will take your qqustions about u.s.-mexico relations. . . .

>> we are starting off with most of the precincts. here are the results from last night. in pennsylvania, the senate democratic primary, it was sestak winning over arlen specter. looking at the special election, it was critz winning over tim burns, 53% over 44%. looking at the arkansas senate race, lincoln going into a runoff over the tenet overhalter -- lt. gov. halter. and you can also say kentucky

senate republican primary with paul winning. and looking at the democrat side, it was attorney general k conway winningl slightly over his challenger. out of all the results, what was most surprising to you if any? >> unfortunately, because i have watched these races all day every day, i deny get to be surprised very often. i was surprised by some of the margins. we sought a tossup in pennsylvania 12. we have been hearing on the ground suggestions. winning by the margin that he did, eight points, was somewhat

surprising. we had heard republicans that they were more confident. they add more intensively on their side. it is also most important, because while it was a special election, it somewhat mirrored a general election campaign. the other races were focused solely on the party's base. this was about trying to convince people on your own side but independent voters to come on over and support a candidate. in the pennsylvania 12 special election, a district that was upheld by one person for many years. bill clinton and kerrey the district as well as john mccain. barack obama has a 40% approval rating. it is a very big deal that a democrat won this and won by a significant margin.

>> some of the papers suggested this was the race to watch. >> yes, it is my job as well. i am sometimes guilty of this, but the dynamics the special elections are very dynamic in different from what you see in the fall. what is really important is that democrats localized this race. republicans nationalized it. democrats were able to receive. -- win. a big reason for that is that republicans are somewhat obsessed by nancy pelosi. they tried to make it a referendum on her. voters in this district were more interested in hearing about the economy and jobs and where the candidates stood on

those issues. and tim of burns was made out to be someone not looking out for the best interests of people. the he had allegedly given tax breaks to people who outsourced and jobs. some people are very nervous about their own jobs and the state of the economy. >> as far as our inspector, did the exit polls suggest why he lost? >> we do not have any real exit polling. it is tough to run and when in a democratic primary when you have been a republican for most of your life. it goes back to that fundamental question, can a party switcher

really convince the court most committed people in the new party that he or she is one of them. i think he did everything he could to try to convince them of this. his voting record from the time he switched parties until today was very consistent and very much on board with president obama and the democratic leadership. fundamentally, you're bigger concern is who is going to be with me down the road. it was clear that all inspectors switched parties for his own political safety, not because of some ideological concern. what we found was set the democratic fought -- primary voters saw the same thing. they say that he had not shown

any signs of wanting to switch parties. we will give them a chance. " >> sometimes they opponent is able to defy the incumbent. >> he never really had to you because he had already been well-and find. the good news about being an incumbent is you have 100% of name identification. people know you. they have many of their minds as to who they think you are. it was the job of jill to introduce himself to voters and make the case that you can trust me. here is who i am. here is what my background is. that was the bigger the to the voters had to take in the primary. they had been voting against that for years. it was to say that arlen

specter is voting rights and everything, but i do not know that i can completely trust him to continue to do this. what is holding me back from voting for votingsustak -- voting for joe sustak is that i do not know anything about him. he eventually crushed -- crossed the threshold of believability. host: what does it mean for lincoln now that she has to enter into a runoff? guest: i do not know. it will be a close contest. this race was somewhat of a surprise. there were signs that this was going to be very close and very tough for her to hit the threshold. what is surprising is the third candidate, a very conservative democrat is more republican than

democrat 14% of the vote. nobody expected that. that was a signal about the discontent among democratic primary voters with the kind of campaign that has been run there. it was a very negative campaign. the candidates are running attack ads against one another. i think voters said, and going to put my vote to this third guy. who were those 13% voters? where did they go in the runoff. a runoff election typically should help the insurgents, the person who has enough energy behind it. that could be good news for halter. at the same time, it could mean

a solid core of the party's base. i expect she will bring president obama and bill clinton in the runoff. hopefully that will put her over the top. host: is it is simple index guest: it is never simple. -- is that simple? guest: it is never simple. he ran an succeeded big time. he got some help from his establishment last name. his last name still means a lot. it is very helpful in terms of his fund raising capacity. there are a lot of republicans

in kentucky, especially those that are supporters of the secretary of state. if his last name was not paul, could he have raise the kind of money and debt and the attention that he did? that is unlikely. you have to give him credit for the margin that he ran a against someone. host: react to this of of twitter this morning. all incumbents are in trouble. guest: it is not a fun time to be an incumbent. no doubt about that. those that have the bigger problem in this kind of year are those that are democrats. there are more of them that have

been involved in competitive races. for an incumbent right now, they have to be able to join the anger of the voters rather than try to pretend it does not exist. they have to find a way to show they get it. that will be a very interesting test. host: she will be on our hot line for this half hour taking your questions. she will give her assessment of last night. here is how you can call in. the numbers are listed at the bottom of the screen.

buffalo, minnesota. caller: i am in the sixth district of minnesota. it has the highest bankruptcy and foreclosure in minnesota. we have a congressman who does not care about the working class. a wanted to bring up the pundits. in kentucky, you have more democrats than republicans in the primary.

the democratic nominee, he says some things i am not comfortable with in the speech. his position on civil rights, i do not like that. if i am in kentuckian -- [unintelligible] host: this is about the working class last night. guest: it is about jobs and the economy. campaigns that veer off of that message, that tried to be too cute or talk about issues that voters really do not see as important right now could pay the price. that is a perfect example of this. republicans spent a lot of time.

iran's about turning into policy into frankenstein -- there were ads about turning nancy pelosi into frankenstein. the bottom line is in an environment like this, washington is not particularly popular. what voters want are cancers. the want to know that people are working on the issues that they care about. unemployment is too high. the economy is still off track. they do not want to hear politicians and candidates of back-and-forth over what they see as these inconsequential issues instead of tackling what is most important. in kentucky, to not numbers of more democrats than republicans voted. -- turn out numbers of more democrats than republicans voted.

there may be a holdover from reconstruction times. you get more people voting in a primary. it does not mean the same people will vote for a democrats in november. in many of these southern states, you say there are so many more registered democrats than republicans. at the same time, they constantly give the margin of victory to eight republican statewide or republican presidential candidate. -- to a republican statewide or republican presidential candidate. caller: i want to make a comment about what ron paul said. i do not get from him that we should stand together. we need a government.

it is to work for the people and by the people. we need everybody to work together and not carry guns like the tea party when they go to see obama. they should not carry weapons to see him. i am for getting some of the things i wanted to say. we are not paying these republicans to sit down and say no to everything. host: here is paul from last night. >> i have a message that is loud and clear and does not mince words. we have come to take our government back. [applause]

politicians bring as oversized fake checks and act as if it was their money to give. washington is horribly broken. i think we stand on a press appears. we are encountering a day of reckoning. this movement, this tea party movement is a message to washington that we are unhappy and that we want things done differently. [applause] the tea party movement is huge. the mandate of our victory tonight is huge. what you have done and what we are doing can transform america.

i think america's greatness hinges on us doing something to save the country. the tea party movement is about saving the country from a mountain of debt that is devouring our country. it could lead to chaos. host: virginia, republican line. caller: haven't your callers speed -- been looking to see what happened in greece? the tea party movement is everybody but the obama people. the republican establishment back an opponent deliberately. we do not want it to become priests. we want to pay our bills now. the federal government is broken. that is why we want to take it back. i agree with the lady who called

a little bit ago. nobody needs to be carrying guns. that is a mischaracterization about the tea party movement. host: democrats line, wisconsin. caller: thanks for letting me talk. i love c-span. i think the reasons that this election was so important guest today. it stops the lies that the republicans and innuendos and exaggerations that they have been saying the last year and a half. i will give you one quick example. the president was said to want a photo op with the dead bodies

came over from afghanistan and bush never did that. then i turned on msnbc.com and saw others saying the bush family never viewed one body. host: how does this relate to last night? caller: it is a lie that republicans tried to make the democrats look bad in a lot of ways. host: we will leave it there. this is off of a treat. guest: it is an interesting point. many want to read about this. these are members of his party. they have been strong supporters on his agenda.

i think reading this as a referendum on president obama is taking it a step too far. arlen specter had his own troubles. these troubles have more to do with that she is a moderate in a state that is not very liberal. the positions that she takes a much better suited for arkansas than they are for a more liberal state. many liberals have been chomping on the bit to try to put somebody in that seat who is much more closely linked with their ideological position. i think senator lincoln helped herself in the health-care debate where she did not come across looking particularly strong in the position that she wanted to take. you can see that the of such groups wanted to get in and make a statement.

they wanted to make an example of of her. at the same time, i keep coming back to this. that special election in pennsylvania's 12th district should have been a referendum on the president. it is open to both parties that come in and vote in a special election. it is a swing district. based on the popularity of president obama, the democrats should have gone on to lose. i do think pennsylvania and arkansas show certain things about obama and that curtailed are not enough. they felt strong about how his organizing efforts were in two dozen 8, organizing for america. it is an arm that the white house is going to give out to

democratic candidates in the fall. that fell short. i do not think he will see the ability to translate what worked for president obama in two dozen 8 on the ground motivating in turning people out. it does not convey. the candidates have to make the case themselves. host: here is what the philadelphia inquirer rights. is there an arms. distance by the president? guest: it does not do him much good to the stand for somebody who comes up short. heat has been willing to do this multiple times for other candidates who they knew would fall short.

in the specialtha clea election earlier this year was something of a risk. he went up there, she lost, he would take some of the blame for that. they knew that. they did not realize this seat was in danger until it was too late. he has stuck with other democratic candidates who were losing were struggling. virginia and new jersey, same thing. this is not somebody who has avoided being around the democratic candidates who are struggling. i think for arlen specter, what he needed to be able to do was to prove to voters that his tenure a most important asset. voters did not buy it. host: chicago, ill., in the

pennant line. -- independent line. caller: please do not cut me off. it will tie into the elections last night. you are one of the reasons why i watched c-span. thank you for the straight talk as much as possible. host: go ahead and make your point. caller: do you think that the election of president obama -- not just the democrats voted for him, that republicans and independents listen and i hear

many commentators. many have a voted for republicans that voted for president obama -- i wish that arlen specter would have won. he was one of the republicans. he was one of the realist in bringing to the forefront some information that voters need to know and make government work for the people as opposed to the people working for the government. guest: we can talk about this in a couple of ways. the arlen specter loss is significant in that even though he was republican another

democrat, before he switched parties, he was one of just a handful of republicans left in the united states senate's. he switched parties and that was part of his own political livelihood. he knew he could not win in a republican primary. it suggests it is going to be tougher for president obama to do with he said he was going to do in the to the state campaign, which is create a bipartisan washington. when you lose people like arlen specter and other moderates, if clinton loses in arkansas -- lincoln loses in arkansas to a republican, that is another example of how difficult it will be for the president to have this bipartisan coalition as well as a coalition of

democrats who are more ideologically divided. i think that is truly a very important point to remember. as we move forward and look to the general election and say are there opportunities for some of these moderates to win elections where it is not so much about playing to your base? we have opportunities for that, places like delaware. it is heavily favored to win there. in other margaret -- moderate, a republican, heavily favored to win there. that is in the illinois senate. so they could be sitting in blue

states that could be very important figures in the next congress. host: she is the editor in chief for the national journalists holland. she has a day job. we will let her go to that. her colleague will join as in a few minutes to continue discussions about the primary results from last night. until then, you can call in. the phone line numbers will be on your screen. oregon, go ahead. caller: it is not just about moderate but people in washington. it is washington that has a problem. deficit spending. we cannot go on like that. our constitutional rights are being threatened. there are issues about free speech.

people in the heartland what to have their rights and get control of their government again. people in washington do not understand that and do not respect the people. host: bethesda, md., the democrats' line. caller: 5 with nothing highly emotional politics has become. people do not want to pay taxes, but they want the roads to be in shape. they have taken clean water for granted.

there does not seem to be a rational connection. it is a government that all of the time. it is discouraging. i am so disappointed that people are not working harder. it is difficult, but i think congress could avoid some of the arcane language they use when writing these bills. thanks. host: florida, and the benetton. caller: -- independent line. caller: i had a question for the lady that is gone. i had a question about the election in pennsylvania 12. the democrats seem to be further right then the republican. he is against nancy pelosi and harry reid.

i am wondering to myself, as he won that election, do the people in the district understand that like arlen specter, they are only saying what they want you to know. host: new york, republican line. caller: good morning. it was amazing watching that last night. the tea party was started by a movement, republicans and democrats [unintelligible] some call ron paul a terrorist.

there is a lot of good information about it. they do not want to have this in america. i appreciate watching that last night. thanks. hos host: indianapolis, indiana, a democrat line. caller: all these people on the

right want to talk about division in the democratic party. there is real division in the republican party. it is strange hearing republicans talk about this in pennsylvania, but it did not happen. did not count your chickens before they hatch. the economy is improving. we have a long way to go. host: oklahoma city, republican line. caller: i enjoy your show. one paul is the real deal. -- ron paul is the real deal and will be like his father. and with lead to see that arlen

specter is gone. i am looking forward to some more socialists going down in flames. one is mr. mccain in arizona and also in oklahoma, tom cole clewiston saying he has been a conservative and has not been. we could see more socialists go down in flames. host: mr. mercurial joins us on line. what else can we keep an eye on? caller: a special election in hawaii's first congressional district on sunday. i think many will be paying attention to that. democrats are divided.

between some good candidates. they are well known. it is a democratic stronghold. the district that holds the birthplace of barack obama. watch closely to see what happens there. after the 12th district where republicans fell short of their goal, how big of a when can they get in a race that is tailor- made. host: what did they say about the condition of the race so far? caller: it looks like a republican will win. they were acknowledging that the former state senate president and former congressman made it increasingly unlikely they could hold onto the seat. it looks like the republican

will be able to win. host: what has been the reaction in the senate last night considering what happens to arlen specter? caller: it falls along party lines. the senator is very influential among the tea party in conservatives. he endorsed marco rubio in florida will before he became the darling of the tea party movement. he is celebrating the when of ron paul. it is the birth of the tea party movement as a national movement. he is very happy about that victory. mitch mcconnell as been a relatively gracious. his candid it in kentucky, his home state, lost badly to paul. he is a team player. he needs to get behind his candidate. you're not hearing enough from democrats about arlen specter of. they put a lot of emphasis and

their eggs in the basket of him being able to prevail in pennsylvania. he fell short. one of the interesting trends around the country is none of these races were close. paul d. grayson by 23 points. -- beat grayson by 23 points. the in the verdicts for a pretty decisive. host: washington, pa. caller: i would like to make some comments as a democrat living in western pennsylvania regarding special elections. i live in the 12th congressional district. as a democrat, we do not like the fact that the man was not

interested in discussing issues that affect us here. there was a lot of the smearing of names. jack was our congressman since 1970. what would be elected so many times if you were so bad? you have to ask that question. burns will lose again in the fall. as far s sustak is concerned, we did not like the idea that's this arlen specter nomination was forced down our throats. arlen specter was a republican.

joe will bring a fresher approach. we are very satisfied in western pennsylvania with the results from last night. host: what is the match of looking like with joe sustak? guest: sustak is more of a liberal democrat more than arlen specter the dead deeper roots on the republican side. i want to get to a couple of points that were made. i think the result less knight does call into question the nancy pelosi strategy -- last night does call into question the nancy pelosi strategy. it proved making nancy pelosi a

strategy going into this has some questionable value. we also saw at the end of the 12th congressional district special election burns bring in scott brown. his victory has been a rallying cry for the tea party movement. the most important moments is the senate seat did not belong to kennedy but the people. burns tried to make the same case in pennsylvania saying the seat belonged to the people. i think the caller and the voters made the point that john was very popular and because there were such close ties, they were willing to extend their loyalties on to critz. host: independent line.

caller: i tried to call in a few calls back. john mccain and arlen specter, socialists. i got a real chuckle out of that. this country has been pulled further to the right to where there is very little semblance involved. i would like to comment [unintelligible] as a young child, i was very ill. had it not been for socialized medicine, i never would have lived. that is my comment. i love c-span. host: pittsburgh, pa., a

democrat line. caller: republicans trying to throw democrats in social ideology is ridiculous. we cannot be more thrilled with sustak. the lieberman experiment was a representation of colonialism. the people of pennsylvania have put our inspector under a microscope and recognize that he is a right wing republican. he is not a socialist democrat. we have a real democrat, an admiral in the navy. to utilize the nancy pelosi similarities and say we have a raging liberal, with a naval

flight officer. i guarantee that sustak will be the next senator in the state of pennsylvania. guest: that is the perspective of somebody that is very happy about the progress of sustak. pennsylvania has been a very competitive state for decades. it is a state that cannot be considered a democratic stronghold. he will have a tough race. his first challenge will be to replenish its campaign war chest. he has been sitting on a fundraising machine for months. he starts out with a huge fund-

raising advantage. he has been able to moderate and appeal to the middle in a way that a former chairman may not be able to do. he endorsed sonia sotomayor is a supreme court nominee. he has been speaking favorably about kagan. you are seeing him trying to appeal to the middle in a way that can be very effective for a republican running in the state. maryland, in the pan . caller: -- independent line. caller: some people never have had any education in politics or government. they have emotional buttons

pushed, and now they will vote on a non-reality. as a not a socialist. the person that called needs to read a book and find out what it is before they call people who are republican who have always been republicans socialists. that is what is dangerous. people listening to rush limbaugh and the thinking they are giving some form of education. they are wrong. those men are not socialists. you need to know what socialism is before you open your mouth. host: illinois, democrats line. caller: thanks for letting as voice our opinions. i am a vietnam veteran. please excuse me, but i cannot remember the name running for attorney general.

he said he is a vietnam veteran. if you represent yourself and you are not, you should be tried. i hope that these veterans groups will outcry for this person to be prosecuted under that wall. it is abolishing to me after i gave my blood to this country to read about that. i am sorry, but thank you. host: he is calling about the connecticut attorney general, a democrat, who had been a front- runner according to polls in the race to replace senator chris dodd who is retiring. he made several misleading comments about his military service in vietnam. you saw one of the more aggressive counter campaigns or responses yesterday to the

story. he had a comprehensive press conference. they released several videotapes were he stated accurately what his military service had been during the vietnam era, which included no trouble or service outside of the country. the caller makes an excellent point. you will see a lot of people, especially some very active people in the vietnam era. the issue resonates much more with them. for younger voters, it is more of honesty. if you misled voters about this, what else are you misleading them about. you have to question the strategy -- i question the strategy of releasing a story or dropping the story at this time. one of his republican opponents

has acknowledged that her campaign was the source of the story. doing so in may is ill-advised. it would've been much more an effective tool for republicans to have used in october when it may have lingered a little bit longer in the lives of the voters. it allows democrats to respond. timmy and a lot of people, it is a smaller story today than it was yesterday morning when people were were speculating that his campaign was dead in the water. host: what happens now now that this man is going to step down? caller: it was an interesting development. he stepped down and acknowledged an affair with one of his part- time staff assistance. he is married and has three

children. he met with one person who said he need to leave and get out. this is not something the republican party can deal with right now. they held a special election. i do not have specific information about the timing of it. they held a primary a few weeks ago where he faced a republican challenger, dave thomas defeated him. he could get into this race. and marlon is a storm a state senator defeated in the indiana republican senate primary, he is looking at the race. he is likely to run. he is an interesting name. he had been endorsed by one senator in that race. he has become very influential on the departing movement. probably some support from people -- i think the primary or

special election is 24 hours old and is catching a lot of people by surprise. host: maryland, independent line. caller: i love c-span. thanks for giving me the opportunity to express my views. if anybody calls -- ask them if they want so security and medicare and dto end? [unintelligible] we are in debt. what is their solution? when they say too big to fail, i think we should change it to two big to succeed. -- too big to succeed.

the elections regarding yesterday, it is all politics. the democratic party is the only one that has a large enough tint for divers be used. it is politics. they come to d.c. and we will be back to square one after being affected by big business. guest: she makes an interesting point. she did not characterize the record of paul accurately. he is following along the same lines of his father. he has been known as dr. know before the democratic majority in congress. he felt it against a lot of republican party initiatives. he is someone that voted against any budget initiative that he did not think would lead to a balanced budget.

he came out of the gates last night during his senate victory speech sounding a lot like his father. his father is somebody is an anti-establishment person. host: north carolina, democrats line. caller: i think -- i was wondering how the republicans will feel when they learned that's ron paul wants to dick -- to terminate the american disabilities act. it is my a understanding that he wants to cancel medicare and changed so security. how will they feel about that? i think it would be interesting for someone looking for a doctoral thesis to choose the subject of looking at the differences between the

republicans and the democrats in terms of family make up, experiences. listening to the calls, the republicans seem so bitter and hostile and so different from when the democrats call in. there is not that hostility when the democrats caution. i think it would be interesting to study the behavior of what has happened. why does one choose to become a republican or a democrat. host: any reaction from the democratic congressional campaign last night? guest: to the victory in the pennsylvania 12 district? of course. they are very excited about

that. they cannot and explained why they thought this was a victory. they had invested heavily in his race. they thought it was a repudiation. it can be considered that of the anti-nancy pelosi strategy. it showed that strategy trying to nationalize her as an issue in these conservative congressional districts, would have limited impact. host: bakersfield, california. caller: this anti-incumbent election has its roots back in the widom people campaign with jerry brown and take back america campaign. he will be governor of california. no doubt in my mind guest:.

jerry brown will be the democratic nominee. we will see who wins the republican primary. it led an impact on the type of race he is able to run. he has undergone an interesting transformation in his local image over the past decade or so. he served as the county general. now he is trying for his old job. steve whistler is more of a conservative. i think this will influence a lot of how jerry brown is able to run his race. host: pennsylvania. caller: did anyone hear andrea mitchell comments last night? what she said was barack obama had not supported arlen specter

and the people in charge of the the pennsylvania organization were unhappy. she made a statement that arlen specter had asked obama to except him. it was not that the obama administration had done certain things. there were witnesses where they were asked to come aboard. how will we get republicans to sign on other bills if this is the treatment that arlen specter got from obama? guest: i think the obama of white house did actively campaign for arlen specter. joe biden was there twice campaigning for him. some say it was not an effective

endorsement at this point. the reason that arlen specter lost last night is not because he was viewed so unfavorably by liberals, but as an incumbent. it is not about to the extremes of the party but incumbent versus anti-incumbency. arlen specter was leading joke sustak by 25 points. a few days ago, they did a similar poll where they were tied. it was the same number of voters to view it arlen specter as a reliable liberal. the party had less to do with his loss and more to do with the fact that it was just a year where even the obama political establishment was not as popular

and had limited appeal. host: we thank you for joining us in this hour to talk about last night and the results. thanks again. guest: my pleasure. host: coming up, we will change talbots and discuss offshore drilling. -- topics and discuss offshore drilling. we will get his thoughts and come right back after this brief moment. .

two presidents. >> so i offer a toast. a commitment on the behalf of the american people of seriousness, good will and hope for the future. general secretary and mrs. gorbachev, to your health. >> over 20 years of white house state dinners, from ronald reagan on the barack obama and every program since 1987, at the c-span voo library, it's c-span your way. watch what you want when you want. >> this weekend on c-span 2's book tv, on afterwards, boston radio talk show host michael gram -- michael graham is

interviewed by johnathan karl of abc news. find the entire schedule at book tv.org and follow us on twitter. washington square park continues. host: as promised john micah from florida, the ranking member of the transportation and infrastructure committee. an hearing on offshore oil drilling. what do you hope to ask and hear differently about the process responders. we are going to look at what the coast guard did, how the government acted. of course, we're bringing in the oil companies. they'll probably get beat up first, and the second is some of the agency that have been involved first, say the permitting that's led to this

disaster, and then also the cleanup. so we're going to look at the whole gamit of what happened. host: out of all that, what's most important to you? >> i think it's interesting now. people have been pointing fingers. but we have to look at the government's responsibility in all this. b.p., like any other oil exploration company, comes in and asks for a permit. we heard yesterday, and in fact,, i think you've got the headline as a whole czar rules weak headline in front of you. i'm not happy with what i've learned about what was going on in the department of interior. and the specific agency that was to oversee this. when a company is going to 34r50eu -- apply, well, first they get a lease. they got a lease under the bush administration.

and that's just a general area that you can drill. then you go in with a document. this is a copy of the actual document they submitted to the o'bama administration. 12k34r you can just hand it to me. >> -- you can just hand it to me. >> there's no cover, but that outlines all the safety provisions they will take. then they issue, finally, a permit. this was done back last year, what's the date? >> march 10, 2009. >> april 6 they issue. this is the actual permit, the first time i've been able to get a copy of it. and the permit only has one small sentence, exercise caution when drilling with gas and water flow. the plan was submitted by the private company. the government gave the permit and did not have the safety protections in place, things

like an additional cutoff sflavel europe. why were they building a dome after the disaster? we should have a dome in reserve or some tried and proven technology to cap any kind of a problem during exploration. there's a lot of questions and sponalts. and responsibilities. and then as was said in testimony yesterday, the rules were weak. in 2008 the agency was cited. i've got a copy, there were improperer relationships with some of the private secters. if something's rotten in denmark, i'm concerned that it's -- that there's something wrong in the agencies that is allowing this type of exploration or drilling

activity and not requiring better standards for this type of thing. now the loss thing -- i checked to see if this was a limited incident. and this is deep water. 5,000 feet. this is a list i obtained of deep-water rig activity during the o'bama administration. you can see, these are just some of the aprolves that they've given. and almost all of these go from a quarter of a mile to 8,000 feet. that concerns me, because if 5,000 feet, if you didn't have the proper safety measures, and then you give this approval with very little caveats, with very little protections, you cart blonch, rubber stamp the plan that's submitted, what's going on with these wells, and if you look at the depths of

some of them, up to 8,000 feet, we could have future problems. so we need safety measures in place. i believe drilling and exploration can be done if you have safety measures in place. but obviously somebody was sleeping at the switch. >> so it equates to more from the department? >> well, first of all, the europeans all require an additional safety valve cutoff, which we didn't have on this and on a deep water well, why wouldn't you have that? and then building thesetop hats or domes after the accident. we should have a couple of these ready to go. the worst oil disaster that took place was a spill off of mexico, which spewed oil into the gulf for nine months. now i think the united states

ought to be prepared and ready to go with safety measures not only off the coast of the united states. but we have seen the flow of this oil. it can come from mexico or any place else. even if florida puts a restriction of miles and limitations for some of this to take place. host: our guest will be with us until 8:30 if you want to ask questions in relations to their talks. you can call the democrats or republicans or independent lines. geneva illinois is up first. terry on our independent line. good morning. caller: good morning. good topic. i'm really interested in this article i saw in cnn the other night with kevin costner about

this water recly makes thing he's got going. there's some guy that can suck up all this oil and turn it back into water and all the i mean purities. i was wondering what your comment was on all this. because i agree and think that's going to be the way to go and i agree if we're going to drill off oil from water, something's got to be done with the system to make it totally fail safe or stop drilling and pay $10 for gas. guest: well, i don't know about the specific technology the gentleman was talking about. but we should have in place assets and require oil companies to have in place assets that can actually take the spill off of the surface. some of that is being done now. and i was told a large amount of what's being captured will

be reclaimed and actually end up probably in your motorcycles. -- in your motor vehicles. but not enough was done in an appropriate amount of time. i had some models run and here's a model of the spill. and the spill took place, i guess the 20th of april. if i think the administration had acted faster, we could have contained the area. every bit of time you lose twhauns spill spreads, and you can -- you lose once that spill spreads, you can -- they didn't actually put the plan into effect until the 29th of april. and they didn't actually put admiral alan in charge and declare it a major spill until may 1.

so every day you lost, here, the spill became less containible, so even this technology this gentleman is talking about, scooping it up becomes much more difficult. >> one of the things i would like to see in place is that they be able to react in a much quicker fashion than we did right here to contain it. once you contain it, you can scoop it up and put it on tankers and haul it away. so i'm not happy with the response. and then the o'bama administration just days before, proposed in their budget. this came out in february, just weeks before this spill, well, first they proposed, well, in february their budge tote cut the coast garth by 1,000 positions, i have their documentation. ships, helicopters and planes, all assets used, and they are

first responders and now in charge of the cleanup. then they came out before this spill, march 11, the headline from "the new york times" says o'bama to open offshore area to oil drilling. so they are cutting your first responder resources. they are expanding this with a history of not having their act together in requiring when a plan is submitted, all the safety measures that should be in place. we're going to try to, well, expose these facts, and then this is not just an exercise to criticize. this is an exercise to get it right. you can't stop drilling with 1/3 of all of our oil in this country comes out of the gulf. but it needs to be done safely, and you have to have backup

fail safe measures. >> that means requiring oil riggs to have the proper shutoff valves? >> absolutely. i would absolutely require that we adopt a european standard and have an additional safety valve. then we should have in reserve, require and reserve some of these domes and technologies to cap off any kind of spill. this was not an act of well, this is a permit for exploration. >> on our rep can line -- ? caller: i agree. i think we should have a safety thing set up at all times and britain and russia around china that are drilling out there. they should also help pay on this. they should have emergency things standing by where they can jump in and take care of it right then. not just for the safety of the

people working on our riggs but all that oil is going to come back to america. and when b and p gets this thing straightened out, they are just going to put another rig out this. why not let america put the rig out there? we can have our things set up. host: your answer? guest: ladies is right on target. china will be drilling pretty close off the coast of florida. it's only 90 miles between florida and key west. i think it's important that we have a backup plan and not cut the coast guard and make sure they have the assets they require in the plan and require that the oil companies have these domes. i guess the title of the -- the missing element here for that additional safety feature is

the remote emergency cutoffs which the europeans require. we need all of the above. we can't let this happen again. then you need to respond quicker. the response from the diagram i showed, how that grew. it grew out of control or very difficult to control. if it's in a small area, it can be contained. some of the ore things is it takes a long time to get a burning permit. and that's another thing they need to do is burn that off. and you can only do it in short periods of time. and you can only do it at certain periods of time when the weather is right. so burn that so it doesn't circulate around and a much better look when we are permitting these things. >> -- host: and what could happen on

the your state. what are you hearing if the oil makes it to florida? guest: well, again, this shows the vulnerability of florida. we've had politics. i've favored drilling, particularly for gas, but i've always says for oil, that you need to consider -- not politics, but sound policy. science having the technology, the safety. considering the depth is so important to be able to get to it. consider the current. but even with florida if we bounce along for 25 years from 100 miles to 200 miles depending on who is running for what office. but what you need is more backup systems. this is 45 miles off the coast of the gulf. not off of florida. and the worst spilt that --

the worst spill i found was off the gulf of mexico. then we've got the chinese, as the the lady said, drilling 45 miles off of the keys. we need to be prepared to act and have safety backup systems to go out and stop any type of a disaster like this. >> new jersey, joseph on our democrats line. democrats line. caller: yes. you've been in congress a long time, and we understand that the o'bama administration didn't step in right away. but they were being held off by bp saying it was only 1,000 gallons of oil a day. then they went up to 5,000 and the government agreed but we think it's more. this could have been done a long time ago. wasn't long ago when we heard a

couple presidential candidates, drill, baby, drill. with no concern about safety. we can do this thing offshore. it's as safe as it can be. and if you watched "60 minutes" the other night this was a combination of equipment failure and human error. the bp supervisor overruled the man from transocean who wanted to send software which would have prevented the blowout, and the bp man said we can't afford the time because time is none so many words, so i think that's the focal point of the investigation. bp, and what that gentleman said that the particular time. thank you. host: well, we wouldn't have to worry about any of that if the one-page permit had had some protections in it. guest: again, you have to look at successful models. i've always said the europeans

have led the forfront with some of their protections. they should be in place. they should have been in place under the bush administration. they should be in place under o'bama administration. but again, this was permitted clearly under the o'bama administration. we have a signoff by the secretary as a whole czar who said they were asleep at the switch. then the other report i have is the inspections. there weren't -- there was not the frequent as i of inspections that they should have had and the hands on attention to this exploration when some safety problems had been discovered. again, that's the government's responsibility to regulate the private secter when they undertake these kinds of missions. host: tom friedman has an op ed

on the oil spill which says in the wake of this oil spell, the powerful tron end our addiction to oil is clear. if it's offset by a cut in payroll taxes or oil taxs so we can foster jobs and -- guest: i think we can do a better job in regulating and putting requirements. when they present a plan, you approve it cart blonch around i thought there was a decline in some of the things reported. there was cozyness. again, cleaning up this process so it's done right, having safety measures.

we need to get -- i've always said we need to get off of oil. i've also been an advocate of hooking up to gas. we have a multi billion-dollar gas line across the gulf that you can't hook up to in waters that you can send divers down very safely if you had a problem, and conversion to gas. also nuclear. you know, we waste ad lot of time after three-mile island. that was errors, but you have to put in place a safer nuclear system. we should be introduceing in our country 80% of our power through nuclear, and we could do it in a nano section. and we could do it with a fraction of this stimulus that hadn't even been spent yet. i don't know. ha, you get disappointed when

you see agencies not functioning the way they should or policies not being put in place by the congress. and the congress is responsible for this to gain independence and energy for this nation. host: from st. paul, minnesota, you're on. caller: you just touched on what my question was, which is when is the united states going to step up and be innovate like we did when we went to the snoon when are we going to step up and move beyond oil, as you just mentioned. because the -- doesn't care the environment doesn't care who is at fault, whether it was the government or who was in the administration or watching the hearings with the oil executive no one wanted to take responsibility. like three kids arguing over

who spilled the milk. why can't we just work together and rid this problem? i don't see oil doing anything good if we go abroad and have to fight for it or spill it and contaminate our water. guest: i think the gentleman is right. you need a much more comprehensive plan. we don't have it. we are dependant on oil. need to get off it. it can be done. i remember going down -- i became somewhat of a nuclear energy -- at least for power production -- fan, during the beginning of the bush presidentsi, they had that ceremony and the lunch afterwards in the warehouse. it was just sort of a picnic lunch. but i sat down with the guy and introduced myself. he was the nuclear engineer who designed the power plant under

ronald reagan sitting there telling me they got 275 service men and women every day living on a nuclear power plant in the seas in combat condition, and they've designed a nuclear power system that will not only push that mammoth of a small city around, but provide energy for many. he was telling me about water pebble reactors and some technology that's much safer. and we could cookie cutter and design some of those, so safe you could probably put them in neighborhoods. and we should be off of that. even france using older technology has about 75% of its power generated by nuclear. so no carbon emissions, and it can be done safely. but you have to have a plan,

people with vision, people to stand up and say hey, let's move forward the and do this. >> off of twitter -- host: one says the oil company should have what they need. guest: and here's the plan they submitted. to the o'bama administration. it did not contain that, or if it did, it was flawed. because they were ready to go. but simple things like the additional cutoff valve and why in heaven's name would they be building atop hat or dome to coffer the spill after the spill? look at the time that wasal wasted. that should be an essential backup plan. maybe have some of those already there. and tested not now but before. these are requirements that the government, and again, i have the one-page permit. here's the permit. first time this has been shown

public. or we'll show this today at the hearing. but in that permit is the requirements or the caution, precautionary things that must be addressed. they were not there. they need to be there. i don't care who the president is or who is in charge. host: on the rep can line? caller: yes. my question is for congress in general. the senate, and the congressional house. but if the congress truly wants to serve the people, why don't they just pass a law for time limits? instead of them serving themselves and lobbyists, pass a law for time limits? that's my question. >> well, first of all, i think term limits, the founding fathers were pretty wise. they put themselves in the constitution. first article. members of the house shall serve for two years, and they gave the ultimate power to the

people too exercise terms of service to throw bums out of there. i think it would be very damaging. i've seen term limits in the state of florida where we only have 120 house members, the over the rate turns over to the executive and bureaucrats and staff great power. with 435 in the house around no institutional memory, i'm telling you, having been there a while, didn't intend to stay as long as i did, but the institutional knowledge is so important. otherwise the entire government would be taken over by people, and i'm looking out over the c-span visita here, and you can see washington, dozens and dozens of buildings, hundreds of thousands of bureaucrats. folks, they would be runing the show. it would be a lot worse than it is now if you went to that system at the federal level.

foundling fathers 200-plus years ago were smart cookies. guest: i think they should be responsible, and will be held responsible -- would be liable. that's one reason why this process is so expensive. they invest it with $1 billion every time they go for these new properties. host: but not raise it to $10 billion? guest: i don't care if it's $20 billion. i don't want to put a limit on it, and i want them held responsible. so that they also have the incentive to do the right thing, even if the government isn't requiring them to do the right thing. i wouldn't put a cap on it. i would just hold their feet to the fair to. maybe have a system. if they ran out of money, you need someone to pay it up, and kind of -- the last thing we need to do is bail out some oil

company, and bp, i gets this is an foreign operation. and they need to be held totally responsible for this. host: you're our last caller on our democrats line. caller: thank you. good morning. guest: good morning. caller: i just have a couple questions i want to ask is. first off how long has b.p. been drilling out in the gulf. and sir, i see that you are some type of a transition expert and supposed to control our shores, how come none of these were put in place a long time ago? you guys have been in charge of all this? guest: um, the first question about b.p., i really don't know how many wells they have. i did give you a list of the permits that have been issued -- deep water permits that have been issued.

i can't answer why some of these precautions were put in place before. the u.s. coast guard is the first responder. and that's some of our responsibility. i'm concerned the o'bama administration, even as they were proposing more drilling, giving more deep well permits, was proposing to cut the coast guard by 1,000 positions by ships and planes and helicopters. i think unfortunately this disaster will probably turn us down. because our first responders have to be there first with the best technology and safety backup. it is a safety -- their mission is primarily safety, some national security. but they have to have the assets. so the transportation committee

will, i think, act responsibly. in the past there's been proposals for the numbers of personnel, the amount and we've got to ensure that they have that and are on the scene and in charge in an expedited fashion to contain any type of danger, so it's not swirling bigger and bigger and in this case, moving throughout the gulf. host: they hold a hearing on this topic at 10:00 which you can see live on c-span 3. representative john mica, i appreciate it. guest: thank you. host: next up peter defazio talking about job creation in the u.s. we'll have that discussion after this break from c-span radio. >> and it's 8:32 here in washington, d.c. and in the headlines. as you have been hearing, it was not a good day to be an incumbent in tuesday's

primaries. senator arlen specter defeated in pennsylvania, although democrats kept squon metha's seat. tea party supporter, wanting kentucky, and supreme court nominee elena kagan is back on capitol hill today with more meet and greet with senators who will decide her fate. thousands of pages of the nominee's speeches and writings including her work in her current job as solicitor general. you can read some of these documents by going to -- the predawn assault today against u.s.-run bagram airfield killed 10 insurgents, a day after a

suicide bomber killed 18 in a u.s. convoy including five american troops. a curfew is in effect in bangkok after new violence following a surrender by protest leaders who led a month-long occupation in the city. those angered fired grenades and set fair to to a -- and dire warnings as a $1 trillion rescue package for euro nations, at the risk of default, she says quote the euro is in danger. if we don't averrett in danger, the consequences are incalculable. those are some of the latest headlines on c-span radio. >> a couple of live eventings to tell you about today on our companion network, c-span 3.

the house transportation and infrastructure committee holds a hearing on the gulf of mexico oil spill. witnesses will include the head of b.p. america. e.p.a. administrator lisa jackson, and the director of mineral management service. and president obama hosts a dinner for president coldiron. we begin with mexican president felipe coldiron's arrival at the white house followed by the president. host: our guest peter of oregon, he serveed the fourth district and the chairman of the highway and transit she. -- highway and transit subcommittee. the president talked about the this and here's what he has to say and i want to get your reaction to it. >> despite the naysayers in

washington who are always looking for a silver cloud as a lining. last year, 290,000 jobs. we gave our commuchte. thing ever think about this. we gained more jobs last month than any time in four years. and it was the fourth month in a row that we've added jobs and almost all those jobs are in the private secter. everybody talks about government was doing this and government was doing that. what we did was encourage the private secter. gay them the funding, the financing, the support, infrastructure support in order to invest and get the economy moving again. and last month, allegation brought the -- and last month, also brought the largest employment in manufacturing since 1998.

host: do you agree with the president's assessment? >> well, there's some progress. guest: there's some progress but no where near enough. he did inherit a mess. he is making a point this was the largest jobs creation in a four-year period and obviously toward the end of the presidency with george bush, it put o'bama behind to start. but i didn't vote for the stimulus last year. it was way too oriented to -- anyway, you're going to be paying that back our kids and grandkids, so money's got to return benefits to future generations and create jobs. i ask audiences all the time, what did you do with your tax cuts? >> they said i didn't. >> yeah. you earned less than $100,000. they said i don't know.

i said you better find out because your grandkids are going to be paying the bill. i got people that can use $78 a week. but $8 a week less with holding is not going to put americans back to work in any way and borrowing $340 billion to do that was dumb idea. where's the green jobs? health cari. t.? why was that in there? infrastructure was 7%. people say what happened to all your infrastructure jobs? i said we spent the money. 7% of the stimulus was transportation stimulus. some how downtown they think it's old hat to build bridges, highways, high-speed rail. they think that's old hat. guess what, it's necessary for economic growth. it's necessary for justen time for necessary for communities

to have clean sewers and water systems and it's all made in america. i don't get it. host: how much should be invested in transportation? guest: i'm not looking for another stimulus bill. i'm looking for doing a trchings bill, which is overdue. supposed to do a six-year bill. the chairman and i. recommended $450 billion which would just begin to gain ground on our infrastructure. 150,000 bridges on our system have weight limits or obsolete or need repair, poor to fair, let alone building out new highway interchanges and other things to mitigate congestion. $60 billion back logs in our transit systems let alone

building it. we need the six-year highway bill. the o'bama administration pulled the plug on it. >> because? >> i think they are scared of the t word. you know, we've got to raise more money if we're going to invest in transportation and infrastructure. they are just frightened to death about talking about that. even though this is something the american people would want and support. i'm not talking about a retail gas cap. we can look at racing your -- some will get passed through at the pump, but at least you get something for it. when exon jacks the price of gas up 10 cents, you don't get any of that. exxon does. host: and if you want to talk about the transportation issues, call our democrats line or erepublicans line or independents line.

>> you can send us a tweet off of twitter at c-span wj. talk a little more about transportation and job creation. because it only affects a certain amount looking for work to work in that industry. guest: that's a common misconception. people think well, it's just construction. it's not. chicago has a $7 billion backlog on the chicago transit authority. some of the elevated is held up by wooden beams. we make them, not the best thing to be running trains at 4 miles an hour over them. but they got in the stimulus bill, -- the numbers escape me now -- but i think it was $300 million to deal with their backlog. they spent that money in 30 days, and that goes -- they bought buses, made in america. we have requirements.

so people manufacture tires and seats and all the components of those buses got jobs. they bought high-tech equipment and computer systems and rail. all these things made in america. so it goes to our manufacturing secter, engineering and design. and construction. it's not just you're typical, laying pavement-sort of jobs. host: is there anything to sustain it when the money runs out guest: no. the only thing that's created meaningful jobs in that bill, but they are going to be spent out. that's why we need the regular order here. we need the six-year bill, which will put us on a sustainible path. we didn't get hardly any orders in construction last year, because all the people who got jobs said it's a one-year job. i'm not going to go out and buy

a new rock crusher or anything, the leasing was up. sales were down. if we had a predictable transportation path for transportation and investment. you would see a big uptick in people buying the work to do the work and buying the components would cause us to buy american. host: would you talk about the other things? guest: well, the windmill -- a lot of chinese have gotten a couple of the big segments of our stimulus money for the wind investment. health i.t., what was that doing in a stimulus bill for this? green grids, still no one knows what the green grid is. does it mean like in boulder where there's a system that measures your use and reports tore you real time or a better

way to transmitt electricity. no one even knew what it was but threw billions at it and shorted transportation and infrastructure, because to them it's old hat. host: this was supposed to be a session of -- about jobs and creation. what's being done with that guest: well, they are not enough. i would like to see more. i would like to see more concrete, not to make a bad pun but those investment ins jobs and do a bill that has a number of tax revisions that favored by the business community keep folks going and bring about more sflefmentclal equipment. but that's not a direct jobs creation. again, i just want to go back to bangs. let's rebuild the national transportation infrastructure. let's not be 1/3-world country in terms of the state of our transportation infrastructure,

which is where we are headed today. host: first caller is tim from leesburg, virginia. caller: i guess it's a comment and question, and you touched on parts of it. what do we do to ensure that these hundreds of billions we put in the infrastructure, that the job actually goes to legal residents? in the construction trade, they get around it by using sub contracters who have a state i.d. when contractors come in to buy equipment they don't have a federal number for them, they don't have legal status in this country. guest: we would require the use of the e. verify system for federal contracts. and also for federal, you know,

go through the federal employee roster also, so we can verify that these people are eligible to work in the united states of america. that would be a good step forward is to be sure that these jobs are going to americans. but again going back to the buy america, there are some loop holes in that, too, the most famous is the oakland bay bridge. i had a hearing. the guy who got the contract came in and the only person who bid on the special steel members for that bridge. his company, no one could make them, because it was a new design. so he bid a u.s. price and china price. and if your china price or overseas price is 25% less or more, then you can ask for a wafer. -- you can ask for a waiver. so he got a waiver and built a -- built the beams until china and of course, they were poor

quality and they didn't work out. guest: i said so they had a plant in china? he said no. i built a plant over there. i said if i tightened up the loophole -- he said i would have built here the plant. caller: glad to see you on tv. i want to know about the republicans. what are they doing in congress, the senate and the house. i'm not stalking about the real republicans actually working but the other once that like to sit on their kiesters and wait for somebody else to do the work for the american people. what are they doing right now with the oil spill and the job creations that you're talking about right now? guest: well, we'll see, yornl what's going to happen on the oil spill in terms of looking

at the liability issues. we're holding a major hearing on that today in the transportation committee. but in terms of jobs creation, the strategy, you know, the parting line and strategy is they think things are going well toward the november elections, and they are just not participating in any legislation that, whether you agree with the legislation or not, but they are not participating in things that are purported or actually going to create jobs. so they are just kind of absent from the debate and on hold. of course, the o'bama administration is absent from the debate on transportation, too. host: someone asked about waste in transportation and spending and what can you cut? guest: well, we've had two very bipartisan commissions who spent a couple years -- they were both created during the years and said we need to spend

about $2 trillion to bring it up to good standards and to begin to mitigate congestion and have new ways for new transit systems. so i'm not looking toward cutting. we certainly don't want to waste money. and we have a rigorous oversight. and we've done oversight of the stimulus spending. some of it to me is not the biggest bang for the buck. a lot is grinding up the surface and it's something you got to do to maintain the roads, but we have not yet found any blatant waste. i'm sure somewhere out there there is some, but transportation stuff is pretty transparent. it's all competitively bid, and people can monitor it on a pretty regular basis so i'm sure there's less fraud going on there than other things that

are harder to track. caller: can you hear me? host: you're on, sir. caller: we just paved a lot of roads in this area that didn't need to be paved, yet tweaks county has gone to a four-day school week because they can't afford the busing. we've laid off 89 teacher assistants in houston county school system. we're focusing the money on roads that have already been paved recently, and the teachers are hurting, losing jobs, and one other thing, are yool determined to legalize truckers coming out of mexico? their trucks are illegal and unsafe. guest: let's start with mexican trucks. i thread fight against mexican trucks coming into the u.s. they don't have meaningful hours of service records and there's no way to know what their driving records are.

there's questions about the equipment they are using. the bush administration attempted to to board tore them, and we actually passed legislation in congress to stop that experiment. and right now mexican trucks can't come in more than 20 miles. they come in and drop their load and a u.s. truck delivers it. the o'bama administration claims nastya is going to force them to open up the borders and the mexicans have applied illegal tariffs targeting my district and others trying to intimidate members of congress with blings of dollars of tariffs for the damages they incurred because of the 100 mexican trucks that were coming into the u.s. it's absurd, the o'bama administration won't do anything about it. i have letters signed to president o'bama saying you have to let the mexican trucks

in, let's renegotiate and there's no american demean wants to drive a truck truck in mexico because you need armed guards and no one i know in the u.s. that wants to let mexican trucks free range around the u.s. so it's a security issue, a safety issue and ultimately a jobs issue. if they do open up the board of wholesale, u.s. companies will buy them up and employ the mexican workers for dollars on the usual pay. they promise med they would brief me but they didn't and so i don't know where they are headed with this but i don't think they should attempt to allow the mexican trucks in. host: rep can line, steve. caller: good morning to both of you. i have question. i worked in construction. when you do roadways and bridges. most of the jobs are awarded to

unions. union contracts. could they do set asides where the people where the bridges are being built and the roads are being built that they would take a certain number of unemployed people from that area that aren't in the union to create the job. and secondly, if they put the money that they put aside to build the roads and not allow it to be sifened off for social security and pet projects, we might get something done. the other thing is when they sy, you know, illegal aliens aren't taking jobs from americans, well, the problem is the people that hire these people get them to work for like $3 an hour where americans couldn't possibly work for $3. that's the reason why americans aren't taking these jobs. it's all common sense. that's all i ask for, thank you. guest: well, again, as i said

earlier, these projects are competitively bid, and whether it's a union firm or non-union firm, i have some companies in oregon who have both a union and non-union side, and they bid on these projects. so there's no particular set aside. there's a requirement that a living wage be paid on federal construction projects. you know, set asides are things targeted toward the unemployed that is a great idea. of course,, we have over 20% unemployment in the construction? i. -- in the construction industry. so you could argue if we brought in more construction jobs, you certainly would be employing additional folks. the federal money that's collected in gas tax is dedicated only to transportation infrastructure. only transportation infrastructure projects. it can't be diverted into other

things, and if any other state or locality is going that sort of thing with federal funds, they are violating the law and we would love to hear about that. but states obviously have more flexibility with their own funds. i can't address that issue. >> on illegal workers, and i've met with men and women in the construction trade where they can document unscrupulous contractors have brought in illegals and they are paying them a fraction of what u.s. workers would be paid to do that work and it is going on and it has to stop. that's why my friend from georgia and i are putting together a bill that if you have contractors, you have to verify neems are in the united states legally. >> our next call is from roseburg, oregon, where is that?

guest: about 65 miles south of where i live in springfield. host: is it part of the fourth district? guest: it is. caller: good morning, congressman, to speak with you, sir. you are my congressman, and i am proud to say that. guest: thank you, mike. caller: i have to say the gentleman, the last caller, seemingly had some constructive ideas there. the thing i'm concerned with, sir, quite honestly, is that i would like to see something developed in our country in terms of high-speed to rail, something to catch up with the rest of europe. i spent 14 years in europe, and i know first hand that the tgv is an extremely efficient system. and if we could do something like that here, it would certainly help our country, indeed, in terms of, well, everything. again, sir, thank you for your representation. and i hope we keep you there a long time, sir.

guest: thanks, mike. appreciate it. well, 6:00, i keep my watch on oregon time. i was thinking it was early. but sun's up. hope it's a nice day. i think it was supposed to rain this week. i just left yesterday. mike, part of my transportation bill would put a major initiative in place for high-speed rail. but the total bill. i talked about $450 billion, that's for roads, bridges, highways, transit system. but the bill $500 billion with $50 billion going towards high-speed rail over the next six years, which would put us on the path to build out some sections of high-speed rail in the u.s. i think we should do it the way the spanish did it. they built one section of high-speed rail from the capital to the coast from madrid to the coast. after a while everybody in spain had riden on it and said we want it.

now it goes all around spain, and they are building out more sections. i was there when they opened the line to barcelona, which used to be a five-hour ride is now way less than two hours. it's changed the economics of the country tremendously. i believe the high-speed rail, particularly for congested areas could be tremendous. but you said we need to catch up with europe. the chinese are spending $hundreds of billions and building a high-speed network even the -- we can't afford to lose the competition. host: pine bluff, arkansas, daniel on our independent line? caller: yes, sir, i have a question about jobs here. i'm just kind of wondering, here, about job creation. why are we shipping our jobs overseas? especially with these globalists, anti-american

organizations like nastya? number two, this health care bill, where it requires all these businesss to purchase health care for their employees and all these are small businesses, they are going to go out of business if they do that, which means a lot of businesses will be closinging their door and employees will be losing their jobs. and that health care thing why it ended up costing people jobs and our freedom where the government will mandate that we get insurance is that not fascism and socialism and what about the constitution and bill of rights? guest: ok. covered a lot of ground there. i voted against nastya and would reappeal it if i could. we have a totally failed policy of trade in america and halfered millions of

transportation jobs and for years i've said how are you going to be a great nation and not make anything anymore? doesn't work. we're buying from china things we used to build here and borrowing money from china to do it. it's a huge problem. no more free trade agreements. we need to revisit our trade policy and rebuild it. in terms of small businesses. businesses of less than 50 people are exempt from the legislation, small businesses. so they are not going to be carrying the burden. but those who want to provide health insurance can actually get some tax breaks to do that. and some sub cities. and the last thing about saying everybody has to have health insurance. right now in my state, and i don't know about arkansas but every ensured oregon family is paying extra on their policy because of the people who are uninsured. if you are uninsured and

25-year-old motorcycle driver has an accident and your bill is high the rest of us pay for that. so requiring people have insurance and not make the rest of us sub as i dies their problem is not a bad idea. host: thank you for your time. guest: thank you. host: coming up we will take a break and talk about the president's visit with mexico, state dinner tonight at 6:00 and ceremony starting in a bit. we will have a discussion after this break from c-span radio. . .

>> senators are scheduled to vote on whether to end debate on the legislation. several issues remain unresolved. democrats are unable to get votes on their amendments. live on c-span radio hd3. consumer prices the client in a boat for the first time in 18 months. inflation rose at the slowest pace in 44 years. consumer prices edged down 0.1%.

inflation was flat in april. the inflation is up just 0.9%. some 180 county employees of georgia are being asked to return thousands of dollars in bonuses they were not entitled to. officials blame a payroll anomaly. those over payments were made 16 years ago. they can make a cash payment. those are some of the latest headlines on c-span radio. >> i offer a toast on behalf of the american people for hope for the future. general secretary and mrs. gorbachev, to your health.

>> over 20 years of state dinners at the c-span video library. watch what you want when you want. >> this weekend on book tv, michael graham defends the tea party movement. he makes a few accusations of his own. find the entire weekend schedule and at booktv.org and follow us on twitter. >> "washginton journal" continues. host: joining us now is peter deshazo from the center for strategic and international studies. one of the headlines calls this a healing visit for the u.s. and

mexico. would you agree/ guest: i would say the relationship has been good and this visit will bring us a step further along the direction of improved cooperation and a sense of common purpose. mexico is so important to the united states in so many different ways that there is always and importance to a visit of a mexican president. it is just a country of central importance to the u.s. host: on what front does the relationship needs strengthening? guest: the key issues for the visit will be security-related issues, border issues, economic issues. the mexicans are concerned about the u.s. economy.

their economy is linked to ours. mexico is a major supplier of oil to the united states. they are our third largest trade partner. anything having to do with the relationship is the u.s. is success inexico's trying to lower the levels of violence and to combat the drug cartels. there are border-related issues, energy issues. it is a broad agenda. host: both sides have made many statements about what is happening. how much goes into meetings with both presidents? guest: i think they are looking at practical issues as well as

the image of the countries working together. the united states has committed a co-responsibility for the problems in mexico in terms of drugs. we are a source of arms that are illegally introduced that help feed the drug violence. and so the response has to be cooperation. erit o-called marria initiative is a key element in that regard. host: there is a rights up on that very issue as far as the border issues. for supporters, every mexican presidents has vowed to take on drug traffickers.

guest: the violence has increased is a manifestation of that. the administration has shown substantial political will in , whichon the cartels, has caused them to use violence against government agents but also has unleashed a war among the cartels for control of drug routes. host: our guest will be here until 9:30 this morning. some of the beginnings of that ceremony on your screen. the state dinner for the president of mexico will be at 6:00 p.m. peter deshazo is our guest.

our phone numbers are -- 202- 737-0002 for democrats, 202-737- 0001 for republicans, 202-628- 0205 for independents. good morning. caller: i wanted to ask this gentleman what immigration laws are changing in mexico to complement the immigration laws in our own country? guest: the mexicans see the issue as mostly mexico to u.s. issue. their concerns are the u.s. laws, the reaction to the arizona law. public opinion has been strongly negative pre president calderon has spoken out against the law.

the mexican government is concerned about their citizens. reform of its own immigration with the hope of a comprehensive immigration reform that will normalize the relations between the united states and mexico in terms of flow of workers. host: peoria on our republican line, adam. caller: i want to bring up rule 1070. we have the top sheriff who says 30% of the immigrant that are crossing the border already have a criminal record. it is just a revolving door. i am shocked about the response across the country, especially

out of california about boycotting arizona and affect the the economy over this. what is your take on this? guest: i think the united states needs to have a comprehensive immigration reform. we need to be able to control our borders and admit people for work in a more orderly way. migration flows need to be better. that she done through a comprehensive kind of immigration package. it is not a question of law enforcement at the border or of policing work-related laws. host: jasmine on our independent line. caller: what is your opinion on

how mexican workers can make a living off of making less than the minimum wage? guest: in the united states, the wages are higher than the wages in mexico. those wages are attractive to mexican people. they have found lots of forms of employment in the united states. this has been a tradition for a long time. mexican workers have been part of the u.s. labor force for decades. they have been valuable workers in lots of different areas. host: how much of these discussions will take place on immigration policy? guest: it would not have had the profile it will have in this visit in terms of what mexicans are seeing from the visit and what president calderon will say

and do and the reaction from the u.s. side if it had not been for the arizona law. it has put immigration in the spotlight for this visit host: . host: the visit starts today. detroit, michigan on the democrats' line. you are on. go ahead. caller: yes. this is why -- on the arizona law. who all is coming across the border? then again, we can protect foreign borders but we cannot protect our own. that is right. host: austin, texas.

caller: you were talking about comprehensive reform. how are you going to do that when people come across the state line in areas that do not come across in the cities? how are you going to control the flow of immigrants when they come across barren land? guest: i am neither a politician nor am i a migration affairs expert. but in terms of overall policing of the border, the security- related issues, the normalization of entry and being able -- for these immigrants to be able to return to mexico. in many cases, if people are migrating for a period of time

and want to return, there should be some sort of system where people can be documented and return and can re-enter if that is the case. it needs to be normalized. host: how would you describe president calderon's reputation in his own country? guest: it has taken something of a hit. the drug violence is having an effect on his popularity. this is tough. he has stepped up to the plate in turning up the heat on the drug cartels, so this this it will be important for him in terms of how he rejects his plans and the response he gets from president obama.

i think the statements concern about mexico, statements of solidarity and of cooperation from the u.s. side will be important. host: oregon, good morning. caller: hello. my question -- i understand you said something about giving mexico another $1.3 billion for their side of border control, and i understand it was only $2 billion to build the entire offense and it has not been completed. host: the $1.3 billion is for mexico and other countries for counter drug activities. this is to strengthen equipment, training. guest: it is meant to solidify an effort between the united states and mexico in combating a

problem that is not just a bilateral problem but an international problem. it has a big regional dimension. it has to be approached from an international perspective. host: this is from twitter. couldn't we do something to help improve the opportunities in mexico? guest: the development of the mexican economy is a key factor in terms of migration flows. the u.s. has a big stake in the development of mexico's economy. in that regard, the nafta relationship is important. the development of the u.s. economy is key. as it grows, so does the mexican economy. host: what does he want to do

with nafta? guest: president obama talked about the possibility of reopening naphfta. the goal is to further coordinate with our canadian personnel as well. it is a three-way derangement and it is key to the united states. canada is our number one trade partner. is essential to the u.s. host: dallas, texas. caller: i hear you talk about illegal immigration. i do not understand, if i break the united states, i will go to jail for that as a

black man. my wife will, too. but we have illegal immigrants, i am saying that you were talking about -- obama will be a onetime president if he does not get the african american vote. if you are here illegally, you should enforce the law. understand where we are coming from. i understand where they are coming from. i am not for them going to the back of the line. if i break the law as a black man, i go to jail. host: president obama has said he will begin work on a comprehensive bill on immigration this year, and that is a big challenge. guest: it is a difficult issue.

it is a very emotional and important issue for the american people and for the mexicans. something that is going to require a comprehensive approach. the current situation is not working very well. it needs a lot of attention. host: california on our republican line, bob. caller: i live in mexico. seven or eight months out of the year. i talk to mexican nationals. it is not all mexicans coming across the border. i would consider 30% are from guatemala, san salvador, nicaragua. you see them on the corners in california.

i could take a bus and pick up 500 a day in the san francisco- bay area. they do not take people from nicaragua because the united states has to pay air fare to get them back home. when these people are caught, they give them a chicken and take them to court. we have to figure out a plan to get the nicaraguans back and the guatemalans, every nationality in latin america are here. it is not all mexicans. i would like to make that one point. guest: that is a valid point and that it underscores the point that they are linked in so many different ways. what goes for mexico in terms of

development and job creation goes double for several of the countries in central america and we need for mexico to do a better job for border control. host: beverly from georgia. caller: everybody is saying how great it is to be there as workers. they do not pay federal taxes. yet they receive federal benefits. we pay for their kids to be born. their kids get health care and education, they received food stamps. taxpayers, make them either garnished their witwages. half of these hispanics would leave this country. they want visas and green card

so they did not have to pay our taxes. guest: i cannot tell you how many people are paying taxes or not. people who have work permits and green cards are plugged into the system and paying taxes, social security, and everything else. i am not an expert on that topic, but normalization of immigration rules would increase tax payments in the united states. host: border violence. what is the mexican looking at from the united states? guest: a lot more cooperation in the area of law enforcement. they are looking to us to in improve training and equipment. that is what the initiative is for. this is a big challenge.

mexican police are not capable of standing up to the highly armed drug cartels. federal police have been brought in. there needs to be an awful lot of work in improving the quality of improving policing in mexico. the u.s. can support mexico in this. it requires investment on the part of mexico. host: what is the role in helping mexican police forces? guest: technical training cooperation on information, cooperation as feasible. help in improving administration of justice system. it is an area that needs a lot

of work and one that the calderon administration has identified as high priority. host: prescott, arizona. caller: good morning. let's talk about something serious, the american citizen who loses his job and home and family because there isn't any work. they claim there are about 20 million illegals working in our country, which manages 20 million jobs. the over burden on our hospitals, schools, drug trafficking. we buy their drugs. mexicans are sending billions of dollars back into mexico to survive because for years they

have been exploited by their own government. the problem is not only mexico can follow the money but the united states by us not enforcing our laws. i did not understand what other people do not understand about the word "the legal -- "illegaal." what does comprehensive mean? guest: i would say comprehensive means a system that takes into consideration all of the different aspects of immigration. a system that will penalize employers who employ illegal immigrants, the better control the border, that allows for

better documentation so that we know who is coming in, that allows for a greater and freer flow of workers so believe workers can come and go. it provides more information about the people who are coming in. all of this that eliminates the dangers that are involved in illegal immigration which are several. it eliminates trafficking in humans. that is also part of the problem. i think that would have a positive effect over all. beyond that, it is important about mexico's ability to develop its own economy and create more jobs so that the push factor for immigration is less. host: justin from ohio. caller: what the problems of the

world show is that people like your guests are extremely ineffective. all they do is spew comprehensive stuff. can this gentleman point to anything he has solved in the world? can you tell us a problem you have fixed? guest: i think i have to fix a lot of problems. i was a foreign service and a diplomat for over 27 years. i can point to lots of different issues i have worked on. the list is long. i am not sure it is needed to point out right now. need toreally think i respond to that question, only to say that putting out ideas from my point of view and that

solutions is a good way to work. host: last call. caller: i have been in the trades and i've seen quite a bit of changes. it is telling where i have noticed pockets where there are tens of thousands of people who are illegal. the police do not do anything. it is not their job. how do you feel about the impact of amnesty would be? amnesty is term and a staand a hot button. my sense of the word with the normalization. this is the devil in the details on immigration reform. there needs to be a taking into

consideration of the millions of people who are already in the country. that will be a central and difficult item in any kind of immigration reform package. host: peter deshazo from the center for strategic and international studies, thank you very much. the state dinner tonight is at 6:00 p.m. tonight. there are rival ceremonies tonight. dignitaries are lining up. vice president biden and his wife as well as secretary of state clinton will be there. we will watch that for a few minutes and then we will be right back. ♪

♪ >> ladies and gentlemen, the president of the united states and mrs. michelle obama. ["hail to the chief" plays]

>> president obama about to meet and greet the president of mexico at the white house. part of the visit. the state dinner will be tonight at 6:00 p.m. and you could watch it here on c-span, again, starting at 6:00 p.m. a couple of things in the news we have not talked about. this is from "the new york times." american deaths surpass 1000. this was on tuesday the toll of

the american dead past 1000 after a suicide bombing killed five u.s. service members. host: the front page of "the financial times" talks about a fresh sanctions package against iran. at the united nations, a picture with secretary of state hillary clinton. the new sanctions were agreed and presented yesterday to the 10 non-permanent members and will be the fourth to try to bring in iran's nuclear

ambitions. also, looking at elena kagan, a document being released as part of the confirmation process. a piece about white house staff members delivering boxes. it says that a specific piecthe of the ability of the supreme court to make changes against liberal rulings of previous decades.

host: if you want to comment on these stories and others, perhaps reaction from the special election, now is the time to do that. 202-737-0002 for democrats. 202-737-0001 for republicans. 202-628-0205 for independents. you can contact us by twitter, twitter.com/cspanwj. and you can reach us at journal@c-span.org. first., you're up caller: what do you think of the new i ran sanctions? host: what do you think?

caller: i think it will be the same old same old. will respectnk i raran the sanctions. host: this will be the fourth such attempts. caller: i think everyone needs to step up and do something. the sanctions are not working and they are not going to work. host: kennedy from new york. caller: i used to be a city inspector in new york city. hello? what went on there was the city covered up all the legal work that was going on. illegals filing under license contractors. instead of the city going to

clamp down, the inspectors that never reported the stuff, they ended up promoting these guys and gave them $30,000 raises. all these politicians from city council to the federal government was involved in this. no one has still done nothing about this today. they still have the same races against those who are illegal and putting them out of work. i wonder if that should be addressed to the president to get something chains. washington post" style section talks about the dinner tonight. they prepare for the state dinner.

dawners will be on site by gon for what will be close to a 18- hour day. do not drink alcohol or suffer from food allergies. no one wants a peanut-related incident. the goal of the waiters is to be attentive yet unobtrusive. the waiters are supporting the cast in the most elaborately staged white house event. greensboro, north carolina. william on our independent line. caller: the job creation and illegal immigration, kind of both. first of all, with job

creation, broke down the education available least as far as books and technology. if you were in a public school, they really let you touch it unless you have a parent who is working there. by college, they were letting in students from other countries. there is nothing wrong with that. you could at least give the college's more money. when it comes to illegal immigration, it all ties together with the three evils of the world. it is tied directly to human trafficking. they do not want to count the -- they don't want to talk about

arms dealings. talk about illegal immigration. the people who are working are harmless. the people doing illegal slavery will not talk about that. that has to be the bottom line. host: jeffrey. caller: a about a month ago, i was -- someone was on "charlie rose" and mentioned our objective was one of helping the afghanistan is improved their infrastructure and how not to be swayed by the taliban. i was so sad to hear that 1000 soldiers are now dead because i do not understand why. i thought we were going in there

to help the afghanistan people. i did not know we were going in there to continue this war with the taliban. host: there is a story from "the new york times" this morning. quantico, virginia. caller: i want to talk about the elections from yesterday. i was surprised that arlen specter was mr. sestak. i got done running for election in my local area and i was surprised how often voters do not seem to pay attention until the election comes up. ago with rumors. was surprising to me. you guys have increased my

knowledge on how the government works and listening to the reports. i just want to say thank you a lot and i appreciate the work you do. host: raleigh, north carolina, on our independent line. caller: america throughout time has supported dictatorships and communist countries in different parts of the world wherever the benefit would be. why is it we specifically go after iran and iraq and these other countries that have the resources that might be useful and yet we support other countries that do a lot more harm. since 2006, president calderon 6,000 he war on drugs, 2

mexicans have died. those are the people they cannot account for, not the people missing will have disappeared. i wanted to throw that out for people to hear. host: democrats uneasy over deficit spending. it would extend a variety of tax cuts and aid to governments while preventing a big pay cut from taking effect for doctors who see medicare patients.

host: brooke but, new york. democrats line. -- brooklyn, new york. caller: i submit to most of the people and people around the world that this question of drugs being brought into the united states, it seems to me there is a war on oil. the war in iraq would be a war for oil. the war in afghanistan is a war for control. keep it or confiscated.

i believe where there are minerals, valuable minerals, valuable drugs -- in other words, there is a war for people just like the british did in the opium in china. then they took the chinese poppy and tried to sell a back to the chinese. for the pharmaceutical industry , the oil industry deals with the oil. there are wars and people fighting for the oil. all these things are economic. host: there is the result of a senate investigation of what they call the botched christmas

day bombing. failures and no u.s. government agency sees itself as responsible for identifying terrorism threats. host: as well as the state department. tallahassee, florida. you are on. go ahead. caller: i still hear someone talking. host: you are hearing the feedback from listening on television. caller: ok. hello? host: you have to keep on going ahead. caller: they can hear me?

hello? host: you are on. go ahead. caller: i wanted to answer the question about the comprehensive amnesty. the man gave you an explanation of that. i want to take a little further. it is my opinion that comprehensive amnesty means that everyone in this country illegally right now will get to stay. they will not get sent out of this country. they will be here and they will be made citizens. i suppose there is a time they have to study to be a citizen. but they will not have to leave this country. amnesty means they get to stay here. it doesn't mean they will fix the border or that they will

not still come. there will still, because they want them to. if they did not, it would have done something about it. people come on tv and say bush did all this to keep the illegals out. john mccain gets on tv and tells us what we should do. he pushed the amnesty bill through the congress, or tried to. it. republicans stopped d six weeks after that, they tried to push it through again. we're going to lose our country if people do not wake up. caller: good morning, pedro. a couple of points if it is ok. number one, i would like to talk about your twitters.

this is a phone-in show. we do not know who those twitter people are. i see they are going bananas with it. this is a phone-in show. we do not know if they are politicians or aides. we consult regular americans went we can hear them on the phone. connecticut.ngratulate up been%- i want to congratulate him. i give him another 24 hours. i would like to congratulate the country on these elections. this country can make major adjustments politically. i congratulate us all for that.

watch out in november, democrats. you are gone. think you, pedro. get rid of that twitter crap. host: we have done e-mail for the longest of time. it is a way of getting more of an input into the topics. if you follow cnn, one of their news anchors has decided to leave the network, campbell brown. she is wary of cable bombast. she wrote a letter about why she is leaving.

host: centreville, virginia, you are next. john on our independent line. caller: maybe you could limit twitter to once a week. people should be told to turn off their tv or not look at because the lip-synching is distracting. i have two comments. one on the immigration problem. we need to change the 14th amendment because the founders had no concept or way of knowing

about anchored interviews. some people want to make it that both parents have to be citizens. ame compromise i su submitting is that at least one of the parents should be a legal residents of any baby that get citizenship. i think that would go a long way toward solving the problem eventually. the other comment is that the war on cannabis is evil. the burning bush that moses in joy it was probably cannabis. cannabis in leighton's people. host: -- cannabis in leightonen

people. host: please turn down your television set so the feedback does not halt the flow of conversation. new haven, indiana. dave, good morning. caller: i am represented in northeast indiana and i'm not happy with my representatives. mark sutter said he is going to resign and he did not have the guts to stay in the senate. as far as the immigration -- i am conservative. i believe humans have great volume. they should open the gates and let as many in as possible. host: i apologize. we were losing the signal.

tom, go ahead. caller: i was calling because of the disaster in the gulf. we do not have time to be talking about anything else at this point. why don't they have more domes? we should be producing these domes every single day. when one doesn't work, try another one. keep on target. try another, try another. they need more domes. they have to do something about this and finished the job. host: mississippi. democrats line. caller: good morning. thank you for c-span. can you hear me? ok. i have a comment. it seems to me like when bush got in office, the floodgates

were opened for the illegal immigrants to come in here. our jobs were being outsourced. everything coming into the country was from other countries, exported into here, into our country from china and mexico and everywhere. we are in this because of this. i do not know how much what the ratio is to exporting to importing. what we're importing here. i doubt it is very little we're getting the benefits from. but i do think that we are in this situation because of some

of these things. also, it is kind of like an underground railroad tie. they're bringing them in the country in the middle of the night and there was a whole cattle of them. they went to a house or a safe house or something. i did not have anybody to call. they are coming in here in droves. it seems like it is getting a little better. host: there is a piece in "the washington post." the federal government spent $1 for every dollar they received in taxes. eventually it's slow economic growth and made america more dependent on the kindness of creditors.

host: some of the largest states are on the verge of the fault. host: hagerstown, maryland.

caller: yes, good morning, pedro. i have a question about c-span. i watch every morning and i noticed an overwhelming amount of people call from maryland and around the d.c. area. i was wondering if c-span ever does any kind of study about that. host: maybe they are around the district of columbia and they are into what we are doing. we do receive calls from across the nation. why does it concern you? caller: i just was wondering. this part of the country seems to be more interested in politics because it is around washington. i lived in hagerstown, maryland. i am very interested in politics. i was wondering if