that wall street is the key to democracy. also, there we borrow -- there will be more on the future of nasa. "washington journal" is next. .

the nuclear power plants in vermont that is closing in two years, that the vermont senate voted to close it when the license expires. but it is a larger story about nuclear power in the u.s. and whether or not new plants could be built. here is a little bit of his story --

what do you think? should the u.s. build more nuclear power plants? you can see the numbers/political affiliation.

here is a little bit more of this story from "usa today."

the vermont senate president says vermont yankee has national implications for what he calls -- i want to get your opinion on this, whether or not new nuclear power plant should be built. paul is an independent from oklahoma. caller: good morning para -- good morning. i think there is a real concern

about the safety of the residue that these plants leave. nobody seems to be able to answer the question of cents but about " slow things down, where will the material be stored? i just want to know who will verify the safety. host: tom, republican, erie, of pennsylvania. caller: i am 100% in favor of it and i have been in favor of it since shortly after three mile island's. caller: -- host: why are you in favor? caller: the most economical way to produce electrical power. the question always has to be, though, what is the correction factor going to be, these outrageous cost overruns these plants always go into? i have to say that even though i am a republican, i have more

faith in this administration, this president, than i have had in the government since probably john kennedy was shot. host: washington, democrat. caller: hi. i am not in favor for nuclear power appeared i don't think there is really no safe way to store the waste. and i think it is very dangerous. we have so many different ways to produce power. and money that is being spent on these nuclear power plants could be put into other alternative measures, which could create millions of jobs and we wouldn't have to worry about the nuclear waste. host: what kind of power sources would you recommend? caller: i recommend hydro,

solar, wind, natural gas. host: the state of washington has one nuclear power plant, and a pretty heavy use of hydro power, isn't there? caller: there is. actually there was a leak in the one in eastern washington, which they are spending millions of dollars right now doing cleanup on it. so, they aren't 100% safe. host: nancy, republican, newark, delaware. caller: i think they need to figure out what to do what a waste as well. host: you are not necessarily in favor of them? caller: no, i think there is a lot of public money that doesn't get returned and i don't think it is a good return on investment. host: francis, massachusetts on

the democrats' line. what do you think? should the u.s. build more nuclear power plants? caller: yes, i think we should build more nuclear power plants. in europe, for instance, they have about 50 nuclear power plants and that is the main source of electricity. if we really want to wean ourselves off of middle eastern oil, that is one of the things we can get here so that we can be able to wean ourselves off of middle eastern oil. most of the oil that we buy from them medleys, we -- they used the money to fund terrorism. this is one thing we can be very careful about. it is a national security issue. host: this is a reuters story. u.s. senate crime bill to be unveiled april 26. the long awaited compromise bill

to reduce emissions of carbon dioxide and other gases will be unveiled by a group of senators able 26, sources said thursday. the language to be stepped out in 11 days according to government and environmental sources, is being drafted by german -- democratic senator john kerry, republican lindsey graham an independent joseph lieberman. backers of the bill hope of the unveiling will pave the way for the full senate to debate and pass a measure in june or july if the compromise attract enough support from a group of moderate republicans and democrats. back to your calls on nuclear power. mike, faye adel, north carolina. republican. the caller: yes, we should go back to the past when we had a prototype plant -- in the laboratory in illinois. the fuel never leaves the site. it is loaded one time and reprocessed and reprocessed.

host: why do you think that has not become a model? caller: because it was killed by john kerry, i believe in the senate, when he was a senator. they had the three mile island incident that took place at the same time so we killed a perfectly safe reactor, dummy proof for reactor, because of a very poor population of a dangerous reactor. host: joe, illinois. independent. caller: ignorance of the american public regarding nuclear energy in shocking. allied chemical and gulf oil build a plant in north carolina to reprocess the spent fuel. spent fuel is not worn out -- simply contaminated with products such as plutonium. they built the plant. it was ready for a start up and president carter would not let

them start it because he was afraid that terrorists might get a hold of it to make bombs. actually spent fuel is not that much of a problem. in france, the part of the spent fuel -- the bad part -- i am not sure exactly how they treat it but they do treat it like something like glass, and then they buried it under ground and there is no problem. host: where is metropolis, illinois. if you look at this map and "usa today," it looks like illinois has six nuclear power plants. caller: eleanor has quite a few. it is across the river from paducah, ky. extreme southern. there is a plant that processes uranium -- or just one step in the process toward making fuel. i worked there for 26 and 1/2 years. no problems. of course, we have many safety

rules. it is just not big of a problem. people have been frightened by people who don't want us to have it for some reason. host: vana, tennessee, democrat. caller: i think that's -- that this name calling has to stopped. what we have to do is listen to the professionals. the french do an excellent job of reprocessing nuclear spent fuel back into reusable field. they will take every bit of the spent fuel we have right now and gladly reprocess it. we are dismantling the nuclear warheads and most of the nuclear fuel we are using right now, 50% is going back into use. any time you can mess -- dismantled a nuclear warhead, that is great. that is a step and the right direction. host: back to the story and "usa

today."

host: our next call comes from corey in washington. republican. caller: i think what everybody needs to understand, if you look at the economic states of the southeastern washington at this point, we have many, many things going at the nuclear revocation. they have a program under way and being built. they also have one of the highest rate of unemployment in the economics surrounded by hanford. it host: that is where the nuclear power plant is? caller: correct. host: in the southeastern corner. caller: on the columbia river. xdi cannot work out of their bui

have a lot of friends, family -- i myself do not work out of their but i have friends, family, people i went to see college with work out there and they have sustainable jobs. i have lived there all of my life. we have not had any problems. we have not had anything else. why would another community or any other place in the united states -- what is another committee or any other place in the united states welcome these plants? it would bring -- bring jobs. host: the story about vermont yankee, the power plant in vermont, it says it employs 640 people, and provides one-third of vermont power and helps make the state's carbon footprint the region's smallest. jim, independent, knoxville, tennessee. caller: my name is jim. i certainly think we should

build more nuclear power plants. the american public has been misled all of these years into thinking that these power plants are bad. they are not bad. t(we definitely have to build me nuclear power plants if we want to keep america energized. host: you have one in knoxville, don't you? caller: there are several around. i'm not an educated nuclear person but i studied it and we hire given all of our technologies away to the chinese, the french, and all of the world is using the technologies that we americans developed. i'm 72 years old. i watched the nuclear age coming in, and america needs nuclear energy now. host: isaac, boulder, colorado. a democrat.

caller: i opposed -- to me, it seems like if we continue to -- you know, the waste is my concern with building new plants. as the caller prior from hanford, washington, suggests, that there is an ongoing issue with justification -- it is really a process that is already under way and we really have not resolved much because we are just pouring it up. host: here is a tweet -- hastings, michigan. gordy, a republican. caller: i am opposed to it definitely for two reasons. here in michigan we have some power plants and they are storing the waste in cement containers right along lake

michigan and i can hardly imagine what people would see if we had a contaminated lake michigan because the stuff started leaking. everybody knows what some of those over time. it starts cracking and breaking. host: it is stored along lake michigan? caller: the power plants. the other reason is a lady in our church, her sister is emissions -- missionary, i think of the ukraine where the meltdown was internet -- chernobyl. if anyone would read of the devastation and the number of cities that have been abandoned and the trouble they are still having with the radiation, that would go a long way in discouraging people wanting to do that. host: thomas and clinton, new york. should the u.s. build more nuclear power plants? caller: a physicist in the mid 1970's made the case that nuclear power plants are >> energy negative, that is, if we look at the total energy cost of

designing, constructing, operating, mothballing, fixing, maintaining, over time the total amount of energy ever produced by power plants tends to not equal the amount of energy it takes to create them and maintain all of the processes. i will give you $5 if you give me 10. why would we engage in such a thing? that is precisely the reason that the finances of nuclear power in the mid-1970s stopped investing in them. they were losers. and now they are willing to do it only if they get huge subsidies from the taxpayers to guarantee that they will not take an economic bath. the second point that i think is important to me -- if we have put even a significant fraction of the amount of money that the government put into subsidizing nuclear power into exploration on expanding solar energy, we would as a cost of solar energy

would drop so much. i know it is not an absolute panacea but we could certainly expanded. remember, we are dealing with electrical production for the most part. host: let us leave it there. this is from "the politico." it is about the banking bill being debated and formed in the senate. eight republicans that may break ranks on the bank bill.

lobbyists are also talking about republican senators closer to the core of the party -- another political story about politics. the senator bunning back paul. he is the son of, of course, of ron paul. more on nuclear power plants. columbus, nebraska. jim, democrat. caller: i just wanted to make a point about the cost of this. i am originally from illinois and i remember in the 1970's when they built the nuclear plant there, our electric rates

doubled. that is bad. but shortly before that, they privatized -- we have the public power there and a privatized it shortly before that it doubled. it doubled once, and then it clear, doubled again. people better think this through before we just jump in and build nuclear power plants. it just too expensive. host: another tweet. here is an article from "the washington post" this morning. foreclosures rise as banks of repossess more homes.

next call, columbus, ohio. codey on our independent line. what do you bring about more nuclear power plants? caller: the problem is -- i just watched a show yesterday on tv that was talking about how we have not even gotten rid of any of the nuclear waste we have been creating, all of the enriched uranium.

if we have not gotten rid of anything yet, in 2010 is when they will start moving it all to this mountain in wyoming, you can't imagine it would build more, what will we do for the waste anyway? if we don't have a good thing to do with it now. the waist papago through homes, neighborhoods, schools -- people have to drive that. that is the main problems. host: from "the wall street çjournal" -- said it is expectd to keep rates low for now. earl, chicago, democrat. caller: i am in nuclear engineer at work in nuclear plants, various one, the past 40 years. i was also involved in the

design and engineering for nuclear plants in the early 1970's. i'm retired now. but three years prior to my retirement i was at three different nuclear plants up in canada, working there under the nafta agreement. i think nuclear plants are very safe. as far as the field disposal, it is -- ship to that site in yucc a. safer than most people envisioned. for me working in the nuclear field over 40 years, we never had a severe accident are anything like that because we take all of the necessary safety precautions in operations of plants. host: somebody might have said there have been no accidents but they will think back on march 28, 1979, three mile island. caller: we understood why that

happens -- during that accident at three mile island. that is the only accident that i can remember during my whole tenure in working in various nuclear plants -- three mile island, and we have quite a few presentations during that time. host: during your career, did you get tested regularly for exposure? caller: yes. a kept a running total of the amount of exposure that all of us nuclear workers acquired during my tenure as a nuclear engineer and working in various plants. as a matter of fact, i can tell you even now as far as my total exposure over my whole lifetime in working over 40 years. host: what was your total exposure? caller: my total exposure was --

i think it was about 980 milligrams over the whole lifetime -- host: how would that compared to x-rays or x remains -- machines or airplane? caller: axton you would get more in an x-ray than you would -- actually, you would get more from an x-ray than you would working six months at a nuclear power plant. host: what do you think about nuclear power plants? caller: yes, my question concerns nuclear waste and what the french do with their nuclear waste, since i understand 80% of their power comes from nuclear energy. host: the next call is from sarah in california. caller: i want to comment on the hanford caller and two other

points. he must be a very young man. i lived in oregon and the 1980's. it was a disaster and shut down. it was releasing talks is into the air, not warning this edison, who became very ill. the tanks were leaking so severely that they were concerned it would go into the columbia river. so, it is no golden boy. i spoke one day to a man -- a discussion about the safety of nuclear energy and this older man, very craftily and was shaking his head, no, and i said what you know that we don't, and how you know it, and he said i was with the adc for 20 years. he said the problem with nuclear energy is there is no such thing as an elbow joint that will not leak. they have never been able to

solve that problem. host: thank you for your call. from page 4 "the wall street journal." -- from of the front page of "the wall street journal." that is the end of our first segment of "washington journal." up next, senator sherrod brown of ohio. [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2010]

>> a couple of live events to tell you about this morning. the senate judiciary committee holds a hearing on judicial nominations, including a law professor goodwin liu for u.s. circuit judge in the ninth circuit. live on c-span2, 9:30 a.m. eastern, senators continue their examination of the role of banking regulators and the collapse of washington mutual bank. witnesses include representatives of the federal deposit insurance corporation and the office of thrift supervision. >> this weekend on c-span2's "book tv," from the annapolis book festival, panels on

security and the world's water supply. on "after words" efforts to alert the sec and the media on bernie menopause a ponzi scheme. sunday, this year's pulitzer prize winners for history, biography, and general nonfiction. find the entire schedule on booktv.org and follow us on twitter. >> "washington journal" continues. host: on your screen, congressman sherrod brown, democrat of ohio. here to talk specifically about economic issues. what is your unemployment rate? guest: a little over 10%. not nearly the highest state but we have been in recession longer. we have not had a huge drop in value because we did not have speculation but we had more than a decade of increasing

foreclosures year over year, so economic problems in ohio are mark -- longer-term and persistent, but there are several good signs, i think, coming out of recession, very different than when we came out of the 1980 recession when nothing changed. i have a lot more sort of medium or long-term optimism about my state. host: what are some of your concerns christmas guest: immediate good sign our auto jobs. defiance -- they are building in the chevy cruise, highest mileage gm car. honda is starting to come back in central ohio. more than that, ohio is increasingly and aerospace state. 120,000 jobs in aerospace. both airbus and boeing -- it is airbus's biggest stake and biggest stake for -- billions of

dollars for buying components for a plan assembly in europe and 4 billion in ohio. toledo has more jobs and solar energy than any city in america. we are on track to build a first wind turbine farm in a freshwater anywhere in the world. you can take a tour route ohio and you really can see fuel cells in mount vernon and canton and what happened in columbus and in dayton, and in cincinnati you can see all over the state major progress in clean energy that in some sense leads the nation. we've got more jobs out of this recovery act and clean energy than any other state. because we know how to build things. we are seeing a shift from a auto supply chain into the clean energy chain. for instance, if you could make glass for cars, you could make glass for solar panels. if you could make gears for trucks, you could make gearboxes for winter but appeared and we need some assistance to go that

way, some capital investment and loan funds, i think, from the pro-government to move in that direction. host: let's talk about that. you framed the climate change bill as an economic issue and express your opposition to the current proposal on cap-and- trade, correct? guest: first of all, i think climate change is real. i think it is in part, human cause, and a great for the great heat moral issue of part-time -- the next five years, two decades. i also think this is a jobs bill. as a venture capitalist said, pricing carbon will unleased torrance of capital and we have been assured a torrent of capital are deployed in wind turbines, solar panels, fuel cells, biomass and ohio and across the country, and not wean ourselves from front will and by all of our wind turbines from china. secondly, it has to be a jobs bill in terms of what we do with

the sick -- aluminum, chemicals, glass, people -- paper, steel, the six industries that are both trade sensitive and energy intensive. a trade sensitive means if we don't do it right those manufacturing, those industries, those manufacturers, those industries are more likely to go to china because it would do it right on the environment and they don't it is one more incentive for those companies to outsource. that is why it has to be done right. is senator john kerry and lieberman and graham have been cooperative that there needs of the major manufacturing component in climate change. host: what is your proposal? guest: several things. making sure the timetable, the schedule, if you will, and the allowances that go to industry and those utility generators that are cold-base, which in my state, 97% of electricity comes from coal, not too different from other states and our region, that that be done on the right schedule, that we help

with the transition into a clean energy manufacturing. we've got to make sure that we are ready for the scaling up of wind turbines, solar panel, fuel sales that we are not ready for now as it for the country. we let the supply chain atrophy because we ignored manufacturing while picking winners and our financial system, the economic system, to finance in the last 20 years -- , met policy we did talk about -- and then some adjustment, so if the chinese or any other country doesn't enact the right kind of environmental rules, that they can't undercut our manufacturers that do have the right environmental rules and there is adjustment to account for those costs. host: two things. you called for 50% tax on bonuses from wall street. i will let you explain board and would you consider yourself a populist? guest: sure appeared to me, populism is standing for the little guy and that is what my

career is. we have a government that too often sings with an upper class accents, and the utility companies and the wall street banks don't need more representation in washington. they are doing very well what their armies of lobbyists. the tax on bonuses -- we've got to find a way -- you just had -- i was watching in the other room as you were talking about nuclear power, one of the other screens wasn't citizens against government waste press conference. we've got to deal with these problems long term in this deficit. we were on track 10 years ago, we had a surplus, going in the right direction and then congress passed to go to war without paying for it, tax cuts for the rich without paying for it, a giveaway to drug insurance companies without paying for it and we have to find a way to pay for the stuff or quit doing it or both. i think we do both. host: finally before we go to

calls, we were talking about nuclear power plants. how do you feel about building more? caller: i start -- a strong skeptic of nuclear power. we have 104 or 105 in operation in the united states, all least 30 years old. some will start going off line and the last decades. in 20 years all will be obsolete, they say. so we got to find a way to displace that generating. we are not going to do it all -- as much as i want to do a manhattan kind of project for solar and wind, we have to find a way to replace that. some of it is going to be nuclear. we have to find a way, as some of your callers say, doing better in terms of how to dispose of this. we will not do it in yucca mountain. we have to find another way. i think the people who are the strongest supporters of nuclear power have to be the strongest advocates and work the hardest to find where we are going to dispose of the ways and i did not say they have done that

well. host: sherrod brown served for 14 years in the house of representatives. elected to the senate into thousand six. bryan, democrat, you are first up. caller: how you did this morning? how many weeks on that extension that they just gave and when does it start? guest: the extensions started -- it would be retroactive, when it ran out april 6. it depends on how many -- this is sort of the fourth tier expansion and it would depend on the situation and how many weeks you would have, if you are calling for yourself or for a family member. the important thing is not just extending unemployment in making sure people get the subsidy for continue their health care, but that we have even more of a focus on what we do with a job creation. we have not done that in not yet. we have not seen the bipartisan cooperation we need for job creation.

i think, though, in terms of the health-care part of this bill, the extension of cobra and the subsidies for cobra so people are more likely to be able to afford to keep their health insurance, we've got to -- what the health care bill being implemented in the next two or three years, that should be able to help, too. host: bloomington, ohio, republican line. you are on what your senator, sherrod brown. caller: bruce from wilmington, ohio. we appreciate all you have done to help us and wellington -- wilmington -- not bloomington. we saw frank say on squawk box that he would meet with the barack obama. we just hope that we see some recovery here in wilmington. as you know, it is one of the hardest hit places in america. we love you and wait -- all that you and president obama have done. host: you are calling on the republican line and you are a fan of senator brown?

caller: -- gilad host: we will never find out. guest: wilmington is probably the most republican county and state. i spent a lot of my first couple of years in office working on dhl, a huge cargo carrier that left wilmington, frankly did not play its trade with the citizens of clinton county and were badly managed and pulled out. the help us in some ways -- they let the community only the airport, the largest private in the united states. we are looking all the time at how do we use this newly acquired airport that taxpayers and the community own to spark economic developments in that area of the state. dayton, springfield, wellington has been hit as hard as anyplace probably in the country. dhl was the largest employer in each of six rural counties in

the region so it is devastating to the hospitals, school systems, police forces, and to every family that lost their job and health care. the administration -- both the bush and a bomb that administration stepped up in a pretty sick and again and helpful way on how to fight back. there is so much else we -- stepped up in pretty significant and helpful way on how to fight back. the political party did not matter there. the local congressman, a republican, mike turner and i work together and will continue to in wilmington. host: mike from laguna woods, california. caller: senator, i am a libertarian and from my perspective, my attention was focused on the 2009 social security and medicare trustees' report that showed the unfunded liability of these two programs, existing entitlement programs, about $107 trillion of unfunded

liability. this is more than every house in the country, every business. it is a colossal unfunded liability hanging over the heads of future generations of americans. guest: how many years is that assessment for unfunded liabilities? do you know? caller: that is for both existing entitlement programs -- guest: for how many years out? how did they calculate that dollar figure to the do you know? caller: i commend that to you -- the two reports are from the trustees of those programs. anyway, it seems to me that is a relevant issue before the american people. and adding a new entitlement, this new latest one, it seems to me does not help things but actually makes things worse. the guest: fair enough. i hear that at all.

i hear it in toledo and youngstown. first of all, when i hear this unfunded liability in the tens of trillions or hundreds of chileans or whatever the dollar figures are, i always ask over what number of years because we have not funded the defense department over the next 50 years yet we know we will spend $600 billion or $700 billion a year and they never talk about unfunded liability for their, and i understand and medicare, the government is locked into spending the benefits but tell me we will not do the same for other departments and we will need to raise the revenue to do it. if so, i think those observations are not -- they are not inaccurate but they are not all that helpful accepted that he is right, the caller is right, social security and medicare are serious long-term problems. social security -- i would not say series -- i would say medicare is more challenging to social -- than social security.

every few years we make a slight adjustments in social security. president reagan and the democratic congress in the 1970's and 1980's made the adjustment of raising the retirement age over a 24-year period, added a month -- now it is -- it will be 67 instead of 65. they made minor adjustments. so, we can do this. to the health-care bill right now, this bill is paid for. it is paid for. it will create a surplus. conservatives and the people who were against the bill did not like to acknowledge that. they say it is just playing with numbers, smoke and mirrors. the congressional budget office does not operate that way. there are a lot of savings in this bill that are not even counted. keeping people out of half -- hospitals. preventing low birthweight babies. a hospital where i grow up, a terrific program people are adopting a load of the country that is in this bill that will save thousands of lives in terms of low birthweight babies and

hundreds of billions to the cost of the government. there are a lot of things in the bill that opponents never really wanted to acknowledge. host: in your capacity as chairman of subcommittee of economic policy for housing and urban -- urban affairs çcommittee, has the federal government done an up or the right thing when it comes to foreclosures? guest: we have not done enough. we have not done it early enough. many of us were sounded alarms to 2007 -- to bernanke, paulson, this present cheney -- a treasure in cleveland has been sounding the law arm, county treasurer for years. chairman bernanke, even though i supported him for his reappointment, reconfirmation, i have real misgivings for how slowly was and is coming to the table as was the rest of the government in 2007 and in 2008.

we clearly have not done enough. we were willing to take care of wall street in those days and do little for homeowners. and a lot of people gain the the system. some were homeowners but a lot of speculators. a whole lot of people were the salesman who were selling and packaging and collecting the fees and repackaging the securities and a lot of wall street cowboys made a lot of money. they did not pay the same price as somebody who lost their home. >> is there more action and had? >> president obama has been pretty good on this and increasingly better on this in terms of giving the states flexibility and providing assistance. sometimes the cost of 200 or $300 could help someone stay in their home by talking to a local lender, if they could find where the mortgage is ultimately held. understand if there is a foreclosure -- some people say it is their problem. well, if there is a foreclosure, not just the damage it does to the family but there is the

next-door neighbor whose house declines in value and if there is another foreclosure for readout -- three houses down or the other side of the street, the value declines and a whole neighborhood declined and community declined, police and fire protection is cut back -- all of these things happen from high foreclosure rates. that is why it is not just an individual problem for those unfortunate -- unfortunately many, who have been foreclosed upon, but a community problem and a national problem and national problem partly because of the impact it has had on lending from banks and on housing over all. host: jeff from los angeles, go ahead. caller: first i want to urge we have a straight up carbon tax as opposed to cap-and-trade. it is easy to sell to the public an initial polling shows the public gets it, they prefer that, something they understand there also want to comment on the whole issue of foreclosures and unfunded mandates. if we had taken all the money that we used to bail out wall

street and paid off everyone's mortgage we would have shifted a bunch of wealth to the working class and created real equity in -- sure, it is not fair to renters, but the money would have gone to where it is needed but instead we bail out wall street. guest: i did not know if those numbers are comparable. i am not arguing with you. i don't know for sure. that was not on the table with the bush administration. there was no way president bush would have gone along with that. i think reasonable, might have looked at it differently if he had taken office six months earlier -- i think president obama might have looked at it differently. there was talk about it in the banking committee and congress and talking about it when i was where these problems were particularly acute. i don't think government -- as at -- as i was saying peter earlier -- i don't think the government addressed this the right way early -- either in the right way or as comprehensible as we should have. i think it is significantly

better now, the way we are addressing it. but it certainly has not solved the problem. host: carbon tax. guest: i don't know. that is not the direction congress is going. i don't think we would get bipartisan support. i think we could get bipartisan support this way. it is not really cap-and-trade anymore. we moved away from that. it is a fairly complicated -- a complicated way we are addressing it. i like what he says in terms of supplies -- simplicity of a carbon tax. i think we've got to find a way to price carbon. i think the sentiment in congress is to let the market price of carbon. that is the best way to pass a bill that really can work. host: john n. san antonio, texas. republican on with sherrod brown from ohio. caller: how are you today? this has been an enjoyable discussion. i almost forgot what i recall

about. mr. brown -- you said you are for the little guy. yet it seems as when the big guys, congress, makes a mistake that pat the supper on the back and gives them a pay raise. you have a big problem with fannie mae and freddie mac and yet you still did despite a big pay raise, a golden parachute when they leave and no one gets fired in government. yet in the private sector, if you are not making a profit, you lose your job in the business and everything else. for some reason you and other people in congress seem to think you folks just create wealth. the only thing you create is debt. guest: plenty of people are losing their jobs when they should. you can argue that -- so many people on wall street continued to get rewarded for the mistakes that they made. they made tens of millions of dollars and it kept their jobs

and got bonuses and they were not producing. let me give you one statistic that i think is pretty astounding about what happened in our country the last 30 years. in 1980, one-third of the u.s. gdp was manufacturing. about one-half of that, one sixth was financial-services. today it is almost entirely flecked so financial services is about one-third of our -- and manufacturing is less than 1/6. 45% of corporate profits i think in 2004 -- 44% of profits in 2004 came out of financial services and something like 10% out of manufacturing. this economy is not working for the little guy, as you would suggest in that sense and the financial industry, which is not been as productive -- financial- services serve our country well. when i have roundtable is for community bankers, they are

learning to small businesses and homeowners and creating wealth. but these companies that are the wall street banks doing transactions back and forth and speculation and gaming the system and pulling out tens of millions of dollars each out of these kinds of transactions, they are not productive for the economy at all. understand your anger and frustration that fannie mae and freddie mac, and some of that is well founded, but to let off the hook the wall street banks that inflicted much of the pain on all of us -- you in south texas and my neighbors in northeast ohio -- is i think a bit far afield. host: emma in ohio -- and this is a tweet. gee, she knows what she is talking about. i don't know the answer.

these are people who get medicare that are eligible for medicare and medicaid and -- at the same time. they are not required depending on their income to pay as much of their premium as a bit more affluent medicare beneficiaries. i don't know the situation exactly am always talking about, but i do know these teirs i not always there -- not to those a little higher income and not those of the lowest. i will look at it and we will pursue that. host: another ohio-centric tweet -- guest: i think the construction will help the state, if they aren't using in state union well-paid labor pared -- if they are using in state union well-

paid labor. i don't know if it brings as much wealth and jobs as proponents say it did. i think the jury is still out. because you need more police protection, you need more safety forces when you have casinos because all of what surrounds casinos. so, i don't know what is going to happen. i am hopeful that it brings even close to the prosperity proponents promised it would. host: break in the yardley, pennsylvania. -- rick in yardley, pennsylvania. guest: majority party -- it is really about raising taxes without a positive impact. i am astounded how people can talk about environmental problems without talk about unsustainable world population growth. my question for senator brown -- and i read some of the ambiguous

legalese, a government agency can control or stop the sale of your home based on that agency's opinion of your house as energy effectiveness. guest: first of all, the house bill is not close to what the senate bill is going to do and it will be very different. second, i never heard that. i know the house bill pretty well cleared and that of the senate bill well. i never heard that point made -- it does not make sense. congress is not raising taxes just to raise taxes. i know that is what conservatives want to say the democrats just raise taxes. the facts -- fact is, americans refund was larger than it has ever been. more than a dozen tax cuts during the first 15 months of the obama administration and unlike george bush tax cuts that when the overwhelming to the wealthy, these went to middle class to buy a home, a car, health care, education, tax cuts for seniors.

we aim to ours at the middle class and republicans typically came there is at the wealthy. what you said i just don't agree with. nobody is going to come into your house and tell you can or cannot sell it based on environmental issues. in we are not just raising taxes to raise taxes. fact is, we cut taxes. as the president said yesterday, all of these people out protesting on april 15 should have been thanking him for the tax cuts that we did because they are aimed at the middle class. 99% of american working families got a tax cut at some point in the last 15 years. some substantially average of over $1,000 and the average family has $1,000 more in their pockets, the average family, as a result of our tax policy the last year. host: another tweet --

guest: when you think about it. in the course of a year -- it would be interesting to take out the mailer's you get from private for-profit companies that try to make it look like it is a government -- as if it is from medicare or social security or some other government agency. when we see some of these, we work with the cms or work with the government agency and try to deal with them and we have success sometimes and not other times in trying to keep these companies from preying on people. that is really what it is. host: our last call for senator brown comes from louisville, ky. democrat. caller: hello? hi, senator brown. i just want to know. first i would like to say i'm an admirer of yours. i used to watch you on msnbc. unfortunately i can't afford those stations anymore because

everything went up -- like my health insurance. i had to retire. i worked for the government, ok? but my insurance went up so much. i had in some blue cross of federal -- federal blue cross- blue shield but the premiums went up so high and even the premiums -- what i pay for, really, it is bad. it is like saying, you don't have insurance. you know? well people like that get any kind of help? and there is another question i want to ask you -- a comment, ok? you had a gentleman on the line and he was talking about why didn't they pay off the houses, everybody's house instead of bailing out of the banks. see, i don't agree with everything he said, ok? yes, i'm mad at the banks, ok? i am angry, very angry. but the thing about it, a lot of

the people got themselves into this mess. i don't think people like that should really be helped. guest: i see that. everybody is responsible in some sense. but when the sales person comes in, the mortgage broker, or the person that is talking to the homeowner and says you can get a really low rate for two years and the home value would go up and these are pretty fast talking and pretty convincing people sometimes, and somebody with little less education or maybe not a lot of sophistication and of getting in a situation like this where they expected the home values to go up and in the neighborhood they start falling and all of a sudden your house is worth less than you all. . --

host: we appreciate your talking with our viewers. up next is robert sloan, author of this book and managing partner of s-3 partners. just this week he had this apt

ed. >> the senate judiciary committee holds a hearing on law firm professor good win liu for the ninth circuit. that is 10:00 eastern. live onç c-span 2 senators continue their examination of the role ofç bankingç regulat. representatives are members of the fdicç and office of thrift

supervision. this weekend the first of three british election debates. gordon brown conservative party leader david cameron and nick clegg face off in u.s. style debate. the first courtesy of çxditv. host: that on yourç screen is your new york studio and robert sloan is on the screen the managing partner of s-3 partners but the author of "don't blame the shorts" a book about short selling in wall street and his financial times op-ed was this week. this is the title, "the bankers need to fight back." i want to start in clone ideal history. you refer to the fact that our

current -- part of our current economic debate today is based on the alexander hamilton and thomas jefferson model of economic debate. could you explain that? guest: sure. the country was founded upon two opposing ideologist. -- idea ideologies. >> he hated fiat credit the consolidation and issuance of federal debt by the government. then you had alexander hamilton he was a mercantilist but loved speculation and believed in financial markets and was certainly very pro-fee at credit.ç -- fiat credit. so thoseç were the opposing ideologies and you see that pendulum swinging every 20 to 30

years. >> is that a main street versus wall street debate or a washington versus wall street debate? >> at the outset of the country i go over a lot of how the political arguments are indefined into economic ---en defined into the discussion. it was about the state i.o.u.'s by the federal government and how the speculative class bought them at steep discounts and redeemed them close to par around caused an incredible amount of acrimony between jefferson and hamilton and caused the split of new york not only being the economic center but being the political center and that is why washington is the political capital because there was a deal truck to figure out -- struck to figure out what to give hamilton and what to give jefferson. >> in your op-ed you say that

the 1929 crash led toç work against wall street and legalç effects were felt for years and need to be avoided. >> i don't know if they can be avoided at this çpoint. but the point of the article was that i think in in the banking debate today we are talking so much about protecting margins and profitsç rather than how d we participate in the system that has given us so much. we have taken out way more than you can put back in and what the article was trying to say is in our political and philosophy heritage there has to be a way to explain why wall street is important and is part of the

ethos. host: if you want to talk to robert sloan the numbersç are there right host: mr. sloan, what is a short sale? guest: it is theçmç saleçç something you don't own and borrow the shares to make delivery so you can take an economic bet against shares ç falling. it is also the mostzç interconnected transaction on wall street. when we want to buy and sell securities, the way wall street rents capital to everybody on the phone and everybody viewing today, they offset risk. capital is recycled and rented throughout the system. many thousands of times a day every day. the way wall street trading desks do that is shorting against risks they have. the majority of short sales is offsetting risk.

that how we are able to get liquidity and how we have created a franchise to attract capital from all over the world because we have markets that allow the offsetting of risk. host: could it be considered betting against success? guest: i would look at it just the opposite way. i think that what is so interesting about short selling is this country was founded upon the rights of the minority and dissent. it is a vote against benefit. in its most isolated form, when there is nothing to -- there is no risk to offset and you are just betting directionally against that company you are basically saying that there is something fundamentally flawed with the company. so i would say most of the time when you see corporate c.e.o.'s gang up on short sellers there is usually a pretty good reason for that. host: is short selling a derivative, and would you

comment on senator blanch lincoln's proposal to prohibit all derivative transactions? guest: well, proposing to eliminate all derivative transactions is, i think, in this day and age like saying let's propose a law saying we can't drive. we need -- whether we like it or not, and whether we think people act response by, the fact is that bank balance sheets and what is on the balance sheets of the banks is almost the size of the g.d.p. they are part of our economy. i think disallowing derivatives and saying we are going to ban it, you know, i don't know how you would get anything done. i don't know how we would issue treasury bills, for example, to finance all the healthcare and other things we want to use our money for. host: robert sloan is our guest. tell us what s-3 partners is. guest: it is a hedge fund

service firm. we help hedge funds deal with their prime brokers and give them best price and best execution into what is the largest opaque market in the world. host: that is his book.ç how history is repeating itself. angie in jacksonville, florida, democrat. caller: good morning.ç thank you for taking my call. host: please go ahead. caller: my main question is i have a problem with the system the way it is working because everyone else in this country has been bailed outç. wall street, auto industry. homeowners. even unemployed people have been bailed out. but the peopleç who have fundamentally been systemically left out of the employment or left out of the system have not

been bailed out. what is wrong with really bailing out the really poor people? what is wrong with that? ç host: mr. sloan? that if you bail out -- how do you make an argument that says one part of the economy is more than the other. what i would suggest is you call your congressmanç and you tell them they have their priorities wrong. host: next call is from jim in snyder, new york, republican. caller: mr. sloan, i admire your bravery. you are taking a very unpopular stance and i admire you. let me explain where i'm coming from. you are talking about speculators as far as short selling. you probably are aware of where this came about as far as how market markets were we the farmer brought his grain to market

somebody would give him a set pri price. that would ensure he was able to pay çbills. now what happens is i think that the speculators are actually those people who are banking on their housesç in california, i las vegas, thinking that they would never go down in price, speculating on the fact that oh my gosh i'm getting 5%, 10% a year. whereas what you are doing keeps the market really in regulation. guest: yes. the interesting thing is in my book i talk a lot about how the shorting is really the police force. we want the best information. the reason why america has the best capital markets is because we have the best information. the reason we have the best information is in mirrors the form of government which is check and balance. shorting is the checks and balances is the system.

it enables us to make sure when corporations are filling out their q's and k's in the filings there might be economic punishment for not doing it appropriately. that is very important to our system of economics and our american capital market system. host: in your view, are the current regulations regarding short selling correct or should there be more or less? guest: well, what i would like to see certainly in the current new modified uptick rules, i would love to see the data and love to see more information that said we made a decision based upon the data and what the markets actually did, not because we are looking to do something. i think that there's danger in a creeping incrementalism. we have a national franchise in this country. chinese trade partners, arab

petro dollars, japanese savers come here to finance our lifestyle because they can come to new york and find deep liquidity. they can buy things, sell things and get a price. that is a national franchise and treasure and it has been lost in the debate around banking an bailouts and whether bankers are bad people. that is an incredible bring important point not only for wall street but for the country. that is what we need to look at in financial regulation, how to protect that national treasure. because we have deficits as high as the eye can see, and if we are going to let other people -- let's face it, capital markets, there is no plant and equipment keeping people here. if the chinese want to make freer markets and steal some of that capital flow they can. so, i think it is something that is very important to our society and we need to get a little less emotional about it and more analytical.

host: the last segment when we were talking with senator brown of ohio we had a caller in, jeff from l.a. and he said instead of bailing out wall street all that money should have been september to homeowners to create equity. what do you think? guest: it is an interesting questi question, which is in the midst of the entire bailout we haven't gotten to the root cause of why we are where we are. if you ask me, i think that home ownership has an incredibly strong political side to owning a home. you are much less likely to overthrow governments, redesign government and cause political disruption if you own a home. that idea is an incredibly powerful point in american politics and it runsç through y we have the g.s.e.'s in the way they are.

so, one of the things that has been, i thnb, not necessarily tended to is the fact that we have a rent strike in this country. we have sixç million homeowner that are not paying mortgages and people are incredibly angry. you can see that tension in the tea party and back in history there are hundreds of movements thatç occur right after financl collapses that tried to capitalize on that anger of feeling that you have done work and yet the system rewards people that are better politically connected and may be more systemically important. that creates an incredible amount of frustration. host: when you hear the term "bail out wall street" what do you think? guest: to some extent accurate. there were firms clearly that needed money to be saved. so it is not inaccurate. host: should they have been

saved? guest: i wish at the time we had actually said that weç wer going to look at more transparent markets as being a price for the bailout. things were happening so quickly, it is easy to do things in the rearview mirror. the interest rate we charged to lend money was less than what warren buffet got and i also believe that we could have easily have gotten the market reform that we wanted at the time because the money was on the table. as soon as those things exchange you lose your leverage. host: the financial overhaul bill is headed to the senate. from what you have read about it with do you think? guest: unclear. i don't know whether -- this reminds me of the book, i talk about the new york stock exchange it the 1930's and it is an amazing parallel to the

derivatives market you mentioned before. in the 1930's the new york stock exchange was an unregulated, loosely run by the new york state business privately held. and, more or less, it was a private institution. and the trading of stocks was run by private ownership and unregulated by the federal government. derivatives, more to the point, credit default swaps, fall into the same category. so you have the same situation where you have the federal government wanting to regulate what is a business predominantly run by wall street and history shows us that eventually federal regulation wins out. host: next call for robert sloan, atlanta, john, independent. please go ahead. caller: good morning. thank you for taking by call. like many americans, after the bailout i wanted to make a better sense of the history of the financial powers and i came

across a gentleman named congressman wright patton. are you familiar with him? guest: i'm not. caller: he was the chairman of the banking committee i believe in the 1950's or 1960's. he had a quote that stuck out with me that said, i have never had anyone who could, through the use of logic and reason justify the federal government borrowing the use of its own money. i believe the time will come when people demand this be changed. i believe the time come when people blame you and me and everyone else connected with the congress for sitting by and permitting such an idiotic system to continue. i was wondering if you could elaborate on his quote and what that means to americans. thank you. guest: gee, i'm not really sure what to make of that quote. i think that we have certainly run deficits that are now trillions of dollars. i think that speaks for itself. host: how concerned as a money

manager, how concerned are you about that? guest: well, i'm not a money manager. i don't manage other people's money. i certainly am very close to people that manage a lot of money. look, things seem to be getting a little better. the economy seems to be getting strengthened. that is nothing but god news. host: we have an e-mail from dave in arizona, mr. sloan, who says that currently hedge fund managers income is taxed at 15% rather than the normal income tax rate. isn't this wrong? guest: no, that is correct. what gets lost in the debate is the fact that last year if we had -- even if we wanted to charge people w-2 rates, last year that would have resulted in zero income from the federal government for hedge funds lost so much in 2008 there was no

revenue to collect. so, be careful when you hear these numbers being bandied about and we should concentrate on what generates revenue for the treasury coffers. host: next call is from cambridge, massachusetts, susan, democrat. caller: hi. thank you for taking my call. i wanted to discuss a different kind of betting against or hedgingç which is the c.d.s. market which is buying, effectively, insurance against risk like a company. this market you don't have to own or borrow the underlying asset. so, if you equate it to insurance you can overinsure, you can ensure someone else's home or country. the bill, by the way, is pending

and has a million exceptions that allows the market to go on unregulated. so i wanted to talk about this naked c.d.s. buy which is not owning the asset and connect it to the off-balance sheet accounting of the amount of the bets that are going on which is still allowed so we don't know how capitalized our banks are because half ofç their stuff i still off the balance sheets. further, the inside information that theç banks possess becaus they help -- they have information advising these companies or putting together mortgages and they can bet against them as in the goldman sachs case. i want you to discuss this. guest: well, a couple of different things. i think you have hit on probably

the most salient point in your commentary was the idea of balance sheet. it is a very -- a balance sheet very simply is what you own and what you owe. that is what a balance sheet is. if you start looking at the balance sheets of financial companies and the transactions that are used to limit the size of balance sheets, it is almost like when i got married i lost 15 pounds to get into my wedding suit, ok? is that the real me or is it the i have day walking around me that gained the 15 pounds later. that is what is going on with the balance sheets of the firms and we have to decide as a financial system whether we want balance sheets to if you can wait in that -- flucfuate in that manner. host: just to point out, in back of mr. sloan's book is a

glossary of a lot of different economic terms. next call is from baltimore, john, republican line. caller: good morning. my comment -- i have a couple of comments. i will try to stay focused. my opinion about the swaps and securitizing debt is that should be eliminated because it is debt as it stands then to sell it as a big package stuff mortgage or debt to somebody else doesn't appear to be conducive to economic growth in my machine and has -- in my opinion. and it caused huge failures. lehman -- not that i'm intimately familiar but they were $700 billion in debt and that is why they were let go.

on a different topic, the s.e.c appears to be relatively spineless in terms of enforcing the marketplace. you have the uptick rules and short selling rules are 10% a day and that can continue on forever. host: any response? guest: not really. i'm not sure what the question was. look, one thing that surprised me about the article i wrote in the financial times is that i wrote book about shorting but it really wasn't a book about shorting. it was really a book about financial history. and i wrote it because i wanted to find out for myself what are the certain assumptions we have made about one another, wall street and main street over time. and what i found is certain assumptions we made about one another were not correct. i wanted to know where that came from. what i found is that it actually

started in the very earliest days of the founding of our country. so, it is not surprising to me that there is so much invitation roll -- invitativitriol around . richard whitney turned out to be something of a fraud but he was arrested and 6,000 people showed up in grand central station to see him sent away to prison. that is we a time when information moved nowhere near as fasts as today. it was to send him off to jail. so you see little snippets of how we as a nation can become angry with people that mismanage our money. host: last call from stewart, florida, matthew, independent line.

matthew? caller: yes, how are you? host: please go ahead. caller: hi, mr. sloan, how are you? guest: i'm good, how are you? caller: good. i'm agreeing with you totally on your defense of shorting. als you know it is half the market. i agree with you the credit default swaps are not bad. the question is why in the world did the models not reflect the possible extremes that could have been reached because we both know derivatives in their tranc tranching formations cause more volatility. tell me why the new york models were so terrible? host: how do you know so much about this? are you an investor? caller: no, i'm in the business. host: whatç kind of work do do you? caller: i help create at one time derivatives, derivatives trading and modeling. guest: it is a great question.

i think that the answer is humans are imperfect. no one can -- we put so many different opinions that have the ability to vote capital instantaneously like we do today no one can capture the mood of the market perfectly. so, to be able to model that a. eufp a.i. would go under, it didn't occur to people. i think it is that simple. host: finally, joanne tweets in to you, mr. sloan. guest: that is probably true. we can get into the fact of whether some of these homes should have been bought or not. but at the end of the day we have a situation where these loans are sitting onç these banks' books and it is clogging up and blocking the growth that we need to come out of the recession. host:ç robert sloan, "don't ble

the shorts" is the name of the book, why short sellers are always blamed for market characterization. thank you for joining us from our new york studio. we have an hour and a half left. scott pace of george washington's space policy institute will be coming up next talking about president obama's announcement yesterday on space. then we will be back to take your calls. >> let's meet another winner from the cam video. we asked students to give us a video on one of our country's greatest strengths or a significant challenge facing our country. today we meetç dante a 10th grader from orlando, florida. congratulations on your win. >> hi. thank you so much. i'm glad to be talking with you. >> tell us about your project. >> as you know, it is called

lane of opportunity. it is a documentary where we are trying to show people the good things that are going on in ameri america. we are trying to talk about some of the things that are not really talked about that much. and we are just trying to bring toç light the positive that is here in america that a lot of people don't really see. >> what is your definition of opportunity? >> my definition of opportunity, i guess, i would have to say something as simple as beingç free, being able to exercise your rights andç if you see something that you don't like about what the government is doing or something being able to go outside and protest against it, just things like that. >> how did you come up with the people that you chose to interview? >> it took us about a week to find these people.

we didn't want to just find people born and raised in the u.s. because we know their opportunities may have been the same or may have been something along the same lines. we wanted to try to talk with people who have come from other countries. >> do you think they still have the feeling that this is the land of opportunity? >> i believe so. i believe so. a lot of people we interviewed who are from vietnam. one basically told me that coming from vietnam, he and his family -- his family didn't get the time to come home and spend family time togetherç because they were so busy with work and trying to keep a roof over their heads and they didn't have family time together. so he told me that coming to the u.s., you know, he loves it

because he can spend time with his family and they can be together. i really think their opinions are the same about america being the land of opportunity. >> did anyone help you in proubg the video? >> çyes, i have my executive producer for this documentary, one of my friends. who was a great help in helping me produce the documentary. >> what of the most difficult part? >> the time limit. we actually had only about 10 days to do it, so we were like under tight deadlines every day trying to get it done and trying not to be biased. >> congratulations, donte. >> thank you so much. >> here is a portion of his winning video, "land of opportunity." >> the land of opportunity. it is just as simple as that. i can't really explain it.

i assimilated into american culture. some people say that is bad. i don't find it a bad thing. sometimes change is necessary. >> opportunity is, i guess, being able to seek, to pursue happiness. i guess that is what is in our constitution, right? the pursuit of happiness. it is one of our inalienable rights as american citizens. >> you can see the entire documentary and all other winning videos any time. go to studentcam.org. host: joining us is the director of the space policy institute at george washington university. we will talk about the future of human space flight and president obama's announcement from kennedy about space flight. if you could, tell us what the space policy institute is. guest: it is a group at the

george washington university, been there for several decades at this point and trains students in master's degrees in international science and technology policy adç about half of them concentrate on space policy. they look at national security, commercial, international issues, associated with space poli policy. we have been doingç that many decades and have graduates throughout the world and the u.s. space program. host: so you followed what president obama had to say yesterday. give us your take on how much of a change in u.s. policy the announcement was? guest: it is a very radical change. but i think you would have to parse it into those parts that are changing and those parts that are not. on one hand science and space policy for the scientific programs, robotics, aeronautics are pretty much the same and additional money was added. the area of real change is human

space flight where the president is proposing to rely more on the private sector and new technology rather than on existing technology and the existing industrial base and contractors and plans that were in place. host: what do you think the motivation for change was? guest: i think the motivation is probably twofold. one is theç feeling that the desire to have more bang for the buck if you will, to have lower costs for access to space. at the same time, i think that there is a desire to show innovation and show a difference. to symbolize a break and a change with the prior administration. host: so, the opposition to this, particularly kneel armstrong -- neil armstrong said t the changes are devastating. where does that come from? guest: i think it is a different assessment of the risk relative to some of the other speakers. you may think that we have a

portfolio of investment in space and we went from a portfolio that was fairly conservative -- a government program, very small amount of technology and some commercial options -- and instead the portfolio is being proposed to shift to one where there is a tiny government role, large technologyç investment a commercial investment. that is a haoigh risk and potentially high payoff but certainly more risky than we were previously. i think the concern that you arç hearing fromç the hill and fro people like the astronauts who wrote recently is that difference over risk. they think it is risky a move and it won't necessarily pay off. host: with was the constellation program? guest: that was a particular program for implementing the vision for space exploration. it consisted of an aries 1 rocket to carry people to rocket. a heavy lift vehicleç and a spe

capsule that could go both lower orbit and deeper on to the moon. three major elements plus development for lunar landing. so it was an integrated architecture. host: when was it proposed, how much was spent on it and is it totally scrapped? guest: it was proposed in about 2005. the president, president bush, made the announcement it 2004 and when mike griffin came in as the administrator of nasa the constellation program came out of his reviews, of which i was a part, and the program has spent about $9 billion to date. and it made good progress, but again this administration has concluded that that progress wasn't enough. host: we are going to talk about the future of human space flight and future of nasa with scott

pace of george washington's pace policy unit. the numbers are on the screen. pleaseç allow 30 days between your calls. here is a little bit from president obama yesterday at the kennedy space center. >> the challenges facing our space program are different. our imperatives for the program are different than decades past. we no longer are racing against an adversary or competing to achieve a singular goal like reaching the moon. what was once a global competition has long since become a global collaboration. while the measure of our achievements has changed a great deal over the past 50 years, what we do or fail to do in seeking new frontiers is no less consequenti

consequential. let me start by being extremely clear. i'm 100% committed to the mission of nasa and its future, because -- [applause] >> because broadening our capabilities will serve our society in ways we can scarcely manual and -- imagine and it will inspire wonder in a new generation, sparking passion and launching careers. because ultimately if we fail to press forward in the pursuit of discovery we are ceding our future and ceding that essential element of the american character. host: is there a worry about job security at kennedy? guest: absolutely. to be fair, even prior to these decisions there was concern about the transition from the old shuttle program and to the new constellation program.

so certainly there would be change in any event. with the cancellation of the constellation program, i think that insecurity has ratcheted up further. there is a proposal that maybe the new commercial firms will pick up a lot of employees but that is very uncertain. so that is driving a lot of anxiety. host: give us a quick status report on the shuttle program. guest: the shuttle program only has few more flights to go. the space station has been assembled, which is a magnificent achievement. the remaining flights are logistics flights taking up components and piece s ths thatt get up there any other way. with the last flight i believe we have about three more flights, the last will be this year or early next year. with that the shuttles will be retired. host: as the former associated administrator for the program analysis at nasa, do you agree with the direction president obama is taking?

guest: no. and i have to say that on one hand many parts of theç budget that he's proposed -- as i said, particularly science, continuation of the international space station, i think these are absolutely correct. the area where i differ is on the approach for human exploration beyond lower orbit. he was happy to hear him talk about human exploration beyond lower orbit and i think it is always good we the president talks about toes goals. i -- those goals. i think the problem comes in the implementati imxldmentation, where the rubber hits the road in terms of contracts, timing, technology and readiness. host: before we go to the calls we will show you another piece of video from president obama yesterday atçç kennedy space center. >> the truth is nasa has always relied on private industry to help design and build the vehicles that carry astronauts into space from the mercury

capsule that carried john glenn nearly 50 years ago to theìc discovery currently orbiting ç overhead. by buying the services of space transportation rather than the vehicles themselves, we can continue to ensure rigorous safety standards are met but we will also accelerate theç spae pace of in tphnovation as compa compete to design and build and lawful new means of carrying people and materials out of our atmosphere.ç host: dr. pace. guest: again, in spirit i absolutely agree with what the president said. in terms of reliance on the private sector. but space flight is not a fully commercial activity. things like watching satellites are. so we talking about buying services from the bright sector to send cargo to space stations that can be done. but buying services to send

humans to space stations is something that will probably happen but doesn't yet occur. so, i think it is premature to build an entire policy that relies on commercial capability that doesn't yet exist. it is important and worthwhile to support that activity, to encourage it and help it come along. but to base your policy on the belief it will happen on a certain time scale and remove the government capabilities, i think, it is risky. host: first up is schaumberg, illinois. jim, republican. caller: good morning, dr. pace. i must say he was quite happy with many aspects of president obama's stated policy with respect to the technology investment, the commercialization and extension of theç life of the space station. but i was really disappointed with the abandonment of having a return to the moon as a goal.

and, while i was somewhat happy to hear president obama's statements yesterday about sending humans to mars, the fact that he's calling for that to be accomplished some time in the mid 2030's, to me, means that there is not going to be any program implemented anywhere in the near future. it sounds to me like an empty promise that is not going to require any immediate action on the part of nasa. guest: thank you. i actually agree with a lot of those sentiments. i think that part of the thing that people don't really quite understand is what a large and complex structure human space flight is. you are talking about thousands of contractors, billions of dollars, work spread over multiple states.

that system doesn't turn on a dime. so, saying that we should have some more innovation and provide opportunities for commercial services, obviously that is a good and worthwhile thing happen. but to say thatç we are going stop the government programs and see what emerges from the private sector and make decisions later opens us up to a large and continuing gap in human space flight which has implications not only for t theville base but -- for theville base but international partners who will be reliant on the russians orçç -- for the stayed. host: why is it important to return to the moon? guest: sometimes it is akin to a middle step on going to mars and larger human exploration. i sometimes think of the international space station as sort of the mercury program,

showing that we have gotten into orbit, we know how to operate there and got the basics. the moon is the next step. operating deeper in space, sophisticated, far away from home, and the ultimate goal of going to mars is sort of the apollo program. it is hard and difficult. we don't really know how. so the moon is a training base. it has some good science to be done there. water on the moon that people didn't really think was there. but if the moon -- it is a stepping stone and training base and scientific facility and potentially a source of resources and really,ç i think our door forward. host: given current technology, how long would it take to get to mars? guest: you have opportunities about every two years, so if you went to mars you would take over a year to get there and spend time on mars and take over a

year to get back. so, whereas going to the moon is several days away, you are talking many, many months with mars. and there are a number of challenges with that. host: margie in macon, georgia. tkpwhrao i have to say i -- caller: i have to say i watched a hearing several years ago and it looked to me like the space program was a frat house. the man that was running it was abusing, sexually harassing female employees and destroyed the tapes. the feds tried to issue subpoenas on other departments and they locked them out android the records. and an i.g. -- stkpwr so, what is host: what is your question? caller: this is it. if you let me finish, that was going on. unsafe parts of the space shuttle that the man ordered

destroyed. host: are you familiar with this story? guest: i'm not familiar with that particular case. i have to say that there are a number of women in leadership positions in nasa both today and previous previously. and of course anything a related to shuttle safety or to workplace harassment is something that at least in my time there was taken seriously and i believe fully that the current team this would take very seriously. that is why we have an inspector general at nasa and that is why anything that goes off will be investigated. host: steve is a republican calling from houston. caller: good morning. my question is how much do you think the new decision in nasa's direction is based on politics that constellation was developed in the bush administration and how much do you think it has to do with the technical aspects in science? guest: that is a really good

question. because there are certainly criticisms that one could have of the constellation program as you could of any major acquisition program. government weaknesses, oversight, things that could be done better. on the other hand, the constellation program was, in my view, a well integrated, very well planned program that had strongç bipartisan support. in the last national authorization bill in 2008 strong bipartisan majorities under a democratic leadership endorsed the direction nasa was going in. so, the commission which reviewed the plans for the constellation program concluded there was no fundamental technical barrier. but the budget had not been provided for the program. so, i think the concern that the congress has going forward are not just with jobs or partisan issues, but i think there are concerns with what is the plan. they understood what the previous plan was and had a certain logic to it and they are

not certain what the new plan is and what its logic is and i think that makes people on both sides uncomfortable. host: who are some of the major contractors for the constellation program and current nasa contractorsç and o could potentially benefit from the change that president obama announced yesterday? guest: i think all of the contractors really could potentially benefit. you have very large contractors such as lockheed and boeing and a.t.k. who have been part of the constellation program. and these companies also have concepts that could potentially be done under the new approach. so, for example, the president announced that a version of the orion capsule would be continued and that is good for lockheed martin. there were proposals for commercial versions of solid rocket matters that have been talked about. so, it is çdisruptive. there will certainly be movements and changes. but i think the large and mall contractors will -- could do

well. the problem is what is the capability within nasa that you will be maintaining.ç if you are outsourcing a lot of the skills to industry, whatç it you expect the space agency to do? what intellectual calendar calendar -- capital will you retain. host: george from shot. louis, independent. caller: i'm glad to hear somebody who thinks that theç gain on pace is a good idea. i think our country has lost things. we go to the moon 20 years ago and instead we've the savings and loan cancel and it hurts my soul. i think the egyptians probably builtç the pyramids out of a wk program and it just that society needs something like that. and to think that the chinese would be there before americans,

i'm kind ofç -- host: thank you, george. let's look at the international aspects of space exploration. is the u.s. still the undisputed leader or not? and who else is there? guest: there is certainly an increasing number of countries. there is the united nations committee called the committee on peaceful use of outer space that has 69 members. countries are doing practical things with it.ç providing benefits in communications and navigation. so, it is a more crowded than it ever was. there are new players. china and india are coming up very strong and impressive programs.ç so, we are not alone any more with the russians. to the caller's point about concern with china, i have to say that i don't have a concern with the chinese being in space per se. i just don't want them to be there without us. so i'm concerned with what are

we doing in space and are we leading as part of this larger cooperative group. i think the president is right we are talking more about collaboration than competition in the past my concern with the proposals that are been made is there will be aç much longer g and that other countries will be moving, making their own decisions probably without us. so, there is a risk to our leadership and that risk is something that we need to address. host: next call is reno, gerald, democrat. caller: good morning. just a couple of statements. some say hopefully private sector employment will be good but do you think pay scales will remain the same? and what do you think the chance of outsourcing to foreign countries is. and because a lot of theseç jo

people talk about blue collar jobs being outsourced they are pretty much union and if they are not there are standards because of the unions. guest: i think that our space capabilities are sort of like our defense capabilities. they are part of our strategic industrial base. so, i don't believe that the prime contracts are subject to outsourcing just as major defense contracts. i think it is interesting one of the most important employee unions in the aerospace, international association of machinists have expressed serious concerns about the administration's proposals in part because of disruptions to their membership. so, this is not a traditional company versus labor or republican versus democrat. this is something that cuts across the field.

the organized labor, i think, does have and will continue to have an important role and i think the pay scales should stay about the same. but the question really is what is the stability. we have gone through a lot of ups and downs in the aerospace business and that has taken a toll. host: matt, clearwater, florida, republican. caller: hi. yes, i actually know and am related to someone who works at nasa, and to me he already has been assigned a new position at a completely different and a different field having nothing to do with nasa and basically been told, you know, you are going to lose your job and this is the new placeç you are goin to work. now, i don't know if i can say too much about it. but if obama is so interested

in, oh, we are going to try to boost the economy by giving it to,ç you know, to make it private, then why in the world would people be losing their jobs if this is supposed to help so much? guest: good question. and i think that this is one of the practical implementation issues. the overall nasa budget has gone up so it is very easy to say obviously there will be more jobs because there is more money. the problem is on the timing of the money. when the constellation contracts were asked money had to be put aside to close out and wrap up the contracts. that is money that was not spent on doing research and development. so, while you have civil servants who don't lose their jobs continuing to work, the burden of theçym scamses -- cancellations falls on the private industry and they take the brunt of the instability.

then it takes time to set up new contracts to compete and choose winnersç and get them going. and that takes time. so, in looking ahead, we are probablyç looking at about another year or two of instability because of the practical problems of closing down old contracts, setting up new ones, getting them competed and getting people to work. in that time period things like this of people losing jobs or being told they don't know what jobs they are going to have can be part of the reality with this transition as proposed. host: dr. pace has a dock rate from the -- docket doctorate. >> i started in physics, masters in aeronautical engineering and dock docket rate in public policy. it prabl trains the largest number of ph.d.'s in public

policy. host: are you a rocket scientist? guest: i used to be a physicist but i think i lost my union card many years ago. host: we have this tweet. guest: i think what this shows is the expense it takes for developing landing systems. it is certainly possible to do a mission to an asteroid sooner than a lunar landing because you don't need as much equipment. you need a hraoupb march lander and get down to the surface and back up. andç many people talk about destinations in space, are we going to the moon or mars and certainly the president talked about that yesterday, not being confused about the moon, wanting to go to mars. for the near term our destination will be lower orbit. we are retiring the shuttle.

we will be relying on the reduces. -- we will be relying on the reduces. our immediate goal is going to be making sure we have assured access back to lower orbit for humans. on man cargo we will be fine. but humans will be a challenge. host: when is the last time somebody was on the moon and were the americans the only ones who have ever been on the moon? guest: so far only the americans were on the moon. last was apollo 17, 1972. host: next call is huntsville, alabama, david. independent. caller: good morning, gentlemen. your guest has one great talent that i lack. he is very diplomatic. i tend to be blunt. i'm married to a lady who has had a career working for various nasa contractors. the hours she puts in are astronomical. quite simply, mr. obama's agenda

is to, pearce by piece -- piece by piece, dismantle the american system. that is what it boils down to. host: why do you say that, ç caller? caller: we have this problem with jobs and what he has done with the stroke of a pen, or attempting to do, is kill thousands of jobs. .

planning, people who are thinking into the future. as you have already stated. the constellation program was a well-coordinated, well-designed effort. overnight and by accident. it takes people, it devoted people, that work harder than they are paid. guest: i think the dedication of the nasa family and the contractor community cannot be underestimated. it is certainly one of the privileges of my life to work at nasa. and the people are great. it is in part because the mission is great.

it is inspiring. you come in every day and part of something that is really inspirational, both to the nation in the world. it brings out the best in people. the point about planning also is exactly right. it takes so many years, really long term decades, that if you need to be thinking about what you are going to be doing next even while you are working very hard on the project you are on. so in the case of the space shuttle program, people were thinking of the space station. space station program, people were thinking about what comes after that. these programs in aerospace are not like information technology or other fields. they do take a long time to develop. that has been a criticism because it does take a long time. and the concern, i think, is what are we going to do next? are we laying the groundwork for what will happen at the end of the shuttle? what happens at the end of the

space station? if you are not planning for what you are doing in the next decade, you are in effect planning to go out of business. it to be fair, i don't think it is the intent of the administration, not the intent of nasa. but i think what some of the unanswered questions and lack of an integrated plan such as in a constellation, that is a risk because the difficulty space flight involves. host: the president talked about the increase in the nasa budget. where does the money go? guest: new technology developments. it goes towards earth science applications. some increases for aeronautics. if you look at it over on nasa budget basically, the portfolio is shifting a bit. talking about spending a smaller percentage of human exploration and in the past. talking about spending more money in science and technology efforts then we have in the past. on the one hand, those increases in those fields i think ought to be applauded.

a really great science and the pipeline. a great technology that needs to be developed. but we pulled a crucial piece out of the portfolio. host: what is the point of the international space station? guest: technical, scientific, diplomatic. right now it is a diplomatic triumph. the largest, most complex scientific undertaking are known worldwide. if you can look at other programs -- scientific programs, it is the largest and most complex that created a partnership among the international community that is really quite impressive. the technical triumph in terms of getting all the parts coming together to work. what we will be sitting in the next decade is whether but it is a scientific success. even during the assembly period, about 200 scientific papers published and these are one of the things still under construction. what we are looking for is a utilization of the station over the next decade as a unique

scientific facility to really reap the benefits of the production. we look forward to the science of excess s. host: bob in oklahoma. you are on with scott pace from the space policy institute. caller: i would just like to get mr. pace was screaming do these astronauts and so on go through, their personal background? because the fact is, they had on national tv a while back these astronauts loading up on their shifts and a couple were drunk. and the other one was this young astronaut stud that they had servicing the women -- the line host: we will leave it there and we will move on to bristol, virginia. republican. caller: thank you, c-span. i just wanted to ask scott something. you know, our goal was to go

into the moon. we went there. and i thought we were going to use the moon as a launch pad to go to mars. now obama the want to do that. i don't get it. nike is handing it to russians and china. -- like he is handing it to the russians in china. guest: people often say, why do you want to go back to the moon? we have done that. the president said that. i also want to pause and look the person and say, look, maybe your father went to the moon but you have not gone to the moon. the generation that did that, the generation that had those skills, action retired. some are still left but still relatively few. so, space flight is like playing at the top of the athletic game. if you are not doing it continually and working at all the time, those skills atrophy. cybele the fact we did it once of not mean we can do it again.

-- simply the fact we did it once did not mean we could do it again. we know more about science and technology now. the proposals for the constitution program were to stay at the moon for much longer periods of time, to work on exploiting the move. so it was not supposed to simply be a visit. it was to create an outpost and to really develop the skills for flying deeper in space. it was not supposed to be a one- time deal. that was supposed to be the challenge of this generation. host: do you agree with retiring the space shuttle program? guest: yes, i do. i think a lot of us in the community realized what a magnificent vehicle it is. it is incredibly safer and we know a lot more about now than we did before. but i think the entire experience but that also makes us humble about what we don't know about the vehicle. everyone of these flights was a test flight, an experiment, a gift. we used the space shuttle and we risk human life to do something

really, really important for the nation -- the completion of the international space station. but i think what that completion, it is really hard for me to justify continually to fly the vehicle if we have really any other options. so, i think the shuttle has served its purpose but i think technology has moved on. host: troy in hawaii. go ahead. caller: obviously we all know that usually the country who leads in the aeronautical and space area leads the world. and now we are going to spend $56 million per person to go into flight from russia. i just can't comprehend that our country now is sending people somewhere else to go into outer space. i always thought we were it.

and it seems like in every area of our government now, we are not it anymore. it is somewhere else. guest: one thing i should say is that the russians have been, i think, excellent partners in the international space station when they were brought into the program in the early 1990's by president clinton. really about the russians it would be hard to maintain the space station after the columbia at accident. that said, all of the partners, i think, are uncomfortable being relying on just one country. they were uncomfortable just relying on the u.s. and i think they will be and are uncomfortable relying on the russians. that is why it is important the u.s. had its own access to space, its own capabilities, so we can be good partners so others can rely on us. i do not think it takes away from us for the russians to be

flying in space. but i do think we do a disservice to ourselves if we do not have assured access to space to carry our part of the deal. host: carey, texas. democrat. caller: i will have to simply call you on this. one caller knocked me off of my question we ask you about the political aspect of the constellation program and listening to john cornyn and them on the senate floor yesterday. one thought came to mind. i'm an employer. c-span, i don't want to get cut off on this. but i have to make ends meet. there are 8 million people out of work. the president came when yesterday's and stated -- came on yesterday and stated he wanted to go in a different direction, maybe even go to mars. and if you are going to come on

national tv, come into our households in america, and tell us that the president had no specific goals in mind when he talked about the space program yesterday, i think that you are sending a mixed signal not only against the administration but to the people of the country who have a very, very clear vision in mind about the space program. guest: to be fair, i think the mixed signal, i think, comes from the nature of the policy and implementation. i think the president's policy and words about tradition and exploration and wonderful and i completely agree with him. but the problem comes when you look at what is the implementation, what is being done. if you look at the program's been canceled, contract changes, you look at decisions that in fact been deferred -- the

technologies we are supposed to be funding. in the real world -- program managers and contracts and the dates, destinations, milestones. one could say it is a work in progress and nasa is working hard. i think that is a fair statement. but again, you have to say compared to the fact that we had an integrated program that i think was on track -- people do disagree about that -- and today we are still struggling with what the implementation is. i think there is agreement on the general goals but disagreement about the clarity and nature of the plans and the goals. host: this is a tweet -- guest: several space centers, you might say now, are already international. international space station has

control centers around the world that is part of the project. there are launch sites around the world -- europeans -- space agency site in guyana that launches international payloads. international people operate with the russians right now. a truly international center, though, multinational leone's, one of the problems with that is the transfer of missile technology. technology for space launch vehicle is basically identical to intercontinental ballistic missile. one of the concerns is that as other countries get into the space business they are also acquiring technology for launching icbm's, so an international space station would have to figure out how to prevent the technology transfers. host: last call for stock pays from biloxi, mississippi. republican. caller: thank you for taking my call. i think you do a great job. i wanted to remind everybody

that when we went to the moon, we went to the moon because we were in a fight with the russians. things have changed. however, when i was 7 years old and i saw neil armstrong landing on the moon, it inspired me. it inspired me that america was a strong country capable of moving forward in any direction they could. words that my dad taught me -- you have to continue exploring. you have got to continue going forward. and i think that is what made america great. and i feel that we are losing it. guest: well, i think that it is what makes america great. that really is about more than simply our machines going out there. it is about more than science.

it represents the best of ourselves, the best of our values. so if we think there is going to be a human future in space, we have to ask, what kind of values will be out there on that frontier? democracy, tolerant culture, mixed market economy? it is more than, again, simply our machines. so i think it is important for america to be a leader in space, not simply to prove to ourselves how good we are but really to carry our values and those really of our western democracy, allies, all part of this endeavor on the space frontier. so it is plain for really -- big, big stakes. that is why i think the issue is important. host: scott case from the space policy institute. thank you for being on " washington journal." we will be right back.

>> a couple of live events to tell you about. the senate judiciary committee holds a hearing on judicial nominations, including law professor goodwin liu as circuit judge for the ninth circuit. live on c-span2 at 9:30 a.m. eastern, senators continue their examination of the role of banking regulators in the collapse of washington mutual bank. witnesses include representatives of the federal deposit insurance corporation and the office of thrift supervision. >> this weekend, the first of three british election debates. for the first time prime minister gordon brown, conservative party leader david cameron, a liberal democrat

leader will face off on u.s.- style debate. watts them in their entirety -- with the first debate courtesy of itv courtesy of non that -- sunday at 9:00 p.m. eastern and pacific. host: you just saw the promotion of the rearing of the british election day. here is the front page of "the guardian." two major stories going on right now in britain. number one, the volcano. there is the ground airplane that he threatened -- heathrow. right below that, the story about their first ever prime ministerial debate. clegg the outsider seizes his moment. first we want to show you a little bit from yesterday's prime minister debate. >> we say, stop the waste in government now so we can stop the lion's share of the national insurance increase, that job tax next year. that is the best way to make sure we keep the money going

into the schools. >> be honest about the risk -- you are going to take $1 billion at least out of the schools this year. since you were selected in a budget in july, you have to take 6 billion out of this system, where does the house and come from? you promised you would take 6 billion out. it will only end up with a loss of thousands of jobs, including teachers. you will not back up and support us in keeping -- >> mr. clegg? >> i think people can hear this is just a complete invention and a figure out of the air. we are saying the government could save 1 pound at of every 100 it spends. what small business, what large business, what family has not had to do that during this difficult recession? >> mr. clegg now. >> the more they attack each other for more bass sound exactly the same. host: joining us on the phone is nicholas timmins from "the

financial times." all the articles here in the states indicate two things. number one, that the liberal democrat candidate nick clegg won the debate in a sense, and it was very u.s.-presidential style. what do you think? that -- guest: all the indications early indeed aware that nick clegg won the debate. for a liberal democrat leader, which is, a rare opportunity. they are the third party in the united kingdom and they tend to get squeezed out. they tend to get less coverage. this is a great opportunity for him to stand shoulder to shoulder with the other two and give equal airtime and he did that and was taking good advantage of it. host: what are the polls saying about the contest? guest: yap understand they are very early polls so they are rapid reaction. they showed enormous amounts of

his favor. ahead of order and browned, the labor party. -- ahead of gordon brown, the labor party. host: what is the reaction to the debate? guest: about 9 million people watched it, their size audience. i think probably people quite enjoyed it. i would argue it is not quite as dramatic as your president of the dates have been, and nobody landed the sort of color blow you sometimes see -- reagan's famous line, there you go again, or benson, you are no jack kennedy. there is no applause and they cannot ask questions of each other. so it is a somewhat more stilted format that i think you are used to. but of course, it is very novel

for the british electorate and people watched. host: how did the prime minister himself do? guest: there will be differing views. he shows his usual grasp of detail. he had a bit of a go at david cameron, a conservative leader. arguably another there was more aggression from him toward mr. cameron when you might have expected the other way around. if you ever watch prime minister question time, which i understand has a small cult a follow-up -- cult following in the united states, mr. cameron is very aggressive and attacking quite personally. i suspect he has been told it may work very well in the house of commons chamber, but if you do that and sort of the big national stage like this it may play against you. so i think he was a bit inhibited. host: how the david cameron do? guest: he did -- he did not do

badly. he was stopped in the middle of the three of them and i suspect one of the things we will discover as the debates go on -- because we -- the one in the middle with two people on either side so suddenly you can find both going at you and you look like the piggy in the middle. so i think he suffered slightly from positioning. host: what were the two issues that were discussed -- the two main issues? guest: the east central central one between gordon brown, the labor leader -- labour leader and david chairman, whether to cut public spending this financial year or whether we wait and cut it later. as you know, we have enormous deficits that we have to deal with. the big argument is seeking public spending going to assure the recovery keeps going, or in the way david cameron phrases it, you start cutting government spending, because waste now, in order to support the recovery. that is a pretty fundamental

argument between the two. host: what was nick clegg's most -- what did he drive home? guest: i did the message to manage to get across is i am not the other two parties, we are different. here we are. you may not know much about us. he kept sort of taken the point these two are bickering away and we will offer a different policy because we are different people. that had gone down quite well. host: does he have a chance of winning? guest: i would have thought, no. around 60 seats at the moment in the house of commons and to get a majority you need well over 200 or 300. it would be actually a phenomenon for them to pull lipoff and deeply unlikely. but he could do quite well. there could be a situation where we ended with a hung parliament but none but overall majority

and to get the big banks sustained over 20 days -- don't forget, we have two g-20 more days of campaigning and two more of these debates to go. we could end up with a hung parliament that would good the more they say in government. host: what is the current account in parliament as far as seats? guest: -- host: has the volcano been major news over there? guest: it has been made in is because there aren't any more planes and the sky. most are ground to a halt. host: what does it mean? is it playing at all in the political debate? guest: it is not playing in the political debate because it is a natural phenomenon. there is worried it might bring airplane's down. i don't think anybody will blame the government. icelandic volcano. host: can you see the dust?

guest: it is way up in the sky. host: this debate was held on itv. guest: it is the independent television network. host: who owns it? guest: a variety of companies. a variety of companies make up the independent television network. the other debates will be held -- second of third will be held on sky, satellite broadcaster, and third on the bbc. host: those are the next two thursdays, correct? guest: that is right. host: what was the general reaction this morning of the editorial pages in britain? g, most made the same judgment the polls appeared to show that mr. clegg had his moment in the spotlight and did very well. host: what about the american consultants, have been highlighted? guest: they have been pointing

out there have been various americans advising various people to try to meet and get the best out of this, people with experience in both american presidential debates and political tactics. host: in the meantime, where is the campaign going? what are the three candidates doing before next week's debate? guest: usual thing of stomping their way around the country. quite a small country so they can stomp around very easily. i suspect given the enormous coverage this received today, i am sure they will be preparing even more intensely for the next two debates. host: net timmins joins us from london to the above yesterday's debate -- nick timmins. we carried it live yesterday on c-span3 and it will be air on c- span at 9:00 p.m., i believe it

is tonight, but i need to have that confirmed, if i could, please. we have about one half hour left in "washington journal." open phones. we talked about a lot of different public policy issues this morning. 737 -- a lot of public policy issues on the table this morning. if you want to raise some of the public policy issues, that would be fine as well. a couple of articles while we are waiting. big profits seem like bad manners, is the headline of this article in "the washington post."

bloomfield, west virginia. you are on the air. caller: basically i would like to suggest to all of your listeners that when the upcoming elections -- there should be one question for every politician.

we should ask them, are you in favor of open free-trade and not protecting american jobs? if they say yes, we should immediately reject the candidate and only accept candidates willing to bring jobs back to america. host: how you protect american jobs? caller: 42000 years, tariffs were used to balance trade between sophisticated countries -- for 2000 years. it without that, it is inevitable that jobs will flow out of the country to places where you can get workers at 15 cents an hour. i have a website that goes into,jobsfirst.org -- host: what kind of work you do? caller: that is my job, trying to get jobs back to america. host: 9:00 p.m. eastern time sunday night if you want to see the rearing of the full first british election leaders debate.

9:00 p.m. eastern time. and "book tv" goes on the air tomorrow morning at 8:00 a.m. -- 48 hours on c-span2 of nonfiction books including live coverage of the annapolis book festival tomorrow but getting at 10:30 a.m. saturday morning. if you can pull up all the information about what is on this weekend. west palm beach, florida, jennifer, you are on the air. caller: i have six children and i believe both parties have betrayed the future of my children. both of them have embraced ideologies that leave us with no jobs for my children. i asked an economist -- what do you recommend my children should do for a living when they grow up? he really didn't know what to say. even now health care will be

compromised. the future of jobs in that industry because they will be importing people from india and other places where they make very little compared to what you are able to make in those industries in this country because they will just make laws and so forth that will allow us to import laborers, nurses, and doctors -- host: what kind of work you and your husband do? caller: my husband is an attorney for the government and i am actually a professional artist. host: for work, texas. caller: i wanted to know more of our arlen specter's bill he was trying to pass about authorization -- the computer spying on them. could you tell me more about that? it's come i appreciate you calling in and alerting decline host: i appreciate you calling

in and alerting us on that. this is an arlen specter article, the third -- from page of "the philadelphia inquirer." the pennsylvania democrat facing one of the toughest reelection fights in the nation. south carolina. democrat, you are on the air. caller: i wanted to point out something about the so-called tea party. i think people are getting up in arms about the so-called tea party which to me, i feel like the tea party is just a party inside the republican party that is just upset about all of the losses they have had feared they lost the election they lost

health care and they figured the only thing they can do now is become a radical group inside the republican group and i think the media -- i mean, i include the liberals, too -- i think they are just hyping it up as if it is something new. it is not new. a nobody the so-called tea party would ever vote for a democrat. just by that alone they cannot say they are diverse as far as the republican and democrat. host: thanks for calling in. from page of "the washington times closed what has a picture of the tea party rally held in washington, d.c. their lead story -- prayer date violates u.s. law. it calls on citizens to take part in religious activity.

-- in baltimore. what is on your mind this morning? caller: i wanted to comment on keeping jobs in the u.s.. i hear a lot of talking about issues with manufacturing. i think it would be a lot easier to keep manufacturing in the u.s. to remain competitive in the global market. we could push for some sort of global minimum wage of maybe $1 or $2 a day, and maybe the u.s. and european countries could be competitive again in manufacturing. host: iowa, larry is on the line. caller: hi, peter. a while back i heard about a banker in switzerland who had

blown the whistle on a bunch of about 19,000 americans who had swiss bank accounts, the secret bank accounts and did not pay any taxes in the u.s. and this and that. i found out his name was brattling birkenfeld and now he is spending three and a half years in jail because he did not get immunity but all of these bankers and all of these people with these accounts that all billions -- i mean, they've got billions in these accounts, and they are evading u.s. taxes. there are about 19,000 of them. they are rich americans. i wonder how many are politicians if they are congressman. basically gets three and half years because he did not get immunity beforehand.

host: why is that story interesting to you? guest: well, it seems to mean -- me that bankers kind of control what goes on here in the united states. these guys have offshore accounts. we are hurting here in america. we are so far in debt, i don't know if we will ever get out of debt, some $12 trillion that they amassed over the last 30 years. host: what do you do? caller: retired. host: from? caller: i used to be a carpenter and i used to work with real -- wheelchair sports. host: stephanie, democrat. california. caller: i just want to talk about the hypocrisy of the republican party.

the space program is basically a social program per se. it is government funded. the rich don't want to pay the taxes so they are out tea party and then we have to donate money. people lucy -- losing house, losing jobs, working part time, we cannot afford the space program and i have one other thing to add. if you can't answer any questions that you should not be able to ask any questions. thank you, and have a nice day. host: cape coral, florida. jerry, republican. caller: i would like to say as republicans we are really losing our way. the last eight years we turned around and had all of this deregulations from the bush administration and from the republican administrations and supposedly now the republicans are saying we can't tax the rich people because they create jobs. well, we did not tax them for

the last eight years and what happened to the jobs? are we hypocrites? i think we are. and we ought to realize exactly what we are doing and i think that the tea party is realizing somewhat that the republicans are not the greatest either. host: are you a tea party member? caller: no. host: gop candidates out raising democratic rivals and the first quarter. most of it went to non- incumbents.

host: new york city. a bill, you're on the air. caller: everybody is talking about the economy and all of the solutions and what not. do they actually realized that the chinese have taken away 2.4 million jobs from the american people and that maybe the economy could be even cured overnight if somebody made them float their currency? it is like a best kept secret. no one wants to talk about it. host: why do you think the currency flotation would change the economic situation? the caller: because it would actually raise the cost of the products -- it would actually lower -- it would actually put their products in competition with hoursours. the have a great advantage with the currency rate.

they can already give you a 20% or 40% discount on anything you buy. host: now colleague, the jersey, democrats line. caller: i just want to make a comment. first off, why do we rely so much on foreign oil when 97% of our natural gas is an american. i think that would help create a lot more jobs and the united states instead of sending jobs overseas. i would like to point out double standard the republican party has because when george bush was in office and he made all of these radical policies and you had these people out there protesting there were a lot of people saying that they are radical and extremist but now that you have the giant tea party movement against the president which is trying to actually help the lower class and middle-class people they say he is being a socialist and communist and making all of these terrible remarks about him and i see him just trying to make efforts to make -- help people who are less fortunate

and did not have as many opportunities to -- of those rallying. they have the poles and show that most of the people in those tea party are wealthier than most. i just kind of laugh at that because it does not seem like they are really hurting as much as the people down at the lower class may be our. it just does not seem right. host: what do you do in mount holly? caller: assistant at a -- factory. i got it through a temp service? host: what were you doing that? -- before that? caller: working at a bank. host: this is an "the washington post."

next call comes from michigan. brian on our independent line. what is on your mind? caller: i just thought with so many people dissatisfied with their government and a lot of calling for term limits, what really they should be looking at redistricting reform. i think you get interest representatives from the same districts -- charlie rangel would be one example, but there are others. because they are safe they continue to be reelected and they become committee chairs. if that dissatisfaction were put to the polls and a more competitive race, people would have an opportunity to get more

responsive leadership in washington from both sides. i would like to see more guests talking about redistricting reforms. host: who is here representing? caller: fred upton. it could be like him? caller: pretty middle of the road -- it's go have you voted for him? caller: i voted for him this time. a pretty conservative district down here. it he seems fairly responsible to the local folks. host: how far are you from the border? caller: two miles. host: how is the economy? caller: it is pretty sad. host: why? caller: michigan in general and us in particular. we used to be the local headquarters for a lot of manufacturing and the 1980's and 1990's the countries were bought and reebok and the jobs were shipped overseas. it is still an agricultural working class and opportunity. host: what do you do, brian?

caller: computer consultant. host: detroit is up next. michael on the republican line. caller: good morning. thank you, c-span. i wanted to mention about the national prayer day announced the -- announcement. backed the beginning of the founding fathers -- and the reason for the law was to protect the rights of religion and things like that and it was not to protect the state. it has been convoluted and changed through time i guess through case law rather than constitutional law. i would like to make that point. another quick point. i did not want to throw a big hammer in the engine right now, but i believe the financial crisis was created by the housing affordability act. host: chris in new haven, conn. democrat. caller: thanks for c-span. i want to say that my mother, who just died last june, had

advice for president obama. she said moratorium -- sheik mispronounced it to point out mortgage moratorium. since this happened, obama politely asked banks to renegotiate mortgages. they have not done it. given them a three-month mortgage moratorium. take away their income for three months and they might think about and then promised to maybe include six months or a year if they don't agree and then they will renegotiate the mortgage is and the values of houses will finally reach their bottom and we won't have the double dip recession, we will not have the big depression that everybody thinks is coming if we don't do something about the mortgages

and everybody being homeless, like the gentleman said. host: how was your economic situation? caller: i am a disabled person on social security. i am basically very stable. i have very little demands, i think, really never lived a lavish lifestyle and i live a very limited lifestyle. but that is okay with me. i'm worried about everybody else -- and, of course, that will eventually affect whether we have social security income in my later years. host: santa monica, california -- california. caller: shifting back to the space program. my concern is, i am not sure why we are talking about spending tax dollars to send humans to mars or even do more exploration on mars because from what i read

it over the last 15 years in the various signs journals, mars is a dead planet. the core is dead, the atmosphere is dead. the place in our solar system that has of the greatest likelihood for life is one of jupiter's moon's europa and i remember reading that program got scrapped. europa is filled with warm water. host: do you think this should all be private or do you think the u.s. government has a role in promoting this? caller: i believe it should be blended. i believe it should be investment bankers going crazy to raise money to send probes to europa. not necessarily humans but probes to see what is under the ice. host: had in jackson, tennessee. independent line betty caller: -- host: pass in jackson, tennessee. independent line.

caller: good morning. it seems like every time i call like to talk to you. one caller mentioned people having money in switzerland and the guide that is in prison or serving time in switzerland -- at age " a gentleman from iowa -- host: a gentleman from iowa. the caller: i think it would be a good idea to get expert investigators that are looking into the money off shore. because the united states needs of this money. so it would be a good idea if we could find about who is involved. he said he would like to know some of the politicians who have their money and other countries. i would like to know that also. and i think that the tea party, and their organization, is fine.

i don't agree with all of the signs that they have a but i think come this november, a lot of incumbents are going to be quite surprised. have a good day. host: how is the economy in the jackson? caller: i think the unemployment -- last time i heard was 10 point something, so we had a few companies to close, but then we had some that were opening up. i don't know. we are doing pretty good. i think we are blessed. host: what do you dig in jackson questioned caller: i am retired. caller: from. caller: i worked in missouri -- department of elementary and secondary education. host: why did you move to jackson? caller: this is where i was born and raised. host: look forward to talking to you again.

caller: thank you, peter. i look forward to talking to you again. host: jacksonville, florida. caller: i am a democrat and for anyone was listening, not all democrats are liberals, number one. number two, i am in with the tea party. i make $20,000 a year and i raise a son by myself. i am not rich. i do what i can do. i go where i can go. i can -- i do all that i can. in reference to the tea party, it is about america. it is not about "the parties." it does not have a structured organization. it is just neighbors and people and families coming together to try to save our country from some of the madness that is going on and that is really all i have to say. host: are you following the senate race in florida? caller: yes, i have. host: who are you supporting and of course month caller: i am

considering mark the rubio. i don't like charlie crist -- i did not vote for him before and i did not -- will not over and again and i did not want to vote for the democrat, he is way too socialist. i would come out to the primary but i did not like the people coming up and our representative -- i don't like him, either, the health care and the deals he made. at the town hall meetings he told us all kinds of stuff and did something else. looks like he is going if they can get rid of them -- and we will. i am real disappointed. i voted for rahm but i real disappointed and want him out. host: who is your favorite democrat? caller: i really don't have one now unfortunately did i really don't. i'm still looking and waiting. i may change my mind but i did not see any one i care for. host: thanks for calling in. charlotte, north carolina, michael was on our republican my beard caller: -- all under a

republican line. caller: i listened to all of them who want to raise taxes to close the deficit and yesterday i see how president obama had an income of $5.5 million and paid 1.8 million in taxes and wonder why, if he had a policy of spreading the wealth around, why didn't he just keep his salary of $400,000 and write a check to the treasury department for the rest of it? host: in "the new york times" the ex-governor will not face feingold. also on this page in "the new york times" is this story. cia document details destruction of tapes.

on to your calls. st. paul, dan, independent line. st. paul, minnesota. caller: how is it going? i wondering what all of these

democrats and republicans, who really represents them because it does not seen anyone really represents the middle class in this country at all? it seems like basically the republicans are for the super rich and the democrats they are for everyone without jobs and stuff. i read in the paper that j.p. morgan's third quarter brought in like $4 billion as a profit. it just kind of wondering where everybody stands on that. host: texas, wayne, republican. caller: thank you for c-span. job creation. one of the things -- i am a retired manufacturing engineer and i have been in the business for 42 years. the big question i have is on salaried people, most salaried people are forced to work anywhere from 50, 60, some even 70 hours. if there was some cap put on to the amount a salary person could work there would be a lot more

jobs working -- for people to enter the market. anyway, just a thought. thank you very much. host: now to georgia. peggy is a democrat. go ahead. hang on, peggy. i have to hit the button. caller: good morning. i have just been listening to the people calling in saying about the tea party and i don't know a lot about them, except they have a right to express themselves. but what i see on tv frightens me some times and i would maybe suggest that some of these people watch the mcvay tapes that going to be shown i believe later this month. it is something maybe we all need to watch. there is a fringe element that the type of rhetoric that we see with the tea party, this is what spurs those people on and i think that we lost one president to this kind of feeling and i think we need to be very, very

careful with what we say and the signs we carry and thank you for c-span. host: just to point out that live right now on c-span3 is the center for american proctor's, a think tank here in washington, center for american progress symposium commemorating the 15th anniversary of the oklahoma city bombing. that is currently live on c- span3 and you would be able to watch and a website or later on air if you get a chance. also want to remind you that it is 9:00 p.m. sunday, the rearing of the first ever british election leaders' debate between the three there -- 9:00 p.m. eastern time on sunday. it was light yesterday. new york city. keith, independent line. caller: how are you? host: please go ahead. caller: hello? i am actually calling to comment on some of the tea party people

who seem to think that they have lost their country. i'm wondering is is they think their country went to? i'm wondering what freedoms did they have yesterday that they do not have today or they expect not to have to more role. the country is still here. the opportunities are still here. and if they are so concerned about taxes i don't understand that -- 47% of americans don't even pay taxes. and in most of but plans that have been presented by the administration -- of the plans that have been prevented by the administration, small businesses and families have received tax cuts. so a lot of the things they are protesting don't seem to drive with the actual reality. host: what do you do in new york? caller: i am an expert rider -- on an expediting co., a small business owner. host: what is and expediter?

caller: we work with architects and engineers to approve plans for new buildings and alterations to current buildings. host: what is your actual role as an expediter? caller: architects and engineers draw plans and we have to make sure that they comply with city coating so they are safe for people -- host: how is business? caller: in new york city is not as good as it has been. but new york is kind of its own economy and all this construction and building going on which is good. although it is slow, it has been better. and from the beginning of a year until now it is actually picking up. host: thanks. we have to leave it there, i'm afraid. we are going live to the senate judiciary committee now. patrick leahy, of course, is the

chair, but dianne feinstein will be presiding. she is now in the room. this is a hearing on goodwin liu to be u.s. circuit judge for the ninth circuit, obviously in california. so senator feinstein will be chairing this hearing. this is life. enjoy your weekend. thank you for being with us. reminder, all sorts of good stuff going on c-span this weekend and on c-span -- c- span2's "book tv. [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2010]