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congressman jim himes is with us. he is a member of the financial services committee, he is also on the select committee on economic disparity, fairness, and growth. he is the chair of that select committee. with us today to talk about a number of issues, inflation, some of the issues that have been dealt with in the u.s. health. welcome back to washington journal. >> good to be with. >> let me ask about the fairness and growth, you are the chair of this, what is the purpose of that committee. >> this is a slight money that the speaker of the house created to look at this problem, it is bad and getting worse in this country, it is getting more and wealth and income, concentrated in a very small group of wealthy americans. the problem with that is we have always lived with poverty, what is happening now is the middle class is finding it very hard, in some places in profitable to stay middle class. rent, food, all of that stuff. education, they are very

expensive and wages are stagnant. the it is a problem politically, it is attributable to the fact to the fact that people think it is working with them. we are gonna put together as many recommendations as possible. in this world without some support from this party it is very hard. >> they select committee by its makeup has a short shelf life. what is the makeup? >> democrats are the majority, something like nine and seven or something like that. my republican ranking member is brian style, really put a lot of time into the platform but to get at the issue. economic disparity is not a

blue if you are a red issue, it is everywhere, ever a thing is not easy in this polarized environment. we are trying to keep it focused. >> as you do your work you are seeing, like everybody else, the impact of inflation across the board, certainly among those who are suffering economically and have been to begin with. >> yes, that is right, i see it at home and obviously we see it nationally. we see it all over the world. throughout europe, japan, elsewhere is all countries including the united states putting a lot of money into their economies. united states did fibrosis trillion dollars over two residential terms, lots of countries did that. hopefully we are coming out of the virus, oil and gas is constrained because we are not buying it from russia. it is a tough moment for people who are on fixed income, people who are struggling to make ends meet. >> we are seeing the inflation and gas prices that has been going up and up and up, this morning the new york times

headline, biden will push congress for a three-month gas tax holiday. definition on what has been rumored the last couple of days, would you support a gas tax holiday? >> let me take a look at it, i have heard that and i guess he is going to urge congress to do it. congress will probably do it. the thing that troubles me, and look, i am all for doing everything we can to lower the gas tax. what worries me is that 18 cents a gallon is simply going to be absorbed by the gasoline companies, by the oil companies. i need to be convinced that that is going to consider real relief to the american people. what we are seeing right now has been, even as prices are very high the oil companies and energy companies are showing record profits. i do not want that to stoke those profits, i want to make sure it gets delivered to people. >> what does the high price of gas mean for the democrats and president biden's efforts to green the economy? to grow the alternative energy

sector in this company, in this country? >> gas prices have always been volatile, the folks that are old enough to remember the early 1970s when we had a major oil crisis in this country because opec shut the taps know that there is a lot of volatility and energy prices. what that means is once every couple of years or once a year, as long as i have been doing this in his up and a whole bunch of times. gaskets very expensive. if your finances are tight and you are driving a big car that uses a lot of gas that can be very painful. the task is pretty clear. we need to deliver as much relief as we can in the short term but in the long run for all kinds of different reasons we need to wean our reliance, certainly on foreign oil but also, generally speaking, the non sustainable energy sources. >> in terms of economic relief, the sorts of things that you are select committee is looking at you have any hints for us about what avenues you may be recommending to the speaker and to the next congress? >> i will highlight one, that

is investing in the youngest americans. if you look at a pie chart of the federal budget you will say that about half of federal spending is targeted at our senior americans. social security, medicare, medicaid. that is great, that is great, those things are monumental accomplishments of this country. older americans used to live in poverty and by and large they do not anymore. we invest almost nothing in our youngest americans. at the point in time where it really matters i think one of the recommendations we will come out with is making sure that every family has access to affordable childcare. let's make sure that every child, before they are born, prenatal care is very critical and they have all of these support and investment that they need to have a real shot at doing well in school, going off, and being a productive worker in our economy. >> that is part of the presidents build back better plan. >> elements were, there was a

lot in that bill. probably my favorite part of that bill was the investment that would be made in the youngest americans through childcare. again, the parties may have a different view of have to do this. if a mother has no access to childcare she is out of the labor force, she is working in the home taking care of kids. if we can find a way, maybe through government subsidy, maybe through more private entities, churches, that sort of thing. really building out our childcare system. if you are young kids going to spend their day watching tv. more moms dads would be able to join the mid labor force. that is a real win. >> obviously, in terms of this year anything we come up with along those lines would have to come out of these stand-alone efforts? >> our committee does not have the ability as a select committee to force a bill onto the floor, our job is to highlight ideas after doing a couple of years of work and also to highlight those ideas that could get done, right? that is the tough mission, it is fun to talk about lots of

ideas that your party might do if they had total control of the government without the need to overcome a filibuster, the reality is with we want to make a difference it is important to have bipartisan support. >> jim hines is with us, congressman from the fourth district in connecticut, we welcome your phone calls and comments. 202748 8001 is the line for publicans. 202748 8000 is line for democrats. and for all of the others 2020748 8002. it is an election year, what's your chances look like in your district? >> i think in the state of connecticut the incumbents are in pretty good shape, there are only five of us, we work very hard, i think in the state of connecticut we will be okay, nationally we will have one heck of a contest. no denying the fact that the president's numbers nationally are not great, he is not getting a lot of credit for a very accessible emergence from covid and the economy because

of inflation, it is going to be a big context, a lot of us are bracing for what will be one of the more hard-fought campaigns in a long time. >> yes, some of those numbers in the usa today poll is 39% of a drop in approval number, 37% disapprove and 16% strongly approve, 71% say the u.s. is on the wrong track. over 70% of those ford. what do you think is driving that? >> i think that is primarily a sense of anxiety about the world. by the way, that is not unmerited. we just lived through a pandemic. i hope we are done with it. they killed 1 million americans. if you and i had sat here five years ago and said, three years from now something is going to kill americans some we would've lit our hair on fire, that was a traumatic event not just for those who died and suffered but also for children who spent time out of school, all of the mental health challenges. you have that, a world it looks

increasingly scary, we spend a lot of time talking about china invading taiwan, if you think the economy is tough right now wait until that happens. russia is invading the country the way european nations used to do back in the 1800s, there is a lot out there that says this is a bit of a scary world. that is not wrong. when the role of the united states is so important, really showing the way for how we can hopefully, over time, create peace, safety, and security. >> we have calls waiting, particularly on covid and stuff how did your state bounce through in terms of economically and the overall health of the people in your state? >> it is an interesting question, obviously my district in particular is adjacent to new york. new york, in those early days two years ago was an epicenter. it was catastrophic. we remember those images of new york city. we are right there. right out of the box we got hammered. the connecticut story is an amazing story because people in connecticut do the right thing, they did not politicize stuff that should not be politicized. as a result, we are actually

one of the most vaccinated states in the country. our death rate is down. we are doing great now. but those early days, because of our proximity to new york it was very tough. >> as the economy bounced back? >> we are doing well, like a lot of states, my part of the state down in the suburban areas outside of new york are doing very well. lots of businesses moving. well the state is doing while generally, we make submarines, helicopters, jet engines, we have a pretty powerful financials after so we are doing all right in connecticut. >> okay, we go first to our independent line, going to mike. good morning. >> good morning, good morning gentlemen, i think the analysis attempts to dominate the conversation about this issue, and analysis that praises the chain of cause and effect from young children and that, we let me offer another analysis that is americans who have a college education tend to do very well

in the labor market since the u.s. has the best colleges and universities in the world. our k-12 system, which is our largest socialist industry is not doing so well, they negative affects and our k-12 we are not mitigated by the fact that these are americans who are at a disadvantage against better educated asians, the chinese have better k-12 system, reflecting the more homogeneity of their culture. may i have your thoughts on that, please? >> yes, thank you, i agree with a big part of what you said, i'm going to disagree with a little part of it, the big part i agree with is that there is no question in this economy the more training and education you have the more likely or to do well, to prosper, to be middle class, my grandparents did not

need to go to college because with a night high school degree walked onto the street to the class. you could get a job and the middle class, what i would really emphasize is we have made a mistake over time by saying the four year universities are the key, the reality is the answer is training. we have under invested in our community colleges, our technical schools, places that teach hvac, plumbing, electricity, all of the technical skills that really make our society run. i would expand what you said beyond your four year universities. i am a product of a public education and a very good public school, i am fortunate to live in a place where we have terrific public schools but it is spotty, the thing that makes me a little uncomfortable is that while schools can always benefit from innovation, from a little disruption, a lot of the challenges that live in our toughest schools --