host: three hours of "washington journal" the head. good morning. welcome to the program. one day after the iraqi elections and on the first day of the week, the first of several appearances by set -- president obama talking about his health care legislation. we are talking about this this half hour or. we will also spend the first 45 minutes talking to you about closing guantanamo and comments from senator lindsey graham from south carolina yesterday on his

efforts with the president to close guantanamo. here are the numbers to call. make sure you mute its television or radio. you can also reach us on line. send us a tweet @ twitter. an old fashion e-mail is welcome, too. journal@c-span.org. "the new york times" this morning -- we will pull back and take a look at "the wall street journal" this morning. and a report. iraqi voters defied violence. inside this article in "the wall street journal" he writes about some of those next steps.

here is part of charles levin's piece this morning. the piece in "the wall street journal."

but we will start asking you about the comments by lindsey graham yesterday on "face the nation close " about closing guantanamo. we do want to show you the first of a couple of clips from senator lindsey graham. >> do you think you can get the republican votes to close guantanamo and open another facility in this country, because that is going to require a considerable amount -- >> i can't do it by myself. if we get kolly take more shawmut and a co-conspirator back to the military commission, that would -- if we can get khalid sheikh mohammed and co- conspirators back to the military commission. to put aside partisanship, rally around this president, stand by his side and say, let us close gtmo safely. with that kind of help, that would reassure americans we are taking good, logical decisions, we can do the things we need to do. >> are you talking to -- >> i'm talking to anybody who

will listen because this is a very important issue. we will never win this war until we understand the effect on, they has had on the overall war effort and we will never get the support of the american people if we cannot put to them that these folks we are dealing with and not common criminals -- we will keep you safe from them. host: can we close guantanamo safely? gary, indiana. john, first of on our independent line. caller: how are you guys doing today? host: fine, thanks. caller: i don't understand. it seems like everything is done backwards. we have something that is working better than what anyone has proposed from what i see. we don't have the money to do it. and it just seems like a political agenda for groups or for something. i don't understand why and how come we are focused on it and doing this. if you use your mind and you

think about half of the stock being done now days, it seems backwards. -- stuff being done now days. by giving tax breaks to corporations. host: you are saying the idea of closing guantanamo seems backwards? caller: yes, like giving tax breaks to a big company, all it is saying fire long term employees and hire someone out of unemployment will to get a tax break. host: joseph. caller: it makes no difference whether they close gtmo or whether they put a prison in illinois or whether they put it in new york, these terrorists are still going to complain, there are still going to be people complaining where they put these prisoners. they are still going to be a target regardless of where they are at. why spend another $500 million for the same place he got in cuba? thank you. host: thanks for the comment. on that line, " the new york

post" reports -- mystery american captive in pakistan may be notorious spokesman. the story of adam gadahn. new york city, good morning to michael. independent. caller: donald trump was on larry king's show. he said to larry king, he said the 9/11 hijackers -- 16 had saudi passports out of 19. that is how they got on the plane because it is a favorable

administration to the saudis. he said saudi arabia ran the entire thing. they should have this trial in federal court in new york city where the murders occurred, and cross-examination by top lawyers rather than a military court which is a high-speed court. we had taps of the saudi embassy -- let us have the taps from the saudi -- at&t brought into the court room and find out of the prince will the rest of the people from saudi arabia knew about this attack. host: do you find yourself in a minority in new york calling for them to be tried in the city? caller: no, i think it is a campaign. people wanted to know the truth about 9/11. and it is not conspiracy, it is just they want the truth. if you run it into a military

court, it is going to be quick. so, people really in new york city and brought the entire country want these people -- look, donald trump is not stupid. somehow this man made a billion dollars. when a man like him goes on larry king and says, by the way, larry, way up, this was an all saudi arabian operations. 16 out of 19 people had passports from saudi arabia. could you imagine if israel -- if 16 out of the 19 people had is really passports. e host: here is cole from elizabeth city, north carolina. caller: how are you doing this morning? don't cut me off. listen. this whole thing about guantanamo bay -- these people who are there, we don't know who they are where they come from. somebody said they were picked up in different cities and stuff and they made them go there and everything. we really need to find out what is really going on.

we need to find out what happens about 9/11. we need to go back to the past administration. dick cheney, karl rove and george bush, and let us find out what happened. we need to really find out what happened because we just go by what they say. we have people there ain't been charged with nothing, they ain't done nothing yet but we've got to find out what is going on. guest: joe tweets in -- host: missouri, rod on our democrats line. caller: hello? i would like to say that i don't think that the 9/11 conspiracy theorist will ever go away. if there isn't a public trial. i don't think it is possible.

host: florence, south carolina, republican line. your thoughts. go ahead. caller: -- i will put you on hold. -- host: i will put you on hold. hang in for second. your feedback. north carolina. caller: a better place to close down. washington, d.c. they gave all of our great industrial jobs away, trillions of dollars in debt, invade other nations based on lies. they are trying to pass legislation that nobody wants. trying to put women in submarines. they have no concept about creating jobs. if we close down washington, d.c., we would be better off. host: photos and "the wall street journal" about the elections yesterday in iraq. we will give you a look at those as we go to our next call. -- florence on the republican line.

caller: i wish mr. lindsey graham would stick with something. it does not really matter -- these people don't need a reason. they will continue to do what they are doing until we take them out of the way. people did not have to have an excuse to be wicked. they are by nature. that is all i have to say. if host: comes river, new jersey. democrats line. -- toms river. caller: my statement really is, this government that we love so dearly and our fathers have died for, it is unbelievable the lives -- lies and the seat in congress. we have to get these people out of office. host: we are asking you about senator lindsey graham and his comments yesterday on "face the

nation" about closing guantanamo and proceeding with military tribunals and offering to help obama retreat on the terror trial. the headline in the associated press story in this morning's "the philadelphia inquirer." john in district heights. good morning. caller: guantanamo has been a thorn and america's side for a long time but closing it is not going to do anything for the american image in the middle east. the only people wary -- those people know exactly what

happened guantanamo, they know who did it and who it was done to. the people in guantanamo were not picked up until after we invaded iraq and then we went to afghanistan. all of the people involved in the plane crash, they are all dead. so the people they've got in there were bare from the occupation of the illegal war in iraq and the dumb thing we are doing in afghanistan. of those people know what is going on. to close guantanamo -- until the world sees there is justice in the american courts for the allies and atrocities the bush administration committed nothing is going to change as far as our image, no matter what we do, because we see the wrong that was done and the attack on the iraqi people. host: we are asking you this morning about closing guantanamo today, a day after the iraqi elections. "usa today" publishes the story about women in the parliamentary

process. iraqi women seek to ensure their voices are heard. they write that -- connecticut, frank, independent. what are your thoughts? caller: i think every and all means should be made to extract all necessary intelligence. and after the intelligence is gathered -- it should be

eliminated and it takes part of the problem. host: we go next to lafayette, louisiana. go ahead. edward on our independent line. caller: good morning. do you have a special guest, along on this topic? host cut not a guest -- just a little reaction on senator lindsey graham's comments. caller: one of your callers made a comment. i think the president should stick with eric holder's idea to at least of these trials in the u.s.. he picked a certain venue. in other words, if you can house these people and eleanor why not put the trials there? if they will be housed there and a lawyer for the rest of their life, why don't we have a trial there? if you have up security for the rest of their life, week and

provided for one year for the trial. host: thank you for the call. we are joined by tom fitzgerald, a reporter for "the philadelphia inquirer." president obama will be in philadelphia today, one of several stops, talking about health insurance reform. where will the president be speaking today? guest: he will be at arcadia university in glens side, a little bit west. host: he is talking about pushing the health insurance reform, the legislation on capitol hill. some of the suggested changes. in particular, the philadelphia area, how is this health care debate playing out? what is of particular interest? guest: especially the area he is going to, it is kind of an independent voting area. it has been trending democratic in recent years.

and independents like everywhere else, these are the people on shore and shaky about health care reform, worried about costs and disruptions to parts of the current system. so, he is really going to reach out to a skeptical audience directly today. more broadly -- not at the university, they will probably be supporters. but folks around them who will be seeing it on television, are people he wants to reach. host: "the philadelphia inquirer" had a report this morning -- health overhaul will help the childless poor. 15 million more people could join medicaid, including not only tied list adults but also others for whose health

insurance have vanished with their jobs. particular issue in terms of childless adults and those who lost their jobs, a much is that a problem in the philadelphia area? guest: it is definitely a problem in parts of it. definitely in the city of philadelphia. the first congressional district in philadelphia is one of the poorest in the united states, with a like a poverty rate of close to 40%, i believe. it is going to be welcome news for many people who are not covered with health insurance in the cities especially. host: this event in montgomery county, outside of philadelphia, a town hall style format that he has done in the past? guest: it has been described as a rally type of atmosphere, but he almost always takes a couple of questions. so, not really sure whether he

will today or not. a very quick hit. i did not think air force one will reach cruising altitude. then he will be here, again, and then go back to the white house. i am not sure how many questions he will take but probably a few. host: lastly, are some of the members of the congressional delegation in that area, and more broadly, the philadelphia area, are they on the fence in this second round of health care voting that is ahead in the u.s. now? guest: yes, i guess we are talking about democrats because the republicans are opposed. in new jersey, 3 -- representative john adler, freshmen and a highly competitive district is facing a tough opponent. he voted no the first time, and he is on the fence but sounds like he is leaning towards know because of his concern that the

legislation doesn't do enough to bend the cost curve, i guess is the phrase everyone uses. there is a congressman patrick murphy in pennsylvania 8 up in bucks county to the north of the city. he voted yes the first time. he wants to read the language and he is sort of taking a cautious stance now. in fact, he has an even up in his district where he will prevent grants to first responders and will not be here today. so people can read into that what they will. host: he will not be at the president's event today? guest: no, he had a long scheduled thing with an important group in his district. and i guess they were having difficulties scheduling it, or something. it was hard to get a date. so he is not going to be able to make it.

people might raise their eyebrows. although, of course, he is a blue dog democrat but he is also close to pelosi and steny hoyer and the leadership. host: tom fitzgerald, political reporter with "the philadelphia inquirer." thank you. we go back to your phone calls and senator lindsey graham's comments yesterday on "face the nation" on closing guantanamo. i want to give you another look of something else he said. >> so, where is this situation right now? would you have said to the white house, if you will agree to try these people in a military tribunal, some of them, i will help you in getting the republican votes to close on time? >> president bush said we needed to close guantanamo. senator mccain said it would be better. i believe that. we need a legal system that

gives due process to detainee's but also understands we are at war and some of the information is very sensitive and classified. where we are now is, can this administration reversed course on khalid sheikh mohammed, which i think would be well received by the public. he is getting beat up a badly by the left, but the aclu theory of how to manage this war, i think, is way off base. and those who want to water board on the right and believe we should keep gtmo open forever and use whatever technique to get information, i think they are equally off base. we've got to win this war within our value system. host: back to your calls. hawaii, the republican line. caller: i might be in literate -- illiterate, but who will pay if it closes? will the inmates be shipped to

america? host: what would you like to see done? caller: personally i would like to see it stay open for a dozen reasons. host: clinton, illinois, robert on the democrats' line. caller: guantanamo should be kept open for the marines as far as i'm concerned. but as far as the people being held there from al qaeda and other insurgencies, they should be brought into the united states and suffer the consequences of their actions by our justice system. it should be a justice where they are equally represented just as if they are any other person. when the united states takes over any particular area of the world via military means, the people who are taken into custody at that time basically are under the jurisdiction of the united states and should be held accountable to that standard. if we don't do that, we are not

a country of laws. as a result, in many cases, the action going on by many of the people in congress, they just do not understand the idea of justice by means of law. i think that they should do a little more studying in that area. host: back to the associated press story on senator lindsey graham's comments on guantanamo. they write that -- senator lindsey graham's home state south carolina. caller: good morning. i would like to make a comment on that.

first, i think that senator lindsey graham, i don't know why he keeps calling himself a republican. we put him in office to hold conservative values and so far he seems to want to go along with almost everything obama administration wants to do. he can't make a point without bringing up senator mccain. the people of south carolina are really fed up with this man. yes, i would like to see something besides guantanamo bay, but it is going to take a whole lot more than a year to straighten out. host: you are on our independent line did you said you are fed up with senator lindsey graham. in particular, on this issue, guantanamo? caller: on that, and such as a couple of years ago he wanted to show the immigration reform down our throats. now with chuck schumer trying to do it again. he needs to wake up and realize that all of these people in south carolina who are out of work, standing in the unemployment line or waiting for

a job to pop up for them, you know, are really hurting and you can go out and -- on all of these construction sites and warehouses and they are full of illegal aliens. now the man the 20 to push through immigration reform again, when in 1954 with support of 30 million of them with no problem, so the americans could have their jobs back. he really needs to wake up and see he is supposed to represent the people of south carolina and the people who put him into office. host: about 24 minutes of your calls on the issue of clothes in guantanamo and senator lindsey graham's comments on "face the nation." a couple of political stories. the front page of "the washington post" this morning. residents pondered the fates of rep charlie rangel and the governor paterson.

that is in "the new york times" this morning. bill lynch, a political consultant who played a major role in david dinkin's election victory. byron on our democrats line. good morning. caller: good morning. i think we ought to close guantanamo because we have prisons in afghanistan and iraq where they are torturing and murdering people every day.

also about the trial in new york. i think they ought to have the trial in new york for khalid sheikh mohammed. the only reason why they are not trying it in new york is because they don't want the truth to come out about 9/11. it has nothing to do with safety. we put criminals away every day in federal prison. this is just a lie. they ought to have the trial in new york so we can find out what happened in 9/11. because we know the fear retail's that this government's bond is a lie. and anybody but the media knows that 9/11 was corc. host: senator lindsey graham was joined by outgoing indiana senator evan by who also joined him talking about closing of guantanamo. here are some of the comments he had to make yesterday. >> the president is realizing, wait a minute, if i want to get some of what i what i have to

compromise. everybody has to check their ideology at the door and tried to find practical solutions. the president under lindsay's proposal will make major strides in the war of ideas. john mccain would be for that. secretary gates would be for that. but yet the american public would be reassured we would try the dies in a setting that is secure, expeditious. it does not cost a lot of extra taxpayer money. it is common sense thing. but both extremes -- >> you would be all right with military tribunals? >> i would under the proposal lindsey graham outlined. i think the administration gets something and the public gets reassurance. host: bill from kansas. what is the name of your town? caller: racine, kansas. if you are talking to me. yes. lindsey graham and john mccain and barack obama and evan by believe in closing guantanamo.

that is a fairly satisfactory cross section of the american people and perhaps the place of the shutdown. one other comment i did not think i heard anybody -- i did not know if they made it, but i made it. i believe in rehabilitation. and if these people, a lot of them were exposed to the ideals of this country perhaps they might change their mind and we can rescue some of these lives. like the previous caller said, i don't care much about the torturing going on in other countries or our own country. and that is my comment. and i really like c-span. host: thank you for calling in. georgetown, texas, is next. a democratic column. georgetown, texas. we will try this one -- harrisburg, and drew on our independent line. you are on the air. caller: let me make this quick.

i actually am retired marine, i served in the 1991 gulf war. this thing is unbelievable. i cannot believe we have a place down there in cuba where we are doing this to people. we could bring them back to the united states. the left and right, mostly the right -- come on, we've got security super max prisons all over the country. this is mostly politics. if the republicans had won and wanted to close it they would support that and if they wanted the trial they would support it also appeared -- support also. it is hard to see this country fractured. thank god this generation in power today were not serving in world war ii because we would have lost that war. i find them weak minded on both sides. they just hate each other so much and putting us in the middle. if the attack happened in new york, at the trial happened

there. people complain and say new york are liberals and weak minded but they are on the front line. they are not trying to bomb south carolina. that puts them on the front line. i just wish people would step back and look at things from that perspective. this is an act of terror and it should be held at that and they should set a trial and move the people to wherever, illinois or wherever. host: would you support military tribunals? caller: go-ahead, sir. host: go ahead with your comment. caller: i do supported to the point -- but remember, this attack happened, even though some of bin laden declared war -- the only reason why i am involved in this issue is i fought in that area, kuwait and iraq, and i do support some

military tribunals but in this case, this was just a street terrorist act. i honestly believe it should be held as that. we tried terrorists before and convictions. i did not know about the 9/11 truthers, maybe they have a point. i was not there. some of it did look kind of shape. i hope that is not the truth. i just wish that level heads will come together and say let us get this over with. the fact that there is still a whole in new york city 10 years later, it is amazing. nothing is getting built there. that should worry people just as much. i know i am rambling. it is just very upsetting. i served my country and i don't know why i serve sometimes. very upsetting. host: thank you for your comments. a tweet in --

the associated press article writes about it and yesterday in "the new york times" in a full- page ad yesterday, the american civil liberties union says if obama fails to back eric holder he will be expending one of the policies of the bush administration. this full-page ad ran yesterday in "the new york times" by american civil liberties union. here is a look at the ad. it shows president obama morphing into president bush. it goes to georgetown, texas. caller: i was watching lindsey graham in that interview. lindsey graham said that republicans would be willing to close guantanamo if there was another facility built. i did not know if the newspaper article states that. and then he would be in favor of a military tribunal.

not public trials. host: deaver -- beaverton, michigan. caller: didn't we talk about military trials in vietnam and we called them trial by military junta and didn't comment -- condemned them as used by third world countries? they were used by despotic communist government and third- world nations. i really do believe there is a lot more behind this that we are not being told about. you've got to understand, you got control of major world oil, 1/5 of the production out of iraq. control of major world opium which every hospital in the world requires for morphine. i did not think these are small matters at all. that is all i have to say. host: hunts bill, alabama, john

on the independent line. caller: i am not against the idea of military tribunals. that is the way it has been done before bush. but there are also geneva convention hearings, and if we don't have those, we should have some substitute or informally about out of the geneva convention. also, i would be against the idea of a regular trial -- but in neither case, i think it is important that full transcript and evidence be made public because there are so many unanswered questions about 9/11 , and they said the places they would invade and they did it. host: the bbc reporting, hundreds dead in nigeria attack. and report says 500 people were killed in sunday's's revenge attack after religious clashes near the nigerian city of jos.

some early reporting on that. also this morning in "politico" they write about the tea party candidate falling short. beverly, massachusetts is next up. ray on our democrats line. caller: good morning. i pretty much learn everything

through c-span. i believe truly that it would be a big mistake to close gtmo, because why should we bring them back to america, which would probably bring a lot of the other's back and cause more trouble? we should keep them up violent people as far away from human beings -- you know, we love our nation. we did not want them anywhere near us. and i would really appreciate it if they would keep it out there. we don't need to support them i would certainly hope that president obama would reconsider. because i really like him and i really think that that place should still remain open out there for those terrible people. and i thank you very much. i watch you every day. god knows, 10 years. host: tucson, arizona. arnold one of our independent line. make sure you mute yourself or

there's feedback. we'll come back to you. ohio, steve, democrat. caller: i think it should be closed. we sent our sons and daughters over there to die and capture these people, and now bloomberg is scared to try them? it is his duty to try them. i've been there are a few worms in the apple over there, you know what i mean? host: president obama just outside of philadelphia, as you heard from thomas fitzgerald at "the philadelphia inquirer" talk about health care. here is a report in "the wall street journal" about the filibuster. they have a picture above article about senator gale mcgee back in 1960 settling into office in a sleeping bail -- sleeping bag. they write in this article --

and a look at the top filibuster's since 1919, according to "the wall street journal." civil rights bill in 1960 -- was the longest, march 2 through the fifth.

tucson, arizona. arnold. go ahead with your comment. caller: my name is arnold, from tucson, arizona. ok, the issue on guantanamo bay, i would like to see it opened. the reason is, we are having a lot of problems all over the place. the people serving time over there -- get amount of there, right? ok? and send them to different prisons and the united states, right? we've got this population of

nationals taking up space in our prison system, right? host: galloway, new jersey. independent line. caller: as far as gtmo, we have to think about the reasoning behind we set up -- why we set up gtmo. it is because it is the most lawful way to do things. capturing enemy combatants that cannot belong to any country. if the reason to close gtmo is to make us look better in the world, then we should have offered to these criminals, war criminals -- these are crimes, not only those who perpetrated 9/11, they are crimes against humanity, so why not like one gentleman said, use the geneva convention and send them to the hague, the international prison. then we would not look so bad. but as far as the world is concerned -- if we bring them on u.s. soil, now we have to of for

it -- afford them rights and habeas corpus. lincoln suspended habeas corpus during the civil war, although he was censured afterward, but that is the precedent we are using. why should we give rights of american citizens to any, that is from foreign nations? that is why we did not want to bring the trial to new york. i was born on long island. i lived in newark city, so i know that, ok, i want to stand up and say we are not afraid of terrorists. but the fact of the matter is, in this economy it is going to take some much security, so much money, that it is just not practical. why are we doing it? so we can stand up for the world? if we want to, then show them we believe that our constitution and we should turn it over to geneva. if you are going to criticize us for what we are doing trying to apply our law, then we turn it over to that. i think that is a really viable solution and it would keep us

from turning on each other. host: bill, thank you for your comments this morning. here is a story in "the hill." same story from "the new york times," although a different angle. palestinians are skeptical but agreed to talks with israel. joyce, democratic caller in toms river, new jersey. caller: how are you? i think really that gtmo should be closed. i really do. and i think that we need to get out of everyone else's business. get out of war and concentrate

on our -- which is hurt and fractured. the people are not being heard by the president. to concern over health care. we have to get out of this war and concentrate on here in america. host: joyce, thank you for the comments and thank you for all of the calls. more coming up. we turned our attention to william galston, senior fellow at the brookings institution and had a piece last week in "the financial times" about the need for trust in government to get things done. he will join us the next 45 minutes. we will read his editorial and take your comments as well. we will be right back. [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2010]

>> almost 40 years ago, as lead engineer at motorola martin cooper led the team that developed the first hand-held mobile phone. a look at the history and future of the wireless the industry on "the communicator's." >> president obama starts this week talking about efforts to pass health insurance reform. he is in philadelphia this morning and we will have live coverage of his comments beginning at 11:00 a.m. eastern on c-span. environmental protection agency administrator lee said jackson today talks about climate change, cutting carbon emissions and more. she is speaking at the national press club live at 1:00 p.m. on c-span. greek prime minister in washington, part of a four-city tour seeking firmer in you and u.s. support for new austerity measures in greece to deal with

their financial troubles. he will meet with president obama tomorrow. today he is speaking at the brookings and -- brookings institution. live on c-span2 at 10:30 a.m. eastern. and later today, a group critical of the obama administration's immigration policy -- firm, fair immigration reform movement, will have a news conference at noon eastern and that will also be live on c- span2. >> "washington journal" continues. host: we welcome bill galston, senior fellow at the brookings institution. he had an opinion piece -- in that opinion piece you quoted numbers from "the new york times the tier a recent survey. it said 70% of those they polled were dissatisfied with washington, 81% believe members of congress don't deserve reelection and the president

obama's approval rating is at 46%, according to this poll done in mid february. how, according to your view, can political leaders restore trust in government? guest: the first thing to understand is this is not a new phenomenon with the obama administration. there has been a long period of declining trust in government, really since the middle of the 1960's. many factors contributed to this long term decline in trust in government. the standard culprits are the vietnam war, watergate, inflation of the 1970's, corruption in government, changes in media coverage, etc.. the reason i am saying this is to under score of the fact that because it took us a long time to get into this situation where only 20% of people trust government, it will take a long time to get out of it. but there are some things, it

seems to me, that government can do, starting immediately. first of all, the american people care a lot about corruption and the perception of corruption. it is very, very important for government in all of the branches, i would say, especially the congress of the united states, to police itself more effectively. and the scandals that seemed to erupt on a monthly basis the not contribute, to put it mildly, to public trust in government. secondly, government has to get into the have it -- have it of promising no more than it can deliver and then fulfilling its promises and more. right now, we have exactly the reverse going on, where governments, in order to make things happen, and makes promises to the american people that are not fulfilled. i will give you one example from

this administration. the promise was if the stimulus were enacted into law last spring, unemployment would peak at 8.5% and of course it broke through that ceiling and 10%. the stimulus package have them -- done some good but the perception created by a promise that was not fulfilled was quite damaging. a host of you go back, did say 40 years. in that period leading up to that, was there a good will feel left over from, say, the new deal, the post world war ii era about what government can do, about folks trust in government? guest: was there ever. we went through a 30-year period in which the national government was seen as tackling huge national and international problems and dealing with them pretty effectively. the depression, world war ii, containing the soviet union,

building the biggest middle- class in the history of the world, presiding under an unprecedented period of economic expansion and prosperity that period from the mid-1930s to the mid-1960s was the period in which trust in government rows and rows. it peaked, amazingly, at 76% in 1964. the comparable figure now is about 20%. host: bill galston is with us until it o'clock 30 a.m. eastern with your calls about trust in government. we would get to your calls momentarily. you also spoke about one of the key things you think is a problem, the scandals, a reaction to scandals. last week you had several

events. charlie rangel stepping aside in ways and means committee as a result of an ethics investigation. you had the house ethics committee clearing in number of members, the connection between lobbying and campaign donations. then you have the issue with governor paterson in new york. in reaction to that, how do you think that democratic leaders faired in reaction to these scandals? have they done the right things in the wake of these certainly ethically challenging times? guest: they moved in the right direction. you could have a pretty robust argument as to whether they moved quickly enough. for example, the charlie rangel affair has been building for a long time. obviously, he is a senior and respected member of congress. he is entitled to his day and what counts as court in congress. on the other hand, the

allegations have been swirling around him for months and months and months now. a and i think -- and i think that congress needs a more effective mechanism for asking people to step aside time brierley, to accuse -- step aside temporarily, recruits themselves until they are cleared. innocent until proven guilty is a wonderful principal for court of law. but when it comes to the court of public opinion, congress may have to adopt a more stringent standard. not just congress, but the executive branch as well. host: lakeland, florida. democratic line. caller: well, i'm wondering if the problem is government, as ronald reagan said, or -- are you including in your

assessment of the contract on america? while it may have developed -- delivered a balanced budget, it delivered massive deregulation around here? and this criteria, do you also include weapons of mass destruction -- is that a scandal where thousands of americans were sent to their deaths looking for these weapons of mass destruction? millions of iraqis were killed? do you include contracts with kbr? we include -- let us forget about the deficit as dick cheney said and just spend, spend, spend. what part of government are you complaining about? it seems to me you complain about -- is it the federal government that you complain about being big or something like state governments when they get big -- for state and local governments, it seems like there is no complaint about that? guest: i am barely in control of

my own daily schedule. look, all the things that you mention have contributed to declining trust in government. the point i was making is that this started well before the 1980's and 1970's. you can see trust in government declining starting in the mid and late 1960's. long before ronald reagan was even imaginable as a presidential candidate or a president. trust in government plunged to roughly where it is now the day ronald reagan was inaugurated. so, the problem we have is in the past 30 years, the government has been functioning in the context of public opinion that has been deeply mistrustful. grant its common -- grant it,

when politicians run against washington, which politicians of both parties have been tempted to do in recent decades, that hardly contributes to the trust in government. it is the equivalent, i guess, of one airline running negative ads against another saying if you get on the other airline it will crash. that will not create trust. host: republican line. david, st. petersburg. caller: thank you for c-span and i agreed with the underlying theory, that the government makes promises it can never deliver on. the best examples are medicare, which is a $30 trillion unfunded liability, the great society of lyndon johnson was abject failure. the new deal with at its failure. if you read "new deal or raw deal -- you learn about that. two games of the world series

americans locked in the third creation was the irs and the federal reserve. now we are looking at another promise that cannot be tested -- health-care reform that will burden our children. let me ask you this. do you think the american people are finally ready to wakeup and cut government down at all levels -- local, state, and federal, 20%, 30%, 40%, so they don't have the power to hurt us as they have in the past century? guest: well, you pack a lot into the question. let me take some of the pieces in reverse order. first of all, no, i don't think the american people are ready to cut government substantially. i remember vividly in 1995 and 1996 when newt gingrich and the republicans had just taken over congress and they were sure that the american people were ready to cut government. so sure that they were willing to shut down the government in order to prove their point. of course, it blew up in their

faces. the fact of the matter is, americans may want to cut this or that but in the main, they are not unhappy with what government is delivering. obviously they would like the federal budget to be balanced. we all would. and i suspect they will take steps in that direction in the next five years or so. with regard to your history. i have to say that i don't agree with. the new deal was not a failure. it was an incomplete success. but the american people applauded the progress that was made during those eight years before the start of world war ii. lyndon johnson's great society is a more complex phenomenon but i did not think americans want to get more -- i do not think they want to get rid of an education system that works better for all children and not just a favored few.

host: is there sort of a level of congress -- we all see the approval of congress and they never seem to be very good, whether president obama or bush. is there sort of a level where you could say, if it gets to 30% of the people approve of congress, that is a good number? guest: 30% is about twice what is right now. i remember there was a novel when i was an undergraduate at cornell called "been down so long it looks like up to me." i expect lots of members of congress feel that way. host: from the time they have been doing these ratings, what is the highest congress has ever gotten? guest: i don't remember exactly but i suspect congress does not break 50% very often. my colleague and his co-author at the american enterprise institute published a book not to long ago called "congress:

the broken branch." there was not much push back against the title. host: poland, ohio. ron on the independent line. caller: john adams said if the legislature becomes corrupt, the people are undone. i believe this is true and i believe the american people perceive this. and i think we would be better off without congress. in this day and age with the internet, our credit cards are managed, there is no fraud or anything -- i think we could just eliminate congress and as a vote on everything ourselves, let the executive proposed the legislation and let us vote. i am sick and tired of have representatives who never vote the way i feel. what was but " you gave us -- what was the number? 80% of the people are not in favor of congress? host: 81% is " the new york times" number.

81% believe members of congress don't -- reelection. are you gone? caller: obviously, they are corrupt. they take money. if they take money, they are corrupt, and they all take money. . this was a very robust debate as

to whether we should have a more direct system or a more representative system. the founders decided that for all sorts of reasons, it would be better to have a representative system. as a constitutionalist, and i agree with them. i do not think the history of plebiscites has been a very happy one. the idea that money does not have an influence on those plebiscites is just wrong. a lot of people do not have an opportunity to review all of the details of the language. some of the resolution date are asked to vote on are extremely lengthy. and with a tape of the site, there is no opportunity to

amend or approved. i do not think that is a good way to make public policy, a lousy way to craft legislation. for better or worse, we are going to have to live with a system where legislation is drafted by elected representatives. our challenge should not be to eliminate congress, but to improve it. host: earlier, a column from the politico. john from new york city. democrat. caller: good morning. i can tell you one reason why people distrust government. people this represents state and made by the government. you did so this morning when you made the assertion that the obama administration promised

that unemployment would not go above 8% if stimulus were passed. in fact, with that statement originated from was from a report from the council of economic advisers. in that report, there was a qualification of the statement that said that all of the estimates presented were subject to significant margins of error. obama never said those words, never made a promise. that has become a talking point on the right wing. they promised, he promised, he broke his promise. he never did that. this was a highly qualified estimate from christina romer,

and that is repeated as a broken promise, so people should not trust government. guest: that is the source of the original prediction, but i think if you look at the market more carefully, you will see that that number was used with fewer qualifications in order to persuade people to pass the stimulus package. by the way, i supported it at that time, and i support it now. my point is that it is unwise to create expectations that are not fulfilled. i am speaking as a political scientist, not as a political advocate. the consequence of the public perception that government has not delivered what it said it was going to deliver it is discussed.

it would be better not to put out any predictions at all than to put up numbers that are going to be misused in a way that will increase the distrust of pond -- government. host: in your piece in the "new york times" you talk about economic equality. it has been the most disparate since the 1920's and that political partisanship is as bad as we have seen it. what are the two related? guest: they are not necessarily related to each other, although we can have a discussion on that. each one is clearly related to rising this trust in government. let me take one example. political polarization. a study done by the brookings

institution and hoover institution found and demonstrated that political polarization between the political parties and in congress is at the highest level since the 1890's. the american people do not understand that, and they do not like it. if you go to the countryside and you do focus groups, you will hear something like this. a round here, when we have a problem, we roll up our sleeves we talk about the problem, and we agree. why can they do that in washington? after they take up their fancy cufflinks, why can't they get serious? i think people do not understand

the level of the ideology that permeates washington. they see it as an obstacle to problem-solving. first and foremost, they want their problems solved. host: in the "christian science monitor closed botmonitor" -- is this a societal shift? guest: there is no question that changes in the media over the past quarter-century have amplified the voices of the more shrill and extreme individuals and groups. when you move from broadcasting, which was the norm, to narorow markets, you

give voices to the people away from the center and identify them. if i may be so bold, you see that every day on cable television. at the same time, there is evidence that fewer american people associate themselves with the middle and somewhat more the left and right. so this is simply not a media phenomenon. there is not a huge disconnect between the elected officials and the american people. there is more support for the geological voices than there used to be. host: shelby township, michigan. len on the democrat line. caller: i have a few things going through my mind this morning. one of the things is the fact

that we have the media that now seems to be a fourth branch of government. it permeates itself through the political process and leans too far to the left. even in the 2006 alexian's -- elections, getting to where they are today in congress and in the house, it seems the republican party polices itself when we ha. when we had that republican playing footsie, it came down pretty fast and the republican party disconnected themselves from that individual.

you do not have that in the democratic party. that is why charlie rangel has lasted as long as he passed. i think there is so much going on. you do not really have the journalists anymore. i know there are other people who want to get on . have a great day. guest: i doubt very much that the democratic leadership believes the press is on its side. for what it is worth, my impression, and i am no specialist in the media, is that what television stations, radio stations, publications, print and online, what they like the

most is a good, juicy story. a scandal is a scandal, whether it is perpetrated by democrats or republicans. the governor of new york, a staunch democrat, has no reason to believe the press is on it ihis side. they have been hounding him, for good reason, so i do not see the bias you are talking about. nor do the american people believe the republican party in 2005, 2006, had worked to police itself. that was one reason why republicans were voted out of office. host: we had someone talking about the political process. erin tweets into us and says --

you spoke about role of the media. particularly, these types of the accountability website. are these better resources for people? does it make trust in government better or worse? guest: the great irony of our current circumstances is that the media is both better and worse than it used to be. you gave a good example in the respect that media is better. it works much more actively now to bring information to better on problems to allow citizens to judge for themselves the accuracy and validity of campaign promises, for example

let's drill down more specifically in to that example. a campaign is not just an effort to gain election. in my view, it represents a solid contact with the american people. they have the opportunity to hear from you directly, as a potential president, center, a member of the house, and what you will do if they trust you with the power to do it. i believe that you had better not write favorable contract which the american people sign, which you signed with your words, unless you intend to do your level best to fulfill it. now, circumstances change, and

promises entered into with good faith, may become impossible because of the circumstances. if leaders are honest about that, they understand -- they have good sense -- if they say in good faith things that they cannot do, and they hope for adjustments in expectations. but still, politicians need to take those problems seriously. every time they promise something, knowing that they have a hard time to fulfill it, they contribute to the slow erosion of trust in government. when you get down to it, we have no choice but to govern ourselves through those institutions. host: creating promise this is

sort of what you have to do to be elected. guest: i am not sure that people buying for elected office have to do quite as much in the way of making attractive promises. call me an optimist, but the american people are ready for truth telling. they are ready to hear the hard truth is that they know, in their gut, are valid, but no one has had the courage to say aloud. host: your comments in the "christian science monitor" from a scientist saying --

guest: i think there is a lot to that. there is an ancient distinction between what people want and what they need. in recent decades, too much of our politics has been about what people want, as revealed by public opinion polls, and too little of what they need, stable and sustainable government that can pass on a better government to their children and grandchildren. i think people are ready to hear that message. host: jim in new york. caller: i want to address the underlying problem, i believe. 1913, the u.s. created the federal reserve in the dead of night when all the politicians

went home for christmas. 1918, the country went broke. since 1933, when the u.s. went into emergency operating procedures, since then, it has basically been death. we have been owned by the politicians of the federal deserve. the united states, according to this speech, has been run as a socialist, communist country ever since. when you think about it, our rights were derived from the fact that we were born, as free people. freedom of speech cannot be taken away. in a socialist country, the government can take those rights

away. guest: i would hesitate to learn my history from a convicted felon, but i guess impressions can differ on that point. as to these federal reserve -- the federal reserve, i think we have to disagree. i think the federal reserve board is one of the great creations of the 20th century. i would certainly prefer to have our monetary policy managed by the federal reserve board as opposed to j.p. morgan. and beyond that, i simply do not agree that the american republic

disappeared with the concept of the new deal. there were a lot of republicans who did disappear at the same time -- republics who did disappear at the same time throughout europe. governments were toppled and replaced by authoritarian governments. i think a case can be made that the new deal did not undermined either capitalism or constitutional government but saved both of them. for that, franklin delano roosevelt, for whom ronald reagan voted four times, deserves our credit. host: larry on the democratic line. caller: i cannot agree with you more saying that it is asking for trouble when the government makes a promise and cannot fulfill it. that is the first step to

mistrust. i think you are right also in not politicians put their special interests before the citizens'. they have lost sight that they do work for us. i think they had it backwards. i know it is weird to say, but it would be ironic to see these politicians have to live three months on what ever it is they could qualify for on social security with little or no insurance. i think that would give them a reality check. there are all lot of hurting people out there, especially senior citizens who are disabled. when you do not get something that was promised to you, you begin to promise on that, and if you do not get in, they might

have a sense of what is really like. guest: i do not think it is a bad idea for politicians to have to live by the circumstances ordinary americans do. that is a point benjamin franklin made. having said that, i am not convinced that politicians are as detached from those circumstances as you might imagine. very few of them get rich. some of them are rich when they enter political life, but if you want to get rich, it is not a particularly good career. if you want to become rich, become an investment banker.

i would say millions and millions of americans are paid more than their senators and representatives are. before we beat up on them too bad the, let's give them credit for choosing a line of work that does not impoverished them, but does not put them into the upper reaches of our economic stratosphere. host: patty on the democratic line. caller: america, he is trying to sound like a moderate, but he is a far leftist. look at how many millionaire and there are in congress and senate. as far as us american not trusting the government, it is because they cannot do anything competently. take a look at post office, bankrupt. fannie mae, freddie mac, they

needed to be bailed out. if his, or as conservative as he were liberal, you would have a conservative commentator as well. as far as the media is concerned, are you kidding me? they did not vet john edwards, president obama. the media is ignoring the global warming hoax. how rich is al gore? how many millions does president clinton have? they are multimillionaires. look at the two senators in california. guest: i think you will find if you look at the u.s. senate, the reason there are so many millionaires is because they were millionaires before they

got to the senate. the question on the table was whether they were using their office to enrich themselves. i think the answer to that question, by and large, is no, with a few exceptions. but that raises an additional question. why is it that so many wealthy people run for office and win? there is an answer. namely, it costs a lot of money to run in contemporary politics. the supreme court unfortunately is making it harder and harder to reign the costs of politics in. that means people who are wealthy to begin with, and have connections with other wealthy individuals enjoy a an advantage

at the beginning of the race. that does not mean people of ordinary means cannot win. they do all the time. but there are advantages to being rich in the united states, and having a leg up in the political process is one of them. host: william galston, now a senior fellow at the brookings institution. what is your role there? guest: there are 5 research divisions at brookings. one of them is government studies. we study political institution process these. as a senior fellow, i work on various political and institutional questions. particularly, how our institutions function or malfunction in the production of the kinds of policies that the american people need.

host: you heard the examples of failures of the institutions. she mentioned the post office. is it better or worse than it was in terms of failing to deliver when they promised? guest: better and worse. some agencies are doing better than ever. the social security administration is first rate. the veterans administration which was considered to be a basket case a couple of decades ago has straightened itself out. that does not mean that there is not work to be done. you can point to a number of agencies that are doing a first- rate job. unfortunately, many of us or other institutions got caught with business models that are no longer functional.

the post office is under siege because of changes in technology, competition from the private sector. that is why they are talking about dramatic changes, like scaling back the number of actual post office outlets there are. they are even talking about moving from a six-day a week delivery schedule today five-day a week schedule. those institutions were fundamentally misconceived and their behavior during the housing boom just made things for this. host: new england, -- new orleans, tyler. caller: i would like to know what they think tank is. the brookings institute is formulated on the heels of the federal of the surf. maybe that is a good reason why

you are supportive of it. when the first bailout came, everyone was against it. when we look at the wars we are fighting, the majority of people are against it. in vast majority of people want nafta done, but politicians keep supporting it. we are looking at over 50% of the people want a new investigation of 9/11, but our politicians and you, sir, are going against these policies. why should we trust our government, why should we trust our press when they are owned by the same people that own the banks? guest: well, there are lots of

think tanks in washington and across the country and we do not all speak in one voice. in fact, in the brookings, we do not speak with one voice. there are people that are strongly in favor of the iraq war, making that argument the best they can. people strongly opposed to it, making their argument the best they could. it is a mistake to think of the think tanks as monolithic or part of the government. we are part of the dialogue of democracy, as are you. it is from this dialogue that public opinion is formed and public policy emerges. you regret what i say and stand for, and the feelings are mutual, but we are both citizens, we both had a chance

to speak. that is the way it should be in a democracy. host: you can find out more at brookings.edu. in a moment, we'll look at president obama's nuclear policy and the role it is playing in his clean energy focus. we will speak to christine todd whitman, former head of the epa. first, an update on c-span radio. >> president obama will be speaking about health care in philadelphia today. you can hear the president's speech at noon eastern. also today, education secretary arne duncan is expected to outline new efforts to enforce civil rights issues. he speaks in selma, alabama.

c-span radio will hear the remarks later today. the general ray odierno speaking today on "the early show" said the iraqi military performed superbly in yesterday's mostly peaceful election. the plan to remove combat troops from the country is proceeding on schedule. he added every sign points to iraqis being able to form a new government. defense secretary robert gates is in afghanistan checking on the progress of the war there. meanwhile, 30,000 additional u.s. forces are now arriving, most will be in place by summer. stanley mcchrystal says that any heavy fighting in canada are will wait until the troops are

ready. -- ken the harkandahar will wail the troops are ready. >> over 1000 middle and high school students entered this year's studentcam documentary contest. we will announce the 75 winners on march 10. host: former epa head had and governor of new jersey, christine todd whitman is with us to talk about energy. you are the co-chair of the clean and safe energy coalition.

the president announced federal loan guarantees for the southern company to build the first new nuclear reactor in the country in some 30 years. also, the administration's announcement that yucca mountain will be closed, will not be a nuclear storage facility. how do these tie into each other? guest: they are integral, but they are not insuperable. right now those nuclear runs are being stored on site. if we are serious about keeping nuclear at 20% of our power, as it is today, in the future, they are going to have to bring more nuclear reactors on line. we are also going to get into reprocessing if we are serious, recycling.

you can vastly reduced the amount of power in those spent rods and reduce the type of storage. we will come up with a place to store. they have appointed a panel with secretary chu to look at if we should get back into the reprocessing business. it was congress who ask for a place to put those rods but one should not be a indicator of how the other. congress has said there should be one repository, and they named it the mountain, but they need to make some decisions now. host: what do you know of the administration's policy in terms of nuclear, beyond what they have done here for these federal

loan guarantees in georgia? guest: what they are saying is they are serious about nuclear. they are looking at the future, looking at a 23% increase in energy consumption. nuclear is the only form of base power that does not release any of the balloons or greenhouse gases while producing power, and it is always there. while they will still be putting their money and encouraging green power and conservation, they are saying if we are going to increase this demand -- this is not too far away -- we have to start today. host: you are the co-chair of the clean and safe energy coalition. who is behind this organization? businesses, individuals? guest: we are a voluntary

organization made up of people, labor unions, some environmental groups, some health groups, some former elected officials. there are over 2200 members. my co-chair is patrick more, one of the co-founders of greenpeace. what he is saying is, i care about climate change, i care about keeping the economy going. i think this needs to be part of our future. what case is trying to do is put the facts out there. it is not for everybody. communities need to know what to ask if a utility is proposing bringing in nuclear. host: what sorts of jobs

figures to uc? beyond construction jobs. -- do you see? guest: that is one of the attractive aspects of nuclear. in the height of construction, you may need 2500 workers. about 1400 permanent jobs. those jobs create $40 million in total income to the employees, $430 million in income to the surrounding community. for every one job that is brought on line at a reactor, two 23 jobs are created in the community to support that. on average, they pay 30% more than a similar job depending on where they're located.

we do have utilities that are now moving forward with looking at the technologies, so there is a lot going on that makes it attractive. host: were you surprised that this administration move this way? guest: not really. they want to be sensible. if you take the best scenario, renewals are maybe 7%, 9% maximum. even if you triple that, you are not going to meet the 23% increase in demand. we still have not figured out how to store that power. it is on when the sun is shining in when the wind is blowing. everybody says that nuclear is terribly expensive, but so it is

solar and wind. there are trade-offs to be made on everything. host: christine todd whitman is with us until 9:15 eastern. democrats, 202-737-0002. republicans, 202-737-0001. independents, 202-628-0205. pasadena, maryland. caller: i am glad that obama wants to do nuclear, but do we ever consider building more oil refineries in our country? guest: that is an issue that is being discussed by the department of energy and various utilities that have the ability to do that. but as you know, there is concern about where your drill, how you drill.

these are concerned that will bring any new technology on-line a slow process. we are extraordinarily good at same note. we do not want to drill for oil. we do not want to drill for coal. about 50% of our power. we do not want to keep on importing oil from countries who do not like us. we do not want to consider nuclear -- but we are now starting to get over that. now with these windchills, -- windmills, people are concerned about that as well. we have to understand that there is no one answered. there will be a mix of renewable energy to come up with a better solution. host: michael from kentucky. north carolina, and i apologize.

caller: i worked on the epa campus here and i did the wire rim. in three years in that project i saw so much government waste. things being thrown away. i have to put life together that were severely damaged. on the flip side, there will be wasted in all projects. it seems that the government, when they get into building things, they do not consider waste. i think contractors feel as if it is a blank check. we cannot do that. that is part of the discourse in this country. i am all for building a new

nuclear power plant, and i called my senator hear about it. there has been severe layoffs in the electrician trade. so i put in an application to a nuclear facility in town here. it is ridiculous. in the ad, they say no experience necessary, no military background. who is going to be watching these nuclear power plants? what are their qualifications? this is not just a pharmaceutical company. guest: good question. that is something the industry takes the enormously seriously.

i cannot speak to what job you were looking at, and but you would go through a background check before you go on to a nuclear site. they oversee it to make sure that they are constantly testing the parameters of the security they have in place. the utilities and federal regulators that oversee this note and a slight mist that can be a disaster for the industry as well as the people around. what you have it is security on site provided by the utilities. they will be watching closely, but you also have the nuclear regulatory commission that does spot checks. they will be looking at any new reactor coming on line. they will be highly trained. yes, if you are using 300 yards of concrete in the course of building a reactor -- there are

all sorts of things that go into making a reactor. there will be wasted and different contractors, but they will all be scrutinized. in almost every state where a reactor is being looked at, they are being required to look at, at least twice a year, to make sure construction is colon how long as plant and the money that is being spent is intended in the way that it was meant to be. host: walker, louisiana. james on the republican line. caller: i think a couple of new nuclear power plants would be the best stimulus of all. considering the leaked cru e- mails, the revelation that monitoring stations are being

located in the urban areas, do you believe the climate change issue is settled? guest: no, there will always be disputes. as far as bringing new power on, it is a clean form of power. it does not produce many of the pollutants. i believe human activity does not cause climate change, but we exacerbate a natural phenomenon and we are making it difficult for nature to the door the changes that are happening anyway. so it is in our best interest to slow it down as we can. there are steps that we can take nuclear, in my mind, is a separate discussion and climate change 1. yes, it does not produce greenhouse gases, but it does not also create a regulated

pollutants. other sources of power do. my husband said, after being the head of the epa, i could ruin anybody's day. it is tough in the air that we should not be getting in our body. host: on energy legislation in capitol hill, there is a recent headline saying that christine todd whitman believes that we need to be reducing carbon emissions. guest: the climate change debate has become so politicized. you are either for or against it. there is no middle ground on that right now. we have seen what happened with politics these days. but we need an energy bill. we desperately need an energy

plan. we have an aging infrastructure. we need to take some action. you will get to a reduction of carbon if you do a bill. especially if you do it with the understanding that the unborn states as clean as possible that would therefore bring you to nuclear. how we use the land around us also has an impact on the environment. host: dan from massachusetts. on the independent line. caller: i have a couple of questions. the first one pertains to global warming.

i wonder if you believe the basic premise that pumping oil from the earth -- and it may help the planet to be more stable, and burning in in releasing the co2 into our atmosphere, at the same time decreasing our planet's ability to convert that into oxygen -- that is my first question. hosguest: as i said, i do not think we are causing climate change. it is clear that we are exacerbating this natural trend. whether it is through the release of carbon or the other greenhouse gases, or the way that we are changing the land use patterns, deforestation -- all of which have a huge impact -- and it is something that we need to address.

i do not believe the world will end tomorrow, but we need to be aware of it. we need to look for ways where we can reduce our carbon impact, improve our footprint geographically in the world, and not start tthe economy. guestcaller: i am glad to hear u say the word exacerbate. i think that we are helping this along. the other thing pertained to dust in inew york city after 9/11. i know that you had a difficult call to say that it was safe for people to work in the area. apparently, a lot of them went into their without respirators.

there has been no new information supporting the 9/11 commission, and even head of the commission said that it does not hold water -- host: we will take it from there. guest: it was not a difficult call. we said over and over, those working on the site needed to wear respirators. in fact, the agency brought in every respirator that we could find. we provided wash stations for the workers, but we could not enforce it. there is a difference between those working on the site and in manhattan in general. we were giving constant test and measuring them against other tests being looked at by the city, other institutions. the air quality in general in lower manhattan was ok. we were not seeing a long-term

health problem for people who lived in the area after the initial impact. but on the site, they needed to wear respirators. host: you said that you could not enforce it. did people just not wear them consistently enough? guest: some people did not like to wear them. they were cumbersome, hot. if you remember, was pretty warm at that time. this was a desperate mission to find their compatriots. the workers did not want anything that was going to slow them down, and they felt like they slowed them down. we had some people with portable monitors who came up to me and said you have to put on your respirator, and they said, get out of my face, this is my buddy they were not being necessarily

responsible, but they were being passionate. it was the local responders, federal contractors -- that is when ohssha could do it -- but there were municipalities and others that were responsible. host: next phone call. caller: i have a request. if you could please discuss the total carbon footprint of producing nuclear power from the exploration, mining, transportation, and storage. guest: no question there is a carbon footprint. there is a carbon footprint to everything.

there is a carbon footprint to hydroelectric. there is a carbon footprint to solar panels. i cannot give you a comparative from one renewable to another, but when you are talking about efficiency, when nuclear power is running, it is more efficient. it is the one form of based however, for something that will meet our energy demands 24/7, nuclear is the only one of those resources that does not release when it is using our. while it is not releasing carbon aboard greenhouse gases, you are right, there is still a carbon footprint. host: where do we get most of our raw ore for this?

guest: majority in the united states and canada. we import the bulk. up until recently, 20% of our nuclear has come from reprocessed russian nuclear warheads. the russians figure out that they werewe were making money fm that, so we cannot get them any more. host: next phone call. caller: good morning, c-span. i served on the navy and on nuclear submarines. i know how efficient nuclear power can be. but i also worked in the oil industry and i have seen the epa, in on us oncome in on us --

come in on us. they seemed to avoid the independence and came down on the bigger ones. we had a lot of producing wells and we abandoned a lot of them that still have production in them. a lot of the deeper wells that were plugged, is there any way that we can put spent nuclear fuel in there? it would be a win-win. we are talking 10,000 feet with concrete on top of them. guest: first of all, thank you for your service. we have to be careful about how we process of nuclear waste. that will be up to the nuclear

commission. lee hamilton and the cochairs will be handling it for the department of energy to look at where we can guarantee the long- range safety. regulations require that you look at safety 10,000 years out. if anybody could guarantee you anything for 100 years, you would say they are not because technology would change. but that is what this requires. it is a rigorous process to make sure that wherever the spent fuel is capped can be done so sickly. it will take a lot of examination to find some place other than the amount -- yech amounted yechyucca mountain -- yucca mountain.

host: what is next best scenario? guest: i am not totally sure that it is on of the picture. harry reid ihad stated his case. i do not know that we will walk away from it at the end of the day, but that will be up to the nuclear regulatory commission. host: front royal, virginia. republican. caller: good morning. i am wondering why no one is interested in t. boone pickens. i can remember as a kid when of oil wells were all over illinois.

every one of them had these burning things of gas. what a waste, we thought. i know there are not so many oil wells now, but there are several that are capped. maybe oil has built up in them. if they were to use the fuel, has t. boone pickens suggests -- i wonder why i never hear the media picked up on his ideas. he talks about wind power a lot, but he also talks about gas. guest: he has a big investment in that and is certain a visionary in his thinking. that will be up to individual companies to decide whether or not they can open up a cat well, if there is -- capped well, if

there is energy to be looked at. he had a 200,000-acre field for windmills to produce the same amount of power that you could get from an average nuclear reactor. the economics were not working for him at that point in time. that is why we desperately need an energy bill. we need congress to set up parameters, say how we are going to go forward. .

host: 1 to get your reaction to the epa announcement last week that they want to raise the threshold -- emissions thus hold, to possibly more than 100,000 tons a year for power plants and other industrial projects. what is your reaction to that? guest: they aren't looking out their responsibilities are under the law -- they are looking at what their responsibilities on are under the law.

that has been ever thus. it is a reflection of, really, the obama administration policy, what they want to start to push, whether it is part of a scenario where they pushed the hill into action or not -- that is up to them. the epa has regulatory responsibility for things and they will move forward. it really is about getting the information out there to people so that they can make informed decisions. we don't lobby on the hill for a specific piece of legislation. without question, members will individually, but the thinking behind case and asking people to go online to cleansafeenerg y.org, when they have to make a decision about whether or not it

is going to be real or not, it helps them to look over their shoulder and see that there are thinking people out there and that we should at least be discussing this. don't take off the table because of legacy issues that are no longer relevant to the way nuclear power is brought on line today. host: apolitical comment from a suite in new jersey -- a political comment from a tweet in new jersey -- guest: thank you, joe. host: any interest in returning to electoral office? guest: no. host: you wrote a book about your disagreements with your party -- guest: the group i co-chair with john danforth, where we recognize that in a country as diverse as this one, he will not

have everybody in lockstep on a few social issues. host: democrats' line. caller: hello? host: go ahead with your question or comment. caller: and approved a site for a nuclear facility, and our elected representatives making sure the project goes forward -- can you tell us the status of going ahead with the permits? guest: i cannot i cannot tell you the status of individual sites. and there are 22 potential sites for individual reactors, but where each of those stands in the regulatory process -- nrc is beginning to look and process those applications, and they are

site-specific now. it would be the earliest stages. i don't know -- i cannot comment on where it is precisely. host: dennis in columbus, ohio. caller: good morning. the reason the government is not using gravity as a power source -- it is very cheap and inexpensive, possibly the lowest cost you can get. guest: again, i am not a scientist, so i cannot tell you why they have done so for the economics have not worked out. my company is working with a group on a green city, and one of the things we look at to make sure that it would be a need neighborhood development city, the entire city, was using title search, because it is off in john. inch'on as the second largest tidal surges in the world. that it seemed to meet to be a

very good way to use green power. i don't know how you capture the gravity. i cannot speak to what the technical obstacles are to bringing gravity on as a power source. but i was fascinated that in order to really channel the power of the waves and the tide, you would be changing ecosystem surrounding it. you have to channel it. there are a lot of possibilities out there, things that sound really good initially and a cut in aid that are on paper that when you get them out into a field, they don't react, and then they don't work in the way that you thought they might. or that you were expecting they would. it does not mean you walk away, it does not mean you look at gravity. i cannot tell you how you go about capturing that in an efficient way to make power. but if it is possible, i am convinced that there is somebody out there who is looking at it, because we have a lot creativity going on in the area. host: "the hill" eastport wrote

about "nuclear survival -- nuclear's revival." they requested heat triple the amount of loan guarantees to $54 million. guest: from members on capitol hill there is a greater appetite for nuclear. from republicans in general, there is a bit better than 50% of the population today and the country, and depending on the question, over 60% of the people, believe nuclear should be part of our energy future going forward. that is a dramatic shift from the 1970's, when we basically got out of the business entirely. host: a dramatic shift over the last couple of years. guest: from a political point of view, absolutely. even harry reid says he is not against nuclear, is just against yucca mountain. host: republican line.

caller: good morning, everyone. i would like to come to ms. whitman's defense of the first responders issue. what are these first responders thinking about? it is hot, like you separate these people should have thought before they went in and tried to save their butts. you are right. guest: thank you. i don't fault them for wanting to do everything they wanted to do. i was on the side a couple of times. i feel really bad that we were not able to ensure that the way they did the pentagon, where the military controls pentagon site and they did not let anybody on without respirators. you did not have any of the problems you have to date with the first responders at the new york city site. it was a difficult thing, a two- tier message that epa has to get out for the responders on the site and the people downtown in general and lower manhattan in general. but those people were focused on making a difference, and it

was just heart wrenching -- many of them had not just good friends -- i had good friends and those buildings -- they also had family members. it's tough to tell somebody to step down, step away, slow down, because you have to -- they're not thinking about themselves. host: writing about nuclear energy -- what about the education skills that that sort of background requires? where are those folks coming from? guest: that is one of the exciting things. we heard from somebody already today who would bring that back out from the nuclear navy. case energy has been working with a number of universities in florida and some of the states where you see appetite for new clear, working on nuclear engineering programs and bringing people and train people to florida power and light with miami-dade will guarantee jobs for people who

get involved with the program after they get out of it. there is a lot of training and they are starting to gear up now. it is the question of is this serious, is there a future here? there is any way, because you have a number of the current people working on at the site who are eligible to retire. you'll have a significant number of retirements. nuclear engineering, anything to do with the nuclear industry, will be something that is ongoing for the foreseeable future with the existing reactors. host: new jersey, to one that, on the democrats' line. -- joanna, on the democrats' line. caller: ms. whitman, being an advocate for environmental concerns, a strong one when you were governor of our state, you are aware as anybody else that there is no safe way to store nuclear waste. that is the beginning of the conversation. would you discuss the cost savings of once the nuclear facility is on line -- you never once mentioned the cost of

bringing these facilities the ability to function. and i don't understand why the taxpayers should be on the hook for guaranteed loans that banks won't offer because most of the facilities that have been begun at have gone into default and have been closed and abandoned. the costs are astronomical, and it is always way over what the budget is. it is just not a feasible way of handling future energy. whereas sustainable energy can create jobs, if we were smart enough not to off for the production of the needed materials and build these plants here. it could be a solution to our employment problem. guest: i think we could do the same thing with nuclear as far as the various components of the plants. i see it as a big potential jobs creator. first of all, i have to disagree with you. i do believe that what we're doing now is safe, has been

proven to be safe. the business administration did a study that said that on a lost work day basis, nuclear is one of the savings industry's in which to work. i guess you get chased by dogs on that one, so it is not really count. but nuclear is safe. when we get into reprocessing, which the french do -- the french are almost 80% nuclear power. there are some 50 nuclear reactors being built around the world. nuclear is going forward and it is going forward safely. the difference between today and when we did our first round of nuclear -- by the way, you are absolutely right, total costs are expensive. it is expensive to build a new reactor, but it will be expensive to bring on any new form of power. there is no question that what you have to look at is, in the interests of the consumer, what is the best on a per-kilowatt basis, because that is what really counts. banks -- banks were not getting

into loading nuclear because the federal government said that we were not doing a clear. we stopped doing to clear in the 1970's, -- we stop doing nuclear and the 1970's, for all intents and purposes. there is ge, a westinghouse, a german one -- i forget what the other two are. these are being built around the world, so we have a much better and much more accurate idea of what the problems might be in bringing them on line, what the costs are going to be, and in the past, we saw huge cost overruns. we sought to beat -- we saw delays and huge cost overruns. the latest one came in on time and on budget. there is one of 55 being built around the world, just one that is over budget significantly,

and the rest are on time and on budget. things have changed very much, and we cannot forget that when we had a discussion about nuclear. but it is not either/or, too. i want to get back to that. it is not either/or. you can still be investing in nuclear technologies and investing in base power. you cannot have to have one or the other. we need them all. host: patricia, good morning. independent. caller: thank you, thank you, a million thank yous for c-span. good morning, ms. whitman. i am thankful to you for your interest and the conservation of the environmental concerns, and thank you for continuing it in your retirement, or semi. i would like to speak to the program i heard on "60 minutes" a few weeks ago concerning a new technology that is being tested in california -- i think it came out of silicon valley -- i think wal-mart and fedex are two

of the california company's promised to be able to put independent energy in every building in the country without any kind of electrical web or whatever you call that -- the transportation problems -- guest: the infrastructure. i did not see that, i do not know about it, but i will tell you, there are really exciting things going on. i am on the board of the company texas instruments, and they are developing a chip that produces power out of a vibration. we don't feel it, but the -- host: we feel it sometimes. guest: constantly moving. these chips can go into the wall and produce the kind of power that makes the lights go on. there is no question that we will be so much smarter in another 10 years than we are today. but what we have to recognize is that we have a projected 23% increase in electricity demand

but 2030. a lot of my friends, a lot of people i know in the environmental community, say we will have electric cars and that will be great for the environment. that is true, but that will only be as good as the power produced and used to provide electricity. we will invest to bring these new technologies up to a scale where we make sense as a country -- makes sense and the country as a whole. we have to meet our immediate power needs so that -- for the increase in demand. host: you can find more about the organization at clean safeenergy.org. coming up, barry lynn, writing in "washington monthly" about jobs and why they're not being treated. first, though, a news update from c-span radio.

>> president obama plans to appoint general robert harding, a former senior army official, with a career in intelligence, to lead the transportation security administration agreed the decision to appoint someone with an extensive intelligence background comes after criticism that follows the attempted christmas airliner attack. that incident prompted a review of u.s. security policy. the european commission is discussing the idea of creating a european monetary fund with the 16 countries that use the euro. a spokesman for the group, speaking to reporters earlier, said that the greek debt crisis has shown that the european union needs better coordination and oversight of its economic policies. the prime minister of greece speaks this morning about his countries debt and you can hear it live at 10:30 a.m. eastern on c-span radio. "the hill" reports the arizona congressman has introduced a measure that would not only halt the automatic pay increase that members get according to law,

but also cut their pay by 5% next year, saving taxpayers nearly $5 million. the reason for the move, she says, is because families across the country are getting by on lower wages and finding ways to cut back during the downturn, and these are the folks at pay our salaries. those are some of the latest headlines on c-span radio. >> president obama starts this week talking about efforts to pass health insurance reform. he is in philadelphia this morning, and we will have live coverage of his comments beginning at 11:00 a.m. eastern on c-span. in our meadow protection agency administrator lisa jackson talks about -- environmental protection agency and administrator lisa jackson talks about climate change at the national press club. the greek prime minister is in washington as part of the four- city tour, seeking eu and u.s. support for new austerity measures and increase to deal with the countries financial troubles. he will meet with president

obama tomorrow. today he is speaking at the brookings institution. we will have that live on c- span2 at 10:30 eastern. later, a group expected to be critical of the obama administration immigration policy -- firm, fair immigration reform movement, is having a press conference at noon eastern, and that is on c-span2. >> which four presidents live past 90 years old? john adams, herbert hoover, ronald reagan, and gerald ford. find these and other presidential facts in c-span's newly updated book, "who is buried in grant's tomb?" >> it is a guidebook, a travelogue, but also kind of a mini-history, a work of biography of each of these presidents, and let's face it, you could tell a lot about people at the end of their lives. >> resource guide to every presidential graveside, the story of the final moments, and insight about their lives.

now available at your favorite book seller, or get a 25% discount at the publisher's web site, publicaffairsbooks.com. host: barry lynn with the new america foundation has the cover article in this month's "washington monthly," "who broke the american job machine?" in the article, you wrote that between 2000 and 2007, american businesses created only 7 million jobs before the great recession destroyed that. in the 1990's, prior to the dot- com bust, they treated more than 20 million jobs. you said there was no net job creation in the 2000's. why is that?

guest: this is the first time there's been a failure to create new jobs, and elastic, since the 1940's, when we have not treated -- not created 20% additional jobs and in this country it is quite and it -- it is quite a change and what we've seen in the postwar history. there are a lot of reasons why we've seen such a falloff in new job creation. what we're positing in this article is the relatively new idea, that it is also one of the main factors is one that we have not looked at significantly, and this is consolidation. there has been this massive consolidation of power over the u.s. economy over the last generation, that we really have not analyzed. no one has been paying much attention to this, and the political ramifications, a policy ramifications. you know, it is really -- what happened is that in 1981, the

reagan administration changed how we interpret monopoly law, and since then, we have seen this truly dramatic consolidation in our industrial sectors, service sectors, retail, finance. it has a lot of facts -- it has a lot of defects, but it has a big effect on jobs. host: illustrate the consolidation issue that you propose in the article. you go on a trip to the grocery store. take us on that trip, and tell us about some of the consolidation in the industries. guest: this is something -- i wrote the book a couple of years back called "end of the line," and it looked at too big to fail in the industrial systems. with this, i wanted to look at how consolidation affect all aspects of our life. one of the things that surprised

me, when i went into the stores and malls and discovered all of these cases of consolidation that were really quite phenomenal -- for instance, if you go to the mall to buy some glasses, eye glasses, and you see all of these different stores competing with each other -- you might go to lens crafters, or you might go to target optical -- no matter which one you are going to, you are going to the same company. it is an italian eyewear company. then you go to the independent boutique, and it happens to manufacture these number of brands in this country. if you are buying donna kar ran, what you're doing is dealing with the same company. sanding with milk. i went into a store, wal-mart, in tennessee. you go back to the milk case and

you see all these different brands of milk. i remember the names their -- may feel the dairies, at dairies, great valley, the in- house brand for wal-mart -- at all that milk was coming from the exact same company. it controls 90% of the milk in the southeastern united states. host: you also wrote about toothpaste. the vast array of toothpaste options on display is mostly the work of two companies, colgate- palmolive and procter and gamble. how different is that scenario, the toothpaste aisle, then it was a different -- that was a decade ago? guest: there was quite a bit of consolidation even back then. but we have seen significantly more. you mentioned tom's of maine,

taken over about four years ago. host: that was independent before? guest: that was independent. we saw this track called category management, where a large retail in wal-mart forced the large companies like procter and gamble and colgate- palmolive to exchange information on pricing, they decided jointly where to put the boxes on the shelf. essentially, you have these two kind of engaging in what we might call collusive behavior. even though you have two companies that control it, it is actually one single unified operation. host: asheville, north carolina, jerry, independent color. go ahead. caller: again, thank you for c- span. i want to relate very quickly that when we're talking about

this time frame, 2000 to 2007, there was a favored nation agreement put out to china, and it takes three to five years, a little bit more, for major manufacturing to move out of our country. the loss of manufacturing jobs and the lack of growth has much more to do with that effort or decision than anything. i wanted to point out one other thing -- with the stimulus package and the release of money, there was ordered $57 million given to a wind farm -- there was $457 million given to a wind farm in texas, and of that money, there were 300 construction jobs, short-term, relatively, and 2000 manufacturing jobs, that went to china. when you look at relationship, or we stimulating, who are sponsoring? -- who are we stimulating, who

are we sponsoring? host: do think that is a bigger reason for loss of jobs than of showing of jobs? guest: i read a magazine called "global business -- ran a magazine called "global business" from the late 1990's to the 2000's. it goes back earlier than 2000, it goes back to nafta and the wto, where you saw this radical change in how we change and organize our industry, especially with china. what we're not saying in his article is that consolidation is the only factor. offshore is a big factor in job destruction. but what we are also looking at is what is happening to job creation? in the past, we saw massive shifts of jobs in the united states to china in the 1990's,

but also in the 1990's we saw this real job creation machine that was operating in which new, different companies were coming on line, bringing their ideas to the markets, doing ipos, growing to scale and creating new jobs. what we have seen in the last decade is that major fall-off in the rise of new companies with new ideas, creating new jobs, and that is something that is really quite radically different from the 1990's. just for instance, we're talking about went some group of people get a better idea -- say, information technology apparatus -- what happens is that in the old days, he would grow up, you go out and compete. nowadays, you improve your technology, improved your viability, and some a very large company will come and buy you out very early on in your

development. the companies that provide the jobs in the 1990's, the growth in the 1990's, apple, microsoft, intel -- those are now the companies that are blocking the rise of companies. that is one of the significant changes we are seeing in this country. host: michigan, good morning to jim on the republican line. caller: okay. that last caller just called in -- the kind of hit on the nose -- jhhe kind of hit on the nose with the jobs leaving the country, and nafta, that hurt us. when you go to buy something, nothing is made in america. they let all the jobs leave the country. as far as the tech jobs, not many people can get them. you love that about 20 years of college, -- and, -- you have got

to have about 20 years of college, and people cannot afford to go to college anymore. host: you write in your article, "what killed the american job machine yielded no shortage of debatable answers, one of the more compelling, sessions has been monopolization. the fact that the term has faded from our elite discussion does not mean -- from our daily discussion does not mean that the thing itself has vanished." you also write that one result of this is a lack or lessening of research and development and innovation. what is a company, when it consolidates, cut back in those areas? guest: when a company consolidates, when a large company controls the entire marketplace, you can actually make more money just by

exercising power. you can exercise power down on your suppliers, including your work, because workers are supplying you with work. you can basically pay your suppliers last. and you charge your customers more. there has been this massive consolidation within the beer market in the united states. we have two companies in the beer market that control about 90% of all the beer in the united states. one of those companies, anheuser-busch, based not in said it was but belgium, reported very -- based not in st. louis but in belgium, reported very good profits last week. this company got a huge profits and they did so by basically paying the suppliers less and charging more. the profits that go to these people in belgium, that goes up.

and in the old days, when you had a real rivalry, if you want to grow your income, you have to grow your business, you have to create something, you have to hire people to create new work. that is one of the things we've seen that is really quite fantastically different now compared to even a decade ago. host: washington, david is a democrat there. go ahead. caller: 0, ok. i blame a lot of it on ronald reagan and his supply-side economics. i kind of believe that cutting taxes does not promote capital investment, because when the taxes were high, companies make capital investments in order to cut down the tax rates. the tax rate was 7%, but nobody paid that, -- the tax rate was

70%, but nobody paid that as soon as they lowered taxes, they put them back in the company. r&d can be written off instantly, almost. the trickle-down economics does not work. there is too much suck up along with the trickle-down. there is more supple and then there is trickle down. -- more suck-up than trickle- down. guest: there are number of factors interacting in the environment to create jobs. supply-side economics is one of the factors. but one of the things that we really need to come to grips with in the country is that it is not really just a matter of taxes, the soft side of policy, but we are seeing -- it is the architecture of power we are dealing with, how power is used. when you allow this kind of consolidation, corporations are governments, private governments, and there is a lot of talk about how big government

is getting in the way. we have already got big government in the way, eight is just private government. wal-mart, compared to a generation ago, controls more than 30%, up 40% of certain lines of business in the country. these were distributed out to tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of family businesses all across the country everyone had a little finger in this pie. what has happened is that is one company has kind of taken it all and to itself -- taken in all unto itself and exercise power in ways that leads to less. you go back to what the judgment in flint was talking about, absolutely what we have seen with china, really quite radically -- big change. part of the reason we've seen so much movement offshore in activities is because of this

monopolization. once you control the marketplace, you can determine where it is going to be built and you can do it in any way you wish. monopolization actually leads to more offshoring. host: clay, independent. caller: before 1914, at the federal reserve iris act, we at tariffs. lincoln was for high tariffs. then as soon as the federal-irs -- federal reserve-i rest, with the stroke of a pen, wiped out russia and turned it into the soviet union and killed 35 million christians, and then wipe out the farmers of america, and then went on to spread china -- red china. that is who is behind it.

they are communists, they terrorized africa now. they are looting africa for the raw materials to destroy america. host: we will get a response. any thoughts? guest: clade mentioned that before 1914 we had terrorist. the action that terrorists will into the 1970's -- clay mentioned that before 1914 we had tariffs. we actually had those well into the 1970's. we had a strategic sense of how to run our economy. we look at ourselves as a nation state, and we had to figure out how to serve -- basically have the industrial systems we need to be strong in defense, we wanted to serve our workers by creating jobs, we wanted to ensure that people had a

relatively high quality food on their tables, and we had a strategic and coherent approach to managing all of these issues, and it involves tariffs, taxation policy, and involve competition policy, managing competition, ensuring that we had rivalries among the big companies. we don't do any of this any more. what is happening is that the system is being run by the very few people, and it is really being run for private profits, he had run up by just a few people, and being run in -- it is being run by just people, and being run in ways that lead to the destruction of the jobs we need and systems we need. host: 0 h, for barry lynn. caller: i try to call independent, but i cannot get through, so i am calling republican. i'm wondering if you feel the

semi i feel about what you are talking about now. i feel so angry about it that i want to take over the world. host: duncan, thanks for that call. you wrote in that article that -- but since ronald reagan we have had a couple of democratic presidents. why has it not gone back to town for review of consolidation of monopolies? -- tougher review of consolidation of monopolies? guest: that is an important

point to it is not a partisan issue. the clinton administration promoted consolidation almost as dramatically as the reagan administration did, and in several cases more so. the obama administration has shown no interest so far in taking any kind of strategic reassessment of competition policies, antitrust policies, anti-monopoly policies. really nothing, zero. this is not republican and gop, but the people who control both parties versus the rest of us. the people who control the top levels of both parties are into consolidated power, into using these private governments to serve certain people. the rest of the folks, those of us who are spread out in all the parties, and the independents, we don't have many folks who are taking our side in this. anti-monopoly policy -- the

purpose is to protect us against consolidated power, political power. that is the way it has been with the tea party did a lot of people talk about that as an anti-tax movement. if you understand it properly, it is anti-monopolization of commerce, people who did not want the british east indian companies to monopolize the trade of tea. they wanted free commerce. host: james agrees with you on the politics of this. huntington, new york, michael on the democrats' line. is that you, michael? go ahead i will put you on hold. let us go to california, independent line. caller: the question is -- i feel the answer is the legislature, and your guest is correct. the idea that there were

restrictions and laws against monopolies -- that theory was broken when george bush started thinking out of the box. i thought to myself, i wonder why they made the box. franklin roosevelt said something that is not so much that it has to the abundance of growth, you have to have enough to add to those who don't have anything. that is what measures our progress as a nation. what has happened to our nation -- i firmly believe it has been turned over to some $5,000 suits known as our legislature. thanks for your time, fellas. guest: it is important for us to understand that there is actually a lot we can do about this. going back to what duncan said before, many said he was angry, we have to remember that this is not the first time this has

happened in america. it happened in the late 19th century, when you had rockefeller, jpmorgan, and a consolidated power. people in the government, and back then it was teddy roosevelt, said, let's use the power, and we ended up with this corporatist morass or we have consolidated private power and public power all combined into a dangerous force. eventually we actually just broke the power down, distributed that power out, and that happened in 1935, with the second new deal. after the supreme court, there was this just is called louis brandeis, and he believed in the stupid power, essentially the jeffersonian -- he believed in distributed power, especially jeffersonian and madison and in his beliefs. -- madisonian in his beliefs. you have got to let people out in the world create jobs, it is

to beat it out to the entrepreneur -- distribute it out to the entrepreneurs and investors in america so that they can create new jobs. starting in 1935, this is what we did. there was a radical reconstruction of the american economy that lasted into the 1980's, where we saw these people sort of overthrow the anti-monopoly laws and begin to consolidate power. host: when you hear president obama talking about the need to create jobs, what sort of action to you want to see from the administration? guest: the idea -- so far what they've been doing this man the kind of saying, "well, if we do these stimulus packages, we will create jobs." stimulus packages don't really create jobs. what they do is really save jobs, keep downward spiral from getting worse.

some people say that the stimulus has no effect. that is not true. the statistics we have in place. but if we are going to create -- stimulus -- the stimulus keeps what we have in place. but if we are going to create jobs, we have to stop these big companies that keep small companies from innovating. there is a guy down in texas, and he has a far safer or syringe, a retractable needle, a brilliant device. since the 1990's when he came out with this device, he has been fighting this giant monopoly day after day after day and has been unable to grow his company. there is case after case after case after case where you have these giant entrenched powers who are preventing the release mark entrepreneurs -- the really

smart entrepreneurs, business people, venture-capital lists, from creating the businesses of tomorrow. host: our guest is barry lynn with the new america foundation to the lead article in "washington monthly," "who broke america's job machine?" about 15 more minutes of your calls. michael in huntington, new york. caller: please talk about the effects of the recent supreme court decision on these international monopolies that are controlling our economy. host: are you talking about the citizens united case? caller: that is the one in which they said corporations had the right to free speech of people. host: okay, thanks for the comet. guest: just the idea that a corporation as a person is an

absurdity. corporations are institutions. the idea that corporations or bad or good is also absurd. they are institutions, tools. what we're supposed to do is use these tools wisely, like with any kind of tool. on its face, the idea it that is a corporation is a person -- this is like an old fiction in american legal system that goes back to the 19th century, and it has had this pernicious effect, on and off, over the last 150 years. it is on its face an absurdity. but the effect of this -- you know, we saw quite a considerable consolidation of power within the media system going back to the 1996 laws put into place by bill clinton. if anything, what we're seeing right now is that the distribution of power -- i am not sure of the fax of the kit -- i'm not sure if the actual

effects of the case are as big as the wood and 20 years ago before we had the internet. this is not one that keeps me awake at night. host: nashville, brent on the republican line. caller: thank you for taking my call. i would like to speak to the subject of monopolies and add bid agriculture to big oil and big pharma. i would like our guest to speak to how to create more jobs in the agriculture sector. the issues of a food security, when you have 3 or four companies running. and also the national security presented by poorly processed food, the cause of many of our ailments, the so-called western diet. how are we going to merge the food on the table at our health and economy and create more jobs in the agriculture field? guest: that is a great question.

i don't write about that so much in the article, but i right about that elsewhere. i start off with a story about food security and how consolidation actually erodes the quality of our food and makes it harder to fix. if there is a problem, if you of one company, one plant, that is making everything, and we have a problem with the plant, we cannot fix it. we had a case a few years ago with the pet food, were all these dogs and cats died. they found out that one plant was supplying 150 different brands of pet food, and they cannot fix -- it took awhile, because here is one company, and if it closes down, you don't have any benefit whatsoever agriculture is a huge problem in our country, and it has an effect on us in terms of our health, the security -- food security, and it actually has a

huge effect on our jobs. a generation ago, there were hundreds of thousands if not millions of people in this country who were growing takes on their own farms, chickens on their own farms. a couple of companies have essentially stripped that business -- tysons and smithfield -- they have dominated that absolutely. for the average person to make money off of a growing pigs and chickens -- the other system is not that much more efficient, and it is more dangerous. you could end up with stiff resistance, safer for us as consumers -- safer systems, silver for us as consumers, but also a system that would create more jobs and opportunities for independent farmers. host: houston is next up. democrats' line. caller: i am c-span viewer. i thank my cable company said the we can enjoy it sees -- i

pay my cable company said that we can enjoy it suspen -- so that we can enjoy it c-span. you brought up justice brandeis. he was good then, but wasn't he after the declaration was sent up -- i have heard it described as black male to woodrow wilson, which set up the federal reserve and got us into world war by. -- world war i. the slogan was getting away from the mainframe and you could have your own computer and your own data. the developed a bunch of tools that engineers could use to rapid -- rapid development tools that engineers to develop really fairly quickly on their own, with a few employees, application interfaces. they did not use that much

memory, but they were fast and crisp and were great. as we zoom ahead, we see that microsoft has kind of gotten rid of all those tool sets that they used to develop that mom and pop, if they had an idea and put a lot of effort into their craft, they could build something they could sell. and to this so-called net framework, it takes a lot of memory. what we've come to know is that we have kind of come full circle. people are backing up data on their internet server, and doing taxes on the internet server. they have turned the computer into an appliance, and microsoft is all in india developing the interfaces that are being pushed out of those servers. it is funny, too -- this might be something to think about. they have gotten rid of all

those tools that made the lowest common denominator tool that nobody can really shine using those, nobody can really get an idea across. host: all right, we will get an answer from barry lynn. guest: he is absolutely right. what we have seen in the computer sector is that there was a period where we really could have gone out -- we had a period where there is a huge amount of competition. a lot of players in there, real innovation. then you had a couple of companies just really kind of exercise power over the system, and then to standardize it in ways that served them alone. certainly microsoft is the case, one of the best cases. they're out in a couple of others. a standardized control over the entire industry in ways that exclude the small upstarts, and sort of allow them to set their own price. anyone who has bought an apple recently, for instance, if you go and try to interact with your office networks -- e-mail

system, you have to pay mr. gates a big chunk of money for the privilege of doing that. even though you are not buying this product. once -- buying his product. once you standardize that, you can live off of that for a very long time. once you standardize, centralized, you end up with too big to fail. when something goes wrong, the disruption can be quite significant. what you kind of what is this distribution of power, just in the white you on distribution of opportunity -- just in the way you want this edition of opportunity. host: you write about an infrastructure company, and the term you use is "stashing technology." guest: the model that cisco followed to grow in the 1990's

-- they call it innovation through acquisition. it is really acquisition of innovation. they be white up a bunch of small companies. -- buy up a bunch of small companies. some of these they connect into a chain of integrated activity. there is some value in integrating ideas and products. but at a certain point, some of the stuff is just taken over to prevent other people from using it. so some consolidation absolutely is necessary, especially in technology. but you really have to have someone there making sure that there is real opportunities and that you have got for the people to get some gain. that rivalry is part of the system. that is where the traditional antitrust system is where you get three or four companies, five companies competing. host: good morning to joe on the

independents' line. caller: thanks for c-span. my view on who broke the job market -- i think the american people did it. we voted in reagan, allowed him to destroy unions, institute his "tinkle-down" theory, allowed in after it happened, people shopping at wal-mart, knowing that -- that money is that a loud enough that to happen, knowing that money is just going overseas. it does fall squarely on the american shoulders, what happened. there has been a lot of a shift towards everybody for themselves, the individual mentality. the individual is important, but only in the context of a society.

that is kind of how things stay in balance. we hear how we need to pander to these large corporations, with big bonuses, to keep them in america. i think they might be one of our best weapons on the rest of the world. let them go to the other countries and destroy them the way they distort -- the way they destroyed us. they are more thieves then mercenaries. they are just out for themselves. guest: at absolutely agree with that. that is why i am hopeful, because it was our failure as a group of citizens of an independent republic to hire representatives who would protect our interests. we failed. it also means we can fix it, but what we have to do is get different folks, or even -- a lot of people over here in

washington are really great people, they mean well, but they're not hearing the right message from us. they are not -- a whole bunch of people are saying we have got to throw out government entirely. what we have to do is use government wisely and effectively. there are two jobs that are primal for all government -- you have to use government to make sure that no one inside your own country is sitting in giant corporations that are dangerous, and you also have to use governments to protect yourself against foreign nation states. we are not doing a very good job in either case, but we have done it in the past and we can do it again. the last caller is dead on, that is our fault and in our power to fix it. host: this e-mail from minnesota. guest: the idea that

corporations, international corporations taking over the world -- i don't buy that at all, because what happens is that a nation state effectively used will control almost any corporation. in the case of wal-mart, wal- mart sort of drives the chinese and american economy, and it serves as the conduit for moving chinese manufacturers into the united states. now, is a wal-mart in charge of that relationship? i am not sure. is the united states and a charge of that relationship? no. we do not interact with wal-mart in any way. are the chinese in charge of that relationship? i would say yes. exercising power on to the corporations in ways that turn these corporations into their tools. the future is not corporations ruling the world.

it is actually, as it always has been common nation states. the corporations are the tool of the nation state that is actually used their at the table. host: michigan, good morning to bob -- joe, sar, on the republican -- sorry, on the republican line. caller: god, i love that c-span, because it gives normal people a place where they can voice their views. i have been wondering if there is any data or numbers when we started doing free trade with china where how many jobs were actually created, you know, for americans, from that free trade, versus how many have been lost from the free-trade. that is what my question was did what i was just listening to the other callers, and you are talking about how the elected officials --