about the waste of taxpayer dollars.

and if you can sense my anger and frustration, you should see it at home. where we've got double-digit unemployment, the highest foreclosure rate in the nation, people out of work twice the national average. and to see these types of expenditures, to see the stonewalling by this agency for the last year and a half hiding from the public the expenditures that have been made and what has happened with this public buildings fund, you bet it's an outrage. i'm looking forward to full testimony this morning to get to the bottom of it. i'm angered not only at the waste of money, but the fact that there will be people that the systemic issue here here is that you would actually go out and brag about it. that you would insult the ranking member and chair of this

committee who chaired the committee while you were having this vacation. that you would laugh about our commander in chief and laugh about how you would spend this money. this goes down from the interns to those at the top. and it is a culture that we're going to get to the bottom of. and let me just issue a warning. if this continues to go on, if we continue to not only see this type of spending, we will continue to audit. if we continue to see that you are not giving us the information on a bipartisan level to show us how these expenditures are happening, i am prepared to systematically pull apart gsa to the point where we will make it a question to the american public on whether gsa is needed at all.

but the wasteful spending is going to stop. and the transparency is going to begin. i'd now like to recognize the ranking member ms. norton for any opening statements she may have. >> thank you, mr. chairman. our subcommittee has just returned from a scheduled recess, but we are obligated to turn at once to the general service administration inspector general and others today for testimony about the 2010 western region conference, a conference run amok near las vegas, nevada. the final ig report found that expenditures related to the conference were, and here i'm quoting, excessive and wasteful and that in many instances, gsa followed neither federal

procurement laws nor its own policy in conferences. end quote. some who planned the conference appeared to have deliberately set is out to have a boondoggle of a conference and explicitly to go, quote, over the top. in the words of one conference planner, hiring mind readers and clowns and having dinner at a talent show in the desert at taxpayers expense, the expensive partying at a four-star casino resort occurred before the recovery began to take hold and as millions of americans were living hand to mouth, struggling under debts and the worst recession since the great depression. the emerging evidence shows that the conference had been building in extravagance for years. but in the last ten years had

escalated considerably. only now is the full extent of the spending coming to light. moreover, coupled with the conference scandal are reports by the ig of a federal employee awards program in the same region with little or no controls resulting in yet more excessive spending. the awards program apparently helped feed the exorbitant conference in nevada, providing ipods and other desirable technology to employees for nonwork-related matters. i am perhaps more shocked and saddened than most because i have sat on this subcommittee for more than 20 years and by and large have found gsa pated

officials and civil servants alike, including some of those named in the ig report to be among the most dedicated and professional federal employees. it is disappointing that the actions of a few officials have cast a shadow over the hard work and professionalism of the great majority of gsa employees. i am grateful to the president for acting immediately to take out the top officials and bringing in dan tangherlini, a professional of proven management skill and impeccable ethics. further, it was a political appointee of the administration who first alerted the i.g. when she saw signs of possibly excessive expenditures and employee misconduct and connection with the 2010 conference. the result was the

investigation, which outlined the wasteful spending that is the subject of today's hearing. the gsa administrator resigned. two top political appointees that were overseeing the public service were discharged and the civil servants who were responsible for planning the conference were placed on administrative leave pending disciplinary proceedings as required by law. the underlying behavior was indefensible, but the system that was designed to identify and punish that behavior worked. much work remains that may involve considerable reform and even restructure iing of the agency. i look forward to hearing from gsa officials about the steps they themselves believe must be taken. and thank you, mr. chairman. >> at this time i'd like to recognize the chairman of the full committee, mr. mica. >> well, first of all, i have to

thank you, mr. denham, for your leadership and for not just on this -- not just on this issue, the outrageous matter that's before us, but from the very beginning when i had to select someone to chair this subcommittee that oversees public buildings i think the country was fortunate to have you and your experience and leadership. and i think when we met our first assignment was to pick up -- what we had discussed we would do before you got here in the minority. and we published this report. this report basically was october, ironically, of 2010, the same time that they were spending money on our gsa on

lavish conventions. but this report is entitled "the federal government must stop sitting on its assets." it's online, and i hope you all get a chance to read it. the first part starts right out with gsa. and the abuse of not just millions of dollars in a convention junket but billions of dollars in waste. this was our primer. and i couldn't have had a better partner than mr. denham, who one of the very first hearings this committee did, and i asked him to help lead was in the vacant annex building next to the post office, vacant for almost 15 years. between that and the old post office losing $6 million a year.

put this in perspective. here again, i reference this document. this isn't a johnny come lately hearing or attempt to get an agency under control. we held the first hearing in that empty building. it was 32 degrees outside, 38 degrees inside. the picture you can see here of the gsa bureaucrats with their coats on as we brought them down to the empty building to try to get a $6 million a year loss, again, two blocks from the white house, a federal building. there's the empty building that we held the hearing in. and get it turned around and make it a productive property. the federal general services administration is our government's landlord. it's appalling to see the

wasteful and ending on this conference. and mr. denham will outline not just this conference. he's going to talk about trips to hawaii, atlanta, junkets to the south pacific, california, atlanta, hawaii, guam, saipan, all at taxpayer expense. but that's just the tip of the eyeingberg. the billions that are lost, again, by having the federal government's primary landlord agency out of control and not operating as it should and making these assets perform for the public is what's outrageous. you know, we smelled a rat, and we asked for data because if you look at the budget and the expenditures for the public

buildings commissioner they went from $2.9 million in 2007 to $9 million. that's, what, 200%, 300% increase? so we started asking for data. we got stonewalled time and time again. mr. denham asked at almost every hearing, you heard him say we requested information and data. what we got instead, this is what we got instead, folks. just a few pages of the top numbers. anyone can see now why they didn't want to disclose what was going on. miss norton said, and i agree, we have thousands of people who work for the federal government who work day in and day out and do a good job. this is not an example of the average performance of our federal employees. we have some incredible men and women. we're going to hear from one of them today, susan brita. she worked on this committee.

when you see the timeline of what took place, you see a timeline of cover-up, a timeline of deceit, a timeline of keeping congress in the dark on what was going on. and you see one woman who stood up. this conference was held on, what, october 10th in las vegas. in november she requested the i.g., the office of inspector general, look into this matter. you see yesterday and -- our committee has legislative oversight and responsibility for public hearings. we coordinated this very well with mr. isaac as he has broader jurisdiction over the white house and others that we don't have. and you saw yesterday and in the timeline that the white house knew about this in june of 2011. that's great for the president

and others to condemn the action in the last week or two. they've known for nearly a year of what was going on. and again, our former staffer not only went to the i.g. on this but other matters. and that's detailed -- i'll submit this list for the record, mr. chairman, without objection. >> no objection. >> you know, it's kind of upsetting in a way, and it should be upsetting to the american people that this has all been revealed. it would eventually -- maybe it wouldn't have been revealed. it probably could have all been swept under the table but for one person who stood up and i want to hear from her today. i hope they haven't intimidated her. i hope that she 2350e8z secure. and i hope she realize that's we recognize her patriotism in

stepping forward and again revealing what was going on. because otherwise we might not have known. we would have been handed one she'd and said don't pay attention. when i announced i was going to do hearings on this, i was pretty saddened by the comments of the majority leader of the u.s. senate. he said mica needs to get a life. well, i want to tell him and others that i have a life and that's dedicate d to uncovering waste and inefficient in federal government and building business-type common sense practices to whether gsa or other federal agencies. so we were stonewalled. we were delayed. we were not given information. but the american people need to know that this is just the tip of the iceberg. and i'll hear much more about what's going on and what needs to be done to