new loan guarantee at today's hearing republican congressman attacking two leading solar companies who received federal loan guarantees. one of them from bright source energy. a new attempt to create the kind of fury that occurred taking with it $5 million in lost loan guarantees. this is washington today on c-span radio. and other news today on wall street the dow fell again, 33 points this time closing at 12,598. a united nations spokesman says a team of international observers has been evacuated from a town in syria. the syrian based u.s. spokesman says the u.s. members picked up the team today. they were stranded in the area

with members of the opposition. the blind chinese activist, chen guangcheng today filling out a passport activation and posing for a photo at the hospital. fbi director confirming that the bureau is launching an investigation as to who leaked information about the al qaeda plot. says such leaks during on going law enforcement operations damage u.s. relations with alli allies. the u.s. navy says an amphibious assault ship collided. a third fleet statement says the collision between the assault ship and the oiler occurred at mid morning today approximately 128 miles off southern california. and here in the nation's

capitol american police officers can wear the turbines and flowing beards associated with their religion. they know of no other major metropolitan police department with a written order assuring they can maintain their appearance. change may have not much effect right away because the only officer is a reserve scheduled to graduate in august. the special order allows them to tie beards in a knot and tuck it underneath their chin. the turbines are supposed to match the color of the department issued caps which are blue and display the same badge as seen on the caps. back in one minute with more. jane is our guest this friday on c-span radio. discusses his book, peace, they

say. the most famous and controversial prize in the world. >> it was to honor the u.n. but they were saying they were admonishing the american administration in the new world against terror. everything must go through the u.n. that was a message of the peace prize. >> do you know that? >> the chairman was pretty explicit in his so-called presentation speech at the prize ceremony. he was very explicit the next year when the prize goes to jimmy carter. when the chairman announces the prize to carter he says this prize is intended not just as a personal award but as a kick in the leg to the american administration. >> author of "peace, they say" discusses his book friday 7:00 p.m. eastern here on c-span radio.

this is "washington today" on c-span radio. the president's budget suffering a second defeat today when senators voted 99-0 to reject it. this couples with the house's rejection in march means that the president's budget has failed to win a single vote of support this year. republicans offering the president's plan on the senate floor. democrats disputed that it was the president's plan arguing that a slim amendment did not match what the president's budget document included which was thousands of pages. republicans say they use the president's numbers in their proposal so faithfully trying to represent the plan. senator jeff sessions even challenged democrats on the senate floor to point out any of the errors in the numbers and he would correct them. according toor the washington post no one took up the challenge. the debate that took place, a number of republican amendments on the budget also failing in

the senate today setting up more debate on the budget and spending issues on capitol hill. here is how it unfolded. senator conrad is a democrat fro from north dakota. >> our friends on the other side like to refer to one part of the equation. they like to talk about spending. deficits are created by the gap between the revenue and the spending. you can see in this chart that we are at or near a 60-year high on spending. we have come off a little bit off of the 60-year high. we are at or near a 60-year low on revenue. we got to work both sides of the equation. we are at or near a 60-year high on spending. we are at or near a 60-year low on revenue. so what is to be done about it? the public says we ought to have

a balanced plan. they say the best way to reduce the federal budget deficit is a combination of additional revenue and spending cuts. 62% say that's what we ought to do. 8% say just increase taxes. 17% say just cut programs. madam president, i was part of the so-call ed bowles-simpson commission. supported the conclusions that called for that kind of an approach. additional revenue but also additional spending cuts. and madam president, that's what the american people says we ought to do. but that is not what our friends on the other side are proposing here. they propose additional tax

cuts. dig a hole deeper before you start filling it in. and then they say, well, in addition to that, we will have really draconian spending cuts because you are going to have more tax cuts that primarily go to the wealthiest among us and you are trying to reduce the deficit. that means you are going to have even more spending cuts. just say that our republican friends the budgets they are offering here today have something in common. everyone of them ends medicare as we know it. every republican budget offered today ends medicare as we know it. madam president, on social security one of the republican budgets being offered here today cuts social security 39%. that's their answer? if you are geeg have more tax

cuts for the wealthiest among us who already many of them aren't paying their fair share of taxes, if you are going to give them additional tax cuts how are you going to make it up? their answer is end medicare as we know it. that's in everyone of their budgets. one of them has gone so far as to say let's cut social security benefits 39%. >> the comments of senator kent conrad on the senate floor earlier today. jeff sessions republican from the budget committee, ranking republican weighing in

their vision for the future while investing considerable amount of time and effort in attacking anybody who does. they even vote down their own president's budget as bad as it is, the most irresponsible budget ever submitted here in my opinion. so this is a really odd situation that we're in. and i would just say that our country has never been in more danger financially. bowles-simpson came before the budget committee and told us this nation, both of them sienged a statement from there, this nation has never faced a more predictable financial

crisis. in other words, the course we are on today is unsustainable. they told us that. they told us it could happen as soon as within two years and that was over a year ago that they made that testimony. we are in the danger zone financially. and i know a lot of people would like to say it is not so but it is so. look at this chart. this chart shows the total debt of the euro zone including the u.k., britain and the united states. our debt exceeds that of the eurozone. swee have the larg we have the larger debt than they do. and president bush who is such a fine person noted, presided over a period in which our debt increased and it did increase. the largest amount was $480

billion in one year which was too large. president obama's never had a budget that is less than $1,200 billion deficit. next year will be over 1,000 billion again according to expert testimony. we are on an unsustainable path. i would note our 15.5 trillion for the united states is greater than the eurozone and the eurozone has a greater population than we do. let's look at this chart that drives the number home more again in case anybody is worried about it. i am. it shows the average debt per person in the countries that we have been reading about in financial trouble and hits them sometimes surprisingly. >> senator jeff sessions

republican of alabama again the senate voting down the president's budget 99-0. senator mark kirk is not in attendance. on capitol hill the house hearing that took place earlier today looking again at the issue of two big to fail and financial institutions, the headline from fox business. may tailor new rules for nonbank companies. michael gibson oversees banking and regulations for the fed and lance auer taking questions from congressman al green. the issue are new standards which would require financial companies to have more capital to make sure they can handle any ups or downs.

simply put what j.p. morgan was able to withstand. u.s. regulators may tailor new requirements mandating tougher oversight for the nonbank financial companies. questions from congressman al green, democrat of texas to michael gibson of the fred and lance auer of the treasury department. >> was aig a non-bank financial institution? mr. gibson? >> yes. >> thank you. i tend to ask questions that you can answer yes or no. and was aig into many different kinds of products, exotic products, if you will, credit default swaps, derivatives. was aig into exotic products?

>> well, with the caveat that the federal reserve was not the supervisor of aig i'm sure the answer to your question was yes. >> i understand the federal reserve was not and i'm not going there. i am going here. was aig the type of institution that fsoc would be designed to have an impact on? you want to pass, mr. gibson? i'm still with you. >> i would say that looking at the quantitative screens in stage one aig would trip many or all of those. >> of course, it would. it was over $50 billion, wasn't it? >> yes. >> elaborate. tell us why aig would come under the auspices of fsoc. >> under the fsoc rule the category, the characteristics which make up systemic

importance some of the most important ones are the size of the company and the interconnectedness of the company. what we learned about aig after its near failure was that the size is of an extent that was seen to pose a risk and the interconnectedness was substantial. >> who knew that aig was a part of the glue that was holding the economic order together? mr. auer, am i pronouncing your name correctly? >> yes. >> aig was a part of the glue holding the economic order together, true? >> i think aig was involved with a great number of other financial firms. >> and that is your way of saying yes? >> yes. >> thank you. given that we know that there are other aigs not in the sense that they are right now about to

go out of business, but there are other big businesses that may pose systemic risks. they may become sysfis. is there a way to deal with them without making an attempt to prevent them from making bad disease decisi business decisions. my belief is that that happens and that is a part of the ebb and flow of doing business but we can deal with the consequences of bad decisions. and is that what we are attempting to do here, mr. gibson, to deal with the consequences of bad decisions by these mega businesses? >> yes. and one of the enhanced

prudential standards that non-bank companies will be subject to is enhanced capital requirements that will make sure that a buffer exists to cover unexpected losses of the type you are describing. >> and for edification purposes those who would like to go back to the stock market crash, read about how the resistance that took place when we were trying to put fdic in place. and fdic has proven to be very beneficial when we are looking for an orderly means by which we can liquid ate banks, true? >> yes. >> are we trying to do the same thing now with non-bank institutions? >> that is the intention of the title two orderly liquidation authority is to extend what the fdic has for banks to non-banks. >> and we can do this and not

ov overregulate and that is what we are trying to accomplish today. >> that is what we are trying to do. >> i would agree. >> the comments of congressman al green democrat of texas before a house subcommittee focusing on financial institutions and the testimony of michael gibson from the federal reserve board and lance auer. the systemically important financial institutions was one reference. fsoc is the financial stability oversight council a direct result of the dodd frank legislation that gives broad authority to this council to identify and monitor financial institutions focusing on some of these financial institutions as you heard from congressman al green are too big to fail. this issue also coming up on capitol hill with robert muller confirming that the agency has opened up a preliminary

investigation into j.p. morgan chase and company disclosing last week it has suffered a multibillion-dollar trading loss. reuters pointing out that a person familiar with the matter saying yesterday fbi's new york office opened an investigation into the loss. here is how the questioning unfolded as he took questions from the senator from connecticut. >> i would like to ask, first, about the j.p. morgan chase investigation. can you tell us what potential crimes could be under investigation without asking you to conclude anything or talk about the evidence. would it be false statements to the federal government? >> i am hesitant to say anything

other than what is available under title 18 or available to the sec would be the focus of >> and can you talk at all about the timing of that investigation? >> all i can say is we've opened up an initial investigation. and it depends on a number of factors. >> i'm not going to press you further, but i would just encourage you without your needing any encouragement, i'm sure, to press forward as promptly and expeditiously and aggressively as possible. because i think the american public has lost faith in many other enforcement agencies, probably because of the delay and lack of results. and i think that the fbi's involvement is a very

constructive and important presence in this area. >> thank you. >> fbi director robert mueller made his comments on capitol hill. and joining us more is mary shriner. thanks for being with us. >> thanks for having me. >> we heard the apology from jamie dimon. we heard reaction on capitol hill. i guess the question is whether or not congress will have full blown hearings into what happened with jpmorgan chase. >> i think hearings are likely mostly because senators and representatives really love matching on to these big dramatic issues. they like to weigh in. you remember all those viral videos. i'm sure you will see a number of hearings, but obviously,

you're going to see different approaches from republicans and democrats and what they're going to try to get out of them. i think you're going to see democrats really double down can on dodd-frank and say there's going to be a need to fin you shall those rule writings. so for those people who are familiar with how the process works with wall street reform, what happened was that congress passed the bill and the president signed it into law, but much of the legislation was left to the rule writers and all the relevant agencies. so these rules are in the middle of being written. and the federal agencies need resources to finish them. the republicans who have never been happy with the reforms have actually tried to stave off funding from those agencies, which has made the rule writing process more slowly. but i think what you'll see is democrats saying we need to put the proper resources in and complete the law that you would mean it to be written and executed.

obviously the law as it is hasn't helped, why shouldn't we have the regulation in the first place. it will be interesting to see how the two sides play, whether or not it fits in with electoral merit and how they go forward from there. >> that's my next question. this is an election year, so the political spin on all of this, eric fernstrom, a senior romney adviser telling nbc news, this is an unfortunate loss, a $2 billion loss for jpmorgan chase, but it was a loss for investors, not taxpayers. >> well, i think that this is a central question. the other thing both parties have been saying is the average voter is worried about jobs and the economy wait losses doesn't even resonate with those voters.

you'll see people talking about it, but i don't think it will be talked about as extensively as the deficit or jobs or the economy at large. i think romney will be in a really interesting position because of his history at bain capital. how much can he go on the offensive on this issue when he has such a deep involvement in private equity and that's how he made much of his wealth. if i'm the romney campaign, maybe i don't want to bring this up as much because it provides a very complicated path forward for them. and on the same token, the president has some issues with this because for a very long time, jamie dimon was the wall street golden boy of the white house. he and rahm emanuel were e-mailing frequently. he would advise on all sorts of issues. he ran in illinois in 2004. so this is a very messy issue for everyone. and i don't know how much actually gets done in response to it, but people are going to

at least try to talk about it. >> and from a democratic perspective, the president yesterday and here earlier this week on c-span radio, congressman barney frank saying that because of what happened with jpmorgan chase, this is exactly why dodd/frank needs to be fully implemented, why these regulations need to be put in place. >> well, i think this is something that's not new to politicians in washington to look at a similar issue and try to paint it it in their favor and try to prove to the american people that they're on the right side of the issue. from the democratic perspective, you're going to see democratic senators and administration officials say this is exactly why we passed this law in the first place. this is why we need the rules to be finished. this is why it needs to be strengthened. this is why we did all this work in 2009 and the end of 2010 for ewe. and republicans will say hey, they wrote all these rules. it was a big effort. we said from the beginning the legislation wasn't going to work. it was only going to hamper wall

street's ability to sort of make profits. and even though these laws were in place, they didn't help. republicans have had a very easy time, particularly this congress saying no, this was wrong, we objected to it. the case against is a lot clearer than the case for. because it's much more simple. '. >> meredith shiner's work is available online. thanks very much for being with us. >> thank you for having me. >> and this is washington today on c-span radio. >> $900 million, according to greek officials. that's how much has left greek banks in the past nine days as the citizens of greece continue to pull euros out of the bank, a

reflection of the ongoing uncertainty that's plagued their country since the elections earlier this month. another round of elections scheduled for june, and the turmoil causing fallout across the globe including in new york. the dow jones industrial average falling for the fourth day in a row. what does all of this mean for the u.s. and for europe? william bouder is the citigroup chief economist. he spoke in new york earlier today, taking questions on among other topics, greece, the political situation, the economic situation and the euro. you made a case why a d disorderly exit would be a disaster for greece. can you tell us what an orderly exit looks like? >> well, a exit is always trouble, but you need to have a

bank holiday. comprehensive elimination, basically, nay factored writing off the remaining sovereign exposure and then continued funding. this is going to be the hard part. constant face value into perpetuity, which is worth nothing. but the public sector doesn't do anything about it. they might be able to get away with that. but you need continued funding for the 2% of gdp climbing deficit. otherwise, they have to tighten immediately. i do believe the disruptions to the portfolio will take place as

a result of the nomination. domestic law gets you nominated or the foreign law, probably not. fl's going to be balanced sheets sna looked balance are going to be completely mismatched. some doing well but others going bust. you can't be super solvent. you can be insolvent. so the net is going to be a deeper recession. if they don't get funding to fund a new sdef sit, it will be a catastrophe. and of course the ecb has to help the banks, because the bank s still euro zone liabilities that weren't on included.