wage scales down even lower. they are need-capping in the middle class. they want to dismantle it and destroy it. -- they are knee-capping and a close. working at a restaurant is honest and hard work, but does not have a pay scale that will enable someone to buy a home or car, or get a driveway or roof put on their house. it is bad. people have to wake up and demand serious change in government. host: another color they're mentioning the issue of immigration in relation to jobs. here is a story about arizona considering tougher laws. supporters cite inadequacy of federal efforts on the border. the right that the proposal in arizona which is cleared the state senate and is being considered by the house would

require police to try to determine people's immigration status when they have reasonable suspicions. if approved, arizona would be the only state to criminalize the presence of illegal emigrants to the expansion of the trespassing law. host: good morning on the independent line. caller: my name in vince. i am calling from florida, actually. i appreciate c-span. i wish i were working and watching later at night, but i have been out of work since january. i have friends who are also out of my wife has been out of work for two years. host: what kind of work did you do? caller: i am a long-distance truck driver who hold exotic cars. the rich folks are not spending

money. the big struggle, the price of freight has gone down. my boss laid me off. but i have some work hauling some bridging equipment up into maine. i have a relationship with a friend who owns a bridge company. he said in the entire state had only two projects. with the stimulus money. host: the freight you are calling is because of the stimulus spending in maine? caller: absolutely. i'm calling bridge materials and stuff like that. we have a project going out here in key west also. some place here for the we are supposed to be putting a passage in for turtles, too. but the people here in my county with the money would go for the

stimulus are the people from out of state making the benefit from this. electricians, some from out of state. host: we have about 25 minutes more until the top of the are on your thoughts about the economic stimulus spending affecting jobs. we bring in our correspondent. last friday the house introduced legislation on health care. we heard several callers mentioned health care. tie that in together with employment for us. preview what is ahead in terms of the house? guest: the two are very much connected. the white house has realized the job situation may not be all that improved by 2010 and the elections. they want to ensure that health care passes so the americans can see something has been done to

help. they have put health care on the front burner. the told congress that they want to do energy and financial regulation but right now need to move health care by the elections coming up. it is their priority and have put everything else on the back burner. you have intents committee work on two bills right now. there is one in the senate and the other in the house. there is a second in the senate that might come out this week. perhaps not until after the july 4 break. first they will work on the two bills they have already written. those are full controversy. there's a lot of disagreement. they do not appear very close to the consensus on health care now. host: even though the senate started marking up their version last week? is it likely the house will wrap up their work on health bill before the senate does? guest: it is hard to say who

will get done first. both are struggling. in the senate there has been a lot of disagreement straight from the gate. republicans say this costs too much and is full of vagueness. you had senator john mccain: the bill a joke. you had democrats said that you may not like this but we will do health care because americans want health care reform dead. you have competing issues in the senate, and then in the house you have three different jurisdictions who will examine that build this week intra to market up. you have many republicans from the get go he said it will not supported but democrats will have to work of differences in the house on that one. by the end of this week i don't think you have much resolution to health care. just getting started at this

point. host: the president today will sign the tobacco bill, passed by the senate last week. how significant is it? guest: it lets the food and drug administration regulate tobacco which will be the first time in history they have. cigarettes are already very expensive. the tobacco industry has already been reform for years. this will eliminate things that might lure in yen per smokers like flavored cigarette. --lure in younger smokers. limiting advertising. it is a big step to limit tobacco. host: we will check back with you one more time before wrapping up. on legislation "the new york

times" has an article about posting bills online before the president announces them. during the campaign obama promised that once a bill was passed by congress the white house would posted online for five days before the senate. "when there is a bill that ends up on my desk as president you the public will have five days to look at it before a senate so that you know what your. government is your" five months into the administration he has signed two dozen bills, but almost never waited five days. various watch the groups have slapped his wrist for repeatedly failing to live up to the pledge. it has been branded it "a. promise "

this is our independent line. caller: as far as taking a stand. from a college graduate like me , i feel like everyone is pointing fingers at the illegal immigrants, but coming from a 22-year-old male i point the finger at the baby boomers. the reason is because they never stood up for anything. they never stopped and revolted against these elitist, corrupt politicians. as a result you have people in their 20s getting out of college, still working jobs they did in high school making $8.50 per hour at the mall. it leaves us with $60,000 in debt. host: what did you major in and what kind of job you want? caller: i majored in political science with a minor in real

estate. from fellow friends, we all graduated in may. they are serving at restaurants making $10 per hour on tips. my goal would be political activism, but the abby hoffman and bob dylan days are gone, apparently. host: where did you go to undergraduate school? caller: i went to central michigan university up in mount pleasant. host: good luck, and thanks for calling in. this is a democrat caller. caller: good morning, i'm calling to let you know i am a registered nurse and nurses are in high demand, however it takes a compassionate, empathetic person with a show of steel to do it, but they are prevalent out there. i would also like to say the administration should involve nurses. the american nurses association

and the black nurses association because registered nurses are on the front. we see what health care is doing. we can save what needs to be cut and what needs to be given. we can help implement cost effective ways to provide health care. i think a combination of the medical profession and the nursing profession would help host: jenna, are there a shortage of registered nurses in washington? caller: yes, i get calls all the time for troubled nursing and international nursing and they offer bonuses. but not everyone can do it. but if you are willing, it is out there. host: thanks for your input. we are asking you where the jobs are. this is a story about the job market and unemployment numbers. kansas city, kan. on our

republican line. caller: i really like c-span and watch in the mornings before i go to work. i am a retired industrial arts teacher. i do homer modeling. -- home for modeling and things like that. business has been good. people are not buying new homes, but are fixing up what they have. it is not great, but steady. host: how long did you teach industrial arts? caller: about 20 years. i was glad to hear someone say something about nursing. the health industry here in kansas is doing well. the key to getting a job these days is to be trained. if you do not have training, i'm sorry for the delivery guy and truck driver and others, but let's say that your train in hvac, you have a job, or in

any other high-demand too many people are getting degrees in political science, things that are marginal to begin with. but all the basics, the basic types of jobs, the skilled and help career jobs -- they're still jobs for those people. in kansas city if you want to residential route you have an immigrant put it on or you will not have a roof. the same and landscaping. the dominant and landscaping, but those are all semi-skilled, unskilled jobs. they have always been fairly low pay. most people, most immigrants can qualify to do that. but if you have -- they're not many illegal immigrants hvac people out there. the train did jobs that require skills still have a future. i'm not so negative about our country. the trouble is we have to many americans who cannot read a tape

measure and are not very host: treatable anyway here is the front page of "the washington times." it has been four months and post than obama has yet to criticizing the project from the economic stimulus package despite his february 20 pledge that if federal or state agencies tried to slip any bad spending through he would call them out. the complaints about bomb projects are piling up. senator tom coburn from oklahoma a release report last week to define one projects he said were wasteful or silly. the obama administration has not accept his criticisms and defends the spending from bike paths to total bridges to road sign advertising. here is mount pleasant in

michigan. this is mike on our independence line. caller: good morning. not to offend the man from kansas city, but i am another political science major. host: did you just graduate? caller: yes. right now mount pleasant has held up pretty well. we are home to a pretty successful university. the stimulus bill -- we have had a lot of road work going on, especially in rural areas. it was heavily needed. the infrastructure has actually been improving around here. i currently work at a small, locally-owned a bar. there's no union or representation. host: how you want to put your major to work? caller: ideally it would be through humanitarian work.

to get out there and make a difference through community organizing. it seems that the problem we face, i agree with the last caller from michigan about the baby boomer generation. they never did enough to support themselves and the future. there is a mass of inequality between the rich and the poor. i am considered a lesser human being because i do not make as much money as they do because i work in a so-called and skilled profession. many people share that sentiment. just because many people were not given a chance for education never had health care for things that a human being deserves. they are viewed as lesser. host: where did you get your college education? caller: central michigan university. host: let's go back to this story about the job market.

we have been asking people for the jobs are. this is michael fletcher's story this morning. he writes that the chairman of the council of economic advisers said of the prison is for concerned about the forecasts the white house has assumed a posture of watchful waiting, adding there will be big increases in stimulus spending in the fall and early next year. if you get to the end of this year or early next and employment is still limping back, then we have to do serious thinking about whether there might be special problems and the labour market require targeted intervention. he also writes a year in "the washington post" but economists agree for the most part that the economy would have been in worse shape if the stimulus package had not been enacted. reading, pa., good morning.

caller: good morning. in that our area anin berks county we have all large population, also in north hampton, and a large influx from new york in the polkas. -- it is in thepoconos. our unemployment rate does not reveal how many people are truly out of work. that is something we will look at in the future when we try to evaluate the numbers. many more not on and employment have fallen through the cracks. whether we have a 9.4% right now you could probably put another 1.5% on top of that.

host: what was the biggest industry there in reading prior to the downturn? caller: at one time it existed off of industrial production. this is also the home base for mack trucks and bethlehem steel. i have more less disbanded and let the air. the latest transformer film that will, was a film on the remnants of bethlehem steel which is now being turned into a casino i am not sure our growth factor makes sense for the logic of good employment. currently you could get a job in the new casino that opened in bethlehem, but that is not the type of job to allow you to pay a mortgage on the $280,000 average home here and a $35,000 average price of a car. host: this is no one, florida on

our republican line. caller: good morning, thank you for sis. i have been in rv industry for 29 years and the person i work for has been in business for 42 years. we had minor downturns in the economy. the company was foreclosed upon. i have been unemployed since. many manufacturers are of a business and so are many of the retailer's. the biggest thing now is financing. retailers, dealers, and manufacturers can i get any lending money. for the tarp in stimulus money went is a big question. i was in eastern regional manager for the u.s., canada, and all of europe. from my counterpart in europe i hear the same thing regarding financing host: the demand is

still there? but you say people cannot get financing to buy the use ofrv's? but the demand is still there? caller: yes, i get called on a daily basis. we are paid only if we sell something by commission. the company was restructured as factory director and the. there are deals out there, but no financing. host: here is the story concerning the state budget of connecticut. next to union, new jersey on the democrats' line. caller: good morning.

and in calling to say that i see jobs out there. those jobs are coming, not a lot of jobs, but seemed to be going to the wrong people. there are lots of cheap labor jobs up there with construction. but it seems it is going to the wrong people. most of those are independent companies. they hire those they want. most of the companies now hire people for cheap labor. i am out there every day because i work for the post office and i know in the see the people up there. construction, the roads, everything. the stimulus package just needs time to get its feet. the president just got in. it is not even six months for him. we should give him some time. he has a lot on his plan. host: how long have you been at

the post office? caller: 59 years. host: polls show increasing public opposition to government spending and with no significant constituency, the prospects for further stimulus legislation seem slim. he writes that president obama tersely it acknowledged in an interview with bloomberg television last week that unemployment is likely to be about 10%. mobile, alabama, good morning. caller: [unintelligible] if you would replay that clip

that rahm emanuel said, he said most of the jobs would not go to white males. another thing, when they did the bailout of gm there were first talking about how many thousands of jobs would be lost if gm went under once the close all those plants -- [inaudible] host: 2 clinton, maine on the independent line. caller: i am concerned the economic stimulus package was named improperly -- is should have been economic investment package. if america spends precious resources on one-time projects -- and the ones i have seen locally are good ones which have been in the pipeline for a

while. but as soon as they are over the jobs will become. i would prefer the long-term investment for these billions of dollars. once spent the jobs created would continue to create more jobs and boost our economy. but spending money once is not a solution. host: might it be too early to tell on something like that? caller: what i have seen is that these products don't have a generational reoccurrence. we will spend the money and move onto another project. if it is a road or shoreline it is important, but does not create more jobs down the road. the money we're spending, the magnitude we're spending i think is critical to invest our money in energy or other long-term projects to create jobs here in america. host: we have been talking about

job creation in stimulus spending for much of the hour. here is a related story on welfare. members on welfare see a sharp increase in the welfare rolls which were slow to rise and actually fell in many states early in the recession are now coming across the country for the first time since president clinton signed legislation pledging to end welfare as we know it more than one decade ago. 23 of the 30 largest states which account for more than 80% of the total population see welfare caseloads above year-ago levels. as more people run out of the unemployment compensation many are turning to welfare as a stopgap. to trenton, new jersey, good morning on the democrat's lead. caller: its trenton, tennessee. all of the industry has moved from here.

there are absolutely no factory jobs available in any of the towns around west tennessee. it has all moved from the country. we have an educated laborers out there with no jobs. they have to depend on welfare. i think the stimulus plan is going in the wrong direction. people talked about this kind of education and that kind, but we still have people up there who were born in the 1950's and 1960's who could not afford a college education and it still depend on factory work. but we have none here. there are no jobs being created in west tennessee for these people. host: a couple more minutes of your phone calls on jobs. we will bring in the chief congressional correspondent for "the examiner." here's a story from the hill

newspaper about the republicans land for more protest votes on appropriations bills in the wake of the 53 roll-call votes last week on the spending bill for the department of commerce and justice. what is behind that? guest: the republicans felt there were robbed of an opportunity for and -- for amendments to the bill. the democrats said there was not time so they drastically reduced the number they were a lot to offer. in response republicans used a parliamentary move to delay for. they do that by calling for a second vote. they say that they want a re- vote. every time they voted on a bill they would ask for a re-vote. this drag on to 53 votes which

was a record that broke in 1988. they really, the republicans really know how to delay action on the house for. they have threatened to do that again this week. if so, the house majority leader steny hoyer has threatened to drive the business into the recess. there is a possibility of that. in may stave off that kind of direction of the floor action this week. host: here is another story in the paper this morning about house agriculture chairman from minnesota. how does that play into energy? guest: the energy bill is the no. 2 priority. dthey are nowhere near a decisin

on that. he is one of the causes. it calls for a cap on carbon emissions and fines for people who pollute. he feels this bill would compromise the energy-intensive agricultural industry. farmers would have to pay more for fertilizer and equipment. he also feels the farmers are not being given enough credit for some of their conservation efforts. he is telling this bill. until peterson and other members from farming districts come along the house will not be able to move it. host: thanks for being with us. where can people read your congressional coverage? caller: dcexaminer.com. host: how is the job situation there in central florida? caller: