then anthony placido of the dea on u.s. drug enforcement and intelligence gathering. from the nation's capital, this is "washington journal." [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2010] >> over the last two years that has meant taking on powerful interests. powerful interests who have been dominating the agenda in washington for a very long time but they are not always happy with me. they talk about me like a dog. [applause] that is not in my prepared remarks -- but it is true. remarks -- but it is true. host: president obama kicking off the midterm elections with his remarks, prepared an otherwise yesterday in

milwaukee, a state that he won in 2008 and where a number of key congressional races are shaping up. it is back to work today following the labor day weekend. the president is in washington. congress returns next week. some of the headlines this september 7. "the new york times" -- once a dynamo, they tech sector slow to hire. and tomorrow obama to push tax breaks for businesses. and the business section of "usa today," the economy is looking up -- for now. we want to talk about the president's remarks a yesterday in milwaukee and issued a finding the midterm election, the economy. who do you trust to fix the u.s. economy?

also, the conversation getting it under way on our twitter page. here is a look at some of the headlines outside of washington. "the l.a. times" has obama's plans for big tax breaks for businesses. details coming tomorrow. in essence and the president outlining investment by businesses this year and next year, 100% of those capital investments could be written off under his proposal. and this from "the miami herald" the $50 billion jobs adult could face a tough road. the front page of "usa today," focused on jobs. the motion will be the key. she says the unemployment rate in wisconsin is nearly two percentage points below the nation's average and where the president won by 14 percentage point. this year's state democrats are struggling to hang on to the governors see -- seat. and the congressional seat.

perhaps the most telling perhaps the most telling barometer of the changing political climate, senator russ feingold, a three-term democrat incumbent is facing what many is a the most typical campaign since he first won his seat back in 1992. he was not in attendance with the president's remarks at the wisconsin labor fest. politico has a piece by richard, when looking ahead at the midterm elections with this conclusion. whether november 2 as a good night for republicans, great or even distort will determine how close they get to winning control of the house and how deeply the republican party can cut into distinct classes of democratic-held seats. that from politico.com. here's more from the president yesterday in milwaukee. >> when a leader of their campaign committee was asked on national television what republicans would do if they

take over congress, you know what he said? he said we would do exactly the same thing we did the last time. that is what he said. that is on tape. [laughter] so, basically here is what this election comes down to. betting between now and november you will come down with amnesia. they figured you will forget what they did to the country. they think you would just believe that they changed. host: a response from congressman john boehner posted on the website going back with the president first proposed in its office in january of 2009. 18 months ago the administration promised that if we pass their trillion dollars stimulus it would create jobs immediately and keep unemployment below 8%. instead, millions of americans have lost their jobs over the last 18 months, says congressman

john boehner. the unemployment rate is approaching 10%. if we've learned anything from the past 18 months is that we can't spend our way to prosperity. who is it -- democrats, republicans? jeff is joining us saying the democrats from parkersburg, west virginia. caller: good morning. i was inspired by president obama's speech yesterday. we were certainly on a downward spiral and after he took over we continued downward. now i think things are showing in little but a promise. we are on the way back up. on that recovery, is it going to be a recovery for the american people or will it be a recovery for the corporations that do business both domestically and internationally? it has got to be for the people to rebuild the middle class. that is where the tax base comes from. host: the president talked about

the middle-class system. his speech is available on our website, c-span.org. a derrick from washington, d.c., you say either the third party or you don't know. caller: it is a third party. i am 47 years old and from my lifetime i was a democrat, i was a republican, i will cover -- brought me to my senses. in that neither party. america is in a unique paradigm. right now all of the stimulus packages that are being proposed -- the federal government is broke. this money is being printed. it is not real. and it is going to further deteriorated this nation. the only beneficiaries of the main -- of this is the corporations, and we have already seen that. host: thank you for the call. the front page of "the washington post," two headlines.

next to that is an expensive piece -- republicans heading to the final weeks of the mitterrand campaign the political climate highly in their favor, that according to a new poll. for the first time in more than four years, republicans ran about even with democrats on the basic question on which party they can trust to end of the nation's biggest problems. joe is one of our regular viewers and tweeters. he says -- charlie is joining us from new

york. good morning, on line for republicans. caller: the republicans are going to fix the economy. liberals cannot understand how unpopular barack obama is. may i make a comment on the hit piece you did on sarah palin the other morning? host: which it peace? -- hit piece, vanity fair? caller: the reason why 90% of your viewers are hate filled liberals. what you do on this program is you slam the innocent people, and you allow decent hard- working americans to be called tea baggers which is a vile and offensive name and it is you, sir, spreading hate. host: i cannot let that go -- but i will give you the last word. we never used that word. our viewers may be time to time.

"vanity fair" is one of a number of leading publications we use just like "the wall street journal" and "time" magazine. it is a reflection of what people are talking about. "vanity fair" is one of the pieces. caller: would you give me the last word? well, as soon as a person calls anyone a tea bagger, you cut them off. "vanity fair? nobody reads that anymore. you are a biased, liberal hater. host: we will go to jeff joining us next on the democrats' line. good morning. caller: i guess i am a biased liberal haiti. i never knew that. but -- like host: i think he was referring to me, but that is ok. i have been called worse. [laughter] caller: i guess all i have to

say is that the people who are denigrating president obama are the people who made me wade through eight years of his predecessor. his predecessor is what brought us all the problems that we have. if you feel that you want to vote for a republican this time around, there is nothing that can be said to you. the fellow who just called who insist that people cannot call people what they are -- i call them tea baggers because i don't want to call them brownshirts but if you want to hear the truth, it is brown shirts. the people calling other people nazis of the typical 30 -- german 1930's or 1940's people. host: that is going a little too far, too? caller: when i hear people go as far as they have gone predecessor -- criticizing

president obama i do want to react and use words as strong as they do. host: why don't you let other cable programs use those words and we will deal on a higher plane on c-span? caller: other programs can but fox has been this incredible disinformation tools so all i have is me and that is all i can do is say what is inside me. if people don't like it, they don't like it but it has been hurtful to me so i am not just going to sit back and say you can say all of this stuff about communist and socialist about the present. the present. i am going to have to come back and say things that will shine a little truth on things even if it hurts. host: ok, fair enough. peter orr said this morning who up until last month was the omb director -- one nation, two deficits. deficits. it conclusions. extend the bush tax cuts until 2013 and then get rid of them

altogether. they were first implemented back in 2001. one of the key issues congress will be dealing with when the house and senate lawmakers get back next week. he also looks at the deficit. let's look of the facts. projected deficit for 2015 is 4% to 5% of gdp depending on who's assumption you use. s sustainable level is more likely 3% or lower. so we need deficit reduction of 1% to 2% of gdp or about $200 billion. he goes on to read about medicare, medicaid, and social security saying these programs will account for more than half of spending in 2015. even if you reform social security, which we should. any plausible plan would phase and benefit changes to avoid harming current beneficiaries and would generate little savings over the next five years. of the health reform act included substantial savings in medicare and medicaid. more extensive comments this morning from peter orzag from

the op-ed page of "the new york times." democrats line from florida. good morning. andrew, turn the volume down and please go ahead, please. caller: i believe the democrats does better in the economy. simply because republicans believe you can borrow your way out of these troubles and not pay back and that is what got us into the deficit in the first place. the democrats at least are trying to pay for what they are doing. the second thing. i heard somebody talking about ms. palin. any person who says the n-word ok to use it not a person you can trust. host: we will go on the republican line from houston, texas. e.j. is joining us.

good morning. caller: i would like to start by saying that i think barack obama is a great corridor and give it some good speeches but as far as -- orator gives great speeches, but as far as administrator he is an aristocrat, it is his way or the highway. we need republicans in their to insist on checks and balances. host: from "the new york daily news." signing some of his critics treat him like a dog. and mitch mcconnell from kentucky sang the president's plan should be met with justifiable skepticism because it would raise taxes. here is more from the president yesterday in a milwaukee. >> but there are some folks in washington who see things differently. you know what i am talking

about. when it comes to just about everything we have done to strengthen our middle-class and rebuild our economy, almost every republican in congress says no. even on things we'd usually agree on, they say no. if i said at the sky was blue, they would say no. if i said fish and lived in the dusty, they would say no -- in the the sea, they would say, no. they just think it is better to score political points before the election than to solve problems so they said no to help for small businesses, even though small businesses say we desperately need this. that used to be their key constituency. they said, nope.

no to middle-class tax cut. i said, let us give tax cuts the middle-class. nope. a note to clean energy jobs. note to making college more affordable. no to reforming wall street. they are saying right now no to cutting more taxes for small businesses to help them get financing. somebody out here was yelling, yes, we can. remember, that was our slogan? their slogan is no, we can't. no, no, no. host: we will have more of the president's comments and reactions -- a couple of headlines from "orange county register." the front page story. this courtesy of the newseum. from "the chicago tribune," speaking of the infrastructure, the city needing $1 billion more

for expansion and renovation of chicago high plan. -- chicago hair net worth -- chicago o'hare airport. wally is joining us from arizona. good morning to you. caller: good morning. how were you today? host: fine, thank you. you say you don't know. caller: because the economy is in such bad shape i don't see any way it can be fixed. by either party. host: what do you do? caller: you got me, sir. i don't really know. believeou can't really it a lot of what he says because he lies so much. he had been doing it all the way through his campaign and everything. host: the front page of "the financial times," obama in a $50 billion plan to boost jobs.

oak hill, california. good morning. caller: you can't believe what the media says about the polls -- about the democrats can lose. that is propaganda to keep the people from voting. the democrats, if they unite and start voting they can take over the senate with enough senators and house of representatives. and we can fix america. but that is all propaganda. don't fall for it. host: thanks for the call. next up is joe from minneapolis. republican line. caller: good morning. i and glad you are on the air today because i want to talk to you. this country is about -- united states is about putting our country first. i don't really like the premise of your question, who you trust to fix the economy. i think we can have a better discussion on your program without the way the question is.

host: what question would you ask? caller: how can we work together as a country, united states of america? how can we work together as a country to make our country better, to be first? china is doing that. all we have said in the last 80 months is fighting and fighting and not going anywhere -- 18 months. i am very disappointed as a republican the republicans are not doing anything to help. we should put our country first. that is the first thing we should do. put our country first so that 10 years from now for our kids, we are not going, china is number one. what are we doing, for heaven's sake? the other thing i wanted to ask you, i noticed that c-span did show glenn beck rally -- are you guys going to show the 10-2

rally, the rally there in doing in d.c. -- it got organized labor? caller: yes. host: thanks for the call. the front page of "the wall street journal," previewing this piece. the president and one of the most emetic gestures to businesses will propose companies be allowed to write off 100% in new investment in plant and equipment through 2011. a plan the white house says economist could cut business taxes by nearly $200 billion over the next two years. lillis -- mike lillis is joining us from bloomberg news. can you give us of the evolution of the proposal? guest: this last couple of weeks, the white house economic team has been trying to come up

with new ways to encourage employment in the country. what they have come up with is a mix of what we know so far, a mix of stimulus measures through government spending and tax breaks to encourage business investment. the infrastructure piece, which was about $50 billion, announced yesterday by the president in a speech in milwaukee. on the tax side, two polls. one is this proposal to allow businesses to expense 100% of the cost of new investment right away. the other is a proposal to make the research and development tax credit permanent can't change the amount of the most commonly used of those -- and change the amount of the most commonly used. taken together they would encourage, if they were passed,

and large capital investment by businesses. it is unclear what the congressional reaction by republicans is so far. they have not made any public announcement. host: one of the issues that has been percolating all summer, mike dorning, is the issue of tax credits, the uncertainty over the future of texas, namely the bush tax cuts. this proposal put forward by the president of only a two-year plan, correct? it would be for those businesses that invest in this year and 2011. guest: in general you can always depreciate those capital expenditures over periods between 20 or 30 years in most cases. but just over the next two years, through the end of 2011, they could deduct them paired and take -- deduct them and take the full cost against their profits immediately. it is sort of an audit proposal

in a layperson's sense because it lets them expense things right away. if it costs -- it cost you $200 billion upfront but the government makes that $30 billion over the eight years because it essentially businesses are allowed up to take a full deduction right away where is otherwise they would space and out over time if you are a business because of the time value of money, you appreciate that quite a bit. host: from your perspective, do host: from your perspective, do you think this proposal would work or is there anything the government can do to jump-start the economy and create jobs and do so within a relatively short period of time to unpack the 2010 election? the guest: none of this can have a big impact on the economy before the midterm elections. the midterm elections are only two months away. if you think about it. the idea that this would encourage businesses to make plans to build new factories and buy new equipment, even if they

made the plans to day -- and obviously that's what not be passed today -- it would take awhile for businesses to formulate their strategies and then buy the equipment and hire the new people. this is something that shows and politically makes the president and the democrats seem more interested in the economy right now, and the effects would come if it were passed over the following year or two. people would build up hiring next year. host: will congress act on this, do you think, or is this an issue republicans will hold off until after the november election? guest: in principle -- you could probably find strong support. in practice, there is a political incentives for republicans to hold off on it and also from their perspective and the perspective of business

organizations, they would rather have in many cases the bush tax cuts extended for higher income americans. they see this as an either-or thing, then the republicans would hold this back saying we would rather have the bush tax cut extension, and of course you could get into disputes about how things should be paid for. host: mike dorning, is the economy and financial issues for bloomberg news britta thank you for being with us. "usa today" has the story in the money section -- the economy looking up, for now. double-dip fears ease for some while others still forecast doom. david lynch writing --

from our twitter page, as you were saying -- gary is joining us from jacksonville, florida. we are dividing our phone lines between democrats, republicans, or people who say don't know for a third party. who you trust to fix the economy? economy? caller: i am like a viewer from some time back -- i like the way c-span phrased the question, and i tell you why. this gives everyone a chance to come out and rally for their own party, but i cannot let senator mccain get away with the comment he made a few days ago about it the president tried this a few years ago, perhaps it would be working now and we would be better off. telling me now because he did not try it -- folks have to wait

longer to get a job. if i was a voter and somebody voted against the thing that would help me get a job to feed my family, i don't think i would be voting for that person could talk about four months, four months before they get sworn in. i am not certain how soon they get sworn in after this november election. host: they also said his administration is flailing about trying to fix the economy. caller: exactly what i am talking about. this is about reelection or election. hey let's wait two or three or four months -- for good about looking for a job right now because we are going to take back over the house and the senate. it is about us. it is not about you. this is about regaining power. and i hope the voters understand that. voting for a bill that can help me feed my family and get a job -- i am not voting for you. host: one of our viewers saying

-- a historical predictor. based on the story in this morning's front-page and inside "the wall street journal." looking at past midterm elections and the popularity of the individual in the white house. dating back to 1954 when president eisenhower's approval rating was at 65%, the republicans lost 18 seats in the house and 1 in the senate. more recently, jimmy carter, he was at 45% approval rating. democrats losing 15 house seats and three senate seats. george herbert walker bush was at 75% approval rating back in 1990. republicans of losing eight house seats and one senate seat. the historical election of 1994 when president bill clinton's approval rating stood at the mid 40's, losing 52 house seats and eight senate seats. eight senate seats. in 2008, the person -- as

president bush's tenure was winding down, the republican losing 30 seats in the house, 6 and the senate, which gave an increased majority to the democrats and now all eyes are on the upcoming november elections. kyle joining us from minnesota. who do you trust to fix the economy. based on the comments of the president yesterday? caller: who do i trust? the world bank, for one thing. what i would like is to somehow get some kind of worldwide amnesty going where weekend -- it is going to take nothing short of drastic measures on the world's part in general. i hate to put it all off on the world, per se, but it is going to take cooperation from china, with china on, mining resources

in africa that are currently there should of the needy -- should the need be. host: if you don't want to twitter us, you can send us an e-mail, journal@c-span.org is the address. one viewer in toledo, ohio. larry on the twitter page the says -- democrats line. hunter mill, alabama. good morning. caller: how are you doing? host: fine, thank you.

caller: i have at a couple -- first of all, i think that obama's plan of putting people back to work is a good thing. i am very concerned about energy. domestic energy that we can harvest from everywhere. i just want to talk about a couple of things. when you have a nuclear power when you have a nuclear power plant, conductive lost to the customer. you get almost 90% efficiency out of that.

i think it should be supported by the government. host: thank you for your call. richard cohen has this in "the washington post." presidency. king he says -- he went on to say -- this conclusion --

the president needs better speech writers, and not to give an oval office address unless he has something worthy of all office to say. the president needs someone to look into the camera so that, when a light goes on and he says, good evening, he looked commander in chiefish and big. in other words, he needs to fire some key people or the american people are going to fire him. michael is joining us from queen's in new york. you don't know who could fix the economy? caller: good morning, steve. thank you for taking my call. thank you for taking my call. this is pastor michael engine -- my model for one what life system, one god and one world for the common good to humanity. in god we trust. three quick points. before i say anything i want to thank you and c-span for getting the closed captioning, it is

wonderful. the first two callers, the earlier callers, they both expressed their opinions, one about the tea baggers being called that and about some of the elements that seemed a very fascist, imposing their will, without liberty and justice for all. i would say we have to go back inside ourselves and instead of reacting to everything we are facing, responding. then we all become responsible. in new york, people believe bloomberg's money got him reelected. for people outside of new york they should know only 25% of new yorkers voted, bloomberg only got 13% of registered voters. bill thompson got 12%, and 75% of new york kerr's opted out.

it is anarchy that will not work. we have to participate. we are the government. we are the power. workers are the wealth. second, in terms of the president, i thought his analogy was very good in terms of driving the car into the ditch. in 1972, going from staten island to philadelphia for the penn relays, we had a blowout of the vehicle, priest was in the car, or into a ditch and almost got hit by an 18-wheeler and we all got out of his vehicle and without a word we all -- that is where the american people are now. we are scared and frayed. -- afraid. host: thank you for your call. there is a piece in "the new york times" about a new plan to limit the tenure of the mayor and city council members to two terms.

and on the op-ed page -- praising the president. they write -- joseph on our twitter page saying -- cal is joining us, saying the republicans are the answer. tennessee. good morning. good morning. caller: kind of ridiculous

saying republicans got us into this mess. if you look back to 2006, actually the democrats were in charge. what i am going back to, you look back at george w. bush, right after 9/11, the economy was in the tank. somehow he was able to bring it out. tax cuts and a few other things. we had a roaring economy in 2006. unemployment was only about 4%. i don't see where in the world a talk about how the democrats are going to help us out. the other thing to remember is the $50 billion he is talking about -- we still have 275 billion dollars of the stimulus package that has not been spent. i did not see how in the world -- the policies have always been for the environmentalists, capt. trade -- cap-and-trade -- health care. they put the cart before the

courts. if he wanted to do something, he should have done that from day one when it got into office to get people back to work. he did not do that. i don't trust him and i don't believe a word he says. host: jefferson thomas passed away at the age of 67 after battling pancreatic cancer. better known as one of the little rock nine. pictured with the then president bill clinton at a ceremony in 1999. this is jefferson thomas. he was, of course, one of the major civil rights advocates as they integrated the high school back in 1967 over the opposition of the governor of arkansas at that time. jefferson thomas passing away at the age of 67. his obituary in "the washington post" and "the new york times." who do you trust to fix the u.s. economy? cal talking about jobs -- government or private sector? the president addressing that very issue yesterday in

milwaukee. >> we passed -- to help states passed -- save jobs. the jobs of hundreds of thousands of teachers and nurses and police officers and to fire fighters that were about to be laid off. they said, nope. and of the republican who thinks he is going to take over as speaker -- [laughter] i am just saying, that is his opinion. he is entitled to his opinion. but when he was asked about this, he dismissed those jobs as a government jobs that were not worth saving. that is what he said. quoting, government jobs. think about this. these are the people who teach our children. these are the of the ball will

keep our streets safe. -- these are the people who keep our streets safe. these are the people who put their lives on the line and rush into a burning building. government jobs? i don't know about you but i think those jobs are worth saving. host: "usa today" has the story, the president's proposing that $50 billion plan for roads and bridges and high-speed rail. he quotes john boehner who the president referred to yesterday, saying the roads, rails, and runaway plant is a doubling down on the $862 billion by ousting was planned that he dubbed a failure, given the high rate of joblessness. we don't need more government stimulus spending, we need to end washington democrats out of control spending spree. that is wrong congressman john boehner. new york, good morning. you say you don't know who can fix the economy. why is that? caller: good morning.

we have a problem that neither the congress, the senate, nor the media is addressing parrot keep in mind that the wealth of any nation -- it is addressing. keep in mind that the wealth of any nation looking the starkly, the wealth of any nation is its manufacturing for export. ack in the 1950's my dad was ack in the 1950's my dad was harvard educator, and he had friends over and were talking about what would happen if laws were changed to allow corporations to access all of that oversees labor, the cheap labor, which happens. the consensus in 1958 was that the economy would wind down as consumerism use of their disposable income, shifted their jobs from good paying jobs to medium paying jobs to what ever existed, and the corporations would continue to drain off the

disposable income from the remaining people. he also predicted they would be bottling and selling water. in 1981, the laws were reviewed and began to be changed -- the free trade agreement, general agreement on trade and tariffs, and that culminated with bill clinton's signing an unmanaged north american free trade agreement. i say unmanaged because look at the exodus of american manufacturing. the job loss was horrendous. it is just becoming apparent now that the people who shifted down from good paying to medium paying too bad paying jobs are finding that there are really no jobs. on cnbc they are reporting the actual unemployment rate is 18%

to 20%. host: i will stop you there. there were a lot of points on the table. appreciate your call and comments. what you were referring to -- one sector of the economy that appears to being still in the doldrums, "the new york times" reports that once the dynamo, the tax sector is a slow to hire. -- tech sector is slow to hire. james has this comment from the twitter page. morgan is joining us from decatur, alabama, our line for democrats.

good morning. caller: good morning. i think it is republicans. ever since bush was in there he destroyed everything. he did what he pleased. people blame obama but i think he is doing the best the can with what he has to work with. my wife is a teacher. she has been a teacher for 27 years. she teaches computer lab, preschool, kindergarten, and first grade. we have to help out out of our pocket. we have a son in college and one in afghanistan. in afghanistan. financially, i am on disability. i had a bad accident and cannot work. we did not get a raise in disability this past year. i think they need to give him a break. it is not going to be settled in just a short amount of time. the banks have ruined

everything, with all of the lobbyists. you get rid of the lobbyists i think things would work better. host: morgan, thank you for the call. "the washington post" and "the new york times" abc news president david westin is stepping down. he faced calamity during his 13- year tenure as the head of abc news. back to the issue of the economy, john says -- the republican line is next. arlington, virginia. caller: how are you this morning? i just wanted to go through a little bit of this history. it started off with a certain national socialist who spent this kind of money before. now, barack needs a crowd like

unions because a lot of this money is being funneled to unions which will return to one party in campaign contributions. but let us get to the history of this. lb creativej fannie and freddie and in the 1970's congress passed the community reinvestment act and in the 1990's, andrew cuomo under bill clinton and hud mandated subprime. bill clinton repealed the glass- steagall act that allow fannie and freddie to trade is often to the private market. look, this is what happens. there is no denying it. the gop in 1990's created the surplus that bill clinton takes credit for. there is no question in my mind that we have to get back to

conservative american values. and that's it. you can't spend all of this money -- and bush's tax cuts, he recovered two recessions. the 9/11 and a dot com recession with tax cuts. article one, section 7 says taxes throughout america ought to be uniform. host: i will stop you there. one other story from "the new york post" pointing out the president of infrastructure plan spending that has been implemented in stages over six years representing about 6% of the $787 billion stimulus program passed last year with liberals criticized as too small to do the job. pennsylvania gov. ed rendell, a democrat, and mayor michael bloomberg, independent, called for infrastructure spending. john boehner blasting the new plan, saying we do not need more

government spending. we need to get out of control spending spree stopped. eliminating the job killing uncertainty inherited by the small businesses. john has this comment -- actually the overwrought -- overall debt is growing in excess of $13 trillion, if you go to the u.s.debtclock.org. we will return to the federal reserve policy and how impacts the economy, and the drug cartels and mexico, the impact in the u.s. up next, the health-care law and how it is implemented across the country. you are watching "washington journal" for this tuesday, september 7. we will be back in a moment.

>> follow the people and events that make history online at the c-span video library. the transfer of the canal, impeachment of a president, the events of 9/11. watch what happened as it happened, all three, any time. it is washington your way. >> book tv continues this week in prime time. tonight with former teacher and editorial writer on the textbook industry and writing her own, including pretend as volume " history of us" and "the story of science." book tv in primetime tonight on

c-span2. >> "washington journal" continues. host: we want to turn our attention to health care and how it is being implemented in the states across the country. michael lillis writes for "the hill. could you write that the average worker pays $4,000 toward employer-sponsored health care coverage. that is a jump of almost $500 over the last year. why such a big increase? guest: it is enormous and i think it takes people by surprise. what you are seeing is this a economy, the businesses being hit with this recession are trying to keep employees on without dropping their health benefits. what they are doing, the health costs are rising so quickly that they are shipping those costs to the workers rather than absorbing them themselves. you can say it is good news because it is allowing them to keep workers on with health benefits. you could also say it is bad

news because that is if 40% hike over the year before. host: that is employer- sponsored plans of the employer is paying the bulk. the increase of $482 for you and your family. what about the self employed? guest: the same thing. you -- the premiums are hiking for everyone. that $4,000 figure is just what the employee is bringing. it is not just the -- the actual premium hike. it was only a 3% hike versus 14% for what the worker was paying. uc employers shifting costs to workers, whereas the premium hike for individuals who were self-employed would just cover premium cost themselves. host: as the details of the health care bill become available and start to be implemented, what do you think will change, if anything, with regards to how much you are paying for insurance, premiums or a doctor visit?

guest: a good question it is important that these numbers you just mentioned, mostly a survey taken before the health reform bill passed. at that point, there was a lot of uncertainty. it is tough to say whether employers were reacting to the prospect of the bill passing, or did not think it was going to pass. those questions were not asked. we are not sure what happened with what ever thinking when that survey was taken. but as the move forward, there are a lot of cost containment provisions. the problem is most and not happen until 2014. after this yearlong debate of health reform, people want instant gratification. they went -- want to see costs go down quickly in the quality go up. it will take a little bit of time before a lot of these quality measures work their way out, talking a decade. host: some states say they want to opt out of the health care bill, but that is unlikely in terms of the legality of doing

so. guest: very unlikely. i would say impossible. i would say it is more a political issue. the call for repeal is also happening on capitol hill. not just the state governor's doing it. but you are right, tim pawlenty can outlast week and actually signed an executive order telling his agencies not to accept any of the money from health care reform bill. which the agencies probably will take issue with because they would love to have the money particularly in this recession. but it is a political ploy, i think, and you will see dabbling at the edges but as far as repeal or not taking money on the state level, that is not going to happen. host: and yet isn't it ironic that health insurance companies are likely to be the biggest beneficiaries because more people will be covered through their plans? guest: absolutely. 32 million more people. the subsidies come from taxpayers, in many cases. insurance companies will do just

fine but as well hospitals and a number of providers who had complained throughout the process that they were getting dinged here and there. but overall, 32 million more customers is a pretty good deal. host: talking about the health care law and how it is being implemented in state. we want to hear from you as always been our phone lines -- our twitter page is twitter.com /c-span.orgwj and you can also e-mail us as well. we will have an on the screen. one of the political stories is so for -- so far democrats are not running on the health care bill. does that surprise you? guest: a little bit. i think it is particularly early in the process. they thought that as the benefits roll out and people understand more they could go back to their districts and say, look, you will get x, y, z, your

costs will go down, if you are a senior you get more help and pharmaceuticals immediately. i think they thought those things would take off to their advantage. that that has not happened has not surprised economists will have said all along that this is going to be an election based on jobs. what you are going to see is -- the flip side is the republicans are not really attacking the health care law, either, when they go back to their districts. there is a lot of rhetoric here in washington. when they go home, what we are seeing is kind of a larger message. democrats want to create in ministate, it is a government takeover, but again, it is wrapped up -- when to create a nanny state, having the government intervene more. host: what do you think what the president said and what -- milwaukee will due to ship a perception or reality on this health care bill and what it will mean for the american

people and how republicans are pitching it to their voters? guest: particularly in august you saw them use the lull because congress has gone and they have done everything they can to create a stir with this health care bill. $10 million, and a $30 million provision that comes along, they have a very high-profile event with hhs secretary kathleen sebelius, they are using this to generate headlines to say, look, these other benefits, the millions of dollars coming to help whenever the group is at the time. rural hospitals last week. d beneficiaries, seniors and the doughnut hole. you hear the white house say, look, this is what we have done for you, and don't forget it. host: we are talking to michael lillis, you can read his work on the hill.com. valley forge, pennsylvania.

turn the volume down. we are getting a little bit of an echo. caller: i just believe that the cost of health care has outpaced the american people. in the early 1960's and 1970's, before the hmos came in after nixon, people had better care. and with the dna hmo's gain in it they flooded the market and flood at the doctor's and the insurance companies underpaid the doctors, a lot of private physicians got bought out by huge hospitals. the corporations keep raising the cost of the health care. and people -- because the cost of -- is so high, they eat worse and makes them on healthier and then they get denied a service because you have a pre-existing condition or whenever. i think the health care bill obama past is very fair but they have to bring down the cost of

the care itself. host: thank you for the call. opposing point of view, one of our viewers saying the the health care bill will bankrupt us in the end. but we will not see why until those who wrote it are out of office. two points of of the. guest: the cost efficient -- it is a great question, because that is the really underlying thing. health-care costs have risen at rates much higher than inflation at rates much higher than wages. that has been happening over the course of decades. it seems to be accelerating. what makes it such a tough issue is it is so everybody knows somebody who is sick and i regret it wants them to have access to care and they did not want them to take out a second mortgage to do it. not a good technology has accelerated to such an extent, there is literally life-saving procedures you can get today that you could not get 18 months ago. so you don't want to disrupt that. it will take money to develop

those sorts of things. but you are right, the health care bill kind of shifts cost around and allows for a fuller -- affordability on an individual level, particularly those in lower income brackets but what it doesn't really do is get to the hearts of the question and say how do we stop health-care costs from rising across the country. right now it is a $2.30 trillion question that does not seem to live unanswered. host: a survey by the kaiser family foundation, a health research and education trust, let me go through some of the findings. i don't want to get bogged down. but one key figure you highlight, 38% of large firms have either train the benefits or increase profit-sharing this last year. guest: it is business is way saying if the recession will bring us like this, and we are going to keep a system of employer-sponsored health care, which is one of the central

tenet of this. there were people who said let's scrap the system. it puts too much pressure on employers, too expensive for them. let us go to some other system. but that was abandoned earlier in the process. obama said, no way. if you have a plan that you like, you will keep it. he wanted to stick to that promise. as a result of that you are seeing businesses -- again, they want to keep employees, they want to keep benefits, but if they are going to do that they might have to trim benefits and they will certainly have to shift costs. shift costs. host: did you notice the difference between fortune 500 company versus if you work for a small shop that might employ a couple of dozen people or maybe fewer than 200, in terms of what your deductible is or what you are paying out? guest: on both levels you are seeing that happen. the interesting thing that came out of that poll was that you saw firms across the board -- big, small, the percentage of

firms that now offer health care coverage went from 60 last year, 60% last year to 69% this year. an enormous jump. they did not understand what was happening. what they decided on -- and it is still just a very jiging that the recession had knocked out a lot of small businesses, between the three an nined employees who cannot survive the recession and both tended to be the firms that did not offer care to begin with because they were already on shaky ground or too small or just starting out. they could not survey firms that are no longer in existence. they saw the number it is across the board. small businesses to large ones. guest: do you anticipate we could see more business is opting out of giving their employees' coverage or pay a

fine? fine? guest: it is an equation they will have to take care of on their own. health care bill offers tax credit to small businesses even this year if, with under 25 employees. up to 35% tax credit if they offer employer care. they will have to take a look at whether it is worth it or whether it would be more affordable to pay the fine and we would shift. host: he and his master''s. now from the republican line, angela. caller: good morning. about the health care bill and things going on, i firmly believe that we need to change the way things are done.

i am not saying where the change needs to go. i will leave that to the professionals. my father got caught up in it and was diagnosed with cancer. his insurance company dropped him completely. had they done that, he would've been in a mess with key mall and radiation -- with chemotherapy and radiation. there needs to be preventative measures to prevent things like that. he was diagnosed when he was working with the employer. it became a big mess. it would have devastated my family, and we've been turned down. i think some changes need to happen. i don't know exactly until i get a chance to look at everything, what the deal has in its. change is good. if obama can do that, that is a good thing.

guest: may i respond? the health care reform bill addresses it. they were seeing a lot of problems with that. on the september 23, the reforms that goes into effect is insurance companies dropping people when they get sick, they will no longer be allowed to do that. host: cathy joining us from the republican line in new york's. caller: i would like to ask about the changes in the health tables account under the new legislation. i am under the understanding that health savings account maximum you can contribute is currently $5,000. that has been slashed to $2,500.

that, coupled with the massive increase in premiums, i fail to see how that is making health care more affordable to my family. maybe i am wrong. hopefully, i am. guest: the democrats have never been fans of health savings accounts. this has been one of those ideological battles that has gone back-and-forth in congress -- depending on who has a majority in congress. this idea created the social security privatization debate. if you are shifting money into little savings account or shifting social security benefits into a private account, weapons when the economy goes bad? -- what happens when the economy goes bad?

the democrats are still lolling people to do it because they understand some people still prefer that model. it is not something the democrats have championed. i cannot look for them to do so in the future. host: this person says how did the hsa health savings account worke? guest: good question. is this a personal issue? you would have to check your family balance and see if you can afford it. host: now to alabama on the democrats' line with earl. caller: good morning. president obama and ran on health-care, the banks getting

straightened out and all of this. as far as health care is concerned, i got hurt on the job in 2006. my wife works. the insurance from her job is looking at pre-condition injuries. >> we do ask that you turn the volume down, because there's a slight delay because of cable between your telephone and what you are hearing on the air, so there is an echo that is distracting for the rest of the viewers. the issue of pre-existing conditions, always better addressed in the bill? aest: they're calling that

patient's bill of rights. on the 23rd of this month, health plans will no longer be able to exclude children based on pre-existing conditions. in 2014 when the exchange goes into effect, that will take effect for adults as well. host: the president's is this saves money for the states. how? guest: this is mostly a medicaid question. the central tenet of this entire insurance expansion, 32 million people, half of them will go into medicaid. now that will include adults. the news to be a children's program basically. what it has done, the federal government pays 100% of the expansion in 2014 through 2016. the federal government will pay the entire tax.

that percentage will go down 90%. the federal government will pay 90%. states will pay 10%. those people will now have health coverage instead of going to emergency rooms, which is expensive. hospitals would normally have to raise prices on everyone else. the theory is that will be less expensive for the states than having people without coverage going to emergency rooms every time they get sick. host: there are not enough of these urgent care local community facilities to address the need, especially in inner cities. guest: one of the main issues with medicaid that you will see, while it is a form of health coverage, it pays doctors very little and they do not tend to take medicaid as much as it

would take other forms of insurance including medicare. access to care is going to be an issue, despite the expansion of coverage. what the health-care bill does, i think we're getting to the point of primary-care facilities, when medicaid recipients become sick, they tend to go to the emergency room because the doctors do not take them at a primary care facilities and there are not enough primary-care doctors. there's $11 billion for community health centers in the bill. these have to be in urban centers where vulnerable populations are living, where there are sicker people. the idea to expand them and improve them. when medicaid expansion happens, the level place to go to get primary care. host: talking about individual states tweaking and of carol and designing to be more attractive and advantageous to reach individual.

in my own state of oregon, wyden is talking about an opt out provision, says this person. guest: good question. wyden is the reason states will have a lot more flexibility. he has been a champion of a provision that was passed that allowed states to say, what is in the bill is pretty good, but our state, we already have a system in place and is working pretty well, so if we can do it the same or better, it is just a different model. so there's a provision in there. one thing that you will see with that one key issue is that does not go into effect until 2017. if the other reforms are going into effect for the most part in 2014, how are the state's going

to begin this internal process and then after rollback t in 2017? he's trying to roll back the date so the states can be in their own processes in 2014. states are talking about the public option. that's the reason for opting out of the individual mandate, if they can prove their system is better. host: log on to thehill.com to find out more about mike lillis. a republican joining us online. caller: tell me what governmental expenditure that has been projected 10 years out has actually decreased over a period of time and the tax reform legislation, all the

savings are in the future, we have to wait until 2014 to get the savings and then 2017 we have to wait for. what type of expenditure has government put forth that will go -- that will be decreased in years to combat is actually come to pass? . guest: good question. medicare part deprogram, -- medicare part d program, looking back on that, it went into effect in 2006, seven years after it was passed, the new 10- year projection is $350 billion. almost half of what it was projected to be.

a lot of things -- a lot of factors there. that includes in goldman was much lower than the government thought. one example of projections coming in under the original projection. host: another question from twitter. the number of seniors swelling by 50% over the next five years. how will this bill keep promises to baby boomers? what about that in terms of health-care? guest: there was a big discussion about this because obama had said if you like your plan, you can keep it. additional benefits will not go away. but there is something called medicare advantage program. it has been increasing in popularity if since 2003. this is a program that is not

actually medicare. it is the taxpayers paying private pensions to subsidize patients. is subsidized at about 14%. but they have done is to scale back that subsidy. for the baby boomers, that probably means fewer choices in the medicare advantage program. they do offer i care and dental care and things traditional medicare does not. -- eye care and dental care. insurance companies will not want to lose money on those plans and some of those benefits could disappear. in terms of traditional medicare, the benefit is still there. now there's more preventive care service and that sort of thing. host: we welcome our listeners on the radio. 90.1 in washington.

xm radio as well. our guest is joining us, michael lillis. caller: i have heard you use the term "affordable health care." our congressman will not to give me an answer. nancy pelosi told the democrats -- -- she told them not to talk about the cost of health care. if you say it's gone to be affordable for the average person, what is it going to cost my monthly premium if i make $45,000.10 of a wife and child? if i make $30,000 and single,

what are my monthly figures going to cost? unless you can define "affordable," until you can give us what it's going to cost exactly. guest: the medicaid expansion goes up to 133%, which is $24,000 for a family of three. s will launch in 2013, and the subsidies begin at 133 remicade drops off and buccola to 400% tariffs on a sliding scale, very well defined. i don't have the figures off the top of my head. if you know what you make, then you know what type of subsidy you will get. and there are provisions that will allow you without of pocket expenses. it is on a sliding scale

between 133 and 400. it depends on your salary and size of your family. it is very methodical. host: this c-span jaunty says it's about medicare going broke with a status has predicted 2014, a dinky meant to say. and another viewer says why do we have to reinvent the wheel? instead of adopting and adapting to a health care model that works in some other portable world, we need to start from scratch. peggy is joining us from maryland on the democrat line. caller: your caller almost stole my thunder, from baltimore. i participated in the french

health system and the british health system. people talking about it have not even been there and they say it is doom. i have read the bill. it took me the entire labor day weekend. democrats have not read the bill and are doing themselves a great injustice. i can keep my daughter on my plan until she graduates college. that gives her a break so that she can concentrate on paying her student loans. the other thing is, your guest talked about producer ratio -- about participation rates, the average employer goes down. so many tax credits. for people saying there is

nothing in it for me, you are going to get older. the older you get, the more the companies want to drop you. this bill makes it so that they cannot drop you. one thing that comes with old age is deteriorating health. people need to do more reading. i am glad you are talking about this. we need to know the benefits before we criticize this bill. thank you so much. have a great day. host: thank-you. ann on the republican line from maryland. caller: who are daughter was a 1987 graduate of george mathisen -- james madison, i'm sorry. i want to say that medicaid is i want to say that medicaid is being increased . the federal government would

pay. eventually the states will pay. every taxpayer in the united states is going to subsidize any state that does not try to do their own job. that is what it will be. that will decrease our national debt so much -- increase our national debt so much. thank you. guest: it is one of the central criticisms. was to the national taxpayers subsidize individual states? you are seeing this in any number of programs. the idea is that because a lot of hospitals working multi-state scenarios, insurance plans are national, insurance companies are international, we are

talking about the price of health care costs going through the roof. to control all of this, they're trying to encourage low-income people to get preventive care that would keep costs down for everybody and for insurance companies, not for the doctors' systems that are expanding. i think the theory is that it would be cheaper to subsidize this way. host: in terms of those using emergency rooms as for their primary care as well. now from louisville, ky. caller: thanks for taking my call. i am understand the old school way of there's a pool for insurance. the healthy and the sick pay into it. those not using the insurance benefit, that money is used to pay for the sick and for

investment. but with the new law that you have to be covered, if the healthy do not put money in and they opt out, then that means those paying the premium will not be putting in enough money to cover what is being drawn -- withdrawn. anything that goes to the federal government comes from individuals. comes from the states and counties and cities. to say that federal covers it is really confusing to me. tendar everybody and anybody that does not want to pay into it, they can invest their money in something readily available.

insurance companies had this in order to help pay out premiums. can you help me understand? guest: you are not alone. you're not the only person confused with the new law. it will take people while to discover what is in it. it is enormous. you are correct. any insurance program, you get a lot of people into the plan that reduces the risk for any one individual. the trouble with some of these polls was that because insurance companies were in a habit of dropping six people, you had pulls of healthy people in one spot and pulls of sick people in another area. one of them was cheap because insurance companies did not have to pay for much coverage and the other was enormously expensive. the idea has been the individual

insurance mandate, which is not without controversy, but it does hope to get all these people into a larger pool so that the costs are spread around for everyone. the same theory for the exchanges, the state-based insurance exchanges. host: welcome to the program, independent mind from baltimore. caller: good morning. i like the hill magazine. my question has to do with health care. has there been any independent review of our health-care? our health-care system should be a for-profit system. insurance companies, their goal

is to keep costs down. the only way to keep costs down is for people not to get sick. it is a simple business decision that you have a person with a bad disease, to drop them, because you would be paying out all this money. is there a way to transform our system to the nonprofits and incentivize doctors and administrators to pay them great money so it will work? i will listen off the air. thank you. host: kathleen has written that her copayment is what my doctors visit caused 10 years ago. -- used to cost 10 years ago. guest: a lot of people are looking at a way to make the health care system not-for- profit. insurance companies are looking to benefit to their

shareholders% for most. so they're looking to make money. one way to make money is to deny claims. senator feinstein in california, senator sanders in vermont, there was a lot of talk about moving to a medicare for all types of model. that is kind of the not-for- profit, a single payer strategy that you hear about most often when you're about that strategy change. but again, the democrats in the white house and the leadership in congress made a decision earlier in the debate and said we are not going to go to that model because it is it too liberal. if president obama had made comments a few years back that he supported that model, he had to take it back when he got into the finals because it would never have passed. they did stick with the for- profit insurance model. the compromise was the companies

would still offer coverage, but we will restrict what they can do and they will not be able to drop six people. they would have to keep people on until age 26. all the different reforms you are hearing about with the private companies. you are correct, they do exist to make money. host: from michigan, good morning. david, please go ahead. caller: thanks for taking my call. i will give you an example, as a retired before a company and then on -- i have been on medication years. are there any safeguards in place or will there be any where the company will not able to override a medication a my doctor has prescribed for years? the insurance company feels i should take a different pain

medication that makes me sick a lot and there are a lot of side effects. but they have overridden the doctor and that is a decision i have to live with, which turns my life upside down. host: why don't you go back to the doctor? caller: the doctor says this is our procedure and you will accept this. host: can you go to a different position? caller: my insurance company has made the decision that they will not allow the medication because there is a substitute that they will force you to take over what your doctor has told them. guest: there will be an essential benefits package requirements. this is something where insurance companies will be required to cover a certain number of drugs, a certain number of procedures. it is not been determined yet what those things will be.

that is another provision in 2014. it is something to look for as your individual case develops. host: there's a blog available online at thehill.com, a blog. what is the next individual all the states will focus on? guest: medical loss ratio, something that will evolve this month. there was a provision that was not talked about much, but insurance companies going back to the for-profit insurance company issue, they will be required under the new law to spend between 80% and 85% of abreu premium dollars on actual desert -- of every premium dollar on actual medical care. insurance companies want to include as many expenses as they

can on that to make more profits. folks in the white house and on capitol hill want them to include only direct health care services in that equation. the other expenses being marketing and administration salaries and shareholder things. in some cases they were seeing those expenses eating up more and more of a premium dollars and it was not going to care. that is going happen kind of a back-and-forth through the state's right now. host: thanks very much for sharing your perspective with our audience, michael lillis. guest: thank you. host: george melloan will join us from new york, a longtime writer and editorial page editor at the wall street journal antaeus with us in a couple minutes. two months before the midterm election and it is the "campaign

2010" update. >> today we are looking at vice- president joe biden's old senate seat in delaware, two republicans vying for the nomination on december 14. joining us this morning is ginger gibson with the news journal of wilmington, delaware to talk about this. talk about. these two about >> thanks for having me. we have two candidates. mike castle, a long term congressman, selected in thehe in. was governor and for that and lieutenant governor before that, an attorney from delaware who has held office for quite some time. highest elected republican in the state. if the challenger is christine o'donnell. she used to commentaries. turan for the first time in 2006 for the u.s. senate as a reagan candidates. pulled an astonishing 1% in

2006. brannigan in 2008 against zero biden and is running again this year. -- she ran in 2008 against joe biden. she's against spending. >> does she have the backing of the tea party? >> tevez. the tea party express promised her $250,000 in spending for the race. and the dimond state tea party. and other tea party groups are supporting her candidacy. >> what to the polls show? >> the last poll from august, we saw the addition of mike castle against christine o'donnell where she was leading. and then we saw another where she is leading.

>> the house and senate are increasing debt and of great we have never seen before. i don't know how we will be able to work through the economic problems we have if we continue to spend at these levels? we need to. say enough is to we need to give everybody an opportunity to create jobs and do better for their families in our country. i am mike castle and i approve this message. >> in 2008 the american conservative union ranks mike castle of the most liberal republicans, giving him a score of 28 taliban 100. delaware and republicans deserve more. that is what the tea party expressive supports common-sense conservative christine o'donnell. she strongly supports repealing obama's health care scheme.

our country deserves better. tea party expressed.org is responsible for the content of this at. >> ginger dixon, could the tea party express make christine o'donnell the next joe miller? >> i cannot answer that. there will answer that on september 14, the voters. they are putting their money where their opinions are, spending on,ad we just saw and backing her campaign -- spending on that ad we just saw. >> there are a couple websites. what has been the impact of the websites? >> the mike castle -- boot mike castle website is dedicated to showing his record and showing

why they think hwe has not been conservative enough for the positions they feel most important. there's another website that points to a mortgage lawsuit christine o'donnell was in during her last campaign, pointing to lean that was filed by the irs. it is not clear how much it event that those websites will have. -- how much impact. >> the primary is a tambor 14. the winner will face chris koons on the democratic side. >> you the new castle county executive karlie. he is an attorney from the northern part of the state. -- the primary is september 14. this will be his first chance to reach out to voters in the southern part of the county.

>> is getting help from the white house? >> angela biden has been fundraising for him. -- joe biden has been raising funds for him. >> thanks, ginger. >> thank you. >> for more information, go to our website, c-span.org. host: we turn our attention to the economy and the federal reserve. george melloan from "the wall street journal", with them more than a 50 years. thanks for being with us. >> my pleasure. host: how can you create confidence in the u.s. economy? guest: that is a good question. one way to do it, very quickly, would be to make the. 2003 tax the. -- make the 2003 tax cut

permanent. host: you say that here is the flood thehe fed's can banks with liquidity in order to stimulate economic growth, but that will not necessarily stimulate the demand for this money. would you elaborate? guest: the power of the fed is often exaggerated. it can create money, which is very important. but it does not necessarily mean that people are going to lend that money or borrow that money and that this will actually translate into economic growth. borrowing money is something that people do very judiciously.

they usually do very judiciously. right now people are not in a mood to borrow. there's a lot of money sitting in the bank reserves, $1 trillion. it is not really being used. until people have more confidence in the future of the economy and the future of public policy, they are not going to be very enthusiastic about borrowing money and spending it. host: the president was talking about the economy yesterday in milwaukee. i want to refer to what you wrote today in the wall street journal, called "the obama recovery." it says the only major obama spiries that have not passed r. cap and trade, tabb and tax, blocked by a handful of democrats.

you have called some of this legislation dubious. guest: dubious because it is highly complex. we are talking about a 2008 bill -- 2000-page bill. it is a law. this is the financial reform bill. these are enormous pieces of legislation and have the effect of laws. even some of the people who voted for them admitted they had not read them entirely. that does not create a great deal of confidence in the public. when legislators passed huge bills and then admit they really don't know what they voted for. of that's why i said some this was dubious.

host: the president, yesterday in milwaukee. >> 8 million americans lost their jobs in this recession. even though we have had eight straight months of private sector job growth, the new jobs have not been coming fast enough. now, here's the honest truth, the plain truth. there is no silver bullet. there's no quick fix to these problems. i knew when i was running for office and i certainly knew by the time i was born in -- sworn in, i knew it would take time to reverse the damage of a decade's worth of policies that saw too few people getting ample. to be in the middle ample -- getting into the middle class. host: how do you turn things

around and what role does the dead played in the larger picture of the u.s. economy? guest: the fed plays an important role. it creates money and regulates banks. but i think that the only way you can turn the economy around and get it to grow again is to create confidence among small business, investors, the people who create jobs. i don't think the measure is the president's announced yesterday will actually do that. these are a subsidy things. what business needs is confidence. there is so much regulation coming down the road and so much cost coming down the road that businesses don't know what to

expect. taxes may go up next year. that again cuts into the potential for businesses to earn a profit and survive. host: peter orszag today in the new york times said his solution is to keep the bush tax cuts across the board but then get rid of them in 2013. guest: i don't think it is a great idea to deadline for when to raise taxes. people are not in a mood to have their taxes raised any time in the future. so i don't think it is such a great idea to set a date of 2013. host: tomorrow the president will be in cleveland talking about the economy and its proposals will businesses to invest in capital and infrastructure this year and next year, 100% would be tax deductible.

good idea? guest: i don't know. this has been used many times before. it is not seem to have -- the idea of exempting capital expenditures, that has been attempted, amortization of capital expenditure, those things. i don't know that that has been terribly effective over the years. better than nothing. host: what is your confidence level in the u.s. economy? guest: not very high. let's go to the republican line from texas. caller: 1969 i started a business, 771 employees in 2005. the president and this congress has done everything they can to destroy jobs.

section 342 of the document that mandates quotas. section 342 of the dodd-franc forces individuals to have a certain amount of minorities and women on their staffs. you look at the health care bill, what the liberals don't understand is it has fixed my costs, something i cannot do anything about, mandating my costs. you look at what the epa is doing through a to the country. they have taken over. they have taken over in the state of texas. completely ignoring the laws and constitution. you look at what they did with the car companies. what law is there that goes in the air and fire is the ceo, does away with all the jobs and dealerships? look at what he did with the chrysler corporation. bowing out the senior bondholders.

that is will we are right now. host: a response now for pete. guest: i think that sums it up, a very common attitude among host: business. you wrote a book on the carter administration. there have been some parallels regarding the economic situation that jimmy carter inherited and responded to and what we are dealing with today. are there parallels and is a fair comparison? guest: i think so. i would not want to carry that too far. ne particular parallel was a great expansion. that was not jimmy carter. started with richard nixon. price controls.

and the fed created a lot of money under price controls. we eventually got inflation. price controls are a terrible idea. they destroy the proper functioning of the markets. we don't have that today, thank goodness. but we do have a great deal of economic regulation. that does tend to stifle initiative and investment. host: diana is joining us from florida. good morning. caller: i wanted to start with this. price controls, you see what has happened with gross restores. i want to go back to the beginning and comment about all

the wall street journal reports i have heard this morning that i am disgusted with. the way they say congressman did not know what they were voting for, if obama would have given into the republicans, i watched them vote against everything. it might have turned out to be a good bill if they had cooperated. that is one thing. everything he said is - and it is his interpretation -- everything your guest residences been negative. this is comical. the new health bill.

i already have an increase. my neighbors are having increases. automobile insurance, life insurance, my neighbor's car insurance increased up to it $900 from $700. medicare, the secondary has gone up for me. host: we spoke about health care insurance rates in the last half-hour. another viewer says what are your thoughts on the regulations, whether it is health care or other regulations? this u.s. is the american working public feels one person's regulation and the cost of those regulations could be a sense of security for those

working within the system. guest: first, i am not a republican. i am an independent. i am not speaking on a partisan basis. medicare is marvelous. i benefit from it myself. it is too expensive. as a whole concept of medicare , it will beanded an even more expensive. what this means is the federal deficits will continue to be in the trillions of dollars. the trillions of dollars. the country cannot afford this over the long term. as the lady mentioned, prices of various insurance services are going already. that is despite obamacare or

perhaps in anticipation of the costs that will occur under obamacare. so we are not looking at a very bright future here in terms of costs. the other great thread out there is with the fed's having created all this money sitting in the bank's, we have a very serious threat of inflation. as the lady said, you can see some evidence of vegetables restore. i do shopping every week or so. -- you can see evidence at grocery stores. host: george melloan spent 50 years at the wall street journal and retired in 2006, continuing to attribute to "the wall street journal". you said in a recent article that the federal stimulus program totaled $786 billion and

failed. why has it failed to create jobs or jump start the economy? guest: stimulus programs never have succeeded really because there is a basic flaw. in order for the government to spend money, esther take that money away from somebody else. very often, it takes the money away from productive uses and spends it on unproductive projects. so the whole concept of stimulus -- it is what was promoted many years ago, it is very popular with politicians because it gives them the opportunity to spend money, which is what they like to do. but stimulus -- government

stimulus has never worked. host: independent line from caller:. i am from sarasota, florida. i like to have your viewpoint about the economy. when you testified in front of congress about tens of millions of us in the united states, why has this not been corrected by congress and the senate? congress and the senate? guest: asset forfeiture, i am not an expert on that. i have heard about it. i think it is a real problem. it has gotten to be something that is a high-handed treatment

of a company. i think it's probably should be addressed. host: now we have a republican from. new from caller: good morning. mr. malone is very insightful. our country operates byit capital operates. can take a good news and bad news. the difficulty is when uncertainty arises because of calculations. part of the problem with the economy today is there's an enormous amount of uncertainty as to where the country is going in terms of regulation and as far as the tax policy. the tax cuts are essential, especially in a fragile market. why not have payroll cuts? second, the gentleman is

correct, simply spending one's way out of difficulties simply does not work. it increases the deficit. it makes money cheaper. the problem is when people are overleveraged in an uncertain environment, they do not want the money available. so the moneymand, sits there. the gentleman is very wise. i appreciate the opportunity to express my opinion. host: thank. we will get a response. guest: thanks very much for that. not much i can add to that. i agree. host: david from new york on the democrats' line. caller: good morning. i was just wondering, if the fed is lending banks money at 0%

or whatever, why is it not possible for them to lend that same money to buy out people's mortgages at a higher rate and let them buy them back at a lower rate, which would stimulate people spending and putting more money back into the economy? guest: yes, i am not quite sure i understood the question. the federal reserve has been buying mortgage-backed securities from fannie mae and freddie mac, the two big government-sponsored and now actually government-controlled mortgage agencies, secondary markets. in fact, the fed has lost over a trillion dollars worth of those mortgage-backed securities.

that is as a means of supporting that particular market. it does have the effect of holding down mortgage rates, which are very low. right low but that does not seem to have had a great benefit in terms of stimulating the housing market. it has had some benefit, i suppose, but not much. host: you wrote about this issue in july. how have low interest rates helped buyers and helped those trying to keep credit card rates down and hurt investors and those wanting to save? guest: that is a big problem. that is especially a big problem for pension funds. many millions of people depend on pension funds, particularly public employees who have defined benefit pension plans.

the people who run the pension funds are finding it very difficult to get a decent return. returns are below the returns they projected in calculating whether they will be able to meet these decline pension obligations in the future. so many of them are turning to more risky ventures like hedge funds and that sort of thing. that is not very encouraging, people running pension funds who have a very serious obligation to a lot of millions of people if they are taking risky ventures just to try to make a decent return. host: we are talking with george melloan, formal editorial page is deputy editor of the wall street journal. tallon is joining us from clark

on the independent line. -- caroline is joining us from florida. health: if nancy pelosi's care bill had gone through the care bill had gone through the senate , rather than having it stopped by the president and gutted by the senate, by both of them combined, we would have had a decent, affordable health care system because it would have included a public option. it would have negotiated drug prices. it would have done all the things people don't want it. that is why you attack nancy pelosi. host: our guest has covered the fed, but does not serve on the federal reserve board. guest: well, what you are suggesting is we should have

totally nationalized the health- care system. in some ways that would be a lot simpler than what we have right now. but it also -- we would face the sort of thing that you have in england where health care is basically rationed. and where it takes an enormous chunk out of the federal budget and the government budgets. we couldn't think sustain a national health-care system. i don't think you would like it very well after you experience it a few years. host: one of our viewers with this comment from our twitter page. in this recession, the economy will not enter self-sustaining growth until private-sector balance sheets are repaired.

balance sheets are repaired. . caller: i am glad to hear you talk about small business and -- host: we can hear you, please go

ahead. caller: small business will put us back into -- bring the economy of and this is what it will take. i have been self-employed since 1996. my biggest dream was to be a hair stylist. i have owned a welding shop before. -- wilmington shop before. in wilmington we were so excited that president obama would be the president, because we thought we would get insurance. i have been without health insurance for almost 17 years. i am so disappointed in everyone in north carolina that i know. none of the construction men can get employment. the mexicans are completely taking over all lot of jobs.

i am so disappointed that we are allowing all of this mexican and muslim and all of these people to come in to our country, the united states and take the american people jobs. i am cutting hair in meeting millions of people. i think number one we need to get obama out of the presidents and -- out of the presidency. i think he is a joke. guest: on the immigration issue, yes, emigration -- the immigration policy has been broken for many years. it should have been fixed. there was as time went the entry of workers, particularly from

mexico and south and central america was well controlled. they were brought in under guest worker programs to work on farms and to seasonal labor, but that all was as broken down, and instead of giving illegal immigration on a temporary basis, you have had over a good many of years illegal immigration. of course people resent that. the whole system is just -- it can be easily fixed, but has not been. >> what would it take your confidence to be restored in the u.s. economy moving ahead? >> as i mentioned before, making

the 2001/2003 tax cut permanent would certainly help. and i think some of the laws that have been passed, certainly no more stimulus spending. that has not worked. it will not work. that should be renounced. i think some of the bills that have been passed me to be looked at again. -- need to be looked at again. they're much too complicated. they have destroyed confidence in the congress, and i think that would certainly help. host: george melloan joining us. he is a former deputy editorial at "the washington journal."

thank you for your time. anthony placido will be joining us. he is one of the chief intelligence officers. we will talk about the u.s. drug policy and the flow of drugs between the u.s. and mexico and other central south american countries. first, a news update from c-span radio. takeover the treasury department says it will auction off warrants it received from the hartford and lincoln national insurance companies in the spring of 2009. in an effort to recoup costs of the $700 billion financial bailout. all warrants is the purchaser -- gives the purchaser the right to buy stock at a fixed price. at the top commander in u.s. afghanistan warns that troops could be endangered, with a florida trip goes there with a plan to burn the koran . -- a top commander in u.s. and

afghanistan once the troops could be endangered if a florida church goes through with their plan witto burn the koran. britain is marking the seventh anniversary of the start of the blitz, the german bombing campaign. a memorial service is being held to honor those who protected london during the blitz. those are some of the latest headlines on c-span radio. >> "washington journal" continues. host: many of you say you want open phones. this is your chance to tell us what is on your mind. congress gets ready to come back next week. the president speaking to a labor crowd yesterday in milwaukee. you can respond to other news of

the day. this is the front page of "the washington post." yesterday the president talking about some of his critics. senator feingold was not in attendance. >> over the last two years that has meant taking on powerful interests. some are of interest to have been dominating the agenda in washington for a very long time, and they are not always happy with me.

they talk about me like a dog. [laughter] [applause] that is not in my prepared remarks, but it is true. [applause] >> host: the president yesterday in milwaukee. tomorrow the president will travel to connecticut. the president will propose that companies be allowed to write off 100% of the new investment in plant and equipment through 2011, a plan that the white house and economists said it would cut taxes by nearly two and a billion dollars of the next two years.

denver, colorado on the democrats' line. good morning. caller: just wanted to comment on business is being confused. they're sitting on so much capital. they do not want regulation and they want to continue their tax cuts, said they are deliberately not creating jobs s because they note the current administration would find them, so this is their electric. host: also, political look ahead at some of the key house and senate races, including increases in colorado, nevada, california, delaware. republicans needing to gain 39 house seats to regain majority and also look at additional seats in that could determine whether it will be another

midterm election or disaster for democrats. richard joining us from wichita, kansas. open phones. good morning. caller: i am wondering if the democrats think the health care bill is so great, why did they exclude themselves from it and have their own health care system? the other thing is everyone talks about the bush problems as far as creating all of these dollars better spent for the companies and banks in bailouts -- @ wasn't the democrats in charge of congress, didn't they vote on this? host: "the washington post" has the president's plan on the front page this morning. next is the independent line. and caller: i wanted to bring up

a couple of things. first off, your first topic this morning was waout of a newspaper. and host: the question we ask is which party is best prepared to fix the economy, democrats or republicans? caller: you are right. you read an article that made obama look bad, the way you read it. i am disillusioned with him myself right now in a way. the thing is it really made him look bad. and i think sometimes there should be disclaimers as to the ways of the papers or where they ways of the papers or where they come from and who owns them because rupert murdoch owns about everything right now. host: mr. colon's peahen's piec?

hostcaller: right, and they are right-leaning. host: i think others would disagree with you. someone argue it tends to be more liberal. caller: maybe i am wrong on that. the thing on the taxes and everything. during world war ii the people were asked to make sacrifices to pay for the worst. whenever george bush started two different wars, no one has been asked to make the for sacrifice. host: i will leave it there. the piece you were talking about has been and other publications over the holiday weekend. it is called, "obama is

shrinking preside's shrinking p" the speech clocked in at 2540 words. the present needs a staff to give him an oval office address unless he has something worthy of the oval office to say. either that or the way things are going, the american people will fire him. these other words of richard cohen. this morning we have open phones. democrats line. please go ahead. caller: mike comment today -- my comment today is about the lady that made the comments about hispanics and other people coming over here and taking over

our jobs. i understand where she is coming from, but the thing is a lot of people are not in the respect that the president is coming in behind bush and trying to correct the mistakes that was made that bush left for a lot of the things he is going through now, which a whole lot of people are overlooking. host: joanne on the republican line from south dakota. good morning. caller: i was referring to the speech that the president gave last night. it made me feel so disillusioned, so battered. he never has a decent thing to say about anybody but the democrats. i do believe that is wrong. he bashes, bashes, fascist. never gives anything to say that is of value.

he says he will fix banks and wants to buy american made -- fix things, and wants to buy american made, but yet to start somewhere. he never gets ideas. i am getting very disillusioned with the president. host: thank you for that call. the economy, the tech sector -- will it help in the economy? the tech sector is slow to hire. for years the technology sector has been considered the most dynamic, promising, and will be- and indeed industry in the united states. it is it the recession relatively unscathed, and the profits have been soaring.

the key joining us from chicago. good morning. -- vicky joining us from chicago. caller: i am a veteran. one of the things that gets me is i do not blame the republicans, the democrats, or the independence, a prim everyone in washington who has allowed a climate from incompetency and climate of an activity to persist. in one of the reasons why i call this morning was we as citizens have to do our part. if you see a fight, and you know in your heart there are people that are being hired and not legally in this country, you have a duty and responsibility to report that to the department of immigration. i think that one of the things we need to do in this country as individuals is to encourage

wherever we can positive things that are going on, and not focus so much upon the negatives. we need to have faith in our government, no matter who was in the white house, but we also need to have base in each other, and i think if we cannot do that, we as a country will fail, and we as citizens will fail ourselves. thank you. host: randy joining us from las vegas on the democrats' line. good morning. caller: i think only thing this country can do now is adjust import taxes. we have spent so many years sending jobs away. i cannot understand -- i do know what we have done, but the only way we will fix this the start putting an import tax on everything that comes into this country. whether it be people or whatever.

i did not see any way out of this. that last guy you had was a total idiot. host: thank you for the call. obama and the $50 billion plan to boost jobs. quick reaction from republicans. obama has a $5$50 billion plan o boost jobs. millions of americans have lost their jobs according to congressman; boehner. if we have learned anything over the past 18 months, it is that we cannot spend our way to prosperity. this is an article in "the new york times. "

anthony placido will join us in just a moment. he is with the drug enforcement agency and the chief of intelligence as we talk about the drug flow between central and south america and the u.s. and the impact on american society. you are watching "the washington journal" on this tuesday, september 7. we are back in a moment. [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2010]

>> all the people and events that make history online at the c-span video library. the transfer of the canal, the impeachment of the president, the events of 9/11 -- of 3 any time. it is washington your way. -- all free, any time. "book tv" continues in prime time. tonight joy hakim. "book tv" in prime-time tonight at 8:00 on c-span2. host: we want to focus on the

dea in the u.s. drug policy. our guest is anthony placido. pleasure to have you here. thank you for joining us. guest: good morning. guest: good morning. host: let me begin with how you gather intelligence. what is the process? guest: we are uniquely positioned to gather evidence on the drug trade. we have 86,000 foreign countries around the girl with 227 domestic offices, and we collect intelligence and a variety of ways. we run a number of enforcement operations with 5010 thousand registered sources of information you are gathering information for us. that is really something unique in traditional response of law- enforcement -- responsive law enforcement.

we have to be pro-active. in addition to that, we run the largest number of court- authorized telecommunications intercepts of any federal agency in the u.s. government. we gather what is typically called shipments incident -- human insignaant. ghost: it is a vast border between the u.s. and mexico and heavily guarded, and yet the drug still come into this country. how does that happen? guest: to appreciate the answer, you have to appreciate the magnitude of this problem. $394 billion per year is the gross proceeds of the drug crime. this outpaces any other type of criminal activity. we seek criminal organizations that are well-finance, very

lucrative. a big attraction for people to come into the business. they use all manner in means to smuggle contraband. we have seen tunnels under the border. the use of homemade submarines. threats, violence, intimidation, what have you. they are attempting to make a piece of that large profit. host: you touched upon the large elements we would like to focus on -- the drug user, the distributor, there or were, and the network involved. tied together is a vast police effort, local communities, state and fred graham agencies tried to crack down on the problems. can you touch on all of that? guest: sure. that is really the heart of the issue, to understand this business for what it is. it is a transnational criminal enterprise, and requires us to be able to operate seamlessly

across borders. international relations is a huge part of this. we talk about the four major drugs of abuse, cocaine, heroin, methamphetamine, and marijuana. those mostly originate outside of the united states in are smuggled into our borders. we work with countries that the source countries for the manufacturing of those drugs. the routes they are smuggled through. then obviously there is the border protection issue to try to stop them from being smuggled into the country. despite our best efforts, significant quantities to enter the country and it becomes a local police problem where we're working with counterparts in state and local county offices throughout the country to seize the drugs and make the community safer. host: you have the fbi. u.s. state and local police. the treasury department.

what role does the dea plane and all of that? guest: dea is sort of a unique animal. we are one of the single agencies that are a unique mission. that is the only thing we are chartered to do, and force the nation laws that relate to the control of controlled substances. our real niche is fighting the transnational drug criminals, and this involves working with foreign partners abroad, working with border control agencies, but we also have robust state and local program. some of the task forces with eight local and inedible police force had been in existence for more than 30 years. host: a photograph of american citizen born in south texas, moved to mexico, and up until a few years ago a key player in the drug cartel.

what role did he play? guest: he is one of the principal lieutenants of a breakaway foundation of the cartel despite the name "barb ie" he was a very ruthless i let individual. when beltran label was killed by the mexican government about a year ago, barbie broke free and tried to take over the organization. that spawned an incredible amount of violence between his brother and the remaining organization with bodies strewn all over the roads between of all over the roads between of cocomexico city and al .

host: the conversation continuing on line. one of our regular viewers with this point. donald singer please address how and why the taliban was able to nearly eradicate opium growing in afghanistan before we went in 2001. where is the all lie? guest: the taliban, depending on who you talk to, were not necessarily interested in reducing the amount of opium in afghanistan as a muso much as ty were on price control. they did that with techniques that i think most americans would find barbaric, executions, the headings and the like. since that time we have seen the

taliban involved directly in drug trafficking. most put the amounts are revenue generated from heroin trade at over 100 billion per year. they're actively engaged in the drug trade as we speak today. -- they are very actively engaged in the drug trade as we speak today. host: i do not want to give away your secrets, but who talks to you and why, and i mean the day e.i.? gues-- i mean the dea? hosguest: in many cases we get people who are mercenaries and working for money, so they are trying to turn in competitors,

people from rival drug organizations. probably the greatest tool in our arsenal as the ability to plea-bargain in the united states. that is the people who are alleged to have committed crimes and looking at serious sentences in the federal penitentiary, and they, in return for a more lenient sentence will provide information on code- conspirators. >-- co-conspirators. host: what prepared you for this position? what is your background? guest: my undergraduate degree is in criminal science. for about three years i would do six months of my youniversity training and then six months with the dea. that was very good training.

since that time a number of training schools as a special agent and intel research specialist. caller: good morning. thank you for all your doing. what is the annual cost for the drug war, and how many people are involved? guest: the fund is just under $3 billion. the department of defense in total, if you add in everything that office of national drug control policy spends, we are some more on the magnitude of $4 billion per year. in addition to those appropriated funds that come from taxpayers, the dea seized

$3.5 billion. that money, after it goes through the judicial process, is reduced and recorweek it court authorization to spend that money. -- we get court authorization to spend that money. host: chris joining us from austin, tx on the republican line. caller: i wanted to expand on what online writer wrote in about the heroin trade in afghanistan. put some numbers there. the year before the taliban took control it was 2,400 tons that was exported from afghanistan, according to the u.s. drug report. the u.s. government had control

of the afghanistan government from january 1, 2002 until december 1, 2002, and according to the u.n. we sell the drug export of 3,600 tons. in 2008 we saw 10,400 tons exported from afghanistan. we also learned from"the new york times" that the largest drug exporter is on the fbi payroll lists. we know about the plane crash, the cia plan that crashed in the yucatan that was carrying 2 tons of pure, uncut cocaine. i am wondering what all of the intelligence, how come you're never able to catch a government plane in forginimportant these s

they crash? guest: first of all, i can tell you that i am personally unaware of u.s. agency involved in the smuggling or truckling of illicit drugs. and as a violation of law, and if we were to catch anybody involved in that, they would be severely punished. we would treat it like a criminal case it is. the upper in afghanistan, which is the thrust of your question, is a very difficult one. -- the issue in afghanistan, which is the thrust of your question, is a very difficult one. the dea's co efforts involved standing up the police as a brand new entity and putting police in parts of afghanistan that had never known policing before. there has been remarkable progress made in terms of the developing a police force that had a number of extraditions of

major afghan traffickers. there is a whole litany of folks better sitting in u.s. prisons as a result of the efforts that the dea has engaged in with the government of afghanistan. the governments have created a vertical prosecution task force, and with our help, are beginning to arrest, prosecute, and convict -- level traffickers and afghanistan themselves. this is by no means an end. we are making progress every day in that country. host: a follow-up to say that only when the c-span will read my tweak is they do not contain any reference to canada's. -- cannabis. my question to you is whether or not where marijuana it's an

overall drug trade? guest: there is a robust debate going on in this country today about where precisely we draw the line, which substances are controlled and which are not. i will tell you that the marijuana trade is the economic engine of a mexican drug trafficking, and there are thousands of people who have been murdered, who at suffered needlessly because of the violence that is associated with the marijuana trade its toll. -- itself. the argument that is typically advanced is that if we could legalize marijuana and took the profit out of it, when we make all the problems go away? the answer to that question is a resounding no. the people engaged in the trade will not just off the residence and go back into corporate life.

but they are career criminals. we will fight them whether it is over the marijuana trade or something else. host: 10 has this point. the product value would be destroyed overnight. the economy cannot afford a black market anyway. bob from sacramento. good morning. and callercaller: it is like yoe have learned nothing with alcohol prohibition and the last century. your agency should be eliminated. the reason for all of the expense is the billions of dollars to talk about is because it is illegal. it turns out opm is the best medicine that man has ever devised. -- it turns out the opopium is e

best medicine that man has ever devised. you are bunch of yahoo! law enforcement cowboys. you are constantly breaking down the wrong doors and shooting the wrong people. it is an incredibly expensive waste of money. host: what is the solution or alternative? what would you recommend? caller: they need to be decriminalized, and people can use them responsibly. it is not like everyone who uses them becomes an addict, and if you want to address an addiction, look at our petroleum addiction. we cannot afford your yahoo put people going all over the world. just eliminate the dea. guest: i appreciate the fact

that you have a very strong opinion on this. we are enforcing the laws that the nation has passed to the . we are regulated very heavily in terms of what we do. more importantly limited view real numbers. 38,000 americans die every year as a direct result of drug abuse. in addition to those people who died of drug abuse and addiction, tens of thousands more suffer from related crime and violence. by last estimates over 7 million americans are addictive. the consequences of this behavior are what cause congress to make these drugs illegal in the first place. to the extent that you believe that people should be able to self medicate without the intervention of doctors or

regulatory authorities, it really does represent mainstream thinking in america. host: our guest anthony placido has been with the dea since 1980. our next guest ask how informants are paid, cash or deals? guest: our sources of information are confidential sources. they have to pass the judicial test. the dea also has 1 foot in the intelligence community, and we work with other agencies to gather information, but when we gather information for a criminal case, there is a presumption every time we talk to a source that he or she is not being candid, forthcoming, or truthful. we work very diligently to systematically cooperate the information provided. the reason we do that is because the end of the day they will

take the stand before a judge, usually be cross-examined by a highly paid defense attorney karen and the credibility of the source is really left in the hands of 12 jurors. -- the reason we do that is because at the end of day they will take the stand before a judge, usually be cross-examined by a highly paid defense attorney. the credibility of the source is really left in the hands of 12 jurors. host: mike on the democrats' line. caller: just a quick comment. the question that chris-post to you and you were saying that is all about afghanistan. what is said to me is how corrupt and inept you people are. host: that is a pretty strong statement. you better back that up.

caller: if they cannot find the planes that crashed, and after it crashed and discovered it is loaded with one ever. what i'd like to state here is that i myself am a medical cannabis for work. -- grower. you want to stop the problems on the border, legalize cannabis. he will take care of every ill in this country if you are able to keeping people out of that, which will probably never happen. but we will start with eliminating a lot of this nonsense, with legalizing cannabis. you are a joke, dude.

host: we invite our guests and that is uncalled for. we encourage a debate. guest: mike talks about the medical marijuana business. there is a drug called mariner on the market. it is extracted by a pharmaceutical company. it is available by prescription and provide all of the benefits that smoked marijuana does. what you do not share is any of the medical professionals talking about smoking any kind of drug, let alone marijuana, as good medicine. my question back to mike is, if we could snap our fingers and make marijuana legal tomorrow, to you think the drug cartel will surrender and go home? which we contend with them and

some other form of criminal activity? -- will be content with them in some other form of criminal activity? the truth is we would spend more money dealing with the social ills of marijuana and other drugs in the u.s. taxpayer would bear the brunt. host: how do you share your intelligence with canada and other nations? guest: we developed very robust relationships with the law enforcement services and those country and create special teams that are vetted to the same degree we would get us into greek special dea agents. -- to the same degree we would especially dea agent. once they are a level where we think we can share sensitive information without it being compromise, they are put through a very rigorous training program so that we have the confidence that the information will share

will not go away and will be used productively to deal with crime threat. host: anthony placido. david joining us from manhattan, kansas. dave on the republican line. caller: thank you for c-span. i want to focus on afghanistan for a minute. what would be the big problem with letting the afghanistan's grow opium for the purposes of legal painkillers? it seems like we try to make them grow grapes and pomegranates and they do not make that much money. that is my question to you. guest: clearly the drug trade is more profitable than many other forms of activity, a legitimate activity. in bank robbery -- bank robbery

is more profitable than working at a 711 as well, and we do not allow bank robberies. only 4% of the opium's produced there are currently believed to enter the u.s. market for distribution. the problem is large sums of the profit potential from the money go, and not only do they feed terrorist organizations like the taliban and al qaeda, but they undermine governments. they are used to corrupt public officials. to undermine public confidence in the rule of law, and ultimately to destabilize the part of the world that has been harboring terrorist for many years. the illicit economy in the drug trade is really a cancer that has to be rooted out if afghanistan is going to stabilize and develop a system of governance that can take care of its own territorial borders and citizens. host: "wall street

journal" writing about president calderon. one area she is trying to focus on is pushing through judicial reform. in hopes their rampant bribery and intimidation will no longer prevent jailing of hardened drug cartel criminals. can you elaborate? guest: i think you have just very eloquently made the point i was trying to make, and that is the drug trade goes beyond addiction and drug abuse, and it is the fuel that creates instability all around the call. -- all around ago. there are more than 45,000 military troops in mexico that have been mobilized to stabilize the country.

the billions of dollars that are generated from the drug trade are going to corrupt public officials to purchase weapons and to undermine the government of our nearest neighbor. i am not suggesting that mexico is or anywhere near failing as a nation state, but should they fail, it becomes a springboard for all kinds of activities that are really in the medical to the united states government's interests. interests. it is very much in our interest to help president calderon and the men and women who are fighting back against anarchy. host: d and joining us on the republican line from tennessee. -- dan joining us on the republican line from tennessee. caller: most americans are not really paying too much attention of the mass murder going on down

there. i do not care how many times to try to said that all of the violence is being created by peoples drug abuse, it is not. it is being crated by the market that is created by drugs. i would rather have a situation where we have to deal with the problem with drug addiction whether than dealing with the situation where we're putting people in jail and tried to find solutions by giving military police forces trained and ready to go. to go. i think the damage is relief from government policy. if i was a ceo and have a resonancume and when to apply fa job, do you think i would get a job? how can you say that we should still have faceith in this

mechanism that absolutely does not work? guest: i have heard it said that the first controlled substance violation has been in the garden of eden. americans are still obtaining and of using illicit drugs. i think there is another perspective, and that perspective is we have helped turn around areas of the world's. let me give you one example. in colombia and the 1980's you had the cartel very active. the killed supreme court justices. it blew an airliner out of the sky. they murdered supreme court justices. blew up the equivalent of fbi headquarters. flash forward after this, and

the government of colombia has regained control. many of the cartel no longer exists. the government has exhibited control over the vast majority of the territory. it is not just about drugs and drug control, it is about regional stability and a country that was in the throes of a violent drug criminals that has regains sovereignty and retaken possession of its territory and is in control. to be sure, columbia is still a country that produces vast quantities of drugs that are destined for the u.s. and other markets, but that is a law- enforcement problem now, not the national security threat that was. i hate to say it, but i think if we did go away, it would not be very long at all four people were begging us to come back. host: ron on the democrats' line.

-- wuan on the democrats' line. caller: my question is to be anthony. i think we should legalize marijuana. the dea has worked a lot with the mexican government, but has failed. the mexican government is corrupt, and is working with the drug cartel to get the drugs to the united states. what is the dea doing pour the good of mexican politicians? 3000 policemen were fired because of corruption. i think we should be a country like the netherlands were they legalize drugs. they're very nice country and not have the same types of issues. that is my question. guest: first of all, the dea

does not pass laws. we're not in the business of determining which controlled substance can be dispensed. that is done by the legislature and signed into law the president of the united states. it is our job to enforce those laws. with regards to mexico, and we're working very hard with calls arounthe calderon adminis. and number of major drug kingpins have been arrested or killed in the process of trying to be arrested and that country, and they are making a real difference. it is a brutal, bloody business down there, but they are trying to do what columbia effectively did, and that is regain territorial control of the nation. i think we're making progress.

it will take time. the problems did not develop in mexico overnight, and will not be solved overnight. with patience and time, mexico will get there. host: let me turn this into some numbers. the estimated counter narcotics fund into mexico from just over 12 million to nearly $35 million for the current fiscal year. the larger area of central america, an increase of 16.8 million. guest: 5 it is about $1.3 billion spread over three years. it is really a strategy that is designed around four pillars. to break the power of the cartel and corrupting influence, and to build up the quality and capabilities of the mexican

government institutions so they can eventually deal with this problem themselves. to maintain a 20% reporters that facilitates the free flow of commerce that keeps out that people and that things from the united states, and finally, to help develop a cultural wholeness -- lawfullness where there is respect for rule of law. the united states government is engaged in each and every one of them, but we are in a supporting role. we cannot want it more than the mexican government wants it. but calderon -- the calderon , administration has been extremely courageous and is making progress. host: anthony placido is our guest. our guest is from alaska. where is it in the state?

caller: 160 miles south of anchorage. host: caller: thank you for phoning in very early -- host: thank you for phoning in very early. caller: my question is why did they not eradicate poppy fields and afghanistan when we first went in after 9/11? why wasn't this made a priority for the reason to previously listed? guest: thank you. i am glad to hear your from the keen eye peninsula. i have visited, and it is beautiful. in the early days of operation enduring freedom the military was very engaged time to hunt down and remains engaged in

trench to hunt down terrorists, including osama bin laden and other terrorist sympathizers. the dea is not responsible for the eradication program. that is done by the u.s. department of state, so that is not one of the things we do. in terms of the seizure of drugs, i do not have the exact numbers with me, but the opium and the refined heroin, the seizures are through the roof. i will share a little story. it used to be bragging rights in dea for large seizure if you did not require a truck to bring all with the proceeds of the crime, it was not a very big seizure. in afghanistan today that have had seizures that are so large we have to call in aircraft to have air strikes to destroy them. there was one seizure that was 2000 metric tons in one place.

seizures of heroin we have seen as much as five metric tons in one location. there-the number of very big seizures made. there is much more work to do. and your point, capturing the drug lords, eradicate that poppies are all part of the puzzle. the parts we are responsible for we're making very good headway. host: one viewer writes, after all the money invested and hard work by the dea for years, is a problem just getting worse? do we need more money? guest: they have been very generous with us, and within the budget that is given to us we work very hard to make sure that the taxpayer dollars are used as effectively as possible to get

results. what i have not heard on the show today is the terrible costs that drug abuse has in our country, people who of loved ones, children, parents addictive to powerful drugs and the cost. we do not see it directly, but it is certainly our belief that we end up reducing their roles of people engaged in that kind of activity by the work we do. we have clearly seen in the cocaine trade that for 32 months we have had increased price and decrease purity in cocaine s availability in the united states. our efforts are paying dividends. what is coming year is more expensive and less available to school children. school children.