tv Washington Journal CSPAN July 11, 2009 7:00am-10:00am EDT
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>> our first guest this morning is an economist in residence at american university. good evening. >> good evening, and thank you for having me. >> thank you for joining us. why have the president obama chose ghana? >> there's many reasons why he chose ghana, number one to showcase the good governance there and that's number one and ghana is one of the countries which gained independence and it's all so symbolic and so that's the primary reason why it's going there. >> how has the president been received? he arrived on friday? >> the welcome has been tremendous and the crowds are jubilant and s claiming him to be one of their own, of course.
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obviously, the king is not very happy that he didn't go there but at least he made a stop in ghana. almost all africans are happy and jubilant that he's meat his first historic trip to africa. >> you can join the conversation, the republican line -- you can also email in your comments at journal@c-span.org or on twitter at c-span, and you mention that people in kenya were disappointed that the president did not go there, why did he make the choice to not go to his father country? >> well, you may remember that there was -- there were elections in december 2008 and that went into violence and political killings and over 1,000 people were killed.
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200,000 displaced. so to put together a government of national unity by the former u.n. secretary general, and the prime minister and the president were schwabling over protocol and that sort of thing so i think that it was better for obama to skip the country. >> do you have a sense what the president's message will be today as he addresses the people in ghana? >> well, i think that it's for whole of africa and to showcase ghana as a model of democracy and i am hoping they will emulate ghana's example but i don't think that kind of message is goes to go down well with the rest of africa. and the reason that i'm saying this is that it's very important to make a distinction between the leaders and the people, the leadership has been a problem. i mean, obama's message of
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change is not going to be well received by african autocrats who are ferociously resistant to change. you have leaders that have been in power for more than 20 years. zimbabwe's 27 years. and we have one that just passed away that was in power for 20 years and so that message of change is not going to go down well with the autocrats and the leaders in africa. >> you mentioned that ghana was the first to gain independence from colonial rule in the 1950's and it's shown, is it two transitions, stable transitions of democracy? >> yes, since 1992, we have had success. and our experience is that it
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changed, the impetus would change and it didn't come from the government it came from civil society and if president obama wants to accelerate change in africa, it's better to empower rather than talking to the have notes that we have on the continent because they're impervious to reason. i mean, take a look at mugabe in zimbabwe, the country has been totally destroyed and president obama's electoral victory shames africa. you're talking about a country that is very rich in mineral resources and yet it is so poor. if obama had tried to run for elections, it for president, in ethiopia, for example, he would have been in jail, he would have been clobbered and he couldn't run in zimbabwe and we have so many countries that he couldn't have run. and for our future for african countries, only 16 are
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democratic and so we have a long way to go in africa. >> president obama talked yesterday at the g-8 summit why he chose ghana as the country to go to, let's look at that. >> if you talk to people on the ground in africa, certainly kenya, they will say that part of the issue is that the institutions aren't working for ordinary people so governance is a vital concern that has to be addressed. now keep in mind, i want to be very careful, africa is a continent and not a country so you can't extrapolate from the experience of one country and there's a lot of good things happening and part of the reason we're traveling to ghana is because you've got there a functioning democracy, a president who is serious about reducing corruption, and you've seen significant economic growth. so i don't want to overly
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generalize it but i want to make the point that a government that is stable, that is not engaging in tribal conflicts, that can give people confidence and security that their work will be rewarded, that is investing in its people and their skills and talents, those countries can succeed. >> let's go to our first caller and hear what our listeners have to say to you. our first caller is richard on the independence line calling from nashville, tennessee. good evening, richard. caller: good morning. >> you're on the air, welcome. caller: thank you. >> what is your question for mr. ayittey? caller: actually it wasn't a question to mr. ayittey, i'm letting the people know that president obama goes because of the democratic government that ghana is running.
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and 16 of them it's just democratic at the moment but since 1992 you can see that the government in ghana has been rotating and one party like m.p.p. hasn't been ruling the nation. just recently in the elections you can see that the opposition party became -- they came into power with just a few votes. it wouldn't happen in any other country, it would have been called off and then you would have seen fighting everywhere. so i was just telling mr. ayittey that he's doing a great job and the nation of ghana is doing a great job. as he was mentioning in 1992 they were pushing for the democratic government and it helped the nation very well and it's let the nation grow up and now president obama, the first black president in the whole world for the united states of america, choses to go to ghana
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for the first time. >> thank you, richard, let's see what our guest has to say in response to that. it seems he was echoing your earlier comments? >> yes, but we have problems in ghana and that's a different story but ghana has made much progress. but the important thing that we need to recognize is that it's not just for the sake of democracy, we need political reform in many, many, many african countries but the leadership has been resistant to change and without reform, and this is very critical, without reform we'll have more african countries blow up. i mean right now as we sit down, zimbabwe is on the edge. and we also have countries like chad and cameroon and guinea, for example, and so democracy is more than just maintaining stability, but it's the survival of the country. >> ghana has oil potential and people have talked about that? >> yeah, that's what a lot of people are saying but president obama, like he was saying about oil and going to nigeria or
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angola, and when they produce, it will not be more than 1 one mill barrels a day. >> this piece from "the financial times" says that it comes at a critical juncture for ghana. they hope to avoid the pitfalls that others have fallen into when it begins pumping oil from newly discovered offshore fields next year. will the president be talking about how economics and the potential oil industry will play into ghana's stability? guest: well, that would be a bit more intrusive and you could stay away from that but i think that, you know, what the president might quietly urge is to try to increase transparency with the distribution of oil revenue and we're building a strong civil society in ghana which will be focused in like a hawk on where the oil revenue goes, in contrast to a country like guinea, where the revenue
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from oil is a state secret. >> our next caller is linda on the democrats line calling from columbus, ohio. caller: good morning. as a staunch or somewhat stawfn supporter of obama because i live in ohio and i'm really waivering here, i think that he took the easy way by going to ghana, there was no need. they are democratic. jesus didn't go preach to the religious, he talked to the unreligious. he needed to go to his homeland. ghana is just, i don't know, it's just a little playground, a little picture stop for him. as a staunch supporter, i'm totally against -- this is a waste of taxpayers' money to go there. go to kenya and let the people see what freedom is, and be encouraged by his visit.
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this little visit was just a waste of my money. thank you. guest: well, it's, you know, i don't think that he skipped kenya just for the sake of this because of the lack of democratic freedom there. there's also a security issue. i mean, remember that kenya is very close to somalia, and somalia has been in total chaos since 1991, and i think that, you know, there's been a couple of terrorist attacks in kenya in recent years. so, i mean, the security, you know, problem there has been nightmarish for the president obama to go there. i'm just hunching a guess and that's also part of the reason that he probably didn't go to kenya. >> following up on linda's question, what would the spread of democracy do for other countries in africa? guest: look, we would have been
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able to save somalia, and rwanda and liberia and sierra leone if the leadership this that country will be willing to implement political reform or had been willing to relinquish shared political power or had been willing to step down. we would save zimbabwe if president mugabe had been willing to step down so democracy and political reform is just more than -- just an idea, it determines the survival of an african country. >> our our next caller is from new york city. you're on the air. caller: fine. i do think that some of the struggles in africa, well, a lot of the struggles in africa are internal or the external response to internal dispositions and i do think that mr. obama's trip to ghana, right, is reflective of ghana's
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growing oil revenues because nigerian ports are unstable. two, i don't think that the writer here or the journalist here is really looking at the crisis that's come up with africa's crisis of neocolonialism that has been an imposition. african leaders for the most part after world war ii and up to the 1960's are the adopted children of the cold war, that's why they were supported while in power and we have to be very frank and i hope that a lot of my brothers and sisters back home do not get involved in the racial symbolism because there has not been a fundamental change in relation to the world. this is really the obama administration from the george bush administration. thank you. guest: well, i think that the cold war politics no longer play in africa right now and i think that, look, we have leaders who are pro-western, who are pro-east and have failed their
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people. the basic and fundamental fact that we have problems that we have is the monopoly of the powers that use the power to entrench themselves to advance their own interests and that of his cronies and his tribesmen and excludes everyone else. it's called the politics of exclusion. and the whites in south africa did it and in the rest of south africa what we have is defactor apartheid regimes, this is what is -- you look at kenya, and the balance that we saw in kenya and so the cold war, you know, though it is relevant, it was relevant in the past, it's no longer holding sway today in africa. >> our guest, george ayittey is from ghana. and our next caller is charity on the democrats line calling from boston, massachusetts, good morning, charity.
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caller: good morning. >> welcome to the show. caller: yes. i have a question. they've been talking about president obama going to africa, saying if it's time to go to africa, but the president, i thought that he was in egypt, is egypt part of africa, and why they keep on telling people that the president is visiting africa for the first time, what's up with that? guest: well, that's a very good question because as you know, we have north africa and subsaharan africa, and they don't consider themselves to be part of subsaharan africa or black africa, and they are more leaning towards the middle east. and one reason that president obama went to cairo is to deliver a message to the muslims and that's why he chose egypt,
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but the visit to ghana has been phrased as the official visit, the first official visit to africa or subsaharan africa. >> our next caller is charles from tecoma park, maryland, on the independent line. caller: hello, good morning. guest: good morning. caller: yeah. america has an interest in africa, the continent, don't forget that. it's full of minerals and then the oil. and in their minds what is happening right now in nigeria will will be considerable for the president of the united states, you know, to confirm that. guest: well, i agree with you that the u.s. has interests in
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africa because of its mineral wealth and oil, and the chinese right now -- china right now is all about africa and using africa's resources and i don't see anyone complaining about this. and every foreign entity that goes to africa goes there to pursue their own interests and the russias do it, and the french do it, the americans do it, and the chinese do it, and until we africans stand up for our own interests, no one is going to come to solve our problems for us. >> nigeria smells a snub from the u.s., it inspires envy in the giant of africa and it says that obama is not visiting about 50 other african nations seems beside the point. obama's sojourned to small but stable ghana has called for an outpouring of soul-searching and
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self-flagellation about the visit. are you hearing that? guest: they are saying that it's really a conspiracy plot to destabilize nigeria, but, look it, even though he's chosen ghana, ghana is going to be very disappointed because ghana is expecting the sky, you know, from president obama. he's not going to give them the sky, he's going to, i think, make some token and give us an appreciation of the visit but the point of the fact -- the fact of the matter is, you know, the aid resources that africa needs and if you look at nigeria, between 1970 and 2004, more than $450 billion came in, but much of that, $412 billion was looted by nigeria's military rulers and so nigeria is a
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country in direct need of aid or direct need of something to be encouraged, but it is a country that needs to put its own house in order. and that's the message that needs to be delivered to the rest of africa. >> annie now joins us on the democrats line from minnesota. good morning, annie. caller: good morning. my question and comment, i visited ghana, west africa, i think it was 1990, 1991, so my question to you, sir, who is now the president? when i was there i think it was president roland? guest: yes. caller: is there any improvement in the education system with the equipment and the computers and the building of schools so my question is for the education point of view and i am a staunch supporter of obama and i am glad that he visited ghana because i too have visited. so i will take my question off the air. have a nice day, sir, bye-bye.
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guest: how am i supposed to respond to someone that will go off the air? >> that just means she'll listen in and tune into what you have to say. guest: all right. well, we have had problems and under roland we had education reform, but, unfortunately, it didn't go too well. and we had the s.s. system and it was a disaster. and so the new administration is trying to sort of slowly and gradually trying to clean up the mess and also put the schools on a better footing. so my response to her is to be patient and the educational reforms will kick in. >> the president is also going to today to do a tour of an oceanfront fort used in the slave trades, with the slaves to the americas. how much will the people pay attention to that?
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guest: i expect a wow. because 20 miles away they have a sort of squabble between the two towns why the president is going here and not there, but the point is that this is where the slaves were kept and i have been there, and it's an eerie feeling. there comes a point when you see the dungeons where the slaves were kept and also you see a low door, called a door of no return, and that door leads to a plank and a gangway to a waiting ship. and once you push through that door, that's it. i mean, i've seen many people overcome -- and it's important that the president sees that because it's part of african american heritage. >> our next caller on the independent line, ben from
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manchester, new hampshire, good morning, ben. caller: good morning. thanks to you guys from c-span because it's good to have the affairs when you deal with the african nations and the people there, you know, thank you. i'm from kenya and, of course, as a kenyan i was a little disappointed that president obama didn't go to kenya first, but that's beside the point, and it's a very good thing that he went to ghana too. the president hasn't done much lately. and my comment is that as much as the whole of africa can wish to claim obama as one of their own, president obama is an american whose father happens to be from kenya, that's a point that everyone needs to
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understand. and, secondly, the problems of africa will not be solved alone by president obama. the africans own africa and their problems will be solved internally. if you're going to look for outside help it's not going to happen and that's the point that all of us need to understand perfectly clear. now as for kenya, it's going -- kenya is going to have its next election in one month after the u.s. elections in november 2012, and the constitution in kenya is going from bad to worse. and as you get ready, there's a lot of insecurity in somalia, and a lot of somalians have left for europe and america and they're sending back money but the relatives in somalia don't live there anymore, they live in kenya and so somalis have become a privileged group of people living in kenya and this is raising a lot of tensions within
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the kenyan community. guest: yeah, i agree with that caller in the same fact. there's only so much that the u.s. can do for africa until africa puts its own house in order. if africa doesn't do that, there's nothing that president obama can do. i mean the solutions to africa's problems lie in africa themselves, they don't lie here in washington or anywhere else. and africa is a continent which desperately needs change but change is not going to come from the government or the leaders. and we call them autocratic leaders and to implement change it has to come from the outside government and within civil society so i believe that it's civil society that needs to be empowered. how do you empower civil society? the way to empower civil society is to have free and independent media, for example. right now as we sit here the
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independent and free media exists in only eight african countries and you can't fight corruption if you can't expose it. and you need to also have the rule of law. the rule of law doesn't exist in many african countries and to do that you have to have an independent judiciary. for far too long american presidents have talked about diagrademocracyand rule of law t have the foundations to establish this in africa. >> our next caller is on the line from tecoma, washington. caller: it looks like zimbabwe has calmed down somewhat but the big elephant in the room is the issue of the land and that's not resolved yet. over 70% of the land in zimbabwe is still owned by nonindi indigs zimbabweans. what do you think that the
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united states is going to do given that obviously there wasn't a lot of people getting back their land again and we need to also restore it back to the full basket that it used to be. how do you think that the united states is going to get back, you know, to get the proper stability back to that country given the complex issues? guest: well, it's important to recognize that there's two separate issues here. the land issue is the legitimate one. i don't think that anybody questions that, ok? and the second issue is the democratization, and you can't mix the two. and democracy has to do with the land issue or vice versa, look, if you hold free and fair elections then respect the results of those free and fair elections. and the problem we had with the zimbabwe's elections and that
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government never worked in angola and the ivory coast and liberia and it's failing in sudan and failing in kenya and it's not going to work in zimbabwe. and so let us put the facts on the table. instead of mixing oranges and apples. the land issue is totally different. you can't resolve the land issue in a politically unstable environment so i personally think that we need to resolve that political question first before we talk about the land issue. >> you're the founder of the free africa foundation, can you tell us about is that? guest: what the free africa foundation want to do is to promote not just political freedom but intellectual and election freedom. and the reason we want this is because these freedoms are linked, they're intertwined. you can't just promote political freedom and leave economic freedom or intellectual freedom by the wayside. for example, if you want to
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promote political reform or political freedom and democracy, people have to have the right to air their opinions and not to be brutalized and shot at as we saw in the streets quite recently. we also went through the same cycle in ghana in 1959 when ghanaians were fed up with the dictatorship that we had and they poured into the street and the forces opened fire on them. and the point that needs to be emphasize side that it's the african people that have to determine the kind of political system and the economic system they want and they need to have the freedom of expression to say so and not to be brutalized. now as we sit here right now, the freedom of expression is guaranteed, not just by the united nations 1948 universal declaration of human rights, but even africa's own rights for peoples and human rights are part of that expression. we want africans to say what is on their mind.
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>> calling on the democrats line, barry from fayetteville, north carolina. caller: i think that is very good that he's going to ghana. i hope that -- i believe that he's taken a pledge with them of $20 billion from the international community. i also find, well, i hope that he goes down and they put to use like greenhouses and other things and not just like the general's greenhouse, but everybody's usage. i'm also a little bit hoping that he does more than just pay lip service because that's what he's been doing here in the states. i really, i'm looking at it and i'm really wondering what he can do down there, i mean, i'm glad that he's black and all that but i don't see how far that can go, that's just lip service after a while. guest: yeah, i think i agree with you, it's just a symbolic
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trip. and it's all full of symbolism, and, you know, africans are happy that at least he's paid a visit to the country, but president bush also went to africa. i don't think that any of them accomplished much on africa, and i don't expect president obama to accomplish much but at least symbolically he's been to black africa. >> tubman on the independent line from upper darby, pennsylvania, good morning. caller: good morning. i have a comment to make, a correction, ghana is not the first independent country in africa, let the rest of the world get the facts, i think that the western world has their own policy when it comes to africa. no matter who is the president of the united states. we just saw what happened just in the g-8 meetings and now the african countries are pushing forward for this free trade with
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the rest of the world. now, we know that it's not going to happen. the rest of the world is not willing to have a free-trade agreement with africa. so president obama is going to africa, i mean, i just don't see the significance of him going to africa because it's not going to bring a change and one thing we have to understand is that african leaders, africa has to take care of their own problems and we have a lot of resources in africa and we are using africa as a scapegoat and taking the resources and developing the country and leaving africa undone. africans need to understand that our problem is our problem and we need to work hard to get out of the problems. guest: i don't disagree with you, but i couldn't agree with you more, but the problem is that i very much agree that africa has to be developed by african leaders. unfortunately, the leadership are more interested in developing their pockets, not their respective countries. you know, the richest people in
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africa are heads of states, the ministers. and where do they get their money? they got their money by raking it off the backs of their suffering people. well, the help that african people need to get rid of those pirate bandits ruling the countries. >> thank you so much for joining us. our guest george ayittey is an economist in residence at northwestern university. we'll be right back.
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>> coming this fall, tour the home to america's highest court, the supreme court. on c-span. >> coming up this weekend on "book tv," today the late robert mcnamara talks about his book"in retrospect: the tragedies and lessons of vietnam" and then former congressman joe scar burrow on the bush administration and the republican party and the obama presidency. he's interviewed by "wall street journal" columnist peggy noonan. and reairs on sunday night. and also books on the economy, david smick says that the financial collapse was predictable and is far from being over. financier alan roth tells us how a second grader beats wall street. and a panel talks about the
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economic crisis and what to do about it. and henry waxman on his years in the white house. go to our website booktv.org. >> "washington journal" continues. >> our question for the rest of the hour, how should president obama handle wiretaps? the republicans the line is -- open phones for the rest of the hour. "the new york times" has a story running today, u.s. wiretapping of limited value, officials report. a new report that's come out yesterday, mandated by congress last year and produced by the inspector general of five federal agencies found that other intelligence tools used in assessing security threats posed by terrorists provided more timely and detailed information. most intelligence officials interviewed had difficulty citing the specific instances
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when the national security agency's wiretapping program contributed to successes against terrorists. and the report said that there's political pressure in preparing the so-called threat assessments that helped to form the basis for continuing the classified program. through disclosure in 2005 there was fierce debate about its legality. and you probably i'm sure remember when news first came out in 2005 of the wiretapping program, has your opinion changed in the last few years? and have you had a chance to read these articles yet and learn more about the assessment of this report? the article continues and goes on to say that the report found that secrecy surrounding the program may have limited its effectiveness. at the c.i.a. it said so few working-level officers were allowed to know about the program that the agency off did not make full use of the leads the wiretapping generated, and intelligence leads that came from the wiretapping operation were often vague or without
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context. congressional democrats who had been critics of the program found the report's conclusions disturbing. and the "washington post" also has the same thrust to their piece today. inappropriate secrecy hurt the surveillance effort, a report shows. and a reminder about how this was all started, the clandestine program was after 2001 when the then c.i.a. director george tenet asked the national security agency's chief, lieutenant general michael hayden what he might do with more authority, the report said. and president george w. bush signed a single document paving the way for the new plan. our first caller is v on the democrat line from new york city. good morning, v. caller: good morning. >> how should president obama handle the wiretaps? caller: i think that president obama should handle the wiretapping the way that any u.s. president should handle wiretapping and that is to protect the people in the united
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states without infringing upon their rights. but, of course, this is just a series of questions, tomorrow i guess that it would be how should president obama handle constipation? and in terms of the last person who is from ghana, they always drag him out when they want to make some comment about africa. he is -- if he is a good man he has no pride in one of the oldest civilizations and the older than the greeks and everything, imagine it's one of three civilizations in africa which was the kingdom of ghana. he should have used that opportunity to tell you that. >> well, thank you for your call, v. and our next call is john from trenton, new jersey on the republicans line. caller: yes, good morning. >> good morning, welcome. caller: yes. i would am just like like the
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previous caller, with the guest you had before, he's in a position member and who holds a u.s. citizenship so he has no interest in ghana. >> john, are you from ghana, are you from africa? caller: yes. >> so tell us how your opinion of the president's trip is different? >> well, my opinion of it that is different is that, yes, the united states alone cannot help africa, africa needs to help itself, but at the same time we have a lot of u.s. and western influence in our political scopes. and the problem is that democracy is not there yet because we're imposing the western-style democracy and it's not working with the local system. and that is why it has never succeeded because it's foreign heritage. do we want democracy but we have to look at the heritage of the
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people. >> our next caller is jerry from cleveland, tennessee, on the independent line. how should president obama handle wiretaps? >> i think that the president should use the wiretap, i believe it's really critical. i believe that wiretapping should continue insofar as it doesn't intriewd into the private lives of -- intrude into the private lives of innocent citizens. in cases of terrorism, and if it helps with national security, i think that it should be continued, but if it doesn't, if it hasn't shown any significant
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presence, any significant increase in the improvement of national security, than it should be stopped. and the wiretapping should continue inasmuch as it can help. >> the next question is, of course, how do you measure that benchmark? when is wiretapping seen to be successful? cosmo is on the independents line from gary, indiana. caller: good morning. yes, i think that wiretapping should be something that they should stop because saying absolutely power absolutely corrupt, i believe that, i believe they won't know what when to stop and when to curtail the activities and i'm afraid that it would just be another means to intrude into private citizens' privacy. my motto is that you don't want
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to have to give up personal freedoms for you to be able to do national security, i think they have other means and other measures to be able to ascertain and get good information and keep the nation safe. >> checking back in with this article in the "washington post," it says "the surveillance program which intercepted domestic communications linked to people with suspected ties to al qaeda was one of the bush administration's most secretive and eventually controversial intelligence efforts after "the new york times" disclosed its existence in december 2005, the program became a symbol of the expansive view of executive authority, especially regarding national security." would you approve of wiretapping if it was done more out in the open and with public approval? abraham is from detroit, michigan, good morning. caller: good morning. yes, absolutely, we should keep the wiretapping. it's kept us safe for the past seven years. and it will keep us safe for longer than that.
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and we should keep it and we should keep all the things that president bush cut or the laws that he made after september 11, we really need them. >> what do you think about email or other ways of monitoring americans' communications, either domestically or overseas? caller: i mean absolutely. any help to stop attacks from happening here or from enemies, the government should follow every step, wiretapping, emails, i mean, all of that. >> on the independent line bill joins us from columbia, south carolina. caller: thank you, i want to say that it's obvious to me and to many people that when you do wiretapping it can be very successful, if you use the district attorney of the area, of the person that is being wiretapped as well as have obviously learned from the situations of previous administrations and legal organizations, the police and so on, the f.b.i., of what the
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mistakes were and obviously get together the organizations involved and this would save us a lot of problem with people who are spreading the disease of the terrible crime rate in america, if we do it right it would cover it legally and we're covered morally because we're going after folks that have proven that they deserve to be wiretapped, obviously. >> you can also send comments by twitter or email and we have a tweet that says bush disregarded intelligence and white house briefings that warned about possible attacks so what good was wiretaps? that's from someone called email diplomat. our next caller is edward on the democrats line from green belt, maryland, good morning, edward. caller: good morning, c-span, and, yes, with all due respect, i'd like to say with wiretapping president obama should handle wiretapping the same way that all previous presidents have handled wiretapping and in all
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due respect, i am a ph.d physicist and i do believe that one should acknowledge the fact that egypt is also africa, egypt is not white africa and nonblack africa or black africa or white africa, egypt is africa. and the previous guest on your show should have acknowledged that and i hope that he's not teaching that at an american university or any university, and he should have been known that and don't do that. and back to the topic. the wiretapping and all of that should be handled by the president in the same way as all previous presidents have handled wiretapping and we should have the right to not be infringed on our rights and our privacy. >> joshua now on the republicans line from akron, ohio, good morning, joshua. caller: good morning. how are you today? >> fine, thank you. what do you think about wiretaps and how the new administration should handle them?
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caller: well, i think it's a very precarious situation. i think that it's obviously got to be done for our national security, however, i think that our government needs to distinguish a little better those that have criminal intent and those of us that, you know, are just using the phone lines and whatnot for personal use. i think that maybe they should just take a look at, you know, criminal activity, people with a history and a past and, obviously, if they get tipped off to someone that's threatening our national security than by all means it needs to be done. but the thing that is a tiny bit frightening is the fact that, you know, our government, our current government, is gaining more and more power, and they do -- they need some sort of buffer. they need someone that is looking over them and saying, ok, this is where the line is
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drawn. >> whose job should that be, joshua? who should provide that oversight, congress, the attorney general's office? caller: i would have to say that it should be up to congress for sure. you know, they're supposed to be the ones that are in washington and looking out for us good american individuals, the good citizens, that believe in the values of this country and what this country was founded on. and, you know, sometimes i watch the things going on in the media and the world today and i think that, you know, our forefathers have got to be turning over in their graves. just too much executive power seems to be going on over this last presidency and, you know, i just think that somebody has got to start looking out for the people and i'm afraid if they don't we're going to lose a lot of our values and rights that make us americans.
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>> our next caller on the independent line from brooklyn, new york, irene joins the program, hi, irene. caller: yes, good morning, it's a great surprise to see a talk show host hosting c-span this morning, it's a wonderful thing. i have a little problem with the wiretapping. it can be a very good program if it's used in the right way and does not jeopardize people like me who want to talk on the phone, who is not engaged in any form of terrorism and not scared to just talk. >> how do you make sure that happens though? caller: well, you know what, i am not a scholar on these things and i just listen to c-span and i read a lot and they could go to the courts if they want to use it, and these people, they normally don't decline you. they give you the opportunity. but to just use it, just confidently, it's not a good thing, it demoralizes the whole purpose of this program that is
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a real good program that keeps us very safe. >> on the democrats line from fayetteville, north carolina, jerry joins us this morning. hi, jerry. caller: good morning and thank you very much for c-span. i work in i.t. and i would just like to say that i like the program, and i think that they should expand it and i'm distressed at all the discussion over privacy because this is not wiretapping really, it's filtering. the material is read by computers and it's searching for stuff, just like spam filters, i mean, every email you sent gets filtered on both ends and so i don't see what's wrong with this program. >> ok. on the independent line, joe is from seabrook, new hampshire. caller: yes, hello. >> hi, joe, what do you think about wiretaps and how the administration should handle them? caller: i don't understand why wiretapping is wrong.
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i mean, i don't understand it. my problem with wiretaps, honestly, if they want to listen to my conversations they're free to. >> what if that information was somehow published or disseminated to government offices or the leaders in new hampshire? caller: well, i think that's far-fetched. >> so you feel confident in the security system at work? caller: i don't know, we live in a free country and if really my private information is privy to the rest of the world, then i'd be a celebrity. >> well, thank you for your call. dan now on the democrats line from vernon, new york. what do you think, dan? caller: a watched society is nt a free society. we still don't know what has been acquired in terms of data to this event and what has been surveilled, and the laws need to be revised and repealed.
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and the revised fisa laws need to be repealed so the supervison goes back to the courts and so there's checks and balances and the databases that have been accumulated over the past eight years should be thoroughly investigated by congress to know what, who they've accumulated email and bank accounts and property accounts, everything, we need to know what is in the database and why it's there and what purpose is i it serves, and there's no evidence that the system has kept us safe as you have read previously. >> in the "washington post," a.i.g. plans millions more in bonuses and is now consulting with the federal government to figure out what the company should do about paying $250 million in promised bonuses due to come in the next nine months. and also a photograph of the
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president and -- president obama and the first lady meeting with the pope in rome during his trip to the vatican. and the u.s. general sees afghan arm police insufficient, and the newly arrived top commander in afghanistan said that the afghan security forces will have to be far larger if president obama's strategy to win the war is to siewk seed, according to senior military officials. and also in the news, judge sotomayor is preparing for her hill showdown as the "washington post" calls it. on monday she'll start her senate confirmation hearings. and this piece in "the new york times" about environmentalists and how they're feeling about president obama. we can see this photograph of protestors unfurling a banner on mount rushmore and protests on climate change legislation. back to the topic, our next caller is from albany, new york, on the independent line, how do you feel about president obama and how he's handling the
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wiretap situation? caller: well, thank you so much for giving me this opportunity. first of all, let's talk about what's happening in england today where generall general the caught wiretapping politicians and everyone is goes haywire for that. so before president obama and the congress take any steps, i think they should allow them to wiretap the politicians and then you see how serious it would take for such steps to correct it, because, yes, wiretapping is good but what about journalists? i am an independent journalist myself and what about journalists? wiretapping politicians who are almost doing the same things that have effect in society, and also if you don't mind me adding a word and i know that on your
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last guest mr. ayittey, it's unfortunate when we talk about africa we talk about nations. first of all it was the colonial past that breaks africa into this small nations, where obama goes to ghana or nigeria, wherever he goes, if we don't talk about africa collectively and if obama does not talk about africans trying to trade within themselves, nothing is going to happen, i mean nothing. and the last place, and the last comment i'll make here is mr. ayittey was talking about how corrupt the heads of states in africa are, that's true, but how corrupt are we africans here in the united states? i have documentation to show you, c-span, anybody, how
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africans here in the united states are so corrupt, how they steal money from -- >> i'm going to cut you off there so we can get back on the topic but we get the gist of your phone call. bill on the republicans line from manhattan, new york, good morning, bill. caller: how are you doing? well, i'm against wiretapping because it's against the constitution. i don't know why president bush was allowed to get away with that and the american people seem to be out lunch, first that, and what's next? but i notice that a lot of foreign people, people who frankly come to this country are basically for wiretapping. i guess if you have been in the country a long time, such as my family, you would understand, then you understand the freedom, the freedom, what i'm trying to say dealing with the constitution. because the constitution is like
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something that, you know, it will withstand the test of time. i mean, that's the best way to describe it. >> ok. "los angeles times" is also covering this story today. and it says the report has raised questions about how the bush white house kept key officials in the dark as it launched its surveillance program and in a move that is described as extraordinary and inappropriate, the report says that the white house relied on a single lower-level attorney in the justice department's office of legal counsel for assessments about the program's legality and that attorney was john woo, a young george bush appointee with close ties to the president's innerrer circle and he blessed the program even though his superiors and most top officials were uninformed about it. our next caller is on the democrats line, darryl from missouri. good morning, darryl. caller: good morning. i'm totally against wiretapping, i put that right up there with torture and extraordinary
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rendition. where we kidnap people and send them to other countries to have them tortured. i don't know what's wrong with this country. it seems that the whole country is full of cowards who would give up their freedom for these psychopaths in this administration and the administration before this administration. george bush should be in jail right along with dick cheney. we have nothing in this country anymore. >> and on the independence line, kevin from boston, massachusetts, hi, kevin. caller: hi, good morning. >> good morning. caller: i think that as a minimum basically you should go back to the original fisa rules where you have to get permission every time you wiretap an individual each time. and i am like the last caller, i am against wiretaps entirely. i think that the only reason that they would be around is to, you know, to increase whatever the intelligence agencies can already do and most of that is
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not good for us. whether it's stirring up things abroad or spying on us, i don't think that anyone really wants either. >> and, kevin, what security measures should be taken to keep the country safe, monitor potential threats? caller: i mean, obviously, you know, we have intelligence agencies and we can get intelligence and we don't necessarily need wiretapping, there's other ways to get intelligence, i mean, and, honestly, has there been any attacks on america that you have seen recently from any foreign bodies or terrorist groups? i personally haven't. and, you know, so i think that it's just an excuse to increase what they can do based on like the situation that we're in. >> all right, thanks for your call. during the next hour we'll be talking about the programs, we'll be right back.
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[captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2009] >> the legislative director of the national immigration forum. good morning. >> good morning. >> we're going to talk about the e-verify program and that is sort of evolving or not as the obama administration comes into play. can you take us through sort of what has happened, what homeland security secretary did this week? >> well, first of all, just for
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those who don't know what e-verify is and who aren't familiar, it's a voluntary program that's intended to allow employers to check the work authorization of their employees electronically. so anyone who they hire, a new hire, is run through the system , and the system relies on data bases run by both the department of homeland security and the social security administration. so what happened this week is that this program has been fairly controversial in the time that it's existed. it is something that's been around for about ten years and in that time it really hasn't had a lot of significant improvements. so that's why the controversy has existed around it. it has a tendency to misidentify workers who are actually authorized to work. there's evidence that there's employer misuse about the program. so what we saw through especially the last several years in the bush administration was that there was a real push to expand this
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program and to mandate it, int cent vise it. last year, the bush administration issued a rule that would have mandated the e-verify program for all federal contractors. that rule was then suspended by the obama administration to review it and figure out whether or not this program was ready to be expanded to federal contractors. so it happened this week, secretary nap tano and the administration released a press report saying that they will be implementing this rule for all federal contractors sometime soon. we don't know when, but soon. >> did this move surprise you? >> i think it's surprising because it seems very irresponsible to be expanding this program right now. i think that the one thing that we do know about e verify is
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that it's not a magic bullet. it doesn't do what it's intended to do. it's got a real economic impact and will have a real economic impact if mandated on federal contractors, a negative economic impact. so it is surprising at this time, at this point in our economy, that they would move ahead with something like this. >> so you're saying that businesses that work with the federal government, do contracting work, will now have to go through this program. are you saying that it could potentially cost people jobs and therefore have an impact on the economy? >> it has a lot of direct and indirect costs and impacts. the immediate direct impact is that workers are going to be misidentified by the system. that costs for business in trying to implement the program will go up and increase. potentially making it much harder for businesses to survive in this economy, especially small businesses. there's also indirect impacts to agencies, not only d.h.s.
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the federal government itself said that implementing this rule for federal contractors would cost about $100 million in the first year and i believe between $550, $600 million in the next ten years. so there's significant costs and problems. >> in a press release this week from the secretary's office she calls e-verify a smart, simple, and effective tool to maintain a legal workforce. the administration even though it's sticking with e-verify, did make the decision not to move ahead on another program that's the new match rule program. >> correct. >> can you differentiate those for us? >> sure. the no match program is also a program that's run kind of simultaneously or results sime tainsly from d.h.s. as well as the social security administration and basically it's a letter that gets sent to either an employer or employee
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when there's a mispatch in the system between the employee's wage record and social security's records. and so a lot of times these mismatches, just like in the e-verify program can result because of the inaccuracies in the data bases. so an employer may get a mismatch letter or no match letter which says that information is not matching up. but that's not necessarily because of immigration status. it just shows that there is an inconsistency in the depatea bases. >> our first call this morning is carl on the republicans line from west virginia. good morning, carl. welcome to the program. guest: caller: ma'am, wulled you like to open the border and let them all in? i think this is a great program. and what other means would you suggest we use to detect these illegal aliens here?
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guest: i think the first thing to recognize is that no technology on its own is going to solve the problem of illegal immigration. it's just not going to. in order to do that, we need to have comprehensive immigration reform. we need to look at a broad legalization program. implementing this program without that is going to have serious consequences for the economy and serious consequences for u.s. workers and lawful immigrant workers who will get misidentified. host: do you see a way that the e verify program could be put into practice in a useful way? you've mentioned concerns about people being misidentified, the burden on businesses. guest: i think that if e verify if it were to be made mandatory should only be done so under some broad comprehensive reform package. if it is done, what needs to happen is that there need to be due process protections in place for people. the unanswered questions regarding privacy,
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technological capability, cyber security, all of these questions have not yet been answered. and they need to be answered before this moves forward. we need to make sure that work whores are misidentified -- who are misidentified have a way of not being shut out of jobs. host: give us a call. republicans the line is -- the numbers are on the bottom of your screen. you can also e-mail us and that e-mail address is c-span rather -- you can also twitter us. the twitter feed is just c-span wj and e-mail address is journal at c-span.org.
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caller: good morning. i'm a small business owner and i hire a lot -- some individuals. they seem to be legal. i don't really ask for documentation. if this is in place, that would affect my business. and i do support illegal immigrants and i do hire them. and they're really good people. they're here to work. and a lot of people call the republican line showing their racism. but i think it's illegal immigrants are good people. host: and i want to mention that scott was calling from maryland. do you hear that from business owners? guest: the thing is just to clarify a little bit of the procedure that currently all employers are required to verify status of their employees through an i-9 process. e verify takes that one step
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further so i think that the thing that is problematic, he mentioned it, he was a small business. we know through independent studies and also through the government's own research on e-verify that the impract that the federal contractor rule will have on small businesses is very significant. they believe that it would impose costs on virtually every small business in the federal contractor data base and right now there are over 300,000 small businesses registered in that data base. so this is going to have a very serious impact for small businesses. host: our next caller, cindy. caller: yes. it would as long as they want to do illegal activities. now, i'm an american citizen, and if i was misidentified it would not be hard to prove who i am and what i'm doing. so i don't understand where -- that's a myth. it's a myth that it would cause
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problems for misidentified people to not get a job because, like i say, if i lose my driver's license as an american citizen and have to go and replace it, i have to take my birth certificate, turf take my social security card, i have to take proof of address. that's if i'm -- that's only to get a duplicate of my drivers license. so i'm an american citizen. all these illegal people don't have birth certificates, they don't have medical records, they don't have driving histories, but they're afforded all the benefits of american citizens. and it is hurting our country. caller: i would say it's a common misperception that it's easy to get photo identification and that it's easy to correct inacrasssiss in the system. we know from government commission studies, independent research, congressional
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hearings, that it is not easy for people to correct the inaccuracies in the e-verify program. we know that. we've seen the evidence. for example, in order to use the e-verify program you have to have photo identification that you present to your employer. if you don't have photo identification, you can't be run through the system and thus you can't work for that employer. we know that at least 11% of u.s. citizens do not have a form of government issued photo id. they don't have u.s. pass ports. in many cases they do not have birth certificates. and that's a real problem. and the place where we see that the most are amongst minority african americans, latino, elderly, and the disabled. we see that really in these populations that are going to be shut out of work. and as for the simplicity of
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get nug identification, there's an assumption that the government always gets it right and we know they don't always get it right whether it's at the state, federal, or local level. and trying to deal with offices like the department of homeland security who have a notoriously reputation of very difficulty. those are the places where people will have to correct their records and that's going to be difficult for a lot of people, especially those who don't have resources, who live in rural areas. it's not as easy people make it out to be. host: tell us about the mission of your organization, the national immigration forum. veragetteds we advocate on behalf of the value of immigration to the u.s. we do that through coalition building, of advocacy and education. so that's really where we're coming from. host: and earlier this week the senate adopted the homeland security appropriations act which includes an e-verify provision.
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do you see that moving forward? how will that mesh with wa what the administration said this week? caller: i think what we saw happen this week was it showed us two things. it shows us that congress still doesn't get it. it shows they still don't understand the real impact this program will have. it's a very technical program and they just don't understand it. i think on one level it's an education issue that people just don't understand. but also, too, i think that there's still allowing the bullies in congress to be bullies, and democrats really need to show leadership on this issue. and, you know, understand it and be able to understand it to their constituents. host: hi, scott. caller: hi. i just think that that the e-verify, at least according to a lot of sources, is not as bad
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as this lady is portraying that it only misidentifies a small number of people, and it's almost like saying, well, you know, if the police ever arrest the wrong person then we shouldn't try to enforce the laws. starting with ronald reagan, with the amnesty, we've had an anti-labor policy in this country starting in the 70's to destroy labor wages and organized wages. and we have unemployment rates for both mainly latino and black people in the cities between 30 and 50%. and i believe in a tighter labor policy. all our labor policies, both legal and illegal today are meant to put downward pressure on wages. we're pretty much in trouble because the corporations want, now they want them with the
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kind of more control, though. that's going to be even worse. and then the democrats or liberals want them because they see votes out there. host: i'm going to cut you off so we can get you a response guest: i think two of the points he raised. one is that we know that the current error rate of e-verify is that there's a 4% error rate right now. but what you have to keep in mind is that currently about 1% of all employers in the u.s., that's about 7.4 million employers, a little over 1% are actually enrolled in the program. but what we've seen is that even though you've got about over 100,000 that are enrolled, we know that only approximately 50% of that 100,000 are actively using the program. and active use is defined means that at least once in a 12
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month period. and that's -- so the 4% is based on a very small sample. you know, if you're applying this 4% to every single worker in the united states, it's exponen shlly expanding the program. and when you scale up technology like that, that 4% is not going to remain stagnant, it's going to increase. and the numbers of people getting misidentified are going to increase. the other thing that i would raise about this gentleman's labor concerns is that our organization does believe that there needs to be better enforcement of labor laws, wage and hour laws, osha laws. and we believe that's important because when you protect all workers that are working in the united states, you lift up what's the wages for everybody. and so we firmly believe in that. host: our next caller from north carolina. jeff, on the republican line. good morning. let's go on now to roy on the
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democrat line from flint, michigan. welcome to the program. caller: my first time calling, and i'm calling from flint. my question is the fact that flint is probably the highest unemployment rate in the whole country, along with the state of michigan. i own a small business and i'm a disabled vet ran also. and so i have a right to make sure that the people who have an obligation, to make sure that the people who i am hiring are legal and that i'm not hiring anyone who was illegally in this country. and i don't understand, if someone is here illegally, they have no rights. if i go to canada ile legally, to mexico illegally and try to work somewhere, then if i don't
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get a job then i don't have any right to go to that country and say you're wrong for not giving me a job because i'm here illegally and i should be working. guest: i would say that we don't support the hiring of illegal workers. that's not what we're about. what we're about is having a system that people can go through to work legally versus go around. and right now our system's broken and there's no way for people to come here and work legally in a reasonable and kind of timely fashion. our system has completely broken down in this way. host: what happens under the e verify program if a potential employee is red flagged? does the employer -- what steps and what happens to that employee? veragetteds when somebody's information is run through the system, they call it a tentative nonconfirmation. when that pops up, the employer is required by law to notify the employee that that has
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happened. and then the employee has eight federal working days in which to try to correct that problem. what we've seen through the government commission reports as well as some independent evaluations is that there is misuse of the program by employers. now, whether that's intentional abuse of the program by bad apple employers or just unintentional misuse because people haven't had the training to know how to properly use the program and it's a separate issue, but we know that a lot of times employees don't get the notices. they've been flagged. they don't have the resources to correct the record, to correct the error. within the eight federal working days. it's a cost to them to have to take time off work to do this either with d.h.s. or social security administration. it's harmful to the employer because the employer loses time
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of the person that he has hired in trying to kind of correct this. we saw this in i believe one of the most well cited statistics on this is intel corporation last year when the federal contractor rule was proposed they submitted comments talking about the time and the cost that it was to them as a corporation and that their error rate was approaching 13% of people who were authorized to work. so 13% of their workers were getting identified as not being able to work. and then they had to take time, money, resources to really settle that issue that wasn't easy with d.h.s. and ssa for workers that were all authorized to work. that's a problem. host: our next caller, jerry on the independent line. kveragetteds good morning. thank you very much and i appreciate having your guest. hello. host: you are on the air. what's your question? caller: hi.
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thank you very much for taking the call. we have the most liberal immigration laws in the whole world. my grand father came here from mexico, learned how to speak english, was a great worker the whole time. what reforms do you want to see in the immigration schedules that we have now that aren't there that we haven't discussed over the last 40 years since we had amnesty? this is ridiculous giving amnesty to everybody. 20 years, 15 years. right now we've got an undocumented population in this country that i bet you exceeds 40 million people. and you don't want to try to document them? and you want to keep them in this country when we can't afford our own country now. guest: i would say, as far as kind of the policies that exist now are our nation's
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immigrations policies is the policies of today are not the policies of a hundred years ago. and i think it's the reverse of what this gentleman is indicating. our policies were much more liberal a hundred years ago. you just showed up at ellis island and prove you didn't have tuberculosis and you were allowed to come into the country. our immigration laws have really been completely broken down and haven't really been revamped in almost 40 years. i mean, that was the last, over that. the problem is, is that we've continued to try to the patch work immigration reform. we've tried to do these small piece meal measures over the last 40 years. and it's not working. we see where it's gotten us and what we need to do is really take a good hard look at all of the pieces of this puzzle and all of the things that go into comprehensive immigration reform and approach it that
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way. because if we don't, we are facing problems to our economy. we're facing problems to the families that are here, the workers that are here. i mean, we need all of these things to be fixed. host: the "new york times" has a piece dated july 9. government to require verfissication of workers. it mentions as you have that intel has reported finding errors in 13% to queries it made. also, support for a mandatory federal worker verification system is growing in congress. charles schumer has called for a system to check every worker in america. what would that do? >> we haven't seen the proposal that senator schumer or anybody else is offering as it relates to any kind of national id card or a biometric card. the thing that's important to remember is this overreliance
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on technology to solve a problem is naive. workers, employers that want to hire workers, you know, are going to hire them off the books if they can't hire them through a legal means. you know, to think that a biometric card or e-verify or anything else could anything gate the laws of supply and demand just isn't realistic. host: margerin from the democrats line. caller: good morning. thank you for taking my call. i really do sympathize with the plight of people in other countries, but people in other countries need to understand that we have a limit in this nation as to what we can afford and what we can do. and being from a very strong union state here in west virginia we recognize the importance of union labor versus scab labor. and, unfortunately, people that, who come here illegally
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are really the same as scab work. because the operators in this state left to hire somebody that they can pay at a lower rate if their safety conditions aren't as good as they ought to be. you can't as a union worker, you can fight those safety conditions. as a scab worker you can't. and so it's unfortunate that this young lady doesn't understand how important knowing how to do your job safely has such an impact on our economy. and it also has such an impact on, as we see here in west virginia, when scab coal companies don't follow the laws, then people die. guest: i would urge this caller to definitely get in touch with -- i'm not sure what union she's a member of. but recently one of the big changes that has occurred in
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the comprehensive immigration reform debate is that labor unions are on board with reforming the immigration system. they understand that by doing so it's going to improve conditions for all workers. that when you have workers that are all able to avail themselves of the laws that protect workers in this country, everybody wins. afl-cio as well as the change to win unions, which also includes sciu and ufcw, they have all come out in support of comprehensive immigration reforms. labor unions understand that this is important for all workers. host: david, on the republican line. caller: good morning. thank you for bringing this subject up, because here in eel passo right next to the border, this affects -- and by the way i am hispanic, third generation, ma'am. and ms. martinez, it is hispanics like you that are giving legal hispanics like me who have been here in this country for three generations and legal immigrants that have
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come here legally to do the work that are giving us a bad rap because there are hispanics out here in ell passo that want this implemented. especially with all the federal contracts here. and i want this implemented. i also want id checks when you go to vote as well, which i pretty much think that you don't want that to happen, either. guest: well, i think again we're ignoring some of the fundamental flaws with the e-verify program in the context of what this gentleman is referring to with federal contractors. you know, we know that the impract is going to be that people are going to be put out of work. u.s. citizens who can't prove that they're authorized to work are going to be unable to work. federal contractors who can't verify people are going to be not able to move forward in their contracts. you know, i think that as far as the issue of voting id, we've seen this happen in the voting id context.
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we've seen this happened of disenfranchisement of voters of u.s. citizens who can't prove they're citizens and thus get shut out. we're going to see the same thing with the e-verify. host: now virginia on the independent line. good morning. caller: good morning. i was just calling because i would like to remind everyone who is listening to c-span that there is a difference between illegal immigration and immigration. and i think that your guest and those who support her and that type of view seem to kind of shade the two together. and i just want to remind people that there is a difference between illegal and immigration. and idge that a person who earns citizenship should be given the basic laws of america and people who come to this country illegally should be treated like criminals. veragetteds well, we are for a
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system that requires people to register. that requires undocumented immigrants to pay taxes. that requires them to learn english. we want people to have a system that they can go through legally. but we don't have that right now. we've seen that our system has fallen apart so much in the last decades that there is no way for that to happen. that people, there's no way for people to come here legally. we've seen that in the back logs of employment, both family based visas. it's just not possible. and we need to create a system that makes it possible for legal immigration. i think that we all want that. nobody wants illegal immigration. we want a system that works. host: thank you for joining us this morning. our zpwest has been grisella martinez. coming up next, john huten is our guest. we will talk about a new g.a.o. report on federal contractors and bonuses.
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host: john hutton is our guest. we're here to talk about a recent report that came out last week looking at the bonuses given to government contractors. what prompted you to look into this issue? guest: i think the story starts back in 2005 and what we looked at back then is d.o.d. use of award contracts. and it might be helpful to set the stage of what this type of contract is. when the government buys services or other goods, there are situations where they must use a cost reimburseable contract. and in those situations, the government may look for ways that they can incentivize the contractor to provide a good quality service that meets schedule and all the needs of the government on type. and to do that because it's a cost type contract, the government wants to help provide incentives for the contractor itself to control the costs.
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so we want to look at this type of contractor because it was the purpose was to incentivize the contractors. so back in 2005 we looked at d.o.d. and we found that d.o.d. was paying award fees to contractors that wasn't really commensurate with the service that was being provided and for the outcomes. and we found that they paid over $8 billion regardless of whether the service was below expectation, meeting expectation, ore over expectation. host: why look at it now? guest: because there's a lot of dollars involved and also because we had several recommendations back in 2005 to help suggest ways that d.o.d. can better use that type of contract vehicle to incentivize the contractor. so this time around, we had a request from congress. host: a recent story from the "washington post," report faults bonuses and it talks about this report that your
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office has put out. and it says governmentwide guidance issued in 2007 issued by the office of management and budget says that they agencies link award fees to results and prohibit payments for poor performance. so why is this this tradition of giving out these big bonus sns guest: i think it's in part a process that wasn't being excuted the way it should if you really want to incentivize the contractor. so several g.a.o.'s recommendations were actually translated into improved d.o.d. guidance, but as well as many of the things that the omb guidance pointed out is the findings we had in our 2005 report. host: and back to this story, told g.a.o. investigators that a contractor has to do a pretty bad job to receive a rating of good, a rating that pays in excess of 85% of the award fee
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veragetteds and that gets back to the point of linking the performance to the amount of they might have received. if a contractor was basically meeting the expectations of the government, it was considered excellent performance. so they would get up to 85% or greater for their award fee. and so that kind of posed the question, well, what does it take to get a good rating? and the comment was that you have to do a pretty bad job to get a good. host: so g.a.o. is not just looking at the bonchenusses but also at the rating system and were there any judgments made about that rating system and how useful it is? veragetteds yes. and we're talking about fees paid for performance here. and we did look at a number of number of contracts. we looked at the vehicles they used and the scales and the evaluation plan that they had for each of those contracts. and we found they were in a lot of different places. we found in one case back in 2005 one contractor might
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receive up wards of 90% for performance that was pretty much satisfactory, where as other contractors might get 50%. host: our guest is john hutton with g.a.o. give us a call. the numbers are on your screen. you can also e-mail us or send us a tweet. our first caller for our guest john hutton is patrick. and patrick is calling us on the independent line from kentucky. caller: good morning. i'm a federal employee and i'm pretty far down on the tote m pole. but my experience with the contractors are that they expect them to do a terrible job. and that's just the norm. and i don't really see any oversight by the federal agencies to make sure that the work is done on time and on
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budget. i would just like your comments. and i will take my answer off the air. host: patrick mentioned he is a federal employee himself. guest: i caught the tail end and i think the question has to do with oversight. and he is exactly right. that's a major finding that g.a.o. has not just d.o.d. but across government that one of the key things is that while contractors are out there performing missions for the government, the government needs to do a better job of ensuring that they have qualified people watching the performance and making sure that they're paid in accordance with the contract terms. sf host: on the republicans line, from eel mira, new york. kveragetteds good morning. caller: good morning. host: you are on the air caller: my question is don't you think it would be good to have somebody of the old time
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things to apply today? host: what specifically are you referring to? caller: i'm referring to the folks that were previously discussed. host: do you have any questions about g.a.o. and how contracts are awarded and how money is paid out? caller: yes, i do. what i'm thinking is do you think it would be good to encourage more home study for that? host: i'm not really sure if i'm getting the gist of that question. let's move on to david who is calling us on the democrat's line. david, good morning. caller: good morning. i was wondering if you guys published the contacting offices of the contractors that the a poor job. guest: in our 2005 report and
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2009 report we were focusing on the overall management. we do not publish the contracting names or the names of the contractors unless we did some work that focused on an individual contractor and we looked at performance and it became a subject of the report. but we really look at the process and we get agency views at whatever department that we're working at to get their comments on the fact that we came up with. host: can you give us examples of where money went and perhaps where projects were not completed as intended or the goal was not met. guest: the scope of these type of contracts runs the gamut. a lot of them are major systems, d.o.d. systems, weapons systems and we have a lot of work at g.a.o. that shows that these systems are overcost, behind schedule, and cases don't meet the performance. so you can almost guess that a
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number of those systems do use cost plus award fee contracts. but those types of contracts can also be used for operations and management of, say, laboratories. these are often used for research and development type projects. so that would be another use. host: tell us more about these suggestions or sort of what some possible solutions might be. veragetteds sure. guest: sure. let me use an example. back inie nopt only did we have the issue of the linkage of performance to the actual fee paid. there was another issue raised that if a contractor did not earn the whole fee or a portion of the fee during a particular evaluation period, the government would just role that amount that wasn't earned into the next evaluation period. so essentially the contractor had a second chance at earning that award fee. and we pointed that out. and in that work in 2005 we show that it was like 665 million that was being rolled
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over to the next evaluation period and contracts were getting a second chance at a fee when they didn't earn it in the original fee period. so we had some recommendations that that type of process be prohibited or limited. host: and you weren't just looking at d.o.d. you also looked at other agencies. veragetteds correct. we followed up on our d.o.d. work but we also looked at the five agency that is represent about 95% of the contracts that use cost plus fee. and that would be dough, defense, homeland security, health and human services, nasa and d.o.d. host: our next call from south carolina. caller: thank you. i think all contracts should be handled in the way -- i'm self-employed. and i'm hired to do a job, if i do the job the way it was
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intended to be done, i get paid. if i don't, i don't get paid. it's simple. on all the bonuses, if your job is not conducted in a man thear is the acceptable by the person contracting you, there should be no bonuses. guest: it's a very good point you're making. and one thing i would like to suggest is that for these type of contracts, rure exactly right. and that's what this is trying to push the agencies to ensure that performance is reflected if there is an award fee. host: we have a message on twitter. she says no bonuses should be given at all with taxpayer money. is that realistic? can we get to that point where we eliminate this bonus system? guest: again, these are really fees that are paid to contractors if and the intention is if they meet the performance requirements or exceed them. these are important to understand because in a cost
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contract type environment, the contractor will get paid for all allowable costs and there's no really incentive. the risk is really on the government in those situations for the cost. and that's why they use award fees. and so to clear the guidances, the better the standards are, the more defined the criteria that is government is using to evaluate the contractors performance, you're going to get something that's more scommens rat with their performance. host: did you find that any of the contractors had worried about not getting the award fees at tend of their work? it sounds like the incentive program as the g.a.o. report has found is not really effective. guest: that's a really good question. we found, for example, and i think in part it's a culture over time if contractors are in a position where they're feeling they're getting some award fees when their performance perhaps was a satisfactory but it was a significant part of the fee, you might get used to that.
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and i think we found an example in our most recent report where the air force and as i mentioned before d.o.d. is starting to limit these rollovers of unearned fee. and there was a case where the government decided we're not going to give you an award fee this period. the contractor i understand came back and asked, well, can you roll it over for the next period so that we can have a chance to earn it? and the government said no. so there's a savorings there. zveragetsdzz our next caller from victor. caller: good morning. afe question and a comment. the question to me is even when they do need contractors, why don't they just hold the contractors as contractors and not make them subcontract at all? and my comment is that i believe this is all started from back in ronald reagan's day of privatization of the government.
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and i don't understand why they don't increase civil service employees. because it seems to me like it's costing more for the federal government now to pay privately. thank you. guest: i'd like to take that question in a certain direction. we've noted that over the last six, seven years take d.o.d., for example, their expenditure on goods and services has basically doubled. but when you look at the acquisition workforce, it's pretty much stayed constant over that period. so i think the caller brings in an interesting point of view that with the increase in spending, with the complexity of the items and services that the government is procuring is the federal workforce, the acquisition workforce sufficiently trained in sufficient numbers to not only ensure that these contracts are done properly up front and planned for, but also that you have sufficient oversight at the end. so that the taxpayer, which is all what we're really concerned about, is the taxpayer gets the best value for the dollar.
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host: marge, from sunny vale, california. caller: it's very frustrating here in america because obama is hiding everything. we're talking about accountability of the g.a.o. right now, obama's first stimulus package is costing the american people -- and nobody talks about this. his stimulus package which he used to pay off the political op ratives and we wonder why it hasn't stimulated any jobs. u just the interest alone on his first payout is $100 million a day. and the american people don't even know this. and we're talking about accountability of the g.a.o. it's very frustrating out here to watch this mark sist empty suit destroy america. guest: i'd like to comment on that. g.a.o. is heavily involved and engaged in auditying what's going on with the stimulus dollars. if you go to our website you
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will find that we just issued a significant report i believe it was on wednesday that captures where we see the situation today. and we also capture the status of what's going on in i believe it's 16 states plus the district of columbia. so i think there's a lot of good information there. it's a very substantial report that will at least give some insight where g.a.o. is right now in order to help ensure that accountability that you're bringing up. host: good morning. caller: good morning. thank you guys for accepting my phone call. first, i wanted to commend you guys for at least trying. but i have a question and i have a comment. the first question is, why don't they take the money that the companies failed to meet up to their -- meet their quotas and give them money to charities that are helping out the people who the government can help who are still suffering behind all of the economy drama. you know what i'm saying? they can take some of that
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money to help these charities. they're carrying the burden. nobody is taking up the charity. people are going into their pockets and they're donating these charities. i feel like some of that money should also be given to these charities who are helping the people that the government doesn't have time to help who needs help. guest: you raise an interesting point from that perspective. in our work and particularly in this last report in 2009 what we're trying to do is say that if the fees are not earned, and that they're not rolled over to the next period, that money can go back to the treasury or can go back into the program and be put to additional productive use. but what we're trying to do is just get the best bang for the dollar. host: we have a question on twitter. our contributor asks, half our
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how often are costs overruns a direct result of congressional medling rather than contractor fault? guest: oftentimes it has to do with perhaps there's an inappropriate vehicle that was used that puts a lot of risk on the government when it's not proper. that often happens when the government do a good job defining their rirmtses. but there's a whole chothe host of factors that might cause costs to increase. host: cheryl, on the democrats line. caller: good morning. my question is concerning the electrical conditions in iraq and afghanistan and all the attention around those countries. it's my understanding that task force safe was created to go in and follow up on the electrical conditions in iraq. exactly what is being done in afghanistan to make sure that contracts are being uphe would
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and the work is being done that is being paid for? guest: ok. i've been involved in some of the work back in the 2005 period. i have some perspective. but the information i have isn't as current as it probably should be. but g.a.o. has a number of assignments looking at the execution of reconstruction programs such as maybe what you're talking about in both iraq and afghanistan. and we issue a number of reports and we've issued some things if you go on our website, for example, we have a section there called the transition. this is information that we developed for the new administration coming in that kind of captured at a high level all the big issues that we saw across government in terms of how dollars are being spent. and you'll see some policy papers, you'll see some reports referred to that talk about our work on those type issues that you raise. host: on the republican line, david is calling from california.
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good morning. caller: good morning. yes. my question is basically this. i was in the air force 20 years and my last eight years i went through acquisition process traininging and everything else and dealing with like bases and so forth. so i have heavy training. and a big question like you mentioned earlier is the quality assurance to do the job and if not to correct them and get them back on track. here we have another agency being developed which is d.h.s. and they seem to have lost control because they don't have the qualified people as they call them cotars and the contracting officers running these programs. and a good example is the s.b.i. program putting that invisible electronic line on the border. do you evaluate all the agencies that have big
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contracts? departments? within the government to have big contracts? and how do you look at their program and so forth if they're meeting the standards for g.a.o.? and that would be my question. guest: thank you. and i really appreciate that question because i am responsible for acquisitions and contracting over at d.h.s. and for example just last november we did a study that looked across all their major investments. they spent billions of dollars for major investments. and they had a process that was supposed to help guide those investments through a knowledge-bationed logical approach where you needed the information you needed to better assure that you have outcomes. what we found back in november was that d.h.s. was not excuting that process and that they now subsequently have refined that process. but i think that as we continue doing our work we want to see the extent to which that these issues have been corrected. host: our guest, john hutton
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has led g.a.o. reviews. a., u.s. mefpltco border infrastructure and aids and u.s. exports. how much an opportunity do you have after the fact, after these reports come out to reflect and go back a couple years and see how much progress has been made and how much these reports have made a different? veragetteds we do usually follow up. first, if we have recommendations we follow up with the agency on the status of their implementation of our recommendations realtime yearly. and you can go to any g.a.o. report on line and click on the recommendations and it will tell you what we have found is a current update on those recommendations. but we do like going back and looking at progress has been made. i think in part this 2009 study that we just issued is a good example. and we get a lot of satisfaction out of seeing progress. d.o.d. has made some significant progress and we've documented in our report some savings that have arisen because of the work that we did
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and because of the actions that d.o.d. has taken. but also congress has directed a lot of change and getting the agencies to take corrective action. so we do get a lot of pleasure and like to see whether the agencies are implementing the recommendations. host: angela from atlanta, georgia. caller: good morning. and thank you for taking my call. mr. hutton, i think i have a comment. i'm a state and local procurement professional and have had an opportunity to meet g.a.o. staff at various seminars and very implessive people who have a very hard job to do. but my sense of what's happening in term of government contracting is the expertise that existed in government in terms of defining the specificications and really getting a sense of what the government's needs were and therefore getting the contract that meets those needs, that
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expertise through various employment practices has been allowed to evaporate out of government. and so where you don't have the expertise inhouse to be able to adequately evaluate the proponents or the bidders offer and what it is that they're going to bring to the table and the contract, the foundations of the contract are flawed and therefore the government doesn't really get what it's paying for. that's my comment. veragetteds absolutely. and i guest: absolutely. and i kind of alluded to it earlier the acquisition workforce is critical if the government hopes to gets some good outcomes. and we've done a variety of studies at d.o.d. and d.h.s. which pointed to the types of specialties that some of the agencies need to build up, the type of capacity, the type of certification. and that the importance of having good strategies to get there. identify your gaps and your needs and what steps you're going to take to get there. but in the interim, some of the
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agencies are also hiring contractors in support of the acquisition process. host: our next caller is mary on the democrats line. good morning, mary. caller: good morning. i wanted to talk about two different contract issues. ok? i will be very brief. the first in bay city, michigan, a stimulus funds were contracted out to a company to repair -- replace the sidewalks in the entire town. the contractor subcontracted to a business owned by an illegal immigrant who hires nothing but illegal immigrants. it was reported locally. the problem is there are many, many unemployed american citizens who are construction workers who are capable of doing the job and they were upset.
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american citizens, black brown and white, who were discriminated against because the contractor got a quarter million dollar contract and subcontracted out to a lesser company and he just kept the profit. the second contracting issue. during the bush administration our united states government contracted out to a dainish company to build six detention centers in our company. they have been built and maintain by the same danish company. and now we have representative alsoie hastings putting legislation demanding that we build six -- he's not calling them detention centers but i guess permanent housing centers in case of national disasters. i'm very concerned about this. i really do not like this. we do not need to be building massive detention centers in our country i will hang up and listen to your response.
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guest: i understand the two situations that you're talking about. some of those issues aren't really in my lane and i really don't have much to react to that. host: joyce on the republican line from maryland. caller: good morning. i just wanted to speak about the training that the acquisition force is obtaining. and i really believe that we're going to get a big bang for our buck in the next year or two with the acquisition force. there needs to be more contract oversight. and they have an outstanding robust training program that they're going through. and d.o.d., for example, that i work for is hiring thousands and thousands of contractors overseers so that they can keep track of the contracts and write better contracts for the contractors that we are hiring in d.o.d. and that we get a better bang for our buck. that has always been hard to maintain and high contract
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observation force, and their training, is outstanding. that they go through. and that we need to hire more and more. but it's a very stringent training program they go through and it's hard for mem to meet this and come out on the other end. we have a very high turnover in the contracting field. and right now we have a high inturn rate in contractors. and when we get them to full performance i think you're going to see a lot better contracting in the federal government. guest: i appreciate the enthusiasm because i certainly homee hope that things go in that direction and continue to go in that direction. we're talking about a lot of initiatives trying to build that acquisition workforce. and i think it's something that has to grow over time. it's going to take several years for that expertise to build up and i'm hoping that there's sufficient numbers of experienced acquisition workforce out there to help bring these newer people along. but i think you're pointing to
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the need and also the reaction, whether it be congressional direction or agencies own initiative help build up that acquisition workforce again. host: finally, is there monetary amount that g.a.o. is able to put on potential savings if this is reformed, if the system is reformed or even a percentage of savings that could be achieved over a certain period of time? guest: that's a great question. just for the contracts, the hundred contracts we looked at in our most recent report there have been about $6 billion in award fees paid. so just the premise that we're talking large dollars. and i think the promise that we saw in the d.o.d.'s actions in just some of the cases that we looked at, the numbers that we're talking about, $450 million in -- by limiting rollover and things like that, that money is going to build. but the key is that as we mentioned in our report, d.o.d. needs to make sure that it's more enterprisewide these types of changes. and i think they're working
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hard to do that. but congress has also directed that the federal acquisition regulations be revised so that all the civilian agencies are going to have to use these best practices to ensure they get better outcomes. so you're talking large dollars and i think you will see. but i don't have a specific number for you. host: john hutton, thanks for being with us. guest: thank you. host: coming up next, the convention chair of the young republicans will be talking about the future of the republican party. [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2009] . . ready
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line as a pod cast. >> washington journal conditions. >> the 2009 convention chair of the young republicans. joining us from indianapolis. good morning. tell us about what you've been didding this week with young republicans. we have been having a great time. we had to add about 120 new seats to the election process. we have some great speakers. it's a lot of enthusiasm. finding ways young republicans can support them while they move
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forward. we have a lot of people that don't do this for a living like myself, i'm in it. >> i do it much more as a hobby or passion. young mrinz maybe see themselves as working for office at some point. what are some of the main issues? what are hearing people talk most about. trying to see what's going on in ds. how that's going to affect people. our party and country.
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policies in regards to fiscal areas. you have your policy. how do you et that message out to people. we've been working with local companies. how do we take that message and make sure we are putting that message out briefly you can calm and join in the conference on the line. democrats and independents. you mentioned the discussion about the economy. tell us your vision and strat
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here. the story in the assisted press this week. talking about how the chair rallied republicans. he said lift your head. i'm so sick and tired of americans wining. you lost. get over it. how much did the loss of the white house res nate with young republicans are they getting back out there and excite abouted what is next. >> i can't agree with them more. starting with wednesday night all the way until today. there's been nothing but enthusiasm. people see the opportunity. i think that's exactly what this con vens has been saying to everyone.
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it's time to stop wining and wait forge leadership rolls. it's time for young professionals to take leadership rolls. sometimes you have to sees that opportunity. coming out of the con vens. a lot of people are willing to take that next step. what michael steele said wednesday night was what a left people needed to hear and what we wanted to hear. >> good morning and thank you for taking my call. it's important in my upon that the republican party become truly identified with its core vl crews. you hear constantly that the
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republican party has to change and go a new direction. it's like trying to ware many different masks. these core values the republican party stood for. i believe in securing our boarders i'm profee document of speech and religion i've heard many republicans say we have to identify more with the hispanic community or the african-american community. all americans, it doesn't matter
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your color, we should be physically conserve safe. you have to realize it's better to be hated for who you are. realize when you are under attack, you are doing the right thing. a lot of opportunities. doing a great job. i don't think we node to pan door. make sure what we are being told and what we stand for. if you were to attend this con
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vens. those are the core values. it's putting us out in the forefront. younger people. we did not do so well with the younger people. we need to take our message and be proactive. perhaps maybe last year, we have suchzíw great car riz mau. they will decide if they support our policy. just as much as the democrats do or don't. we either stand for fiscal policy and responsibility.
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we'll get those out there and let the voters react. that's what we have been talking a lot about. how do we get to voters not just once or twice the anticipated of the dashgs i think we are going to win. there was a resent erupt on face book this week with audra shay. this was a comment made on her face book page. we have a question on twitter. they are asking what do you think about the comments this week? >> i'm not familiar with this
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situation. i know the two people running for chairmanship. she's never presented herself in a way other than professional. i think the comment made was taken out of context i would feel better if i knew the context we know if you make a comment and 50 more people make a comment and it's taken out of context. i respect audra. she's never made a statement to me. >> there was a seer russ of responses made on her page.
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megan paige is a young republican who is concerned race politics. she has maybe some social more liberal values. how does that idea work? >> i would think you find in young republicans a pretty row bust balance between social versus fiscal. all young republicans are fiscally conservative, when it comes to social issues, i take those more personal. a lot of young republicans are struggling with where do we put fiscaó and social you will fin
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a lot more young republicans leaning to libertarian issues. when it comes to elections, we lost them in november. we have to decide the discussion of social the conservatives and social people in our party. we are willing to allow that to happen. >> we in this society today. a lot of people think we are
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just social conservatives. we have a lot of those people in our party. the young republicans are allowing that discussion to happen. ran a u.s. snat campaign in 2006. politics is his passion. he does work in the it sector as his day job. call calling from maryland. good morning, now. caller: hi todd. i was interested in -- now i'm confused. host: what's your question?
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caller: getting rid of the democratic party completely. i'd like to see him impeached as bad as he is. >> that's not a discussion around young republicans. he is our president and we have to respect him. we went through a lot of harshness toward him. if there was a pot hole in the street, it was president bush's fault. if we would sit back and remember what we went through with our president and respect our president. we don't need topcz around and
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say president obama is the problem of everything. to blame him for everything is not in our best interest. at the and of the day, we are all americans. sometimes the debate gets a little too personal. we have to have open debate and find comprimise. host: thank you, todd. sorry to interrupt. marie from pennsylvania. caller: god bless c-span. i'm calling to tell todd, there's no such thing as a young republican. huh awful and daunting a task it must be to try to make greed,
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hip crassy sound logical. host: tood, the ideaoff young republicans and where the young republicans fit into the broad inspect rum itself. how are you being met by the leaders of the prty. are they seeing a roll for to you play. >> for our kick off, we had the young michael steele here. obviously one of the leaders in d.c. the speakers we are having at the convention speak to your answer. we've had technology experts. they are seeing a growing roll. they saw the numbers coming out of november.
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they did not do as well as they had hoped. sometimes what you say and how you say it this is an opportunity for young republicans to get out there and turn the tide on luising 63% of the younger vote. we can do better than. that the groups are seeing opportunity for us as young republicans or those that follow in the young republicans instead. as the previous caller said, there's no such thing as a young republican. i know republicans 40's and 50's. they are young at heart. >> has it been doe moralizing to see the issues coming up.
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how are people talking about that in indianapolis. we are looking forward, not backwards. we are look forward. we are not going to get caught in those issues. governor has a roll. we want to get court up in the size. we are going to move forward as a party. host: calling from dallas. caller: yes. i have been a life-line republican. i changed because i'm in dallas, texas. then you can vote as an open
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primary. i reregistered so i could vote for ron paul because he was the only republican running. when smfrn r someone says they are running as a republican. >> i'm not sure how to answer that question. people don't appreciate how big our tent is. this is good service. this is fiscal conservatives, international conservatives. i would debate the woman who said we are controlled by the
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neocons. we are control ourselves. this is no outside telling us what to do. we can control. there's no associationer political action committee or hipped the seasons person controlling the party. i would say on my own behalf and behalf of the young republicans. we control our destiny. we have to figure out where we want to go, how we are going to get there and leave that message to the people. at the end of the day, i think we are going to win. >> good morning. you are on the air. >> i'm a moderate democrat. i feel that the republican party definitely, i believe needs to reach out more to different minority groups, black people by
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nature are con serve tiff people. i don't think it was so much about republicans abe lynn condition ending slafry. we are just conservative people by nature. we a >bv of times get away from what we bloeb. if you take a pole, minorities pretty much have the same views as conservatives. republicans need to get back to their conservative ways. that's what is going to bring them back up. >> i would agree we could do bet under out reach we are still doing a great job with that. we are only six months into his term. we are not going to see rangeover night. we are well on the way to having
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great candidates. an sab slutly a magz candidate. it's a great story. we have to say, we have many more across the country. we have to do better in out reach. our next call. is it andy? can you hear us it looks like we lost our next caller. one more time. todd while we still have you let's talk about some of the
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take away hand handfuls. what are some of the efforts you are going away with. one of the high reaching goals for us was to bring forth the opportunity of using technology. a lot of people are using facebook. we have two local groups. three exact targets able to come forth and show us the way. the we all know what our message is. technology is one of the best ways we could do that. the other discussion is how do we rectify what happened over the last ten years.
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as people leave tomorrow when they leave, they are going to leave with, we have to use when we stand for, nothing is going to change in our policy. the young republicans are under utilized to get our message out there. we can do that. we'll change with what we are learning this week. you are going to get a vast change. look at the race and we are going to see what we have in the action >> someone a little younger, you are going to be watching to be a new leader.
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we'll be right back. >> live coverage of the confirmation hearing of supreme court nominee sonia sotomayor. we'll replay the proceedings week nights on c-span ifrp i. coming this fall, tour the home of america's highest court on supreme court. coming up this weekend on book tv. today. from 1995 talks about his book in retrospect. former congressman and msnbc host joe scarbough.
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books on the economy. financial editor says the financial collapse is predict able and far from being offer. we hear how a second greater beats wall street. congressman henry waxman and his 35 years in u.s. house. there's more on book tv. go to our web site. washington journal continues. >> our question is should the rich be taxed to pay for healthcare reform.
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you can also send us a tweet at twitter domenici. this is a story today on how to tax the rich. the piece starts out how democrats last the healthiest american with a sdz r $550 million. the ways and maeps committee. do you think this is a possible way to pay for the healthcare plan. he needs to find a way to pay for healthcare reform and
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changes within current budget. this is one way that has suggested. >> to pay for mr. obama's top priority. expanding coverage and curtailing the steep rise and cost. looking at some of the headline as cross the country today coming skurt si of the mu sdeem. the boston globe with a picture of obama meeting with the pope. and a story of how senator kennedy's story is missed.
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healthcare. everybody should pay it by consumers. you guys are stripping the rich already. global warming. your businesses are gonna pay for it. how much rich can a person be after you keep stripping hem is what i want to know. >> good morning. our question is should the rich be taxed to pay for healthcare? this is obviously tomb uninsured people in our koirpt. host: do you agree with the proposal set out as far as the guidelines of who kwul fies as
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rich? >> let's go back and get that article. couples who earn more than $350,000. caller: sounds reasonable to me. that's money money than i've ever seen. host: frank, you are on the air. welcome. caller: i believe the rich should pay. if it succeeds. they can take the credit for it. real quick, if i can. basically, i see it like this. the last eight years. rich got off with these super big tax cuts. the government was still
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building the deficit. if the healthcare does take effect and we have the blue dog defendants that say hey. like i said before. 16% of our gdp goes to healthcare. if i could. can i make a real quick comment. host: yes. caller: what was his name the last guest? i guess he refused to read that column about megan. what she said about that lady's name? caller: simple as pie. it called blacks coons.
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that's all i have to say. >> good morning. calling on the republican line. the answer is absolutely not. if we are going to continue to tax the rich for all of your society, from will be no more rich. it's really a socialist appeal. the populist appeal. it begins with the doctor. we are going to have this consequence surrounding healthcare. we have a nice family doctor. when he retired, we got a new one. it was great.
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i'm from seven children. we are looking only in one direction. >> tony is our next caller from hickory north carolina. i believe we are taxing the rich. some talk about the fejy rich. we have poor people stafshing to health. really, you go watch movies and all, i believe in taxing them. >> from rome george yao, should the rich be taxed to pay for healthcare. you are on the air. caller: i feel like the rich
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should be taxed for the simple fact is a lot of those rich people are already drawing pension and checks their kids are going to have healthcare. it you would take their healthcare away and say if you don't come up with a healthcare system by the end of the year, your healthcare and your kid's healthcare and college education will be took he's not worried about the poor carolina in south carolina. he has four sons. i guarantee you he's made a way for his sons to go to clj. that's all the republicans in the south are worried about. they are worried about their kids, their family and friends.
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host: a tweet hearsaying our taxes go to the plan every time someone goes to the emergency room. caller: you are do a great job. i am republican. i had a hard time this past election. he promised he would not raise taxes on people earning $250,000 a year. if he does that, that's a total deal breaker for me. a lot of people supported mr. obama everyone from liberals in hollywood to the people like the super rich and gates. i think it really is time for all of them to put up. yes, i do think that the rich should be taxed for healthcare. thank you.
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host: from the independent line. in louisiana. good morning. caller: this country is nuts. we have a meant at that all we want to do is tax, tax, tax and tax. someone in washington needs to come up with a better way to raise revenue. i think it is through incentives. this is going to cause division. texas is already talking about concession from the union. we are tired of getting taxed. they are tired of tax too. what's going to happen is this whole idea is people in washington don't wake up and get rid of this tax meant at and they are going to drive a wedge
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>> lacking at the family of emit hill. his relatives are planning to move him. he is the civil ill rights leader and considered to be important because of what happened to him in the civil rights movement. úqç going to our next call, we have gary on the line. caller: are we still talking about taxing the rich? host: we are. what do you think? caller: i don't think it would be fair to tax object the rich. if you tax everyone and raise probably across the board. i wouldn't mind paying an extra
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5-10 a week out of my check. speaking of that. to maybe help social security and change the name to social security influence i don't see why people that are worth millions anyway. thank you for taking our call. good morning, dean. caller: good morning. good to see somebody new on c-span. i don't believe that taxing the rich is gonna do the job.
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i just want to give you an example of our poor people. i know this couple. they are drawing about $4,000 a month. for their living expenses. by 2:00 in the afternoon, they are drunk and stoned out of their mind. with this kind of waist going on, i don't see why somebody with this extra money should be forced to take care of people who absolutely don't know how to handle the money in the first place. if we used that money, we wouldn't know how to tax the
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people in america. going to done on the independent line. that word "rich." if i go out today and buy an loto ticket. i think thecqh wealthy those shd have contributed more to the alleviation and policy. we have this working against each other. you are wedgy and poor to pass on to both. we create these health issues. the nfl, nba are instantly rich,
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they are not necessarily wedgy. they don't have the expert he's to pass on their riches to create wedge. to tax the rich is to move out the economy to create entrepreneurs and enterprise. we should tax those who continually benefit from the policies. fot to tax the rich. we want to expose those who have become wealthy, the rockefellers and thefords and these families that have benefited. host: thank you for your call. caller: i think it's important to understand the history of
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taxation in this country and appreciate where we are today. under roosevelt, true man and icen hower. we have a 91% tax rate, the equivalent today would be 3.2 million. we have eliminated these high income tax rates on the middle class, a payroll tax ray that has increased 46% while income taxes have been slashed. you want to end excessive ceo compensation and greed, you get a 91% tax rate. you don't have a problem anymore. you lower the payroll tax with money in people's pockets. you get this economy going. until we go back to what worked in the 40's, 50's and 60's, we are not going to solve our fiscal problems
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>> good morning caller: this decision? 2% of the bottom 50% of tax filers don't pay any income tax at all, indeed receive checks. if you want to tax the top 50%, go ahead. the bottom 50% are gleeful and don't have to pay a thing, not one penny. the end result is gonna be that what dot rich do with their money. they buy those big expensive cars. who builds their houses? you are going to destroy the basis of this economy.
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host: in this "new york times" piece we are talking about leaders and how to tax rich and the health plan. a concern has come up. a piece says made up of 52 conservative democrats. that was before the arrangement. what do you think the signal is right now in healthcare. our next caller on the independent line calling for danville. caller: good morning. i'm happy to have gotten through. on the the top 1% maybe less
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than 1%. i think if you take $1 from the rich in the front door. they would collect $1.25 in the backdoor. they would have made a commitment to stay rich. what we have to do is tax everyone. we know that the poor will always be with us. that's a fact. i would like to touch on the previous guest on the young republicans. host: briefly. caller: i'm very conservative. i would like to start a new party. the truth party. i disagree with a lot of barack obama's politics. the gun control and the
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republicans, they should feel bad. i think they are not getting. bring something else to the table. i'm not very well educated. i do have potential. most importantly, i have wisdom. all wisdom comes from god. thank you c-span. >> let's go to phraser. what do you think about a way to pay for healthcare. >> i think the rich is just rich. the best thing you should have in this generation. no matter what you do for the rich, they never become poor. the poor always see a beggar. the rich always be a winner. the "new york times" report that
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republicans pout when the word taxation came up. >> the next caller is scott on the republican line from houston, texas. do you agree with that statement? are you with us? hi there? caller: ok. what i'd like to say is if these are our leaders and they need to lead by example, whatever healthcare plan that this pass, they should be on the same healthcare plan as everybody else in the united states and on
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the indiana line calling from iowa. caller: seems like taxing and spending is not the way to accomplish anything. obama keeps throwing out the number of americans uninsured. when you research that, that's not actually the number. something like 8 million are illegal immigrants. it is a smaller number. you should be able to reform healthcare. thank you very much.
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host: we have something that's come over from twitter. if they wish to find a way to tax for healthcare, tax dproeshryes at 2%. next, we have a call from oakland, california. caller: i believe they should cut some congress and all those top people. cut some of those benefits help out with everything else going on. ok. >> thank you for your call this morning. stevens good morning. high, steven you are on the air. >> i would like to give a comment on this. i feel it's a contradiction to
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consider our nation a free nation. to punish the rich for being successful. it doesn't seem right to me. host: do you think healthcare needs reform? caller: well, i'd like to give an experience i had. i went to the emergency room a while back. was in there about 30 minutes. then i had a doctor walk in. it was for a tooth pain. he shined a line in my mouth. walked out. the nurse came in gave me discharge papers. i walked up to the front desk. the funny thing is. i got a bill for $473 for what seemed like a battery.
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that didn't seem right to me. >> what could have made that situation different host: we have a caller on the democrat line. good morning jaim jamie. caller: the healthcare plan should be like our medicare plan for everybody to join. my husband and i are both senior citizens. i'm very satisfied with it. it's just the original. i pay a premium of $96 for myself. my husband pays $76 for his part. we get the care that we need. we have the subsidy from blue
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cross and bloour she'll blew -- she'lled. he retired from general motors. it would be a good idea to have private medicare. >> good morning. caller: thank you for having me. i'm glad i got through. i do not believe that the rich should be taxed more than someone else. i am a person who become disabled from a car accident. i live on $1,000 a month. a pay $100 a month for medicare and $250 a month for medigap. you do the math. there needs to be a fair playing ground. we need to create incentives.
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i'm a person that wants to rise above the hope. it's like hurding cattle and controlling the passes. it's just not right. they have the program where we'll help you go back to work but they take your benefit away from you. before you climb out of the hole, they take away. we need to change our whole infrastructure. an incentive is an insensitive. every time you buy something you tax them. they walk on the beach. i moved back to new jersey, going to walk on the beach. god made the beach. they want to tax me. enough is enough. you put a budget. welcome to atlantic city use it or loose it. a new sign that says welcome to
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