about u.s. companies leaving mexico amid growing violence. later, a discussion on the new start nuclear arms treaty. we will talk with an author. this is "washington ♪ host: the senate is expected to approve final ratification of the new start treaty later today. it is one of the topics we will be discussing in today's "washington journal." good morning. today is wednesday, december 22. we will be talking about the census numbers that were released yesterday. 308.7 million strong and growing. we want to find out what you think about your community and how it has changed in the last 10 years.

we are doing the numbers regionally for this segment of the program. if you want to send us an e-mail today, if you called in the last 30 days, send us an e-mail. journal@c-span.org. the census, the big story in most of the major newspapers this morning. 308.7 million is the number. in usa today this morning, there headline, "nations sees slowest growth at 9.7% since the great depression." the u.s. population grew 9.7% in the last decade. the firstording to

results of the 2010 census. the slowest growth since the great depression for a nation hit hard by a recession and housing bust. the sun belt still leads the u.s. population gains would some booming parts of the region no longer exploding. the new demographics will alter the balance of power in congress. also this morning, in "the financial times" -- they say that the release of the 2010 census data on tuesday showed that the population of the west has risen tenfold since then to 72 million as part of a continuing shift that will save the structure of the u.s. economy and its recovery in the years to come. imagine that the u.s. was balanced on a pivot on its center around kansas and colorado. the country would have tilted heavily down into the left over

the past 10 years as people move from north to south and from east to west. we want to talk to you about how things have changed in your community over the last 10 years. our first call comes from houston, texas. chris, your on the "washington journal." caller: it is chase. we picked up four seats in the house. that would be pretty good. you know, there's no way they can get an accurate count on what is going on. just drive across the city, there are more people than you can shake a stick at. there's no way that they got it right. the only people who filled those things out were the people who were going along, get along. i answered the census. you have a lot of communities where the illegal population -- it is not all hispanic.

i want to be clear on that. you have to understand the mindset. they are family oriented people. they do not trust outsiders, people coming to their door wanting to know how many people are around. there's no way you can get through mindsets of people where they will say yes, we have 18 people living in this house. there's no way you'll ever get that. host: chase, how long have you been living in houston? caller: all my life. host: what is the most significant change to seen in that community over the last 10 years? be a little bit more specific. caller: more specific. i would save the mindset of the people is changing. people are definitely making up to the new world order. host: mount prospect, ill., bob, go ahead. how does your community changed in the last 10 years? caller: there are a whole lot of

latinos. this country is really changing. that vicei predicted president biden would be president, but he became vice president. host: what does that have to do the census? caller: i'm predicting that there will never be a three- republican executive office, the senate, the house, and the presidency. this is one of the most wonderful presidents we've ever had. he's showing everybody how to do it. thank you. i appreciate you allowing me to say this. host: bob from illinois. in "the chicago -- chicago trib-

that is one of many stories talking about the census this morning. in "the new york times" -- population continuing to shift from the midwest and northeast. they write that the census bureau has rearranged the country's political map on tuesday, giving more congressional seats to the south and west. we are talking about how things are in your community. how has your community changed in the last 10 years? richmond, va., deborah, go ahead. caller: good morning.

happy holidays to you. host: how has your community changed in the last 10 years? caller: for one thing, the word minority has a different meaning now. i hope they noticed when they took the survey, minority is for white people, as far as i can see. host: in "the richmond times dispatch -" -- host: next up is john in st. petersburg, florida. you are on the "washington journal." john? caller: yes, good morning. am i on the air? host: john, how has your community changed in the last 10 years?

caller: i took the census in st. petersburg. had was ast shocker we can' static population and it infected us on so many different levels, from public services to schools, police, and fire. and certainly the property tax. i do not have to tell you what the recession did to us here. we lost population or maintained. 10 years ago, we were expected to blossom. host: john, is this your first experience as a census taker? caller: yes. host: tell us a little bit about your experiences. one of the earlier callers said people were reluctant to either send in the forms or to talk to people at the door. what was your experience? caller: very, very little of that. i did not experience that as a census taker. i was a census taker in a

minority area in st. petersburg. we have substantial african- american communities, some latino, and even some native american here. i do not think he really understood. our training level with the census bureau was enormous. our supervision was very high, almost on a daily basis. when there were people -- i was very sensitive to the minority area. some of the other areas hit all the services. one of the things i told people who were reluctant, as the census taker was, if you want community services, you really do need to answer this thing. they tended to respond to that rather well. in cases where we had some census takers that and not necessarily want to go into the real bad areas, they used to

come to me and say, could you pick up these areas? i took every one of them. the response was very high, very overwhelming. host: john, in "the miami herald" this morning -- florida's case outgrew that of the south. as a resident of st. petersburg, did you see this growth in your area? caller: certainly over the last 10 years, since 2002, we've seen sharp growth. from 2007 until now, the growth tapered off quite a bit. host: thank you very much for your call. next is isaac from dallas, texas. good morning. you are on the "washington journal."

how has your community changed in the last 10 years? caller: i been living in texas my whole life. from what i have seen, they say our population has grown in texas. 20-point-something percent. this past year two, when the recession hit hard, as i stepped outside on a daily basis, i see fewer and fewer people. i guess because there's a majority of latino immigrants in texas. they are getting deported left and right. i do not see why it is so hard for them to get their citizenship. they just want to come over here and better their lives. they're hard workers and family- oriented. good morals. i understand there are a few bad

apples in every bunch. that is the biggest change i've seen. a lot of small businesses closing down. fewer jobs. we got hit very hard with the recession because a lot of people here -- they want to work, but they cannot. they do not have that right to get their citizenship. you have people coming here from across the world that get their citizenship by taking the test. over here, i do not know how the policies are on that, but you either have to marry a citizen, or i do not know how that works. host: we will leave it there. in the jump page in "the new york times" this morning regarding their story on the census --

in 1910, the west made up just 7% of the american population, compared with nearly 25% today, said the director of the census bureau. we want to let you know that robert groves will be a guest on the "washington journal." that will be on thursday to he will talk to us about the new numbers in the census report. lakewood, ohio, linda, go ahead. caller: yes, my first game and is -- i worked on the polls in cleveland. i have a list where you have to call people to discourage them to vote. i have about 10 or 15 people in one household with the last name of chin.

i called one number and each person i got claimed that they did not vote. the other statements i would like to make -- i lived in cleveland. the majority of the businesses, stores, gas stations, and everything is owned by foreigners. i'm not a racist or prejudiced person. the business is passed on to other family members. they do not vote and they do not pay taxes. why can't they change the law where you're here for seven years -- you can stay here for seven years and not pay taxes. if that law can be changed, let these people pay taxes and put money back into the economy. then there would be less burden on american citizens. you would begin some -- you would be getting some of this tax money back into the economy.

when 9/11 hit, everybody snatched up what they had an bailed out and went to other countries. that allowed the foreigners to come in here and buy up everything at a low price. people who were already here could not get these things without -- they had to have high-school diplomas, good credit, a background check, and everything. you have people coming in here and they do not have to go through all this. they work for each other. host: that, we will leave it there. in usa today this morning, they look at 30 years of change. the current population is 11 million in ohio. there was pretty much no change from 1980 to 1990. from 1990 to 2000, a 5% increase

in the population in ohio. from 2000 to 2002, a 1.6% increase in the population. ranked sixth.any in 2007, they ranked seventh. daniel, you are on the "washington journal." caller: people are moving from the north and east to the south. i'm sure part of that has to do with the doubling of heating bills and the cost of oil. the problem around here -- what i have seen is changing -- my count is the wealthiest county in america. you used to always be able to find a job here. what has changed is there are not any jobs here anymore. if there are jobs, they pay half of what it takes to pay your

bills and your rent. host: daniel, and the charge that we mentioned before from "usa today" connecticut in 1980 ranked 25th. they have dropped four spots. do you think the employment situation is the reason for the drop in population? caller: i'm sure it is not 100%, but that's a big part of it. i need to get out of here. i cannot pay my rent. i cannot pay my heating bills. i've been out of work for three weeks now. i'm already thousands in debt because of what piles up immediately. you go paycheck to paycheck and you are fine. i've been looking for three weeks and there's nothing out there. host: what kind of work are you looking for, daniel? caller: anything. i'm an educator. i have a college degree. i did truck driving.

i did project management. the companies that will hire me for project management have either gone out of business or sitting there with the phone's not ringing. host: donald in manchester. good morning, donald. how are things in manchester, new hampshire? how has your community changed in the last 10 years? caller: immigration is the biggest thing. they are cutting back with the budget and everything. public high schools in manchester's, there are 70 different languages taught. it is the immigration. my personal opinion of the census is a joke. people lie when they come to the door. i'm just waiting for a republican to call in blame this on president obama. thank you. host: donald, why do think --

are you still with us? let's move on to redding, california. john, you are on the "washington journal." how have things changed in the last 10 years? caller: i do not think it changed that much. it's a white man's town. it is up in the mountains. it is just before you head up over the mountains to going to oregon. it's two or three hours north of sacramento. it's a lot of retirement people. the climate is good. we have the second most days of sunshine. -- sunshine in the country. it is a sunshine spot. we do not get much snow in town. you get 10 miles out of town, and you get lots of snow because there are mountains all around.

host: in "usa today" in 1980, california ranked first in population. in 2010, they are still number one, but the growth in population has dropped from 1980 to 1990. it was growing at a rate of 26%. from 1990 to 2000, it was growing at a rate of 14%. from 2000 to 2010, its only grown by 10%. do you see any of that? caller: there has then some pretty good growth here. during the 1980's and during the 1990's. i think the reason you do not see as fast of gross right now is because the immigration issue has maxed out in california. it has become so overwhelmingly obvious that people are going to

other states because california is maxed out. the hospitals are maxed out. the police and prisons are maxed out. we're getting ready to turn thousands of people loose because we cannot keep them in prison anymore. the main issue is the same one i've heard from all your callers. the jobs issue, which, it is pretty obvious to me that the countries afraid of this issue. all the people are talking about it. all the people and the country know what is going on. they know that we have been sold out. the politicians, the political structure is afraid of the federal reserve bank and the big corporations that are making money hand over fist on this deal. it is really sad. when things finally fall apart, all these people that have come here are going to have it just

as tough as all of the white folks that were here before they came here. host: john, we will leave it there. in "los angeles times" -- we will be talking more about how the census will affect the change of seeding in the house of representatives and other political shifts. that discussion will be with david wasserman of cook political report. it comes a little bit later on in the program. i want to shift gears and talk about congress and what they have left to do before they take off for the holiday break. joining us on the phone is susan of "the washington examiner." good morning and welcome. caller: good morning. host: we have a couple of days left before christmas. what does congress have to do? caller: it is a short list, but

it is a list of big items. one of which may stall because people are not agreeing. the first thing that will happen today, the senate will vote on a new arms control treaty with russia. you need two-thirds voting to ratify a treaty. in this case, it will probably be six senators because one is out due to cancer surgery. that treaty is expected to pass. it's expected to be ratified today. following that, the senate needs to deal with a bill to respond to september 11 first responders who were injured following the attack in the cleanup efforts. there have been several efforts to pass the bill that will help with a victim's compensation fund. it has not been able to clear congress. they are trying to move it today

out of a fear that next year it will be much more difficult to get it through because republicans will be controlling the house and have a much bigger majority in the senate. this is a fairly small bill, comparatively speaking. it is $6.2 billion. there's one senator, tom coburn, who was opposed to it because he wants to make changes that he think will make it more affordable and more targeted to the victims. there's also some question about the funding source. some people do not like the funding mechanism. at this point, it is set up as a way of taxing other countries. other people think it is not reciprocal. it's a 2% fee on foreign providers of goods and services to governments based on other countries that do not have a reciprocal agreement with america. they're worried that this is not

fair. there are some senators trying to work out something with that. if the senate is able to pass that, the house will have to take it up. the house passed an earlier version of the 9/11 responders bill. it was a little more expensive than that other changes. -- expensive and have other changes. at least 70 members were out yesterday. a lot of them are lame duck lawmakers who either lost or retired and are not coming back in the next congress. they have kind of checked out. there's a fear in the house that there will not be enough democrats to help pass this. host: one of the stories this morning in "the wall street journal" has the headline, " congress clears stopgap funding bill." is that pretty much the last

thing, in addition to what you just mentioned, on the house's agenda? host: can you repeat the beginning of that? congress completed work on the $250 billion package to keep the federal government running. is that the last thing the house has on its agenda? caller: that was the last big thing. a lot of members wanted to leave yesterday. house majority leader steny hoyer said, we have to stick around for the 9/11 responders bill. yes, it is called a continuing resolution. it keeps the government funded through february. the democrats had hoped to pass a much larger bill that would have covered all of fiscal 2011 spending. republicans were opposed to that because they felt like it was full of earmarks and bloated and wasteful. they kind of got their way on that. democrats and president obama

agreed to do this three-month resolution that will keep the government funding at near 2010 levels. it establishes the fact that republicans will have to be responsible in the house for coming up with a spending bill themselves next year. that sort of hits them against democrats in the white house over what exactly will be in the spending bill. next year, as you know, the house will be in the hands of the republicans. they will be controlling all these spending bills. of course, they have their earmark ban in place for next year. the bill will be arguably smaller and less expensive under the republicans. that may not bode well with democrats and president obama, who may feel that some important programs are not funded to the levels they would like them to be funded at. it does set up a fight for next year. it is not clear.

nobody knows what's going to happen. is certainly does look like a fight is pending on this. host: one more thing happening in the senate and reported in "the philadelphia inquirer" this morning. tell us a little bit about that. caller: right. there has been a fight all year long on some of these very controversial nominees. it has been a year with an unprecedented number of holes. they struck this agreement. it started moving forward. they confirmed a couple yesterday. they have been able to move

forward on this. we will see what happens next year when more nominees come up. for now, they have this deal going. that will help move some things along, but not all of the folks that obama wanted. it's sort of a compromise. host: susan ferrechio of "the washington examiner" has been telling us what congress has left on its agenda before they get out of here at the end of the week. thank you very much for being on the program. caller: my pleasure. host: we continue our discussion on the census. how has your community changed in the last 10 years? tell us a little bit about what's going on in your community. our next call comes from michigan. frank, you are on the "washington journal." caller: good morning. host: frank, how have things changed in warren, mich.? caller: i suggest that the question is wrong. it's not a matter of how many

particular area.a the question should be, how have the values of the american people changed? in the past 10 years, everyone has become the victim. we are no longer americans. we are either democrats and republicans, latinos, blacks, -- we are no longer a functioning unit. i can remember times before the 10 years where we joined as a country. the one that sticks out in my mind is at the time of the second world war where senator brandenburg -- we got involved in the war. he flat-out made the statement that politics stops at the water's edge.

it no longer stops at the water's edge. the values and morals of the people of the united states has been degraded to the point where we no longer are able to come back. host: in "the detroit free press" this morning, the headline, "cost of shrinking state." have you seen evidence of shrinking in michigan? caller: i've seen evidence of people being discouraged. i do not know if people have moved. i'm sure it must be right. host: ron in pennsylvania, go ahead. caller: good morning. can you hear me? host: i can. how has your community changed in the last 10 years? caller: it has changed a lot. i've noticed more people in the area -- i'm on my way to work this morning on howard stern's

cock. host: in bethel, vt., go ahead. caller: good morning. host: go ahead. caller: in bethel, vt., things have gotten bad. the high taxes -- elderly people walking the road for wood to keep warm. we've been here 20 years and i've never seen things this bad. there's no work for nobody. property taxes -- ours have gone from $1,000 to almost $6,000. we had $1 million missing from our schools, which the people will have to make up. that will raise our taxes another $700. that's about all i have to say. host: what is the economy like as far as jobs? no jobs in vermont?

caller: we have a couple of small factories here that really help the people. they don't pay a lot, but it is a job and benefits. there is a plastics company and a stove company. if you leave here, there's no other place to get a job, unless you go to a restaurant, or mcdonald's, and they do not even higher now. host: we will leave it there. in "the new york times" this morning -- "u.s. adds to iran sanctions shortly after nuclear talks." also this morning, regarding the iran sanctions, sarah palin had this op-ed in this morning's "usa today" and it starts off with the headline, "it's time to

get tough with the nuclear focused iran." she writes -- host: that is an op-ed in this morning's "usa today" from sarah palin. more on our discussion about

how your community has changed in the last 10 years. aztec, and new mexico, cliff, you are on the "washington journal." i am sorry. rapid city, oliver, go ahead. caller: i used to work at a computer place in south dakota and they moved down south to mexico. they have facilities in texas. i think computer places from california moved to texas. the millionaires from new york went overseas or to other places that do not have to pay so much taxes on where they live and all that. they moved mostly in south america -- or, south usa.

most of the millionaires should move down south because they do not have to pay taxes on all that stuff that new york and california have to pay for, especially schools that are being paid for by millionaires. host: oliver, what is the tax situation in rapid city, s.d.? is that helping to get more jobs, or is that keeping jobs from coming to south dakota >> caller: they are getting jobs thrown here now, but they have two big walmarts in rapid city. we're trying to get another one. i think it pretty good here in south dakota. host: in "the wall street journal" --

host: you can read more in "the wall street journal" this morning. now we go to aztec, new mexico. cliff, you are on the "washington journal." caller: good morning. host: cliff, how has your community changed in the last 10 years? had an we've definitely influx of immigration, but i think our biggest thing is our smaller businesses. we've had so many closings.

largehough we've had a grocery in the area of -- large growth rate in the area. the area has turned from being strongly democratic to more republican. my wife has been a census taker for both the 2000 and 2010 census. there are a lot of communities where they had to have the .upervisors going t into they would not disclose how many people were in their households. i do not know if they were able to get an accurate count, but i know the difficulty in this area. host: in talking with your wife, what has the experience been like? how has it changed, being a

census taker in 2000 versus 2010? caller: it seems like 2000 was an easier census. it seemed much less stressful for her and the other. . -- and the other workers. i was in the military. we moved to texas and she has continued being a taker there. and then we came back to the area. people were initially resistant as far as non immigrants -- were more resistant in 2000. host: we will leave it there. want to remind you that thursday's "washington journal"

at 7:45 a.m., we will be talking with census director robert groves. be sure to tune in thursday, tomorrow, for our conversation with robert groves. in "the philadelphia inquirer" this morning, "executions in the u.s. are approaching a historic low." host: va., susan, how has your community change in the last 10 years? she is gone. let's move on to los angeles, california. chase, you are on the "washington journal."

caller: not only do we have people coming from other states to california, we have people coming from mexico to california. even though california does have the most people, there are a lot of people unaccounted for due to the fact that they are emigrating over from mexico. host: how has that affected you personally? caller: it has affected some of the jobs, some of the high- paying jobs. mainly the food service. a lot of people can get jobs and food service. when i was looking for a job last year, and i went to mcdonald's, and they gave me an application in spanish. i do not even speak spanish. we're in california and they're giving me an application in spanish. that does not make sense to me. host: why do you think they give you an application in spanish? caller: maybe because they thought i spoke spanish.

when i did ask them for an english publication, she told me, we don't have any. this is los angeles. why don't you have an english application? that does not make any sense. host: we will leave it there. we want to remind you that the president will be signing the repeal of don't ask, don't tell later on this morning and we will have live coverage on c- span 3 beginning at 9:15 a.m. again, the president signing the repeal of don't ask, don't tell on c-span 3. in "usa today" this morning, a study from the cdc that says birthrate decline overall. record low birthrates for women in their 20s and 30s. birth rates fell in 2009 for teenagers and women in their 20s and 30s.

host: back to the phones. houston, texas. go ahead, ed. caller: good morning. host: how have things changed in houston in houston in the last 10 years? caller: i was born in houston. there are many immigrants from other countries coming in from asia, many professionals taking good paying jobs in accounting,

engineering, etc. there's a lot of competition here for jobs. texas is supposed to be having a better economy. we're almost up to 9.5% unemployment. it is very competitive down here in terms of business and also for jobs. houston and texas are going to be -- it is kind of a preview of what the rest of the country is going to be like in the next 20 years. host: thank you for your call. in "the new york times" this morning, this headline, "elite colleges rethink ties to rotc after don't ask, don't tell repeal."

host: a program reminder that on fridays, "washington journal" we will have a guest with "the christian science monitor" talking about the implementation of the repeal of don't ask, don't tell. also, the president will be signing the repeal of don't ask, don't tell at about 9:15 a.m. this morning. we'll have live coverage of that on c-span 3. back to the phones. for lauderhill, sandy. how has your community changed in the last 10 years? caller: i am a caribbean american. what i can say is that in my community in fort lauderdale, i've noticed a lot more

segregation. you see most of the white people are in the western part of my city. you'll have more blacks, minorities, and hispanics in the northern part of the fort lauderdale. we do have a lot of immigrants in this area. a lot of immigrant people of different backgrounds, hispanics, asians, caribbean. i've also noticed that the price of food has gone up. the price of everything has gone up in this area. the job situation is horrible. horrible. host: sandy in fort lauderdale. we're going to take a short break. coming up in 45 minutes, the impact of the mexican drug violence on the u.s. economy. coming up after the break, a discussion on house

redistricting in 2012 as a result of the 2010 census. that is coming up on "washington journal." today is wednesday, december 22. ♪ >> on c-span, christmas eve, speaker of the house nancy pelosi and other members of congress like the christmas tree. later, on the 50th anniversary of the first televised debate, the conversation about the presidential debate.

christmas day, tony blair and tony hichens on the role of religion. former supreme court justices sandra day o'connor and david souter discuss life on the high court. >> it should not take a constitutional crisis, a terrorist attack or a financial calamity to summon from each of us in this body collectively the greatness of which we are capable. nor can america afford to wait. >> hear from retiring senators on a c-span video library. more than 160,000 hours, all on line, all free. it is washington, your way. >> from inside the theater, a hostage used a mobile phone to call a local radio station.

>> we have never had the kind of material to rival these phone calls. it gives you an inside seat. a gives you an inside view of a terrorist a faattack. >> this month, q&a expands to two programs this weekend from london interviews. dan reed. >> "washington journal" continues. host: david wasserman is here to talk about the census numbers released yesterday and how it will affect congressional reapportionment for 2012. who are the big winners and the big losers in reapportionment? guest: christmas came early for texas, which gained four seats. texas is in a jolly mood.

redistricting is the holy grail for states with seats to lose or gain. we will see a round of musical chairs in a lot of states that are losing seats. there are 10 states that will be losing representation in the house, including ohio, and new york, losing two each. texas is also gaining two seats. florida is gaining two seats as well. this is a changing map, as it is every 10 years, and a very contentious process. host: one of the headlines this morning in "usa today" -- "the shift of 12 house states will be in some states." as far as not having all the

pieces on the chessboard, what do you think is missing at this point? guest: we do not know what accounts are for the actual counties and localities. every 10 years, we see a changing reflection of the american population in the census, but changes in the way the process takes place. this year, there's no shortage of twists. in states where republicans control the process exclusively, there are 196 house seats, compared to 49 house seats where theocrats will have the 4 authority. democrats could not have picked a worse year to lose a lot of seats and then 2010.

host: we're talking with david wasserman of cook political report about congressional redistricting. if you would like to give us a call, go ahead. again -- in "the atlantic" jim o'sullivan writes --

what is this overreach he is talking about? guest: over the course of history, we've seen parties tried to spread themselves too thin over a variety of districts with the goal of winning as many as possible. for example, in pennsylvania, where republicans had control of the process in 2002, they tried to draw 12 seats that would essentially be republican from the seats. nine seats were up for grabs. they ended up losing five of those seats over the course of the last decade. course, they gained many back in 2010. it's possible for parties to overreach. in contrast, in california, the last time democrats were in control of the process and now it will be the commission. essentially, it decided to say -- we are going to have 33 seats for ourselves.

we will have republicans with 26 seats. democrats held on to every one of those 33 seats over the course of the next five elections. it was a very successful map. we will see what parties in each state decide to do. host: our first call comes from surely in new york, new york. on the line for democrats. caller: i'm talking about how it has changed in our community. i am in new york city. [inaudible] all the sudden, the stores -- it's all in spanish now. you go to the laundromat and the television they have in the laundromat is nothing but spanish programs on. so many of them have come to the united states.

they're having so many children. their children are citizens of the united states. so many of the mothers and fathers -- they get over because they can get all the assistance from their children. and you see it everywhere. they get food stamps. they get everything. [inaudible] this is, you know, you can get benefits and everything. host: we're going to leave it there. significant changes ahead for new york's? guest: absolutely. new york is losing two seats in this process. if you look at where new york's population has been in decline over the last 10 years, it has been in decline in upstate new york. last time around, new york also

lost two seats. democrats and republicans who had divided control over the processing 2002 managed to squeeze two seats from upstate new york. it's likely that new york city will lose one district that will be a democratic district. legislators will decide to carve out a seat in upstate new york and maybe call it a fair deal. this will be heavily litigated in a lot of states. the increasing population of immigrants in cities and other places across the country -- remember, we are counting all residents, not just the sense. it will affect what is happening in the redistricting phase. host: for folks who want to see how the census will affect them, we suggest you go to their web page 2010.census.org/2010census

/data. you can click on the apportionment tab to see how the census numbers will affect the political situation or the house representation and some of the state representation in your area. our next call comes from north carolina. on the line for republicans, bill, you are on the "washington journal." caller: good morning. my question is for david wasserman. the redistricting in north carolina district 12 -- watt is the representative in the house of representatives. that district runs from one city to another city and goes down to i-95, and there's nothing to the right or left. it goes right down the highway. it goes from greensboro to winston salem.

i'm kind of wondering how that will be affected by the new rules and regulations or whatever the census -- also, the fact that the north carolina state legislature is now totally republican. host: bill, thank you for your call. david wasserman, in answering that, can you also address the district of brad miller and how those districts may be reapportioned? guest: district the caller is referring to is probably the most heavily litigated throughout the 1990's. in 1992, democrats passed as many -- if you could drop a minority minority district, you essentially had to draw it. the old joke was that you could drive down i-85 with both car doors open and be in three

districts at the same time. the district lines are still a little bit smoother. it's still extends from charlotte to greensboro and winston salem. it is oddly shaped. there are no shortage of inkricts that eat look liklooke blots. this is in compliance with the voting rights act. it has actually benefited republicans. it has created odd bedfellows with legislatures who have an advantage of attacking democrats in the heavily minority districts, and having districts to run and win. republicans have control over the process of north carolina for the first time. this is really interesting. ordinarily, having a democratic governor in the state would be a real consolation prize for democrats. they would have some veto power.

north carolina is one of the few states where the legislature has complete authority over drawing boundaries. republicans picking up the north carolina legislature is a big deal. they could redraw the map to their favor. they will likely preserve those minority-majority districts to protect themselves from receiving the no-verdict from the justice department. while republicans have an unprecedented authority over it line drawing, this is the first time we have had a democratic justice department oversee the process. very few people are aware the department of justice gets to

essentially clear all of these maps before they go into effect in southern states where there are protected classism of minorities. host: our next call is from paul online for independents. caller: good morning. you can hear me fine, right? -- what is yet heard the new population of the united states of america, hypothetically if every human being weighed the same amount? it used to be in eastern missouri, right? after the 2000 census. i am wondering how much it has moved. guest: that is one of those questions that should be on "who wants to be a millionaire?"

i suspect it has moved a few miles west from where it was an missouri. host: back to the phones. david is on a line for republicans. caller: it seems like it is rife with corruption. why is all this redistricting necessary? it seems like there is a lot of gaming the system going on. guest: according to our constitution, we have to put out a census every 10 years. by law, states have to redistrict every 10 years to reflect changes and shifts in population in their states. this is an undertaking that becomes a political wrangling that is very alien to other countries. it is going to cause a lot of

bickering over the next few years. host: you mentioned before the justice department has to sign off on redistricting. it is that just in states in the south or across the board? guest: that applies to southern states, where history of discrimination and voting rights is clear and evident. when the voting rights act section 5 was passed, i believe it was in 1982 or some point in the 1970's, what we began to see was the voting rights act and the justice department signed off on any change that was made to voting procedures in southern states. that is still in effect today, but this is the first time a democratic justice department has overseen the process.

we will see what differences are in store at this time. host: our next call comes from indiana on a line for democrats. caller: good morning. i have a question for your guest. what safeguards are they going to put in place to ensure that gerrymandering still does not occur? it is like the republicans are going to pick up seats that it will have control over for the next 10 years. guest: some states have taken measures to prevent maps that virtu oddly shaped for voters common sense. we have seen a ballot initiative passed in florida that was really the only silver lining for democrats in the state of florida. this ballot amendment, 5 and 6,

requires legislators who are redrawing boundaries to conform to existing and political geographic boundaries when drawing lines. there are some districts that [unintelligible] much like michael jordan defied gravity. when you look at these districts, you think how did legislators come up with them? sophisticated computer models is what they used to produce these maps have gotten increasingly complex and have enabled them to choose essentially who will get certain voters. a lot of voters complain that this is like politicians choosing their voters. the amendment will really throw a lot of doubt to the republicans' ability to craft boundaries to their liking.

just that definition of what constitutes this in this process has been at issue at court hearings for years and decades and there is no mathematical standard for determining what is a compact and what is not. which will likely see this end up in court include a and in other states. geographic information software -- i am sure i got that wrong. we are increasingly saying these products are used by legislators, some with a very high price tag, to be able to use the software to draw districts and can actually split census blocks to choose blocks of residents to add to these districts.

one thing that is unique compared to past generations of a redistricting, do-it-yourself redistricting -- a lot of folks who are really geeks' on this have gone to a new application out there which you can search on google. it is a web-based freeware or you can actually a draw districts based on the census estimates to your liking. it is a really cool way for outsiders to get an insider's view of the process and to advocate for maps they would like to see in public hearings and other places. as the face of america changes, so too does the process by which we approach redistricting, and that is exciting. host: does the public have access to this geographical information system? can they do their own reapportionment systems in their

home? guest: you can do it in your pajamas. and what of advocates on both sides and even a lot of hill staffers down the street have been using them to craft them to their bosses of liking. it is not sophisticated enough where you would be able to draw exact, precise districts that conform to the standards of population and quality. there is a computer programmer who lives out in seattle, washington, who has devised this in his free time, and it has the potential to open up the process to a lot of folks who would normally have to pay five figures for a software programmed to do similar types of things. host: let's get back to the phones regarding the census and congressional redistricting with david wasserman. our next call comes from

washington. go ahead. caller: my name is natural. i am stationed up here in washington -- my name is nigel. what i have been noticing is that the recent man who one county commissioner is a republican, and historically, not too favorable toward mining towns. our mining town it is a scraping by and they need as much as they can get. do you know how many people live there? it is just me, nigel. i am telling you, there is gold up in these hills. host: nigel, we are going to

leave it there. guest: washington is gaining a house seat. washington has a bipartisan commission for redrawing the boundaries. washington will be drawing a new district somewhere in the state. eastern washington, which there is a lot of rural washington state, have enough people for 2.5 districts. some of eastern washington, rural washington, will gain some representation in this process. it is likely that republicans and democrats will be able to come to a compromise, because republicans have two members who were elected in 2010, a new member of congress and the republican who was elected in 2004 who would like some additional protection in a new

map, and democrats could conceivably drop in new districts to their liking what protecting the republican legislators as well. that could be one compromise. it is not that easy in a lot of states that are losing seats. it would be better to beginning seats and having to squeeze someone out. host: next up is pittsburgh, missouri, on a line for democrats. caller: good morning. i just wanted to make a quick note that there has been an improvement where i live. i live out in a rural area, so that is good news. upon the other note, what would like to say about redistricting, i am confused about the process of how -- is

it based soleely on republicans and democrats? with the tea party thing, i have a feeling that the democrats are going to do the same thing. i am wondering if another party will come into affect redistricting. guest: many of the questions that a lot of voters have is why are independents and third-party is left out of this process entirely? this is a way that both parties can sustain their monopoly over the states. we are seeing an increasing trend of creating these a fair fight districts where independent voters cannot really decide between democrats and republicans.

we are seeing a lot of districts -- we have half the number of swing districts than we did 20 years ago. part of a is also that legislators have every depicted these boundaries to create seats for democrats and for some republicans. in those districts, the primary elections basically pander out to the election, so there is very little competition. gov. arnold schwarzenegger passed through a city commission that will be redrawing the state boundaries in 2011. it is why voters in florida passed amendments, 5 and 6, to tie the hands of legislators to be able to gerrymander. it would not cause wholesale changes in the number of competitive seats we are able to draw in this process.

host: saginaw, mich., on our line for independents. 54,000 people have left michigan. go ahead. caller: i did not read that article but i watched a public access show about our state government. it is the only way i know about what goes on in our state government. re, running forei the rnc chair, and he said metro detroit is probably the seed that will be lost. i am not knowledgeable on this redistricting at all, so can you explain what happens? it to me, that is a densely

populated area. do these representatives are represent the same number of people? so, would these people -- they would go into other districts, right? so they would be represented by other people? guest: this is a pretty confusing process for a lot of citizens. when the state loses a seat, one district is usually parted out to a lot of other seats, or a couple of seats are merged into one seat. it is likely that seat will come from the metro detroit area, if only because the republicans are in control of the process. there are two african american majority districts in the metro area, and there are likely to be protected.

it is likely we will see republicans combined a couple of legislators into one seat. one scenario would have won merged with the 12th district and create one district. another scenario would be if a retires, if we saw one of those old bulls retired, it is possible we could see republicans and draw their districts and two other democratic districts and reserve action -- reserve as much strength. host: each congressional district has to have a certain number of people in it. correct? guest: yes. each district has to have put the number of people that every

other district has. so in a lot of states, we end up splitting census blocks to achieve it that quality, which is part of the reason why we see some nine gold maps out there. -- mangled maps out there. oftentimes there are counties that have too large a population for one district. or necessities like protecting minority voting rights which require counties to be split in the regular ways and shapes in order to achieve opportunities for minority candidates. host: stephen from idaho where the number of representatives is going to stay the same. caller: if i remember correctly, there was quite a bit of controversy about moving the census office to the white house.

what effect could the executive branch have on the redistricting from the census? guest: to the extent that the executive branch is going to have a say over this process, it will most likely be enforcement in the voting rights act provision which allows legislators retro-aggression, which is the decline of the voting strength in a district. minority voters, in some states, have moved out into the suburbs. it gets harder to draw them into one district. the obama administration is going to have a very difficult job to do in enforcing this. they have to decide which battles to involve thenmselves

in. in south carolina, for example, republican lawmakers love to put that nude seated in north carolina -- south carolina that would benefit republicans. democrats might argue it would be possible to create another african american majority district in the state. " we are likely to seek some wrangling caught between the obama administration and state regulators in a few small isolated cases. host: richard in arkansas sends us this e-mail.

guest: that is actually something that a lot of computer programmers have tried to do. there are programs out there that do redistrict automatically, but state legislators who have the power over this process would argue that a computer would not know where communities of interest libe. so legislators, in addition to that argument, would also be reluctant to give power to someone else or something else in the process even though it might be beneficial to the overall fairness of the process. host: we are talking to david wasserman, the house editor of the cook political report.

charlie, you are on the "washington journal." caller: good morning. it in the presentation yesterday, he mentioned that the five most populous states -- he mentioned that illinois was one of the most 5 populous states, but yet illinois loses a seed. -- a seat. i am just wondering how did that happen? where would that seat be likely to occur? with a have to carve up one of the existing seats to get down to losing that one seat? i would like to get your take on the situation in illinois.

home: president obama's state is the wednesday that democrats wield power a powerful redistricting knife in this game. illinois lost eight seats because its population is not growing as fast as some of the other -- illinois lost a seat because its population is not growing as fast as some of the others. republicans picked up a couple of seats in illinois in 2010. they are at risk of being forced out of their districts. one of the likely seats that we will see alter substantially is the 17th district of illinois, which is in western illinois. this is a seat to pack as many democrats as possible into the district by having it based on that border that had a political

-- that had a little tentacles that stretched out to other parts of the state. that district was not even successful for democrats in preserving their hold on it in 2010. the republican pizza shop owner one that 17th district. democrats might say if they did not elect them in 2010, why should we even bother? or create one seed that is very favorable for them, rather than merging two into one. keep in mind, the chicago district would have to expand as well. it is not just as simple as eliminating one seat in one part of the state. you could see chicago districts

which have inner-city populations move out into the suburbs. it is possible these districts could become more suburban, and some of the members of congress there will have to shift their priorities in a district that looks a lot different than it did in the last decade. host: the overall population rank in illinois has stayed the same in 2010. the word no. 5 in the country back in 1980 and also no. 5. you are seeing -- you are saying they will lose a seat because their population has only grown 3.3%. theguest: if you were below that 7%, you were at risk of losing representation. primarily, in the sunbelt states

away from the rust belt. we are seeing illinois, iowa, missouri, pennsylvania, ohio, michigan all lose seats in this process. it is like n.c.a.a. selection, that illinois was in the one of those states that lost representation. if you adjust to the tally in two dozen aid to the new reapportionment, president obama would have won that election with fewer votes, and that is the equivalent of losing a state the size of arkansas or kansas, so he has some ground to make up in 2012. that is favorable to republicans, but just because they have picked up some strength in the sunbelt at the electoral college level, it does not mean this process is going

to generate a gain of 10 seats for republicans in the house. the minority requirements that we went over before, but also because it is not as clear-cut as simply as arizona and texas gaining seats so they will be republican seats, because some of them will have to go to democrats. republicans will stand to gain about three to five seats from redistricting alone in 2012, not the 10 or 15 that you hear from some republicans. host: we have about four minutes left in this segment. our next call comes from taxes, francis is on a line for independents. caller: texas is picking up seats, but is not so clear-cut. 12 years ago, there were four caucasians, one hispanic, one

vietnamese family, and one of mixed african american-white on my street. two of the hispanic families now have multiple families living in the homes. no matter how they draw the lines in texas, the voting is necessarily going to change. guest: where in texas are you calling? caller: just outside of dallas. guest: absolutely. in some districts in texas, the minority population has grown immensely. one represents -- one person represents a district that has no longer the majority of anglo residents. a lot of that population is non- citizen, so it is still a

republican district in terms of voting patterns, but demographically it is changed a lot. what republicans might do is carved a new hispanic majority district in an area like a state like dallas. it is possible republicans will decide to create that district and short out others for republicans in the next decade. host: is the population growing faster with the democrats or the republicans? how much of an influence will that have over redistricting in texas? guest: primarily democratic areas of the state -- south texas, dallas, houston, and some other areas where we are seeing

an enormous population growth. democrats are likely to take two out of the fort seats if republicans are smart and decided we have maxed ourselves out when tom delay was in charge of the redistricting last time. maybe take two new seats of our own. if republicans are aggressive, they might decide they want three or all four of those seats. it is subject to more court challenges, more difficult to defend, and they are spreading themselves send across the area. this is the fun of the game. host: brad is on a line for republicans. this morning in the boston

globe -- caller: the question i have is the representatives are represent over 700,000 people. congress has not increased the number of representatives since 1929, since suffrage. 18-year-old got the right to vote. my question is basically, how does that affect when we determine when congress should increase the number of representatives? host: brad, which district are you in it? caller: i am out of cape cod. guest: you are in the 10th district. host: thanks, brad. guest: that is a point that a lot of voters are making, that

the size of congress has not changed in almost a century. this has profound implications for the way that congress represent citizens in a country. when you have the congressional district that is 710,000 people, compared to what it was originally, 400,000 residents, it is a lot harder for those members of congress to engage in retail politics. he gets easier and easier to stay in washington to raise the money it takes to communicate with a block of voters that is that large. that is increasingly what we are seeing happen. the problem with reforming that and decreasing the size of the house of representatives to make congress closer to its

citizens, the counter argument is obvious. why increase the number of politicians in washington when washington is so dysfunctional? so i don't think we will see that happening anytime soon. massachusetts is going to be a thorny state. democrats have all 10 seats in massachusetts, including the 10th district where the caller is from. host: david wasserman from the cook political report, thank you for being on the program. in 45 minutes, we will be talking about the start treaty. after the break, we will be talking with ray walser of the heritage foundation to talk about the impact of drug violence on the economy. you are watching the "washington journal."

today is december 22, 2010. >> listen to historic supreme court cases on c-span radio. >> with the exception of the cross, the nativity scene is one of the most powerful religious symbols in this country and certainly one of the most christian symbols in this country. >> listen to the argument on c- span radio.

you are watching c-span, bringing you politics and public affairs every morning on "washington journal." connecting you to elected officials, policy makers, and journalists. during the week, watched the u.s. house. every week night, congressional hearings and policy forums. on the weekends, you can see our signature interview programs. you can also watch our programming and the time at c- span.org. it is all answer to ball on our c-span video letter -- it is all searchable on our c-span video library. >> "washington journal" continues. host: ray walser is the latin

america senior policy analyst of the heritage foundation. tell us, why are the u.s. and other foreign businesses leaving mexico? guest: one of the big reasons to believe it is security concerns. we began this discussion talking about a recent report in the wall street journal, which pointed out a number of companies decided to relocate. they considered placing businesses in mexico and at the end of the day they said the security situation was too troubling and they would make investments in the united states. with high and implement rates in the u.s. command that is good news critic for mexico, that is not good news. i had the opportunity to visit mexico city a couple of weeks ago to talk to some of the

political people, people at the embassy, and so on. there is grave concern about the security situation. it clearly has economic costs associated with this narco-vio lence. is this all -- guest: there is a whole hierarchy of violence. at the top, they have leaders, constantly changing, killing off each other, losing heads to law enforcement. one of the basic factors is a hierarchy of violence. it is morphing into other areas, everything from kidnapping, extortion, migrant smuggling, the siphoning off of oil. i saw a recent report of an

explosion that cost many lives. there is a whole network of criminality. the apex is what we think of in our minds, the drug cartels. host: in may, you had a memo published by the heritage foundation. tell us about what you mean by responsible neighbor policy. the way i pitched it was that mexico starts cleaning up its house, dealing with the security situation, growing its economy, finding jobs for -- i think the poverty figures are still around 44% residing in

poverty. it clearly on the other side, we have a responsibility. we must be responsible neighbor for mexico. it is a two-way. this is a close relationship we have to pay attention to. host: we are talking to ray walser of the heritage foundation, tha latin america senior policy analyst. if you want to get involved in our conversation, please give us a call. you can also send us an e-mail or twitters. give us an example of a company that was in mexico that left because of problems with the

narco-violence. guest: clearly, a number of companies have gone in. in the juarez area, aside from the ones reported in the wall street journal, there is not a massive exodus. recent figures show investment is increasing as the mexican economy recovers, as the american economy recovers. especially looking at parts of mexico, and also looking at such variables as wage rates. you really depend on that wage rate, but if you are going to have a big management of the men there, and security becomes an issue, perhaps you are going to think twice.

the security influences its geographic selection, the level of your investments. what is the cost you are going to have to pay for the risk analysis? the fbi agents you have to hire, what sort of counter measures he will have to implement as part of your business plan. ultimately, as a recent story talked about, it is about the bottom line. host: water they? guest: think of it as a textile plant in which relatively inexpensive labor is used to assemble textiles to sew garments, makes shoes, the lower end. the higher and stuff -- cars, television, aircraft, parts moving back and forth across the border and everything.

this basically means an assembly line operation where your wage a factor is extremely important in determining your profit margin. the mexican worker receives somewhere around $2 an hour, versus our minimum wage, $7 with it generalized union labor. host: in a story that you refer to in the washington journal, moving to memphis, tenn., over locations in mexico -- glance, it would seem this would be great for the ninth is the economy and by extension for the u.s. economy. where would be the drawback for to memphis?rolux go guest: i think the reporting

ankle was taken from the perspective of mexico, so it was written in terms of it is a loss for mexican opportunity, a loss for jobs there. i think many of us would like to see more manufacturing jobs coming back into the united states. clearly, we want an economy that is growing and has manufacturing jobs as the base of its economic activity. host: we are talking about the impact of mexican drug violence on the u.s. economy with ray walser of the american foundation. caller: thank you for taking my call. i would like to mention that i think a sense of the drug cartels are increasing into the mainland of the u.s., i would suggest that president obama go to states like california,

arizona, and new mexico should request for special forces and air national guard to rid out those drug cartels and blow them away. guest: the use of military force, -- first of all, the mexican cartels are here in the united states. i think they have networks in 230 cities in the united states. it is not just the border, texas, or california. it is boston, atlanta. this is a nationwide problem, the cartels operating, selling drugs in the united states. they control about 90% of the cocaine chain. we have to step up law enforcement efforts against the drug cartels in the united states. the use of the military, both

here in the united states for counter-drug operations and use of military in mexico, a very controversial issue. militaries are generally not prepared to do the law enforcement activities, the investigations, they have the arrest power in the united .tates boarde so i agree that we need to continue with a show of force against the cartels, but little thing called the special forces is the answer today. host: james, you are on the "washington journal." caller: i would like to say that the answer to this problem is we need to do away with this dea drug enforcement agency and just legalize every drug out there. the reason why, there is no

money in it. if there was no money in it, there would be no participation. there are too many people at the top making money off illegal drugs. the pharmaceutical drugs are killing more people in this country than anything else -- cancer, heart disease, and the other thing that we come up on. then we would have drugs to help the people instead of just pharmaceutical companies making money. guest: i think you have some very novel ideas, but i am afraid that simply moving -- and doing away with the fda is not a politically viable option at this time in the united states -- doing away with the dea is not a politically viable option at this time in the united states. the abuse of prescription drugs

is a major part. you have elements there that i would agree with and others that i do not think are politically viable options. host: on our line for democrats. caller: hello. one of the main reasons -- my question is about killing and all of the things happening right now recently in mexico. because of the drugs and all of this stuff, but also seeing everybody talk about what is going on with drugs and all of this killing and terrorists and all this stuff, but nobody is thinking about religion things. put the people in a position to look for god instead of looking for something different.

they have removed prayers from school. the only thing they are learning about is evil stuff. host: we are going to leave it there. guest: people who become caught up in it materialism lifestyles, who become hedonistic and concentrate on pleasure, lose sight of spiritual values, family dog use. clearly, part of a healthy response to the drug violence is a return to one's spiritual roots. and, yes, that is a route that is very difficult to legislate. individual decisions have to be made. schools and communities must come together to combat narco- violence. he has a good point.

host: we have a chart that shows falling investment. investment in mexico has fallen while drug related debts continue to climb. on the left side of the chart, it talks about foreign investment in the first three- quarters of the year. you can see how it is going up and then coming down. it has tapered off a little bit, but drug-related deaths in mexico continued to go up. is there a direct correlation between these numbers? telos your thoughts. guest: you look at 2007, which was the pre-recession year, and then you come back to 2010 where you see a recovery. that is cyclical. the old saying went if the united states catches a cold -- if the united states sneezes, mexico catches a cold.

you see the rise of the violence. again, every economic decision is an individual decision by a particular company, which weighs everything across the spectrum, profit, security, and the like, and then move up and down with the economic cycle. this will be the most violent year in mexico. the people i have talked to do not expect things to get immediately better. don't expect things to get better in 2011. they will have elections in 2012. support for the president's policies appears to be wavering. it is going to be his signature action. many are saying it will be his signature failure, his inability to get a handle on this. so it is a tough political issue

there, and it is going to have the fallout on the economic side, but there are other sorts of things about how companies can integrate into the economy, and other economic factors at play that are outside the narco- violence cycle. host: ray walser is from the heritage foundation, a latin america senior policy analyst. caller: good morning, gentlemen. what is happening now is you have 3000 -- it is always the same excuse. the government is corrupt. everybody knows that. the only way people can solve this is that the people have to rise up. i have no confidence in the police force at all.

what they used to do here in all pass so, they used to have roadblocks' stopping cars. they would search. they almost on close to $500,000 in actual cash money and arms. they stopped doing that because the business community started rebuilding. now what is happening, guys, there is no small businesses in juarez. today are all moving to help pas -- they are all moving to el paso. the only reason they are there is that they pay people $5 a day. right now, it is up to 3000 so far this year, a gentleman. host: according to this map that we have here from the new york times, it is under control of the juarez cartel.

guest: a very good report from the front lines. el paso is a study in contrast. it is the most violent city probably on the planet at this particular point. clearly, one is tackling to whole underpinnings of corruption, effective police, government, and the like. the united states is attempting and focused on juarez. it is the stalingrad of the drug wars, where the juarez cartels are fighting it out. they have mobilized these young people who have no jobs, education, neither education nor

jobs. they have created gang wars and of which they are overseeing. it is a terrible, barbaric sort of situation that is going on. i think, yes, you have to focus on building governance, police structures that you have confidence in. you have to still try to cut down on the flow of things, cash, guns, and other things that your being illegally sent. we have plenty of laws on the books, but we must continue to enforce those laws. host: joe is on a line for democrats from kansas city, missouri. caller: good morning. it is a kind of ironic that i was on drugs for about 40 years

now. is anybody willing to fight a war for 40 years? " he was talking about the war on drugs going on for 40 years. is there any sign that somebody is winning this work? guest: the obama administration -- secretary clinton talked about the failed war on drugs. it has become a classic scene. the head of the office of national drug control policy said there is no drug war. it is a war on the american people. they tried in a way to change semantics, but going out to the drug cartels, to those people who knowingly distribute oracle substances, who build networks and try to entice kids -- it is a complicated situation.

i think we are going to have "a war on drugs." drugs are not particularly good for american society. there are a couple of points. the united states has always seen its drug market has a growing. the amount of cocaine imported runs at about 200 metric tons. the number of experimenters with cocaine has dropped to 5 million. it is may be signs of change. that would be -- it has to be social change, changes in young adults, and the like. the war on drugs is going to be here. there is a need to change our behavioral patterns, but it is a difficult challenge host: some of the numbers regarding trade shows that mexico is the third

largest u.s. trading partner after canada and china. mexico is the second-largest supplier of petroleum. u.s. exports to mexico, $129 billion worth of goods and services in 2009. the u.s. imports from mexico, $177 billion in 2009. and do you see that changing at all drastically in the next year or two? guest: the one thing that will change is the petroleum imports, because mexico is basically running out of oil. it knows the clock is ticking. yet it is not heckling the monopoly on oil exploration. it has tinkered with its laws. the energy straitjacket is going to be a critical question. they already import gasoline

from the united states. they may have to import from abroad. it to manufacturing side -- the argument on the mexican side is that mexico helps improve american competitiveness. these traits allow us to sell products abroad at relatively cheaper costs. the gentleman mentioned a caterpillar. if caterpillar can build something that can compete with other companies, then mexico is pretty vital to our competitiveness. i don't seek drastic changes, again, unless that security is thrown into the process. it is a very of vital relationship. i think what we oftentimes overlook. host: and vivian is on a line for democrats. caller: thank you.

mexico had that big sale when we opened up china. there is a lot of american expatriate's moving down to the south america's for the costs and taxes and things like that. i see a lot of americans moving down to the yucatan peninsula, places like that. do they feel in danger down there? they are moving into nicaragua, panama. i was wondering, do they feel in danger down in the south american countries, these expatriates' moving down there so's their dollars will stretch further? guest: i don't think you will find a lot of people moving to

places where many of the drug cartels are active. one of my colleagues retired down in mexico. he keeps on the lookout. but, yes, i think there is still about a million of americans who have gone to mexico to live. they go there for health reasons, getting health care at much lower costs. you are going to see it. what you want is a stable mexico neighbor. we want to responsible neighbor to the south so people can retire to mexico and lived there safely, receive the medical care that they want. we want to look at the possibilities of social security benefits being portable.

we need to continue to look at those cost-cutting sources of patterns of demographics. we talked about the rising hispanic population of the united states. you are going to have these crosscutting demographic factors which are guest: they will continue to grow and become more important in our relationship. host: in your paper, you talk about how nafta still counts. talk was about nafta and how it relates to the up and down of trade with mexico. guest: basically, nafta allows a relatively free, unfettered movement of goods, services between the two countries. we have a freeze in florida.

all the sudden, get the word out to the strawberry growers in mexico and up comes the strawberries. fta allows the movement of goods. as the restrictions are removed, it allows for agricultural products to enter. it allows these integrated, very sophisticated electronics and the like to be assembled and reassembled back and forth. it has generated, overall, high- volume trade. has it produced on both sides of the border the kind of good jobs people want? that's still the debate. we have undefined issues, such as the trucking dispute with mexico city.

the sale of u.s. christmas trees planted. why? we could not settle the nafta trucking dispute. the teamsters did not want the trucks closely inspected on u.s. roads. the kinks are not all worked out. there are still a lot of challenges that are out there. the ultimate goal is to try to get both economies working productively. it's one of the last areas in the world. the united states has a labor based that it can use and a world that wants us. mexico is pretty important to our economic well-being, as is canada. host: the impact of mexican

drug- violence on the u.s. economy with ray walser. good morning. you are on the "washington journal." caller: a reporter once asked john gotti how much they were making of the mafia. the answer was, they're not in the drug business. they cannot compete with the government. you said that making drugs legal is politically not feasible right now. let me dissect the statement. the majority of the people did not want it. the majority people did not want the bailouts. we got the belt. doe majority of the people not want the wars and we get the worst. we have a government that does not represent the people. we get the government that

represents cartels and industry. there's money in keeping drugs illegal. why are you laughing? that's what i want to know. what are you laughing for? the things i'm saying are real. you cannot legislate morality. you cannot tell people what they can put in their bodies. if i wanted to snort draino this morning, i could do that. guest: i disagree with you. our government is not run by cartels. it is influenced by industries. making democracy work remains a challenge, but i do not agree with your overall perspective. host: next up is brandon on the line for republicans. go ahead, and turn your television down. caller: the cash crop of the

mexican cartels is marijuana, right? guest: it is. supposedly accounts for 60% of their revenue. caller: correct. if our government legalized marijuana, that would cause the black market of marijuana to collapse, so the mexican cartels would not be getting 60% of their income. it would not give the money to ights.he fl that america say has got to wake up. they can see what is happening around them. if we do not get a hold on this, it will get out of control. host: we will leave it there. guest: all i can say, california is one of the most progressive

and liberal state. it turned down a proposition, proposition 19, to legalize marijuana in that state. the american people, the american voters, and the last gentleman, makes a case. there's a strong minority out there that is pro legalization. they've not convinced the majority of americans that this is the way to go with marijuana and other drugs. yes, there is a significant minority that wants to legalize it. there are others who want to criminalize it. these are domestic issues. for the moment, we have to look at our topic today. that is, the impact of violence in mexico and its impact on economics. we have to continue this debate. it is a valid point. yes, about 60% of the revenue, reportedly, comes from illegal marijuana, either smuggled

across the border from mexico. host: our next call comes from gary in texas on the line for democrats. caller: thank you. good morning. i would like to know what the ifact would be on nafta legalization was passed. the tax revenue it would create for our government. one gentleman said the government was influenced. yes, the government is far too influenced by everybody. they do not do what they need to do for the people. they do what they need to do for themselves and their own children. one person in america is making the decisions, and not us people -- 1 percent of america is making the decision. not passe vote did

in california. nafta -- yes, the debate -- the pros and cons are that we are out there in california. the people in california decided at the end of the day to not open the door to legalization at this time. the door is never entirely closed. the debate will continue. host: in the associated press last week, regarding u.s. cables -- "the mexican drug war lacks a clear strategy." this comes from u.s. cables that were leaked from wikileaks. the mexican army is described as outdated, slow, and risk adverse. the initiative is seen as ill- conceived and doing little so

far to fight drug trafficking. your thoughts on that? guest: i talked with people in the embassy. this was about two weeks ago. these cables were just coming out. this cable was referring to a specific operation that took down a narcotics kingpin and last year. they approached the army and then they turned to the mexican navy. these are separate ministries. they sent in the tactical units from the mexican navy. the army has been a little more distance from the u.s. it may be risk adverse. there are internal fights that, obviously, just in any type of security operation, influence

the mechanics of law enforcement in mexico. using the army is in some respects like using a baseball bat to go after a fly. it's a complex process. patrolling. at they're not trained as criminal investigators. if you commit a crime in mexico, the chances of getting prosecuted is less than 2%. host: one of the cables refers to -- it says that it revealed that revealedcalderon told a u.s. official that washington should step up its political involvement in latin america to prevent hugo chavez's role. is chavez pushing this mexican

narco-violence as a way of destabilizing the relationship of u.s. and mexico? guest: i think there's a reasonable presumption that money flow in the 2006 campaign to lopez, calderon's opponent, that's where you probably saw political support for a left- leaning, pro-chavez candidate. secondly, yes, venezuela has become a major hub of movement for cocaine out of columbia. they track the flights that go up through the caribbean or the to mexico. then as well let is a major hub. senior people are

involved in the drug trade. those two factors, yes, that is out there. it is a master plan of destabilizing mexico to get at the united states. it is an interesting proposition that we should look at. i think that congress will be looking at that. at this time, we do not have evidence of a master plan and were. ork. calderon is right. we have to pay attention. chavez said he would not accept the new ambassador. we have issues. host: our next call for ray walser comes from anne. go ahead with your call. caller: thank you for having this gentleman on from the heritage foundation. i'm in the middle part of the

state of florida. your question is one that i've been thinking about this year. debate now, or will be a debate in the legislature this year, about these pain clinics that are not actually illegal. there's a loophole in our law that allows the pain clinics to operate without a physician. i have proof. i'm living in neighborhoods where this is taking place. huge numbers of bach's toccata and pain medication. a lot of violence in the storefront. people are doctor shopping. they go to these clinics and they get thousands of these bills. -- pills. there's a huge increase in addition to these pills.

the problem also escalates -- these people may so much money that the bond out of jail for federal charges four or five times within a short period of time. it is putting a lot of pressure on the narcotics officers that are trying to continuously put these people in prison. i guess the state's attorney's releases them because they can bond out. host: i'm running short on time. you have a question for mr. walser -- caller: yes, can you ask him what the perception of the dream act was from the mexicans? if that passes, we will have another final. the think it will pass eventually? i will hang up. guest: it's a piece of domestic legislation. in the political analyst for latin america. yes, the dream act is very popular with mexicans and the

migrant community. we will see how it fares in the next legislature. the prognosis is not particularly bright. everybody agrees that we need immigration reform. we have to come up with a foundation. we have to come up with some type of national consensus. i will leave it at that. host: based on your trip to mexico recently and what you saw with the meeting of the president, president obama and calderon, what is the next of forward in trying to reduce the effect of narco-violence on the economies of mexico and united states? guest: i agree that we have to engage closely with mexico. we have to move to what they call a planned revision. i think the administration has laid out the fundamentals. go after the drug kingpins. continue to work on a judicial

reform and law enforcement reform in mexico. as i said, the 2% conviction rate. we see prison escapes. have to go after judicial reform. the mexican congress just put off a set of bills that call to submitted. you have to go at blocking the harmful things. you have to get into communities and real mexican communities so they are not crying friendly. you want -- crime friendly. want them to be business friendly and people friendly. are the resources, the willingness of the mexicans -- are the mexicans going to tackle the challenge? this is their country. they have got to transform it.

they're celebrating the 100th year of the mexican revolution. a basically a democratic, free- market revolution to free the country for many the shackles that have been around for the last 100 years. host: ray walser of the heritage foundation, thank you. guest: thank you. host: when we continue "washington journal" we will be talking about the start treaty. before we get to that, we want to show you a little bit of the debate that's going on on the floor of the u.s. senate as they of theor rofinal approval meant new start treaty. >> the need to modernize the production complex -- to be blunt, there's no way we can maintain a credible deterrent and reduce the number of weapons in our stockpile without either

resorting to testing our stockpile or pursuing a modernization program. mr. president, each year, our laboratory directors and the secretary of energy are required to provide a certification to the president that certifies the status of the weapons in the stockpile and makes determinations as to whether or not those weapons are safe, secure, and reliable without the need for testing. each year, as we discussed and are closed session, there are reports about the status of these weapons. i will talk in a moment about at material we discussed in the closed session. there's a great need for us to move to bring up to date to the weapons that are in our stockpile and that requires modernization of the facilities

and related equipment to accomplish that task. this will require a substantial investment over the next decade. unfortunately, over the years, these facilities have been allowed to deteriorate. our capacity to atrophy and our scientists to retire [inaudible] the current budget projection, as it is in the 1251 report of date, which was dated november 17, 2010, initiates' that modernization, but clearly cannot predict future requirements. this is the problem we're dealing with here. the report -- the economics is that we have a problem. we can estimate what we think we can spend over the next five years. it's hard to estimate beyond

that what the exact cost will be. i tried to deal with that in this amendment. the laboratory director responsible -- host: joining us now to talk about some of the debate that's going on on the floor of the u.s. senate, as well as the history of nuclear weapons trees in the united states is joseph cirincione, author of "bomb scare: the history and future of nuclear weapons" and president of ploughshares fund. give us your impression of what you've heard so far. guest: this is clearly the end game. there seems to be a resignation on the part of the opponents that they've lost this battle. there's a certain graciousness and magnanimous rhetoric from the winning side. this tree will get more than

enough votes to pass. -- this treaty will get more than enough votes to pass. expect that later today. obviously, i'm competing with the boat itself, and that is over on c-span 2 -- the vote itself, and that is over on c- span 2. host: what is the difference between this particular start treaty and others? guest: there's been a long history of bipartisan cooperation on arms control. the first real arms control treaty was during john f. kennedy. richard nixon started the process with henry kissinger into first limit nuclear weapons, and then ronald reagan really began the process of really limiting nuclear weapons. we've seen the total in the united states and russia declined by over 70%.

u.s. and russia have 95% of all the nuclear weapons. they have been steadily reducing their arsenals. the start treaty is part of that process. it now has bipartisan support, even though this is the first nuclear reduction treaty negotiated by a democrat to win senate approval. host: with regard to this treaty and others that have preceded it, has it been as difficult to get them ratified as it seems it has been as difficult to get this one ratified? guest: there have always been opposition to arms control. i was just watching "7 days." hard coreways been a opposition. some of the same people now, for example, who were critical of the treaty for selling out or weakening the united states were

critical of other arms control treaties. they also oppose the regional ronald reagan start treaty. they opposed ronald reagan's nuclear force treaty. they ran ads in the paper the announcing ronald reagan as in the teaser, if you can believe that. there's always been the core of opposition. the republican presidents have usually been the ones negotiating these treaties. have seen bigger margins of victory. sometimes, 93 to 6, for example. the last george bush arms treaty was passed without any opposition. this was a bigger negative vote then we've seen before, largely explained by the politics. host: we're talking with joseph cirincione, author of "bomb scare: the history and future of nuclear weapons."

the numbers, if you want to get involved in the conversation -- you can also send us e-mails and messages.r what has caused the delay? guest: it has caused us arms on the ground. we have not had inspections. u.s. inspectors have not been able to monitor russian compliance with the treaty. we have not had that kind of predictability and assurances of what the russians are up to. it has cost us some intelligence. so far, it has not been critical. if it continues, if it goes into next year, if the treaty ran into trouble, that would be a

critical loss for u.s. national security. that's one reason the joint chiefs of staff back the treaty so consistently and so strongly. that's one reason you have seen the uniform support among former cabinet and security officials. every single former secretary of state has backed the treaty. almost every secretary of defense back it for the real security benefits. the delay has not cost us that much insecurity so far. host: our first call for ray walser comes from pensacola, florida. darren on the line for republicans. you are on the "washington journal." caller: good morning. on the arms treaty, there are doing it on the lame-duck session. never done that before. first, why are they doing that? second of all, we know pretty

much how much nuclear weapons russia has. depending on what they have, we should be building defense. in the treaty, it says we cannot build up to a stage four defense. guest: ok, thank you. treaties have been approved in lame duck before an important pieces of legislation have been passed before. you are right. it is somewhat unusual. the reason for this is because of the delays built into the process at the request of the republican minority in the senate. first, they did not want to rush the treaty considerations. they asked that a vote not be taken before the august recess. the democratic chairman agreed to delay it. they did not want to vote in september or october because they said it would politicize it before the election.

they agreed to delay it. they set it up to do it during the lane duck, and then there were talks of further delay. it became clear that the delay tactics, which are not based on substance, -- they haven't exhaustive hearings. lots of questions have been asked and answered. it was ok to proceed and they've now been given -- this is the eighth day of debate. it's almost more than all the other previous treaties together. the head of the missile defense agency has testified that this does not in any way restrict the future of u.s. missile defenses. there's no language from the bidding us of that. stage four is the plan we now have.

and seeing if we cannot increase them to make them more effective through four phases. there's nothing in the treaty that stops us from that. host: paul on the line for democrats. good morning. caller: a quick comment and then the question. it seems to me that the republican opposition to the treaty is purely political. i hear the mentioned that a nuclear arsenal needs upgrading and i find it hard to believe. exactly how backward and broken is the nuclear arsenal? i'll hang up and hear your answer. guest: sure. there's no question there's a need to upgrade the facilities that we used to build our nuclear weapons and maintain them. we have some deteriorating buildings. those are the ones that we use, for example, to assemble the uranium cores.

that is an expensive proposition, whenever you're talking about radioactive material. the president has laid out a plan to spend $85 billion. he added $5 billion to that. that is just to maintain what they call the nuclear weapons complex. many of us think that's more than enough. the former head of the nuclear weapons complex said that in his day, he would have killed for a budget like this. he's delighted to see that kind of money devoted to the complex. i do not know if we are going to spend all that money, frankly, in times of budgetary restrictions, and as we continue to ramp down nuclear weapons, i'm not sure we will spend all that money. on the politics of this, i think it's pretty clear to most observers that most of the opposition was political.

there were genuine concerns about the treaty. people were concerned about verification procedures. were there enough inspections allowed under the new treaty? i think those have been answered. there was ideological opposition. richard lugar has said many of his colleagues just didn't like any arms control treaty. i would say that maybe even half of the opposition. was. -- opposition was political. people believe that because of the words of mitch mcconnell, who says his priority was to deny president obama a second term. you heard him say this week that he would not approve a treaty so the president could have a press conference. it was pretty clear there was a political agenda. there are a lot of newspaper columnists talking about that today. if that's true, if there was a political agenda, it backfired. you never want to wound the king, as they say. the political opposition

thought they could give a body blow to the president of the united states, but they missed. host: dean on the line for republicans from phoenix, ariz. caller: regarding nuclear arms testing -- testing them without exploding them, like under water testing, i've heard about facilities. i know there are three different types of nuclear facilities. nuclear fusion facilities. one of them is a sphere of some type or they use a laser that shoots what is the equivalent of the entire united states in a fraction of a second.

this is also quoted by the gentleman -- as far as building this -- this is also used to test the efficacy of our u.s. nuclear arsenal. this is a brand new facility. when he said this, i thought, well, this means he's talking about current day nuclear warheads that are sitting around and that need to be tested, not a facility that needs to be updated. this is a state of the art, multimillion-dollar facility used for testing nuclear fusion , or for testing the efficacy of these warheads. this is where i wonder about the political infighting about whether or not they want to spend another billion dollars, which we do not have in our economy.

host: we will leave it there. thank you for your call. guest: the u.s. has not done an explosive nuclear tests since 1992, under 1992h.w. bush. we ended the practice. in 1996, president clinton negotiated a comprehensive nuclear test ban treaty. most countries do not test any more. the last test was by north korea. the norm is to not test any nuclear weapons. to replace the knowledge that we used to get from those explosive tests, we now spend $6 billion per year on the stockpile stewardship program to model these experiments. we use supercomputers. we do explosive tests, but without the plutonium. we see how everything works,

except for the actual nuclear explosion to we have a tremendous amount of data. then there is the national ignition facility, sometimes called the nif, where they're working are replicating the fusion -- what goes on in the core of the sun -- and they focus laser beams and tried to replicate fusion. they've achieved it for a fraction of a second. that will cost more than three times what people thought it was one to cost. questionable whether it is worth it is a done deal. that facility is up and operating. on the larger issue of whether or not we will be able to afford the expenses of these weapons, we will see debate over ratifying the comprehensive test ban. we will probably see that.

congress faces very expensive decisions on whether to modernize, not just the warheads, but the delivery vehicles. the submarines, the bombers, the new missiles -- those are very expensive items. it estimated a new nuclear-armed submarine would cost about $7 billion each. is that where you want to spend your money in times of tightening budgets? would you rather spend it on conventional forces? those are the kind of issues, swill wrestle with in the next five years. host: we have this twitter message. is it true that the treaty is only 17 pages long and they had nine months to study it? if you would, compare the length of this treaty to others. guest: yes, it is true. one of the journalists talk about this last night. he used that quote. it's only 17 pages long. they've had it for eight and a half months.

this is shorter than most previous arms control treaties because it deals with the existing process. it builds on the existing start framework. they did not have to spend a lot of time negotiating some of the details. there is a multi page annex that is a couple hundred pages. it specifies the details of this. there is a little heavier reading to going to on that. it compares favorably with previous arms controls treaties. host: joanne on the line for independents. you are on the "washington journal." caller: yes, in terms of the spending aspect, who receives that? who institutes it and implements it? and sure they will have 1000 different places, 1000 more

committees, that they will want to come up with to help pay for it. that essentially be stuck on the taxpayers. guest: this is a very interesting point. there are already some interesting lines drawn. traditionally, you have liberals that want to cut defense spending. conservatives better for it. now with the rise of the tea party, members of congress who are very conservative, but are fiscally conservative and are saying, we have to cut american government spending across the board, including defense spending. once you do that, then the joint chiefs start to weigh in. the heavily backed the new start treaty. they're less and less interested in nuclear weapons. as the chairman, admiral mol ullen said, this leaves us with

long-range strategic weapons -- 1550 of them. he said it is more than enough. there's a sentiment in the military to keep producing to maybe -- to keep reducing, maybe to a few hundred. they'd rather spend that money on ships, planes, tanks, and troops. what are the budget figures looking like? i mentioned the $85 billion that has been allocated for the next 10 years. that's just for the warheads. there's an additional $100 billion that is planned for the delivery vehicles, the missiles, the severance, and the bombers. that's a pretty hefty tag. the price rose as you continue. the committees that will look at that will be the arms services committee. they have primary jurisdiction. for the warheads themselves,

that usually goes to the energy committee in the house. and then there's the appropriations committee. you have the authorizing committees that authorize these expenditures. the appropriating committees appropriate them. it's probably about 10 committees altogether. host: the federation of american scientists provides us with the estimated number of nuclear warheads. by the numbers, russia is estimated to have 2600 nuclear warheads. the u.s., 2126. france, 300. china, 180. the united kingdom, 0160. israel, 80. pakistan, 70 to 90. back to the phones, frank on the

line for democrats. caller: thank you. first of all, i'm 100% pro defense of america. i believe this treaty should be ratified. the united states and russia are not going to nuke each other. the cold war is over with. they're just playing political games, wasting billions of more of u.s. tax dollars. the gentleman you have on as a guest is one of the finest aokesmen i've heard in while. i really appreciate having quality guests like this on your show. guest: thank you. i appreciate the compliment. let me just talk about the consensus you are talking about. you are absolutely right. there's a broad, bipartisan consensus that has developed in the very center of america's national security establishment that sees that what ever nuclear

weapons benefits might have had in the cold war is now outweighed by the risks they present. people like henry kissinger and george shultz are not just supporting the treaty but saying that this is the first of a number of steps to steadily reduce all the nuclear arsenals lambda world, eliminate the major threat to us, and in so doing working on the countries like iran and north korea. you consider example of that. goneat new website have gons up, securityconsensus.org. it is a group of retired military and former security officials from both parties that argue that now's the time to take this step by step reduction of nuclear weapons. we can do with a lot fewer nuclear weapons, save money, and

improve security. host: ellen on the line for independents. thank you for calling. largestthe world's deposits of uranium is located outside of virginia. there's a movement to mine the uranium. with this treaty stop them from going forward? guest: no, it would not. there are no restrictions in mining uranium. it's very common to its as common as tin in the earth. we have uranium. we also import uranium from canada. we no longer need any more uranium for our nuclear weapons. the reason people are still mining uranium is for fuel for nuclear reactors. host: next is harold on the line for republicans. right outside of jacksonville, fla.. caller: listen, with all due

respect, this sounds like pie in the sky. it's kind of like the 1920's and 1930's where the armed forces were drastically reduced because we thought we had peace. the bad guys were dramatically rearming at that time. every general who is in favor of this -- let's be honest. if you're a general in the armed forces of the united states, to get that high, you have to be a politician to some degree. you have to know which way the wind is shifting. we are at war right now with two different areas of influence. two different countries. when you have things in the world like emt, where we could basically be put back in the stone age by a few simple things -- this is not the time to disarm. every time we've made a treaty with north korea, iraq, or the outs.r., all wewe later found they treaty. the u.s.s.r. may all kinds of problems about weapons of mass

destruction. they hit d nuclear weapons underneath the ground. the head other factories we never found out about. this is not the time to disarm. when you're at war with two different radical areas and the people have relatives, sons, daughters, killed by u.s. drones and u.s. soldiers, we have some fanatics out there. if they get a wild weapon, they will use it. host: joseph cirincione. guest: you raised a couple of good point. i want to show the drgraph in "the washington post" today. you will see the chart that shows the 60 years of the nuclear arms race. on the first half of that, the first 30 years, there was a rise.

and then you get to the middle, and that is where we start the arms control process. you can see the u.s. forces leveling off. and then the steady drop, which was begun by ronald reagan. we have dropped 70% in the last 25 to 30 years. frankly, we are not less safe because we no longer have 22,000 hydrogen bombs, which is what we had 25 years ago, and we only have two thousand hydrogen bombs. that's more than enough to destroy the plant, let alone deal with any military contingency that we might face. most experts agree that we go down.n continue to we're not talking about disarmament. we're talking about a step-by- step process. we go down and the russians go down. eventually, china, india, and pakistan join the process. the reason is exactly what you said.

you mentioned the electromagnetic pulse. i do not think it is as big a threat as people say, but it is real. one nuclear bomb could do tremendous damage to this country. as to our benefit to reduce the nuclear weapons number nuclear, eventually, in my view, getting to zero nuclear weapons. as long as they exist, there will be a threat to this country. host: prescott, ariz., jack on the line for democrats. good morning. you are on the "washington journal." caller: you touched on one of the comments i wanted to make. i do not think the americans realize the importance of a treaty. the gentleman from florida said they break treaties. we all break treaties. the treaty gives the opportunity to communicate and dialogue with

one another. there is no defense. we're releasing that energy. if we can talk to one another and remind both sides of over 20 years ago, we had enough nuclear stuff to blow up the earth 14 times. host: jack, we're going to leave your call and go to the floor of the senate. lamar alexander, one of the republicans who crossed over, is making his case right now. >> i was with him there. he's talked to many more people than i have on this subject. these weapons are being modernized and facilities of that are completely outdated.

it would be like if we were making corvettes in a model t factory. it's not just an inconvenience to the workers, it is a threat to their safety, and it is a waste of taxpayers' money. as the senator from arizona said, after a certain number of years -- maybe 15 years -- this case for itself. the modernization of these facilities means the taxpayers will pay just as much to operate the old facilities as they would to spend $5 billion or $6 billion to improve these two big new facilities and the other infrastructure we need to do. i think this is -- it ought to be said -- host: joseph cirincione, your comments on senator

alexander. guest: he's talking about the expense of modernizing the facility pities the third ranking republican. he came out yesterday morning in strong support of the treaty. he's one of the senators that led. we have about 11 now who have endorsed the treaty. about a quarter of the republican caucus, which is exposing some divisions within the republican senate minority. what he is talking about is the cost of modernizing the facilities. in full disclosure, again, he is -- his state of tennessee is one of the uranium facilities that would have to be modernized. it will cost about $6 billion. there's a little bit of constituent interests here. you see support of the modernization plan across the

board, even from senators with no financial interest. host: this twitter message says the refusal to set up a treaty raises red flags. guest: one of the disturbing things about this debate is the way you have seen some of the opponents to the treaty tried to revive the u.s.-russian rivalry and portrayed russia as a country that does not deserve to be negotiated with, as a country cannot trust, as a source of great tension and still evil in the world. i think they're still stuck in the days of the evil empire. they do not realize that this struggle within russia to try to make the country even more democratic, that we need russian cooperation for many of the global problems we face. for example, they are helping us in supporting our troops in

afghanistan. u.s. supply routes are much shorter now because we get to fly over russian territory and even using some russian facilities to supply our troops in afghanistan. they joined us in containing the danger from iran. it's no coincidence that after the start treaty was signed, you saw the u.n., with russian support, back the strong this sanctions ever enacted iran enacted. russia wants to sell iran -- they are now agreeing to forgo the profits from the arms sales and join the sanctions. in part, it's due to the partnership. it does not mean we agree to was going on inside russia, but we recognize their value as a partner in our. host: global. -- in our global efforts. host: this message -- guest: i'm going to meet with russian officials in part of the

consultative process that we do. they're not laughing. there are the same kind of arguments inside russia about the value of treaties with the united states as there are within the united states. there are russians that do not trust us. trust use some that wer guardedly. you've heard us say 100 times, trust but verify. their steps we're going to take together. here's the process we're going to takput in place. the negotiating process is to work out the kind of mutually benefiting treaty. in the end, both sides leaving the table to feel they've gained from the agreement. that's what is happening here. host: tina on the line for

democrats. thank you for waiting. caller: i've been listening to conversations about the treaties for a very long time. i never heard so much chatter about the treaty before until the president was black. can you explain that to me, please? thank you. guest: there's an element there. i will not deny that. the position you seek to -- the opposition you see, some is due to his race. some people have a hard time with that. most of the political opposition, however, especially to the treaty, is because a democratic president is negotiating the treaty. that is somewhat unusual. turns out republicans have been better at arms control than democrats. republican presidents win over a good portion of the conservative

vote. you only get a sliver of opposition. in this case, where you have a democrat and doing it? there's a political game played out by the opposition party, who wants to score points, who wants to portray the president as weak, or does not really care about american security -- might not even be american. there is that political game being played. to the credit, not just to the president, but because of the bipartisan support that exists that you can get this treaty passed over the emotional and subustubborn political oppositi. those people opposing this are on the extreme right now. in the national security establishment of the united states, democrats and republicans, going back seven administrations to richard nixon

is this consensus we can reduce nuclear weapons. step-by-step trees are part of the process. this is the way to secure america in the future. host: when you are talking with your russian counterparts on the phone or when you go over there, do they bring up the president's race or the opposition of the republican party? do they see him as another american? guest: i went to moscow before the election and i gave a briefing before a large group of security officials. i told them president obama president was going to be elected president and here is what his nuclear policy was going to be. they laughed at me. they thought i was a fool. they did not think a black man could ever be elected president in the united states. there's a deep element of racism in russia that i saw reflected in those comments. i went back one year later and reminded them of what i said. yes, you do see that in russia.

at present, they see him as a partner. i think they're starting to get used to the idea. they see value in the relationship, both for their own national security interests. host: stuart on the line for independents. caller: thank you. i have a brief comment and then i would like to ask your opinion. i feel like any peace treaty written to reduce weapons in the world, i'm all for it. i commend barack obama for what he is doing to be leaning more -- for what he is doing. we need more piece heroes -- peace heroes. we have way too many war heroes already -- especially dead war

heroes. you can see the numbers of the weapons in the world. if any of those can be reduced, i think that we as americans should be all for it. this is our children we're talking about, our future. host: thank you. guest: thank you for your comment. i think it is clear there is agreement among most national security officials that we do not need as many nuclear weapons as we have now. we went a little nuts in the 1960's and 1970's and build up to an absurd levels. we are coming down now. we can come down a lot further. i expect that to happen. i expect this trend to continue. we do not need 1550 long-range nuclear weapons. we do not need four thousand weapons held in reserve as we now have. we do not need to have nuclear weapons stationed in europe anymore. we have about 200 over there. one of these can destroy a city.

10 of them can destroy a country. a couple hundred could destroy the world. you could get down to much lower levels. their strong military support for that. senator corker, the republican from tennessee, lamar alexander's cohort, was on the senate floor announcing his support. he said he was impressed with the joint chiefs of staff and their strong support. every single one of those generals and admirals, he said, was appointed during the bush administration. host: zeke, you are on the line with joseph cirincione. caller: there's a difference of opinion as to the efficacy of the obama administration. it seems to me that it will become increasingly evident that he shot himself in the foot with this little stunt that people with social security.

complementing the nuclear treaty, we have the problem of domestic policies. we need a vast expansion of nuclear powered generation in the united states, specifically to around constructing the north american water and power alliance, which will use nuclear power plants to pump the water to change the characteristics from 1/20th inch of rainfall to the. west. host: we will leave it there. guest: three of the most interesting articles i've seen in "commentary" magazine. he's very critical of his colleagues for making the treaty a political battle. he thinks that will discredit security analysts on the right. security analysts on the right.