increase in blacks entering the profession, any increase in reductions in poverty. it's an undeserved credit they are given. that tells you that a lot of what's taken place in the name of helping blacks has stalled progress. you know, progress continued after the great society. progress continued after affirmative action, but at a much much slower rate. >> fair enough. i want to point out in the spirit of fairness, all is not well. the notion that there is not a pool of qualified people that somehow jesse jackson could solve this by going back in the communities and encourage them to educate, that's important, but one of the things that we learned, for example, at at ppple, when you tell me there exists no pool that tells me you are fishing in the wrong pond. if you're at harvard, no wonder you're not yielding what you want, because, you know only so many students attend highly

selective institutions like brown, et cetera. there do exist highly competent students people of color. we can't walk away believe all is lost and there's no -- there's not a sufficient quality pool. we just also have to encourage people outside of our community to think about other places from which they need to source candidates. i want to say that. that's not to suggest that overall relatively speaking there are far more students under utilized than should be but i do want to make the point it's important that we all know, as you guys, to your organizations, that there really is not any kpoous the argument that, you know the myth that the talent pool does not exist is not true either, to be fair. there's bias issues in there when -- and i -- true story, sent my colleagues a resume of a cap candidate, classic, on paper,

3.9, blah, blah, the whole story. what happened is he's, oh, my gosh, get the kid the interview right away. they misred it. they thought it said harvard university, and it said howard university. the very student they were excited about when they first received that resume all the sudden, the disinterest, the level of dismissal of this kid -- so we have to deal with issues like that, and, by the way, it was not just the white partners who made that sort of assumption. some of the brothers and sisters who received their ivy league education, and, therefore, they did not think he was deserving of interviewing in the space either. we have these issues as well that i think we all need to be more cognizant of when making these decisions. fair? >> sure. >> what else? [ laughter ]

>> well, i think part of the problem with higher education and affirmative action in particular is this mismatch problem that has sort of compromised the value of a degree for a lot of black kids and talking about the value of a yale law degree when everywhere he went to apply for work they assumed he was let in with lower standards. well, that does happen now in a lot of cases, and so i think employers are understandably suspect if there are not other ways to this person can handle the work they are being hired to handle, and i think with affirmative action, that's an example of a well-intentioned policy, in this case a policy intended to increase the ranks

of the black professional class that's doing more harm than good. after the university of california system ended affirmative action higher education back in 1996 black graduation rate in the california system went up by more than 50%, including in the more difficult disciplines of math, science, and engineering again, by more than 50%, and you know, the reason is that black kids started doing what white and asian kids have always done, which is go to schools that meet their capabilities, and, therefore, many more of them were graduateing. you know, one example i've used before is a study done of black kids at mit years ago and they score in the top 10% of all kids in the country. on the math portion of the s.a.t., but in the bottom 10 %

of the peers at mit. kids hitting it out of the park were struggling, and, therefore, more of them were dropping out or switching to easier majors. some muddled through. that means if you recruit at mit and come across a black applicant, you have to take these things into consideration. even at the high ler selective schools. >> i think that's true, but all of us know the highly selective schools, in addition to the traditional affirmative action what we think of race base set asides, there's others they've done, it's for donors. if you're very, very wealthy, there's set aside spots for that too. >> but the gap between the legacy -- >> legacy is separate from donors. you get the point. >> yes, yes, yes. >> i'm hesitant about -- there are all forms of affirmative action, right? it's not always race based. there are others, but i take the

point, and it's absolutely something, the mismatch issue is one we're trying to sort and frankly, in many instances that's why black colleges and universities, it's one of the arguments for their relevancy. take a kid i don't know if you read "washington post", the kid was the valedictorian of a school here in washington, d.c. dunbar high school, showed up at georgetown, and, i mean, fell apart. it was in his neighborhood. it was not an unknown environment, but he did not have a rigorous enough k-12 experience to be successful, not withstanding his valueedictorian status. >> i think that is ultimately where it needs to be addressed, in k-12. >> exactly. >> we'll cut it. >> thank you. >> i want to thank you all for coming and participating and being here thank the manhattan institute for signing off on this, and hope to see you again. take care.

[ applause ] >> thank you. thursday senate homeland security and governmental affairs committee examines terror groups using social media in recruiting efforts, live at 9:30 a.m. europe here on c-span3. >> 100 years ago in 1915, the rmslusitania sailing to new york was hit by a torpedo fired by a german u-boat and the ship sank killing 1100 of the 2,000 people on board. thursday the national press club and world war i centennial commission host a discussion on

the tragedy and impact on american public opinion. that's live, 6:30 p.m. eastern here on c-span3. >> here's some book festivals we'll be covering this spring. in the middle of may, maryland, for live coverage of the boork festival with tom davis and martin frost as well as david axelrod and close out may at book expo america in new york city where the publishing industry showcases their upcoming books, and first week in june live for the chicago tribune lit fest including three hour live in-depth program with pulitzer prize winning author, lawrence wright and your phone calls on c-span2's booktv.

>> this mother's day, remembering life in the white house. we hear from steve ford rem necessarying about a mishap with the fireplace during his first family dinner at the white house. here's a look. >> the first dinner we had as a family and there's in tension i don't know if you notice when you first go there, you don't know the staff, you know, they've been there for years, and you rotate through, and so you're trying to get to know each other, and everybody's a little formal, and we're sitting at the family dinner table, myself, dad, mom, my sister, susan, and everybody's a little trying to figure it out and my dad trying to take the edge off, he looks and sees there's a wonderful fireplace in the room and he says oh gosh, when we used to go to vail colorado for christmas, we always loved to have a fire and one of the

people who worked there, must be the president telling us to light the fire so they went over and lit the fire. it had not been used in ten years. [ laughter ] now smoke is billowing out. [ laughter ] this is your first dipper with the staff and everything. the smoke is coming back into the dining roorme inging room, and susan and i are coughing trying to get up and my dad looked at me and said, sit back down. he goes, betty, don't we just love a fire? [ laughter ] he had such a good heart to make them feel good. it was, yeah, it was just my memory of those first days, yeah. [ applause ] >> join c-span kr mother's day for programs with the children and grandchildren of the first family's paying tribute of the first ladies and life in the executive mansion sunday at noon eastern on c-span.

>> a >> next a discussion on urban areas across the country. from "washington journal," this is an hour. we are back, round table discussion here this morning about inner city poverty, joined by michael tapper, senior fellow of the senior institute and ross the vice president of the economic policy institute to discuss the issue. ross beginning with you. let's look back a little before we talk about what's happening today. what happened to inner cities in the country? >> well, there are two things that are very important. one is deindustrialization, and the other is racial segregation. bes we really have two stories

in cities what happened to african-americans and the rest of the population. let me start with housing and how that affected black people. the -- we have a long history of segregation in the united states, and the city like baltimore is a great example where they had in the 1920s, the mayor set up segregation committee on segregation, neighborhood associations were set up to keep black people out of white neighborhoods and to keep them in pockets of very dense, poor, black populations. they were segregated into essentially, a ghetto. and they were not -- because they were in that situation when the great wealth expansion in the united states occurred after world war ii, they were left out of it. they could not get mortgages because they were red lined, and there were exclusionary zone zoning

practices in the suburbs that kept them out of the suburbs and they could not get federal insured mortgages because the federal government actually told mortgage companies and realtors they could not give them to black people. i mean, they were absolutely excluded. so their ability to buy a home and get the wealth, it goes with home ownership was blocked, and that continues today. the impact of that is that the children of those people and children of the 40s and 50s did not acquire wealth or inherit wealth, and they are still in segregated neighborhoods where nay are poor. >> okay well, we'll dive into that more, but michael tanner, your perspective on the same question. what do you think? >> sure. i agree with most of that, but i also think we have to include the fact there was an enormous plight of the middle class out of the cities that took place in

the '60s and '70s in the wake of the rise that took place following martin luther king's assassination, white middle class fled and black middle class followed not too much longer ending up with ever-growing property tax rates higher taxes in the city that in many cases drove the middle classes to the suburbs with less crime, lower taxes, and better quality of life. you ended up and poverty that was walled off from the rest of the community. >> ross what did it the government do? how has the government responded? >> whites on their own got up and left the cities, partly because the cities were black

and white people didn't want to be with black people and they left. i grew up in the detroit area louising almost all of the white population, lost it long before the riots in detroit. it was a human decline in the white population because they were able to move to the suburbs where jobs were being created, factories were being built not in the intercity, but out in the suburbs where land was cheap and the federal government was financing their mortgages. it was insuring their mortgages making it possible for them to buy out there, but not making it possible for black people. so the federal government encouraged segregation, and it's never done anything to correct it. all the programs you can think of, if they do not address the core problem of poor people without wealth segregated into a

tight area of a city if you don't deal with that problem, you'll never solve the problem. >> the government true a lot of money at the problem. the fact it in 1965 with the war on poverty we poured money into the intercities and fighting poverty generally. we spent $22 trillion fighting poverty since 19 65. last year alone, federal government spent $688 billion on antipoverty programs 120-plus programs, and state and local governments spend $320 billion more and in 2003 to 2013 baltimore got $6 billion in funding and 1.8 billion in stimulus money and individual welfare payments to people living in the communities. we've thrown money at the problem, and that makes poverty less uncomfortable. we gave people food.

done away with the malnutrition things like that that was going on, but we have not enabled people to get out of poverty, and we have not allowed people to rise up the economic ladder, and what we found is simply giving people money is not the answer to the type of the solutions. >> why not? why isn't there the economic opportunity that you're talking about? >> well, we basically, number one, there's not jobs, unemployment in baltimore and areas particularly the low income area, the area in sand southern where freddie was arrested, the unemployment is 50%. that's an area that does not have a grocery store. there's not a restaurant in the entire area or a fast food joint. there's no jobs available. yet, we know jobs are the number one way to get out of poverty 3% of people who work full time live below poverty. >> what's to blame for no jobs in the area? >> maryland has the worst business climate in the nation, one the highest marginal tax rates of small business one of

the high business tax rates, huge heavily regulatory burden and property taxes are high in maryland, and what you got is a government climate which is hypothetical to the creation of business. >> do you agree? >> i couldn't disagree more. maryland is the wealthiest state in the nation. maryland's per capita income is number one in the united states, so people there are doing well, but baltimore are not doing well, and poor people of baltimore are not doing well. the war on poverty reduced poverty, and it was successful until -- and poverty rates declined drastically. they fell to 11% at one point, the national poverty rate, back up to 15% now and many things changed in the late '70s. most important things are we stopped rewarding work the way

we used to. minimum wage since 1968 lost 30% of the value, so it's muchearteder for someone to make a living on minimum wage. senator warren tells the story of her father losing his job and her mother being able to support the family and keep their house because she took a minimum wage job. that is not possible where the minimum wages are. they are well below poverty wage. if we rewarded work and raise the minimum wage $12 an hour minimum wage that lifts millions and millions of people out of poverty. they would be working. they would be paid for their work in a way that allows them to care for their families. >> minimum wage increase helps relatively few people in poverty. only 13% of the people helped by an increase in the minimum wage

live below poverty and we have people trying to support their families on minimum wage is a myth, and 5% on minimum wage are single mothers support king children, for example. what you would do is wipe out entry level jobs, the first rung on the ladder to get out of poverty. the fact the suggestions are that you'd actually help a number of people in the middle class with the increase in the minimum wage, but hurt people who are poor. >> get the viewers involved. we'll get back to that. >> good because i disagree with that. >> randy, good morning. >> caller: good morning. yeah, i'm calling about this disaster for decades between u.s. citizens taxpayers' money between $17 and $22 trillion for

the war on poverty, and they upped the people -- they get housing, they get help with electric bills, lifeline on their phone bills, this is all racist, and, you know, can't get money for, you know, single mothers -- >> so, randy, you disagree with the policies? >> caller: well, after, you know, after all these decades, yes, and you know, i, you know i -- there is a safety net but, you know like me family, we

took, like, on the job training apprentice-like, to help install carpeting or painting. >> so having some sort of training to go along with the safety net programs while people are trying to get their feet underneath them. ross, respond to him. >> well, i agree with the problem that there are not jobs in baltimore for these people. the up employment rate at 8.4% means one out of 12 people is looking for work and can want find it, okay? there are not enough jobs for people in baltimore, and it's just not true that people are, you know, all these poor people there, the unemployed people are living on welfare, that the fact of the matter is that only 5% get cash welfare benefit, and 25% of the baltimore cities residents live below poverty and only 5% get cash welfare benefits. the fundamental problem is there are not enough jobs, and you

asked what are policies that work and don't work? well, the clearest policy, the biggest policy failure in the united states over the last 30 years is cutting taxes as a way to solve these problems. we cut the top marginal rate from 90% to 70%, and them reagan administration from 50% to 28%. we had 30 years for that to magically create jobs. it's been a complete failure. i mean, the results are there for everybody to see. >> okay, we divided lines regional, eastern central dial in at 202-748-8000. mountain pacific, 202-748-2000. inner city is 202-748-0020.

>> caller: i think it is all about segregation. and if we could addmit and believe at one point in america there was forced geographical segregation, then to -- when did it end? if this did end, why are people still primarily segregated? second point talking about jobs, job trains get the structure. there's infrastructure jobs that need to be done everywhere in the united states, and in the job training program would be to train the people, anybodied too the jobs, to do the jobs, and i think there is just disingenuous, oh man just like sometimes, you got people to say these guys are so lazy, nobodiments to work, but look at the fact it's hard to get aon as a black man with a college degree than to be a white man with a felony.

what is it? are we lazy or you don't want affirmative action? >> okay. okay. all right. michael, jump in. >> sure. i think that's a good point there. it is largely a problem of jobs, and i don't think the government does a good job of creating jobs. baltimore, they got 1.8 billion for stimulus funds spend 1.5 billion on that and government's website they created 67 permanent jobs. that's not a good bang for the buck for government spending. there are things to do to make it easier for young black men to get jobs. for example, we should not require -- businesses should not be asking whether or not people have a conviction or felony on their record, for example. the fact we over criminalize, we arrest young black men for all absurd crimes thereby giving them a record making it impossible to get a job in the future or to get education or

become marriageable, a problem for out of wedlock work, and those are problems to deal with right away. long term jobs you can't expect businesses to operate at a loss, and if you're going to tax them and regulate them and require that they pay benefits and so on, they are not going to hire. we'll get more automation and jobs overseas and so on. >> new york times 1.5 million black men missing. this is touching on what you said, for every 100 black women not in jail, there's only 83 black men, and maining men, 1.5 million are missing among cities with black populations and largest single gap is in missouri, north charleston, south carolina, with a gap of 70%. and the gap driven mostly by incarceration and early death barely exists among whites. >> well, that is a huge problem.

we have a national policy, you know implemented at the state level, but it is a policy of houpding young black men into jail. criminalizing things that should not be criminal, harassing them. in the gray case he look at a cop and ran. you know, that's not a crime and yet it led to his death. there's a study, really interesting study in baltimore following for 25 years, 800 public school students starting when they were in elementary school, and here's just one of the many conclusions. having an arrest record or failing to complete high school were less consequential for white men than for african-american men. 84% of whites without a high school degree were employed at age 22 among african-americans just 40%. so that consequence of having an arrest record are much more

serious for african-americans. this is one of the things that has kept them out. >> asking you this, then, what leads to having an arrest record, and that being predominantly among african-americans, what role does government play in helping or hurting that drstatistic you're telling us about. go ahead. >> yes, police black children and do not police white chirp in the same way. kids openly drank alcohol used marijuana, drove fast, you know did all the things kids do. those things are criminalized for black teenagers. they are not for white teenagers, and then the results of that is for the rest of their lives, these blacks, especially men, are discriminated against.

>> michael -- >> and it's the war on drugs as well. >> okay. >> the fact is we arrest young black men for possession of small amounts of marijuana and things of that nature, and them the fact they create profits driven in the illegal drug trade, creates high crime areas police on guard, looking for problems and for trouble, and they do just hang on the corner, and they come up and assume you're dealing drugs may or may not be correct in this case, but that leads to problems down the road, and it's what leads to the sort of abuses we're seeing going on. baltimore's paid out some $6 million in police brutality claims over the last decade. i mean this sort of harassment policing leeds to the trouble we're seeing. >> okay. what about the public institutions that these kids are supposed to be in a part of growing, education? >> well, the "wall street journal" is not a place i turn for inspiration but there's --

in yesterday's there was a story -- well i don't see it in the papers, but it was a businessman, jay, saying that he had his kids in a baltimore public school where there were not toilet seats on the toilets, heat off in the winter lighting was poor, and the schools are crumbling, and he said, how can you expect kids to value their education, pay attention and learn in that kind of an environment, so, you know, the federal government among others could do something about that. that's an infrastructure problem. there was legislation that was kick out of the stimulus program, and a $30 billion program to fix the schools around the country. it would have made a huge difference in baltimore. >> baltimore spends the top u.s. cities, fourth or fifth in per capita spending. the money is not necessarily

generating better results. some of it is wasted. fact they pay back a state grant right now because they end up using money for dinner cruises rrp fixing the schools, but a lot is not effectively used and part of the reason is because the teachers union in maryland is very strong. there's one of the weakest charter school laws in the nation, and far more charter school in washington, d.c. than the entire state of maryland that you have even parental choice in public schools that is very limited. assigned a school district lousy school, you can't move your children to another district in different school. what you have is really very little parental control, very little monitoring and requirements for the teachers and a lot of waste in terms of money spent now. >> okay. let's get back to calls. depp nis dennis is waiting in florida, dennis, thank you very much for hanging on the line, go ahead. >> caller: my pleasure. good morning, they touched on education, which is what i wanted to discuss. to me, if you're going to talk about poverty in the inner

cities, it seems like there's two systemic problems. number one every knows the families all broken up and the other is the education issue. as one of the guests just said, baltimore does spend a third highest amount in the nation per capita on spending per child, and as i was listening to the comments regarding the baltimore riots, a lot of the people who were on the air said we need more money for spending on education in baltimore which is absurd. then i, you know heard other people say, well, the quality of education in baltimore's bad, forget the money. well, that's wonderful but the people that are saying this don't want the kids to have an option to get out of the public school system and go to private or religiously affiliated, which the supreme court said were totally constitutional. i saw a graphic on c-span this past week that had four statistics on the screen, one of which was that was in baltimore there's a daily 46% rate, but there's 50% unemployment among

blacks. isn't it interesting that 50% of black people can't get a job and 46% don't go to school? wonder if there's a coincidence there or what. >> okay, ross you can jump in. >> i'm going to say i hear something that sounds racist here going on but the fact of the matter is that the schools in baltimore are just overwhelmingly high poverty schools. the white people left the baltimore school system 30 years ago or more. the private schools, you know white kids are in private schools paying $25,000 a year for those schools, and so they took their resources out of the public schools. >> talking about property taxes? >> you know property taxes, the personal resources that families take you know successful better off family has time to

spend in the schools, bringing their expertise, they participate in the classroom and they do extracurricular activities. the public school my children went to had a parent-teacher budget of $150,000 a year. the parents put that in apart from the taxes paid. that kind of resource is not available. >> that highlights the unfairness in the school system. that's right. white children went to the suburbs or private schools so we pay the black children, stuck in the schoolsing and we're not going to let you out. why not give them options in order to take their money that let the money follow the child rather than follow the school and take the money, go to the suburbs or go to a better school district within baltimore. why do we lock them in to allow the schools because they are poor or black? >> okay.

daniel's next. go ahead daniel. daniel, good morning to you, you're on the air. one last call here for daniel. all right. move -- oh there you are, go ahead. >> caller: okay. yeah my question is in terms of the gentleman from the cato institute, about what makes him an expert on the inner city given all he's throwing out are numbers which tends to not reflect the reality of the situation the gentleman -- he's talking about some of the realities versus what's occurring in the country. >> michael? >> well that's right. i grew up in a middle class, working class family in lily white western massachusetts, so i've not lived in the inner city

other than washington, d.c. in my life, so i can't say that i've experienced anything like what a young black man experiences today, and i won't pretend that i have the same experiences as they are. >> what are you studying at cay toe? >> but i worked for years on inner city poverty issues, met with people in the inner city, talked to them traveled, and worked in as many areas as i can, so i mean, i think i have expertise, and if the question is they disagree with my facts, figures, and the numbers, i want to know what they disagree with because those are generally accepted figures from the federal government and from legitimate sources. >> okay. on to maurice in memphis, tennessee on the line of inner city residents. you're on the air. >>ed dpoo edgood morning. first of all, mr. tanner, he's reference ing

referencing poverty in a great society. this new conserveative movement that swept, the reaction to the poverty was working, and these ideas and notions about african-americans -- those in most dire need is another problem because you end up stereotyping all individuals with a broad brush. if the war on society had been allowed, war poverty had been allowed to progress, we would have seen a much more aggressive pushback against poverty so to go back to the war on poverty, that's why you start to hold the conservative movement, you know, starting with nixon reagan, and even today, using buzz words

saying they are failed policies, but you have 50% of the population pushing back on progressive ideas. >> ross? >> well, you know, i think there's a lot of truth in what he's saying. the -- there's no question rapid reagan wrote on welfare queens getting big benefit driving cadillacs at the same time. he's famous for that. step back and see what happened, what changed right then in 1980 and coming forth, the biggest change in america is the nation kept growing. the economy kept growing. working people, white and black, stopped being paid -- stop seeing wage increases and compensation that tracked the growing productivity of the economy and the overall growth of the economy. if the growth we had from 1945 to 19 80 continued through

today, the average household in the 20 to 80% in the range of the income distribution would have $18,000 more income per year than they have now. that is a transfer of wealth they did not get that where did that wealth go? to the top 1% and the amount, the annual amount lost to the middle 60 % is 1 preponderate.3 trillion a year. that's the big change in the economy. >> nelson in st. louis missouri, you're up next nelson, you're on the air. >> caller: morning, thank you for taking my call. >> morning. >> caller: right on point with a lot of what is said, and mentioning the fact that when the whites fled the city and moved out to the suburbs, the federal government stepped in and assisted them financially.

mr. tap ernner oerpdsn the other hand talks about all the money spent in the public school systems, but fails to point out a lot of the money is spent on nutritional programs, for security, and other type programs that they don't have to have in suburb schools. not only that, but the city schools -- all of the people who could afford to move out moved away taking revenue with them as was talked about and so you have a different climate. you have a different climate in the inner schools, talking about how kids can go to private schools, charter schools, and kids in the suburb, they restricted to a school district like the kids in the iner city are, and they have to go to the schools that are in their district, and you have parents

out there who can afford to send kids to private schools or charter schools if they want to, but inner city kids have to go to schools within their districts. they do not have that option like that. >> okay. michael? >> well, look, you know, certainly, children growing up in the inner city and going to school there face challenges that children growing up in the sbub suburbs do not face. it costs more money to educate them. we recognize that. on the other hand, saying we have to spend more money on education does not play out in terms of educational results. the studies generally show there's no direct correlation between amount of money spent per child and the educational outcomes that are there. what we do know is that we -- is that in maryland schools we see little competition, see little innovation, little reform going on in the schools in terms of trying new things, new approaches in terms of educateing those children, and if you drop out of school, you'll end up being poor, and 525% of children

in baltimore do not graduate. they'll end up being poor their entire life and sat scores are lower than the statewide or national average and majority of half the students do not pass the assessment test every year. we know that they are not getting the education. i think what we have to do is try something different. definite of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again expecting different results. we have thrown money at the problem. we have not seen improvements. let's try something different. >> how do you give parents, though, school choice, parents who are poor or single moms or single dads when 84 % of the kids in this baltimore neighborhood were -- could receive eligible for the free school lunch program. we had a parent last week from maryland saying i want to get my kid into a different school, but i can't possibly afford to travel to get my kid into another public school, not even a private school, but, you know

everything that goes into trying to get your kid if you're poor, out of the neighborhood and into a better neighborhood with a better school. >> starts with trying to create more schools within the nay. washington, d.c., for example, has a number of charter schools with a fairly open school law. maryland has one of the most restrictive in the nation with 70 charter schools in the entire state so open it up make it possible for people in communes to create school within the community teaching the way the parents in the community want it to be taught then we could start there. second, we're already spending that money per child. let's just let the money follow the child in some way rather than making money go to a specific school. >> okay. ross, jump in on that. >> yeah, i mean, that sounds good except that detroit i know two cities pretty well detroit and washington, d.c. detroit is more like baltimore. it's a very poor city. you know, almost like 85 to 88%

black. it's -- so it's got pie poverty a lot of problems a lot of charter schools and they are a failure. the charter schools are not the solution. nationwide, charter schools do not produce better results than public schools in detroit they produce worse results, and in washington, d.c., results are no better. charter schools are not a solution. i mean, you can, you know nibble around the edges and try different things and -- but, they are not working, and i think we need, you know, mike says we have to throw all this money -- we have not thrown very much money at the problem. we don't provide wrap around services before and after care for the kids so, and what do we do for the mothers? these single mothers people mentioned today. what do we do to make it possible for them to make their lives something other than that you know endureing hardship?

we don't provide child care for them. we need universal child care that the government provides for everybody, but, you know, especially for these people. we have work schedules for them that make it impossible for them to plan, you know, they are low wage workers. they have just in time scheduling, and that makes it, you know, just impossible for them to keep a job, to arrange child care for their kids, and to be home with them when they need to. they can't plan their lives when an employer tells them the day of, you know you have to be in at this time or i had you scheduled for 8:00 but i want you in at noon. i mean, their lives are made very hard. >> boulder, colorado marie good morning to you. >> caller: good morning, c-span thank you for taking my call. i have a couple comments in agreement with reflecting on reality of the situation when it

comes to schools poverty level and minimum wage. i am a single mother. in order to provide my children with a scholastic environment both at home, but to put them in schools where they could gape opportunities for merit scholarships both of them we needed to move to an affluent area so i did my research and was successful and they were educated in public schools in affluent areas where he's right two-parent families and single parent families do a lot of work at the schools and put in a lot of money extra money -- students with a good education, so he is right about that. after school programs are necessary, boys and girls clubs, things like that. there has not been enough money, i would disagree with the person from cato, there has not been

enough money put into the public school systems that we really need. particularly in the inner-city. my final comment, now that my children are in college and i am degreed -- college degreed and i have many certificates because i was able to go back thanks to the federal government -- [laughter] i still work a school thanks to the federal government. i still work a minimum wage job which i'm happy to have. i love to work. it does not provide me food and housing. i have to, on a minimum wage job, even though i'm college educated, it -- i have to rely on a safety net from the government in order to just not e to be on the streets, so those u very are my two m comments thank you very much.ll hav >> going to john in milwaukee,

inner city reresident, and then you can respond.e sit up john, go ahead. >> caller: well, you know, it's interesting to have three white people sit up and talk about theave inner city black problems of jobs and none of them have -- ignored the fact the real problem with the society is africa stealing. we're and stolen from african people were stolen and made slaves in the united states and theirng labor was stolen.t then there were changes. the manufacturing jobs that came along, and that allowed a lot of plaque people to achieve middle class. guess what? they stole the jobs from the black people and gave them and sent them to china. how can you -- you want to tell me this is not intentional? do that it trouble white people that black people were achieving middle class and doing much better? i know for a fact i'm 79 years

old, and i know that this was better in the '60s, '40s, and there was job there, and when black people achieved middle class, they did away i with it. if you want to tell me this is tha not intentional how can you trust people that will kill children and justify that? thank you. >> john, beforeyo you go are you retired now, john? >> 79, i hope he is.ersati >> yeah, this is not the first balti conversation that we'vmoe had about the situation in baltimore, the race issues there, the policing the economic opportunities, education, et cetera. it's not the last.versng on we just had a conversation on saturday morning here on the jo "washington journal", and if youans missed that, talking to two situa african-americans on indictments that came down on baltimore in friday and situation in general that we see across the country, perspect

so again, two different ere. perspectives on that. go to our website to watch it that. guest: what he said about the of jobs, i'm not going to say it was intentional. general electric started moving jobs overs s in the 1970's. i think they were >> when they moved job overseas in the 70s, they were doing it as a way to get cheap labor, you know, that was their motivation, and that's the motivation of most of the jobs lost that way but we do have an industrial policy, a trade policy that has created huge deficits that are costing the nation millions of jobs. if we closed our trade dechficit, got back in the balance and it can be done. we can do that by attacking currency manipulations by china and other countries close that trade gap, we could create millions of jobs in the united states, good manufacturing jobs,

lost general motor plants in baltimore, and lots of other industrial jobs and we need a national policy that keeps work in the united states rather than sending it abroad. >> on trade, financial times front page, this morning, trade figures raise fears of a contraction in the u.s. economy because of the strong dollar, exports from u.s. companies have gone down, imports up and that trade deficit number is larger. right at the time when the president is arguing for more trade deals and trade promotion authority. go ahead. >> imports are not bad, in fact, imports are good for poor people so they can purchase products they otherwise couldn't afford. what you are talking about is trade restrictions and protectionism is attacks on low cost goods that poor people live on. poor people couldn't shop at walmart or cvs for low cost goods. they'd do without the goods.

in fact, we are not necessarily sending as many jobs abroad as people think. we produce more manufacturing goods now than we ever have. we are just doing them more first timely with more automation in ways that uses less labor so less people are involved in the manufacture industry, but we produce the goods. >> not doing them in cities anymore? >> well, no no in my ways, the jobs have gone to the sbubs. low tax sbubs opposed to high tax cities. >> okay. ross, jump in, but we have more calls. frank and then to you. frank in virginia beach go ahead. >> caller: yes hi how y'all doing? >> morning. >> sorry. just a moment here. >> you're on the air here, you got to be ready. go ahead matt, in baltimore. >> caller: you can tell from my accent i'm an inner city new york boy originally and product of their public schools before the government decided that they

wanted to control us. we used to say in science there are liars, more liars, and sta tigs sessions, but i want to add ultra libs like one of your guests. 5% of baltimore residents are on welfare, cash welfare, neglects the fact that 75% are on noncash welfare such as food stamps and represent subsidyiessubsidies. the problems are not anything that were spoken of today. what the problems lead to -- very clearly, is a destruction of the family, destruction of the respect of teachers. i went to school -- i happened to go to stiverson new york. i went to school that destroyed

education, he started the nea and teachers associations which have completely underminded teachers welfare. >> sir we got the point. ross? >> well, okay. what are the other kinds of benefits that people get in baltimore? ed food stamps, supplements as they call them in maryland, the average benefit is $32 a week. no one is getting rich off benefits. this is just to keep people alive. as you said, you know, people who are in poverty to keep them from starving. you can be against that, but i'm not against that. the housing vouchers that people get, section a housing vouchers, are available to one in four people in poverty. one in four people who need them, and they -- a landlord in a suburb or white part of baltimore can refuse to accept the housing voucher. this is a federal policy

allowing them to refuse it is essentially saying i can refuse to have a black person, a poor black perp living here even though, you know i'm paid as land lord. i can refuse them. that's a policy that end forces segregation that we had for so long. same thing is true of the low income housing tax credit which goes to developers. they can't develop in places that will not have them, in white communities that will not have them. it reenforces segregation we had all these years, so the federal housing programs are actually in many ways, they are too small, i'd say, and working against the very people that they should be helping by blocking their opportunity to move as your caller said to a higher income more affluent place where schools are better. they can't move. they are stuck where they are because of our housing policies. >> michael tanner, you get the

next call, mason in ohio hi, mason. >> caller:ed good morning. >> good morning. you're on the air. >> caller: i think it's interesting. i used to travel quite a bit for about three years for work, and i would end up in three states in a week, so i saw a lot of america and lots of america that's out there. one thing i noticed when we talk about the inner city, we have to broaden our perception of what that means because it's not just black. it's hispanic. it's white. it's a lot of different types of people falling into the poverty guidelines, and we've had more people fall into poverty just in the past year from the meltdown eight years from the meltdown than we have in history. and when we start talking about what type of money needs to go into these locations, we're not talking about what's really need. like community centers that can bridge gap between police and

the people that live there. green spaces where they can have fresh foods planted or just a nice place to congregate. also, we're not end forcing or allowing programs like head start to be in these programs. or new books. a lot of the schools in the iner city do not get the money that the city or the state gets because they are not top of the list. they are poverty at the low end of the list. when it comes to cuts, people in poverty suffer the most. >> okay, mason michael, jump in. >> well, we spent a trillion dollars last year on antipoverty programs at the state and federal level. the question -- that does not sountd sound like neglect to me. how much more do you want to spend in we spend more every year when it comes to an my poverty programs, but we're not seeing results in terms of decreasing poverty, so the question is, do you want to

throw good more good money after bad? one area where i would, you know, i think have an area of agreement with ross are housing vouchers, so on, do create many problems, and landlords refuse benefits benefits, a concentration of poverty in the areas that could magnify many of the problems with it. we have to be moving away from the end kind of benefits and cash benefits that people use however they want to use rather than, you know, we should not be infant liezing the poor, here's a allowance allowance, here's money for your food, here's money for your remit, but expect them to take care of themselves. >> lynn in virginia, go ahead. >> caller: hi, okay. the reason i'm calling in today, i'm enjoying the program, but i wanted to let you know that i've worked in new york city in a very poor neighborhood for three years, and twice a year we were given some catalogs and told

that we could order supplies from this catalog. in the spring, we could order $800 worth of supplies and in the fall order $300 worth of supplies. well, we ordered because we were really excited. low and behold when the goods came in, we got, like, $20 worth of things in the springtime -- >> joyce, what was the program? >> she a teacher? >> were you a teacher? >> caller: i was a teacher in the public school for three years, and the government at that time was saying that they were giving about $60,000 to the public schools, so -- but i was a teach eer, and we was so disappointed, each year for the three years it was just a trick. they gave us the catalog, and there was no money, and the kids did not have all the things they talk about, oh, we gave all this money. all these were lies so the rich

kids, i'm pretty sure they got, because in my classroom i had, like 33 kids. it's very difficult for one person to teach 3 3 kids. >> in what grade? >> first graders. >> okay. talk about teacher resources and class sizes, ross you want to talk about that? >> well, i'm completely in favor of lowering class sizes which is an expenseive thing. you have to have more teachers. you have to pay more teachers to do that. teacher to captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2008 captioning performed by vitac 33 that she was facing. i think we could put a lot more money into education than we do now. just for the record, cbo said we spent $588 billion on poverty programs. not one trillion, --

guest: federal. guest: federal budget, right. and it is not going up. the amount of money we are spending is no more a share of the economy than it was 10 years ago or 20 years ago. it is actually smaller than it was. these are real problems that these kids face that their parents tend to be unemployed, they moved a lot. the needs are so much greater than they are in a suburban school. i think we should be spending more on them rather than less. host: michael, do you want to jump in very quick? guest: we spent 13,500 dollars per child in the baltimore school district. clearly, we are spending money on the school system there. we just have not gotten results from it. host: chris you are next in baltimore. go ahead. caller: how are you doing? the education is important, but

i think we do spend enough money on education. throwing money at a problem and not fixing it, i think we just need to try and get some jobs and -- in baltimore city. our unemployment rate is over 30% between 18 and 35 years old. host: what kind of jobs are there and what kind of jobs are needed? caller: manufacturing jobs are definitely needed in baltimore. the kind of jobs, fast food restaurants, home depot, stuff like that. host: service sector jobs. how much did they pay, chris? caller: probably like eight dollars or nine dollars. host: michael tanner? guest: a huge problem. we know that people that work even part-time, are far likely to be in poverty than people that don't work. common sense. only about 3% of people who work

full-time are below the poverty level. need to look at policies that will bring jobs back to the inner-city. you can't do that in a state that has the seventh highest marginal tax rate on small business in the nation or has one of the top 10 most unpleasant business climates in terms of taxes and regulation. host: ross eisenbrey? guest: i think the business community has had 30, 35 years of their taxes being reduced and reduced and reduced to make the business climate writer. -- guest: not in maryland. guest: even in maryland, the tax rate on corporations is less today. if only because of the federal tax rate being so much lower than it was 25, 30 years ago. they share of the state revenues and federal revenues that are paid by corporation is much lower than it used to be. that is not the solution.

i think that the federal government needs to step in and be the employer of last resort. there are one million things that need to be done, as what i said childcare, before and after school programs. if you have been to baltimore, you see miles and miles of empty houses, boarded-up houses. they could be rebuilt, torn down. something needs to be done about them. they are an eyesore and applied. people could be put to work doing that. as i said, the schools need all of this work. we should have a program that puts people to work preparing all of those school's. host: what about the responsibilities of the private sector? some people point at johns hopkins university in baltimore, what are they doing to help the city? michael tanner, what are your thoughts? guest: the private sector has a responsibility to create jobs that enable the business to

thrive and prosper. they can't operate at a loss. you can't tell businesses they need to spend money they don't have. businesses are profit-making operations. we already have a tremendous involvement in the government with maryland. the government already is providing all these jobs. what we miss is the fact that there is a seen and unseen. we see government jobs provided. what we don't see is the fact that to pay for those government jobs, you have to tax private businesses in order to get the money to the folks that are working for the government. that means less money available for businesses to create private sector jobs. it is the private sector jobs that will ultimately lift people out of poverty. host: let me go to janelle in tallahassee and i will come back to you, ross. yes, we can. caller: [indiscernible] politicians and unions and

administrators -- [indiscernible] host: actually very difficult time hearing you. you are breaking up, my apologies. i will have to move on to baltimore. you are on the air. caller: good morning. i just want to make a couple quick points. i worked in a school district and one of the things i learned is that the children are going home to the exact issues they are faced with. some of the programs are going to be out there but they need to be supporting the parents as well so that they can actually be a reliable resource to the children. from a business perspective, what i don't see anyone discussing is the fact that how they have come in and allowed -- and a lot of businesses are eliminating positions for people to actually work. it needs to be looked at from both sides but throwing money at a problem and eliminating jobs and we have people with degrees, etc., that can't work because companies are leaning out their process and calling it a -- calling it efficiency, but

they are still making more money. i just wanted to present that. host: ross eisenbrey. guest: i would like to go back to the trade deficit for a second. mike says that these imports are good because they are cheaper, but if you don't have a job, you can't pay for those imports. the net effect on working people of the trade deals that we have made over the last 20 years or so since nafta has been -- cost millions of jobs and to lower the average wage and the average income of a working family by about $1800, even after taking into effect inflation and the cost of consumer goods. the net effect on most working people has been negative. i think it is worth pointing out that in baltimore, where we have this tremendous unemployment everybody agreed, we select people, employers bring in guest workers to do jobs that those people could do. we let employers go to mexico

central america to bring in people as landscapers and gardeners and hotel workers. jobs that clearly a person with a high school education can do. the unemployed people in baltimore can do yet, we let them bring people from thousands of miles away to work in his stead of going -- instead of going to baltimore in hiring the unemployed people in baltimore. to me, that is a crazy policy. host: caller: this would be for mr. tanner. i am not poor and i am not black. but when you sprinkle poverty and despair in any community, i don't care what color you are you are going to get the same results. if you transparent of the blacks in baltimore with white you would get the exactly the same results. when people say blacks need to

get with it and try harder, history shows that when you take everything away from people, native americans who are very proud people before we came here, and they never recovered. it is not quite that simplistic when you make the statements you do. 2 i don't think i said it anytime today the black people need to get together. if i was living in baltimore i would be facing many of the same challenges that young black men face today and i would probably react the same way. not that it is an excuse for the writing or violence going on but the despair and hopelessness is understandable. but we need to do is look at the policies that will raise people out of poverty. those have to do with education. it means reforming the education system. they have to do with restoring the family. which is missing in baltimore in many ways. it has to do with saving and investing.

it does not having to do with sibley throwing money at the problem. host: we are talking about inner-city poverty today, but there is poverty in rural areas where it is predominantly white. appalachian mountains, etc.. and people say we put money into those areas and they are still today poverty. guest: there are about 19 million white people in poverty and 10 million black people in poverty. this is a problem that crosses races. the amazing thing is that working is not enough in america anymore to get you out of poverty. we have 28% of the workforce working and still having an income that is less and the poverty line. that is the fundamental think we need to change. we need to make work pay. there are several ways we can do that. one is lifting the minimum wage. raising it to $12 an hour would help 38 million people.

38 million people would get a raise and the average raise for those 38 million people would be $2000 a year. this is something significant. we are not talking teenagers here in the average person who would be helped is 36 years old. guest: let me go to gabby in atlanta. caller: how are you? good morning. i grew up in atlanta in the inner-city. my mom had three kids. one thing she did was that she exposed us. we were always traveling into the city for opportunity. one thing i'm noticing now in the city i grew up in which has the highest african-american voter turnout is that a lot of the trade programs that were in the high schools, they have taken them out and they have become these technical colleges. so that students cannot afford

to go to the technical colleges because they cannot take out loans. another thing is the state wants to take over certain schools and they want to turn them into -- i forgot the name is. the thing with charter schools is that charter schools don't pay for facilities. in atlanta, they've done a renovation of all the schools. millions and millions of dollars in renovations. host: we are running short on time. i will ask you both to give us your final thoughts. idle tanner -- michael tanner. guest: the fact is that the poverty rate by the official numbers today is about as high as it was when we started the war on party. even with alternative measures we are no longer gaining in terms of getting people out of poverty despite spending more money. we have tried throwing money at the problem. we spend nearly $1 trillion a

year fighting poverty. we need to try something different and that means job creation, education reform, and restoring the family unit for inner-city areas. guest: i think full employment is one of the most important things we can do. what we need is jobs. we need policies that will lead to full employment. when he trade policies that will stop shipping jobs overseas and keep them in the united states. we need the federal government to invest in infrastructure and create jobs in fixing sewer systems, fixing roads and bridges. all of these things we're not spending money on that we should. and to make sure that people are paid for the work they do in a way that allows them to have a decent living. host: ross is the vice president