temporary assistance to needy families emergency fund. "washington journal" is next. ] [captioning performed by national captioning institute] host: it is shaping up to be a very active week here. a number of supreme court key rulings this week. president obama may have up to capitol hill tomorrow to talk about a legislative agenda. on the floors of the house and senate, lots of legislation. is that war funding for iraq and afghanistan on the floor. also, the financial regulation bill. money to prevent teacher layoffs may come up. also a bill that does extend tax cuts but also extends jobless benefits and some health-care benefits.

house coverage here on c-span, senate on c-span to. -- this is the outlook section of "the washington post" from the weekend. on one side, the forces of free enterprise -- on the other, and expanded the paternalistic government, and it is time to choose. he writes that this is not the culture war of the 1990's, not a fight over guns, gays, or abortion. those old battles have been eclipsed by a struggle of two competing visions of the country plus future. in one, america will continue to be an exception one asian organized from the principles of free enterprise, limited and on the, on other, america will move toward european statism, a managed economy, and large-scale income redistribution.

these visions are not reconcilable right now. we must choose. i wanted to get your thoughts this monday morning as we enter a busy week. the idea here is free enterprise versus an expanding and paternalistic government. that is what arthur burks rights, with the american enterprise institute. -- what arthur brooks writes, and he is with the american enterprise institute. democrats call -- more from the peace in the posts. it is not all that clear, writes arthur brooks. which side will prevail? both sides of the government enjoy the full arsenal of the administration's money and it was pretty leaders in washington, aided by the unprecedented economic crisis of recent years and the panic induced had seized the moment

to seize breathtaking swaths of the economy. if these forces continue to prevail, america will cease to be a free enterprise nation. first call this morning, corpus christi, texas. bill on the line for democrats, what you make of the idea of this new culture war, as arthur brooks seized it? -- as arthur burks sees it? caller: well, in the first place, let's realize one thing. free enterprise -- no industrialized nation can withstand the onslaught of unlimited third world labor. it is just not possible. free enterprise is what we have got now -- no regulation of free enterprise is exactly what happened in the gulf. exactly. they do not apply to the regulations -- they do not abide

by the regulations, and the authorities have no regrets. he had been a union member, he could not have stopped the job for the active in. host: we go to mary from buffalo, new york, on the republican line. what do you think? caller: i just wanted to say thank you. this is the first time i have called in to the program. what i wanted to say is that socialism as a whole has failed in our world view, and i think that if we depend on a government that is more -- is less free market and more government run or, you know, monopolized, maybe businesses, organizations, it believes the two worst things, in my opinion. host: thank you for calling. "i call this a culture war because free enterprise is

interpol to american culture from the beginning, and its allies if the court -- is integral to american culture from the beginning. as thomas jefferson declared, "a wise and frugal government which shall lead them otherwise free and not take from the mouth the bread that it has turned. "to take from one because it is thought that his own industry and that of his father's has acquired too much in order to spare others who, or whose fathers, have not exercise equal industry and skill come is to violate arbitrarily the first principle of association, the guarantee to every one of a free exercise of his industry and the fruits acquired by its." and other words, the where government's economic control, and woe betide the read distributors. -- the, distributors. silver spring, maryland, jake.

caller: well, i see our nation's development. something is going to have to compromise between the two, because the for enterprise work in the government -- in the country, because we had free labor to build the enterprise. now, i do not know. that is just not working. i am not sure. i do not like government sticking its nose into business, but sometimes business can get out of hand and take advantage of people. host: to jeanne now, back to the democrats. jean is in new orleans. -- gene is in new orleans. i say bravo to the first caller -- caller: i say bravo to the first caller. he is absolutely correct. being an old hippie, i go back to the 1960's to a band called

10 years after. a very wise guitar player wrote a letter, "tax the rich, feed the poor until they are not rich no more." thank you. host: herald, republican caller, free enterprise versus expanding government. caller: think in our country we have sort of a compromise, but you can look around the world and tell that free enterprise works everywhere. socialism, when it is tried in a far left version, has failed. even in the socialist republics of europe, we are paying for their defense bills. when fdr had the great depression and it went on year after year after year, after it had stopped all over the world, it is because he took all my productive wealth and put it into government programs -- all of our productive wealth and put it into government programs. if you want to take all the productive members of society and all their capital, and all the wealth, and give it to the government who is going to dish it out to people that cannot use

it, you are not going to do very well. host: arthur burks calls it the new culture war -- arthur brooks called it the new culture war. you can go to "to the washington post." more from the peace and then more from your calls rewrites "entrepreneurship can only flourish when individuals are willing to innovate where people enjoy the rewards and face the consequences of their decisions, and where we can double the security of the status quo for a chance of future success. yet in his commencement address at arizona state last year, president obama warned against precisely such impulses. "you are taught to chase after all the usual brass rings, you have tried to be on this who's who list, that top 100 list, to chase after the big money and you figure out how your big corner office is.

you were about whether you have a fancy enough title or a fancy enough car. that is the message that has been sent in our culture for far too long. that material possessions through a ruthless competition pursued only on your own behalf, that is how you measure success." such ambition, he cautioned, "may lead you to compromise your values and your principal's." next call on all of this -- resting, virginia, paul, on the ,ndependent line -- rusteston virginia, paul, on the independent line. caller: it is nice to split the world evenly into those who favor socialism who has proven itself to fail in eastern europe and the soviet union, and free enterprise, but the fact is there is nobody on the left who is looking for a paternalistic government. rather, they are looking for the means to power, people, ordinary people, what ever there income

level, to take care of themselves and should not be afraid of either their government or large corporations. say that the left is about a paternalistic government is the similar thing as saying that the right is about turning government -- turning the economy over to the large corporations without accountability or regulation. i do not think that that is how they would describe themselves, but that is exactly what we have seen, the results of that philosophy, that economic theory, precisely the things that we saw on wall street with the financial markets that were more deregulated. it became more accountable for what they were doing. host: that was paul from reston, virginia. he right -- arthur brooks

writes, "the president of the u.s. to actively warn young adults away from economic ambition is remarkable. and he makes clear that he seeks to change our culture. he is quoting a presidential speech from last year. the title of the piece is the new culture war. we are asking folks about the premise here, as arthur brooks sees it -- free enterprise on one side, paternalistic government on the other. sylvia, miami, florida, democrats line. caller: i think mr. brooks is offering a false choice. i think it is a matter of balance. we do not have to go one way or the other. there has to be some victory in the game, otherwise we end up with the wall street fiasco or the latest bp fiasco.

and we can go right down the center. i think his rhetoric is just meant to be inflammatory with what has been happening later. host: if you are a user of twitter, c-spanwj is our address. hanover, maryland. juan, republican, good to have you. caller: in the article, which i read yesterday with my wife, we were amused by the percentage of people who say they agree with free enterprise, which is 70%, and yet we are ruled by the 30%, which is the socialistic aspect of our current government. we are for free enterprise, of course we are for regulation

from preventing -- preventing it from getting into the mess that we are in, but as the author of the article noted, this is not when its started in the obama administration. i am not saying that i am for obama's administration, i am just saying that politicians either are unaware of what they were getting themselves into, or no one was there to restrain them from causing such a condition. i think the country as a whole is not ready for a socialistic, and i do not think it ever will be. i think the nation wants free enterprise, which is what it intended when the founding fathers began to create a nation for the people and by the people, not for the people by only a few and giveaway to everybody else. that does not work. host: that was juan from hanover, maryland. there is a photo here of a

younger person holding up a sign at a protest in new york city, "i've got a 4.0 gpa, $90,000 in debt, and no job. where is my bailout." "for get guns and got, the new culture war is all business," writes arthur brooks. next call, joe. caller: i just wanted to say that i agree with the balance between government elections and free enterprise. -- between government intervention and free enterprise 3 government needs to regulate the big business because all i care about is the bottom line. they also need to stay out because it helps motivate people to innovate. i also want to comment on you have a four. those gpa -- a 4.0 gpa -- all those kids graduate from

conflict -- that from college that cannot afford houses nowadays, they are talking about, you know, regulating the price of houses and keeping the price of houses in check without evaluating the value of them. that is the natural tendency of the market. the prices went up as a result of it. well, they are going to go down+ when people start getting foreclosed. i think they should leave that alone. host: more from the papers and elsewhere this morning. "the wall street journal" says "economists see a solid u.s. growth." this from a panel of economists from thursday. "predicted u.s. growth, gross

domestic product, would grow this year and next, higher than the 3.1% growth predicted for both years in the last svey." the results of this piece that we found at cq -- "wary democrats face extenders of something called tax expenditures, and the author here is richard rubin, who joins us on the phone now. he is an economics reporter. good morning. guest: grninood mo host: what is the tax extender'' bill all about? guest: it is a big bill, almost $200 billion, that has a few significant things in it. number one, it has an extension of unemployment insurance, which expires in the next week or two. it has an extension of the expanded health insurance for people who have lost their jobs, which also expires. it has a bunch of tax breaks in it, for research and development credit to the detailed tax

deduction that expires at the end of 2009 and extends those through 2010. it has a version in there that will prevent a scheduled cut in pay, deep cuts in pay to doctors who take patience on medicare. host: why is it so important that gets passed this week? guest: because a lot of it expires after congress goes on recess and before they come back. deadlines create pressure, and that is why there is a real push to get something done this next week. host: speak to the debate at hand. you mentioned $200 billion. where are the lines being drawn? guest: there are two big problems the democrats are facing right now to muster the votes on the street number one is that of the roughly $200 billion, only about $60 billion or so is paid for. the rest either is considered an emergency or is considered

exempt from the rules by which you normally have to offset the cost of spending or tax cuts. so a lot democrats are really wary about voting for a bill that would add to the deficit, so significantly, in the big picture, $100 billion and something is still a big number. a lot of democrats are worried about that, and a lot of other democrats are concerned about specific ways they are paying for the bill -- namely, changing tax treatment of what they call carried interest, which is the way that private equity managers and venture capitalists and certain real-estate investors get paid. host: what are the white house priorities here? is it the whole bill, just parts of it? guest: the white house has not been extremely active on this. the white house has certainly supported the extension of unemployment benefits, as proposed changing tax treatments, but that is one of the things to watch for in the

next week. particularly if it starts looking difficult for democrats to pass this on in the house and senate, whether the white house will come in and really start twisting arms or, on the flip side, kind of putting their megaphone on republicans who might be trying to block the bill, particularly in the senate. host: might some items be peeled off if it gets too hard for folks? guest: that is an interesting question. it is not clear yet because they really package them all together intentionally. given the -- it is only the day, but there's not much time left may,he senate -- is only t but the thought of trying to go through any of these provisions as sort of daunting, particularly to the senate leadership, who has to find

floor time for something that will probably take three or four days at least. so this is probably the last best chance bed that does not mean that they will not come up with some sort of short term -- so this is probably the last best chance. that does not mean that they will not come up with some sort of short-term situation. host: richard rubin, we will continue to watch your work on the debate. we appreciate your time. back to your call on this promise by arthur c. brooks he says it is time to choose between a new culture war -- on one side, free enterprise, on the other side, and expanding paternalistic government. caller: i was hoping that you would give me as much time as the other callers. there was a collaboration study done by the university of cornell and oxford measuring political ideology.

basically it plot of the ideology of all the parties in the world and toward the left you had very socialistic government like hugo chavez and what not that is extreme socialism. he found that both the democratic and republican party had some points to the right. republicans from all levels are placing the minds of millions of low-in information voters and calling for the failure of the president. so when he talked about socialization of the united states, you have to ask to dig deeper. do you care about social security? medicare? those are called socialist programs. now, these low-information voters choose to plug their ears. now, reagan was a master of disdain for government. when you go back to regulating insurance companies, the republican party year after year after year voted for free market

regulations, not regulating companies, and what did that do? nothing. is not regulated by its citizens, it will destroy the economy and the country like it happened a year ago. and this president is just pulling us out of it, and all they keep calling for is the failure of the president. it is sad, sad, almost borderline insane to say that america is a socialist country. host: thank you for calling. andrew, to the republican line, just outside d.c. caller: the first thing i want to do is cite the u.s. constitution, article one, section 8, paragraph eight. about one by securing the -- it

promotes business, and that is where the country has generated the high standard of living in the history of the world in terms of average people. then i wanted to quote -- bear with me -- winston churchill when he said, "socialism is a philosophy of failure, a creed of ignorance, a gospel of envy. it's inherent virtue is people sharing in misery." host: this is the front page of "the miami herald." "disaster in the gulf, a toxic shock." one bird is struggling to survive, another untouched on a small island. the oil company bp has put out another full-page ad. here is one we pulled from "usa

today." "what we are doing and how to get more information." they put their web address up here. they leave some phone numbers as well, but bp.com/gulfof mexicoresponse. meanwhile, the white house is losing patience, according to this article in "the baltimore sun." "members of the obama administration-bp's progress, even as they acknowledged they have to rely on the oil giant's equipment and expertise to plug the well in one of the harshest government condemnations of the petroleum giant to date. ken salazar said bp had blown deadline after a deadline at down not fulfilled the mission it was supposed to fulfill.

"i am angry and i am frustrated that bp has not stopped the leaking and to stop the pollution from spreading." "we are 33 days into the effort and deadline after a deadline has been missed. they also point out that the -- those comments stood in contrast to the news show remarks from u.s. coast guard command and admiral fat allen. next call. caller: american capitalism is turning into socialism, and that will create a lot of social tension for both parties, the rich and the portrait and because of the peculiar institution that we had in america for to under 46 years, that will always have poor people here -- for 246 years, that will always have poor people here and the rich do not want to take care of the people.t

host: a quote from sarah palin, "the obama administration is taking so doggone long to die than here and "she took aim at the president has handling of the oil spill, suggesting that the contributions to the president may have slowed the administration's response to the crisis. this is the remarks that she made over the weekend, and the white house spokesman, robert gibbs, defended the administration's response, said that the saying that we are making sure that we can contain what is happening. he said she did not pay a whole lot of attention during the 2008 campaign. "i am almost sure the oil companies do not consider the obama administration a huge allied. we proposed a windfall profits task, and my suggestion to sarah

palin would be to get slightly more informed as to what is going on." back to the question of free enterprise versus expanding government, put forth by arthur brooks in the washington post. springfield, ohio, phyllis, democrats. thank you for waiting. caller: the answer to the whole culture war is right there at c- span's table. when we were told that 94% of the economic growth in our country goes to the top 10% of people in the country, the free enterprise people, that leaves 90% of american citizens to share the other 6% of the economic growth in our country, and that is what the tea party is all about. that is what stop obama is all about. keeping 94% of the economic growth of our country to the top

10% of people in our country. obama wants to change that, and that is why they want him to fail, because he wants to change that because it is not fair. host: we hear from jim now on the republican line from baker, louisiana. hello, jim. seco yes, i see your topic -- caller: yes, i see your topic, and it is crazy to do this or ask questions like this. look at what has happened in venezuela with hugo chavez. is that what you want? you people, i tell you, c-span, you did everything in the world to get obama elected. and do not tell me that you are not biased because you certainly, certainly are. if you want the country to be

like venezuela, just keep putting stuff like this on the screen and asking questions like this. this is the silliest thing i have ever seen anybody do. host: an opinion there from jim from louisiana. we now hear from tony on the independent line from orlando. seco i think you guys are doing a great job -- caller: i think you guys are doing a great job. i think this right here, all you guys from free enterprise saying that the small business and capital takeover -- if you do not want the government, moved out of the way and let free enterprise take over but it does not work and at the end of the day they want government money. host: we will talk later in the program about welfare, programs,

u.s. home foreclosure, and later we will talk with abdullah abdullah, the former afghanistan presidential candidate. bill, a democrat, free enterprise expanding, paternalistic government. caller: i think you guys have been very patient to listen to some of the and articulate -- some of the inarticulate, uneducated answers. you cannot have no regulation and expect the government to go in and take care of a failing economy and take care of an oil rig at the same time. i think most people who are going to these key parties do not understand the consequences of not acting and not regulating, and when things happen because of non regulation, they cry foul and a cry socialism. you cannot expect the government not to step in. host: pat from jacksonville,

florida, on the republican line. caller: this must be faith, because when i heard your program this morning, i said please, god, let me get on. we are giving billions of dollars to haiti, where it textiles from haiti can come duty-free into the united states. this is not an issue of present -- of prejudice. we have more haitians living in the united states. the haitians -- who is going to profit by the free trade deal? the companies that move out of the united states to haiti will pay those workers about $5 a day. then they will be able to bring those textiles back into the united states, pay no duties, no income tax, and they have companies who try to stay in north carolina and pay americans, including haitians, a living wage, and they cannot compete with that. they can always undercut them.

senator gore of tennessee, who states that the senator corker -- senator lugar, senator kerrey -- it will pass the u.s. senate unanimously, and then it will go to the house unanimously. and how many american jobs are going to be lost? they do not know, they do not care. that might be free trade to corporations, but it is not free to haiti and it is not free to the united states. and if i could say one other thing -- polaris just fired every employee they have got in wisconsin. they have 500 employees. they made a 90% increase in profits last year, but they are moving to mexico where they will be able, even though they made a huge profit in the united states, paying a living wage, in mexico the salaries they pay will be much less. they will have very few environmental controls.

they will be able to ship those goods duty-free into the united states. as long as they stay in mexico, they will pay no income tax. host: caller, i will let you go. there is a picture of rand paul in "the new york times," who just won in kentucky last week john harwood writes that ron emmanuel has a vision of how the foreboding national political environment will be to his party's advantage. the old debate pitted the government against all government, in 1980 when ronald reagan shattered the democratic coalition that produced the new deal and the great society. then bill clinton set out, your budget balancing and government reform and welfare overhaul, to give democrats a reputation for effective, efficient government. that helped his party compete with the republican small government mantra.

president obama aims to extend mr. clinton's achievement, but now mr. emanuel is pulling republicans from small government to know government responses to the nation paused problems. "if it is efficient government verses no government, we win." formulation points to the broader significance of rand paul's victory in the rear kentucky -- in the kentucky republican senate primary. he says constitutional conservatism resembles as cozy as can be found in the candidate for federal office the new government's stance mr. emanuel wants to take on. that is why as much as the diffuse dialogue of midterm elections will allow, democrats will try to make mr. paul the face of the opposition. michael, independent. caller: good morning, you have a great show and it is a great question. i am a professor in the graduate school, and i am all for the

summer preparing cases for the next term. host: which school, sir. caller: the same one that mr. bush went to in boston, but i would rather not put my spool on. i am speaking for myself-my school on there. i am speaking for myself. the free enterprise system and government support can exist at the same time, but i think there is room to be critical for both mccain and obama for lacking common sense. here is mccain, who has spent his entire career, 30 or 40 years, talking about how we could have won the vietnam war. let's say we won it. what did we win? we had a small nation, 1 million or 2 million people die. and then became comes out and he

votes for $14 billion for an atomic submarine. yet it is all done in one day, and then he spends a month and a half fighting not to give $14 billion to general motors to maybe save 1 million jobs. i think it is a better investment to put the money into general motors and to put it into a submarine where the russians are breaking them down and selling them for scrap. i want to make one statement on obama. obama is a very intelligent man, but i askkd him where is his common sense with spending $1 million per soldier. $1 million per soldier, two times the salary of goldman sachs.

if i took a six year-old or any of greater, they would say it was crazy. they do not make that in the nba. now he goes in with 30,000 people into afghanistan. so let me give you the quote of donald trump, who has real common sense. he said, look, the money in iraq was wasted, the money in afghanistan was wasted. these people have been fighting for 1000 years. when you leave 24 hours later, nothing has changed. as a business professor, we could have had come if you had not gotten the vietnam war and these other two wars, we could have free college educations for every american high-school graduate, and medical care for everyone in the united states, free of charge for what we spend. so i think it is a poor use of our money, and i am worried that this country could wind up like greece. i just do not want the country

to go bankrupt. host: michael from new york city, another twitter message. "democrats always raise taxes to pay for previous gop tax cuts and spending, and then we get kicked to the curb, the damned circle of d.c. life." next caller. caller: i think you guys do a good job. but also, my comment is that a guy called up earlier and he said that roosevelt basically started the depression. he does not realize that roosevelt, the depression started in 1929, and roosevelt did not take over until 1933. it took the spending of world war ii, and we say that spending does not count, but it certainly does. if you do not have referees in

football, pro basketball, anything, you are not going to have a game, you are going to have a brutality kind of a contest. that is basically what you have got when you have too big to fail. host: we will do this for another five or six minutes, and then go on to our guest. here is a piece in "usa today." there will be a couple of procedural votes on the senate floor, and then they go into conference. paul davidson in "usa today" writes that the sweeping overhaul that passed the senate last week after some time, acrimonious debate, now another battle. reconciling differences. the house and senate versions of the 1500-page bill, while the two bills are largely similar, there are key differences. the resolution could determine how tight the reins on wall street will be pulled and how many safeguards are provided to consumers. the senate bill requires banks to divest their derivatives

trading units and encourages regulators to prohibit banks from using their own capital for high risk investments. the house bill does not. one other difference here, the senate places a new consumer watchdog agency within the federal reserve. the house measure calls for a stand-alone entity but exempts car dealers, which lawmakers say sometimes steers buyers into bad loans from agency oversight. one more difference, the senate bill provides for the orderly liquidation of failing financial firms but does not set aside a specific amount of money to pay for it. house calls for a $150 billion fund paid by financial institutions assessments. you can follow this through the papers and the speeches we will be showing. hopefully the conference will be open. we hope to cover it. but we will see what happens. gaithersburg, maryland, chuck, republican collar.

caller: good morning. a few of your callers -- a lot of people now realize, there are hundreds of thousands of laws on the books in federal and state governments that are never enforced. they are only enforced if they are socially acceptable. as far as free enterprise and government, the government does not produce jobs. the government is just a direct expense to the taxpayers. every dollar they spend it is a dollar of expense that we all have to absorb. all they do is try to appease the ideology, whether republican or democrat, and it costs the taxpayers in this country hundreds and hundreds of billions of dollars. until the government starts realizing that they have laws on the books -- the prime example is the immigration laws. the immigration laws in the federal immigration laws are so much more stringent than the arizona law, but nobody reads the bills, nobody reads the laws, nobody knows what is in denver in the health care bill is a total sham.

when this thing -- what is in its. we are going to find out that the health care bill will cause the taxpayer another 400% to 500% in premiums. we have to get real. one of the callers said we have to start using common sense in managing our government and managing our lives. thank you. host: warren is on the line, an independent scholar. caller: milton friedman, the economic nobel prize winner, said that capitalism has no social responsibility. the only responsibility is it has is to maximize profits, or its -- for its investors. we can look at united states, which has the highest child poverty rate over 20%. sweden got up to 2% once and heads rolled. 40% of our food is consumed by

human beings. to meet some of the free enterprise system is not helping the american people. before we were forced to get the environmental protection agency, and before we had the environmental protection agency, the detroit river caught on fire print we have to have -- the freighter price system will not protect workers. it goes back to the times in the 1800's of jay gould when he said, "i can hire half the american workers to kill the other half." free enterprise, to me, basically is organized crime. host: one more piece on the financial regulations bill. conference committee forming, on this big piece of legislation.

"as reform takes shape, some relief on wall street." "the financial reform bill has wall street executives privately relieved that the bill does not do more to fundamentally change how the industry does business. despite the outcry from lobbyists and warnings from conservative republicans that the legislation will choke economic growth, bankers and analysts think that the bill approved by the senate will reduce wall street profits but leave its size and power largely intact. officials are hoping that several of the most punitive provisions can be solved before it is signed into law." that is the business section of "the new york times." from "the baltimore sun," "child death rates are falling." the number of deaths among children will fall 7.7% this year. but as much of the world -- but

as much of it will make strides, the united states, increasingly lagging and now ranking 42nd in the world of a much of europe as well as the united arab emirates, cuba, and chile. macon, georgia, cassandra, democrat. what do you think, free enterprise versus expanding paternalistic government, the premise in the paper? hello, cassandra. cassandra.chance, let's move on to jones though, virginia, where floyd is on the line for republicans. caller: yes, thank you for taking my call. i am for free enterprise because we need our freedoms. when our freedoms are taken away, right now we have the

freedom of the press, the freedom to read the bible, and you can tell a lot of people are biblically literate. we have learned that political correctness is what is wrong with this country. we need to be more correct and things would change in this country. our founding fathers set up this country, they were christians, the biggest part of them. that is what has made this country great. we have gotten away from that and we need to turn back to that to keep us free. host: so what you think, based on the earlier part of your call, the proper role, a proper size of government? caller: well, government has got a role, but we need to keep it smaller. but the people run the country. when the people run the country, everything turns out right. host: let's see another twitter message on all this.

"we all hear about some eutopia somewhere like france, sweden, even cuba. why are they poorer than us?" cassandra, are you there now? caller: yes, i am here. if someone calls up and says forget god, how are you going to forget god? you do not sell your soul to the devil. it is evil that is going on. that is all i have got to say. host: "don't ask, don't tell," in the headlines this morning. craig would lock rights key votes are pending in congress that put the game and lesbians from serving in the military and it remains too close to call. the senate armed services committee is expected to vote by the end of the week on an amendment to the annual defense

spending bill that would end opel quote don't ask, don't tell." carl levin favors the repeal, but it is unclear whether he has enough votes six senators on the panel are considered undecided, legislative sources said three the house is expected to vote on a similar measure this week, based on the repeal proposed by senator -- representative patrick murphy. the house armed services committee declined to act on his bill in passing its version of the defense spending measure last week, but speaker pelosi has told gay advocacy groups that she will allow a floor vote if there is enough support in favor of a repeal." we will track all that action and let you know what is happening as it is happening. annapolis, maryland, ed, independent color. caller: good morning and thank you for c-span. i would like to debunk the stupidity of the government does not create jobs.

quite frankly, if the government had not build the dams in colorado, california, nevada, arizona, all that part of the country would not be around it if eisenhower had not build the interstate system, we would have the same type of problems we have with railroads. so the government has to be of a certain size and it has to produce. if we want to save money, quite frankly, i was a defense contractor for years and that is where you can really save money. had a good day. host: georgia, that, on the republican line. caller: i have heard a few people call up, talking about saying that this country, the founding fathers were christians and constantly hearing, you know, this country needs to be a christian country. the founding fathers did not set this country up to be a

christian country, and if you think about it, the only two -- the only true constituency in this country the only to the doh constituency that that's what they want are rich people and christian spirit and the whole christian coalition going on in the republican party, at the very core of what separates this country, you know, how divided this country is -- i am sorry, i am in the nervous. it is linked to christianity. i mean, republicans -- especially in the south, i can tell you, they want their religion coupled hand in hand with their politics, and it does not work. they talk about socialism and this and that. first of all, george bush ruined this country, and you have to

spend money to make money. that is what obama -- i think that is what he is trying to do, to spend money to get this country back on track. host: we will squeeze in a couple of other stories in here. "jim geiger softened his stance on china." even though its currency remains pegged to the -- to gather said he is prepared for the start of the u.s.-china summit, adopting a conciliatory tone yesterday before meetings in beijing today. he said china had relaxed some of the restrictions facing multinationals that have angered parts of the u.s. business community in china. it is reflected more balanced economic relationships. that is a "financial times" peace.

-- piece. slapping a surcharge on "peak travel de." and analysis of airfares shows. it is a surcharge ranging from $10 to $30.10 way for a domestic flight, and it is included in the cost of a ticket. back to "the wall street journal." gas prices break before summer. drivers are likely to see pump prices drop heading into the summer. thanks to a plunge in crude oil prices. 2.4 cents a gallon, they are saying alabama, nick, good morning from the democrats line. caller: my comment is that if our system is an excellent system, -- if the free enterprise system is an excellent system, and i believe that it is essential for the country that we have, that that

system is in place. however, the very nature of the system has created situations where individuals with power, through the ability to amass large sums of money and fortunes, have created a situation where they simply manipulate a large mass of people with misinformation. decoratthey do everything from manipulating individuals in the workplace by falsely identifying relatives to illegal immigration, and also by the election of officials, the handling of the oil spill, everything, is centered with this misinformation that is provided by the people with the power and the money to do that. as a result of that, it breaks

down the whole system, the whole economic system. host: a couple of quick updates on the story out of north and south korea. there is a photo here in "the washington times" below the fold of a south korean child kicking a poster of north korean leader kim jong-il. officials say that they will take to the security council the issue of at the sinking of a ship. a shot at hillary clinton, secretary of state, telling china's leaders that the u.s. would back seoul in its efforts. also the lead item in "the washington post today," south korea says it will ask the -- "the washington post" today, that the president will make an address to this nation today during which he will detail a package of measures in response

to the march 22 incident, the torpedoing of the 1200-ton ship and the killing of 46 sailors, the lead item in "the post." here is the last call in the issue of free enterprise versus expanding government, written by arthur brooks in "the post." caller: i wanted to comment on the caller that called about this country being founded on christianity. some of the founding fathers were atheists. this country was not founded on christianity, it was founded on freedom of religion, which meant you had a choice to choose whatever religion you wanted to follow or whether you did not want to follow a religion. it had nothing to do with christianity. as far as the free enterprise system, you need to have government in there to keep that in check. i mean, if you go back to when the industrial -- when children

used to work in factories, do you think any of that would have changed, had the government not stepped in to stop children working in factories? government has to be there to keep the free enterprise system in check. host: we will deal and deeper into economic matters, after a short break. renae merle is a financial reporter for "the washington post, who will give us an update in the conditions around the country. your calls when we come back.

>> on june 28, supreme court justice nominee elena kagan wilson testified before the senate judiciary committee. -- elena kagan will testify before the senate judiciary committee. every program since 1987 -- is washington, your way. >> just weeks after the british election which produced a new prime minister and a coalition government, queen elizabeth ii will formally announce her government's legislative agenda for the new session. we will travel from buckingham palace to parliament and inside the house of lords for one of britain's most celebrated occasions, the state opening of parliament, live tuesday morning at 5:30 eastern on c-span2. >> 99% of the attendance can be

-- >> tonight, representative dan lungren on how the federal government works towards protecting financial and security networks. the communicators, on c-span2 host: at the table now is renae merle of "the washington post." "borrowers falling behind at a slower rate." explain for us. guest: the amount of people has reached about 10%. the people who are becoming delinquent for the first time who have just missed one payment, it is at a record -- not a record low, but it is slowing down a bit, so people are falling behind their mortgage at a slower rate. we have a problem with the backlog, that there are lots of people who are six months to a

year delinquent that have not moved through the disclosure process, and that is keeping more delinquencies at record. we are starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel because people are not falling behind as much. host: what does that mean to the issue of bank lending, and then broaden it out to the impact on the entire economy. guest: 4 lenders, it means that there is starting to be the light at the end of the tunnel. finally people, because unemployment is not as big of a problem as it was a year ago, people are not falling behind, so it is better for their balance sheets. for the overall economy, it means the housing market, while still in bad shape, is starting to improve somewhat. host: some numbers on the bottom of the screen for our guests. the mortgage industry and what is happening there.

democrats, republicans, independents, separate lines for all of you. renae merle is a financial reporter for "the washington post." prior to that, she worked for "the wall street journal" and the associated press. what is happening in congress these days in terms of helping homeowners with their mortgages? guest: there are some ideas out there, but there is not much going on really right now. most of the focus is on the federal government programs, making it more affordable. it pays lenders to lower people's mortgage rates. .

can afford to buy a home. host: what else should we know about current conditions? guest: there is still a huge backlog of mortgages that need to be worked out. a colleague of mine recently wrote a story about lower

inventories of homes, people keeping their markets of off. one of the problems is there could not be enough homes for people to buy. caller: i have a few concerns. i look at the program, and it seems to me, people who are already under water on their homes will end up defaulting on that. i do not see any abatement of unemployment. as a matter of fact, i do not see an engine for chocolate at all. i hear that they have 8.4 million homes in the foreclosure

pipeline. there is no way that is going to play out either. the only place that i see recovery is military bases where you still have that eight of the dollar tax credit, people are still salaried, and people can afford homes. guest: referring to the ratio, 65%, i think you are referring to how much under water a person is after getting another mortgage. that is a problem, under any modification program, including the government modification program people can be delivered but six months to one year as they wait for that modification. all of those late payments and interest is added to your principal balance.

the government is trying to address some of that. and they launched a new program in march which encourage lenders to cut the amount owed by the owners. we may not see anything until fall time frame, but it is an issue. they are more likely to default again even after they get help. unemployment. the reason that economists believe that missing one mortgage payment has started to slow down a bit is because the way in which people are getting unemployed has slowed down. right that they are being driven by unemployment as opposed to the type of loan you have to.

-- you have. after we get to normal employment levels, the liquid used will begin to improve. i do not know how to address that otherwise. those 8.5 million homes and delinquency, that is the backlog we have been talking about. some people called a shadow market. we have seen prices rise in some parts of the country. now we are seeing several batters per home, and that is happening as these new homes are coming onto the market. host: the tax credit, will it be

expanded? guest: i do not think so. it was extended last time and it did not have the same effect. it did help sales, but not at the same level as before. host: ernest, maryland. caller: i have a question and comment. i tried to buy a house about five years ago when we had an influx of immigrants coming into the country. people tell me that that had nothing to do with it, but they need summer to live, support their families. that is when i saw the housing market take off. my sister applied for refinancing. it took two months to get the refund to be in place, and now

they have given her a note of $3,000 a month, telling her that she had to pay in every month, and then they will renegotiate her loan. the problem is, they have only reduced her payment $200. she does not know where she is going to be. and the other problem is, in the washington, d.c. area, houses are selling for 600 belgian dollars and the economy does not seem to -- $600,000. the economy does not understand, we seem to be in the bubble. guest: there is a bit of a bubble. housing prices did not fall as

much because we have the federal government as employer. you mentioned your sister's refinancing. that does not sound like an obama program to me. first of all, it takes more than two months to get refinancing. the way that it works, you get your loan modified, and then you are in a trial period for at least three months, but your payment would not change between those times. i am concerned that your sister might be in a program that this person is calling a government program. she should check her paperwork to see if it has hamp somewhere on there, because it does not seem right to me.

caller: i have a question about fha mortgages. there is a hidden cost that is being ignored. it is costing consumers hundreds of millions of year. when is refinanced or paid off, interest is charged from the first day of the month, no matter what day. if you sell and you have an fha mortgage, and it is paid off on the second of the month, you are paying interest for the rest of the month. are you aware of that? guest: high and not familiar with that. that is not something i had heard about. caller: it is a fact. i have called and written to my congressmen, and they tell me that they will look into it.

it is obviously and imaging banks. on any other mortgage, when your bank receives your payoff, once loan is paid off, interest stops. but on an fha, the bank gets to collect interest from the first of the month until the end of the month. host: thank you. before we let you go, you say you are a realtor. what are conditions like in pasadena, maryland? caller: things are stabilized, price-wise. the stimulus definitely helped. for the month of april, we were 75% above our sales goals. we see things stabilizing, but we do not know what is going to have been without that incentive.

those who were going to buy at some point the accelerated their timeframe, and they hit the market earlier, but we would anticipate that there has to be a lag, now that they have gone off the market. interest rates are unbelievable right now. for any buyer that is looking, in most areas, prices are down. i have the same by right now that can get a five-year adjustable-rate mortgage at 3.5%. guest: that is pretty amazing. i have not heard much about that issue. i think the idea of people paying off their mortgage is great. i think it is unfortunate that people might have to pay more. host: take us around the nation

as it led to foreclosures. who is experiencing the most right now? guest: most of it is taking place in states like california, arizona, florida. all those places where we had the home building, buying, subprime loans. you would also see pockets in detroit, where unemployment is a bigger problem, cleveland. host: are they seeing a lot of activity in purchasing? guest: they are. they are seeing some price stabilization, and even some rising. host: here are the numbers from the mortgage bankers association --

our guest is renae merle talking about foreclosures and the legatees. what is a delicacy, how many days are we talking about? guest: about three months or more. at that point, the bank believes it is less likely that you will be able to catch up without help. most of those people are usually able to catch up again, but once you get past three months, and you have a problem host. host: rick, republican line. caller: i am in dallas. i have been in construction for 30 years. illegals are taking our jobs. companies hire them before they

will tie -- higher pay taxpayer because they are cheaper. host: you are in construction. you have not been working lately? caller: no, my wife has been supporting me. now, if you are legal, you cannot get a job. host: you say it is tough to pay your mortgage. have you done any region up to your lender? caller: my wife is able to keep us going, but i cannot find a job. everywhere you go in texas, it is all the illegals. we have to do something about them taking our jobs. host: let us hear from renae

merle. guest: as far as not having a job and relying on one income is a problem. that is something that the administration is trying to address as well. it sounds like you could apply for the government program, but perhaps you may not geth assistance from the program. but the majority of the people who get help from the government is from a loss of income, like your situation. host: anything from the regulation bill that talk about this connection of foreclosure bills? guest: not precisely. in the senate legislation at least they say that lenders have to look at your income and credit score when you get a mortgage. they also prohibit -- then it

prepayment penalties. if you cancel your mortgage early, they would give you a penalty. but right now, there is nothing that addresses foreclosures. host: what about income levels, what you can qualify for? how much can you qualify to spend on home? guest: mortgage rates may be low, but it might be hard to get a mortgage if your payment is more than 35% of your income if you do not have a really good credit score or significant down payment. especially if you are looking for a jumbo loan, worth more than $720,000, it can be difficult to get a mortgage. host: next phone call.

caller: in 2006, i had fallen, broken my back, lost the income, and thus unable to pay the first year. then we stopped paying in the mortgage company to adjusted to short sell the home. i got offers at 130 -- they denied it. i got another offer at 155, and they said they would go as high as 162, but the bank denied that. we did all on our part.

there was no way i could afford my home. i was upside down -- $400 a month. we walked away from home. we live in louisiana right now. then the mortgage company and of selling the home for $100 back to its self -- itself, then tells me that i 0 a lawyer fees -- owe lawyer fees. and then they sold it again in february of 2009 for $113.

this was a brand new home when i mooed in. host: lot of numbers. could you explain what he is talking about? guest: he has a problem that a lot of homeowners had, where you short sell and you lose money when you sell your home. you cannot afford your mortgage and maybe you need to move. banks are reluctant to do this because they are fearful of they will not be able to get as much as they want. it is interesting that they're coming after him now for the mortgage note. there is a lot of talk about people just walking away from their mortgage. people need to be careful about that. in some states, the bank cannot

come after you, but in some states, they can. even if home clothes into foreclosure, they can claim losses there were. host: a tweet from one dealevier -- guest: i have not seen any reliable numbers. there are more short sales going on, and that is something that the government is encouraging. they want to allow these short sales because it is easier for the home owner and could be cheaper on the lender. i have no reason to doubt that there could be more scams, but i have not heard anything yet. host: reston, virginia.

caller: i saw a "wall street journal" article in may, and they said that they had about three months to clear the real shuttle inventory. -- shadow inventory. i was talking to an agent, and she is good, but she has not told a home in almost one year. what about this article, where they said, inventories are up 20%. another 4.8 million out at least 60 days. if this is true, we are going to have this stuff around for eight years.

guest: that might be a bit of banning generation, but foreclosures will be a problem for years. even when we are out of the recession, we will still be going through the backlog of people who are right that delinquent -- right now delinquents. it will take years, not eight years, but it will be years. host: david from georgia. republican. caller: listening to all of these comments and questions, it appears to me a fundamental thing that people are buying homes and they cannot afford it. the administration, over the last 20 years, has been all about home buying. as our society has changed where we have 50% of people getting divorced, we are more mobile

than we used to be, i wonder if we should look at the idea of home ownership. do people really need 40% of their income going to pay for a home? that is fine if you are there for 20 years, but nobody ever does that. that is just something that i think people need to look at. guest: no doubt a lot of this problem is that people could not afford these homes. these subprime alt-a mortgages, -- loans, alt-a mortgages, they are a problem.

it is interesting, you talked about the change in attitude. there was a study earlier this year which started to detect a change in the general public's of view of home ownership. it is still a popular choice to be a home owner, but the margin is beginning to switch to a little bit. host: 1 tweet about when prices are going to start leveling off. guest: not this year, for sure. perhaps 2011. in your neighborhood, it depends on how many foreclosures are still on the market and with inventory levels are. nationwide, i did not note any economists now expect prices to stabilize before next year. host: another tweet --

it speaks to the mood in congress to provide further help for people in trouble. guest: the argument is the reason we need a government program to help these people who bought more homes than they should have, or do you mighting should otherwise be put through the system, foreclosure on your street brings down your home price. it really does help you, even if you can afford your mortgage. host: columbia, south carolina. maurice. caller: i have a mortgage with case. i had applied for a modification.

-- i have a mortgage chase. i sent them all of my information and they did not call me back. recently, they raised my mortgage payment by $1,000. i wrote the president of the company and the executive office called me back and said we were going to work with you. they said that all was not qualified for the government program because you are on our program. i never entered either one. guest: they read your payment. is that because you have an adjustable rate mortgage? caller: as a veteran, i had a v.a. mortgage. guest: it sounds like they put you in a forbearance plan and allow you to catch up.

caller: i watched the congressional testimony, and the problem is, they are not helping consumers. guest: it does take a long time to get a government modification. if you are already in tha chase modification -- you can be asked to be placed in the government program. i am not sure what their policy is. that is another thing that people should know. the government program is half voluntary and lenders have a lot of leeway in the way that they implement it. if you can have a lender who happens to prefer to cut people's mortgage payment or printable balance, that is one

way to do it. then you have a large bank like chase, who has a large backlog, it is going to take a long time. host: next phone call. caller: good morning. one thing that comes to my mind is what thomas jefferson said when he said, banks are monopoly contrary to public interest. it almost seems like these things happened arithmetically so that the banks could profit. with the bank's controlling things, the constitution says that the people should control the money. these people think that they can

go to the polls and think that they can get away the incumbents. there is a website called blackboxvoting. so many times the results are miscalculated. when you have just a few companies controlling these computers, -- i just think they need to watch the voting machines. we used to have pollwatchers. guest: the previous caller had also mentioned -- secretary geithner had also said that banks were not doing enough to help homeowners. so that is an interest in the government. the way the program is set up, and they use a formula to determine whether or not it is more profitable for the bank to foreclose on you or to help you so when the bank is acting in

their own best interest, and they are. they run a formula and decide whether cutting your principal balance, mortgage payment, would make them more money than foreclosing on your home. if you are in a neighborhood where prices are ok, they are more likely to foreclose. host: our guest is renae merle. thank you for your time. we will be speaking with abdullah abdullah, the 2009 afghanistan presidential candidate. he is also the foreign minister of that country. in the meantime, some news. >> when will be peace top the oily? the company is warning that shooting heavy mud and cement into the well may not work at that depth.

meanwhile, will has seeped 12 miles into louisiana's markets. south korea lashed out at north korea by suspending trade, as a result of that submarine attack. president lee myung bak also pledged to bring pyongyang back to the security council for possible additional securities tensions. secretary of state clinton says that the sinking of the warship has created "a highly precarious to tuition in the region." she also said the administration is working to avoid conflict. president obama discusses middle east security issues with the lebanese president. defense secretary gates accuses hezbollah of having more rockets and missiles that most foreign governments.

finally, scores of american soldiers and a battery of patriot missiles have a crime in poland for a training mission. meanwhile, russia is expressing anger at having u.s. missiles so close to its territory. >> just weeks after the british elections which produced a new prime minister and coalition government, queen elisabeth will announce her legislative agenda for the new session. we will go to buckingham palace and the house of lords for one of britain's most celebrated occasions. >> on june 28, to break court nominee a landing came in -- elena kagan will testify before

the justice committee. you can find more videos at a c- span archive library. >> 99% of attacks can be avoided by people doing simple things already available to them. >> preparing for cyber attacks. dan lundgren on how the government is projecting security networks -- protecting security networks. host: our guest now is abdallah of dollars, 2009 afghanistan presidential candidate, also the former minister of the country. what brings you to washington? guest: i thought it was the right time to do in washington. because of the situation back in afghanistan and because of the u.s. engagement. it has reached a stage where i

thought washington should listen to the government voices. host: hamid karzai was in town a couple of weeks ago. describe the condition back at home? what are things like on the ground? guest: despite the achievements, i should say, at best, it is a mixed feeling of where we are going. in some areas of life, things are not improving, like in issues of corruption, security, governance, access of the rule of law.

also, the political process is challenged because of that mistrust of people. so it is a mix to the line because of the lack of improvement. host: how would you describe political situations back at home? guest: the political process has been damaged. we should recover in it for the parliamentary elections which would be in september. we need to improve the electoral system and correct it in order to have more transparency. these are the concerns of the people. host: phone numbers on the bottom of the screen. 2009 afghanistan presidential candidate. take us back to 2009.

you started running for president, and that at some point, you pulled out of the race. take us back to what you made the decisions you did. guest: first of all, there was no doubt, massive fraud had taken place. at that time, there were some transparency measures for the elections, but none of them were met. so i knew that fraud was fully intact. the election commission as well as state actors.

this would have been a big blow to the democratic process. also, from the standpoint of stability, okay, i did not like it. what happened? not just because i was not elected, but this is for the stability of the nation building. this was not the right foundation. host: what do you think of mr. karzai? guest: in the beginning, aside from all the qualifications, i knew that he believed in democracy. that was the main criteria. when i realized he does not have that commitment, talking about

democracy in afghanistan, the realization that after many years of strife, this is the way forward, the only solution for the country. when i realized his commitment to democracy was a very little or none, i did not support him, from 2004 and onward. host: who have you been meeting with in washington? guest: these meetings were scheduled long before. in the with the senate leadership and congressional leadership, members of the congress and senate. at the same time, public meetings, speaking events, think

tanks, foundations. these are the main meetings that were scribbled. host: i just wanted to point out something in the "new york times." "political component" they write about the presidential election. and they compare the reception that the president got, compared to do. guest: i have had many friends in washington. as i told you about my meetings in the congress and senate -- my

message, the reason for me coming to washington was not political. that is the part that they referred to. i think i have been able to get my message across to the american representatives. i am sure that they will hear it. that is the least of my concerns. my concern is when president karzai visit to washington to mend relations, that is fine, but i hope it was used as an opportunity to give serious policy flaws and differences some track, otherwise it might be a missed host:. first phone call.

-- it might be a missed opportunity. first phone call. caller: is it still illegal to evangelize priced in your country? -- christ in your country? what about your belief that israel has the right to -- you know. guest: in our country, yes, that is not legal in our country. in terms of is really right, that last part of your question i missed. perhaps being recognized as a state? yes, we believe the solution in the middle east is in two states. a palestinian one and an israeli one, living in peace with one another, with east

jerusalem as part of a palestinian state. that is my view, and seems to be the world view. and if host: next phone call -- host: next phone call. caller: the war in afghanistan is about resources. no matter what the media says, it is about the resources and maybe the poppy fields. that would mean more drugs for a big pharmaceutical companies. my question to your guest is, what is going on in afghanistan, is it more about finding the people who were responsible for perpetrating 9/11, or is it about resources?

guest: i do not think it is much about resources. it was only after september 11 that the united states got engaged in afghanistan, the international community got engaged. i think it is about the most serious challenge in the 20th- century, al-qaeda and terrorism, which will unfortunately, the us for a time to come. the point is, well your forces have focused on that -- making ultimate sacrifices. the other day i heard that you had passed the threshold of one dozen people killed. i express my condolences to those people the leadership and

afghanistan is building a leadership for the country, so it is not like endless engagement. perception about it is mixed today. there are different analyses for the reason for being there. host: let me read a headline. a story from ap -- speak about the strategy from the u.s. and its partners, the military part of the things? -- of things. guest: i cannot agree more with

the strategy, to but when it comes to the implementation and end results, it is not just the military strategy that matters. finally, creating an environment where people can trust. the political side of the issue is not the job of the u.s. military personnel, but the afghan side. in that does not happen, it can in danger all the efforts made by the military, such as the situation in canada are. the population and there will tell you that the political structure is the most important

thing. then there is the taliban who is threatening the population. it is that part of it where i am not sure. these engagements with the government of afghanistan, how much of this has been addressed? host: next phone call. john, republican , chantilly, virginia. caller: thank you for taking my call. why did you give up so easily when you have the international community behind you?

why did you give him the opportunity? my next question is, why are you waiting for the international community to solve your differences? we are spending lots of american dollars and soldiers. when are you going to say enough is enough and this is our problem? host: you can take those points in either order. guest: on the first part of the question, i could have taken it to any step that you would have wished, but that would have led to further instability and crisis, perhaps beyond recovery. that was not my undertaking at the time. there was no point in risking the lives of the people who were

providing security for the elections, so that was the basis of my decision at that time. in terms of the country, of course, yes it sounds like the are asking the international community to take all the problems in the country. that is not the case. it is international terrorism. afghanistan was turned into the capital for international terrorism prior to the september 11. that is beyond the capacity of one or two nations to deal with. it was in that regard that we needed the support of the international community. it is in that spirit that we still need the help of the international community, but yes, the main part of the responsibility is on us.

as a leader in the opposition, i will try to push for changes, things that would help our people. at the same time, we know because of the failures of our own government, all of opportunities are being missed. one part is afghanistan, the suffering of the people, but that is linked intimately with global peace. that comes as a responsibility to the international community and u.s. leadership. host: one viewer by tiwttewitter -- guest: you cannot separate the two. if you are talking about a secure environment, it is not

just military security operations. so sue economics, the informant -- socio-economic, that is important. host: baltimore, maryland. remi on the independent line. caller: appreciate you being here. a couple of weeks ago, there was an incident -- i do not know if it was in kandahar -- but there were five people who were killed. some of them were women who were pregnant. it was talked about for a lot of it, but then we did not hear

much about it. i am wondering if you are aware of the situation, if it is being investigated, now that the facts are out. guest: in terms of civilian casualties, that is one of the main causes of present and in an angry population. it is being repeated not as frequent as in the past, because of the new strategy which puts emphasis on the civilians. nevertheless, this incident you mentioned was in a double by -- jalalabad. there were several civilian casualties. all of the accounts show that it

was a mistake. investigations are still under way. this is not the only incident. i will emphasize, the more emphasis military planners are putting on the protection of civilians, the more appreciative that people will be and better of come. otherwise, and this can turn into a big issue because it will repeat itself every once in awhile. host: shreveport, louisiana. jacob. caller: in the attempt to rebuild the afghanistan economy, has the u.s. military made any attempt with a pharmaceutical company to find contracts for all of the poppy being grown in afghanistan, rather than try to

substitute their crops or burn the fields which has not shown much success? guest: and there is a legal problem and what you mentioned as a sort of solution, as far as poppy is concerned. this does that sound like a solution for the country. logic would become the pop they would be given to pharmaceutical companies, and it would be a problem. in afghanistan, a few years ago, there were 10 provinces that or poppy-free, but now there are 24.

unfortunately, not in the areas where the taliban have influence. those people still have this as a major challenge. host: there was a story in the "new york times" -- it is a story written in kabul, talking about winning support in marja. our guest is heimdal and dollar, 2009 afghanistan presidential -- abdullah abdullah, 2009 afghanistan presidential candidate. he was afghanistan's foreign minister from 2002 to 2006. where are you spending most of your time these days, and what are you pursuing at this point?

guest: i am based in kabul. i have laid the foundation for a democratic based on the planform of changing hope, which had widespread appeal with the people in the campaign. there are some other technical concepts in it. most of the time, we put the blame on individuals, which is right sometimes, but at the same time, our system needs to be decentralized. this is at the core of the problem. that is why we cannot get away from this vicious cycle of bad governance creating integer in our midst -- insecure

environment. i am mainly based in kabul, traveling through the country, but this will hopefully be the foundation for a democratic opposition, not just for the next elections, but in the country as a healthy movement which will create hopes and bring openings for the future of the people of afghanistan. host: what is your sense of what it will take to form a strong, viable, effective opposition party? how do you go about it? guest: lots of foresight, sleepless nights. it is new in the country, but

the awareness is amazing, especially among the younger generation. they are asking for it. at this stage, i am being blamed for moving slowly in that direction. but since this is the foundation, i would take my time to lay the right foundation, and hopefully, this will allow politics to improve. host: what is the most effective way of communicating with people, do you need a lot of money? guest: first of all, people are invested in this movement. the people are ready to invest in their future. that is my biggest hhope. host: indiana. will on the republican line.

caller: i am 22 years old right now. i went to high school and then i spend a year in saudi arabia. i went to school at the embassy there, with other palestinians, iraqis. what i am concerned about is the two debstate solution. i know among the palestinian people, it is a sense that what was once their land is being occupied. it seems like -- i am sorry.

when do you see, in terms of getting a real two state solution, and how does that affect the broader middle eastern security? and i know you will probably be a part of future elections. guest: in terms of a two state solution, how realistic it is, the problem of the day, we are aware. of course, the occupation, and the eyes of palestinians, is the main problem. no matter how problematic that may seem, if you are going to have a peaceful middle east, it cannot happen without reaching that stage.

it is for the leadership in the middle east to look at it in that way. i do not see an end in the middle east without an acceptance of the two state solution. this is the only way ahead. . now president obama's message is very clear, he is telling karzai

to clean up his act. why should our soldiers be fighting for a country whose government is so corrupt? is karzai making progress in that direction? guest: in the sense of progress being made in terms of curbing corruption, i would say no, unfortunately. in the past six months i see no progress. i would conclude that the previous administration was not asking for the curbing of corruption. i would not say so. the new administration, as we still callincall a, thereit, ite

fighting against corruption or complaints against corruption. through our parliament, civil society and media we choose several activities. at the same time there is a responsibility from the taxpayer. apart from the public part of it i am not sure how much this has been a part of a previous engagement of official meetings and private meetings. that is the part i am most concerned about. unless progress is made the question will remain buried. bear in mind that there are people putting a lot of pressure on the government's in

order to move in that direction. host: one viewer wants to depart from the conversation a little bit. from twitter -- can you comment on the afghanistan pakistan relations and afghanistan iraqi l -- relations? guest: good, shaky, all of those descriptions are valid. in terms of the state of our relations with pakistan, they are important. the issue of taliban sanctuaries remains the main contentious issue. this has not been fully addressed. you referred to some of the military operations.

many of these activities are linked with the basis of afghanistan in the north -- the taliban in the north. the palestine -- pakistani taliban is stronger. these entities working together for so long, to deal with the issue of sanctuaries is the main issue. we also have some issues with refugees and from time to time the government's, there are some supporters for the insurgency. these are the issues that need to be raised with neighboring countries.

again, i am not interested in the public part of it. the country can gain from the instability of afghanistan. remember the days before 2001. that is a good incentive to take us where we ought to be. host: jonathan is on the line from kent, ohio. good morning. caller: good morning. i wanted to ask your guest -- he is a medical doctor? guest: i was. i do not practice anymore. caller: when you become president of afghanistan, but would you do differently? the back you depend on us as a sovereign, independent state, when will you break that and

stop depending on our money coming to you? have you thought about that? thank you. guest: absolutely. we are emphasizing that support for afghanistan funding in the united states should be as a vote for other people. we are grateful for your support and sacrifices there. at the same time you have your own security as well. it is your enemy is that our people are also fighting against. at the same time there are games of global the tendency to get out of this situation.

had it not been for the failures of current leadership, that time of dependency should have been much shorter. that is also what the people of afghanistan would like to see happening. in terms of the economic situation we do have natural resources that can help us to stand on our own feet. at this stage we are together. host: how do the majority of afghans get their news? this messages from twitter. guest: radios, fm radios.

television, newspapers. some segment of the society in the cities have access to the internet. mobile phones are nationwide now. that is also a source of getting news today. access to the news today is better than any time in our history. taking needed two more points. the freedom of media, to a large extent it is an example that has helped our country to move forward. perhaps a very unique aspect of our part of the world.

helping us to get out of the situation. host: one more question. what time frame which like to see for withdrawal of american troops from afghanistan? again, from twitter. guest: to put it mildly, i would say that is a bit difficult. i empathize, once again. a lot of this will depend on the success of the military and creating a better environment for the people. many things that we are asking for and pushing for. you also have a role because of your presence there. as well as the future of your engagements.

these are the things that will shorten that time frame. that is already a long time now. almost nine years. host: steve, democratic line. good morning. caller: how are you this morning? my question -- with education in iraq and afghanistan, i was wondering where they did [unintelligible] for both countries and how it impacts the united states. in iraq and afghanistan, the future of iraq and afghanistan. guest: the point is about education? what is specific?

caller: talking about improvements for like school construction and education in the school systems of both countries. guest: a lot of important things in that regard. it had dropped to the level of zero during the reign of the taliban. a lot of effort has been made there. i think that the final question is one of education of the population. education for the people, for their children. it has become the main focus. still, there are many challenges

remaining. in terms of quantity, millions of students are going to schools, universities -- private and public. it will change but it will take a lot more time for just a few years to get to where we should be. host: florida, john, independent line. caller: i have a nephew of just went into basic training for the marine corps. he has been sent to your country to sacrifice and possibly die for you and your people. he is christian. my understanding is that you do not quit -- do not allow

questions to naturalized in the country. that you take away the death penalty when -- if you impose the death penalty when muslim convert to christianity. when your citizens go to a country that forbids islam, would you die for that country? a country that forbids islam. like my nephew will possibly die for you in a country that forbids him to practice his religion. >> it is not forbidding him to practice his religion, but in terms of what i was talking about a public where the majority of the people are muslims, they are free to

practice their religion. your point, that as a nation we are most grateful for the efforts you are making their, we should of the lies the this opportunity. -- we should utilize this opportunity. it is also in your interest. your national interest in security.

from the leadership comes responsibility in the united states. that is the lead gold today in this world. a part of the responsibility. host: one more call from fort lauderdale, florida. caller: good morning. first, i would like to say that 80% of us, and the brother-in- law was the king of all this drugs. if elected would you eradicate all those copies?

guest: absolutely. against those making them in profits. the king has the best strategy. but next to the list is out to help the farmers so that this cannot come back,. showing that our people have made tremendous efforts, the complex situation of securing the poppy as mid difficult --

the poppies have made it difficult. host: thank you for your time this morning. guest: thank you. host: we will take another time out and talk more about the u.s. welfare system and the budget for center policy priorities and heritage foundation. in the meantime, more update from c-span radio. >> it is 9:17. the headlines on the east coast, a survey of leading economists predict a growth will pick up in the year ahead. the national association for economics things that the gross domestic product will grow. they also forecast joblessness declining to 9.4% by the end of this year.

president obama is sending congress legislation that would give him the power to force lawmakers to vote on cutting earmarks in what they consider wasteful progress. spending bills have already been signed into law, sending down a package of votes. the president's chief of staff is in israel to celebrate his son's bar mitzvah. rohm emmanuel has been accused of being behind the halting of west bank construction. he is expected to meet with west bank officials despite the private nature of the visit. no damage occurred to the international space station. atlantis is scheduled to come

home on wednesday and unless a reprieve is granted, this is their final mission. overall only two shuttle flights remain. >> sonia sotomayor on the confirmation process. >> questions, even over three days, will not tell you much about a prospective judge. you have to look at their life work. that will be a clear reflection of who they are, how they think, and what they will do. >> with a new supreme court nominee heading into the process, learn more in our latest book, the supreme court. page's a candid conversation with active and retired justices, providing unique insight about the court. available now in hardcover.

>> 89% of it can be avoided by people doing simple things available to them. >> tonight, preparing for cyber attack. how does the congress and federal government work towards protecting private networks? "the communicators" on c-span 2. >> "washington journal" continues. host: our guests right now, robert rector and donna pavetti. donna pavetti, you first. as we talk about the welfare system, what is the system all about? what are the different programs? how much money is involved? >> everyone has a different definition of the welfare

system. the narrowest is a work based safety net in a move from cash assistance to work. then there is also food support and medical support. those are generally the programs that we think of. >> -- host: what is your take, robert rector, on the programs? guest: first of all, the way that i defined welfare are programs that are specifically targeted to low-income or poor people. providing housing or cash services to the poor. these are programs that are specifically and explicitly

providing income to low-income people. there are 70 of those in the government. half of that is in the medicaid program. the figures i am using do not include social security or unemployment medicare for the elderly. cash food housing and social services for the poor. a huge system of programs that is just a tiny smidgen of the aid that goes to families and children. it is important to understand when you talk about welfare or aid to the poor about how large the system is. most people do not understand that. we know that social security and medicare are very large and growing rapidly. attempting to bring aid to the poor you have to look at 70

different line items, growing more rapidly than social security and medicare. guest: that does include aid to the elderly. it also includes medicaid. that is for families and elderly is counting everything. guest: half of it goes to the disabled. host: i want to get the numbers on the bottom of the screen for our guests. talking about this program and the broader issue for welfare. separate lines on the bottom of the screen for democrats, republicans, and independents. donna pavetti, robert rector, eric cantor spoke on this program last week about the program.

they went through a process asking about which program they would like to cut the most. this temporary assistance to needy families was cited by republicans as the top program to cut. here's a short piece. >> cutting the emergency welfare program could actually hinder feeding children? >> what i have found out about this program, the welfare program today is a program established in the stimulus bill. this program was intended to help folks but lacked the elements of reform that were put in place by congress back in the 1990's. that welfare reform program was extraordinarily successful in helping people get back to work because it puts a priority of initiative. folks could get the help that they needed but like the rest of

us needed to dedicate ourselves to productivity. guest: the problem with that is that is an inaccurate and misleading characterization of the program. one of the exciting things about that program is that the state's estimated will create 185,000 jobs. what states have done in this difficult economy is do their best to maintain the tenants agreed upon in welfare reform so that all the pieces agreed upon in 1996 have been maintained. families receiving cash assistance are still required to look for work. they have 12 weeks to do that. they are subject to time limits of people are being cut off when they hit them. one of the real successes of the program is 185,000 jobs. without that people would not have been able to work but states have worked hard to maintain the work fokus agreed upon in 1996.

guest: the organization opposed welfare reform in the 1990's. it should not be a surprise that she is praising this new change that was introduced by the obama administration as part of the stimulus package. one of the key ideas of welfare reform, what used to be called aid to families with dependent children, what we did was to say that the more people u.n. role, the more money we will give you. and we will cut your funding if you cut the people. one of the things that we categorically did was decide it was a stupid incentive system. we decided to provide the states with a fixed amount of money.

if they increased caseloads we would not give them more money. what the stimulus package did was reversed that, specifically saying the state's that if and only if you increase your caseload will be give you more money. it effectively gutted the core of the reform. the reform itself has been weakened severely over the last five years. guest: that is just not accurate. the way that it is set up, you have to have increased expenditures to be able to access the funds. if you have an increased caseload you can get increased money but you can get money for subsidized jobs that do not go up and get money for emergency assistance. there are states with declining caseloads, which is an important point.

part of the tenant of welfare reform was the contingency of it being created in anticipation that when the economy was not strong to have a work based system with jobs. without jobs there we needed a provision that will allow the caseload to go up. because of the death of this recession, we have hit that but it is not undoing welfare reform, it is responding to a set of circumstances. guest: there are individuals that passionately opposed welfare reform and the contingency fund that she referred to allows money to go up during a recession but it does not go back down. putting more people on the rolls, giving you more money. that is what they're doing. reversal of reform.

which is why everyone in favor of the reform is saying that we do not need do this. very little of the money goes to cash ascendant -- cash assistance for single mothers and more. it goes to day care and preschool. to say that you desperately need more money in the program is to increase the bulk of welfare spending in the country that is already rising to an unbelievable levels. host: thanks for holding. amanda, republican line. ohio. good morning. caller: how can you maintain welfare assistance without a social security and a number or being a citizen of this country? i had to prove my social

security number, and my husband's. i do not understand how the legal aliens are obtaining all of this assistance. i do not get it. >> -- guest: they are not receiving assistance. if you're not an american system -- an american citizen you cannot receive the assistance. without the social security number your right, you cannot receive it. guest: it is more complicated than that. it is true that the legal immigrants do not get welfare per se, but illegal immigrants in this country generally have children here. there's a huge receipt of welfare by the population.

medicaid and other forms of assistance, as well as free education. broadly speaking, if you look at legal and illegal immigration together, 30% to 40% of illegal immigrants coming to this country are high-school dropouts. this population is a massive receiver of welfare. we spent about $150 billion on assistance for lower skilled immigrants this year. we simply cannot afford to import welfare recipients and poor people from the third world and borrow from the chinese to finance them, which is what we're doing today. host: independent caller, good morning. caller: how're you doing today? this question is mainly for mr.

robert rector. define welfare. would you consider the subsidies to these corporations, corporate farms, as well as research for nuclear power plants where we give them all the money and they collect money from us and charge us for the money we just gave them. host: did you want to add to that? guest: absolutely. not all waste in government is welfare. you have identified some wasteful programs and our organization is firm about wanting to cut all forms of waste in government spending. again, i think that when they're talking about welfare they are

talking about all assistance to poor people or low-income people intended to prop up their living standards or make them more capable of self support. we probably need another term for it. assistance to low-income people. taking that together is over 70 different programs and we are spending over $900 billion on that. in a few years we will be spending $1 trillion every year. a great, hidden story where this level of spending is rarely disclosed. president obama is planning to spend over $12 trillion on assisting low-income americans that is unsustainable. a major error of all of this spending is that it does not require or urge support or meet

the principal causes that offer the most in terms of collapse family even in the best of economic times. guest: i think that is not accurate, again. people are required to work to get that, not true necessarily for the medical care. people know that that needs to be address. i think that we really have a safety net for families that is increasingly focused on work and supporting people that do work. this recognition that our economy has a huge number of jobs and are not sufficient to supporting a family. host: the continued refrain on this program of corporate welfare, what do you think of that? guest: there is a lot of welfare -- wasteful spending and if you

want to call it corporate welfare that is fine, i do not object. what i am trying to get at here is how much spending we give to low-income people. the assistance for families with children and look at the bottom of the population we are spending close to $23,000 per family. and no one knows that. as a budget analyst i cannot figure where all of this spending is going. you can say that there are work base requirements here. but the reality is that if you look at poor families with children, even in the best of economic times the only performer about $600 a work per year. they're working but not working very much. if you want them to come out of poverty and if you want to control these costs, we must be a much firmer in saying that we

will give you assistance but we will require that you work or prepare for work as a condition of aid. everyone that opposed welfare reform oppose that principle in this one time program. not in food stamps, not in public housing, not in medicaid. guest: the idea is that we saw a huge increase in work. robert is trying to have it both ways. it is encouraged people to move into the labour market and work, the royals went down. now we are seeing a reversal of that because the jobs are not there. i think that what we need to increase the the be thinking about is a safety net for the people when the economy does not work. the economy is not working out and that is what we are trying to do. host: we have a call from maryland, jerry, democratic line. go ahead.

caller: this is just an opinion. i feel that welfare needs to be revisited. i know people in my area that are working 50 hours per week making very good money, they get food stamps, health care, and i do not understand how they're doing it. when my husband got sick we never ask for a penny from the government. and we could not get any. i do not understand how they are working getting food stamps and health care. guest: we have a lot of systems in place to make sure that people receive assistance who are eligible for it. their eligibility is based on rules for the programs. there is a small fraction of fraud and we have systems to try to get at that and make sure that people on assistance are receiving it who are eligible.

host: robert rector, if asked to reform welfare again, about which u.s. for most? guest: we only reform one out of the seven programs. even though she opposed every aspect of it in reducing dependence, poverty, and increasing employment, if that was true we should apply those same principles to public housing and food stamps. her organization having opposed initial reforms also opposed work requirements in food stamps and public housing. if you wanted to produce self- sufficiency what you should do is say that we are here to give you assistance but if you are an able-bodied adult we will expect you to work or prepare for work. not just talking about the recession. i believe that it does have to go up in the recession.

but looking at the budget doctrine we're looking at spending going up for the next 10 years. spending $1 trillion each year. it is not a sustainable increase in a system that rewards being idle and analyzes low-income couples for being married. guest: we have learned is that when jobs are available, one of the things that we did when we created a welfare reform is we did not allow people to pursue careers, pursue education, that would allow themselves to move out of poverty so that they do not need assistance from the government. that is one of the things that is unfortunate for the people who are motivated and want to go to school, it is next to impossible to do that.

host: sandy, a missouri. good morning. caller: why is welfare a way of life? should it not just be to help people out when they need it? it looks to me like there are a lot of lazy people out there that do not want to get off of their lazy tale ends. i was standing in a grocery line and you will see a goal -- a girl with a food cart and a cellular phone. to me that is a luxury. i think that they are lazy. four, five generations of people on welfare. just the other day we got a letter, health care has more than doubled. this is like paying mortgage. they want us to go to buy $12,000 deductible. i do not owe these people anything. they need to get off their butts and work. they need to quit having so many different daddies'.

why should i support them? host: we will go to phoenix where matt is on the independent line. caller: good morning. i agree with the last caller. i also want to thank the gentleman for speaking. he made a lot of sense when the lady asked about the illegal immigrants. i appreciated his honesty. what about barriers to employment concerning a felony? i know an individual who has a felony and he can get welfare but they will not let him get a job. guest: in general i would say that the best way to encourage work amongst people on any type of welfare programs for the poor is simply to say that we are here to give you assistance but we will require that you come down to the office and look for a job. we will require you to do

community service. what we found in the 1990's is that when you did that with one program the overwhelming bulk of people simply leave welfare, most of whom may have already been working off of the books. as long as you give it one way hand out and say that you cannot find a job, here is a check, we will basically encourage the worst out of people. it is not that they're bad people but you are not bringing out the best. you need a recipe book -- reciprocal obligation but we will require constructive behavior on your part. the other thing that is important is restoring families. most of the poverty is that exist exist because of the collapse of marriage. when the war on poverty started we spent over $14 trillion on it. 7% of children were born outside of marriage when we started,

today is 40%. the welfare system remains hostile and indifferent to that collapse of marriage, which is the main reason that welfare exists. guest: i think that the reality is that there is an incredible effort in this country right now to help people find employment as part of our safety net for families. it cannot be ignored. there are families that cannot receive assistance for indefinite periods of time. i have not gone away. i think that what we have seen is a group of families on welfare who are working but do not make enough to be able to leave the welfare rolls. we see another group of families who are really very near to being unable to work because of disability that do not like this criteria for disability. so, we have this heterogeneous group of people that are not a part of that stereotype but have

a genuine need and states are struggling to figure out how to provide services and move them away from the market. host: north carolina, your on the air. caller: i have two questions. there was a 1994 study performed during the argument about welfare reform. stating that 72% of all welfare recipients work poor, of white, single females. has that number increased or decreased? please give me the full information. guest: the information i am giving you comes directly from the u.s. office of management and budget. the other point, you are

correct. the majority of families on the program are white. the problem of welfare dependency and poverty is not restricted by race and the problems of the collapse of marriage is not restricted by race. in all white, black, and hispanic, the principal causes are lower income families that do not work very much during the course of the year. predominantly they are single parent families. helping people climbing towards self-sufficiency we have to look at those causes. when lyndon johnson launched the war on poverty he did not say that he wanted to create a dole state and give people free everything. he talked about making people self-sufficient and prosperous through their own actions, teaching people of fish instead of giving them a fish. we have abandoned the that entirely.

now we have a massive transfer state that we cannot sustain running the deficits we are currently spending. we cannot afford to spend over $12 trillion for assistance to the poor over the next decade. we have to go back to the original argument and look at why people are poor and what generates poverty in the first place. host: here is a photo of alexandria, unable to of kit -- obtain care for her daughter while she works. "cutts to child care subsidies towards more job-seekers. accustomed to working, alexandra wants to earn a paycheck but needs someone to look after her daughter. a 22-year-old single mother cannot afford child care. last month she lost her job as a hairstylist after an

impoverished system of babysitters forced her to mr. shifts when they did not show up. relegated to a waiting list of nearly 11,000 eligible kids. guest: that is very much the story of what is happening right now. there are many families who are trying very hard to find work and need the support to be able to do that and are not able to do that. again, when roberts said that there was a safety network where people are not expected to do anything, states are planning to place 185,000 people in jobs by the end of september using the emergency fund as a testament to the efforts to really try help people find work when there is very little work available. we have a system that more and more encourages work and that is what we need to be supportive

of so that we can help families to provide for those children in a positive way. guest: there are 70 different programs here. in the mainstream media there are always stories about cut but the reality is that the aggregate spending is $600 billion to $900 billion. looking at the budget documents coming from the white house, it has not gone down after the recession ends. it will just go up. the reality is that the spending for some people on all of these types of assistance go up year after year. it was already at a record high under president bush and it will now be increasing astronomically in the next decade. you have to look at the attitude spending. again, i do not necessarily oppose temporary spending

increases in the recession. i am concerned about the long- term feasibility of the system and a long-term lack of work requirements in the system. the number one organization in opposing work requirements in the 1990's was the one that donna pavetti belongs to. they opposed reform in food stamps and public housing. for her to defend the system that she opposed when it was created is ironic. guest: i have spent my entire career in the welfare system and i understand what is out there. i have been to every state and i know exactly what those programs look like. they're very focused on trying very hard to find people unemployment. we cannot keep going back to 1996.

guest: you have spoken like the no. 1 defenders of the pre- reform system and here you are not only trying to undermine reform, but prevent them. guest: that is completely inaccurate. the emergency fund has created 180,000 jobs. how can you sit here and say that that undermines welfare reform. the reform is about work and that is what states have used the money for, trying in a difficult economy to maintain a focus on work. that is helping families who want the work to do the work. you cannot afford that for everyone. host: -- guest: you are misrepresenting the system. you know perfectly well that over the past 10 years or so the requirements or extremely weak.

i do not know when i have seen a recipient get off of welfare. the reality is that all of this spending is fungible. to say that they created jobs within this particular program, they also had caseloads the rewarded states for putting people on the books. i challenge you right now. create a fund that can only be used for creating jobs? i would agree. but that is not what this is about. the reality is that most of the money does not go to creating jobs or sustaining people on welfare. it is kind of a huge slush fund for the state. we do not even have a good count on where the money is going. talking about how we always face these budget constraints, in

fact we are spending tens of thousands of dollars for each poor person, that is misleading and an abuse of the taxpayers. guest: but what you end up including in that are some very sick children with serious medical issues. it might cost a lot of money. guest: i do not do that. just the average cost of around $20,000 for each family. guest: but there are medicaid expenses in there. medical expenses with some children and adults that have a high average. guest: the numbers on average are simply that we provide a lot of assistance to a lot of people. you want to conceal that and pretend that that spending does not exist. host: margaret, republican line.

sarasota. caller: how are you? i have two questions. one of them is a statement to donna. donna, you need to go back to your ground routes and look at the welfare system. it is totally corrupt. it might be because of the lack of funds. and they are only selecting a few people to give the benefits they need. but i personally know in my own family two people that have been denied or given very unreasonable requests to being able to receive assistance. i have brought them into my home and tried to help them the best i could. host: you had a second point? guest: beck -- caller: vector. go to the bailout fund with the bankers. the biggest welfare recipients

in this country. shame on the people. they are just taking their anger out on the poor people that need help. these payments that were made to the bankers in this country, we need to be addressing that situation instead of picking omni poor people. host: some -- something for each of you there. guest: with respect to the bankers, the banks pay back most of that money. but i agree with you. it is not always in the government is restricted to aid to the poor, but on the other hand there is a lot that is wasteful in the sense that it gives assistance and free cash, free food, free medical care and housing and it does not require anything back. that is not helping the

recipient in long-term and it certainly does not help the taxpayer. we are not on a sustainable course. we cannot afford to borrow from the chinese to spend $12 trillion on the growing welfare state over the next decade. host: back to the ground roots? guest of the welfare system has a very difficult job. they are trying to implement and deal with a lot of different people with a lot of different needs. they do the best that they can to apply a set of rules. sometimes it works, sometimes people do not always understand the rules. i think that the best that we can do is make it work more efficiently so that everyone who is eligible gets what they are entitled to. host: we can get in another call or two. georgia, independent line. caller: thank you for letting me through. much appreciated.

i love all of the independent voices out there. i came into this country with an immigration visa. i am now a citizen. i own my own business. i have hired people. the welfare system, as i see it -- i am not against help for poor people. i do own a rental property in which a person on welfare asked me if i would be improving the property before a rented it. i could not. on the other hand, the system can be made in such a way that it helps people who have temporary problems.

problem i have with the gentleman, i am not quite sure how we got his numbers. spending $12 trillion poor trillion helped people? -- to help poor people? how does he get those numbers? host: we are down to the last couple of minutes, we will let you go. guest: you can look it up on our website. the numbers have gone up since the paper was written. all of my numbers are to get -- to it -- taken directly from the omd budget. three principles that we need to follow. we cannot afford to spend $1

trillion per year on welfare. we cannot sustain that. we need to require able-bodied recipients to prepare for work as a condition of receiving aid and we need to restore the married family within low-income couples or communities, helping the taxpayer and the workers. host: one last call, damascus, maryland. caller: so glad i got in. i am retired case manager so i have something to say on this subject. first of all, the heritage organization prevents a view of right wing, so-called conservative organizations that have very malevolent, pusillanimous views towards the poor. i do not ever see that out there screaming about the corporate welfare being spent. they are social bar west.

they believe that you either pull yourself up by your bootstraps and if you cannot, heck with you. the opposing view is to love your neighbor. a very simple edict. help those that need help. let me tell you something, as a case manager i can tell you that the need is terrific, terrific, and great. host: we have time for final thoughts from each guest. donna pavetti? guest: i think that roberts characterization of a safety net, all of these people that are not working, is an accurate. i think that we need to, as a country, i think we need to think about how we spend our resources and make decisions that are good for all people. we cannot sing allow poor people as a group of people that cannot be helped. be helped.