i'd like to know what your take is on legalizing marijuana as a simple, common sense solution to the revenue problems in places -- that places like california have. thank you. guest: it's going to be an issue soon. it'll be an issue particularly at the state level, the medical use of marijuana and the rest. it's going to be a national issue and should be. when you look on the one side of tobacco, it kills, what, tobacco related illnesses kill 400,000 americans a year, more than vehicular accidents, cocaine, heroin, alcohol, all kinds of things, combined. it's just far and away the largest cause of preventable death in this country, tobacco is. .

we have to find something to do besides interdiction, that is fighting the drug problem on the demand side. we have to make more careful discriminations between the things we have prescribed, marijuana is not cocaine. in its effects and its social costs and all the rest. what the caller raised is interestingly, going to be a discuss the will issue within the next five years. host: the hearings got underway on capitol hill on the health care issue. and last sunday you were

talking about health care, and i saw some commentary on blogs. and i thought i would show it to people that didn't hear your points. here it is. >> the president trying to maintain above the fray, laying down the principles that he doesn't want to lay down bottom lines, is this approach going to work? >> no, this is a slippery argument, about the public option. and the president said if you are starting from scratch, he said this, he would go to government as the single provider of health care. now there are four arguments for the public option. one is to keep them honest, as if the government is a lagoon of honesty, and this is refuted by any administration. and second that it would play

by the same rules, and as you said, what's the point? and third it's necessary to give choice to consumers. there are 1,300 entities offering health care in this country, another one won't change that. and finally that the american people are not smart enough to handle this market, they have done rather well in computers. host: mr. will, where do you think this debate will end up? the overhaul of this country? guest: i don't know. and this is usually taken as the authoritative slur, and came out this week and this is a trillion dollar industry. the radicals of health reform, said we are not going to take

it this time and get the management of budget from the obama white house. which is to say we don't want a disinterested estimate of the cost of this thing. furthermore this whole debate is taking place in the context conditioned by one great fact. it was a survey, it said that 80% of americans rate their health care good or excellent. there is no clamor for a radical change for health care. let's of things could be done, i have ideas that are more radical than obama. but we have to understand that the american people are not clamoring for this. host: you can't leave ideas of more radical ideas without an example. guest: john mccain had an idea,

give people money, tax the compensation. tax as compensation employer provided health insurance. but make up for the tax by giving people a refundable tax credit for the 40 million that pay no taxes. a refundable tax credit, 7500 for individual, to buy your own. furthermore health savings accounts, if you buy a high-deductible policy, you are eligible for tax deferred savings out of which you pay your out of pocket. and that you turn into shoppers, and i ask the audience, how many when you go to the doctor, you need to have the following x-ray. how many say how much? no one does that, we have a third party payer.

american people have a buffet of health care, we have eaten the shrimp. but we need to turn people into shoppers, and make them sensitive to the health care in this country, that's voluntary. as known risky behavior. obesity and type ii diabetes, all of these problems. we have to make responsible choices. host: here is a response by twitter. do you use twitter? guest: i barely use e-mail. host: may are saying that the clamor for change in health care, a change in cost. guest: yes, they would like to have medicine at 1959 prices. they can't have that.

medical expenses are less competent. in 1965, we enacted health care, and you know how many coronary surgeries it paid for? zero. and medicine is much better, betsy mccoy of the american spectator said that american people ha 50% go for these products, and health care has gone up because it's more competent than it used to be

and we want that. host: next we have diana on the republican line. caller: thank you, i would like to reflect the comment by the previous guest, gutierrez, that consumers and credit card contracts need to be modified. and understanding he said, i don't even understand my own contract. i am not a person of exceptional intelligence, and i understand my credit card contract. and my question has to do with public education in the last 30 years that's deteriorated. do you see a parallel of the public education, the insight of the general electric and the quality of people that are legislating in our federal and state legislators? guest: let me get to education

in a second, one of the antic moments of politics, when the president came out and said that these contract are complicated. and we will simplify them. this is the federal government that has given us 350 million words with a tax code so complicated that the significant number of his cabinent can't comply by it. so that the federal government will provide clarity is amusing. and on the subject of education, we know what the problem is in education. basically we have a school year of 180 days. 195 in most of the european nations. 200 days in germany, 220 in korea and japan. you take the difference of 195

and 180, 15 day difference. multiply by 12 years, essentially the german and european children are getting a full year extra school. we are hard workers, but we are not working our children enough. host: huntington, virginia is next. caller: good morning, i would like to address several things, but i want to touch on something that the lady said. i happen to be an educator, and one thing that bothers my colleagues, they say we need a raise. i try to explain we don't need a raise, what we need is educators, and when we have a classroom, i teach a fourth grade class, and at one time i

had 26 kids in my classroom. that makes it very, very difficult to get anything accomplished. the reason i wanted to call you and talk about, now we are facing a huge problem with north korea, and their nuclear proliferations. the question i have is what do you think their main intent with this is? and i feel personally that china is neck deep with north korea and so is russia. and i just feel in my heart of hearts that their way to once they get -- we can already reach hawaii and alaska, and once they get a missle that reach the west coast, they will bomb and put japan out of business, what do you think about that? guest: japan, i think that the

conventional wisdom that japan has nuclear weapons and has the components and needs to put it together to the nuclear weapons. and we come to a point where japan comes officially as a nuclear power because of threat you are talking about. north korea is more worrying than iran. because that regime is opaque and arguably nuts. so it also presides over a country that's destitute. and one of the things it can do to raise money is to sell these weapons to interested parties around the world. and there are plenty of them. host: question from twitter, this gentleman wants to know, mr. will should be asked if he thinks that we is expand the

war in afghanistan? guest: that's an interesting question, twitter is 140 characters? host: yes. guest: i have learned so much. anyway afghanistan is a problem, and we sent more troops to make it 60,000. the new ew york police force is 20,000, and this is a nation with barely's central government in its history, effective that it runs from one border to another. i asked the secretary of defense some months ago whether it might be possible for the united states to achieve its objectives in afghanistan, offshore, and using missile strikes. our goal to prevent it from

being a staging area for more groups. and our objective in afghanistan is not to give them a happy democracy. the secretary of defense said no, we couldn't do it. and knows more about this than i do. but the important thing is to avoid mission creep. to understand our objective in afghanistan is to enable afghanistan not to be a threat. not to turn it into a shimmery city on a hill. host: silver hill, good morning, mary, you are on with george will. caller: thank you for taking my call, and tonight abc had a special and there is there is a lot of criticism going around. will there be anyone

representing critics of the health-care plan, or is it going to be a pro-obama policy seminar? >guest: i will be taking some thoughts that will be presented to mr. obama during the broadcast, since i am not an enthusiast for the president's approach to health care reform, there will be one quavering, tiny little voice at least a mild dissent. host: on health care, len writes -- guest: clearly, the health-care system that we have now, getting substantial health- care off the books with caution,

taxpayers are already paying. the question is it is conceptually simple to solve the problem with the uninsured. you do that by giving the money. the question is, is that money well spent? we can argue about that. there is also a question of whether or not mandating health insurance is something that a nation with a libertarian streak that we want to reserve is comfortable with. comfortable with. host: louisiana, on the republican line with mr. will. caller: mr. will, i am insured and it's from a large insurance company. my husband is working and i am disabled. and he makes less than $20 an hour. and our deductible is $5,000 each. now in order for us to get any

medical help, we have to pay that $5,000 ahead of time in order to get any medical treatment. so the only thing we can afford is office visits. and the doctors around here they will not accept us unless we come up with that $5,000 first. i don't know where you get your information from. we are insured, it's taken over one-fourth of his income to pay the premiums monthly, plus we have monthly visits to pay for with co-pays, plus medications. we can't afford the deductibles to get medical treatment. so we are not different than the people that are uninsured. my daughter is under the same insurance company, i will not name them, and her deductible is $300. i don't know if she has to come

up with that first or not. host: why such a difference between yours and hers? caller: i have no idea, she works for a bigger company. guest: there is a lot we don't know, and that is a $4,700 difference in the deductible. and i would like to know what the insurance provider market is like in louisiana. it seems one thing we ought to do in this country, people in louisiana ought to be able to buy their insurance from new jersey providers. i don't know why we have this antique system. and to give people like the last caller, a bigger range of choice to pick from all the health providers in this country. host: we only 13 minutes left and no question has brought you to the subject of tarp program

and financial markets and what you think of obama's announcement of regulation? guest: on his announcement, i don't know. i don't understand all the instruments that are going to be regulated. this i will say, the idea of the federal reserve system ought to be the systemic risk regulator. this alarms me, because the federal reserve has one duty, to preserve the currency's value and to prevent regulation. and if it does that, that's quite enough. and in order to do that the fed has to be independent. techically it's a creature of congress, and they could stimulate the supply growth. that's the last thing we want to have politicians with their eyes on the electrical

calendar, they will always stimulate lose money, for the elections. the problem is when the fed is involved as now is, in allocating credit, when we have made credit a public utility and the policy that will be determined in it town, washington. i don't see how the fed can remain independent. host: how do you feel the direction of the economy now? guest: the economy or policy? host: the economy result of policy. guest: so much of the money has been spent, 10%, it can't be blamed on the stimulus. markets go up and down. in the early years of the last century someone saw jpmorgan on the street, and said, mr.

morgan, what will the market do. and he said fluctuate. and it's down now and it will be back. my worry is this, stimulus money, they are throwing trillions of dollars into the system, is like a defibrillator, it will restore the pulse of the country. but you can't live on a defibrillator. and the problem of throwing all of this money will cause inflation. and just as we get a heart beat and get the green shoots of the economy coming up, high-long-term interest rates dictated by inflation premium will snuff out the vigor of recovery. host: next question, this is frank from democrats line.

caller: yes, i have a couple of points. you spoke of the stimulus package, you said the idea of only spending about 10-20%. host: yes, sir. caller: yes, but yet you are forecasting -- i mean, all of these economic issue on the horizon. i mean, don't you think that -- host: lost, i think he got anxious about expressing his thoughts. next caller is from washington, d.c. and this is daley. caller: yes, ma'am. thank you c-span, as usually i call on the radio and it's very

educational. host: thank you. caller: you're welcome ma'am. i have opinion about health care plan, mr. wills is proposing. mr. wills, i don't know it amazes me why you don't understand the american working class and middle class public interest. you purport and say senator mccain's plan for the health care, it's not the american working class and middle class people want. we want the public health care which provides fairly and affordably for the working class and middle class public. sir, you as a congressman, we provide you by our tax money, the base insurance for yourself. how can you provide the same

plan what you have for the american class working people, we are working hard, we are paying taxes, we don't get what we deserve. we are not asking a favor, this is our right. health care is a right and education is a human right. you provide public education, why not you provide a public medical for the working class people? guest: well, the caller purports to know what the working class and middle class want. i think he's mistaken. again 80% of the american people say their health care is good or excellent. and second, you hear a fundamental divide between the caller and mine, everything desire is a right, it's an entitlement. health care is a right.

well, a right is an enforceable claim. and it's not a right in this country. housing is important, it's not a right. and it seems to me we should probably avoid casting every policy choice in this country as a right. because this right talk makes it difficult to split differences. host: warren, ohio, good morning. caller: good morning, first of all abc and the white house there will be no opposite and nobody fair. money won't come out [inaudible] and c-span needs to talk about [inaudible] and martha stewart. and can i disagree on iran and korea. and i think that iran is more

dangerous and they get their food from china. iran is funding hezbollah and iraq, i think they are more dangerous. guest: the caller may be right, they may be more dangerous, and he's certain right, they are more dangerous. host: this is martha from maine. caller: yes, this is martha clark, and i would like to ask mr. will, why do you include insurance companies to the health equation. they bring nothing to the table. they make money and prevent health care. guest: that seems to me as a eccentric view of the current function of insurance companies in the country. i don't know how to grasp they

prevent health care. are they trying to make a profit? yes, and you make a profit by providing what people want to buy. and therefore the market is benign to give products and in this case health coverage that people want. and those countries that thrive are doing just that. host: what are you reading this summer? guest: elmer blore has a new novel and i am listening on tape the history, called the waking giant. lots of stuff. host: there are predictions

that books will go to all news. guest: i like a book in my hand, but i am a fossil. host: with regard of newspapers, and what do you think of the business and the journalists being replaced by much coverage on the internet? guest: it's stunning and you can't put it on the screen and expect the same revenues. the technology driven part of this change in the newspaper business happens to coincide with and gets confused with the problems caused by the economic problems. the. the department stores are great advertisers and that's collapsed. and it's hard to know what the shape of the crisis would be did it not coincide with the economic downturn.

and it's clear that it subtracts the economic downturn and these make it different. my daughter is 28 years old and if she moved to los angeles, she wouldn't buy the "los angeles times", it wouldn't occur to her. she would go online and do it that way. the collapse of this advertising is an enormous part of the industry. host: newspapers and television, and the internet is dynamic. and your columns probably get comments being posted around the country. do you read the comments? guest: if they are called to my attention, but i would do nothing else if i followed those out there on