system as children across the country return to school. after that, as part of our week- long series examining defense issues, we will talk about the use of the unmanned aerial vehicles in afghanistan "washington journal" is next. . .

host: in his 45 minutes of "washington journal," we will look at the results of those primaries. as far as grass-roots candidates facing all against establishment candidates, we want to see how they fare in your eyes. if you are a republican, for republicans, 202-737-0001. for democrats, 202-737-0002. for independents, 202-628-0205. if you want to weigh in on last month results, looking at the candidates involved, seeing the women's overall. you can do so off of journal that -- you can send us a twitter at journal@c-span.org -- an e-mail at journal@c-span.org.

meek defeated greene in florida, he will go on to face marco rubio and charlie crist in november. >> a service worker in this state, going on to serve the state legislature in congress. some people call a career politician, but i call it public service. i think that it means something. [applause] host: that was kendrick meek from last night. let's look at arizona, john mccain with 57% of the vote, 92% of precincts reporting over j.d.

hayworth. just before this program started, you heard a worth, but here is senator mccain from last night. >> i will fight with every ounce of strength and conviction that i possess to make the case for my continued service in the senate and five will advocate and defend, if i am fortunate enough to be reelected. host: those are just two of the results from last night, but we want to take your calls as well. here are the numbers again. for republicans, 202-737-0001. for democrats, 202-737-0002. for independents, 202-628-0205. electronically, journal@c- span.org is the e-mail. if you want to send us a twitter, twitter.com/c-spanwj.

michael, what do you think? caller: i think that the republican party should go for it for some light bulb from. john mccain's solution to the problem is to marry someone with $50 million. donald trump had that money, he lost it, and then he made it back again. donald trump said to take the oil that bush bought for the oil reserves, put it on the open market, gasoline will go down from $3 per barrel to $1.25. it is cashed in the coffers. you want a stimulus?

bring gasoline down from $3 to $1.25. the obama people, putting up 3 million barrels up or down, as trump said, there are billions of barrels in the open sea and in storage is. host: portsmouth, jonathan. are you there? arkansas, one more time? caller: i am here. democrats and republicans, if you really pay attention, nothing but a talking point. if they need publicans -- republicans to run the country again, what does that say the the world?

host: are you concerned going into november? caller: basically, i am. we need people that are doing more than flapping their gums. you know what i'm saying? giving the keys to donald trump? i do not think so. host: grass-roots candidates going against established candidates, cottonwood, ariz., the morning. caller: i am upset about how the

democrats just wasted so much money, especially how the president is going out and party and instead of doing presidential stuff. if the republicans get back in there, let's hope that they can change things around and get people back to work. host: who did you choose between senator mccain and mr. hayworth? caller: i picked john mccain. i have stood behind him for many years. some things i do not like, like amnesty, but he does try help. but in general i am glad that it

is mccain and not hayworth. host: right next to the picture of meeks celebrating in florida, rick scott won over the current attorney general in that match as well. false creek, wisconsin. david, republican line. caller: hello? host: you are on. caller: i am 75 years old and along with about what these races and the politics, the more that i come to the realization that we live in the greatest country in the world and that this arizona race, with immigration, i see immigration. i have worked with immigrants.

i am a millwright who has worked in 13 different states. the only thing i really didn't understand about these immigration laws is that they talk about illegal immigration and it is hard for me to understand what these politicians do not understand about the legal. host: these are the numbers from the florida republican race. 46% for rick scott, bill macullum faced four -- picked up 43% of voters. sarasota, florida. caller: i understand that there

are four candidates in the florida gubernatorial race? host: the ones that we have our democrats call republicans -- yes, for candidates -- four candidates. caller: there is another candidate? alex snicker? host: i am not seeing him, is the independent? caller: yes, in the gubernatorial race. who is he, why has he never been reported on? if he is going to be on the ballot, he should be reported on, correct? host: i will check on it. caller: i am astonished that john mccain [unintelligible] it is amazing that he managed to

stay in the race. host: washington, d.c., you are next. caller: hello? host: democratic line, go ahead. caller: i do not know why john mccain is running again. i am kind of confused, it seems like some of the bowl that he was giving in the last election, why do that again? president obama is doing everything he can to make america better, sitting back and observing everything is ridiculous. within 100 days to he got the oil spill cleaned up, showing his resiliency. this is just ridiculous. host: bad rouge, louisiana. good morning, larry. caller: the oil is not cleaned

up in louisiana. not by a longshot. i am glad that the republicans are on a steam roller here, getting the thieves out of their and sending them back to chicago where they belong. those still looking at alaska, lisa merkouwsky, -- "as it stands right now, it totals for the precincts, 51% for miller, 49% for murkowski, the results of the race might not be known for as much as one

week. pontiac, michigan, go ahead. caller: i notice that you have the tea party people that are constantly calling in, i just want to know, has anyone done any background checks on the tea party movement and who is behind it? like the koch brothers for the khbh oil company. they pushed the tea party to rally against health care less year, has anyone done any background checks on david koch and his brother, who owns an oil company? someone needs to do a background check on them. they have been instigating all of this. host: what is the most important thing to learn about them?

caller: they are trying to get rid of anything that president obama is trying to get through. there are instrumental in trying to stop the kennedy agenda and the barack obama agenda. someone needs to do a check on them. the cato institute, one of the people that they fund, and they fund a lot of different organizations, if you could get someone out and out who they are sunday, they all the petroleum oil company. you might be doing us all a favor. host: parent island, florida,

republican line. caller: the media has a big influence on elections. one of the main ones i have seen is the omission of information has brought up by a previous caller. but and the florida senatorial race you never fail to mention that charlie crist is running as an independent. in the gubernatorial race, the son of lawton chiles is running as an independent. he is never mentioned. the omission is influential on the electorate. thank you. host: the caller is correct on that. those are the current three candidates for governor. damascus, joe, independent line. caller: this country has four

major problems that if we can overcome, we could get back on the road. the first is lack of jobs. the second is immigration, legal and illegal. three is private-sector unions. the last is term limits. why people like john mccain, robert byrd, some of these people who have been in office for more than six years feel that they can contribute to the betterment of this country, i really do not understand it. i support term limits, six years and you are out. thank you so much for c-span. host: this is from "the washington post."

"the pentagon should create a high level office to strategizing and ford made against the high navy offices in the marine corps -- dallas, tx. caller: good morning. i was calling to say yes, the republicans had governors and

the reason why it is the democrats are so disappointed because republicans are getting out there and saying anything and people just believe it. democrats have no backbone, they had no backbone on 9/11. they have no backbone to fight for health care, to fight back when there are things thrown at them. if you are going to represent a party that put you in office, he should have the goods, it does not matter whose feelings that to hurt. they call president obama hitler and stuff like that, but why not attack the tea party people? until the democrats get some backbone, they will never do anything. host: this is from "the washington times," "independent

bid gives the gop grief." lower down in the paragraph, "meeks primary is going to cost governor crist some voters -- alexandria, va., good morning, democratic line. miriam? alexandria, are you there? caller: yes, sorry, i did not hear you. i was calling to say, with regards to the caller earlier

that said the country had four problems, i do not think that the problems are what he stated. if we could deal with racism, christian fundamentalists, and if we could deal with people always voting based on what the media says instead of doing their own research, not being so easily fooled by commercials. if people just had a memory of what happened and stopped voting for the next party, we would have a much better solution going forward. i see people voting right now not so much knowing what the republicans are going to do or knowing that they have a solution, but because we are punishing democrats by voting for republicans. we will get nowhere, it does not

make any sense, the people that we wind up punishing, we wind up punishing ourselves. i am just frustrated with what is going on. host: sharon, md.. caller: that may be that talked about the mystery that supported -- host: you are on. caller: fed woman who was talking about coast industries, i know that the director was angry about the economy and things of that nature, but people need to recognize, the term from watergate, follow the money. coke industries is a very anti- regulation, anti-social security, anti-intervention into government and the tea party people do not recognize that,

although i understand there issues. another thing that has been revealed, talking about who is funding the ground zero mosque, the second-largest investor comes from fox, news corp.. if you are investing in a loss, should we not but that his investment in news corp.? host: virginia, good morning. caller: democrats call in and try to demonize the tea party and everything else, all you have to do is look at the cities and states where liberals are in control and you can see that their policy takes america know where. the more that the government does, the worse things get for america. the people need prosperity, not the government telling them what to do.

host: what you think about the tea party influence in november? caller: i think it will be a landslide, republicans in freedom of looking good. we will take our freedom back. host: that was bob from richmond, va.. the next is rockford, ill.. caller: that last guy started talking about the green party and then drifted into the republican party? this is a scam to get two party candidates to run against democrats. i would have voted for none of those bums and i am an independent. america, stop being fooled. you won real change in your government? a vote in the leaders that will

give you a recall vote for term limits. want to have that, you will have a leadership that will listen to you. otherwise they will just pull the wool over your eyes. host: in your mind, they were not really independence -- independents? caller: how convenient that he became independent when the tea party came out, giving him another platform to run on. as an independent by him very leary of something like this popping up, because it is usually infiltrated by the big two and a gets hijacked. host: in your mind, what identifies an independent? caller: in independent of party, i would never associate myself with a republican or

democrat, their views are not my views. host: give me an example of a independent view. host: let's take that mosque issue -- caller: let's take that must issue. i do not think that the government should be involved in taking down the mosque, but i do think that the government -- that as americans we should be able to protest that mosque. let them build it, but i have the right to protest that. host: tennessee, democratic line, thank you for waiting. beverly? are you there? go ahead, you are on. caller: yes, i just wanted to -- yes, i am here. host: you will have to not listen to the tv and just go ahead. caller: i wanted to comment, if

you keep voting for croaks, you will keep getting the same results. you have really got to get in there and figure out what they stand for. many people vote for people because they are good looking. that will not give us out of this mess. i have never seen it in my life, i am over 50 and i have never seen the government in the shape. everyone is going have to start looking at the person or we will still be in the same mess. republicans, democrats, independents, we need to start worrying about what is going on here. host: california, looking at last night's results from primaries. emma, go ahead. caller: i was watching television last night and i was

concerned about the coch brothers and their association with the tea party. i went on line and i found out that they make from the tissue paper, dixie cups, no. products. i'd like us to boycott them if you are a democrat. if you are not a democrat, you should boy scout -- boycott them, they are under cover and a part of the skull and bones. i went on my computer and found that out. host: this story from "the new york times" this morning about the recent ban on stem cells. gardner harris writes --

he said that his institute's decision to finance human embryonic stem cell research -- the other plaintiff in the case was threatened by at least one former colleague, she cites genetics --

there is more to this story in "the new york times" this morning. joe, good morning. caller: i have to agree with ted 100% on the grass roots things. many of them are just a scam. you have the tea party that is now just a bunch of republican rejects from the tea party. it is just what he said, take that mosque issue. the democrats are gone haywire, the republicans are going haywire, the only man who had any sense was the mayor of new york, an independent, someone i would vote for in a heartbeat. i cannot stand all of this liberal and conservative garbage, it has gotten us in

some -- so much trouble. we never have any good ideas, they just have a food fight, throwing safed each other on capitol hill. the independents, there is only so much going on in my mind, and if you have not figured out that the two parties are a scam, you are not very bright. host: virginia, go ahead. caller: there are no republicans, there are no democrats, they work for the same corporations. we will never have a change until we change them. the tea party is not the answer. i was doing research on the internet, there is a tvp party.

the 12 divisions party. i read their platform, lining up with my honesty and love and peace for my people, i think that they can change this country. it does not matter who we vote for. i am a republican, but i am sick and tired of the same lies over and over. it is not obama. he is getting paid to do his job, speaking in convincing us that he is for us, even when he is not, but the reality is we have no presentation, this government is out of control. host: west virginia, go ahead. caller: bush proved that it did not matter who we vote for. they will just get what they want. that being said, look at how much money they have spent.

you cannot do anything about it, i cannot do anything about it. there's nothing i can do about it, there's nothing nobody can do about it. they want people spending money but it is hard to do when you have mortgage payments coming out of your check every time did you get paid. it would be fine if they pack your lunch with a wake-up call or something, working in your yard? no, they just do it and there is nothing that we can do about it. back then, yes, rallies and protests got stuff done, now everyone is on medication, they are so high they are running rampant. that is all i have to say about that. host: the case for economic optimism in "the wall street journal" this morning, writing

about research called from the recession to analyze america's return to growth. "america's businesses are capable of navigating around --

again, that is in the opinion pages of "the wall street journal." walt, democratic line. caller: i would like to make two comments. the first is about the two- party, the second is about independent voters. a lot of tea party members call in, but my comment is that these tea parties are nothing but a street gang. they are not trying to do anything that will help the people around here anymore than independent candidates are truthful in being independent. anyone can say that they are independent, but i will vote for the person that will help me. if they say nothing in the tea party just comes out and wants

to cause a riot, that is not going to help this country. host: how much influence do you think those groups have? especially looking at november. caller: in november i see a lot of people that really want this country to move forward, they will get out and vote. independent voters are not pulling on either side, like myself. like i said, if a person is going help me, i do not care for the color or race, it don't make no difference. i am an independent person myself, even though i am in the infant -- democratic party. just the way that you are saying and carrying on, that is not anything where they tried to

help the people. down here in georgia, our representative is always trying to stop president obama. they are running a campaign right now against obama. running on stopping obama. host: monroe, louisiana. caller: good morning, c-span. i am a former u.s. military service member. i have been all over the earth and during my travels i have always wondered why foreigners used to call us dumb americans. now i know why. john mccain is winning senate races. sarah palin and the likes of the tea party were made by the media. these are two people, two groups

of people that are totally out of touch with the american people. because a lot of it is based on the color of their skin, they win elections. the media made sarah palin and the tea party, making them both of them bigger than what they are. all but they do is come against obama. but if that is what this country wants, so be it. the best thing to happen to this country is president obama. but if you want to take this country back, so be it. that is all i have to say. at the third district in arizona, then quayle winning over challengers from last night, getting 23% of the vote

out of 99 districts in arizona. zack, go ahead. caller: good morning, thank you for your show. everyone has opinions and we are all entitled to them. i think that there is a misunderstanding of the tea party. it is a word like a cliche during the last election, acorn was out there, there was a lot of flow of the other side where they were throwing this in your face. we know that there are two sides to a coin, so what is wrong with our opinion? many of us have christian standards and we understand everything.

that is all we have to say, do not underestimate people. host: jamaica, n.y., yolanda, good morning. caller: how are you? host: fine, thank you. caller: sitting here, listening to the show, i am a democrat and i am so disappointed in what is going on. the media has become so divisive, we have campaigns running against immigrants, issues about building a mosque. i think we have lost sight of what is going on, which is the economy. we cannot keep blaming bush and obama. we need to come up with a strategy. the republicans cannot just keep blocking everything that obama wants to do.

it is the same thing with the mosque, is not about every one that died on 9/11, not all muslims are bad, not all african-americans are bad. i do not particularly care for the tea party, because of what their actions say. they are very divisive and we have got to stop. this is america, i am so disappointed, my parents are not live to see an african-american candidate win the presidency, but they are missing the drama in his candidacy and we need to move forward. host: barney frank in "the washington post," writing about him, "does he think that

regulators need more authority? "some of them do, some of them do not. they have done a terrible job because they are getting all of that money. the hearing will take a pay proposal developed by the scuam lake group, making millions in annual pay -- connecticut, joyce, republican line. caller: i have always voted republican. i am in my eighties. not this year.

for the simple reason that linda mcmahon has boasted that she is willing to spend up to $50 million to get a seat in washington. to me that is buying a seat. she has used cartoons that advocate violence and i will not vote for anyone that does that. host: good morning, c-span. i agree with the young lady that called a few calls ago. -- host -- caller: i have to agree with the young lady that called a few calls ago. this is getting out of hand. the bigotry, the class wars, the racism, some of us say that we

are christians, god-fearing people. to some degree we are also very hypocritical. you say that you are for something or against something, but if something happens like this situation in new york with the mosque, you say that you should have the freedom to practice your religion, but i am going to come out and protest, why are you protesting? host: how does this play out in voting in primaries and things of that nature? caller: they jump on board because it is the soup of the day. they want to use something to get votes, but as soon as they get in office, the entire thing changes.

it happens so much, just like when obama and clinton went against each other. the only reason that john mccain picked serif it -- sara palin, he was trying to get the hillary clinton vote. you see what i am saying? we have to get away from that soup of the day mentality. treat everyone the way you want to be treated, all right? host: that will finish our first segment today, we are turning to issues of the economy, especially home sales. plunging yesterday by 30%, other affects in various sectors of the economy, joining us next to talk about these issues is jim mctague. ♪

>> we are pawns on the chessboard and we are playing our parts in a drama that is neither fiction nor unimportant. >> i express my regret about the encounter with -- i cannot walk away because you think i am annoying. >> watched more online and read about them at the c-span video library. washington, your way. >> we have a generation coming up that did not have carts in public school, certainly. these of the 20-year-old and i am concerned about that group of

people. it is not clear to me that they will come into the arts when they're 45 or 50. >> sunday night, michael kaiser will talk about the future of the arts in the u.s. on a "q&a." >> "washington journal" continues. host: as promised, a jim mctague of "baron's financial weekly." 20%, that is the room number, but what is the impact? guest: professionals were expecting a 14% drop. why is it worse than expected? first of all, housing is not the investment that used to be because the economy is so bad. the market lacks liquidity. people are not buying, they are not moving out because they are afraid of losing their jobs. young people are not buying

because you need 20% down, which is an enormous obstacle. plus we have an overhang of supply. these people coming of the market with their houses, buyers are asking why they should commit now, prices could change even further because of the supply-demand imbalance. i used to look at my house as savings for the future. now i look at it the way a cave man looks at his cave, just a place to stay. host: if there is a fundamental change going on in home ownership, what sectors does that affect? guest: the biggest sector that it affects is construction. if you go over into the

financial sector, banks and brokerages are no longer buying mortgage securities. what happens when you go out to get a loan for a mortgage? to or banker like to sell that mortgage to an investor, that way he has more money to lend. it is supposed to be virtuous cycle. now the u.s. government is the buyer of last resort and people are still dependent on their mortgages, even the new buyers coming into the market went up getting into trouble. the housing market is pretty much dead on wall street. it is also affecting the stock market. when people see that the housing market drove the economy through the lake the 1980's and 1990's, without that engine the economy will not grow much. it just trickles through all of

the investment, making people very cautious. host: here is the result from yesterday as far as the impact on the dow jones. talk about 30 year treasuries, how do they factor in? guest: they do not and i will tell you why. people are so frightened because of the stock market crashed in 2007, followed by the flash crash, they want to return to capital, putting money in the treasury regardless of the return. in a two-year treasury i think you get what, half a percent? looking at mortgage rates, they used to be pegged to treasurys. i think that if they were truly pegged to treasurys they would be at 3.5% right now.

it sounds low, but when you look at the spread, you are still paying a lot of money for a mortgage. that is an impediment to home buying as well. host: jim mctague, talking about the current economy in light of the drop in home sales. for republicans, 202-737-0001. for democrats, 202-737-0002. for independents, 202-628-0205. journal@c-span.org is the e- mail. the twitter address is twitter.com/c-spanwj. talk about the mentality of the home buyer and home seller. host: -- guest: i think everyone in america has a family member that is trapped in a house. first of all, people are not

leaving their existing jobs to go to another city to take a new job. they do not want to take a risk, they think that the economy is so scary. plus there is no one to purchase their house. the other thing affecting the mentality, lots of people are going to refinance their mortgage and increase their monthly income. they are good customers, going into the banks, paying their mortgage on time, and guess what? they will not give a mortgage for the full amount that they go. the people cannot get refinancing, sitting on top of a depreciating asset. an automobile, instead of being worth more every year, it seems to be worth less. host: how much of a danger is it

that people will just walk away? guest: there is the debate as to if it is moral, but also if it is rational. there is some phenomenal figure, 14 million empty houses in the united states, many of these homes were in neighborhoods that were in such bad condition, no one would want to anyways. we might be better off just bulldoze in these properties in getting the overhang of the market. the bottom line is that it is probably going to be 2017 before the housing market recovers in a lot of the major markets. host: what conditions have to happen to make that recovery happened?

guest: first of all, we need gdp growth of 3.5% every year for years, that is the only way we will create enough jobs to put these people back to work, which does not even include new people coming into the marketplace. we have to increase lost jobs can see job growth with household formation. we have young people postponing marriage because they feel they cannot afford to get married. we have a booming economy for the housing market to pick up again. host: the first call comes from alabama. jerry, democratic line, thank you for waiting. caller: my comment concerns housing sales. i feel that in our state there was too much overbuilding. housing construction and was out of control and we had too many

houses being built with no buyers. thank you, c-span. guest: we just thought that real-estate prices were going to rise forever. we've become complacent, forgetting that there are risks in all markets. people forgot that you can lose your shirt in the stock market until they could do it. houses lost value every year. i remember my father, when he went out to purchase a single home after world war ii, he had a single young family, his father-in-law said to wait one year and he could get it for less money. after world war ii, housing prices shot up for a variety of reasons. we have a good economy, we had

all of these returning soldiers forming families, purchasing the things that they needed for a house. now we have a cycle where we were before world war ii, people are reluctant to invest in real estate. it is very hard work to make money in real-estate. the only real estate project with legs is the mosque in new york city right now. host: this observation from twitter -- guest: disinflation is a reduction in prices, and it is true, supply and demand. i see it in a real way. i have one relative with a house that they think is worth x and i know that it is probably worth $30,000 or $40,000 less than

they think. with all of the foreclosures in their area, that twitter is correct, you have to have a deep discount to move a house. this is another reason that people are reluctant to purchase. it could lead to a housing deflation very easily if people follow suit. host: is there a connection between the drop that we sought and the ending of the tax credit program that was financed by the government? guest: most definitely. that tax credit will help. if you have to come up with a 20% down payment, which is very steep for a lot of young people. steep for a lot of old people. that tax incentive really helped. there is a statistic out there today that house flipping also decreased when that tax credit

this appeared. so, a lot of entrepreneurs were out there using that tax credit to flip houses right away. there is going to be a lot of pain in housing and we have a choice to make, we can take it in one big dose, or we can let the banks drivel properties on to the market over the next few years and it will be a slow, painful process. but there is no escaping it. housing is going to be a sore spot in the economy. i would rather get it over with in one fell swoop. host: how are retail buildings and the like affecting this kind of thing? guest: walk down any main street in america and you will see vacancies in retail shops and shopping centers.

people are in trouble with their mortgages? we will see another wave of foreclosures. people are not impulse buying any more. they are very careful shoppers all of a sudden. if you look at the big department stores that managed to make a profit, they had deep discounts, like discounts by 15% to get people in the door. even though they made a profit, they got hammered on wall street feria short sellers jumped all over them about one week ago. it is very tough out there in retail land. you have to sell more and get less for it. host: california, go ahead. caller: about three years ago in long beach, we lived in front of the greenbelt area on the main highway and on the weekend there

were 27 real-estate open house science, people purchasing their next-door neighbor's house, turning around and flipping it, the credit was so easy. i had a friend that had such bad credit, she just threw one of her credit cards away, you would lend her $20 until friday. one tragedy about this, my husband's work, a gentleman who was a friend of his, he came across the country to take a job, but he cannot sell his original house. there are so few houses selling in his original neighborhood, they do not even know what the price is. he has been out there for just under one year. his wife and his family are stock and we do not even know how much longer that will last. it is such a tragedy, everyone is losing and it is so sad, but

thank you for listening. host: -- guest: i have been through this before. in the 1980's i was a reporter for the late and great "dallas times herald" in texas. in the wake of the savings and loan blow up, texas, california, florida, they suffered catastrophic housing declines. there were pictures in the paper of pyle's authorities on front steps where people literally just abandoned their homes and through the keys away to migrate out of texas to find a job someplace. when i say that the housing market will not recover until 2017, i am not pulling a number of of a hat. .

standards are purinanical and the markets aren't going to move because, again, in this type of economy how many blue ribbon credit risks are out there? not too many. host: you call them standards, what are the standards? guest: 20% down for a young couple -- let's say even on $100,000 house, that's a lot of money for somebody just starting out in life unless, you know, you're lucky enough to have a child that gets a great job at some big law firm. if you have somebody coming out of college and they're lucky enough to have a job making $40,000, $50,000. i'm not talking about washington, d.c., where everybody is overpaid, but in the real part of the united states, because it's too big an obstacle out there. host: have to have perfect credit? guest: yeah, you have to have

perfect credit. and, again, i have people that i know in alexandria, virginia, which is kind of a ritzy place who cannot get refinancing on their mortgage because their homes has fallen so significantly. host: me nassas, virginia, you're next, republican line, roger. caller: good morning. i agree with the jobs that americans are holding. our government doesn't get it and they're allowed so many jobs to go overseas. this is really broken the backbone of our housing industry because people are concerned that their i.t. jobs will go overseas to india. the call center jobs might go to the philippines. you know, we talk it's a global economy but it's ripping at the basis of us being solid enough

to purchase homes and own them. guest: you make an interesting point. i had a conversation of some wall street guys who are my sources the other day and you look around the world and you look at all the instability around the world. like mexico, look at the instability of mexico where a lot of companies have moved across the border and established manufacturing facilities. you would think in the face of that unrest these american companies would say, well, i'm going back to the states, you know, it's secure and i don't have to worry about my employees getting shot up but it's not happening. we still have companies moving to mexico. why is that? it's because this country is really business unfriendly. it's really unfriendly towards capital investment. and it's not just federal taxes and this democrat, republican

stuff. we have red tape down to the local level. there was a headline about philadelphia this week where philadelphia wants to charge bloggers $300 a year for a license. now, no wonder philadelphia is a trade-rate city. in the 1950's and 1960's it was a first-rate city but right now it's a third-rate city. a blogger and try to squeeze $300 out of them, you're going to discourage business. and this happens in communities -- i'm sorry to single out my hometown, but it happens in communities. so until we have a business-friendly outlook we're going to continue to lose jobs overseas. host: what percentage of the housing sector -- economy does

the housing sector represent? guest: it was the growth before the subprime clams in 2007. when you look at 27% unemployment among construction workers, i mean, that's an enormous number of people. it's one of the reasons when the president came up with a stimulus package he put so much emphasis on investments in infrastructure to put these guys back to work. so i don't have a percentage but i know it had to be at least 20%. huge contributor. host: toledo, ohio, patrick, independent line. caller: good morning, gentlemen. thanks for c-span. i'm going towards the refinance stuff. my wife and i bought a house here in toledo right towards the end of the bubble. average price for it at that

time. now of the 20 houses that are on the short side of our block eight has reduced our property value to roughly just over $80,000 when we spent $120,000 to the house. we started to refinance. we started this process three months ago. more on the hardship because i just went through major surgery and i have been out of work for four months now. we originally did all the paperwork, everything sent it in. the big statement we sent in wasn't good enough because it was over-the-counter. they wanted an official. last two pages were blank because we didn't send those in because it was blank. they said they got to have those two pages. so, ok. 30-day deadline for that. because we started the process they'll do it. i sent them the two pages in. waited another week and a half. didn't hear anything. called up.

said what's going on? well, we didn't get your stuff. i sent it all in. i said, well, i'll send it all again. so i sent it all in again. wait another week. talked to somebody. well, we still haven't received the first two pages that we requested. i said, i sent those in. i said, ok. i'll just fax it in. they gave me the fax number. i faxed all four pages. that was almost three weeks ago. my father-in-law, who's been trying to help us out, called the bank yesterday and they said we still haven't received the two blank pages. guest: oh, geez. caller: it seems like there's extreme incompetence in it or it's very kind of sinister, devious, where they don't want to help you. let's face it, they're going to lose money. if they reduce our interest rate they're going to lose money. host: caller, thanks. guest: i have a confession to make. early in my career -- this is how i became a financial

writer. i was a political reporter for "the philadelphia daily news" in harrisburg, pennsylvania, and i decided to become a business writer. at the time my fourth child was on the way and i couldn't go back to graduate school so i went to work for merrill lynch to be a stoke broker because they had fabulous training. fast forward, i still keep in contact with some of my colleagues, and they say that they are -- the whole focus of the industry now is compliance, paperwork. and that's the same with banking. because of the backlash against what happened in the subprime, you know, the bureaucratic solution is more paperwork. and this, you know, this poor man's tale is just an example of the compliance to the extreme where you can't get approved because you didn't submit two blank pages.

you know, somebody at the bank is cognizant of some new rule and they have to adhere to the letter of that rule or else they lose their job and the bank gets in trouble. so it slows down the lending process. and you have people in this unfortunate situation. host: this administration launched a program to help those with troubled mortgages and try to get them into more stable ones. reports of a lot of people dropping out of this program. what's its future or what do you think of its future? guest: i thought it was dead on arrival because, you know, the government was telling the financial industry two things at once. it was saying, clean up your act, you know, make sure you're making profitable loans, stop paying your executives too much money. and then on the other hand it

was, and, by the way, we want to streamline the mortgage lending process and help these homeowners. these are conflicting messages. and so the banks are taking the safe route and that program just will not work. host: austin, texas. thanks for waiting. jerry on our republican line. caller: yes. i just have a question. do you think that the local governments like the county could be responsible for the inflated house prices? thank you. guest: no. i don't. i don't see any connection there. host: los angeles, charlie, democratic line. caller: i want to put my two cents in on this. i for one took a 99er, we were not included in the unemployment extension. and i can't even fathom how

many homes are going to come on the market as being foreclosed because folks who have not worked we are on our last breath. we've taken out our 401's, we've taken out every money we can to keep our house. we lost our car insurance, our health insurance, our life insurance. we've canceled everything just to get by so we can keep our house until something happens. i know there's four million homes in foreclosure, 300,000 came up in foreclosure last month. what do they think is going to happen when it comes down to -- in my union there's about 20 of us who aren't even going to bother to vote. if we don't have a job and we're not getting help because all our jobs going across the ocean or across the border, they're not going to have a job. it's going to be really, really bad and most of us are in our

50's and we just got a few years left on our mortgages and it's not fair for us -- well, they say go back to school. we went back to school. went for nursing and for i.t. and all we got was, hey, you're too old. you have no experience. we can find somebody else half the cost, half the pay, and these are people swallowing their pride and going back to school in their late 50's and early 60's just to get through the next few years when they can retire and run like heck. oh, i don't know if you can answer or else i'll hang up and listen to your comment. we are going to have a real major problem in america when these homes start to foreclose in the next few three to four months. we are not going to wait four months. we are going to wait for the ballot box. i am going to cut my ballot box and send it into my party showing that we're upset.

host: caller, thanks. guest: i am impressed with the restraint of the american people. the greeks were riding in the streets when their well fair state was rolled back. -- welfare state was rolled back. in previous generations we would have 10 cities in washington, d.c., and protesters walking up to the doors of congress demanding action. the -- again, until we get the economy growing between 3% and 3.5% we are not going to create jobs. i heard one economist predict that many people were unemployed today will die unemployed which is just a horrendous future to have in this country. the -- he talks about the election. the handling is on -- used to be republican and democrats. now it's thrown all the bones out.

let's give someone new a chance. i think a lot of people -- this is why i think the incurveents in congress are very worried because a lot of people who came out to vote during the presidential election are going to stay home. and that's very bad for the incumbent party. we saw it in the recession that ended in 1991 with papi bush. they threw the republicans out that year. the buck stops at the desk of the party in power and they're going to pay a price. host: off of twitter. someone adds too low interest rates too long from the federal reserve caused americans to become negative savers. guest: that's true. savers are getting hammered because if you put your money in the bank you're getting actually a negative return on your money. when you factor in the slight inflation that we have.

so it's a very poor time to be a saver. and where else are you going to put your money? if you put it in the stock market with the wild volatility, you know, you end up losing by the end of the day. you know you're profitable by noon and by 3:00 in the afternoon you've lost your shirt. so people are avoiding equities. bond interest rates are very low. so savers are in fact being punished now. the same way they would be punished if we had runaway inflation. host: birmingham, alabama. wayne on our republican line. caller: good morning. host: combed. caller: i wanted to -- host: go ahead. caller: i wanted to throw out a possible suggestion to this housing problem here. you know, everybody was in love with these interest-only loans about four, five years ago. and i was wondering if it wouldn't be a good idea to have fannie and freddie who seemed to own a lot of these

foreclosures, have subsidized and underwritten these things, if we allow people to go to an interest-only loan, only those that currently have a loan, because an interest-only loan for, say, the next five to six years, because the way this current program is set up is, let's say you have an $1,800 a month payment, you go in and finally bite through all the bureaucracy and you reduce your payment from $1,800 a month to $1,600, well, that doesn't do you any good if you're on unemployment. i wonder what your thoughts might be for the next five to seven years, only those that have a mortgage and are in trouble could get an interest-only loan so they could reduce their house payment from $1,800, say, down to $400 a month, and that should take a lot of these upcoming foreclosures off the market and i think with long-term health of the housing

market to not be flooded so much with houses people are just walking away from because they can't really pay the notes? guest: that's an interesting idea. i heard -- believe it or not, i hear from people every week that have a solution for the housing crisis. you know, the problem with freddie mac and fannie mae, hey, taxpayers, they're part of the federal government for all intents and purposes and everything you do through freddie mac and fannie mae, it would constitute a big federal entitlement program. i mean, it's not the route we want to go. do we want to come up with some private sector solution? you know, i think a private sector solution would be the right way to go. in trying to get congress to approve something like this in an election year, forget about it. i think the housing crisis is

going to be here again until at least 2017. host: marsfield, wisconsin. patti, democratic line. caller: i have two comments. one, from 1997 to 1999 i tried to be a realtor and didn't do very well. i remember there was one particular home that was selling like in 1996, the year before i got in, and then right before leaving was going sold again and it went up $15,000. and all they did was put new carpet in. i couldn't like -- i couldn't justify taking people to it and giving them the price when you know how much it sold for like just three years ago. and secondly, my husband and i went to the home, making home affordable program, and it did work for us. there were some glitches and it took six months.

we had a problem not getting our taxes and the guy said, i have a private fax machine. do it directly to me. and i emailed directly stuff to him and confirmed it was received that day. and so then finally we got in and we were approved. but our house did not go down in value. we have a moderate price home for our area. we bought it for $75,000 and it's now -- currently set at $130,000. but similar homes in the area have sold for about $125,000 the past couple of years. so we've been lucky in that respect. and also getting that reduced. my husband did lose his job. and the other job he got was like a third less. we were fortunate it did work for us. you just have to wait, be patient and do the paperwork. that's all i have to say. thank you. guest: glad to hear it was

successful for her. it has been successful for a percentage of people. i think it's like 25% of the people that the government intended to help. so it's uneven. uneven in its effectiveness. that's a nice story. wisconsin's a gorgeous state. but it would be nice if we could get -- host: complicated, though. comboip yes, again, because of compliance. you know, the banks, they don't want to be sued. they don't want to be prosecuted so they want that audit trail to be explicit. like our previous caller who has a health problem and it seems like an emergency and it would be a great help to his family to have a lower payment sooner rather than later, i could see how frustrating it is to deal with that kind of bureaucracy. host: michigan, brian,

republican line. caller: hi, good morning. thanks, jim. i want to ask you a question that i've been asking guests for the last three years and never got an answer. guest: uh-oh. caller: ok. i grew up in the 1950's. i grew up in metropolitan detroit back when detroit was the number one city in the united states. now, how is the figures as far as compete in manufacturing for today and the future? we are all talking about loss of jobs. how are we going to compete between $1,50 and $3.50 an hour? i do believe ross perot was right when we did sign nafta that there would be a big sucking sound and that would be jobs. it seems this conversation really doesn't take place hardly anywhere. how are we going to compete between $1.50 and $3.50?

within 10 years, once i start paying my guys $10, $15, $20 the bean counters come in and say, move it down south, move it to china, we're not going to pay that kind of labor and you're going to make good model. i mean, this is the model set up. this is where we're at. so when i listen to my news at night and everybody keeps wondering about where the jobs are, it's right here in front of you. we cannot compete between $1.50 and $3.50 an hour nor should we want to, nor should we want to. i mean, it's unsustainable and we're feeling that every single day. so can you concentrate on that? guest: yeah. my solution would be to eliminate corporate taxes. have a whole new tax structure where you favor investment. because our country has so many advantages, again, over these third-world countries. we have the rule of law here which we don't have the kind of

violence that you're seeing in a lot of these countries. we have an educated work force. i mean, the united states should be the number one destination for world businesses. and if you have a different tax structure where you encourage investment and, you know, tax wages, i think you'd have a lot entrepreneurship and a lot of growth home and it would be hard for the rest of the world to compete with us because of the nature of our democracy. host: philadelphia, mississippi . robert on our independent line. caller: yes, sir. i would like to say that i kind of disagree with your guest there. he made a statement earlier saying that the united states

was unfriendly to business. i say business is unfriendly to the united states. now, if you're going to be a business person and take the jobs overseas, i think that's unfair, too, because that makes the middle class. and now you take the business overseas, there is no middle class. and i had a house -- i bought a house in the late 1980's, $90,000. i had to sell that house. i had to get out of that house because of the neighborhood. everything was -- people were foreclosing their houses so i had to sell the house for $65 thoupped and got the heck up out of there. i mean, they talk about taxes, taxes -- if you lower the taxes

for eight years when bush was in there, and what did they do with the tax money? they took the tax money and built businesses overseas. guest: for good people to make new businesses you have to step out of the way. that's what i'm saying. you know, not every business in the united states is going to move a manufacturing facility to china, number one. number two, there are benefits from international trade. when we were children there wasn't a day that went by where you couldn't go out and see somebody with holes in their shoes because i know. i had holes in my shoes all the time and it was very expensive for a father to take their kid to a shoe store and get them reshod. and now footwear is a

commodity. it's inexpensive. so there are benefits to international trade. that being said, i mean, china -- this is another debate for probably another day, but i think china is cheating on its currency and i'd love the united states to get some backbone and stand up to the cheaps and say that unless you let your currency float and reflect its true value and stop giving you an unfair advantage in the united states, we're going to start putting tariffs on your goods. let's do what the french do. they will not buy a product that's not made in france. very rarely. they buy french. we tried buy america campaigns and it fell flat on its face. people, consumers have a

choice. if they want more jobs here at home, byproducts that are made at home. host: so do the french have enough industry in their own country to provide the goods and services? guest: they have a very good economy. they have a strong economy. i was always perplexed, why would the french buy a reknow -- renoit? it's because it's made in that country. host: gilbert, indiana. tim on our republican line. caller: your guest seems to be a little bit disconnected from the role that profit ears and people that were in the -- profiteers and people that were in the real estate market to make incredible amounts of money like we've seen here in arizona what they made out of the situation well -- well, you know, in 2006 when the market

was at its peak and those people were able to put their money in and, you know, funds from the middle east and so forth -- foreign funds were able to come in and put money into our real estate market, get all the profits out and walk away. and that's what we've ended up today, our real estate market is basically, you know, money that's been put in by foreigners and others and then taken back out. i'll take my comment off the air. caller: i think americans are guilty of this whole real estate euphoria. -- guest: i think americans are guilty of this whole real estate euphoria. are we going to blame the middle east for our housing bubble, i think that's a little bit ridiculous. host: one more call. richmond, virginia, ivan, republican line. caller: hey, guys. good morning. i just want to let you know one of my experience. i had gotten laid off and lived on credit. we've never missed a payment, never been late. we have a 30-year fixed mortgage. i had called my bank to say,

can we do something to put one of my payments on the back end of my loan so i can miss one mortgage payment so get back on top of my game with some of my credit cards and i was told there's nothing they could do. miss two payments, get behind and default and then they'll talk to me or they wanted to try to refinance me at a higher interest rate to lower my payments for 40 years which does me no good. so they want me to ruin my credit to try to get back on top of my game. it's absolutely ridiculous. i'll listen to your comments. guest: i heard so many stories like that. again, the bank under the government program gets an incentive, monetary incentive for helping somebody that's in default. so our caller by volunteering to be a good guy and do what seems to make common sense would actually be costing the banks some money. so, you know, they made a

rational economic decision. host: let me get your thoughts on a topic away from housing. barney frank from the house financial services committee plans to hold a hearing next month looking at executive pay. as far as the issue is concerned, the interest of congress in this issue and the role of congress in this congress as far as how wall street pay works and how it's dictated. guest: all of it deals with the election. we're still very angry at wall street. we're angry at big business. a lot of it is emotion. do we want the federal government going into a private business and telling them how much they can pay their people? in the case of wall street firms that took federal aid and still have federal loans, hey, they signed up with the government. you know, go ahead, barney, go

in there and you tell them what to pay their executives because the taxpayers kept them afloat. if it wasn't for the american taxpayers a lot of these companies would be out of business. i think they should have let them go. but be that as it may, you know, if they're stealing our dime they have to toe the line. otherwise, government, butt out. host: last call is lagrange, illinois. phil is on -- phyllis is on our independent line. caller: good morning, gentlemen. as to our guest there, sir, and i'm 72 years old, licensed realtor at the age of 21. ok. and license hairdresser, barber, urban planner. did very well. supported three children. put them through college and six nieces and nephews. when it comes right down to that mortgage payment, including your taxes, if your

mortgage is $1,200 a month, you better make $1,200 a week. that's equivalent to $30 an hour. they don't have those job training anymore. they're overseas. and our politicians, whether they're there locally, have their investments overseas and that's what's wrong. you have are a $1,200. you better have it a week making $30. what do you say about that? guest: what we have in this country is a wage deflation or a disinflation. because of this recession, wages are falling and they're falling faster than a lot of people's mortgage payments. and this is why the economy -- another reason why the economy is going to have a problem. i mean, if you started bringing companies back from china and putting them in the united states, that doesn't mean that you're going to have $30 wages anymore.

you would be lucky to have $15 wages because, again, it's supply and demand. there are a lot of people that need jobs and the companies can pretty much dictate what they're going to pay. i mean, that golden age of $30 an hour for a manufacturing job is over, done with. you want to make that kind of money, become a computer programmer. host: jim mctague is with "barron's financial weekly." you can see his writing at "barron's" and thanks for your time. guest: it was great fun. you have fabulous viewership. i love them. host: coming up we're going to talk about u.s. education policy with randi weingarden from the american federation of teachers. first this 2010 campaign update. >> c-span's digital bus is visiting deyton, ohio, today, giving us an opportunity to focus on that ohio governor race. joining us on the bus this morning is bill hershey with "the deyton daily news." bill, let's begin with the latest poll on this race

because it shows that despite heavy support from the white house, governor strickland is trailing representative kasich 48% to 40%. why is this race so competitive? >> the race is competitive because as always in ohio the issue is jobs. and since governor strickland took office, the state has 380,000, 4,000 -- 400,000 viewer jobs. i don't think it's his fault. republicans have capitalized on it and you can't go in any part of ohio that people aren't uncertain or worried about the economy. the state's 10.3% unemployment rate has been in double digits for 15 or 16 months. here in dayton and montgomery county we've had double-digit unemployment for 19 straight months. so the economy, as always in ohio, is the issue. and congressman kasich is taking advantage of that right

now. >> what about congressman kasich's time in congress, has that come up during this campaign, how has it played out? >> his time in congress has not come up. he tried to bring it up as chairman of the budget committee when he helped balance a budget for the first time in a long time, cooperated with president clinton and the democrats. what governor strickland has tried to emphasize is congressman kasich's time as a managing director for lehman brothers on wall street. after congressman kasich left congress, he worked for lehman brothers, and as we all remember that was part of the nation's economic collapse and they tried to brand him as the congressman from wall street. they say it's working. congressman kasich and his aides say it isn't. >> so this national debate over the economy is really playing out in the state of ohio, especially in this race. so vice president joe biden

there on monday campaigning for governor strickland. and then we saw yesterday, john boehner coming out and making -- tried to make a strong statement about how president obama is leading on the economy. is this a john boehner, the minority leader in the house representing ohio versus the white house? >> it seems to be. it was boehner-biden. that's all i could hear on the radio coming over here from columbus. i get it was the bumbling bees. every one of them is good rhetorically. john boehner wants to be the first u.s. house speaker from ohio since nicholas longworth. that's even before i can remember. he's from our dayton area, so we have a special interest in congressman boehner. he's a very resilient pop tigs. some may remember he was in the house leadership when newt gingrich was speaker. he got dumped and then he made a really nice comeback and he's

on the verge of becoming speaker if the republicans take over the house. >> well, let's take a look at the phone in ohio, specifically on this governor race between governor strickland and former congressman kasich. let's take a look. >> it's the revolving door between washington and wall street as congressman john kasich stepped right through. 18 years voting for big business, trade deals that shimmed our jobs overseas and give corporations billions. kasich's reward, a big job on wall street. kasich makes millions while wall street outsources our jobs using laws kasich passed to do it. now he says his wall street experience should make him governor. haven't we had enough of wall street and john kasich? >> ohio in this last year found itself with a big hole in the budget. you can't raise taxes in ohio. we're one of the highest taxed states in the country. same way if you raise prices in a restaurant, you drive customers away, you raise prices in the state, you drive taxpayers away.

so in order to fix it you know, mary and i are committed to smaller, more effective, more efficient government, less people have more people in their pockets, we're going to get the job done for the people of the state. and we're not going to let you down. >> bill hershey, how are these ads playing out with the voters? >> i don't think the voters have really been paying too much attention to these ads yet. they're going to start. everybody's more interested in whether the cincinnati reds are going to win the world series this year. but the democrats want to catch their attention. these are very negative, hard-hitting ads on john kascih. they want to make him the candidate from wall street. and i think that's what governor strickland with the democratic base. you notice with the ad, he ignores strickland. he's sort of the reincarnation suny side up ronald reagan candidate. he wants to ignore strickland and just get voters to believe that he's going to turn things around.

host: bill hershey, you think this -- we'll see more of these ads in the coming months, that it will get really heavy in the state of ohio? guest: i think it's -- this is just the beginning. we've only just begun. ka services ich and -- kasich and strickland, i think kasich and $9 million left and strickland has $8 million. they'll get money for their campaigns. so you may not even be able to see the cincinnati reds on television because there will be so many ads. host: all right. bill hershey with "the dayton daily news," thank you for your time this morning. guest: thank you for having me. host: aboard the digital bus. and the bus will be going later on today to the rotary club and then the high school for the remainder of the day before heading off to cincinnati. for more information about the digital bus and its community outreach, go to our website,

c-span.org and then back/bus. host: joining us is randi weingarden, the american federation of teachers. thanks for joining us. guest: it's great to be here. host: the race to the top initiative and there was as much as $700 million that went to florida and new york, massachusetts got some, rhode island, the district of columbia, georgia, north carolina, ohio, florida and hawaii. there are some critics this morning saying a lot of these awards went to east coast, northeast-type schools. how would you weigh in on that? guest: well, look, you know, there will always be criticism. in fact, we've actually said this as well. when you have a competition where there's some winners and losers and when you have to actually help all kids, there will always be criticism that what happens to the kids in the states that didn't win. and i think that's what you're hearing. and for us we are sort of

saying, it's great to look at and try to see promising -- cede promising programs. we know we have to do that in terms of innovation. we also need to be mindful especially in this economy we're in, how can we get all kids to get a great public education? having said that, supposedly the department of education had a process that was very much by the numbers and by the books. and so what you see is probably several states who basically looked at their last grant applications and tried to retool them and had different grant applications. and i could speak for about five of them that i know very well. rhode island, new york, ohio, maryland and florida. those five applications were top rate. and in fact, some of the things that were politically criticized beforehand, people

ignored and did the right thing. so, for example, in florida, jeb bush and others attempted to really politicize the process. and instead of coming up with something that was focused on how we help teachers be the greatest teachers they can be, using new evaluation systems, they tried to just basically get rid of collective bargaining and tried to base everything on test scores. the governor vetoed that bill, pushed back at it as did parents and teachers all across the state. and instead what happened is that soon as the bill got there, they or the stakeholders, parents, teachers, unions, the commissioner of education got together and they put in a great proposal that now has gotten them $700 million. that's what we have to do to change education. it is both about trying to figure out how you get really big capacity so that every child has a great teacher supported by good leaders, how

you have robust curriculum, how you have the conditions that can try to eradicate the obstacles kids have. and this piece, which is this mutual accountability, mutual responsibility done in a collaborative way. host: what's the responsibility, then, for states and schools that did not get the money? the idea you said you have to think of all the kids, not just those who got the awards. host: guest: well, that's the reason we have to get e.f.a. re-authorized, the education and secondary act, which was used to call no child left behind, but we authorize it in a way that supports good instruction, that supports good programs, that supports it for all kids, particularly poor kids. and what the congress just did this year by, you know, it's the last act nancy pelosi brought them back and i am -- remember indebted to her for doing that by getting that $26 billion to try to help stave

off the draconian budget cuts because we need the investment in education. race to the top is about some particular programs that the president wants to see if you leverage them, will they help improve schools? some of those programs, like evaluation programs, are very good. some of those like a fixation on test scores we're a little guarded about because we see what happens in l.a., we see what happens in new york. you can't just focus on test scores. we have to focus on the whole child and we have to focus on every single bit of curriculum. host: so when the president and the secretary of education talks about the teacher evaluations and making sure that in some cases the teachers should be compensated in light of the evaluation, the result of the evaluation, how would you weigh in on that? guest: see, let me separate out teacher evaluation and pay. host: ok. guest: because, look, all teachers should be good teachers. no one wants a bad teacher, and evaluations are necessary in order to figure out and assess

teachers. and we've done it really badly throughout our history. so the american federation of teachers actually just got one of the i-3 grants, the innovation grants, because the evaluation. and the secretary has been talk about it for the last several months because we've come up with a framework of how you change evaluations the right way, how you focus on teacher practice and how you focus on student learning. so ultimately what should happen is that there should be some differentiation of pay. fichers should get paid competitively. it's a really hard job, and they should get paid competitively. but at the same time there are certain things that we want to pay for. people who go to hard to staff places, people who go to places where they have to take real risk, they should get paid more. people who actually have skills that they're imparting to others so that there's like a career ladder or real professional development that

is better, they should get paid more. so there should be some ways of how to figure that out, so evaluation can have a place in terms of pay. but ultimately what we need to do is assure the public, and that's all of us, administers as well as unions and teachers alike, that we're doing everything to help teachers become the best they can. host: and the philosophy of this administration different than the previous one? guest: the philosophy of this administration -- look, this administration is actually focusing on teacher evaluation. the last administration focused on to brand schools and actually focused on tests simply as an accountability measure. and they focused on it in the topdown way instead of a bottomup way. so if you only focus things that way, if things don't go that well, schools get punished. but you don't have the scaffolding or the architecture to make things better.

we have to focus on how you make things better for all kids. the economy has changed hugely at the very time time we are still mired in the effects of the great recession. we have to help not just some kids but all kids get a great education. and the best way i can explain it is this -- kids need to be critical thinkers these days. they need to be problem solvers. and whether kids -- whether parents are engaged or not engaged, whether they come from a poor background or from a rich background, we have to do that for all kids. what the last administration did was focus -- look, they created transparency, but they focused basically on the test scores. and so the school was good or bad as the test. the tests by and large -- the tests didn't focus on critical thinker or problem solving. so this whole new piece of skill seth that we need to help -- skillset that we need to help kids we haven't focused on. it wasn't alive with accountability in the last few years. that has to change. guest: randi weingarden is here

until -- host: randi weingarden is here with us until 9:15. here is you can call us. 202-737-0001 for republicans. and 202-737-0002 for democrats. 202-628-0205 is for independents. journal@c-span.org for our email and twitter.com/cspanwj for twitter. jay, go ahead. caller: i wanted the young later to -- guest: thank you for calling me the young lady. i appreciate it. caller: i'm calling on -- listening to on the radio, c-span on the radio. several years ago there was a national study that predicted 90% of academic success in the schools. are you familiar with the writings or the factors? guest: i am familiar with some of his writings, sir.

and so i suspect -- but if you want to tell awful us, including the rest of the listenership, that would be great. caller: well. attpq. we are at school to learn our p's and q's. so factor one, a, attendance. factor two, tv time. factor three, two-parent family. factor p, pay. and q, quality and quantity of reading materials in the house. now, the thing about it is -- host: with all that said, what's your question, only in the interest of time? caller: ok. success is based upon the home. you're not going to fix the academic problems until you fix

the home. guest: so we -- so we have -- look, we have an obligation as school teachers to try to trump that. and because we had an obligation to help all kids regardless of what happens in the home and we need parents and we need community and that's why we talk about shared responsibility. so you're right, sir. we can't do it alone and that's part of the reason that we talk about things like wrap-around programs at schools so we can have after-school programs, we can have health programs, we can figure out if kids are not attending school why and things like that. you're so right, we can't do it all alone but we have to try because we have to help all kids. host: williamsburg, virginia. randy on our republican line. caller: yes, ma'am. glad to have you on this morning. my name is randy o'neil. i work out of williamsburg, virginia. i own a business called virginia -- it has visited

schools throughout virginia. sadly, i do very well on school grounds. principal, teachers, p.e. and health. as soon as i start dealing with administers they see my business as a threat. what i am is health and p.e. enhancement. i travel to schools from a trailer that has 30 stationary bikes for children as young as 4 years old. i take pre-k through 12th. i take 400 students to 1,200. do i that with 1,200 square feet. it's shared amongst all schools in a shared division. guest: i'm a big believer -- i'm just stopping us because i'm sure that c-span is going to be weary about a commercial on c-span but your point about physical fitness, having to be

a piece of the curriculum is totally and completely right. we used the tease sometimes when no child left behind started, and sometimes you use teasing instead of curious about things, but when you have five or six periods back to back of english and math, when would kid actually get to play and deal with each other and, you know, exercise and things like that? so part of what we envision when we say robust curriculum is the curriculum can't be narrowed. it needs to be broadened and we need to actually have things like art, music and physical education. the issue that some of us may have is, you know, how do you make sure that you do this in a way where -- where the schools can actually really afford all this and that everyone has access to it? host: mcsharontown, pennsylvania. democrats line, mary. good morning. caller: good morning.

how are you this morning? guest: good. how are you? caller: fine, thank you. my question concerns cyberschools. we have kids going to cyberschools and we're paying for them and i consider that taxation without representation. we are not represented by -- in the cyberschools at all. not that i know of. guest: see, you raise a good point long term about the whole notion of public accountability. and, you know, sometimes public accountability is messy just like democracy is messy, but parents and taxpayers and communities have a right and a role in the long-term governance of schools and in the transparency of what happens in terms of schools. so regardless of what -- if the school gets public dollars or if it is part of public education, there has to be transparency and accountability back to community.

so the issue you're talking about in terms of some of these like distance learning places is that if they get public dollars there has to be some public transparency. host: as far as charter schools are concerned? guest: charter schools should have the same kind of accountability as other public schools. they should take the same populations of kids and things like that and that's been some of our issues in terms of charter schools. charter schools have a role. they can be inc. baitors of students' success which -- they can be incubators of real instructional strategies which is what al, one of my predecessors, used to say and why he pushed the concept. i, actually, when i was head of the new york city local, i actually started two charter schools and worked with green dot on a third charter school entity that does charter schools in los angeles. so charter schools have a role

to play, but they have to be held to the same standards and same accountability as all other public schools. host: so they're not currently? guest: you know, there's 50 -- charter schools are basically regulated on a state-by-state basis, and each state has very different governing rules. so some states do, some states don't. host: and are they effective? guest: some are, some aren't. look, there are some very high-performing charter schools that are very effective just like there are a ton of really wonderful public schools that are really effective. what we should be doing is learning from them and trying to replicate what works and sustain it and scale it up. but there's been two pretty studies on charter schools in the last year or so and what they say is 80% of charter schools do as well or no better

than the schools in the neighborhoods. in my lexicon, what i focus on is how you help make sure that parents have a great neighborhood school to send their kids to. i focus on that. and because ultimately one wants that choice of magnet schools and charter schools, that's great, but ultimately parent should be entitled to know that the school in their community is a great school. and that they can send their kid to that school and make that choice, so that's what we focus on. host: so it decentralizes the community school, makes it weaker, in a sense? guest: you know, the concern -- actually, the concern is -- our concern is we want to make sure we build up communities. we want to make sure that communities have great places for kids to go. charter schools, it's not about decentralizing or not

decentralizing. it is about if you actually live in a city and your kids are young, sending them to school an hour away i think is problematic. if a parent thinks that that's the only choice they have, that's problematic. our responsibility as those who really want to change public education and make it as it ought to be, make it something so that every kid can have the opportunity to learn, to achieve their -- to not just dream their dreams but achieve them is you make sure there is a school within a community that's a great school. host: randi weingarden is our guest. she's' the president of the american federation of teachers. go ahead. caller: yes. this is the first time i ever called in and got in. it's nice. do you think charter schools are considered better schools? guest: well, look, i don't think so. i think you have to actually look at an individual school and see if we are -- you know,

helping, you know, through a lot of different measures we are helping kids succeed. you have to look -- but some people have used charter schools as a way to try to differentiate from public schools and there are some columnists throughout the land who had focused on charter schools as, you know, that great new silver bullet. now, they've been around for about 20 years. some of them, as i said, do very well. but about 80% of them do the same or worse than the neighborhood public schools. host: off of twitter. jeff asks, i know that no child left behind was controversial but isn't the basic skills like math and english important as building blocks to a good education? guest: it is essential and so many other skills as well. what we can't simply do -- this is -- this is our challenge in america right now. we have a different economy.

we have a responsibility as educators to help kids get prepared for life and also get prepared for college and career. it's a tough job, and it's a huge challenge. and so what ends up happening is because it's such complex work and because we haven't been effective at defining what constitutes success and the world is changing so much so success is different by the day, basically what happens is you got a lot of demonizing in terms of individual teachers. and what happens is all that responsibility gets shifted onto individual teachers. .

guest: you have lots of different exercises around a topic or an issue which kids will then write, discuss, have debates about this, and that is

how you teach. host: new york, kathy on the democrats' line. caller: good morning. i totally agree with the math teacher on constructivism versus direct construction. having been a teacher and elementary school, then back to middle school, when i was an elementary school,, they allowed the arena to discover the rules of math, and when i went to middle school, they were complaining that they did not have math facts that allow them to go to higher level math problems. i totally agree with the frustration with the whole constructivism that comes with

the middle school teacher, because they don't have the ottoman to city down pat because it is not brought into the -- don't have the automaticity down pat because it is not brought into the classroom. we so much as one students to pass these tests and achieve a certain -- so much want students to pass this test and achieve a certain standard with cognitive abilities. the problem is the model students at the cognitive abilities and there are students that are just average and there are a lot less and the classroom than we want to see. how do we deal with the reality and the parents who want their students all to get a's when they are just sea-level? -- c-level?

guest: when we are -- we have to be very, very careful that we actually give the grades that kids aren't in some ways -- that kids earn. in some ways you are reminding me of things that are going out in texas where there was a push to inflate grades and the federation of teachers sued the state about that, because we have to be honest with parents and there must be of real engagement with parents and teachers. ultimately we have standards. that is part of what the common core is about. we have standards that should be aligned with what kids need to know and be able to do so that they can be long-term successful in life. we have to figure out ways, and some of it is extra time, some of it is to drink -- some of it is tutoring.

we have to find ways to expand time so that kids access or opportunities to learn concepts they need to know. separate from that, for kids who are excelling, we have to find ways to make sure that we challenge them. that is what both of your callers have just talked about. kids learn at different rates. that is like teaching is so complex. a teacher is basically faced with 25, 30 kids who are learning and very different rates. the way of learning is different from each other. host: savannah, georgia, alex on the republican line. caller: thank you for taking the call. alex boyle here. i'm with the freemont 6 foundation -- freemont civics foundation. i have heard people talk that

under no child left behind, civics education got put on the back burner, not necessarily as a delivery mechanism or anything like that. my thoughts are that civics education is something that has a unique way of engaging kids and teachers as well in a variety of ways outside of the traditional classroom, as well as engaging a good thought process and dialogue. i think you said that you are a social studies person. guest: yes. caller: that, i think, is a good fit for a foundation of six being taught -- of civics being taught. in high school we more leave out that, just at the age when kids may be voting soon. i wonder if you could address your thoughts on a national trust for six in a more contemporary way, -- national civics in arust for

more contemporary way. guest: sir, you are singing my song. i was a social studies teacher for six years and i taught ap government and history. it is the work that i find very important for kids to learn for a lot of the same reasons that you just spoke about very eloquently. no child left behind in elementary and middle schools -- the impact was to narrow the curriculum. a lot of social studies got squeezed out because of the focus on meeting --- the focus n making the great became more important than the robustness of

the curriculum. we spent time at the american federation of teachers, and a think tank, thinking about how inculcate do we civics education throughout america, doing that on more of of additional basis that a top- down basis -- more of a top-downonal basis than basis. host: is it typically rolled into another curriculum? guest: it is typically rolled into another curriculum. i remember teaching in new york city with the "we the people" competition, where we engaged kits nationally and it was a terrific exercise in, as the caller said, critical thinking, debating, those kinds of life

skills that kids need, but also in the engagement in our democracy. host: tennessee, for brandywine garten, you are next. -- for randi weingarten, you are next. caller: i'm noticing a disturbing trend that kids are going to a block system and they're only getting four classes today. last year my child took science and she was learning three chapters in sight of two weeks. -- inside of two weeks. they take a tremendous amount time on standardized tests not learning anything and an enormous amount of time preparing for the tests. the block system she is in now -- like being a policeman, it is like some kind of a law in a

nursing class. no english, at no math, no nothing. guest: this is in tennessee, ma'am? what i would do is i would go to your school, your principal, the board of education, and register your concerns about this and maybe work with the pta. none of these pedagogical systems, whether you are on 5. -- five periods a day, a different kind of staggered system -- systems themselves to not work unless you have people who know how to use them well. the implementation of any kind of educational strategy is the difference between success and failure. most of the time when happens is that people talk about the educational strategy presuming

that it is implemented well. it blocks the -- some -- a block system -- i have seen them work, i have seen them not work. if it focuses on test preparation as opposed to teaching and learning, in my opinion it will never work. we have to get beyond just thinking that education is filling in the bubble sheet. endorse aes aft longer school day or school year? guest: we endorse having them open for a longer period of time so that you have the kinds of help the kids need and you can differentiate that way. host: new orleans, louisiana, melanie, democrats' line. caller: every child is not fit

for college, but every child has a talent. in the schools of today, there should be programs that feature industrial, automotive talents, home economics. where would we be today without plumbers and electricians and contractors and bricklayers? if we would incorporate that into mainstream schools, we would have less juvenile delinquents, less prisons filled with these children who do not know what to do with themselves, because they have not passed the tests. guest: we at the american federation of teachers and i personally are big believers in career and technical education.

ma'am, what i talk about preparing kids, which talk about preparing kids for life come -- we talk about preparing kids for life, careers, and college. there are certain career paths that can engage kids as well. the real key is how are we as a community -- not just teachers or parents alone, but how are we as a community going to wrap ourselves around kids engaged each and every one of them and provide an opportunity to learn? that is our challenge, and it is really tough. if i can say one thing, we cannot impose all of that responsibility on the individual teacher. we have our jobs and our rolls, and teachers want to make a difference in the lives of kids and they need the conditions to do it. we cannot be solely responsible to ensure that all kids get a great opportunity of life.

host: the web site for american federation of teachers in aft.org. randi weingarten serves as their president. thank you for your time. we're looking at defense this week. coming up, a segment looking at the use of unmanned aerial vehicles. we will speak to colonel robert sova of the u.s. army. we will be right back. >> we now have a generation coming out who did not have the arts for much as children and not in the public schools, certainly. i'm very concerned about the group of people. it is not clear to me that when they get to 40, 45, 50, they will come to the arts. >> the head of the kennedy center for performing arts on sunday that talks about -- on

sunday night talks about arts in the u.s. sunday on "q&a." the aftermath of hurricane katrina, and the author argues that businesses and faith-based organizations are better equipped to handle disasters than the federal government. a critical view of talk-show host glenn beck. and sebastian mallaby goes behind the world of hedge funds. visit booktv.org. >> "washington journal" continues. host: we're continuing our summer series, taking a topic and looking at it over five days. defense is our topic this week. on monday we look at the f-35 program grid tuesday we look at mine resistant ambush protected vehicles. today we consider the topic of

drones, how they are used in their capabilities. joining us is, robert sova, who is with the u.s. army, the capability manager of unmanned aircraft systems. thank you for joining us this morning. guest: thank you, pedro. good to be here. host: how often are these used as far as the army's dated eight uses? -- day-to-day uses? guest: wheat use small systems all the way up to the larger systems, great ego, and they are used on a daily basis -- grey eagle, and they are used on a daily basis. could you tell our audience how they are used? information gathering? what are their main uses? guest: the way the army employes

unmanned aircraft systems is a variety -- certainly surveillance, security, command and control, sometimes used in the attack role. as i said, a communications relay across the depth and breadth of the battlefield. it depends on the mission for the ground force commander that they are supporting. host: where are they used today? is it basically in iraq and afghanistan? are there other parts and the world -- in the world work is used? guest: obviously, they are used in iraq and afghanistan. there are other parts of the world they are used. they are organic acids to support the army's corp. -- structure -- or panic -- they are get assets to support the army's corps structure.

host: how they replaced the use of human intelligence -- have that they replaced the use of human intelligence? how does that break down? guest: we talk about reconnaissance, surveillance, target acquisitions, intelligence surveillance on a reconnaissance. what i mean by that is that certainly they are used in intelligence gathering to provide the commander with situational awareness and understanding. they provide the ability through the various sensors and payloads that they carry. host: as far as what they carry, what is the usual -- what does the usual vehicle carried as far as equipment and technology systems? guest: the predominant requirement in the ability is they provide a lot of full motion video, and that is provided through an infrared or

electric optic sensors. that is usually in the form of a sense of all. that is predominantly what they carry. they also can carry munitions. the only system in that particular system grey eagle is the only one that the army has armament on. all the others are collected in the form of electric optics or a synthetic aperture radar. host: so that is used every day. how many people does it take to operate one of these? guest: well, depending on the size of the unmanned aircraft system -- we call it a system because it is more than just the air vehicle. it is the ground control system that is operating the system. our small systems can be operated by a single operator. in the army, the backbone of the army is the non-commissioned

officer, and the backbone of the unmanned aircraft system is the soldier. our largest system, grey eagle, has a formation of 128 personnel to provide stability is to six contiguous missions that threats 24 hours a day -- provides the capability to six contiguous missions the operates 24 hours a day. host: you will learn more about unmanned aerial vehicles during this time with the colonel, and you can call them up directly. send us e-mail and c-span.or -- at c-span.org. the inventory for these systems in 2001 was a handful to 1000

aircraft. 25,000 flight hours used last month. colonel, how much do these types of systems cost? guest: you know, it is a variety, but the rough order of isnitude four grey eagle $180 million, and you're talking hundreds of thousands for the small systems. i want to clarify -- when we talk a system, it is not one air vehicle. you are talking to all their vehicles, six ground control station -- 12 air vehicles, six ground control stations, all of the equipment, including the soldiers who are part of the reformation. -- part of that formation.

host: there were some concerns about people or other countries being able to pack the systems as far as getting access to the information -- able to hack the systems as far as getting access to the information on these in vehicles. what is being done about it? guest: the army, as well as the defense department, had recognized the possibility early on with the use of unmanned aircraft systems. we had been on the road back to a group what we use -- roadmap to encrypt what we use. the downlink of the information coming off -- that is the direction we are going. we are on the road to do that with all our systems, small and

large. host: our guest is a graduate of syracuse university, and he has a master's in the strategic studies at the u.s. army war college. colonel robert sova, joining us to talk about unmanned aerial vehicles. greensburg, and will be out, republican line, you were first out. -- greensburg, pennsylvania, republican line. caller: i do not believe you have to answer all of his questions. why do we have to tell them everything? you don't have to tell them anything. let them read the book if you want to. guest: well, ma'am, i appreciate the call, and it is

important that we let the public know as to the utilization of the systems and getting the word out on this. we have great american soldiers operating these systems and supporting our country. i appreciate that, i thank you for your call. host: des moines, iowa, john on the democrats' line. caller: suggesting that the greater the use of the drones that we here are so successful is increasing the negative image of the american soldier. i guess we are trying to become more approachable and more friendly in this process. evidently, drones are going in the opposite direction. can you help me with this? guest: if i understand the question, certainly i, too, have read the use of drones and the

impersonality of the use of robotics -- i will not speculate or comment on that. what i will say that is that through the use of unmanned aircraft systems, it gives the capability to have the pu ersistance -- that is what these systems do, where you can have a platform that stands up for 24 hours of operation, you remove the soldier from the immediate risk of -- we firmly believe that if you allow machines to do what machines to best -- obviously, we're not talking about completely replacing the soldier, because you needed the cognitive thinking on the battlefield. it provides commanders at the technical level with the support and the awareness and understanding to make decisions that are necessary. host: it is important to

understand, i guess, maybe for the audience, the difference between a drone and unmanned aerial vehicle. guest: good question, pedro. you hear the term drone, unmanned aerial field goal, also, remotely piloted vehicle. drones are for targeting towed behind aircraft that are not operated from remote locations. the army, as i said, it uses the term unmanned aircraft systems because it is a system of systems. the platform is just one aspect of the unmanned aircraft system. host: san diego, lisa, independent line. caller: the reason i'm calling this be talking about drones and unmanned vehicles, but weren't they called predator drones at

one time, and isn't a predator sort of like a terrorist? these are on man. this sort of cowardly. -- these are unmanned. it is sort of cowardly. there was no intelligence needed to use these drones. guest: thank you for your call. it just to clarify, "predator" is a term and name for the air force unmanned aircraft system, or as they're calling it now, remotely piloted vehicle. the equivalent to what the air force predator system is -- as i said, the army has a system called "grey eagle," and it was recently given that, net name. what we call a common name for

the army's version of the predator is grey eagle. host: it costs about $20 million, it has a satellite link, speed of about a 4 mi. per hour, range of about 71 -- are some neat speed of about -- 84 miles per hour, range of up to 770 miles per hour. next call. caller: the coast guard uses drones for protection. a lot of people use the equipment to save lives. [unintelligible] i thank them all for saving lives. host: next call is glendale,

arizona. barbara, independent line. caller: i would like to ask the colonel question. he mentioned the military flying these unmanned vehicles. can you speak about the independent contractors that are over there? i know that in iraq and they pulled the troops out that are there to protect the people. what happens when these independent contractors go over there? are they safe? can you speak on the independent contractors? i would like to hold on the line to hear what you have to say. guest: no, that is a great question. certainly with the utilization of the systems we have, we have a couple of different things. we have what we call contract- owned, contract-operated, in support of the military. we have contact logistics and

support of the military, an hour of the systems that provide us with the expertise and technical support. and we have the government-owned systems contacted and operated. i visited numerous sites and continue to do so in both the theaters. contract operators operate right alongside our military operators. it is a great team effort and we will continue to do that effort. we have done that both prior to the downsizing in iraq and also with the buildup in afghanistan we will continue that mode of operations. host: if a contractor is operating one of these in vehicles, is there a military person attached overseeing it? guest: as we do -- there is a military person in this their narro -- in this scenario i

mentioned, there is a military leader on the side supporting the operation. host: austin, texas, martha, democrats' line. caller: the other day it another military man referred to future wars. this war mentality is just crazy. we were warned to be where the military industrial complex by every president rid -- beware the military industrial complex by a great president. can't you find another job? all we're doing is waging wars to kill people for profit. i find that horrible. guest: ma'am, i appreciate your opinion. obviously, i chose to serve in defense of the country. thank you for your call. host: on their perceptions that

the army talks about as far as how the -- is programsare th -- are there perceptions that our meat talks about as far as how the programs are perceived by the general public? guest: certainly they had a military application of the army is using them for. as we continue to pursue the technology and these uses -- for example, they have been used in wildfires to help in identifying where the wild fires are spread. i cannot speak to specifics because i'm not expert in that area. they have been used in flooding situations. we work in conjunction with the federal aviation administration for access to the national airspace, greater access, to support these types of operations. they have a significant roles in the missions as they play. again, i cannot speak to the specifics of how they would be used. but they have the application in

the future. besides the military application. host: is the faa has a tent about offering air space to these systems --? is -- is the faa hesitant about offering our space to these systems? guest: i am not an expert, have aut they responsibility of a first do no harm. we will continue to work with them. the of the numerous tests and we will continue to do that a -- has been -- we have done numerous tests and we will continue to do that as we go forward. over 60% of our graduates that operate unmanned aircraft systems in the army come from the national guard units.

we have shadow-type systems in the individual state. just like other military assets with the national guard, they can be used by the states and governors in that role as well. host: one of the discussions about this is along the lines of the southern border using these systems. is that correct? guest: there have been several requests in border, northern and southern, by states to utilize the assets. i cannot speak to the specifics of the utilization, but they're certainly a request buy states to use the assets. host: new york state, republican line. caller: i have no problem with these unmanned aircraft and all that, although they are extremely expensive. my question is that as we go and

are gathering intelligence in iraq or afghanistan, it is a really hairy kind of situation. some of these people don't mean us harm. some of them and do. at the top of a dime they can basically blend in with the background. they know their territory, they know how to put the gun down and walk around like a normal civilian. how in the world are we ever going to know that this war has come to an end, first of all? second of all, it is kind of like if we americans really did not want them to be able to come over to our country and do us harm, then we could prevent them from getting tickets to our country, we could prevent them from getting over by the sea. i know that they have an awful situation going on in there,

they have horrible people who would come over and rape and pillage and just make our lives miserable. it is good that we went over there and established what we have, we are in such debt in this country and we have drones getting smuggled into this country -- host: okay, we will leave it there. colonel, is there anything you want to answer? guest: i have talked to the use -- the scenarios of the unmanned aircraft systems and how they can provide the commander on the ground organic support. they can have information as to what is going on in their area of operation without putting, unduly putting, soldiers at risk. that is the usefulness of the platform, providing that situational awareness, because

the situations are unpredictable. i will leave it there. host: someone on twitter wants to ask the colonel -- guest: again, in my previous comments, i started to allude to that. as i said, there are multiple uses. another scenario -- as we drawdown, forces in iraq -- as we draw down combat forces in iraq, more and more we are using these systems for communication extension. as we have farther distances between our force structure, we have communication packages on the platforms that allow the forces to communicate across the depth and width of the battlefield. again, there is multiple uses that the platforms can be used for. that is just one given scenario. host: when it comes to pakistan,

is any information-gathering being unconnected with the flooding going on down there? -- being connected with the flooding going on down there? guest: i cannot talk to that. i am not aware of that. host: next call. caller: colonel, i would like to salute you and commend the men and women in this unmanned system, which gives the united states great ability to read the woman who called and mentioned being cowardly -- the job of the military is to protect men and women of this country and our interests all over the world. the unmanned aircraft the system gives us the capability that can take the enemy out in a blank and distinguished who is the enemy and it was not. that gives us a great advantage and protect the lives of our men and women. thank you, sir, you are doing a great job and we appreciate it. guest: that you for your call.

thank you. host: san diego, california, paul, go ahead. caller: i was going to say the same thing about a woman who called you cowardly. the guy took the words out of my mouth. in san diego, we are so proud. iran just came out and asked -- announced they have are predator that they just developed bef oped for anlped fo unmanned vehicle. guest: they're obviously of the countries other developing unmanned systems. thank you for your comment about

general atomics. as i said earlier, the army version of that is the gre ey eagle and that particular company creates the grey eagle as well. host: compare the use of drones by this president to that of president bush. guest: i don't know if there is a comparison. it is the military leaders using an enabling tool they have, and the techniques and procedures we are continuously learning from our soldiers, employing these assets to support the commander. those roles and missions and functions come from the use of the military leadership. host: forgive me, what i meant is the amount of the use of these systems. is it more under this administration and that the

previous one? -- than the previous one? guest: i cannot speculate that we are using the systems more. the overall use certainly is increasing. as you identify, in april we went over 1 million hours for one particular system that the army has in its inventory called the shadow. that system itself as got over 500,000 hours. over 90% of those total hours have been flown in combat situations. the overall use of the unmanned aircraft systems continues to increase. host: how often do these drones and plans need to be refurbished? guest: the army's plan is to try to reset these assets every three years. when we say "reset," when i

unit comes out of the year, we reset and do the standard me to -- when a unit comes out of the theater, we reset and do the standard maintenance. host: montgomery, albama, democrats' line -- montgomery, alabama, democrats' line. caller: colonel, once again, i want to apologize for those people who try to get political. i am a retired military, and you're just doing the job that you are trying to do. the unmanned project is a great project, saving lives. my question was already answered, but what you see is the future of the unmanned project? will it spread out further and would not have any unmanned vehicles in combat?

guest: thank you. it is a good question to lead into talking about recently, the army has published the unmanned aircraft systems road map. the center of excellence is in alabama. it talks about the way ahead from now until 2035 as we look at the future of the use. the army's vision and direction with the unmanned aircraft system is not a replacement of manned aircraft. what we see is this energy and use of the aircraft systems doing unmanned operations providing for greater capability in saving lives. we will continue to figure out

what that balance is and take advantage of the technologies being developed. host: of you were off of twitter asked a specific question -- a viewer off of twitter asked a specific question . guest: there is categorization determined by the joint center of excellence, and we talk about the group won -- group one as 20 pounds or below. there is the element in -- there is development looking at systems, the smallest hummingbirds and less. not familiar with any use of the true microsize, but we are using systems that are less than

1.5 towns. our smallest system right now is the raven, less than five pounds. we are doing a system that is part of the 1.5-to-two-pound size. we are operating that now in afghanistan. host: what would be the use of that size? guest: the size of that system and what we're looking at is the concept -- it is what we call a family of smalls, a system that is able to fly 45 minutes to an hour, up to a system that is able to fly approximately three hours. the rate is about 1 hour 45 minutes to two hours. what it does is that it gives the capability to possibly get out of harm's way if they are

operating in an urban environment or area, to maneuver their forces over the next whole line or building. it provides them the flexibility and capability to do that without utilizing one of our larger systems, the shadow or the great ego. y eagle. host: iowa. caller: i'm wondering if we are operating in iran and also monitoring the situation in israel and the gaza strip. and isn't it the u.n. telling us where we can fly and what kind of information we can gather when it comes to going to war? they have a say on whether you can go to war or not based on your intelligence at the time? guest: i cannot talk to all of your question. i can tell you that, obviously,

with our central command leadership and rules of engagement, the use of our capabilities and assets are governed by our military leaders, and obviously, we abide by those rules of engagement and use depending on the areas of operation that we are operating in. host: next call for the colonel is in new jersey, independent line. caller: good morning, sir. can you hear me? host: go ahead, you are on. caller: thanks for taking all of the political calls that have been coming in. i'm what is called a shuttle driver. i fly one of these planes. i love doing it. a lot of these people don't understand -- the thing that we have weapons on these aircraft --. they think that we have weapons on these aircraft.

we do surveillance. we are not only saving lives of guys on the ground, but maybe of somebody in the air. maybe you might want to elaborate on that, sir. thank you for your time -- host: before you leave, what is your training like before you can fly one of these systems? caller: i don't know, colonel, if you can elaborate on what the training is. we have to go through the same faa board that a private pilot has to take we have to know about avionics and aviation. i do not know how much more i can elaborate on that, colonel, without crossing the line. guest: no, thanks, and thanks for what you do. as he mentioned, he is an operator of the shadow, which is what we term a lot as the work force of our force -- workhorse

of our force. he is exactly right. you hear a lot of the discussion about the legal aspect or the use of weapons systems -- the lethal aspect or the use of weapons systems on these platforms. grey eagle is the only system the army has that is what a nice. and it provides a kid -- ability -- grey eagle is the only system the army has that is weaponized. and it provides an important ability. it is just an additional na blowback and -- just an additional enabler and to get in the army inventory. talking to the point mentioned about training, i will give you

anywhere from 3 to four months to less than a year. one specific example -- at a recent visit the theater -- to theater, i met a young pfc doing a fantastic job operating the system, and was february when i was talking to her. she had graduated high school in late may and had deployed in november, operating the shuttle system -- the shadow system, had accumulated over 500 hours. far less expensive to trade one of our operators, far less than the -- to train one of our operators, for less than the total cost of the system, but providing outstanding capability. host: greg in connecticut.

caller: it is a drag from new haven, connecticut. -- i am a u.s.g -- greg from new haven, connecticut. i am a u.s. army veteran. whatever you want to do, you do. i respect the results to also, i don't like the people that call and try to put you down, sir. i have a son that his servant, i have a nephew that is sort -- i have a son that is serving, i happen if you that is serving. i respect you. you keep the job going. guest: that you, greg. i will pass on the thanks and -- thank you, greg. i will pass on the bankthanks ad pride. it is ok. we support this great country

and listen to all sides. host: colonel, what brings you to denver? guest: one of our organizations, unmanned systems and vehicles in international, have their annual convention here. i am here to determine if there are any capabilities that could enhance our current systems, working with our project manager out of alabama, looking at the various systems. host: what other countries use these types of systems? guest: unmanned aircraft systems? as the caller said, there is a variety of systems -- variety of countries out there -- israel has great technologies with their systems. we work with the coalition countries. the united kingdom has great

capabilities. we work with the various countries of those capabilities -- work with the various countries and look at those capabilities. host: republican line, of memphis, tennessee. caller: colonel, how are you doing this morning, sir? guest: good. caller: i want to tell you that by no means are you a coward and none of my brothers and sisters in the military are cowards. that is addressed to the lady that made the comment earlier. further, the individual who said that we have all these problems with drugs in the united states, he needs to go out and check the statistics that the majority of the drugs, especially heroin, comes from afghanistan, and a predator can be a useful tool for us. thank you very much, again, i really do appreciate it. guest: no, thank you for your

call. certainly there are multiple uses for the platform. we can use all our systems. we are just now figuring out all the military utility. as i mentioned, certainly, they save lives and equipment and provide commanders with the information they need, and as i mentioned earlier, as we continue to work with the fha -- faa, i'm sure there will provide outstanding to the ability for domestic use -- they will provide outstanding capability for domestic use. host: one more call. caller: hello, can you hear me? host: caller, you are on, go ahead. caller: i am glad you mentioned

domestic use. i believe that the ultimate use of these predator drones unmanned vehicles is to spy on americans who are critical of the government and to attack america, not the foreign devils. that is why you are trying this out that is so innocent and -- thisrottin -- >>trotting out that is so innocent and nice. alex and jones has blown the lid off of this. he shows us a video game where the bad guys that you were supposed to kill and the video game are american patriots and militia members that are standing up for freedom. the good guys that kiddies in america are supposed to be -- united nations forces. one man is still in jail for refusing to wear a blue helmet for the united nations.

host: okay, we believe that there. colonel, if you want to respond. guest: no, that is ok. pedro, appreciated, and the opportunit -- and i appreciate the opportunity to be with you today. host: colonel, thank you. that is it for our program today. coming up on this network, the national commission on the deep water horizon will spell. this is their public meeting. [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2010] >> when you read about the resources that can be brought to bear in that response, it is a difference in area than in the arctic.