he is a socialist. people do not have confidence in him because he is a liar, sir. host: are you still with me? why wouldn't the president want businesses to grow? caller: he wants to control the country. he wants to model is after russia, where the government controls every aspect of our life. you see all the telltale signs. if he really was concerned about the economy, why won't he let california drill off the coast? he thinks he has a better plan. the guy has no experience. he is talking suit, sir. if he was concerned about the country, he would let us use our natural resources, just like we are hoping that iraq can use their natural resources of oil to bring jobs and money to their country. we have the same ability and

resources and he is cutting it off. the guy has no concern for the free enterprise system to work. host: thank you for your call. two stories in the papers this morning regarding russian prime minister's trip to venezuela. brushup offer to help venezuela set up its own space industry, including a satellite launch site. he made his first visit to the south american country on friday. also this morning in "the new york times" --

california on our line for democrats. are there signs of recovery in your area, john? caller: yes. i was out of work for six months and because barack obama and the democrats pushed for the extension of unemployment benefits, i was able to stay in my housing for a month longer. that i worked resume writer. a lot of people in america are out of work and i suggest that they work with somebody in improving their resume. it definitely makes a difference. companies are using different tactics now when they are looking at resumes. it would be great to see the

government -- like something that you could basically write off on your taxes. you do not have to lie about anything on your resume. i recently found employment. i found employment on my own. it was all due to the fact that barack obama and the democrats had pushed for extension of unemployment in a time when i lost my on a planet benefits. thank you very much. host: in the "philadelphia inquirer" this morning --

regarding housing this morning -- you can read more about that in this morning's washington post. tell us about the signs of recovery in your area. >> everything is pretty slow here. it is construction. that is all we have. people were calling in, talking

about trade. there is a representative from mississippi that introduced the bill and the house. it is hr-4759. it has 27 co-sponsors. it is a bill for the withdrawal of nafta. all of the people that are complaining about trade, call your representatives and tell them to support h.r.-4759 so we can get our jobs back. thank you very much. host: kansas, independents line. caller: there are no signs here either. host: are you employed? caller: temporarily. i do health care.

i take care of handicapped people. host: is there any hope that your job will become permanent? are you in a holding pattern looking for something else? caller: they just killed all the funding for most of the care providers. that is all going to go soon anyway. host: in dee"the wall street journal" --

back to the telephones. california, michael and our line for republicans. caller: i wanted to speak to the point on the news where they're saying what hundred 60,000 jobs are created. there reporting that 40,000 of those jobs were census jobs. i should work for the senses and we hired 1000 -- census and we hired 1000. i will let your viewers decide how that math works out pretty -- works out. host: west palm beach, florida.

caller: there are not much signs of recovery in our area. palm beach county has a little over a 12% unemployment rate. i did think there was a sign of recovery because after almost a year and a half looking for work, i found work last month. i got into a training program they had a deal where it was unacceptable to miss any time. i caught a terrible cold and throat infection and a terminated me because i worked -- i missed half a day of work. now i am back looking for work again. host: good luck in the job search. it indeed -- in the new york post this morning --

on our line for republicans out of indiana -- caller: we have no sign of recovery in this area. my daughter works for a company that makes medical devices. they just announced massive

layoffs in this area. that is mostly because of the health-care bill and the taxes that are on it. she did not get laid off, but i have to son-in-law's that are laid off. they are both not drawing unemployment any more. my granddaughter works at another place and she just got laid off. the only jobs to have are minimum-wage jobs. host: what is it going to take in your area to turn things around? caller: if they lower the unemployment rate, it would help. the shops and stores around here just cannot pay. the only jobs around here are minimum-wage jobs.

host: you are saying that lowering the minimum wage would make it easier to hire folks. caller: when they raise the minimum wage around here, it cost a lot of jobs. host: to stories about health and security. the first comes from the " baltimore sun" -- also this morning in the "the new york times" --

back to the telephones. virginia, charlie on our line for independents. are there any signs of the recovery? caller: it is difficult to say. the peninsula is typical shielded because of the military force that is present in the area. the jobs into cycle in and out fairly consistently, but when i looked at the classified ads, there are more ads in the paper.

there are a majority that are looking for temporary jobs. host: what kind of temporary jobs are we talking about? caller: lot of these are toward the service industry. it is taxis and so they're looking for help with that. i personal -- is tax season and they are looking for help with that. our manufacturing base is shrinking and our country is headed toward the service industry. host: from the wall street journal this morning --

also this morning from the associated press, talking about this morning's weekly radio address from the republicans. in their weekly internet and radio address, kevin mccarthy of california says, creating more federal agencies and putting taxpayers on the hook for more bailouts is not the answer. mccarthy, a member of the house financial-services committee, says taxpayers a builder be used as a lifeline for large financial institutions. you can hear his radio address and the president's radio address on c-span later this morning. our last call regarding sides of the recovery in your area comes from alabama. good morning. caller: i am a little concerned

because i am a disabled man. we keep hearing about medicare and medicaid from our president. we need more people to get out there and work. host: how would you put more people to work there? caller: how would i do it? host: we will leave it there. thank you very much for your call. thank you to all the folks who called on this particular segment. we're going to take a short break. when we come back, we'll be talking about debt and deficit with andrew biggs and christian

weller. this is "washington journal." ♪ >> the minutes that the wall street firms were in the business of harvesting middle- class and lower middle class americans for their home equity value and making loans to them against it, there was a natural

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journal." for a preview of all the winners, visit studentcam.org. >> "washington journal" continues. host: we're going to be talking about that. current federal spending projections indicate a rise in the federal debt to 90% of the nation's gdp by the year 2020. talking to us about that is andrew biggs of the american enterprise institute and christian weller. andrew biggs, for the sake of this discussion, tell us the difference between the deficit and debt and how they're related. guest: the deficit is the shortfall of the federal government on an annual basis. the cbo says that we're going to run a deficit of about $1.50 trillion. that means we're spending $1.50 trillion more than we're taking

in in taxes. the-you see accumulated deficits from all prior years plus interest, including fisher. when you looked -- including this year. it will give a scale of the ratio of the two and the country's capacity to carry that debt. host: christian weller, your thoughts about the relationship between the debt and the deficit? guest: at this point, the numbers are theory. we do not really have to run for the exit at this point. there clearly is a message here underlying what we get from the congressional budget office that we ultimately have to get a handle on the situation. we're looking only 22020, 10 years out. the picture does not get all that much better beyond that. health care reform helps a little bit. we have massive amounts of debt piling off and that puts the

country before some hard choices. do we pay for the baby boomers' retirement or do we pay the debts in interest payments to the people web lead us the money? i think the message here is that this is something that we have to address in the coming years. it is not something that we have to do overnight, but is a conversation that we have to start sooner than later. host: use the word scary in the headline of this washington times article that came out on march 26. that will rise to 90% of gdp. how scary is that for you and how does the government and the citizens turn this around? guest: if we were at 2019 and we were still not addressing this, i would be worried. it is something that we can manage. is not something that we should address in the veil of a recession.

we do not have to cut the deficit immediately to zero. it is manageable. it would be unwise given the growth picture. we do have to start a national conversation of what our spending priorities, our tax priorities, and how we ultimately get the deficit to a sustainable path? the deficit is what ultimately piles up year after year. if you look at the cbo numbers, these deficits are fairly large, even by 2020. we have to think about, what do we want in terms of revenue? what do we want on spending? host: andrew biggs of american enterprise institute, if we do not start addressing the situation now, how much is it going to hurt us in the future? tesco 90% of gdp is an interesting crossing point -- guest: 90% of gdp is an

interesting crossing point. they looked at debt crises and fiscal crises throughout the world are the lot history print 90% of gdp was a crossing over point for countries tended to feel the bite of higher debt. for years, which could borrow and borrow and we would not see the effects of the economy. at around that level, you start to see higher interest rates, higher inflation. that makes it all the more difficult to get on top of these problems. it is a difficult scenario. what worries me is not that we have a deficit today, we would have that regardless of who was in power. what worries me is this budget projecting enormous debts and high annual deficits even to 2020, 10 years from now. this says that under the obama administration's own plan, we're still want to have a very high

debt. with all the compromising that goes on in congress, it is not want to get better. it is likely to be worse than what we're seeing here today. host: some of the numbers provided by the cbo show that public debt projections under president obama's budget by the end of 2009, $7.50 trillion or 53% of gdp. the 2020 projection, $20.30 trillion or 90% of gdp. deficit projections, $132 billion will be added to the deficit this fiscal year. total by the end of the fiscal year will be $1.50 trillion or 10.3% of gdp. we will continue our discussion of that. if you want to get involved in our conversation, the numbers --

it and also send us a message via twitter or e-mail. our first call is from our line for democrats. caller: i think our problem, as a country, we have to recognize the fact that over the last 30 years or so, we would to a conservative economic philosophy. -- we went to conservative economic philosophy. it has been failing us. they say we should cut spending

and not to anything about taxes. we have a business sector here who really has not been contributing their part to society for the past 30 years. i would like to see what their answers are to their to -- to my comments. host: if you are blaming future deficit on debt on the conservative economic philosophy, the increase in spending going forward is driven almost entirely by social security and medicare and medicaid. without those programs, the government budget would be roughly in balance going into the future. i do not think it is easy to blame those programs on conservatives. second, tax revenues, even if we kept the bush tax cuts, even if we made them permit, still would rise relative to the size of the comet. -- size of the economy.

it is not too little taxes, it is not reductions, it is the -- is that spending is rising. we can make different decisions on how to face that. rising spending is the source of our future deficit. host: dallas, texas, republican line. caller: i take exception with what andrew biggs said. such a security -- so security is solid until 2037. -- social security is solid until 2037. what's our law makers and congress and the past presidents have not been really good stewards of our money. they have borrowed our payroll taxes for other programs and then they put treasury bonds and

now people -- i would like for him to answer what i said. guest: social security does have a trust fund which consists of a special issue non tradable government bonds. when social security runs a surplus, that cash to goes to the rest of the budget, which spends it. they are a function of the retirement of baby boomers, lager lifespans, if your work for supporting this program. that is driving rising cost break the trust fund bonds will be honored. it will be paid back by the federal government. they need to raise taxes, cutting other spending or running a budget deficit. we face the same burden with or without a trust fund. i am not saying that we should default on the trust fund. the costs are increasing in

social security and the other entitlement programs. host: christian weller? guest: when it comes to our long-term spending problems, i think we need to be very clear that health care is different than social security. yes, we will see some rising cost when it comes to social security because of the baby boomers' retirement. health care is a different issue. there is medical inflation that really drive the cost and we have to get that under control. that goes back to the first caller's question of what do conservatives -- what did conservatives do when they were in charge? they cut taxes after the administration had generated significant surplus to ultimately begin addressing the crisis or the challenges