host: if you don't want to pick up the phone but want to weigh in, two the new patdowns

have prompted a growing bash lash who say touches goes too far. it is more than just patting you down. it is very intrusive and insane. i wouldn't let anyone touch my daughter like that said one person who is planning to accompany his daughter to washington in april. we are not common criminals. the latest escalation of the debate over the bounds of

security and passenger rights and the list of consumer rights activists ralph nader who called screening techniques extremely voyeuristic and intrusive. that is some of the language from the "washington post." reuters picks up the story looking at the pilot aspect. this says with the busiest holiday season nearing flyers facing the checks geurne in recent weeks as a result some travelers question whether to fly at all. the t.s.a. has ramped up security after two plots by al qaeda in the arabian peninsula. a nigerian hid a bomb in his underwear last christmas. your thoughts on the security procedure in airports known as

patdowns. we want to get your thought if it is too intrusive especially if you have been in the airport the last couple of weeks to see about your experience. the numbers are on the screen. host: let's start in massachusetts. sandwich, massachusetts, on our independent line. paul, what do you think about the increaseded procedure the last couple of weeks? caller: good morning. thank you for c-span. great show. as far as patting down the pi t pilot, i mean what are these people at the t.s.a. thinking? he is the guy that can dive the plane into the ground if he wants to. he can crash it, turn it up side

down. he can do anything he wants with it. so, you know, why would he want to carry a bomb. if he had the mindset to destroy the plane and everybody he doesn't need to bring a bomb on board. you have to trust him. host: what about passengers? caller: well, the passengers, that something different. i'm not sure what you can do about that. host: would you rather see the employment of technology like full screen body scanners instead of a patdown method? caller: yes, i understand that the body screens are being used and some people are choosing not to have their naked bodies shown to other people. i guess if you choose not to go through the body scan you have to submit to a patdown. that is the current rule. that is my understanding. personally, i would go through

the screening machine. i guess there's an x-ray issue that some people are concerned about. personally, i would allow myself to be screened through the x-ray machine and then they wouldn't have to pat me down. host: regardless of how it done, do you think it would, for you, affect travel if you planned travel, would you change your plans because of this? caller: i personally find going through the airports to be kind of a pain in the neck. there have been times when i contemplated i wanted to go down to washington, d.c. and the trip was canceled, but i contemplated taking the amtrak just to not go through the airports. host: duchess county, new york, ted on the democrats line. caller: anybody want to pat me down or look at my x-ray should take double. they have a job to do. we can't be so uptight about these things. you have to have airport

security and i think you need to screen the pilots as well because not to give you my ideas on that but i think that the pilots need to be screened. america is losing their mind when it comes to common sense. i have to say that the republicans are not applying common sepnse. and sometimes i will admit democrats as well. we just need practical solutions to problems. it doesn't take much common sense to know that multimillionaires don't need a tax break. they spend money on $10,000 and $20,000 a week on ski trips, european vacations. host: we will talk about that later but one more question. what about concerns about privacy then? caller: like i say, if you want to look at my x-ray, people can't be so up tight but i will say this, finally, you can't -- middle class poor people

shouldn't be worried about the tax cuts for the reach -- rich. host: we have to leave it there because i want to keep to the conversation at hand. we will talk about that later on. punta gorda, florida, republican line, john. caller: good morning. i can't believe people are supporting this. basically what this is trying to get used to being treated like this all the time. if you read benjamin franklin he said those willing to give up liberty for security deserve neither. host: so it shouldn't be done. and if that is the case, in your opinion, how does security get maintained with airline flight? caller: maybe we should look at the israeli model. they haven't had problems. it has been successful. host: what about the israeli

model? caller: they use different techniques. i don't think they are as invasive. they question people. they are trained to look at facial expressions. maybe we need to do some profiling. but patting down and groping young children, i think the t.s.a. people -- who knows what kind of people they hire? they could be pedophiles. calle host: cincinnati, ohio, democrat line. caller: good morning. i think it is not intrusive. if you don't want to fly, then that is your problem. but as soon as we let our guard down i guarantee you something will happen because especially not with c-span but when our media gets a hold of things like this, it seems to spread everywhere. and it is not too invasive.

if they don't want to be patted down, i can't see what the problem is, really. just like the pilot, he quit his job, i believe, because he didn't want to be screened or something like that? well, if he feels like that, then he evidently doesn't want a job. host: you would subject yourself to it? caller: yes, i would. i would let them pat me down. or i would go through the screen. i don't care. host: staten island, new york, talking about airport patdowns and if they are too intrusive. mark on the independent line. caller: good morning. i think it is very, very much so because i had the opportunity to travel in july for europe and the last six years i didn't go

anywhere because i have a pacemaker. i'm 66 years old and i got to the airport. i had to go through and i have the pace maker and they patted me all over and that is a disgrace for something as normal as that and i'm never going to travel again. i was going to see my grandkids and i had to pull them aside and i had them groping and i didn't know what is going on. i don't think that normal for the american people to think it is ok. it is not ok. and they can look at the records when they travel. just check the passports. that is what they can do. host: we will leave it there. this is out of myanmar. the military government there has freed at arch rival aung

after her latest term expired. the smiling lady was wearing a traditional jacket and flower in her hair. her people cheered and she thanked the well-wishers who swelled to as many as 5,000 and said they would see each other again sunday. the white house weighing in on the story. this is the statement from the president who says while the burmese regime has gone extraordinary lengths she has continued her fight for peace and change in burma. she is a hero and source of inspiration for all those that try to advance human rates. canton, ohio, republican line. mark. caller: i had a good friend who

went to florida and went through the full body scanner two times. he went home the very next day. he couldn't urinate. he had to go to the emergency room. they had to put varying tubes in him and he screamed in agony. that didn't work and they had to take two inches of his you're wreath ra with him fully conscious. you might ask what does it are to do with it? 20 to 50 times the amount of radiation of a chest x-ray which is what these have. i don't even like to get radiation at a dentist, you know, the x-rays. as far as the patdowns go, i think they are just intrusive and i wouldn't go through them. i would be the one in line screaming to tell everybody else not to do it. the main thing is this radiation they are subjecting people to, the t.s.a. workers are coming down with cancer.

the people that worked on the technology are coming down with cancer. for anybody who doesn't want to get their soft tissues attacked by the radiation machines please don't go through them. host: so if you are resistant of both the radiation and patdown what would you do as far as flying? stpwhrao they are talking about full body cavity searchs to intimidate people into getting into the radiation line or the scanner lines, which they do tore those images -- store those images and put them in a data base of your naked body. caller: hi. i thoht i was just on. host: my mistake. we go next to delray beach, florida, rachel on the democratic line. caller: thank you for having me on. i'm watching ever since bush was

selected and i want to talk about the x-ray. host: go ahead. you are own. caller: i want to back up what the last man said. this is not the first time that i have heard that the x-ray machines give off far too much, like 10 times as much radiation as what we are used to. and we store that. you don't ever get rid of it. even the radiation you have as a child you still have in your body. no, i'm not going to allow that. i'm going on a trip next week and i would much rather have a patdown. i understand that they have to take a look. that is ok. but i'm not going to get radiation. i don't let the dentist do it without putting something over my chest. host: t.s.a. has on their blog written about the patdown procedure in response to the

attention this has gotten. t tsa.gov. they say patdowns are conducted by same gender officers. all passengers have the right to request private screening at any point and it says anyone has the right to have a traveling companion present during screening in the private screening area. that is all from tsa.gov. we want to get your thoughts this morning on it if it is too intrusive. if you want to weigh in for the remainder of our time, about 25 minutes. harrisbu hagerstown, maryland, steve on the independent line. caller: i just want to say that as a father and husband i agree that i believe these full body

scans are dangerous as far as the amount of radiation they are putting out and they are subjecti subjecting people to. my family plans to travel this holiday season and i have two small children and i don't want them exposed to that. but at the same time the patdowns are overly intrusive. we tell our children even a doctor asks permission to touch you if you are not feeling well and these people even if they are sell sex pedophiles can be of the same sex and many times are and i don't want my children being tohed that way. the t.s.a. and government is playing into the hands of the terrorists. they want us to change our lifestyle and become afraid of every move. what will happen if somebody decides to sneak a ball on to an aircraft -- a bomb to an aircraft in a body orifice. what goe too far? i think they have gone too far already.

host: anthony napoli says patdowns another revision of security mystery theatre. woodstock, illinois, you are next. tim on the democratic line. caller: this goes back to the public transportation in general. if you look at public transportation and what you have is the trains, you have buses and you have aircraft. if the news media would stop sensationalizing the problems we have with the public transport system, i think we could just eliminate all security within the aircraft, you know, the airplane part of it. because the moment you sensationalize it you are having the marginal fringe groups of not just islam but you can have like northern ireland with the i.r.a., they would have done it 20 years ago.

you are just giving ideas to peop people. and we carry far more people on the subway and ground systems, trains, buses, than we do in airs. and we don't have any system for that for the patdowns, the metal detectors and everything else. i think we waste a lot of money that we can spend other places, maybe feeding people throughout the world. your thoughts? host: we will keep your call there and let the other callers weigh in. there is a photo this morning of north carolina's banking commissioner. he is james smith jr. the reason there is a photo is there is an accompanying story saying he is most likely the nominee for the overseer of fannie mae and freddie mac. this is a story written in "new york times" this morning.

the nominee joseph smith jr. who is north carolina's commissioner for banking would take charge of the federal housing finance agency as the administration and congress prepare to determine the fate of fanny and freddie and overhaul the government raul for housing finance. later on it says more details. he was appointed as the north carolina banking commissioner in 2002. it entails oversight of state chartered banks and other lending companies. north carolina in 1999 became the first state to impose restrictions on mortgage lending at high interest rates. they aggressively pursued enforcement clashing with federal regulators who prevented the state from investigating lenders owned by national banks. now back to patdowns. kirk on the independent line from tulsa, oklahoma. caller: good morning. i have a little problem. i used to work at a airport and i used to go through the x-ray

as a worker every day. it would be amazing to see what passengers really take on your plane if you work at the airp t airport. i traveled on the airplane where everybody gets the same treatment and one guy slips through the cracks and the plane goes down. i do agree that some of the machines they are making now, it is high with radiation, probably you can look into that and cut it down. but i have no problem with patdown and working at an airport you have the vast experience to see what passengers are really taking on airplanes with drugs, even grandma sometimes takes a lot of stuff that you are not supposed to take on the airplane, like drugs. so, you never know.

these bunch of criminals are getting ideas and they are creative. so, we don't -- host: when you observe these things you never observed anybody going too far as far as the examination is concerned? caller: no, because it is surprising to know that so many places where you could hide stuff on your body, and as i said, i have seen it, i worked in the airport and i have seen so many people get caught by patting down with knives, even your private parts. ladies taking stuff, illegal drugs in their private parts. host: frederick, maryland, jim on the republican line. caller: organic. i think it is -- good morning. i think it is important to remember that all of our freedoms per se that we surrender that is the more we

acquiesce to those that threaten us. this is a tough rope to walk. how much do we let people pat us down or use these imaging devices? i don't know. i tend to view the events of the last 10 years somewhat conservatively in that i believe we are certainly not as -- we don't use our intelligence as well as we should and a lot of that ifor the fear that we are creating some sort of nazi state that just makes unjust prejudices against certain people. but what do we do in turn? we develop this system where everyone loses their agency.

host: lionel, maryland, larry, democrats line. caller: good morning, c-span. i believe it is un tphnecessary. i believe that terrorism is nothing more than the lifestyle of the rich and sameless. some live with the name and some live nameless. i believe terrorism is government sponsored. i cannot see a man named bin laden walking up and down mountains with white clothes on, his own electricity, everybody else needs special gear to get up and down mountains but not bin laden. host: i understand the point but airport patdowns. let's go there. >> well, if you really want to use common sense and this will take forever and a day, it doesn't matter if you get patted down. people could come in with a bomb in their suitcase and set it off

before they get on the plane. there is no security going into the airport. it doesn't make any sense. if someone wants to set off a bomb they don't have to get on a plane to do it. they can do it when they get into the airport. so, it doesn't add up to me. host: we will take a quick break to talk about our news makers program in you will hear from representative greg walden from oregon and the transition for the g.o.p. majority transition team. he serves as the chairman of that body. the interview he had with reporters is one of the issues that will come up, cutting staff at the capitol as a way to tighten the budget. >> let me give you an example. the person who chaired it in 1994 i wanted to learn what would you do, what shouldn't we do. i did the same thing with the democrat from massachusettses who chaired their transition in

2006. what did you do that worked, what would you recommend. one thing, they sent pink slips to every single person on the hill. he said he got a call from the librarian of congress saying gosh, i got your pink slip but i'm actually appointed by the president so you don't actually have the authority to fire me. so we need to be thoughtful about it and realize our limitations. but they also sat down with i think it was the door keeper at the time and said what do you all day? because we don't know. we haven't been in the majority. never could get a straight answer. eliminated the position and nobody noticed. host: he is the chairman of the transition team. he will be you're guest with a lot of topics taking place during that interview. that tomorrow 10:00 in the morning, 6:00 in the evening on c-span. here is bill from glendale, california, weighing in on the

tong -- topic of patdowns. this e-mail. principle upheld by the courts. white house made it clear president obama will ultimately

make the decision and a federal prosecution of mohammed and four alleged co-conspirators has not been ruled out. peru, indiana, leon, republican line. caller: good morning, c-span. a recent episode of dr. oz he stated that your thyroid, i guess in your throat, he said that it also stores radiation and you should not -- you should have a cover on it in you go to the dentist's office. i think they should adapt that to the patdowns, which i'm in support of. but they need to adapt that to all x-rays that you get that you have a cover for your throat. host: if a friend of yours is going to the airport and he was concerned about patdowns and you support it, what would you tell

him? caller: well, it is up to him. host: you said you support it so how would you defend your statement to your friend? caller: well, just his personal liberty. i would go through it. i'm 62. i'm not going to live forever. but if i have my grandchildren or my daughters, i would advise them to go knew the patdown. but somebody that is my age or older, you know, they can look at my image of my body, not the actual body itself. i think some people may get that misinterpreted. i think that they see an image of you. i think that is ok. i have to have a metal hip, so that would set off alarm bells. i may have to go through the

patdown anyway. host: front page of the "wall street journal" the chinese plan to buy a stake in general motors. the u.s. auto maker is prepared to sell more than $1 billion of shares to sovereign wealth funds in the middle east and asia giving foreign investment roughly 16% to be sold next week under an i.p.o. giving them a stake of 4%. g.m. declined to comment. columbia, maryland, good morning. independent line. caller: good morning, pedro. i travel a lot for my job and i don't mind the patdowns. what i get upset about is the -- why are we so far behind? i travel a lot out of b.w.i. where my home base is and they have probably $100,000 or $200,000 machines barely being used and you almost have to

request it and even if you do request it, it doesn't save any time. it is like they have a bunch of people doing patdowns and they are simple. people are complaining about it and it is overstating the issue. my problem is it backs up the line so let people use the $100,000 machines doing nothing with 30 employees standing around that work for t.s.a. these people, maybe they are just there to make sure they have a job, but it is irritating when you have a plane to catch and you have so much time and you are backed up in a line. host: how much extra time do you spend in line because of security measure do you this -- think? caller: i go through the laptop act to save time and they make you take it out of the bag. i said what is the purpose of buying a g.s.a. approved bag or if you have this x-ray machine right here why do are you to take off my shoes? you spend at least an extra two

or three minutes in a line and if that line is backed up where it is on a saturday morning or friday night you spend 20 minutes. and that is 20 minutes per person extra. host: bakersfield, california, steve, republican line. caller: good morning. i think we have a solution that would eliminate racial profiling and t.s.a. employees. instead of x-ray chamber a sealed chamber. people go in with the luggage and it detonates any explosives they have. you eliminate racial profiling and terrorist trials and you have to hose out the machine but you get the family in there at the same time and speeds things up. stkp host: gainesville, texas, kevin, democrat line. caller: the previous caller mentioned going into a sealed chamber. i don't think setting off an explosive is the right idea.

there may be technology where detection of vapors given off by certain explosives would be one way. i think we have gone a little too far in this country trying to be politically correct. we have done a type of profiling in other actions. in some cities police officers are more likely to stop people that they determine or suspect of being a gang medical based on -- gang member based on gang clothing that may mark them as a gang member. so we do have some of that. host: so, as far as the patdowns are concerned, drive your thoughts to that. what is the relation?

caller: i think that they are probably useful and i don't think it really slows us down that much. and people are just a little bit too sensitive, to prudish. i don't think it is as quick as other methods that we should come up with. there are certain people that travel a lot and maybe we should have an expedited method to move those passengers through. host: we will leave it there. the last caller that brought up about his travel experiences, one of the stories from the g-20 was about bank rules. this is from "new york times" this morning out of frankfurt. meeting in seoul, south korea, the leaders endorsed the so-called basel 3 regulations.

that would raise the amount of risk-free capital banks must hold to 7% of assets from as little as 2% knew. the leaders reaffirmed their commitment to strengthening the financial regulatory system as part of their broad goal of strong and sustainable growth. the g-20 said talking about the president's trip to asia particularly that of g-20 as well. ashland, kentucky, is next. republan lien. bob. caller: good morning. from earlier we know the underwear bomber trained against the full body scanner in yemen and it doesn't detect the petn or other gels.

so, the patdown is a pwbetter technique. host: is it more about comfort level of the person involved to undergo the patdown? stpwhrao when this started in 2001 any time you traveled from europe or came back you were patted down. so it is not that it has changed any. however, the most effective security force in the world is still the israelis, which have about a five-layered approach that starts in the parking lot. and some people would call it profiling, but the truth is they have not had an incident since the 1970's. host: san francisco, california, next, katrina, independent line. caller: hi. good morning. host: good morning. caller: i don't understand what the problem is. when i travel domestically or

internationally i want to be safe, end of story. host: so, that means what? caller: well, that means i'm going to go into the airport and pay for my ticket to go on the airline and that airline is going to be responsible for my safety. i have no problem at all. i have been patted down. i don't have a problem with that. i don't have a problem with people seeing my private area. i want to know when i get in the air with a bunch of strangers that i don't know that they are like me and they are safe and nobody is going to try anything funny and i can get from point a to point b. i think that is the argument. do we want to be saeuf or do we want -- do we want to be safe or take chances? host: "the boston globe" banks hike fees put squeeze on consumers. banks across the country are eliminating free checking and raising fees on other basic services such as a.t.m. transactions and copies of

canceled checks. increases they say are needed to offset the cost of complying with new regulations and maintaining profits but are sure to rile customers. citizens bank, harbor one and webster each plan to add fees for customers to fail to meet minimum balance requirements. bank of america said it will charm customers $3 per month to receive statements with images of canceled checks and a dollar more for a printed statement from an a.t.m. overall the availability of free checking accounts falls by roughly 1/7 the last year. some numbers attached to this story this morning. it is $30.47 the average overdraft fee. that is up from -- up 3% according to the "boston globe." $249.50 the average minimum balance that non-interest-bearing and $3,883

is the average minimum balance of interest-bearing up 15%. those statements and figures provided by bankrate.com. rosedale, maryland, larry, republican line. caller: hello. i would like to talk about government incompetence. everybody knows ultrasound is sa safe. x-rays are on the way out. why the government would invest into x-ray machines -- we all need security, that is a given. but why they would invest in x-ray machines which they know especially for the frequent travelers could possibly cause harm to them and they have safe alternatives of screening people like ultrasound. ultrasound is a new type of industry if you know what i mean and probably have a lot of

yuppies that don't know they are supposed to pay somebody off or how to go through the political channels to get their technology approved and maybe put into a test scenario. it is just typical government incomprehensive like the post office, railroads, that they invest in x-rays. i believe in security. i believe we should all feel safe whether we are on a train or a plane. i believe in that because the world dictates that. host: out of russia, president medvedev on friday appeared to confirm a report a russian news that said the united states had arrest arrested a ring of russian sleep are spice in june based on information from a senior russian official who later defected. the newspaper reported thursday that the official work in the foreign intelligence service of russia and asked about the article at the group of 20 meeting medvedev didn't dispute

it saying it was not news to him. he declined to say how the government would respond but said an inquiry was under way and relevant lessons would be learned. cherry hill, new jersey. roland, independent line. caller: good morning. i would like to offer an opinion on airport security in general. you can't train anybody to be a security guard from nothing. it is something that the local police have been doing on the street for a long time to get a certain feel for. you can't get that in a six-week course on training. so the best people, in my opini opinion, to actually offer security at airports in general would be seasoned police

officers, most likely at the local level. they just know what to look for so you could really narrow it down at that point. it is nothing that you learn in a book or a course. it is straight up experience. that is my opinion. thank you very much. host: detroit, michigan, louise, democrats line. caller: hello. host: hi. go ahead. caller: hi. i would like to tphknow, make i simple, across the board, just have everybody don't have any clothes on at all and it will go faster and finished getting dressed. our liberties as americans have already been canceled and we don't have any more praoeufts. the -- privacy. the only one that gets any protection whatsoever would be the president and he runs all over the place. so, what is the difference if we

have to be scanned and our whole body needs to be scanned, just go make it and worry about all the sex offenders and nonsense and maybe we can finish the trip. host: the largest case against the healthcare laws in florida according to the "washington post" a story about the deadline approaching as far as backers and critics that can add their voice it that saying a dispute over the laws on the floor in a court house withle politicians, scholars and advocacy groups seeking to have say in the law. friday was the deadline for proponents and critics to ask the judge for briefs in the largest of lawsuits lodged. in the hours before the court deadline, mitch mcconnell, john boehner and that represent the next house speaker filed motions

asking to weigh in on the. so did a group of nearly three dozen economic scholars and oracled by a health policy advisor to president obama in 2008. it goes on but can you read more of that. two more calls on this topic of airport patdowns. midd middletown, delaware, republican line. caller: good morning out there. the i want to talk a little about the scanners. and the actual patdowns themselves. the scanners i'm really nervous about them because they are naked body scanners and we were told that they couldn't take our pictures and save them but it came out in florida that not only were they saving them, there were hundreds of pictures saved of people and with their names and information and we now how that -- we know how that goes. we are not sure of the radiation, what they put out. and the weirdest thing is they

were already ordered when we got the big push for these was the christmas day bombing. they had been ordered a year later and they were about to be shipped and all of a sudden we have a guy getting on a plane in amsterdam, tries to blow himself up or i forget exactly what happened. he was helped on by a sharp dressed man and didn't have a passport and that is pretty much a fact. anybody can really do the research and find that out, which ushered the event in. more police state. more looking at us. getting on a plane i would not fly to lauderdale any more because i see the t.s.a. agents, they are above the police now. it is one more federal agency that is above the hrlaw. if you look out on the internet, there is the homeland security just put out the new patdown procedure video. you can get it on youtube. look what they can do to you. they can basically molest you at the airport. and this some punk at the t.s.a.

who was hired who doesn't have -- what gives them the right to do that? it is just more backlash. people will stop coming to america and stop traveling. host: one more call, dallas, texas, jason on the india line. -- independent line. caller: yes. i just don't understand how people are thinking this is too intrusive and civil liberties are being tramped on. the point is to be protected and safe. if somebody wants to get on the airplane with something in their body cavity and the plane explodes people will be upset saying security is not met. so we have to do what we have to do to be safe. host: we will leave it there. we will change topics and talk about the next congress. particularly how progressives are looking at the congress with the influence of candidates that were backed by the tea party.

we will have a guest to have this discussion. we will take that up in just a few minutes. oral history and commemorations through the years all searchable and free on your computer any time. >> in an ideal world the fact that there were people shorting the mortgage market would have

sent analysis that everybody is saying wow, they are these smart investors who think thing is going to crash and burn. but the market was a pig enough that you couldn't see it but you can see it in the stock market. because of the way the instruments work you were not betting on real mortgages but inventing on the casino version of a mortgage. >> in 2003 bethany wrote about enron. this week she talks about the current financing crisis and the future in the american economy in all the devils are here sunday night 8:00 eastern on a q&a. >> book tv this weekend. in one of the first live tv appearances since the publication. george w. bush on his memoir, decision points as he discusses the critical decisions of his administration and his perform life. that live from miami-dade college sunday at 4:00 p.m. eastern on c-span 2.

host: for those who may not know what is alter net t is a website founded abo founded about 14 years ago by my executive editor and co-edor on my recent book. it about the tea party movement. we cover all kinds of things, everything from what is going on in terms of popular culture and mitts. we are an aggregator of something that began as a syndicator of progressive news media material to go out to progressive media. we are now doing it the other way where we are assimilating what we call the best of the progressive web but we have a full staff of editors and

writers who produce original material. host: since you write about the tea party we will focus on that. what do you think their role will be in the 112th congress if what will their role be to them and those like yourself how do you see them influencing the work of congress? guest: it is very interesting when you look at how people who are used to covering congress see the tea party movement and say they are going to be a problem for the republicans because the republicans won't be able to legislate at all with t without, you know, raising the hack ma -- hackles of the tee party crowd but if you look at what is going on inside the republican party that is what their aim is, is to put on notice the republic establishme establishment, to let them know that if they don't go the way the tea party wants them to, that they will face primary

challenges in their upcoming races. the establishment candidates will. so, even though they may not have the numbers of the majority of the republican caucus, they have enormous power. host: so, in the issues that this congress will take on, specifically in the 112th, what is the most concerning as far as the tea party's influence on how republicans will work? guest: there is great push to repeal the healthcare reform bill. of course they won't be able to do that. i sat in a workshop done by the americans for prosperity foundation not long ago and they are a group that organizes tea party folks on the ground. and the president of the group basically said what we really want is obama to have to veto a repeal bill at least three times, you know. so, they will put it as the poison pill on things and try to make him veto it and use it as a

campaign issue in 2012. so that is a big one. earmarks is a huge one. freedom works is another group that organizes tea party folks. they put out an e-mail just yesterday saying that earmarks is the number one thing, that more of congressmen or congresswomen earmarking things in their state. it works both ways but it is hard to see how projects actually wind up getting funded in some ways without the earmarking process. so, it is a complicated issue. host: as far as the house being what it is, the house is still in democratic hands much guest: nominally. host: what happens within the body of the senate especially with the tea party and other republics try to put forth an

agenda and it meets the senate controlled by democrats. guest: what is so interesting about the senate, pedro, even though the margin of wins was not for the republicans, was not what they got in the house side, actually i think the tea party caucus will have even more control in the senate even with democratic leadership than it will in the house. that is because the arcane rules of the senate allow a very small number of people to control what makes it to the floor. mitch mcconnell, the senate minority leader, is very much on notice by jim demint, who is sort of the de facto head of the tea party caucus within the senate, that if he transgresses that tea party crowd his establishment decades, the g.o.p. candidates he backs in any forthcoming races, will be

challenged in primaries. host: adele tan is our guest until -- stan is our guest until 8:30. if you want to ask her questions about the congress now is the chance to do so. 202-737-0 202-737-00012 for democrats guest: i would say she was probably the most effective speaker on legislation that we have had in recent memory. what is said about pelosi, and i agree, she plays a great inside game. she wins every vote she brings up pretty much because she knows how to count votes.

she doesn't bring votes up until she has the votes. she is a great person at assembling the deal. she doesn't have the most charming public personality and that has been used to great effect by other opponents. i think personally it could be a good thing she stays in the role that she has. because this is going to be an incredibly oppositional house and you need a really tough fighter and she's prove she has the tough. host: when she says that we didn't lose because of me, is that true to you? guest: i think that is true. i think that democrats lost the house because they did not tend to their base, because the president did not appear to be

standing on the same message that he campaigned on, which meant that he did not turn out the same numbers of folks who expected much broader change than they got. now whether it was realistic given the circumstances of the first two years, but i think this white house has suffered big problems in its messaging and framing of issues and its belief in conciliatory rhetoric when you have an opposition that is just determined to stop you regardless of the merits of what you are putting forward. host: as far as leadership is concerned there are reports saying if all shakes out the way it does if pelosi is the minority leader steny hoyer is the whip and jim clyburn a third position what do you think about this, i guess, not battle but this discussion that has been going on the last few days about leadership and how the new

democratic leadership will shake out in the house in guest: from a political point of view i think it is very smart because the democrats have a very broad and complex coalit n coalition. to keep clyburn in the leadership, he wasn't going to be able to compete for the post that it likes likes -- it looks like hoyer will have. it is critical to holding that coalition together. clyburn is much more progressive than hoyer so you get the progressives. he is also an african-american. it is very important, i think, at this point in what is going on culturally in our country to have an african-american in leadership in the democratic caucus in the house. so i think politically it is quite smart. it is going to be interesting to see what it does for precedence going forward as power changes

hands as it inevitably will, will the republicans maintain that model. host: if speaker pelosi is the phaoerpbt leader what is the -- minority leader what is the most effective thing she can do? guest: put forward legislation that is progressive in nature -- i'm a progressive so that is what i would like to see. but i also think that will be rejected. but that is clearly designed and articulated to help people who are struggling in this economy. host: first call for you sun prairie, wisconsin on the democratic line. scott is on. caller: good morning, everyone. yes, your guest i'm not sure which republican party she is being funded party but the tea party is just strictly nothing more than the right wing pushing even farther to the right, being

supported by the koch brothers, you have karl rove and the only mission is stop this president, stall everything he does and win 2012. it is just about power. they don't care about the american people or jobs. these tea partiers are crazy. even rand paul in kentucky already said he is going to take earmarks for the state of kentucky. so the tea party is crazy. i don't know what these people are thinking and that is all i have to say. thanks for taking my call. guest: i have tkodone ex-sensie reporting on the influence of the koch brothers and the tea party movement and charles and taeufrd koch are the -- david koch are the executives of koch industries which is the largest or second largest privately held

company in the united states depending on the source you cite and they have furnished a number of right leaning institutions including americans for process part and americans for prosperity foundation, which has done a great deal to organize tea party folks on the ground and to gin up opposition to the healthcare reform bill and energy reform.

we don't all get our news from a common source. not everybody is watching c-span. so people are working off what i would call a post-fact environment and they're operating with that information, whether it's that information or not. >> even with the majority of sources now available through the internet as we've seen as an influence? >> yes. because we're also selecting. and we choose media outlets that suit our biases. and i think a defining element of the tea party movement is more cultural than anything else. and if you see your culture reflected in a particular news media outlet, say fox news,

that's where you're going to go. >> portland, oregon. you are next. allen, republican line. good morning. caller: good morning. guest: good morning. host: you're on with our guest, sir. go ahead. kiveragetsdz yes. my question was she was talking about how the tea party affected the g.o.p. as the republicans. but my question is about how the tea party is impacting the democrats and the progressives. up until, say, 2012 election. what kind of influence will the tea party have over them? it appears that in this election that the tea party was responsible for some of the 60 plus seats that were lost in congress. guest: that's a great question, caller. that really is. and i think what you're going to see is that, first of all, one of the things that progressives, the small light

that progressives have that they see at the end of this tunnel is that in this current election, what that has yielded is a more progressive democratic caucus. so what the be pact of the tea party movement on progressives is that i think you're going to hear much more bold and boistrous progressive movement. the progressive movement has been put on notice. and one of the shortcomings of liberals and progressives, i think, as a movement is we tend to think when we've won something, we've won it. and the right does not operate that way. the right never concedes defeat. and it also is always playing a very long game. and so i think that a big lesson that was taken or that should be taken from what happened in the house is that

you can't just -- once you elect somebody whom you think elbodies your values, you can't sort of cede your power to that person, whether it's the president of the united states, the speaker of the house, you have to keep pushing. so i think that you will see a more bold and boistrous progressive presence in american politics. >> host: starting from the president? guest: no. not immediately. now, with any luck, progressives can bring him their way. but i think it is in the nature of barack obama and i think it's really his fundamental nature as a human being to consillyate. i think he wants to -- he does believe his own rhetoric about consensus and moving forward and all of that. and i don't think that's possible with the congress he has. host: so is that ability a liability then? for him, politically.

guest: i think in the context of the current environment he really needs to. and i would say, if you've got a congress that is bent on obstruction, in both chambers, then what is there to lose? in speaking to your really innate desires as they were expressed on the campaign trail, which was a very progressive message, a very liberal message. and the people just want help in this economy. and they want to believe that thing ks improve for them and they want to believe that jobs will be created. so make the proposal that you believe would create jobs. if the republicans shoot them down, let them be the ones who are against the american people. host: so let's look more short term. what should the president say about the discussion that's going to take place on tax cuts? guest: it's very disappointing

what we're hearing coming out of the white house where the white house seems ready to accept an extension of the bush tax cuts for the highest income group at a time when we're talking, when there's the president's debt commission is talking about making cuts to social security for people who have been paying into the system all their lives. you know, and it's based on this false notion that somehow if you give a tax douth the very wealthy then they go out and create jobs. there's no evidence to really support that. so i really think that -- i think i and many other liberals and rogives would like to see the president reconsider that decision. now, he's in a perilous position because then he can be accused of forestalling a tax cut for the middle class because the republicans are

insisting that you bundle it all together. but he can say, look, they're looking to deprive us of this amount of revenue because they want to enrich their rich friends. so -- and they're willing to put the fortunes of the middle class on the line for that. and i would like to see him go toward that. host: with 2012 in two years, is it a tipping point, these kind of decisions right now, especially going forward and the support he gets from progressives like yourself? guest: you're absolutely right. because 2012 begins in 2011. the election campaign begins really in january. so, yes, every single decision that he makes will be seen in that light. now, i think it's very important that he express his principles and not just be calculating what he thinks is

going to get him reelected. but i would say that there's one thing that polls never give us, and pollsters take measures of how people's sentiment is on a given day on a particular issue. there's really no poll for how people feel about somebody who stands on principle in the face of polls that tell them to do opposite. and my sense is that people do respect that even if they might disagree with a particular isolated position. so i would say that there's nothing to lose at this point in an obstructionist congress to do that. host: dallas, texas. thank you for waiting. caller: good morning. guest: good morning. caller: good morning.

everybody. one, i appreciate you saying that we're not crazy in recognizing that fact. because people are not crazy. we did not like the route that george bush took at the beginning. he was spending like a drunk sailor up there before 9/11. and then, after 9/11 and all -- you know, just the whole mess, then here comes obama on the scene. and then he's like bush on steroids. we can't sustain this economy or the way this country is going. and also, i want to counterpoint you talk about the coach brothers but you never -- cotch brothers but you never

mention people like george cor well who is probably financing your outfit. and his reaches are so far it's like ab octopus. >> we'll leave thrit. ma'am. guest: well, first of all, george and his foundations do not fund us. but i think we would welcome his support any time he would like to come our way. i think there's a fundamental difference between the koch brothers and what they're doing. and may i say, in tandem with another billionaire, rupert murdock who owns fox news and the "wall street journal," and what george is doing in investing in liberal and progressive causes. and that is, if you look at who stands to be enriched by the agenda that the koch brothers and rupert murdock embrace,

it's the koch brothers and rupert murdock. if you look at whose prosperity stands to be increased by the agenda embraced by george soros, it's a lot of everyday people and it's really not in the best interests of george soros' for tune to see a progressive agenda passed. and i would say they that that's a very significant difference. i would also -- you know, the raising of this notion of soros is an octopus as somehow distinct from what over very rich people do in funding institutions, ideological institutions, i mean, this is a line that's being advanced by glenn beck of fox news, in a very unfactual way, that is

rife with antismetic smears che did just yesterday, i believe, in his most recent program. and i think that is really dangerous and poisonous. that's a very different thing than saying, well, if somebody is funding something that's going to enrich them. i think it's quite different to accuse somebody of having played a role in the holocaust when he was actually a victim of the holocaust. >> host: we have this off of twitter. guest: i don't think that's true. i really don't think that's true. because if you look at there's this myth that has been picked up in the echo chamber of

mainstream media that we are somehow a center right nation. and that's if you take all issues ranging from foreign policy to domestic policy and put them all in a big blender and do some kind of aggregate that you might come wup that. but if you look at where people stand on domestic issues, issue by issue even people who define themselves as independents more often come down on the liberal or progressive side of things. i mean, the progressive change campaign committee commissioned a really interesting poll. and instead of just asking people, do you support cuts to social security or do you support -- and taking a poll on that specific issue. or do you support extending the bush tax cuts to the most wealthy. they asked people, giving them three choices, because the money is the poll's money. right? it's one pot of money more or

less, what would they cut? and they said the three things they chose were would they extend the bush tax cuts to the most wealthy, cut social security, or cut the defense budget? and a very strong plurality came down on the side of extending -- of not extending the bush tax cuts to the most wealthy. only 12% said cut social security. and yet that's the trade-off we're being asked to make, and polls are not ordinarily done in that way where people are asked to choose what the trade-off would be. host: north carolina, gerard on our republican line. go ahead. caller: good morning. my question has to do with my observations of campaign signs this past election season.

and what i did not see, i never saw the word republican, i never saw the word democrat, and i never saw the word liberals or progressive. the only words i saw were conservative or an independent voice for the people. and so that, to me, indicates that we are progressing more to the right, where even the labeled republican may be considered too liberal. and my question is, what do you take from those campaign signs where you just did not see the word, you will not see the word a liberal voice for the people or a progressive candidate, but instead at best you'll see an independent voice. guest: i think that's a great question. with regard to the use of the party labels on signs, i think there's a very clear reason for that. both parties are held in quite

low esteem by the american people, as is congress. in terms of -- now, i don't have the empirical data and i spent my campaign season covering the tea party movement so i wasn't out there at democratic rallies or progressive rallies all that much. so i can't verify what the caller is saying about not seeing the words liberal or progressive, but i would say that democratic leaders have bought into a mainstream media narrative that says we are center right nation and that -- which would imply that these are not words that are going to appeal to the swing voters, the person who is not ideologically aligned who can vote -- who vote one way in one election

and another way in the next. first of all, it's dispirting to the base, the people doing the work to get people elected, the people who call themselves liberal and progressives when that does not occur. also, it maintains this narrative that this is somehow bad people. and i think that the right has done a very, very good job of advancing an untruth that liberals and progressives are somehow big-time socialists veering on communist. let's go back to george soros. he helped take down i don't know how many communist dictatorships by promoting democratic activity in communist states. so i think it's very important for progressives and liberals to embrace what they are and

put that -- put their names forward and create their identity. host: our guest for the next sten minutes or so, addie, with alternet. she is the washington bureau chief. you can find more about the information they put there and it's linked to our site. our next call, rosia from fort laudordale, florida, democrat's line. good morning. caller: good morning. i basically have a question or comment. i'm a black american christian, and over the past year i've been watching c-span and cnn, different news, and i've been looking at the american tea party, white americans, mostly older white americans and i see how they complain about everything in the government but they do not relate to other americans, african americans, asian, muslim, all the other

americans that i tend to be around, especially went to school with. and when we get together and talk about the tea party, w agree to some extent of things they're talking about because we are americans, we don't want big government. but they don't relate to us. and we are younger americans, we are the future americans. and we don't like how they represent themselves. i remember watching a tea party , a parade or something and they had a picture of barack obama dressed as some sort of african something. and i have friends from africa that will sympathize. but they're fighting for american rights. you do not put down other race, other culture and other religions. and they claim to be christians. christians do not follow christ and do the things that the tea partiers do. but a lot of thing that is they say does not make sense. so this is why i don't understand. probably 80 or 95% of the tea party did thot vote for barack

obama and he still won. so 2012 is coming around soon. they say race doesn't matter, but when they saw what happened in my community they say we've got to pay more attention. so i think it's going to be a big challenge in 2012 when you have to reelect because i think it's a rude awakening for the tea party. host: we'll leave it there. thank you. guest: well, i think that the caller gets at a fundamental tension that is happening in our politics and that is this notion of who is the real america? now, i would argue that that's a dangerous question to be asking. we're all the real america. we're all here. en we're all citizens and it is the diversity of our culture that has brought us such great riches. but i think that this issue of culture is very, very important

and race is part of that. a lot of i think tea party folks don't have a lot of eektspeerns -- experience of peer relationships with people from outside their own culture, and in urban areas of course we all have much more of that kind of experience, although it's not universal. we still all tend to cling to our own groups. but i think that this is a really critical question. and how the tea party addresses this within its own ranks, and it makes these token gestures of supporting certain african american candidates and recruiting them. it -- the tea party express named as its chairman once the -- mark williams who issued a very racist script against the

naacp, was purged. they named a black man as their chairman. so there are attempts to refuture this perception through symbolism. but unless it's matched inward and -- word and deed, i don't know that they'll prevail. host: do you think there will be some type of challenge in 2012? guest: it's always possible. i mean, it's hard to see who might want to be responsible for harming the president at a moment that he is so power lines in the nation's future. host: win stom salem, johnny on our independent line. guest: caller: yes. i don't know, it's just -- i was a democrat most of my life until this last election.

i have fought very hard to get george bush and his people out of office and then to get them into -- to get obama and axel rod and rahm emanuel, it was just like we didn't change anything. it didn't make any difference. i'm on social security, i'm a grand mother, and i was looking progressive thinks happening for my grandchildren. i'm black, and it's just horrible. this is a black president who has no respect for the black community. i'm lookg on a computer every day that i can become part of to try to get him out of there. he is the biggest wimp i have ever seen in my life. he has no -- nothing that he believes in. if he believes in anything, he would stand for it and stick to it and fight for it. he has not. he is just -- him, emanual, axel rod and harry reid.

hair re reid sounds like a little mouse, he acts like a mouse. he does everything and anything he can to get himself reelected but it was not in the best interest of the party. the public option, he let that baucus guy run with the thing. and he just let people run with the health care bill for 15, 18 months. that should have been stopped after three months. host: we'll leave your thoughts there and let our guest respond. caller: well, i'm hearing -- i can appreciate the caller's disappointment with some of the team that the president has assembled around him and it's old-style politics plays the old wray and it involves a lot of orchestrating and deal-making. but to say that bhome has not accomplished anything in the last two years i think is false. first, you have to consider the crisis, the incredible crisis

of epic magnitude that he was facing as a result of the bush crash, and it's very hard to prove what didn't happen, what might have happened had certain actions not taken place. now, most economists say we needed a much bigger stimulus and i would agree with that, defering to their greater knowledge than mine. but nonetheless, the actions that were taken really did need to happen in terms of the stimulus, the banking, preserving the banking system, and keeping one of the largest manufacturing sectors that we have in our economy going, which was the automotive sector. so while i wasn't crazy about the ways in which those things happened, i think they're pretty critical. you have a new president looking for his way, and

avoiding what could have been a collapse ot not only the count, but the global economy. guest: i need to ask a question on the tea party. the tea party has been around for centuries and it looked like it had died down. but all of a sudden it has sprouted up. not during the bush years, but all of a sudden when the other, president obama came on board, that's when the tea party sprouted up. and i notice that that's the special interest group for the republicans. so to say this, that the special intreast groups have more -- interest groups have more interest in the republican party but not for all the people who are the groups of

income bracts. so they are just for one sector of interest of one race, not the whole different races of people. guest: well, there's a lot in what the caller is asking. what i think is very astute in what she said is that the tea party is not anything new. and i mean, she counts it back to centuries. i think in its present form what we can do is track it back to say the presidential campaign of barry gold water in 1964. the tea party movement is really the old new right dressed up in something new and bright and shiny. and this is the way the right works. and every time it comes up in a new incarnation, everybody

thinks it's something new. and we had the -- in 64 you had the goldwater campaign. and then by 78, 79 you had the moral majority which was created by the same folks who had run the goldwater campaign. and then that ran its course. and these sort of institutional entities that represent the right tend to have like a ten-year life span. and that died down, and then you had the christian coalition, and then that died down. and now you have americans for prosperity and freedom works. so i think the caller is correct in talking about the life span. where i think it gets complicated is about whether or not the tea party movement is representing a single class of people. what i see, what i think has

happened is that these very big what we call astro turf groups, americans for prosperity and freedom works and other groups like that, have been quite brilliant in packaging a big business agenda in such a way to make small business owners think that somehow this is good for small business. and what i have seen, and this is just anecdotal. no pollster that i know has done the data on this, but i'd love to see it. i think a lot of tea party folks are small business owners or they work for small businesses. and so they're very -- so that means they do carry the burden of regulation in a way that big businesses don't. i mean, they feel it viscerally. they have to spend a lot of overhead in fige all the different forms that they need to file and they feel the tax burden quite acutely.

now, that's not all the tea partiers. and, like i say, there is a cultural element to this. it's seeing people who are not like them are perceived to be making gains while they are treading water. and it doesn't really matter if the people who are not like them are not yet on a par with them economically, the point is that, hey, i'm treading water in a really scary economy and somebody else seems to be moving ahead from where they were. that's my perception. host: austin, texas. thanks for waiting. republican line. caller: good morning. and good morning to you ms. stan who has no idea what she's talking about. so what would be your opinion on this whole tea party republican deal? where would the issue stand on this whole big body scanner issue in the airports?

and you know, the grotesque patdowns. and then if you decide to opt out, you are subjected to the entire turmoil of looking at you and being able to -- so where do we stand on that? should that be something that the tea party should be behind and sort of -- and should this be a republican thing? or should this be an altogether american sort of thing that we should figure out and get rid of? guest: well, it's an american thing. civil liberties, you know, the right and the republican party does not have the constitution doesn't belong just to them. it belongs to everybody. and we often make the mistake of thinking that we have no points of commonality with the

opposition. and i think on the issue of sillints there are points of commonality. they just get played down in the political discourse because for political expedience. you don't see the astro turf groups that organize the tea party movement railing against the patriot act which was passed under george bush nor do you hear in the restric of more mainstream liberals a whole lot about that because the patetrot act is now embraced by barack obama. i think these are really critical questions for us to be asking on the questions of civil liberties. and what does it mean in termites of our constitution? which is, i believe, a living, breathing document but nonetheless guarantees us certain rights that are infringed by many of these

measures. host: one more call. tennessee. billn our democrat's line. caller: good morning. i'd like to ask your guest there the republicans passed the bush tax cuts through reconciliation. which means, i think, that it's not supposed to help the deficit. what i'm seeing on the media now is a tendency to group the tax cuts for the democrats with those tax cuts with bush. aren't they separate issues? i mean, can we lump it all together? and that's my question. guest: well, as i mentioned earlier, i do think that these two things should be separated. i truly do. i think that, and i think that the way to do that is for the president and the democrats in congress to really hold the line on this notion of

extending these tax cuts. host: adele stan with alternet. and your book is called? guest: dangerous brew. exposing the tea party's agenda to take over america. host: we appreciate your time with us. guest: thanks for having me. host: our guests, and callors have brought it up, president bush's tax cuts, the topic of our next topic. first, we will take a look at the week's news through political cartoons.

host: he has served time in the congressional budget office overseeing that and now is the president of the political action forum, douglas akin joining us to talk about the president's tax cuts. what's your reaction when you hear about possible talks next week about the extension of the tax cuts from the white house and from others associated with the president? guest: first, good. this needs to be resolved. if we let this drag on, there's a very real chance that they won't be able to change the withholding tables, and that means every american will see a tax increase. so there is some urgency here. it needs to be decided. host: whether or not do the ones for the middle class and the ones for those who earn more, why do they have to be linked? guest: i think the central issue is that we want to have a better tax codes. and all tax reform says lower rates, broaden the base, to delink them to raise rates, keep the artificially narrow

base. i think that puts us in the wrong direction. the proposal just put out by the president's deficit culture is bold and what do they say? they want a lot more revenue. how do they do it? tax reform. and i think there's a real lesson there. host: as far as going forward, what do republicans have to do as far as working with the president on this issue? guest: i think they simply have to recognize the economic reality, which is this economy is very weak, it's been growing for a year, but growing aneemically. this is a time to take every policy lever taxes and think about how can it make the economy grow more rapidly, to delink or raise taxes. i don't think anyone should do it. host: going back to the proposal, one of the things talking about mortgage deductions and things like that. guest: for a long time economists have felt that subsidizing mortgages is bad tax policy. what does it do?

it rewards leverage. it says that people who own homes are somehow more deserving than those who rent, and the tax rate is bigger the higher your tax bracket. so it's a long standing proposal of the tax commuths to start of limit or ultimately get rid of that deduction. but it's been in the tax code since we had an income tax and never gone away. so the policies are very difficult. host: in the "wall street journal" there's various proposals about what should be done for the tax cuts. as far as the democrats proposal it says extend the middle class breaks permanently. let the breaks for higher earners expire. the impact on the deficit according to calculations is 12.1 trillion over ten years, and for 2011 those who pay the taxes would pay about $60,000 more in taxes. and step back. there's some things to recognize. the deficit and the future deficits are a normsly important issue. you cannot overstate the threat they present to the prosperity

of the next generation and our national security. ultimately, our ability to defend ourselves, to protect our values around the globe depend on the strength of the u.s. economy. and the mechanics of owing your banker when they don't share your values are not very good either. so this is a big issue and you won't tax your way out. thun of the proposals on the table come close to solving the deficit. yeah can't. even thrrs 3 of spending can you tell us, that's the artsdz tick. the spending promises are so large that you can't grow your wait out, tax your way out. so from my perspective, go on. let's get serious about the spending side of the federal budget. and if you need to raise revenue, you should. have a tax code you believe in and do it that way. host: that says extend the current tax code for a couple years. it will be a political decision how many. host: for that upper 2%, how many of those that earn in that bracket are linked to

businesses? guest: this a question we've never resolved. here are the facts. it was a deliberate goal to integrate the business and the individual taxes so that all income will be taxed at the appropriate individual rate. that was a tax policy objective. as a result, we have trillion dollars of business income reported on individual taxes. of that, about half is reported in the t two brackets. and now comes the skirmish. if you look at one side, they say yeah but it's a small number of businesses. and there are only a small number of returns there. on the other hand there's a lot of income. to my eye, the amount of economic activity to the tax, doesn't matter how many returns. if you're taxing a lot of economic activity you're going to have a big impact on business. host: the numbers are on the bottom of your screen.

what is the american action forum? guest: it's a think tank center right in character, not -- fiscally conservative. the idea was to put out by the government the kind of things that i've been fortunate to run inside the government. description of serving time was probably more harsh than i would have said. but those shops relied on policy education and policy advice, policy options on the issue of the moment. they didn't sit back and think until issues came to them. go talk about what's relevant in the moment and do it in a time sensitive and politically inl formed way. politics are involved so write the materials, do the presentations with that in mind. and so it's small, it's nimble, and we're having fun. host: as far as the issue, as far as how for those in the upper brackets and whatever percentage of those are tied to businesses, wouldn't it be

better to change the way taxes on businesses specifically are levied and not so much how personal income taxes are calculated? guest: i think there are two big jeandast and that's part. we have a corporation income tax at odds with our objectives for international competition and for sensible economic growth. and so there's a lot of work to be done there. i think that would be a great agenda. but that should be linked with the personal income tax because you've ended up creating weird incentives. we've had a period when the corporate rate was lower than the individual rate and you saw the dentist incorporate themselves, put the whole family on the payroll. you don't want to do that. on the other hand, if you let the personal rate be lower, you get the corporations dissolving themselves and turning themselves into these pass-through entities. so you have to do both at the same time to make them work together. host: to calls, bethesda, maryla you are first.

good morning. caller: good morning. i'm just wondering, how is it that these tax can you tell us are going to stimulate the economy? they've been in place for ten years. while we did have a housing bubble, i don't see that they did much more the middle class. guest: it's a good question. i don't think the way to formulate this is stimulus at this point. i think that word's been overused. it's appropriate when the economy is falling and when there is a need for extraordinary government intervention. we've seen that. that was certainly true back at the end of 2008. but we are now in a situation where wehave an economy that's growing too slowly. if you look at the elements of that economy, the opportunities for growth, house hodes are unlikely to drive this recovery. they're strapped with debt, their houses aren't worth what they used to be. they're saving a lot more because they need to and that's desireable. our governments in a comparable

situation. every locality, state government, federal government is bleeding red ink. and so there's one and only one part of our economy that's finally capable and in the position, that's the business seblingtor. smaws businesses are part of that. so the logic says let's not make their environment harsher. let's not raise taxes at this moment. let's try to get a stronger economy and take care of our problems by spending on the spending side where they really begin. host: phoenix, arizona. michael. caller: yes, sir. i'd like to ask what do you think about a flat tax? because a flat tax would take care of the personal versus corporate disparity that you were talking about earlier. host: guest: a flat tax would do that. there are lots of virtues. but its major flaw has always been that in the end americans do want a progressive tax system. they uniformly almost support

it in the end. so you could do variations of a flat tax where the top rate maxes the business rate and then you have a one or two brackets below that. most tax forms have taken that form recognizing the distinctive desire for progressivity. host: will there be work in this lame duck session? how does the house leadership now that it's going to be under republicans change the discussion? guest: they'll have to simply figure out what to do with the existing tax code. the times time is too short. there's a lot to get done. so i would expect a straight out extension. going forward, i think the ball is really in the president's court on deficit reduction, tax reform. big issues the president always lead. democrats still control the senate and the white house. republicans have an obligation to stick to their principles and to be relevant to the

american people. it is not -- they weren't sent there to pursue an ideological agenda. they were sent there to govern well. my hope would be that the leadership recognizes this. i think they do. and what they'll do is look for years where they can work with democrats and the president to move this country forward. host: cutting spending? caller: that's an imperative. we've heard you can't do it people reflect it. but the reality is we have to or this country faces a serious long-determine decline or an imminent financial disaster. so cutting spending is going to have to be the new normal both sides of the aisle have to get ready. host: should everything be on the table? guest: it has to be. host: start wrg? guest: anywhere you want host: where would you think? guest: social security reform don't change the outlook quickly. it is not about current. it's about our children and what their future will be. so that's something you don't have to do with great haste.

i do think you should begin by not making the problem worse. so, in my view, the recent health care law is an absolute fiscal disaster. setting up two new entitlement programs where we have broken medicare and medicaid systems is a step in the wrong direction. and i certainly think the annual appropriations in defense and nondefense. host: in health care, do you see repeal possible? guest: no. but that doesn't mean that those programs are desireable in any way. i think the political reality is the votes aren't there for repeal so this is going to be part of the longer term conversation, if you will between democrats and republicans. host: iowa, independent line. pat, go ahead. caller: yeah. this taxing of the 250,000 dollars or more, the republicans are saying because of the rough times the tax breaks for the rich should be extended. if you're making $250,000 or

more, you're not having a hard time in today's climate. so why shouldn't they be taxed? guest: ultimately the question is, who pay that is tax? if that tax on someone who is in your view affluent and doing fine is a tax on o a small business owner and we raise it and their decision becomes, gee, i'm not going to hire a worker. or, worse i'm going to lay someone else, they're not bearing the burden of that tax. that tax is being shifted on to someone perhaps of very modest means. so the key here is to make sure that maultly the economy grows and grows rapidly. that's an imperative. we never balance the budget without rapid grotes. we don't provide real opportunity to people. there's no opportunity in a tax credit, there's opportunity in a job. and that's what we're missing right now. host: iowa, republican line. karen, thanks for waiting. caller: the democrats have found another villain and the villain this time are the rich people. last time it was the private

insurance companies, and the list goes on and on and on. the truth of the matter is they have passed some huge legislation that -- such as obama care andles i.r.s. so they can collect penalties for people that aren't buying the health insurance. and any time you have government jobs you've got -- they make at least a third or half again what the private industry makes. i think we need to cut down the cost of the jobs. let the government jobs come down to what private business makes and private individuals make. and the same with the benefits. let congress cut their wages. they're making $174,000 a year. one final comment i want to make, i was watching the democrats and ey complain that the rich people don't spend the money, they save it and they don't need it. so if you don't -- is that how

we're going to start taxingpeople? you don't need the money so we're going to come take it. i thought that was called stealing. if i go to my neighbor's house and i see something i need and i take it, that's stealing. they are stealing from us. it is wrong and i'm tired of the democrats. they need to quit villifying people and businesses and all the things they're doing. it's chicago style politics and i am so tired of it. guest: one of the lessons i learned is there's nothing more animating in politics which is fear and anger, so one of the things that is central to this debate that is very difficult to convey is the notion that we need to save more as a nation. there's no question about that. that's been the source of a lot of our problems, international borrowing to fund both our household borrowing and our government borrowing. but at the moment, the fear that if people save we're not

going to get cash into the business. so the trick is to encourage the business sector to pick up the spending because they've got the cash while the household sector actually heals itself. that would be incredibly desireable. and the second thing, it's frustrating for me. i ran the budget office. you look at both sides of the budget. we have these discussions of fairness that have two qualities that i dislike. the first is they divorce the tax fairness from the spending fairness. in the end it's the net transfer that comes out that matters. the second is this motion of drawing lines. i've never understood why you want to draw lines in a society. we've always been characterized as an extraordinarily diverse nation that manages to unify. drawing lines is at odds with that. and it's never struck me as sensitive or helpful. host: what about the caller who brought up the means of protecting profits? guest: i'm not sure i understood it completely. but the problem is an important thing that has built this

economy. so i think the notion that you want to sort of somehow attack profits is wrong. but at the same time, the government government can't be the source of prots. profits should come from the ability to compete effectively and deliver value to the american families. that should be the goal. host: you are the president of the action forum. guest: yes. the forum is a conventional think tank. we're about ideas. we're a not for profit, tax exempt. and we do ideas. the sister organization, advocates for those ideas. it runs ads, it has a public education function. and so any ideas we generate that they think have merit they can pick up and try to sell. host: how are you funded? guest: by a combination of individuals who believe in the vision. some trade orgofferingsaces and corporations. sort of croods the board. anyone who is in washington that wants to give money, i would be happy about that.

host: good morning, go ahead. caller: good morning. nice to see you. thank you. i was going to say, to go back to the old tax rates from ten years ago when bush was a republican congress they went to reconciliation for the tax cuts, isn't it true that he started two wars and cut taxes at the same time? wouldn't it make sense to go back to that point? because after all, he did have a surplus. there was a balanced budget when he came into office. this is two simple things. just go back to the tax rate and tell the american people, he will, we had two wars, and a tax cut at the same time. it doesn't make any sense. thank you. guest: well, thanks for getting up so early in l.a. to have

this conversation. the reality is that you can't unwind the clock. and if you look at the budget outlook, in the administration's budget we run deficits that are never smaller than $700 billion over the next ten years. they're rising at the end of ten years. and $900 billion is interest on priest deltted. we're getting a new credit card to pay off the old one. that's very dangerous as a nation. and that's a budget in which the wars are assumed to have gone away, a budget in which the chi is assumed to have recovered. so it has really not a lot to do with our history. it has to do with our future. and those budgets also include raising the tax rates at the top. so there's no solution to the problems we face now and looking forward as a nation that involve pretending we can go back to owe. we're just not in that world any more. we're actually in a much more dill world and we're going to face some decisions.

host:en e-mail asks. guest: i think this is a tribute to just how bad our corporate tax is. we have both a very high rate, 35% which affect deessigses about where to locate profits and firms lo locate profits in low tax jur diagnoses if we can, and we have enormous features that allow some companies, particularly fast-growing ones like google that rely on intellectual property, their patents and their particular software, to avoid a lot of profit. so that's screams out we need to fix this. and what our tax code has den -- done is given a big incentive for headquarters to end up overseas. so no firm is going to locate in the united states. and the second thing it has made the much more desireable

for the r and d to go offshore. and when that happens the manufacturing goes offshore. so we're add odds in two ways. we have the highest rate and we're the only country left on the globe that tries to tax on the basis of worldwide profits every year. every country has switched to the situation of what happens inside their jurisdiction and doesn't attempt to tax the other side. i think there's a lesson there. if you're the last one swimming against the tide, you've got something wrong. host: can you further explain that so a company located in the united states and they're multinational they pay taxes on u.s. activities and other jurisdictions on what they do over there. so what we guest: guest: if we have a company in brazil competing with the german company, the german company pays brazilian taxes. the u.s. company pays brazilian and u.s. taxes. we lose. host: what should be done as far as capital is concerned? guest: i would prefer a system where we write it off the year you acquire your capital.

that's a big invest ynt incentive. it gets rid of a lot of complications and the gaming that go on just nice and simple. host: instead of depreciating guest: yeah. why do you need 35 years worth of records? host: madison, wisconsin. is next. independent line. guest: thank you for taking my call. i just find it hard to understand how the republicans are being allowed to take this narrative that tax cuts equal economic prosperity and job growth. if this were the case, where are the jobs and where is the economic prosperity for the tax cuts that have been in place for the last ten years? also, if congress was really interested in handling our deficits and wanted to produce job growth, instead of arguing over tax cuts we should be together focused on opening up

markets overseas like in china and india to produe these jobs. we are in two wars, we have a big deficit. we need to make sacrifices. there are people in iraq, afghanistan making sacrifices. why is it that rich people don't want to make sacrifices for this country? we have a count bri where it has allowed the best and brightest around all the world to come get rich and nobody wants to pay for ig anything. nobody wants to stand up and come together as americans. and i just find it hard to believe how going back to republicans controlled congress is going to help this economy in this country when we've been there, done that, and there's no job growth. can you explain that to me? guest: i think the first thing to recognize is it's not just taxes. and anyone who says that only taxes determine how the economy per forms is misrepresenting the facts. there's an enormous amount that goes into a successful economy. at this point i think a great point of agreement between republicans and democrats is

the need for big education reforms so that the most important of the economy, the american worker, has a chance to compete on the global stage in the years to come. and i would agree on the importance of opening markets. 95% of the world's consumers are outside the borders. that is where the future growth in part will come from and we need to be there ready to capture those markets and we're siting on the sidelines at the moment. i think that's extremely detrimental. job growth is being hampered by realities. the reality is we had an enormous financial crisis driven by a financial bubble that is a bipartisan creation. after that we saw a big recession. history has shown that in the aftermath of such financial crisis, growth is often slow, recovery is protracted. you're not back in a year and a half, you're back in three, four five years. so we face a future in which it's going to be a real challenge to grow rapidly. that's why i think everything

we do, our infrastructure policies, our spending policies are across the board and our tax policies included have to be focused. host: what's the i guess, how do you think he'll do on that guest: it's a real challenge. he has a very mixed record on trade. he ran openly talking about reopening nafta and being against that trade agreement which was a great way to unify north america. he is now talked about a national export initiative, doubling the exports in the next five years. but we haven't seen anything concrete in the way of passage with trade agreements that would support reaching that. and i would hope that would happen. that would be a tremendous step in the right direction. . .

the agreement was about the financial sector getting them right. the agreement about who gets the profit and the goods is a much harder deal to reach. host: new jersey on our republican line. caller: i have no problem with people working to earn their money and living the american dream. the question i have is why are

we trying to cut grandma's health care and so forth? the chinese and the indians to car drops. why do we not put a heavy tax on their imports? -- the chinese and the indians are the ones who took our jobs. if they do not bring business over here and do not help us with jobs over here, we should put a heavy tax on their imports and raise the prices close to the american prices so that we can compete with you. then they will not have a monopoly. why can we not do that instead of the always trying to cut back? we keep cutting schools, the police, everything. host: we will leave it there. guest: on the first part, the reality on the federal budget is

that if you look at how we spend our money, they spend about 20 cents of the every $1. if health care costs continue to grow and as more baby boomers retire, social care, medicare and medicaid will take 20 cents out of every national $1. we're facing an explosion of spending in the future of the federal level. slowing the growth of that is key. i do not think either party is talking about cutting current retirees or contemplating a eviscerating the safety net. there is a reality here they will have to deal with. the american public needs to understand it. that is effective. trade wars have never served us well. they are tempting but they do two things not always hurt. first, they raise prices for people. the cost of imports to go up. that builds into everything in the economy and it does not help

the average person pay their bills. second thing is there is retaliation and we get cut out of those markets. they always end up harming everyone involved. host: federal reserve spent $600 billion to help the economy. guest: i am not a fan. they want to print the money and go out and buy treasuries that will push down long-term interest rates on all sorts of things to spur the economy. the amounts of interest rate reduction you could possibly get for what they're doing is trivial. it is extremely low. i do not think this is a big way to prime the pump. i would have preferred to see them stick with "steady as you go." host: on an independent line from texas. caller: thank you for taking my call. i am against letting the tax

cuts expire. i believe everyone in this country needs to be treated equally. as far as other cuts, one of the first things that i can see that i have never heard anyone talk about is on medicare. you are required to apply for medicare two months before you turn 65. even if you are working. with me, i am not going to be able to apply for full social security until i am 67. i would be on medicare two years earlier than i would be on social security. how much money could be saved if they would just change the law to not being able to apply for medicare until you turn 65 or retire, whichever one comes later? that seems like it would save a lot of money. guest: i cannot keep every

number in my head, but i do not know that number. it is a sensible observation that i think points to something we ought to think about seriously. there is a lot of talk about changing social security retirement age said they'd match, people are living. if we had the age of retirement comparable to what it was when people started the program it would be 70. there is a case to be made for raising the retirement age, but we would need to do this in an organized way so all of our old- age programs work together. host: on twitter, someone asks you to describe the economic gains made by the top 2%. did middle-class incomes decline? guest: compensation remain the same but it got eaten up by health care costs. one of the great tragedies has been when there was an increase in productivity, the productivity gain got the in the been targeted by health care.

it points back to why we did need a health care reform cost that is critical and remains an important part of our policy challenge. there is no question the upper to% have done very well. they payhe majority of the income taxes -- the vast majority. host: north white plains, new york. our democratic line. good morning. caller: good morning, pedro. the guest earlier spoke about the growth in the economy cannot logically come from the working class. it cannot come from the government. it has to come from the capital cost. -- class. most of us know the old adage that there is an incongruity between democracy. the reality the gentleman was talking about is difficult for the working class to apprehend, but it is becoming more and more

discernible. capitalism, obviously, always seeks ever expanding yield or profit margin. the working class is going to have a hard time realizing this because at one time manufacturing was here. they did have a sense or an illusion of the gains. the head housing, cars. now the profit is going to seek markets like the path of the least resistance where labor is cheaper, resourcesre cheaper. to get the-setback to the reality of what this gentleman is talking about. remember when the president had his eye for an? someone from iowa, tom hawk and -- hawking, i think. if elderly people are discriminated against because they have pre-existing conditions, it would be unfair. he almost said discrimination based on wealth and income is

not ok. you take from capitalism and you are saying it should not exist. guest: i think there is a real issue in the public parks in mind in trying to understand the post-war economic history. one thing that stands out is in the 1950's and in 1960's wii stood alone among the countries that had participated in the world war intact. the money got spread through workers and owners as well. as the competitive devices have closed it has become much more difficult. the manufacturing sector is just as big of our economy as it ever was. the pressures of productivity force us to do with fewer and fewer workers. we have a successful manufacturing sector, but

competitive structures have made it possible that they no longer hold on to extra employees. host: brooklyn, new york, on our republican line. caller: every time the american dollar, the rich people make more. they are making enough interest on their dollar. they do not need the tax cuts. this is the first time in history we have an american president and the republicans demoralizing the country. i want information concerning this questions. guest: i do not think it is the case you can trace economic success among income brackets to the devaluation of the dollar. there is a serious concern about the dollar's fall and our

ability to attract the money we needed to finance our expansions. i think the leadership issue is very clear. there's a lot of the fear and the demoralization right now. all parties would benefit if we could get that. host: houston, texas, on our independent line. caller: the day, c-span. good day, mr. hotlz-eakin. i have something to say and i would like to clarify something with the american public. a lot of people are wrong. the tax cuts for the wealthy have created jobs. unfortunately they are being created in indonesia, china, and vietnam. as far as terrorists -- our constitution was clear about constitutional governments have tariffs. in there is a 40% tariff going

on american beef in south korea. what is wrong with that? guest: first, we need to look at our tax code. as i said earlier, incentives to locate activity had cited the united states will happen regardless of taxes. -- locate activities outside the united states will happen regardless of taxes. wal-mart is in china because it the want to get the chinese business you have to have stores there. i have to employ -- employee chinese people to do that. we need to be careful how we characterize these activities. the second is i do not think it is good for the koreans to have the tariff on our beef. that is why we had a dream -- trade agreement sitting out there and recognize this problem. it has yet to be ratified. host: this investing in a country help with its recovery like the president wants investing in infrastructure and so what -- and so forth?

guest: absolutely. if you expand your equipment, plans, build a bridge, you employ people to do it and it is the start of a virtuous cycle. people can save some of that and say that the same time. host: could stimulus have a role then? guest: it is mixed. when you spend $1 trillion, you will have impact on the economy. claims that it did not do anything is wrong. it was extremely poorly designed. it happened far too slowly and is far too cumbersome for what it accomplished. yes, it did something. no, it did not do all of it. host: to slowly for the money getting to the destination or the people using the money? guest: a little of both. and is a hard channel. the infrastructure pieces, there is a long history of public

works in this country. and in every downturn, we go for public works. we learn the same lesson. the number of shuttle-ready projects are actually very small. -- shovel-ready projects are small. host: next caller. good morning. caller: i have so much to say, but i will try to focus this in. as far as the deficit goes and how we spend our money, you were andking about world war ii, i really believe the reason we did so well in the 1950's and a 1960 proxy because after the world war we had the gi bill and educated the american people. lots of people who never would have been able to go to the top -- the college were able to. our economy. because we educated our people. -- our economy boomed because we

educated our people. instead of investing in other countries and other things, we need to invest in the people. then i think we will have all sorts of new inventions, new businesses. it will really help our economy. but secondly, i get any mail -- an email for grant programs opening of the government. i see all of these grants and opportunities coming out that are dointhings in other countries that i think those countries should be doing for themselves. host: caller, thank you. guest: we will see an across- the-board re-evaluation of how we spend the money. we have to. in the end, a highly educated work force can adapt to a certain circumstances more

quickly and easily. it generates higher productivity. our issue in the united states is not just the money. we are spending twice in real terms in inflation-adjusted than we did 20 years ago and have no better achievements. we have fallen in the ranks of the international community during the last two decades. we have a k-12 system that is broken. half of the students are not graduating. and the other half are not prepared for college-level work. before we spend those dollars, we need better results for those kids. host: last call from wilmington, n.c., on our republican line. good morning. caller: this is the first time i have never gotten involved in politics. i became involved because i was so angry about the direction

that our country is going. i think everybody cares about the port. -- poor. we've got to a point in this country where young people are starting families when they have not finished education and they are having numerous children while not even finishing high school. i see them and i fill -- feel terribly sorry for them. personal responsibility is when bringing this country down. people are not taking responsibility for their actions. when you get a little older and you look back over your life, you realize the mistakes that you made are directly toward the errors that you made. guest: i made a lot of mistakes

in my life and i concur with that completely. there has always been great discussion about the issue of family formation and economic success. but do let stand on the right, it is not clear that the following sequence works. finish school, get a job, get married, have kids. doing it out of order does not mean no success. host: what happens on january 1st, 2011? guest: big tax increases for everyone. damaging for everyone. it could cut growth by 145% -- 1.5%. this is literally flirting with a double-dip recession and is highly undesirable. congress has an obligation to look at this. host: douglas hotlz-eakin, the president of the american action member, thank you for joining us. a story looking at the number of

federal salaries and those making over $150,000. we will talk about that with dennis cauchon who wrote the story. we will look at the stories and figures. we have that when we come back.

>> in an ideal world, the fact there are people shorting the mortgage market would have sent signals that everyone was saying there are the smart investors who thought this would crash and burn.

the market was big enough that you could not see that the way you can see in the stock market and because of the way the instruments work. you are not inventing real mortgages but the casino version of a mortgage. >> in 2003, that the need -- bethany mclean wrote about enron in "the smartest guys in the room." >> saturdays, landmark supreme court cases on c-span radio. >> there is nothing in the u.s. constitution concerning birth, contraception, or abortion. >> are the in 1971 and ruled on in 1973, roe v. wade is still considered one of the most controversial discussions. in the san for the next two

weeks. -- listen for the next two weeks. online at cspanradio.org. >> of this year's student video documentary is in full swing. make a five-eight minute video on this year's theme -- washington, d.c., through my lines. of the video before january 20th at the to win the grand prize of $5,000. for roles and how to apply your video, log onto studentcam.org. >> "washington journal" continues. host: this is to shot of usa today. he as a correspondent -- dennis cauchon of "usa today." guest: i could have used 130,000, but i just picked a number which reflects taipei.

i wrote one last year over $100,000. host: and this is for federal workers? correct guest:. host: tell us about those who make that much money. guest: doctors, lawyers, managers, security analysts. host: as far as the amount of people making that figure, how many people are we talking? guest: 82,000 of the 2.1 million or about 4% of the federal workforce makes $150,000 or more. around five years ago and was 7000 who made that many or 0.4%. and has increased tenfold in five years. since president obama took office it has doubled. host: is that natural as far as increases are concerned? guest: it has increased faster

than private pay and inflation. there is a variety of reasons in how federal pay is set. there is not one reason but a variety. host: when you ask those in charge about the increases, what did they say about the rate of increase? guest: they say federal workers make less on average than private workers. this is an effort to break it up -- bring this up to private doctors. they say the mix of the federal workforce is different in the private work force. it is more educated, more skilled, on more chemists and ph.d.'s did you see in the private work force which is why there is an effort to make higher but comparable pay. host: what kind of reaction you getting from the government and those who read your stories? guest: we get a wide variety in a very strong, emotional reactions. it is across the board, as you

would think. i tried to be dispassionate about it because there are two different questions. how much are federal workers making? how much should federal workers be making? people conflate the two. if you say someone is making $150,000, then there is a strong response without necessarily looking at the meaning of that and seeing what the workers are. host: the office of personnel management made a release in light of the report. this is what they said. "3% of federal workers make above $150,000. is that correct? guest: it is actually 4%. that is correct. as you know, the federal work force has a variety of people from police officers, fbi agents, coax, nurses. there are 56,000 nurses.

earlier this year, to take a look at that, i looked at all of the federal jobs that were comparable to private jobs and about 60% of them are. job per job, apple per apple, federal employees make about 20% more than private workers. 40% of the jobs cannot compare because there is now irs agent or fbi agent in the private sector so those were excluded from analysis. host: we look to the analysis, what kind of groups are we talking about? the look of postal workers, look at those in various agencies? guest: the postal workers are excluded. if you look at them, they have been suffering significant layoffs. it includes civilian employees in the defense department, homeland security, veterans. it includes 2.1 federal civilian

workers. host: our guest is with us until the end of this program. he has been writing about federal workers to make over $150,000. the numbers are on your screen. for those of you who are federal workers, we have set aside a line for you if you want to wait in this morning. that wine is 202-628-0184. we will take the calls in just a moment. when you calculate these. are we just looking at dollars? guest: correct. we just look at salaries and not benefits. host: when you add in benefits, what happens then? guest: it grows even more significantly. another department does total

compensation, benefits and salary. it shows the average federal worker total compensation has increased 38% above the rate of inflation. and in the private sector it has gone up 9%. the gap has been growing over the last decade. host: when you put out reports like this, are there political components especially when there are talks about freezing federal pay? guest: definitely. one reason is topical is because how the conservatives and the tea party has made this an issue. there is a 1.4% federal pay increase on the table recommended by president obama. the republicans had been advocating freezing or cutting pay. it is very hot politically. host: to federal workers have a union or a representative to argue their case? guest: yes, they have a variety of unions and worker groups.

a large share of the federal workforce has very talented, effective advocates. host: our guest is dennis cauchon of "usa today." on our independent line. good morning. caller: i am a federal employee that makes more than $150,000 per year. i have been in with the government 25 years. and turner in if you look at how you get to the point where we have so much -- internally if you look at how you get to the point where we have some much, when i the get so many other people like me in my organization who are making this much money and how there is this human psychology to how we promote within, it does not mean that we improve qualifications. we just end up kind of being at the happy place over a period of time. that is what we need to be working at, the inside

psychology of how we get to the point where we make this much money and have independent reviews. d the most organizations if you look at the position descriptions and align them with the work they are doing, many times they are just selling political agendas and not just doing the work. i think we can cut the government down. i think we cannot lower the wages if we really want to be honest comparing the amount of work. we need to have a metric to measure if this is really a $150,000 job. is the taxpayer getting that much service? if it can come up with that matter, that i think you have a model for success if people understand why they need to cut wages. host: can give is a general sense of what you do? caller: i am a management analyst. i do in turnover of years, strategic planning, those types of things which are kind of

templates. i am paid at gs-15 for what is in my head and the advice i can give it to a meeting, to manage risk, to underwrite plausible deniability if something goes on. that is what happens. am i producing something that i am proud of? it depends what agency were serving in. i serve the department of defense. in that case, i felt like i was really earning my money. there are other agencies where you just kind of manage policy, oversight, and things change faster than you can produce things but you are sitting there and you had people who are gs-14 and gs-15 who have not produced anything in years. host: these are the cables for january 2010.

he was a gs-15. if he goes up to a step 10, the maximum, or at least if you go higher, it is $129,000. guest: people will look at the page tables, then you look at what they are paid, there are so many exceptions and the complexity that it often clouds the issue. host: exceptions such as? guest: being a physician, for example. the look of the data of what they actually are paid in does not match the schedule. in theory, i did not realize it was so low on that. in theory, federal employees are matched -- maxed out at $153,000. in the reality, when they are paid does not always match that

level. many employees are qualified for bonuses in this numbers. the numbers we have do not affect over time. host: for what he makes he does not think it is justified. guest: it is surprising. one in four is in his school of thought. you did not realize how fortunate we are. three out of four, the majority of the people sitting around, have quite a different view among federal employees. host: what about the master key was talking about with the valuation? what is the evaluation process for the government? are they different than the private sector? guest: they are extremely different. they are much more formulaic in the government. in the private sector, your job, my job, we do not have steps and we are not labeled gs-9 or whenever. it is a narrative or merit.

in the federal pay, you hit the markers and you get the raise. it is very input based on your education and other things. what you and i do is based on output. how good was your interview? how did you look on tv? that is a key difference. host: washington, d.c., on our democratic line. caller: what percentage of the workers when you look at gs-1 to gs-6, not even in that salary range, most of those individuals, there are jobs set aside so you do not automatically get promoted. you could be in position at gs-1 and make a minimum salary for six years. you do not automatically go up to the next step when you have the expertise. what percentage of the people

who are making from the gs-1 to gs-6 -- of the majority of the jobs? they're required to have expertise beyond what is the norm in the government. that is how they come up with the additional -- host: canasta a question? how many years does it take to move up a step? caller: normally, the first step you can go from 1 to 2, and those are yearly steps. after that it is every two years than every three. host: think you, caller. -- thank you. guest: of the top of my head, i cannot remember how many were gs-1 to gs-6.

the average was gs-11. the largest chunk of workers is gs-9. host: a grade 6 starts at $ 30,577. if he were to make it to step 10, it is $40,000. guest: there are no federal employees basically in earning less than $30,000. the lower end has come up dramatically. the very top end, a doctor, is making somewhat less than the private sector counterpart would be. if you are a cook in the federal prison, you could be making double.

the group -- the blue collar jobs do better than the private sector than the a petroleum engineer which would make more in the private sector. host: the office of personnel management said the average worker made about $74,000. in the 2005, the average was about $61,000. is there anything in those numbers that you want to add to? guest: that is quite possibly correct. the numbers i tried to use our from the bureau of economic analysis which includes a bonus, over time, etc. what happened to thousand nine from 2009 is -- what they have from 2009 is about $81,000. it is a very complex system with a lot of strings. host: another federal worker

from washington. go ahead. caller: i have been listening to this debate for the past week or so about pitting one group against the other. i was a federal employee. i started working in the postal service and was making $3.25 per hour back in 1970. i worked my way up. i got my degree and became a postal inspector. you are then transferred at least three times. every time you are transferred you lose. i had to get another house. the money that i made was good money. i am not complaining about that. the private sector was making a lot more than what i was making. we had to go on to college campuses to try and get young graduates to come in to the service, to federal jobs, and they would not do it because they said they could make money in the private sector. it is ironic that everyone is

beating up on federal employees now because the economy took a downturn. i think it is unfair. federal workers deserve what they make. i know i deserved what i made. i probably should have made a lot more, but i did not. i am not complaining what i did make. thank you very much. i listen to your comments offline. guest: i do not know that much about postal service other than they have huge unfunded pension liabilities that may break them this year or next. i think the caller said he was retired now? host: how hard is it to get a job in the federal government? guest: it is hard. it is a long process. it is very competitive. on the other hand, the federal government is hiring. there have been 100,000 or so

jobs in the last year. the private sector is now adding jobs again. host: dallas, texas, on our republican line. caller: thank you. good morning. this is very important information that the country should have. it exposes the outrageous numbers and size of federal pay. we all know the federal government is nothing but a drag on the private sector. the vast sums of money that are now going in to pay for workers that really provide such little productivity and value to society as a whole, you know, this is an outrage. if we were to do a comparison now that we understand what the pay scales are for various workers, we should look at what the pay scales are relatively in

much earlier decades before we had this expansion of federal bureaucracy. this is what is strangling our country. i hope with the future direction of policy with the expulsion of the obama administration from washington we will be able to basically cut the size and scope of these workers and their pay scale. in excess, i think we could cut 50%-60%. i want to commend you for bringing out the actual details, showing the pay scale, showing th size, scope, and numbers of these workers. i think this is a very important thing for america to see. i would like to hear any comments you may have about whether these pay scales are in

any way justified. guest: the caller is getting into the question of what the federal workers should be paid. looking at what they are paid in the broad perspective, federal compensation costs about two under $50 billion per year, roughly 10% of that -- $250 billion per year, 10% of the budget. the proposed pay raises would add another $3 billion starting january 1st. host: they want to reduce congressional and white house budget by 15%, freezing federal salaries, bonuses, and compensation for non-defense agencies for three years for a savings of $15 billion, cutting the federal workforce by 10% to save $13 billion. is this possible to do? guest: only time will tell. there has been a lot of proposals in the past, but the political climate is a lot different.

a freeze probably has a pretty good chance this year. there are other more radical proposals and cuts. a 10% furlough for federal workers have more of an uphill battle. host: if you're asks how you divide it public contractors from federal employees? guest: this does not include private contractors employees. data is not available on them. in general, they tell me anecdotally that private contractors make a whole lot more than they do. host: because? guest: because they contracts and issue these lucrative contracts and the pay is very high. in the argument, it seems if you would look at who is leading the federal government -- leaving the federal government, the departures are very low. it is a fraction of what happens in the private sector and even

lower during this economic downturn. you would naturally think if pay is low that people would slowly moved to comparable jobs with higher pay. the flow is generally in the other direction. there could be other lifestyle choices. host: our guest for the next 15 minutes is dennis cauchon. new jersey, thank you for waiting. caller: thank you. i have a question. one of the first statements the guesstimated was that this $150,000 salaries doubled under president obama. i wanted to know why, first of all. secondly, when you compare the private sector and the pay of $150,000, to me it seems

irrelevant because what is the average price for a home? i think the point is that the private sector is not paying people enough to buy a home or to take care of their family. guest: it is the number of employees making more than $150,000 that doubled since president obama took office. even that is a little unfair to president obama because these things are already in place. it is not like he just hit a button to pay them more. in the first 18 months, he can attribute that to policies under george bush. after he leaves office, his policies will linger for the next couple of years. host: members of congress, according to the congressional research service, they make

$174,000. the speaker makes $223,000. the majority and minority leader have a salary of $193,000. caller: good morning. i would like to directly address some of your callers who are begrudging government workers to make a living. i thought entering middle class was a virtue. the point i want to bring out is the mass of outsourcing of jobs, especially in the military, is part of the problem. a truck driver today in iraq is making $100,000 working for black water tax-free. the caller should be concerned about that and not the salary of a postal worker. this idea that we shall be begrudging workers for making a middle-class income, we should be talking about how to raise the rest of the workers who are stuck in low wage jobs. we should think of how they can unionize to raise their wages as

well. we saw this with the autoworkers and the attack on union workers in detroit accused of making too much money. i thought aspiring to be middle- class was american and a good thing. we should change the conversation. how do we make sure we help with the rest of the work force that -- stuck in a low-wage economy? guest: this is not an attack on federal workers. it is a financial business question about how much they make. there is now meeting other than that. the financial meeting is important. you talk about the military which is important because a large share of the $150,000 plus employees are in homeland security and civilian defense department employees. five or so years ago, the military changed their personnel

system to award merit pay. the result was explosive growth in salaries among the highest- paid employees. the people at the top for a little above average. conagra's, in the last session, ended the merit pay system. -- congress, in the last session, ended the mirek cave system. the national security personnel system is back to the traditional schedule. they are being moved back now. he wants to reward merit pay, but the actual execution is very tricky. host: does your work affect how much you make? guest: your locality affects how much you make. if you work in washington you would make more than rather if you lived in tulsa. host: caller from our federal worker line.

caller: i have been a federal employee for 32,000 -- 32 years. i make $55,000 per year. we are not paid exorbitantly. the want to do the most work are the these paid. you are talking about salaries three times 94 people in these mine.- three times if the judge about jobs other than managing someone, there is no one who works for the government you can do three times the work i can. i am not that great of a worker. the liability the post office faces for its retirees, no government agency has been required to do that. that is why we are in the red for the most part. there are other reasons as well. now, i have three points i want to make. first of all, tax breaks to the

rich do not provide jobs. and demand provides jobs. secondly, poor people who do not pay federal income tax paid vast majority of their income, bigger than 15% marginal rate at the cash register for goods that they buy. i want to get that in the last segment and was not able to. thank you, sir, for your time. guest: a lot of people do not realize that the postal service in the last few years have made mass of them kleiman reductions. when people talk about the size -- massive employment reductions. they exclude the postal service because the data excludes them. there have been huge changes going on in the postal service. you feel the emotion there. he is a front line worker with some resentment against people

in the higher chain of command. it is nothing about anyone's particular job. that is how it comes down. host: asheville, north carolina. caller: thank you for taking my call. i am a retired federal employee from the veterans administration. i would like to make two comments, maybe three. the caller from texas talked about the explosive expansion of bureaucracy. i can absolutely attest to that. at the va, when i first began, we had 440 beds and 1,000 employees. now there are 130 beds and 1,200 employees. the other things that i think callers need to understand about federal salaries, especially in

the veterans administration, is that you are trying to recruit physicians and pay peanuts, you will get monkeys. the va physicians i knew from my career, most of them worked very hard. guest: one thing the government has done is to make a concerted effort to raise physicians' salaries. it has risen from 111,000 -- $111,000 to $189,000. several callers had mentioned retirement. the civilian retirement fund has a $2 trillion liability. military retirement has a $3.50 trillion liability. but that in context of social security. we really have another social security that is not often talk about that has to be dealt with in the future. host: 2 federal workers show

high retention rates? guest: yes, they stay a long time. compared to state and local government workers, they retire later. host: salt lake city. good morning. caller: good morning. host: go-ahead. caller: i would like to ask a couple of questions about the tax rates and the amount of social services provided to the society. government agencies around families, food, social services for medical, things like that -- what is the proportion that an average man in his income will be paying in to that is not provided for his family? is that a legitimate question? guest: what the average federal tax rate is? host: i am an average a man of

medium and come. i make less than $40,000. i'm trying to get a handle of this. what was the proportion of his and come that he was paying? -- of his income that he was paying? it does not seem many families can provide these types of things. guest: at the moment, the percentage of income is an near a post-war low. this is because of stimulus tax cuts. the services we provide are much higher. that is why we have a deficit. tax rates are quite low at the moment. host: salt lake city. thank you for waiting. caller: i work at the salt lake city veterans administration in a mental health and a patient clinic. in the 1990's they started

cutting federal workers. they took away did -- the detox programs and the rehab programs. they took away another inpatient mental health unit that was open. comparable to a private hospital, they had 12 employees to take care of the patients and we had four for the afternoon shift. all it did was hurt the veterans. they are trying to do this again. the war is coming to a close, just like desert storm was, and they start cutting all of the federal workers. it hurts the veterans and the public. guest: if you look at the numbers, the va has significant growth in salaries and the number of employees over the last couple of years. there has been quite a concerted effort from congress and both administrations to take care of

veterans in a better manner as well as baby boomers and veterans are aging and the meeting of the day care. host: that larouche, good morning. on our independent line. -- baton rouge. caller: he just said a lot of the salaries were being raised and those are put into place during the bush administration. it is not really fair. anyways, if you look at most of the republicans calling in they are enraged that everything going on right now. they are outraged about everything going on. where were they? where was this outrage when mr. bush was there? where was that the tea party? where was this outrage? with all of the outrage, this is because of the fact -- what is

the percentage of our tax dollars going to pay their salaries? guest: about 10% of the federal budget goes to employee compensation. host: under the bush administration, but increases in salary d.c. compared to this one? -- the qc compared to this one? guest: similar. it was around 2003-2004 and part of it was the new military merit pay system as well as doctors not making enough. if you want doctors in the va, you have to pay more. there are 17,000 workers making more than $80,000. do you want to pay them $110,000? there were difficult questions about us not getting things for our money, but we are getting

things of value and paying a lot for it. it is a question of what we can afford and what value we get. host: on our line for federal workers from jacksonville, florida. you are on. go ahead. caller: one of the things i would like to bring out is that federal employees have to take a test. you cannot just go in and take a job. a federal employee works in many different capacities. when you go into a post office and you look at the clark standing in front of you, that clark has a master's degree. maybe it is in biology. they are not stupid like a lot of people say they are. you work. you work like the dickens for the post office. i am really disgusted with what

people are saying. people come forward and bring the information that is misleading. host: thank you, caller. guest: the proposed 1.4% increase does not affect postal workers. they have a different contracts. host: when you do this story next year, what do think you will find four people making this level of salary? guest: i will have to take a look. i will expect it continues to increase. i did this one year ago, and there is momentum. things change slowly in the federal government. even if you change the policies, they did not express themselves for a few years. host: dennis cauchon, thank you for your time. we will hear from political analysts tomorrow, kevin madden and