in about 45 minutes, roger hickey low be here to discuss the president's relationship with one entity. and we will discuss many other topics as well such as the job prospects for a veterans trying to return to work. ♪ host: november elections are over, but the discussion is still going on. in the new york times today, a store looking at a provision of medicare that will allow for voluntary advanced care plan.

part of that, in double life issues will be addressed. during the health-care debate, it got a lot of traction. looks like a provision of this still exists. if you want to weigh in, here are the numbers listed below for republicans, democrats, and independence. you can also contact us via twitter. you can also e-mail us. here is a story by robert.

we will read more from this. the numbers are listed at the bottom of the screen if you want to weigh in on this. you can also reach us on e-mail. and we are on twitter. a little more on this before we take some calls. under this room, doctors can rule doctors canwil make certain recommendations.

as we look at stories about this new provision of medicare and end of life care, you can call in. we will take a call now. independent line, what do you think about this? caller: this sounds like exactly what they were denying earlier. i cannot believe the total disrespect for senior citizens in this country. it is very disheartening that this is happening in america. host: salt lake city utah is next. caller: i have a disease that can kill me right now. i am getting medication for medicare.

i was told if it is not working -- i have a serious disease right now. they said if the medicine does not work they can cut off the madison after a month. this madison will keep me alive. does this go before a panel? can they stop this? host: i do not know the answer, but let me give you some political context of this story. you can read along on your computer on the new york times.

north carolina, and the pan . good morning. caller: this seems to miss the inches -- issue. the issue of healthcare -- what we need to do is abolish these programs altogether. if you can afford it, pay for it. if not, you are out of luck. it is that simple. the more i have to pay for others' health care around the world, the more difficult it is for me to pay for my own. host: seattle, washington. democrat. caller: in the insurance that does not cover in the life is not insurance. that is part of any basic

insurance policy. if you really want to look at the death panelists, look at arizona. their budgets are being cut so bad people have been cut off for transplants. it is considered a luxury now and it is not covered. host: what do you make of this as a regulation? caller: i do not understand the question. host: it showing up as part of regulation. caller: it is a necessary part of any comprehensive health care package. it was demonized by republicans,

because democrats did not give the message out saying, this is not a debt panel, but anything that distracts. i challenge anyone who calls and it has good insurance and save it to their insurance does not have end of life management. that is part of the insurance package. it has been demonized by the same people who showed up at the last health care rally carrying signs saying get to the government of by medicaid. it is insane. too many people do not quite understand what they are talking about in my opinion.

host: kansas city, missouri. caller: this is the right conversation that we need to be having. we have to talk about and a light at some point no matter if you are a democrat or republican. end of life is extremely expensive care. i see this every day. i tried to figure out what is the right thing to do for a patient. and we must have a national dialogue about what end of life is like. we have to start the conversation. this is one place to start it. host: you are ok to have this

conversation. caller: we have to start somewhere. this is probably not the ideal place. i think that would be over the dinner table at a thanksgiving gathering. have been honest conversation about us getting older. have we talked about what we want at the end of life? host: pa., democrats line. caller: i think a couple of things are happening. medical technology is advancing rapidly. we are keeping people alive beyond what they probably should be. cover a population is booming. that will cost in health care

hours. it should not be called and death panel but engaging with your doctor. improving patient and doctor relationship. that is what this is doing. you can make the right decisions for you and your family. those conversations may become more and more complicated. i think it is time to have these conversations. host: thanks. here is another comment .

sarasota, fla., in the pan . -- independent kleiline. caller: they made advanced

planning and it must be done with an attorney. it is regarding alzheimer's. but these people had an advanced plan with an attorney that my husband and child could make medical decisions for both the mother and father, which they did. he had surgery around 90 years old. he cannot speak. they had a legal documents and it said they did not want to be resuscitated for force fed. the mother elected not to eat any food for five days. the nurses kept them comfortable. this is important. he must have documents made in

the state where you live. caller: what do you think about this being a conversation as a beneficiary of medicare? caller: i talk to my doctor about this all the time. she cannot charge us for it. coding, when i have tests, if it has a code. if i have a conversation, my doctor does not charge to talk to us about it.

host: we will have to leave it there. i appreciate the perspective. we are looking at fund raisers for legislation. the wrote numerous times this year that members of congress were trying to take critical steps to write new law .

they scrutinized lawmakers involved in key pieces of legislation. you can find this story on the washington post. back to our discussion on medicare offering voluntary in the light counseling. buffalo, new york, republican line. caller: i am under the age of 30. one question they asked me this. they want to know if you want to be resuscitated for on a

feeding tube and kept alive. that is what this boils down to. it should be recognized in every state and by every insurance company. people can have these situations at any age. a living will can be filled out and you have a witness sign it. they can take it with them if paramedics pick you up. there is a sticker you put on your window that says you have this. i do not understand why this argument has gotten so misconstrued. there are people like sarah palin that are misinformed and

poisoning the minds of people with this. people need to research these things for themselves before forming an opinion instead of just going what -- with what one person says, because that may be the popular opinion at the time. host: 12 somalis have been detained on suspicion of terrorist activities. they were seized on friday. this was in the rotterdam area. prosecutors say the suspects are age 19-48. one resident comes from denmark. democrats line is next.

caller: i think my statement has already been made by one caller who said this gives permission for the doctors to consult with you about this or have a conversation with you about this. they can get paid to make doctors more willing to assist you in making these decisions. i will add another thing to this. it is being made by your relationship with your doctor and the insurance policy you hold. i know people with means and no means at all.

if you do not have the means, you do not have the health care. this has been going on for years. somehow, in the future, i think it is a liability issue for doctors to be relieved of any in liability if you do not have a record to specify the type of medicare you want. host: we want to tell you about cover newsmakers per gram of which comes on after this. one person had a chance to sit down and talk to reporters. he spoke about serving as a

former political director and was asked about the current condition and if he had a role in its current condition. >> it was financial and not political. many of my predecessors felt a great deal of knowledge academic and practical about how to run these her grams. -- programs. how the republicans run these programs. these parties were traditionally funded by the rnc.

the driver of the problems was not our ability to put certain things in the field. host: a candidate for the rnc on our newsmakers program which comes on after this. you can watch that interview on line on our website. independent line. caller: thanks for c-span. i am a long time listener but a first-time caller. this is the republican spin machine kicking into high gear right before medicare is going to start paying for primary- care. well as visits that patients would not get -- i know they pay for medicare, this is just

republicans spend. people have always gone to their doctors to discuss these end of life issues with their primary care physician. the only difference is that medicare will pay for it. if you want to know the real provision of the health-care bill, go to the health-care dot gov website. host: here is another perspective.

fairfield, calif., a republican line. caller: i am surprised that people think this is about death panels. they talk about republicans fans. here is a fact. you read one part from an article about people trying to keep this hush hush. and when government is doing something sneaky, something is

amiss. i want to remind people that as an analogy, if a young lady goes to an abortion clinic, they have a conversation. these people are often cut worst into the way that people want them to go. it is 92 think that the government will coerce people to these in the life discussions. host: next caller. caller: that last guy spoke like a true republican. you have had some calls from missouri. i have been a power of attorney twice. i have a power of attorney.

my fiancee passed away. she made me and her sister power of attorney. she did not come out of a coma. it was hurtful, but we did it. i was power of attorney for my neighbor. i go to the be a. -- veteran affairs. nursing a and st. john's hospital talked to me about this. you can get your information. it is not death panels. it is your wishes at the end of life so that you are not hanging on life support and stuff like that.

if you do not have that, they can not hold it. i do not want to be fed through a tube or what ever. my fiancee passed away, in she passed in a day, but they kept her alive until her kids got there. i thought it was brutal in a way. they can put a spin on it. host: new york. caller: i am a care giver here in new york. these are not a death panels. it is the assurance of quality of life at the end of your life.

i'd like to bring up something that is mandatory by new york state which is the question if you want to quit smoking. doctors get $25 to ask you if you will quit smoking and if you want to be on the patch. back to the subject, you have to understand that. i see people every day who are lying in bed with something feeding them and everything for them, because the kids cannot give up on them and they never had a health care directives lined up ahead of time. host: the "boston globe."

host: this is part of a longer piece in "the boston globe" this morning. alabama on the republican line. caller: how are you doing this morning? happy new year. i would like to relate a personal experience i had with my former mother in law. she was visiting with my ex-wife in connecticut and had a stroke. they did not have this material. in fact, she ended up getting transferred back to birmingham. i went by to see her. my ex-wife and called me and said she was about to pass on. she told me what hospital she was that.

i went there and i asked the nurse in the room and i walked in. i could not even recognize her. she had been in this condition 18 months or more of being fed, as they say. i had a reaction at that time. it is a fund-raising for the hospitals. that is a harsh thing to say, but what i am hearing is that you get into the hospital, you are sick, and you are able to go home, the hospital has a steady stream of income. that is where my concerns are about this. i hate to say that. i am a republican and i believe in maximizing profits and all of those kinds of things, but i do not know if it is morally right to do that do the pain and suffering of other people. thank you for your time and i appreciate the efforts to make. host: honolulu on our democratic line.

caller: hello there. i think everyone is missing the point. doctors are paid and are there to help us with our illnesses. they are not there to make political, moral judgments or to help us do that. our families, our pastors, and our attorneys to those kinds of things. the more the doctors have talked less about end of life, this, and that they are not taking care of the year emphysema or other medical needs. this is completely in the wrong trauma -- wrong realm of life. doctors should take care of health issues and the attorneys, families, the pastor's should take care of the moral issues. mahalo and happy new year. host: in iraq they're going to

resume exports of oil. according to this story at says, "-- also below that, on another story out of yemen.

hot springs, arkansas. betty on our independent line. thank you for waiting. caller: i'm 66 years old on medicare. i am in good health. i plan to immediately take advantage of the end of life planning. i want my options explained to me by an expert in the medical field. my father died in 1960's from terminal cancer. the minute he went into a coma they began to treat him. i heard him screaming and moaning in that,. it was horrible. i do not want to put it on my children to pull the plug. i wanted to be my choice and my

decision. that is all i have to say. host: the what the doctors to make a legal decisions? do you think it is a legal and medical-share dax caller: -- medical issue? caller: i believe that they can give me the whole story in as a medical professional. i am going immediately to get this done. host: cincinnati. democratic line. caller: how are you? pedro, people have, like i do, and mother. my mother is 80. if you're putting them in a nursing home after surgery, it is already there. my mother has had several joints replaced. in each case when she went into the nursing home, you have a

durable power of attorney, medical power of attorney. we have it discussed this with the doctor what we wanted to do. those papers came from my attorney and were faxed to the nursing homes since i had the power of attorney. when they got to the nursing home, we had already discussed it with mom. she told us what she wanted to do if she went code blue or into some kind of end of life situation. that is voluntary. if you put your mother, father, or whoever -- i have a sister in a nursing home. to put them in a reputable nursing home and you have input with the doctor and your attorney, you will come across the question regardless. there is no gun to your head saying whether you have to do it or not. as far as the regulation being there, in many states it is already there. that is all i have to say.

have a good day. host: that may get this right. -- let me get this right. wisconsin? did i get that right? caller: you got that right. you can have your end of life plan signed, sealed, and delivered and they do not necessarily follow it. when my father died, he said yes to something and we did not know that it voided everything that he had signed. the doctors had coerced him into saying yes. he had pneumonia. he had discussed this in his lungs. -- abspestos. they said they put him on a ventilator that it would help his lungs. he had a no code.

he could not breathe without walking two steps. he said he had lived long enough. he was 85. as soon as they coerced him for the ventilator, he finally said yes, he had said, "no, no, no," we found out that made no land avoid everything. they went to have the surgery done, if he would have gone into cardiac arrest they would have had to resuscitate him. host: in "the washington post" this morning, there are two graphic showing the airport scanners. one is called a millimeter wave which revolves around the. it works differently from what is called a back scatter. these both emit radio waves. one image radio waves.

the backscatter immense low- level x-rays. there is a story accompanying the graphics saying that more of these types of scanners are going to be located in the airports across the united states. long island, new york to come on

our republican line. joseph, good morning. caller: my father is a veteran on medicare. host: gainesville, florida. on our democratic line. caller:yes? i think it is a shame that is right when not jobs that have inflamed and scared people. i think people should educate themselves about what this is truly about. they understand this is a good thing. this is the case of petty politics trumping the best interests of america. after that terry schivao fiasco, i had papers called -- put together so i would not live on a feeding tube for 30 days. i would rather just passed. thank you. host: san diego, california. caller: thank you, c-span.

five years ago i was admitted to nursing care facility. they requested that i do make an advance directive. i had a public notary come in and i signed my dnr. my sister has my power of attorney and i feel comfortable. i made a decision. if it remains that i am the one able to make that decision, i am fine with the whole program. i just do not want the decision made for me. every member of my family i understand that it had a signed and notarized dnr because that is my wish. i do not want to restart the machine. i do not want to be a financial or emotional struggle for my family. my father passed away two years ago in a hospice program. that is the most pleasant way for that situation to end. he did not want another open heart surgery. he was 81 years old.

there was no way that his body could have handled another open heart surgery. he just decided, in my opinion, to have hospice care so it takes the hospital out of the program. host: nashville, tenn., on the democratic line. nashville, are you there? go ahead. caller: yes. i just had a comment. there was a person two minutes ago was saying that people who can afford or do not have the insurance that, "well, too bad." medical insurance is a right. it is a right for everyone who lives here. i do agree with the fact that all of us should be planning

ahead, making sure we have the documentation with our primary care doctors, and then the other doctors that we may see for various situations, and also making sure a copy is in the our main medical records with whatever hospital we choose. host: last call from missouri. caller: yes, and i am a retired paramedic in the state of missouri. we have advanced directive information online through the state. i think people needed to know what this legislation is doing which is something that we already have in place in our state. you just need to fill out the paperwork. something that is even more important that i want to pass on

to other people is like me, as a health-care professional, if i get there and you have an advance directive in the field i need to see that advanced directive. you need to hand me an original copy or a certified duplicate copy of the original or i cannot honor that agreement. this has actually happened to me. i did have the advanced directive in my hand. i was transporting a patient 30 miles. the patient died in the back of my ambulance but i did have all the paperwork in my hand. it is extremely important to do this. host: that is the last call we will take on that segment. we appreciate those who participated getting their input. this is how the rest of the show will shake out. we will look at efforts to hire military people after they leave this service.

we will talk to someone who deal directly with that. also, we will address the fcc. they passed new rules regarding the internet. it is commonly known as net neutrality. will join us. coming up, we will look at the relationship of president obama. our guest roger hickey is the carter to for campaign for america's future. we look at them right after this.

>> said they domestic lot of british people who follow british politics make -- i think a lot of british people think they are very comfortable with your system. your president is like our prime minister. you have two houses of your parliament and we have two in hours. well, no. our prime minister has much more power than your president. >> interviews with the london comparing the british and american forms of government as we talk to our guests about elections, the impact of money in races, the power of the prime minister, taxes, social issues, and the cost of living. tonight at 8:00 p.m. eastern. >> c-span park's original documentary on the supreme court has been newly updated and will air sunday, january 2nd. you will see the grand public places and those on the available to the justices and their staff. you will hear about how the

court works from all of the current supreme court justices including the newest, elena kagan. about some of the recent developments. the supreme court, home to the highest court, caring for the first time in high-definition sunday, january 2nd, at 6:30 p.m. eastern on c-span. >> closing speech has an inevitable aspect of establishment. an extraordinary experience for me is coming to an end. my dominant feeling is pride and the great privilege to be a part of this very unique party. >> search for career rust features from retiring senators on the c-span a video library -- search for senator farewell speeches. all online, all free. washington, your way. >> "washington journal"

continues. host: our guest is the co- director for the campaign for america's future. guest: the campaign for america's character is an advocacy group focused on economic issues. we want to make sure the u.s. economy is as strong going into the future as it has been in previous decades. we are very, very focused on building a robust full- employment economy and building a political movement to make sure that it happens. host: in your organizations mind, what would lead to a robust economy? guest: we are in a very difficult situation right now. is similar to the time after world war ii where we had a huge fiscal deficit where we spent so much money on the war, but we also were in danger of a falling back into recession. equally, president obama has recently just got us out of a deep recession, but so far we are not creating jobs.

we are not investing in the future. we are strongly supportive of of an investment project that would get the u.s. economy creating jobs and growing again. if we did that, like we did after world war ii, we would see growth, we would see the deficit go down, and we would have an opportunity for the next generation to live as well as the previous. host: does investment project mean "stimulus"? guest: it means getting the unemployment rate under 9.5% where it has been stopped. very much so it means resisting the call for austerity, resisting the dangerous demands of some on the right that we slash government spending and we reduce our ability to create jobs. we are also very committed to

strengthening the social safety net, expanding health care which was one part. we have to make sure that we have a strong social security and medicare system going forward because these are very difficult times for most americans. host: aside from health care, how do think the president has capitalized on those issues that your organization finds important? guest: most progressives, like most americans, strong supported president obama for his election campaign in 2008. why? we wanted to see an alternative to the bush-era recession, to things like the war in iraq, and we wanted to see a concentration on investing in the future. president obama ran on that kind of agenda. he has been pretty successful. he got the economic stimulus to keep a set of a recession. he kept us from falling into the great depression, which we could have done. he got health care. he got finance reform.

he got college student loan reform. we were strongly supportive, as most americans were, of that change in course. host: when you viewed him a couple of weeks ago, with the tax cut legislation, what was your opinion then? guest: the tax cut legislation embraced the republican demand for tax cuts for the very wealthy. now, president obama did not run on extending the bush tax cuts to the very wealthy. in fact, president obama talked about the growing inequality of wealth and income that is seeing the most wealthy get most of the income gains of the last 30 years. it was a bitter pill to swallow that extension of the tax cuts for the wealthy. president obama felt that he had to do it. many people felt was a big

mistake and he should have fought stronger, harder for an extension of the middle-class tax cuts without giving all this money to a wealthy at a time when we could use it for other purposes. the most important thing is getting the economy growing again. in that deal, the president got some amount of economic stimulus, some amount of the extension of unemployment compensation for those out of work. he got some amount of tax cuts for the middle-class. unfortunately, we are all left up in the position of crossing our fingers and hoping that the u.s. economy will recover when there is a very, very big danger that we will fall back into recession again. host: as far as leading from the tax cut decision, one thing that came out was this notion of compromise in order to get things done.

does that change your concern about economic goals of this president especially heading forward in what he wants to get done? guest: i definition, to govern is to find consensus. to govern is to compromise to some extent. the president has to remember that he has the american people with him. if you get all of the poll numbers, it is far more important to get economic growth and jobs growing. they do not want to record the wealthy with any more tax cuts or a reduction of the estate tax, that kind of thing. the american people, despite the fact that we will have a republican congress, they want to see and investments in the future and to start creating jobs in america again. that will be very difficult given that the republicans, as mitch mcconnell has said, are committed to making sure that the president is unsuccessful in

the next two years. they will be very, very instructive and very focused on cutting -- obstructed and cutting the government in draconian ways which will hurt the government. host: here is how you can talk to our guest. if you want to talk to us, the numbers are on your screen -- if you want to send us question via twitter, @cspanwj and journal@c-span.org. we would get as many of those in with our guest, roger hickey. ourfuture.org is their organization. what is the first by a must win?

guest: growing the economy. at the very least, the democratic party has to stand up and say, we have to get the economy moving for average people and if the republicans resist more investment, if they resist more job creation, that is an important extension to be drawn. i would be glad to see the next presidential election fought over the question of who is more committed to growing the economy and creating jobs versus the conservative position of cutting, cutting, cutting. if we had cut the deficit after world war ii, we would not have done the gi bill, invested in the highway system. we would have focused and cutting social security benefits which would have plunged us back into recession. we face the same challenges now. i would be glad to see the next couple of years spent making an

appeal to the american people about which party has a better return of four growing -- a better agenda of growing the economy. host: the first call is on a republican line from norman, oklahoma. go ahead. caller: i find it interesting that we on the fight about those government programs that the progress of this -- progressives have imposed upon us over the last 70-100 years. i want to point out that in 1938 the unemployment rate was 22%. six years after fdr began his programs of what was called the new deal. progressives are just really, really -- they need to understand that progressivism is a program that ultimately leads either to war or to a severe depression. okay?

it is the idea that there ought to be a collective. it is not socialism per se but a collectivism of investment. it is the idea that government can pick and choose the winners of our society by saying that we are going to invest in this, invest in that, and we are going to do these particular things rather than leading it to the spontaneous ordering of the market in a free society. host: thanks. guest: caller, i am glad you brought of 1938. most are not old enough to remember that, but it is important to remember that in 1937 after roosevelt had began the new deal and was slowly getting this out of the recession -- out of the great depression and unemployment was starting to come down, the conservatives convinced roosevelts and the congress to

start cutting the deficit and cutting back on those investment programs the roosevelt had set up. the result was that the economy fell back into recession. unemployment, as you said, rose again. it was one of the worst mistake that roosevelt made during the great depression. in fact, it was only the big government spending from world war ii that got the economy growing again and got the u.s. out of the great depression. one of the things that we have to do is learn from history. in the 1946-1949 period, we could have a focused on cutting social security, just reducing the deficit, and the result would have been a major recession, may be a repeat of the great depression. instead reinvested in the future and we were confident about the future. i am not talking about the government doing it all.

i am talking about an investment program that gets the private sector going. when we invested in the interstate highway system, said in the suburbs growth of the country. -- grew all over the country. when we invested in the space program and the apollo project, we had a technology revolution in the private sector. you are absolutely right that the government cannot do it all. the american people together with the government can get us moving in the right direction and hope in the private sector to grow. .

we also need to spend money directly on putting people to work in communities around the country. george miller in the u.s. congress has a proposal to create public service jobs around the country. and we've also got to invest in our infrastructure. over the long term, we have neglected our public infrastructure, our roads and bridges, our schools and our technology, and if we did that kind of investment we would get a huge benefit for the private sector. we'd get the economy growing, and the deficit would come down as a percentage of our growing gdp. if we do nothing or move into austerity, which is what a lot of the republicans want to do, if we start cutting back, we're

going to get a resumption of the recession and a very, very dangerous increase in unemployment. >> is there a political will from this president to spend that money to make that happen? >> that's going to be the test. i think that the president, if he stood up and told the truth about what it's going to take to get the economy growing, he would get huge public support. just as he did in his 2008 election campaign. if he simply focuses on cutting, if he ca pit lates to the republican demands that he slash and burn the federal spending on education, on investment and roads and bridges, if he cuts, cuts, cuts and agrees to the republican philosophy, then he is going to be in a world of trouble. because the economy will not get better and it might in fact get worse. so it's going to be a major test for president obama to see

whether over the next two years he puts forward a real plan for economic growth. the at senative is just to cross his fingers and hope the mild stimulus that he just got in this new tax bill will be enough to get the economy reviving. i think it will not. and i think he is going to have to step up and talk about the things that he talked about in 2008 in his election campaign. >> when you say world of trouble, do you mean from his base? >> not only from his base, but from the american people. you saw the bad results in this last election in the congressional elections for democrats. >> which most people tie to economic issues. >> exactly. all the polls show that people were worried about the economy. they were not feeling unemployment was coming down. the democratic message was simply let's have faith that what we've done in the past

will be enough to get economy moving. but people weren't feeling it. and especially in that broad swath of middle america, the midwest, the rust belt, the places that have been hit hard by unemployment over the last decade, democrats either did not come out to vote, independents did not vote for democrats, and the result was they voted for republicans or they didn't vote at all and it was a disaster for the progressives. >> santa fay new mexico, democrat's line. go ahead. caller: i'm so glad you're here. i wanted to talk to you. you mentioned president obama and governing. but what we also need more than anything else is for him to lead and we need a plan. the entire country needs one job. we need to focus on one thing

that will be beneficial to the entire nation. every single state could contribute to. and my idea is simply this. the joint of creating a water desalization pipeline from san diego to el paso. if we are intent on building a wall along our southern border, let us not make it another wall such as we had in the east germans built, a berlin wall. we need a wall and we need -- we must have a partner on the other side of the border. so my idea is that if we as a people could do something that would benefit all of us as an entire good and solve more than one problem at a time, we've got immigration and drug and

potential war. we have a drought over the entire west that is going to hit within the next five years. the lakes are all hurting and there are only two major waterways in the west. guest: well, the caller makes an important point that we've got resource constraints that are keeping us from developing our economy both here and in the rest of north america. so i'm not sure about the desalization technology, but for sure we have an interest in making sure that we have healthy agriculture not only in the united states but in places like mexico. and -- let me give an example. the nafta treaty which we

passed some years ago under president clinton. one of the things that did was flood mexico with cheap u.s. corn grown here in the united states. it destroyed the rural economy of mexico because it undercut the price of corn produced by small farmers in mexico. the result was that mexican farmers moved to the cities and then across the border into the united states. we didn't have to do that. we could have helped create a sustainable agriculture in mexico and we would have had a much more prosperous neighbor to our south and much less of an immigration problem here in the united states. we need to invest in the future of north america and we need to make this economy prosperous again rather than simply building walls, rather than simply cutting our federal investment in things like new

technology and energy technology. we really need to be investing in the next generation of renewable energy that can help make this economy prosperous once again. host: newark, new jersey. independent line. you're on. caller: would it be -- would the social security funding problem with resolved if the rate is reduced to, say, 1% for all income? and if that is the solution, why is that not proposed seriously? guest: one of the great simple rules of social security is that we and our employers pay into social security. it goes into a fund which has been groge lately to support the retirement. so it is a dedicated tax that

assures everybody in the country that they have paid into social security and they will get back something equivalent, a little bit more for more low income people. so it would be a big mistake, i think, to cut the social security fica tax when that tax that we all pay is our guarantee as roosevelt said that we are going to have a healthy retirement. and of course with the recession, with the decline of private pensions, americans are depending on social security more and more to replace their income in retirement. so it's very, very important that we have a strong social security system. and i'm a little bit worried about this recent so called stimulus plan that has cut social security taxes

supposedly temporarily. but if that cuts the social security taxes and gets extended a year from now hand we don't replace that mum with money from the federal treasury social security could be weakened. it's very, very important that we strengthen social security, that we assure people that they're going to have a decent retirement, and that we resist these calls from the conservatives to cut social security benefits or raise the retirement age. host: scott off of twitter guest: if we had said that offer world war ii, if we said don't spend money on the g.i. bill, i probably wouldn't be sitting here today. my father benefited from the g.i. bill, became a lawyer, and like millions of other americans after world war ii became a fairly prosperous and

productive member of our society. if we ignore the investment that we have to make in our society, if only in roads and bridges and technologies that we need for the next generation of the private sector, we're going to impoverish our country and make sure that we turn nood a third world nation. yeah, we need the private sector and the private sector cannot be hobbled by too many restrictions. but by the same token, if we want a prosperous private sector, if we want a private sector that can really grow and has the technology and the human workforce for the 21st century, we need to invest, we need to make sure our kids are productive, we need to make sure that we have at least as good a technology as the chinese and the other countries that will be competing with us in the next century.

host: bob on our republican line. caller: thanks for taking my call. the progressives have a very my opic view of the economy. they don't view debt as a debt. and we have 80 to $90 trillion of unfunded liabilities in social security medicare, medicaid, and the federal pensions and our budget is going to be having to -- the debt limit is going to have to be increased to $14.3 trillion after the first of the year. the federal government does not have any money. what we need is relaxing of regulation and investment by individuals. government does not invest. government puts a gun to people's head and forces them to pay for what the government wants done, which is less efficient than an individual deciding wheapts to do. i think you need to look at ron paul, i think you need to look at austrian economics and the idea of freedom and liberty as

opposed to extorsion. guest: i agree that we need private sector growth. the problem of course, as many, many economists have pointed out, is that we don't have enough employed people. and the middle class is not making enough money to provide the demand for the private sector to grow. so we could continue to cut back on federal investment programs. we would spli weaken that demand in our economy. and the danger is that we would fall back into a recession. so we do face a choice here. we face a choice whether to adopt austerity here and around the world and see the u.s. and the world economy fall back into recession. that's a very, very large danger. or, we can invest in our

people, we can get people employed again and going into the stores to buy american-made goods, and at that point american industry, if we have a banking system that will loan us money, will be able to invest confidently knowing that the u.s. economy is providing the demand that they need for prosperity. that's the choice that we face. either investing now so we can have a growth and demand and long-term prosperity, or cutting cut, cutting, and allowing the u.s. economy to weaken and fall back into recession. and i think that's going to be largely what the tpwhoved years debate is going to be about in the congress and the white house. host: robert cutner is an

editor and had a piece in the politico. he wrote this a couple days ago, to get your response. guest: that's a very big danger. this is a debate in the white house right now. do we adopt the recommendations of this very conservative deficit commission, which failed to agree on a consensus position. in fact, some of the members of the commission, jan shack ski

of illinois, came up with her own plan that showed that we can get the deficit going down and stabilize the deficit without cutting social security and medicare. in fact, if you think about it, social security is not contributing a dime to the federal deficit right now. we are paying extra into social security to pay for the retirement of the baby boomers. we have a surplus in social security. it's other parts of the u.s. economy, the military budget, the tax cuts for the very wealthy, and of course the recession that is causing the deficit to grow. so our argument is that president obama should ignore the arguments of the conservatives who are trying to get him to cut the social security program which they've never liked in the first place. they would like to turn medicare into a voucher. those would be destructive not only of the economic growth in the economy, it would really

hurt his base enormously. and you would get a political fire storm coming after president obama himself. instead, what he ought to point out, he ought to educate the american people in his state of the union and point out that it's the tax cuts for the wealthy, it's the slow economy, it's the excessive military budget that we've been spending on for years and years that are causing the deficit to go up. and the absolute first priority has got to be growing the economy. if the economy grows, then more people are paying into social security, more people are paying taxes, the deficit comes down as a percentage of a growing gdp. and president obama is in the situation very similar to president clinton when he faced knut gingrich as speaker of the house. the president stood up and said, save social security first.

he said medicare, medicaid, education, and environment programs were going to be made whole and not allowed to be cut. the american people stood up and rallied around him. and that was the key to president clinton's revival. after his big defeat in the congressional elections. like wise, if president obama were to stand up and say social security has nothing to do with the deficit, if he were to stand up and say medicare is a function of our dysfunctional health care system and we need a next round of health care reform, the public option, cracking down on drug industry profits, to get overall health care stabilized, then we wouldn't have to turn medicare into a voucher which is what the republicans want him to do. so the president faces a test, and in the next couple of months he is going to have to determine whether he is decides to stand with the american

people who are with him on that, or ca pit lates to the republican hostage takers. host: you're looking at video from the signing of the tax cut bill. louisville, kentucky, our democrat's line. go ahead. caller: thank you c-span. wish everybody a happy merry christmas. i believe that you have to get the people back to work and get the economy back together before you even talk about trying to cut down and slash, because if no one has a job, a place to go home, who cares about the debt? i don't care about the debt if i don't have food on the table to feed my family or a job to go to to take care of my family. so i believe the american people need to get together and start taking care of each other

before we talk about cutting this, cutting that. let's get everybody back to work first. guest: the caller brings the reality of outside the beltway to this program here today. we've just had christmas. people are going into the new year. and many, many people are facing, if not stark unemployment, then the risk that they or their family are going to lose their jobs in the next period. here in washington the leaders of government are insulated from that reality. the fact is that the american people overwhelmingly want to focus on jobs. they want to focus on economic growth and a healthy future. the big problem for democrats was that after stopping the recession and preventing the great depression, president obama simply said trust me, things are going to get better.

that's not enough. and we saw the results in the last election where the republicans said vote for me, i'll bring you jobs by cutting the federal government. that's that bo gus answer. if you're going to focus on jobs, you've got to create jobs. the austerity plan will not work. it will simply make things worse pped and the big challenge for progressives is to build a movement that says the country has a future again. we can create jobs, we can get the economy growing, we can put people like the caller back to work. and then and only then will we have a deficit that comes down relative to a growing economy. if we do that, then we really have a chance of not only making the country stronger but winning the next election. host: more of a statement from twitter this morning.

guest: it was very cly in his election campaign about what he was intending to do, what he thought the country needed. he talked not only of getting us out of the recession. he talked about what's going to be the driving force for economic growth in the future, and he talks about investing in green jobs, he talked about investing in energy technology in the next generation of transportation technology that will get us energy efficient and put people to work here in america, jobs that can't be outsourced overseas. that's the vision that he needs to stick with. and that's the vision that people like this caller, the person on twitter, the american people want to see hope and investment in the future again.

they don't want to see a competition of a race to the bottom with the democrats just trying to be a little bit more humane about slashing programs than the republicans. that won't work. host: pennsylvania, you are next up. raymond, independent line. caller: good morning and thank you for accepting my call. i completely disagree with mr. hicky in that the last election, the people were i think spoke about spending. and when you're talking about bill clinton, bill clinton ran in 92 on the fact that he was going to stop nafta in its tracks. it was the rich republicans, the ones -- he scared the hell out of the american people about their jobs, they were going to lose their jobs. in 93, the second issue he took on was nafta. he pushed it. he turned 180 degrees, turned around in a circle. he lied.

and there, jobs left pennsylvania, noy. companies went to mexico. and these people are all unemployment. you forgot to ask that man from kentucky whether he thought he was in a recession or depression right now, because he doesn't have a job. all right? this speak, this washington speak about recession and depression, we are in a recession or depression depending on where -- how you define it. and it's up to i guess the government officials how they define it to make it look nicer. but you ask all those people out there on unemployment and losing their homes and can't make the payment, ask them. and the jobs will be created if you quit taking tax dollars off of companies and people that spend the money like he did or like obama wants to do, ok. this guy is a short-termer he is going to be out in 2012. i think the american people

have spoken. as far as social security, sir, it is not in a surplus. they have to borrow money in sept before and october to pay the resiptions. they had to borrow money. there is a surplus in ieo us that congress has put there but there is not a surplus in cash dollars. host: we'll leave it there. guest: caller, i agree with you on a lot of things we said. first, i think it was a big mistake for bill clinton to negotiate nafta especially without putting real protections for american workers in that treaty. and the democrats have suffered as a result of passing nafta ever sense. it's exported jobs to mexico and to other countries. and president obama is really making a big mistake for not carrying through his promise to renegotiate nafta. so we agree and i agree with you that we are for most

americans, we are still in a recession no matter what the economists say. people who are losing their jobs don't think that this economy is working for them. the real debate, as you say, is going to be how do you get jobs back in america? do you get an employment growth and lower unemployment by cutting our investment programs, by cutting the -- the republicans are going to be calling for across the board cuts and things like education and things like investment in college tuition for our young people. i don't think that's the way you get an economic recovery. i think you get an economic recovery by priming the pump, by investing in things that the country needs anyway like roads and bridges. and over time that will put people -- money in people's pockets, the private sector will feel people coming back to their stores, and buying

things, and they will invest then in expansion of capacity and you will get more and more employment. that's the virtyuss cycle that we need to get into. the test is going to be whether the republicans, if they get their way, will actually produce better results. i think it's going to produce a real economic disaster for the country and more and higher unemployment. so we're about to get that test. i'm urging the president to provide an alternative. to stand up and argue for jobs for the heartland, not cuts for things that we absolutely need as a country. host: the job approval for the president, 46 presidents. at this point, how -- 46%.

how does that stand for you? >> guest: that's not bad for other presidents. the president has had a good period in this lame duck session of congress where he got quite a bit accomplished beyond the economic stimulus and the health care reform. he got financial reform, he got college loan reform, he got don't ask don't tell and the start treaty. he failed to win the dream act and the immigration reform and he didn't even try on labor rights. as i said, the renegotiation of nafta which he never even attempted. so he's gone out in this congress on a high note. and the american people like to see their president lead. they like to see when the president as he did on the start treaty, as he did on don't ask, don't tell, get involved in getting members of congress to actually do something instead of simply arguing.

so he's had a very good end of the session. next session of congress is going to be much, much more difficult. you've got all these new very conservative members of the republican party coming in. and the question is whether president obama is going to continue to lead, continue to focus on jobs, or whether he is going to captain late to the republicans who want him to cut back on federal spending. host: one more call. susan, good morning. caller: good morning. we went to disneyworld for christmas and thanks giving the week after thanksgiving and it really slapped me in the face about what the policies of the republicans since reagan. we had been there before. everybody was in character but there was an underlying feeling there, and i talked to -- i'm

the old grand ma so i didn't go on all the rides and i spent a lot of time talking to people. and everybody or a lot of people felt the same thing. and finally we talked to a man who knew what was going on. disney -- disney is cutting back and they've been doing this for several years. they're eegs it in. they're cutting their people back to part-time so that they don't have to provide benefits for their people. and i thought, my god, this is what all the other corporations have done for years under the republican banner. and it's just -- it was really an eye oper. and like i said, so many other people had that same feeling. something else i want to bring up. you had one of the senators the other day, and i tried to call in, from georgia.

ice acks and cham business. they were involved a couple years ago in a plan for housing base in georgia, fort stewart. and i know about that because my grand daurt's husband is stationed a fort stewart. and come to find out, this housing was for foreign troops that they were planning on bringing over for training and the housing is just horrible. host: we'll leave it there. guest: well, thank you, caller. i think you bring a focus to what's been happening in the u.s. economy before bush, certainly before obama, since the 1970s. i would recommend a book that explains it very effectively, winner take all economy that's just come out by jacob hacker and his coauthor that explains

that over the long periods since the 1970s, as we have exported jobs, as the very wealthy have become more powerful, as the corporations have not only cut back on full time employment for goofy and mickey and the people in disneyworld as you point out, but for a large number of the workers that they employ, and workers productivity continue to go up but the wages have stayed stagnant. the vast majority of increase in, income and wealth, has gone to the top percent. we used to be a middle class nation, we should be and can be again. but when every part of our economy is focused on outsourcing and cutting back on wages, and we have the wealthy bankers and the financial

speculators getting all the benefits of our economy, we can't sustain a middle class economy for long. we can't sustain the society where the next generation lives better than we did. and that's why i think the progressive movement is united with the american public, the vast majority of americans who are not ideological in simply wanting to make sure that we don't continue down this road of polarizing of incomes and wealth, that we spread the wealth by spreading jobs and economic opportunities to everybody. if we can do that and if president obama leads with that vision in mind, i think we can do well as an economy. and as a society. if we don't, and if those trends continue, we won't be able to afford to go to disneyland, we won't be able to

afford to send our kids to college because america will be well on the way to becoming a third world nation and other countries will take the lead. like china is. so it's crucially important what we do in the next period. it's absolutely essential that the president and the democratic party stand up and lead toward a high income, high growth economy, and i really appreciate the caller for sharing her thoughts. host: roger hickey with the campaign for america's future. our future.org is the website. we provided a link to on our website. thank you. guest: thank you. host: coming up, later on in the program we're going to talk about the effort to hire veterans from when they leave service and into the private sector.

our guest will be on at 9:15. coming up, if you follow internet related issues, we're going to talk about net neutrality. it took a vote at the fcc last week. the reports will be along to help explain it for you and to answer questions about it. we'll be right back. [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2010]

>> c-span's original documentary on the supreme court has been updated and airs sunday, january 2. you will see the grand public places and those only available to the justices and their staff. and you'll hear about how the court works from all the supreme court justices

including the newest justice. also, learn about some of the court's recent developments. the supreme court, home to america's highest court airing for the first time in high definition, sunday, january 2nd, at 6:30 p.m. eastern on c-span.

"washington journal" continues. host: it was last tuesday at the federal communications commission where there was a vote that took place on rules that dealt with the internet, to deal specifically with the topic called net neutrality. we're going to talk about that for our next 45 minutes. but in order to kind of set the stage on the debate, here's julia, the chairman, as he explains what these rules will accomplish. >> today we're adopting a set of high level rules of the road that strikes the right balance between these impertives. we're adopting a framework that will increase certainty for businesses, investors, entrepreneurs, in key respects the interests of edge innovators, the entrepreneurs creating internet content services and application, their interests, the interests of

broad band providers and of american consumers are aligned. innovation at the edge catalyzes consumer demand for broad band, consumer deband for private investment, faster networks sparks ever cooler innovation at the edge. i believe our action today will foster an ongoing cycle of massive investment, innovation, and consumer demand both at the edge and in the core of broad band networks. our action will strengthen the internet job creation engine. our action will advance our goals of having america's broadband networks be the freest and the fastest in the world. >> some of you may have understood that. and for those who don't, lynne, who follows this, is along to answer questioning about that. first, let's start with the basics. net neutrality as a term i

don't know if many people would understand. what does it mean? guest: it means treating all of the information that you want to send and receive over the internet equally, so that the broad band provider is providing a service, like at&t, comcast or verizon doesn't decide that one service or another service, like skiping or getting over the top video like hullu or net flicks might be treatd better or worse than another depending how it benefits one or the other. host: has there been incidents in the past where nsk was blocked by these providers? guest: the two main cases that the fcc tends to cite are quite a few years back. about 2005 flfs a small telephone company blocking voice tover internet protocol. and then much more recently, in 2008, comcast was intervening

in -- they were blocking in the processing and sending of peer-to-peer file sharing. host: some may not understand that. guest: it means you can go out and take data files, video, clips, whatever, that are actually located around the internet. instead of going to some main provider, you would get it sitting on somebody else's computer and you would go to get it. content providers, especially with broad band service providers argued that an awful lot of that content was illegal, that it was copyright infringing material. though the person who brought this to the attention of the public was trying to share barber shop quart at the time files around the turn of the century that were clearly out of copyright protection. so it affected people doing other things with it. host: how do people understand

that? guest: most people would be out of their local telephone company or cable company that is providing them with internet access, the company that lets you get to the internet and then you go to web sites and various services. host: and if i'm one and i'm concerned about traffic traveling, what would cause me or what would i have to say that's a bit of concern, maybe i should keep that from happening? guest: there's a lot of different issues. a lot of time what there are concerns about is just congestion. just too much traffic. and that was in fact what comcat said was the problem. because there were so many people sharing information. if you were a bit torrent user you might not be a ware of the traffic you were creating because you had know idea it was happening. it was just sending out all this traffic. so part of it is the congestion traffic yuge issue. part of it the fcc would argue

is the competitive issue, particularly for a cable provider who is also your internet provider but also increasingly at&t, they want video, too, as a subscription service. there are services on the internet that compete with that, like net flicks, like huh will you that possibly people will do what they call cut the cord and no longer subscribe to a paid subscription based video service like comcast or others and instead just get all their video either for free or for $12 a month. are host: so competition interests. guest: yes. host: so the chairman passes these rules. what does that mean for all the players involved and what was done at the fcc last week? guest: the fcc basically divided providers into two galtgrizz fixed providers and local providers.

fixed would be the ones that i was just talking about, mainly your at&t, comcast, verizon fios, as well as fixed wireless providers that it's not like your cell phone or your smart phone that you use anywhere. it basically is going to one point and that you used to service there. and the other are the providers, keeping your service over your smart phone or a little modem card that you stick into your computer or laptop if you have an i-pad that you're connecting to the internet through. host: so now that these new rules are in place, what does that mean? guest: so if all providers have to provide transparency now. they have to tell you what speed is providing, what that really means. not just up to something. but they have to give you some idea what that means. they have to tell you how they are managing their network. if they are blocking some category of service or if they have a cap that they're not letting you have more than x

meg at bits or giga bits a month they have to tell you this. there's also a rule for not blocking and degrading. that's where kind of the division comes in. for fixed providers they're not allowed to block or degrade web sites, contents, application services that are accessed over the internet. where as the mobble providers, because the fcc accepts their argument about their network being a little different, both because they don't have the capacity sometimes that the fixed providers have but also because it's harder for them to predict what the demand might be at a given time. people might show up for things unexpectedly. they can plan for sporting events to some degree. but if everybody is on their mobile phone, it's much harder to predict. so they're only required to not block or degrade web sites or services that compete with their own voice and video services that they offer.

so it's a little bit more focused in terms of the nonblocking. host: so now i cabinet say, if i'm a network provider, i'm observing this, i see someone wanting a net flicks video, i can't slow the tap sorks to speak, to get to the ondse other end. guest: exactly. host: if you have questions, she is the person to do that for us. if you want to ask questions, our numbers are on the bottom of your screen. you can e-mail or twitter if toupt give your input there. from last tuesday, how do the network providers or the operators generally respond? guest: they've actually been for the most part somewhat mute in their criticism of it. a lot of them are saying we have to wait and see the precise language of the rules which were not available on

tuesday. they didn't come out until late thursday and a lot of people were headed home at that time and didn't see them. so there's a certain amount of restraint in terms of their reaction. some of the stronger language actually come from support irs of net neutrality who feel that the rules were not strong enough, did not do enough to protect consumers and to protect what are called edge providers. those are the ones that write net fliction. google. anybody providing a service over the internet. host: your first call from kansas, republican line. john, go ahead. can are you there? caller: good morning. we have -- just a second. i had it muted and my button didn't work. i think it's muted now. host: go ahead, sir. caller: good.

well, let's see. now that the fcc is planning to take over the internet -- you know, the internet has worked very well for many, many years. not perfectly, but very, very well. now, let's take a look at how the government runs things into the ditch as our esteemed president likes to say. the post office, the postal service of america is run by the united states government. it pays absolutely no taxes, no property taxes, no sales taxes, no fees, and it's one of the $10 billion loss. then we've got on the other hand private enterprise, the ups and fed ex and others, and they're making money and they're paying taxes out the wa zoo. now that we've got the fcc running the internet, they're going to be able to regulate information over the internet. host: he used the phrase take

over the internet guest: a lot of people use that phrase and the fs obviously disagree that's what it's doing. in terms of regulating the content, the fcc has said that's not what they want to do. they don't want to in any way control what it is that you're allowed to see. they just want to stop the broadband provider from controlling what it is you can see. or say also because in a lot of these circumstances people wing of as consumers are now what are called prosumer here. you're producing content and posting it up on the blog. host: the rules would give the fcc the ability on possibly going too far if some people are concerned like our viewer expressed? guest: it doesn't seem so. they say that the way the rules are written they describe broadband service providers as the companies that are providing the connection from one end point on the internet

to all the other end points on the internet. which is not typically what someone who is putting content up on the internet is doing, which i think is what the caller was concerned about. host: next call is tulsa, oklahoma. thanks for waiting. robert, democrat's line. good morning. caller: good morning. this is my first time on air and good morning. caller: good morning. caller: i had a question. relates to the long-term issues of the internet brooned broadband and the internet web. this is more of a sense you have ms. stanten. as we expand the capacity and we understand the need for that, but the idea that the profitability or the entrepreneurship within that medium is, it's got to be prove b. it's not a free worldwide web and we can understand that. but do you see any parallels between the securitization of for example we broke down mortgages more and more and

more and more, and any possibility. and i know the rules are going to be a problem. but the possibility that the same techniques makes the internet in a sense almost so profitable that you finally see the point of content and access ibility get more and more restricted? i'll leave you with that sort of thought of is there a downside to this, or do rules take that into account? and i thank you for your time. guest: thank you. when the fcc is talking about this, the entrepreneurship, they're very concerned about what i referred to as the edge providers and the innovators. that might have problems being able to produce the kinds of services they want if they don't know how a broadband provider is going to treat their service. if you don't know whether it's going to be blocked or degraded or prioritized or not prioritized. it's kind of hard to write the

software and develop the product and get funding for it from vent tier capitalized and what not. host: from the vote on tuesday, the three democrats on the commission voted for it, the two republicans voted against it. would you say that that was expected as far as the vote is concerned? guest: the big question in the three weeks leading up to the vote was more whether the two other democrats on the commission in addition to the chairman who we saw earlier, and especially the senior democrat would be willing to vote for what has been viewed as sort of a weakened version of net neutrality by a lot of stronger net neutrality advocates. and there was a lot of perception that in effect said that they were pushing for stronger protections in the area especially of the mobile providers. as i said, they don't have quite the strength. in addition to not having the same blocking restrictions, they also are not at all subject to what's called the

nondiscrimination provision. the fixed providers are not allowed to unreasonably discriminate against services, applications, what not where as the mobile providers aren't subject to that. host: we have a bit of the statement when it came down. and it kind of talked about what he wanted from this whole package of rules. >> there is more that i would have liked in this order. i would have preferred a general ban to discourage broadband providers from engaging in priority those of deep pockets who would confine the rest of us to a slower, second-class internet. i also believe we should have done more to strip loopholes from the description of access service to prevent companies falsely claiming they are not broadband companies from slipping through. we made some improvements in the definition but i still have some worries. i also argued for real parity between fixed and mobile.

meaning wireline and wireless technologies. after all, the internet is the internet. no matter how you access it. and the millions of citizens going mobile nowadays for their internet and the entrepreneurs creating innovative wireless content, applications, and services should have the same freedoms and protections as those in the wire context. host: why did the final rules not reflect what mr. cops wanted to see? guest: i guess you have to see they confirmed that he was trying to put forth rules apparently that would have a reasonable amount of support from industry, an industry apparently was trying to prevent very strong rules that would include a reclassification, regulatory standpoint of broad band internet service. the proposals that commissioner cox wanted to do would

basically have subjected broadband internet services to an entirely different piece of federal statute that is much more explicit in terms of what the authorities would be. where as they're trying to act under a piece of statute that looks at this as what's called an information service, very lightly regulated. host: would the other classifyication treat it more like a phone company? guest: a lot of times the people that argue against it would say that what they wanted to do is to treat it like a phone company . host: a couple other things. he said he would have changed the definition of broadband internet to avoid loopholes. is that another thing? host: guest: some people are concerned that without a very good definition of a broadband internet service provider, what they will do is tweak their service just a little bit so it doesn't quite go from your computer to every other computer on the internet, which would seem to bring outside

slightly the definition that the fcc has adopted. what the fcc did to a little bit alleviate the concerns was add a sentence saying they would consider anything that was functionly equivalent to a broadband internet service. i think the proof is going to be in adjudication and assuming the rules last that long it's going to take some adjudication, some people bringing cases to the fcc and some determination to see exactly how far outside you can stray and become something other than a broadband internet service provider. host: he also used the term pay for priority. guest: there's concern that service providers, the larger ones that have deep pockets, would be able to pay the provider to prioritize their traffic to get to you faster. so let's say net flicks request

afford to pay whatever it might turn out to be, an extra penny per hour of broadband transmission to you to get their videos to show up fully nice and crisp and everything on your computer or tv or game box system, whatever you're watching it on. and there's some new startup that might have some great ideas or a better stock of videos to show, whatever they might have that might be an entrepreneurial or innovative improvement over net flicks but they don't have the pockets to be able to pay that -- and i'm just pulling a number out of the air. host: but it favors the larger for the smaller. guest: that's 2 idea. and what the fcc has said is that while they're not saying that paid forwardization is not allowed, it's banned, they are saying that they really doubt that it would ever pass the nondiscrimination provision which again is only on the fixed services, not on the mobile services at this point. host: lincoln, nebraska. thank you for waiting for our

guest. go ahead. caller: good morning. thank you for taking my call. now, as i understand it, this underlying the whole debate over net neutrality is the notion that the internet is a basic human right, or at least that's the way i heard it described at one point. i see the internet as being a wonderful tool and in many cases an essential tool. but do you believe that the internet is a basic human right like water, food? guest: well, i'm not even sure that water and food are a basic human right in terms of how we run our sout. but it's a very important thing. and that was one of the fcc's arguments in terms of the being age to participate fully in the society. a lot of places, if you want to apply for a job now, you have to do it on line. if you want to really fully participate in the political discussion these days, a lot of that is happening on line. if you want to fully participate in some educational

opportunities, a lot of that is happening on line. there's a view to moving a lot of health provision and monitoring on line. so there's a lot of things that people think of as essential activities of being a fully participating person, and that's what the fcc, although they haven't used the term i don't believe of calling it a basic human right, i think that's a large part of their concern when they look at it from the consumer side. they also have arguments from the economic side that they feel that the harm from economic standpoint of allowing the edge provider innovators to be harmed by possible discrimination and network management to be greater than the benefits that the network providers are going to get. host: what's the penalty to the network provider if they're found breaking these rules? guest: the fcc has the power to say don't do that any more. and it also has the power to

impose forfeit turs. i don't believe there was anything changing this -- they couldn't change the amount of foreif i turs. that would have to come from congress and -- my memory is it's about $10,000 a day but that would be per incident. and probably any time you're doing this you're doing it to more than one. so they probably would never impose a fine that would hit the maximum of what you theoretically could make it be based on every incident for every day that somebody does it. because griven the number of customers a provider has, that would become an astronomical number. host: could anybody in congress overturn what the fcc just did? . .

host: they were working on this

effort this is what she had to say it. >> mr. ensign who is the ranking member of the subcommittee of commerce and i am the ranking member of the commerce committee, to gather we are going to submit a resolution of disapproval under the congressional review act in an effort to overturn this troubling regulatory overreach by the s -- fcc. it is time for congress to say that we have not delegated this authority to the fcc. the communications act -- the fcc tried to do this in another part of the act. they were struck down by the board. they have now gone to a different interpretation in a different interpretation of the act to gain the capability to obstruct but the freedom of access to the internet.

it is a huge and serious issue that i hope congress will take of the reins and say to the fcc, if we need regulation in this area, congress will do it. host: what is the take away from all that? guest: there will probably resolutions introduced. whether they can get them through the house is questionable. they do need to get a majority. once that goes through, they will still have to not be vetoed or overcome a veto. it seems unlikely that that will be the way that this will be stopped. it is far more likely that it will come from the courts. the fcc to marshall's different arguments for adopting these rules they presented last spring it was one specific effort on their part to stop comcast for managing its

networks in a way and was overturned by the federal appeals court in washington. the commission that they adopted last week, argued that they have a different set of arguments, there is a legal argument that the court -- they think the court will accept and we will see if they are right. host: maryland, republican line, go ahead caller: i think your guest is on the right track that the cable companies are looking to bundle a bunch of tv programs and send 50 or 100 of them into your house as long as they pick and choose them. if you want to use the internet to get a tv channel of your own , that will infringe on their business and that is the real reason they don't want to see this net flex-type technology mature.

if they can send 100 channels to me for $50 per month, how much should they charge me to get one or two tv channels through the internet? will anybody study the price structure? guest: part of the differentiation is that we have a cable service for the channels already bundle. it is a point to multi-point architecture. you would choose from amongst the tv channels. with the internet, they have tens of thousands, millions of customers choosing different things. even if pedro and i choose the same thing, they have to sense that separately to each of us in terms of the internet model of

getting video. it is a little bit different. i am not sure about your question of whether anybody has done a study of the relative cost of providing you enough band with to review one or two channels versus the cost of sending you hundreds of channels that they had to buy the programming and build the network. there is many different kinds of economic things in there. i am afraid i don't know the answer to the question. host: democrats a line, go ahead. caller: i love cspan, it is nice to talk to you. when the oil spill occurred in the gulf, bp had an algorithm put in on google said they would pop up first.

an isp that does not abide by the rules, what recourse does this law give you internationally? will this affect citizens radio which is more controversial tax will that squash them as far as their ability to produce their shows? guest: on the google algorithm, the fcc said it does not want to have the language of these rules affect edge provider. the international question with if it is an isp serving some went iceland, these rules would not affect them.

the third question about the podcast, that seems to bean edge provider and these roles are not looking to restrict edge providers. caller: how're you doing today? i have a telephone number. my wife is disabled and there are jobs she can do on the internet. our phone company would not run the line out here where we could have entered -- fast internet. i rode our governor exploiting this. she responded back that they

have a monopoly out here. all these jobs could be done at home. people could be put to work if they had fast internet. big business is taking over. i would like to hear your comment. guest: the fcc had an initiative last spring called the national broadband plan which congress instructed them to design which dealt with trying to set goals for getting broadbent out to the country. there was money and recovery act to pay for projects to bring broadband to places where it was not before. that is intended to help. the fcc initially had that court

decision and it said that they might be restrained from implementing the things they wanted to from the national broadband plan many of which are aimed at getting more broadband out there because of the court decision they did not have the authority over broadband services. they have gone back and forth on that issue. they said initially that they have to be read-classified as a telecommunications service rather than an electronics service. host: we have a twitter question -- please give a brief review of mr. mcdowell's point of view? guest: he is concerned that the fcc does that have the authority to do what it is doing.

the provisions in the act do not authorize it to do the things they said they are supposed to do. he is concerned that the fcc is prompting congress. we are at a point right now where congress needs to address this issue. until they do, the fcc should not go forward. he also had arguments about the wisdom of what the fcc was doing. he feels the fcc -- the majority's approach would interfere with markets and keep them from managing the networks in ways that might be wise. host: pennsylvania, republican line, go ahead. caller: i understand there is

another company involved with the discussion around netflix and compaq's -- and comcast for the other companies called level 3. can we connect directly to a company directly like netflix and not go through comcast? guest: level 3 provides connections across the internet. they are a backbone provider. they have gotten involved in this by carrying more netflix traffic. comcast says the internet backbone providers have tier arrangements. they can provide the service for free as long as the traffic has a particular ratio.

this netflix contract that level three has thrown this out of balance with comcast that they have to treat it as content providers. that is how they got involved. i have forgotten the rest of the question. host: one more call -- of venice, fla.. caller: good morning. i am a c-span junkie and i am also a democrat. the reason i am calling you this morning is to let people know that you can get out to the internet without having a computer. i am using a comcast digital phone. my e-mail address is on there.

i am handicapped. i have a form of dyslexia. host: you will probably get mel from that response. guest: you can use other devices. as an individual, if you are not providing enough traffic to be a viable customer directly of internet backbone provider like it is hard to see how an ordinary consumer can do that. host: thank you for explaining

this. coming up, we will look at a program that would help those leaving the battlefield, those serving in the armed forces, help to make the transition to private industry. our guest is with the blue hire heroes, we will have that we come back.en ♪ we come wh ♪ >> i think a mistake that a lot of british people who follow british politics make is to think the british and american system are broadly comparable. your president is like our prime minister. they think you have two houses of parliament and so do weights. now, our prime minister has much more power than your president. >> q &a continues tonight with interviews from london comparing

the british and american forms of government. that is tonight at 8:00 eastern on q &a./ >> the cspan original documentary on the supreme court has been updated and airs january 2. you will see the places available to the justices and their staff and will hear about how the court works from all the current supreme court justices including the newest justice, elena kagan. learn about some of the court's recent developments, the supreme court, home to america's highest court, caring for the first time in high-definition sunday, january 2, at 6:30 p.m. on c- span. >> a closing speech has the inevitable aspect of an extraordinary experience. this is coming to an end. my dominant feeling is pride in

the great privilege to be a part of this very unique body than a search for farewell speeches and hear from retiring senators on the cspan video library on every program since 1987. it is more than 160,000 hours, all on line, all free, washington your way. >> "washington journal" continues. host: joining us is the executive director of "hire heroes. guest: we are a transition organization when people transition out of the military. host: from a person who comes out of the military into the private sector, what has to be considered? guest: realistic expectations, what is that veteran qualified

and certified to do? what jobs are available for them out there. many of these veterans have a geographic area they would like to work in. some research needs to be done because not everybody's home town may have the jobs available for this skill set that they have and they have been trained and. the other thing that we especially focus on our resume techniques. one of the biggest reasons it is they are not being hired is their resumes are not complete. much of their language still transfers from the military and they still speak in military terms and acronyms which, unfortunately, when you are trying to get a job, i regular civilian does not understand that. host: does the unemployment rate for veterans come from the fact that there are no jobs or the ones who had a job before they

went to the service found their jobs were not there when they came back? guest: it is a combination of both. we have seen both. in many cases, the jobs they left and came back to, there was too much competition out there. our employment pull it is the most talented it's been in decades. there are so many people unemployed. it is difficult and if you don't know the rules of the game and you don't know how to compete or get a resume out there that competes with your peers, you will not get hired. these are some of the things my staff has trained themselves on so we can help veterans and i believe that we do a better than anyone in the country. host: does the military branch offer some type of transitional assistance? guest: they do. unfortunately, it is poorly coordinated. if we go to a different base in

a different area of the country, all of their transition assistance programs will be different. they should be coordinated and there should be one government body for the entire military but there is one for each branch. they take a three-day course and you may have 200 marines in the course and one instructor. there is no way you can get 200 effected resumes bill with one instructor. when i went through a transition assistance program, i sat there for three days and everybody in the room had their cell phones out and books and were not taking notes. since then in 2008, i can tell you that the marine corps and united states army have gone through great leaps and bounds to improve their transition systems. the issue again is the amount of instructors per students. when we go to bases which we do every month, we bring a one to 3

student-instructor ratio. you will help someone truly quantify their skill set on a resume and understand how to verbally communicate that skill sets. that is what we need the military to transition to. they need to have more people whether they invest in nonprofits and we know money is tight. this is the only way they will succeed to improve transition assistance programs. host: the fall numbers are on your screen. our guest is here until 10:00. we have set aside a special line for veterans. 202-628-0184. you can reach us on e-mail and twitter. someone asks this question -- i have heard that post-traumatic

stress disorder is high for veterans. does that proved difficult when searching for a job? guest: it has been difficult. in my experience and i have dealt with many veterans who have ptsd. when that person is busy and their mind is occupied, many of the symptoms of post-traumatic stress are cured. many times, a job, a purpose, be entrusted with responsibility again will cure most of their post traumatic stress for their many stereotypes out there because there have been movies made. people say they are violent and dangerous but that is incorrect. there is a minute percentage of veterans who are violent. they may be emotional and that is about it for a i have never seen anyone hurt someone else. there should be no stereotypes

about hiring a veteran who has post-traumatic stress. when they have responsibility again, most of those symptoms will be cured. these are men and women trusted with millions of dollars in equipment and responsibility more than any civilian. they come home in this economy and they can get a job waiting tables. it is a difficult situation and a normal person who has not been to combat may be a little a emotional during that time of their life, as well. host: when it comes to finding jobs, when they have specialized skills like working on equipment or what have you, is it easier for them to get the jobs in military construction businesses in d.c. is it hard for them to get work outside of d.c? guest: it differs from job to job. if you have someone who has a

specific mechanical skill, yes, there are many contractors out there where they can get jobs and normally they return to what they are comfortable with. at the same time, any veteran regardless of what is of a job they did will come out with a lot of leadership skills and come out with a lot of discipline. they have been through very, very standardized procedures. sometimes companies will hire them in management roles because of their production management capabilities. they can come into a situation that is not standardized and improve upon those procedures. they can make the overall efficiency better. that's what veterans do and that's why most companies will come to us and say they want to veterans.: veterans off host: off of twitter -- they

talk about va assistance. do they offer help? guest: not in those terms. it is difficult to say that the government should have a program for this. we are trying to cut spending. there is a lot of organizations out there that are trying to help. they are just not hands on enough. whether it is apprentice ships, in turn ships, things of that nature should certainly be available. they are available through different non-profit organizations. sometimes it is the nonprofits that is making up the deficit that the programs of the government have. i would love to see more programs coming from the department of labour or the va or out of the military. right now, the nonprofits are the ones getting it the best and we are the ones doing a better than the government because they depend too much on the internet

or web-based portals where you are going to connect and find a job and off load a resume. they will not be able to do that unless they have those skills to do host: so jacksonville, fla.. caller: thank you for letting me on. i have a problem. i don't see investors doing their best for this country. i am a veteran. men and women go out of their way to protect this country. everyone -- every investor is sitting on the sidelines telling people that they are afraid. it is an excuse not to hire people. they are letting our country go into recession because of their profit motives. these men and women are putting their lives on the line to

protect their businesses overseas and protect us in this country. that is an outrageous situation. i hope someone will call all investors to look back into their own citizenship. if they are citizens, they should invest in this country. guest: i love your passion. me and my team agree with you and we think it should absolutely be a priority of our nation to get those veterans first in line for our jobs. they are on the front lines defending this nation. regardless of what conflict we are involved in, there is not a draft anymore. these men and women are the reason why because they are volunteering to serve overseas and protect this nation. they absolutely desert front of the line treatment plant comes to getting a job back home.

it is just a transfer of skills sets. they have all the intangible qualities. no employer will levy the amount of responsibility and these young men and women's shoulders like they have had in iraq and then -- and afghanistan. they deserve a closer look on their resumes and interview skills regardless of what they are communicating. if a young man was in the infantry, it is a difficult communication to communicate those skills to being a manager of a car wash or working at general dynamics for any large company. host: next call is from tennessee, go ahead caller: i will read it away -- i will reiterate the previous call. i was 20 years old when i transitioned out of the military. it was deflating for me to have some much responsibility at 20 years old.

i am now 54 and i have never had that much responsibility. it was the biggest letdown when i got out of the marines and found there was no responsibility in any job i could get. if i think that is one of the biggest psychological problems for returning vets. they are used to being depended on and none of the jobs they can get recognize that. these people are a gold mine. guest: i could not agree with you more. i agree 150%. we try to find employers or companies that have training programs. our military men and women are used to that environment. they are used to going into a training program and learning a new job. you do that in every phase of your military career. if we can find employers that have those, our veterans are over 80% successful in those

jobs. if they leave that job, they leave on their own accord not because they were fired. because they did one job in the military does not mean they cannot come into a bank or a larger company and start from the bottom or middle management and work their way up. they require a little training and they are used to that environment. they have the honor, they have the courage, they have the commitment. that has already been proven. you'll not find that in another part of the population. . .

ask about the hell meths to hard hat program. it worked, it -- there's young appresent tisses that i know that came from the military side. i came from the military side. even though we're generations apart, we all see things and do thing it is same way. host: thanks, caller. guest: absolutely.

and those are great jobsy of these programs that are out there. what their success rates are i don't have in front of me. i know they are advertised on these basis. and if people know they can quantify the percentages of veterans that they've hired in the last year they need to be broadcast. that would be great. host: dallas, texas. on with brian stan of hire heroes. mitch on our independent line. caller: i'm the recruiter, been recruiting for a long time, and been very upset about the veterans not being hired. and i have some insight. the psychology industry, they are trying to increase their

jobs for their skills. and they have been very good at describing the veteran as damaged goods and they need all their services. and i think they've gone way overboard and again painted such a negative picture. a lot of people just don't want to take the risk if they're doing the hiring. and the second thing is that i tried to present a veteran to a person in the human resource department and bristled -- this lady bristled at it. i went on facebook and checked her out and she was a die-hard democrat and it was almost like, well, i don't want to hire a baby killer. host: go ahead. guest: you know, stories like that are absolutely atrocious and that's an atrocity if that's happening out there. i haven't seen it. i doint have the experience with the psychology industry like our caller did.

but obviously i've seen it from hollywood. hollywood's done a great job of painting that picture for people. again, as a nation if that's happening, and there's people out there that are doing that and that are stereo typing veterans and immediately disqualifying them for jobs because of their military service, it's absolutely an atrocity and we should be ashamed of ourselves. host: off of twitter guest: absolutely it has. i can tell you during my time in service i had many veterans transitioned out only to three months later come back on active duty. the hard part there is there's many veterans today because of their service disability that is can't come back in. they had a career and they were medically discharged out because they can no longer serve, whether it be traumatic brain injuries, post traumatic stress, some sort of injury from combat and we deal with a lot of these veterans, they don't have the choice to go

back. they need a job. they need to function in society. the disability they're receiving from the government is certainly not enough to live off of. and they don't want to be that type of person. they want to work, they want to function, to provide and produce. so, again, to answer your question, that's absolutely correct that this environment is pushing people to reinlist in the military. and that's certainly not a bad thing. you know, one thing about the military, in an economy like this, they get paid every two weeks. their pay does not go down. they don't take pay cuts. they don't make large cuts like companies do. so it's certainly a safer environment employment weist. host: our guest served in the marine corps. two tours in operation iraqi freedom, was awarded the silver star, and was commissioned through the u.s. naval commead my. columbus, ohio, ross. our line for veterans.

caller: first, i was a marine, i served, got out. have not had a dd 214 which doesn't help me from getting a job and go through the academy like that. i've been discharged since may 20, 2007. got out and everything, and now i'm wanting to go back in to the army and i can't get back in. it's part of the p the dfd, talking to doctors and the army will allow me to come back because of my medical condition. obviously the marine corps will not. you know that. once you're discharged you can never go back to the marines. but i'd like to get my dd 214 going on three years now and that's prohibitting me from getting a job. i'm a marines. you know, that's where i

belong. that's where i'm supposed to. host: what's a dd 214? caller: just because i have that mindset, then i try to transition over to army, i don't know if that's a -- that's not a bad thing, but i'm a marine. host: thank you, sir. guest: well, it's certainly not a bad thing. all the different service branches, we're brothers and sisters to each other. so there's certainly no dishonor from changing from the marine corps to the army. what that is is your discharge papers. it has your discharge code, honorably discharged, general discharge and just your military history, the schools you went to. if you google dd 214, there's web sites that can help you. i'm sure that this gentleman had a specific reason and a technical reason on why he could not get his dd 214 or

maybe he needed his code changed. so i think there was something specific to his case on why he couldn't get one. normally veterans can go on line and immediately contact through washington and get another copy. host: from fort collins, colorado. josh on our republican line. you're on with brian. go ahead. caller: it's not josh, it's jo st. host: sorry. caller: i'm a military veteran and i etsed in 1986. and due to circumstances, just like many other veterans, school was put off. and initially we had most veterans had agreed to enter the military instead of mainstream education so they sacrificed quite a bit. just to start out with.

the individuals that were in the military and capitted prior to 9/11 have been offered, in my opinion, offered more than the veterans prior to. so what it does is it puts a dilemma. are we looking out more for the individuals of this war as opposed to veam or korean or even just regular military time prior to 9/11? can you answer that? guest: well, i think are you talking about the g.i. bill possibly and the educational benefits that are given to post 9/11 veterans? obviously the reasoning behind that was post 9/11 veterans have all served during operation enduring freedom and operation iraqi freedom so they're trying to prioritize them in that case.

for my organization, it doesn't matter to us. we serve veterans from all demographics. it doesn't matter when they were discharged. as long as they're active in our program, we're going to serve them and look and help them to find jobs, help with the resumes, help with interview skills, search out and present them to companies, and trying to get their foot in the door and get them their interview. so we certainly do not discriminate. why washington does, i mean, you know, i think that answer is obvious just due to the nature of the conflict and the time of our country where we had two wars going on at the same time, they obviously have made it a priority for the g.i. bill and those funds to go to post 9/11 veterans. or wash funds for that g -- war funds for the g.i. bill. host: are veterans finding jobs if they were promised one? guest: if their job was gaurned, in most cases they do come home and find those jobs. but in some cases those jobs are gone and it's still very

difficult for them. in the reserve population, the difficult part is most of the time they're older. they're older veterans. they have families, they have bigger bills. they have more overhead than your young 22, 23, 24-year-old veteran who served four years and got out. so they may not have the opportunity. they don't have the chance to utilize their g.i. bill and say i'm going to go to school for four years because the economy is bad, get my education, get my g.i. bill and then come out and get a job. they don't have the opportunity to do that because they're trying to provide for a family. in many cases when my organization is working with a reserve veteran we have to work that much harder because they have dire needs right now. they don't need a job six month from now, they need a job right demow because the bills are coming in and the bills are there. so those are things to consider and hopefully we have employers watching the show right now that have jobs and are looking to hire people, and who better to look at first than someone

who has proven with honor, courage, commitment and loyalty an these intangible qualities than a veteran who has served in combat. why not give those veterans the first chance for jobs you have. host: littleton, colorado on our independent line. caller: good morning. thanks for taking the call. i admire what you're doing. over the course of my career i've hired probably a thousand people. i'm not a human resource manager. but one of the things that i have noted over my career is success weist in people who have a lot of self-determination, they work hard, they have a teamwork environment, they understand that, and they succeed. and i look for that when i'm hiring people. i'm wondering if you wouldn't see some real advantage by developing some communication that's fired out at the fortune 500s because your people, these guys coming back are likely to

be very, very successful, whether it's in sales or it's maybe in that lower or middle management if they don't quite have the skillset yet but they have the right character skills to succeed. and that's what i look for. when i can find somebody from the military, they make tremendous lower to middle managers if they have that skillset. if they don't, then that has to be groomed in. but ultimately, they carry those skills that are almost impossible to teach. so it's just a thought for you. maybe that help you move forward with your efforts. i will wait offline to hear your thoughts. guest: absolutely, sir. i agree with you 100%. that's the reason why i'm here on c-span doing this the morning after christmas. that's the reason why we hit the streets every single day. we do a lot of media, we do a lot of different press

anannouncements, and we've developed messages that we've put out ourselves as well and we've had to adapt. you're absolutely right. you've got to market the need and you've got to market the needs of these veterans. that's the reason why people donate money to my organization, so we can do this for them. and i agree and hopefully that message is heard by employers. because these young men and women make great employees. they have to discipline, they're going to show up to work on time, give you 100%, and they can lead. they understand true leadership because that's what they've lived for years. at the age of 19 in the military you can be in charge of as many as 10 people. i've noticed in the civilian world that you're getting someone where you're in charge of three of four. you know, we have young kids in charge of 15, 30. at 24 years old i had several men in the united states marine corps. they understand how to manage

egos and things that any employer can utilize those skills. you can teach someone the specifics of your business. host: how is your organization funded? guest: we are funded solely through donations of companies, of individuals, and then we obviously run different fund raisers. we do different golf events. one of the ways you can fund us is to text 50555 and just text hero and you can do nate $10 just from your cell phone. but it's all personal donations, we're a nonprofit organization. and you can go to our website at hire heroes u.s.a..org and see all the different fund raisers year long, whether different golf events, baseball camps, et cetera but that's how we keep ourselves live so we can serve our veterans. and my organization is comprized of many wounded veterans themselves that are now that joined my team have been trained as career coaches and are now out there trying to

help others help jobs. host: 15 more minutes with our guest. chicago, illinois. democrat's line. caller: good morning. thank you for taking my call. brian, i just came here from shoveling snow. i may have missed some of the program. but i would like for you to or i would like to say that the veterans that come from the war are entitled to unemployment compensation because when i came back from vietnam i was never told that by the military and i only found out by a real nice lady in the unemployment compensation that i was timetted to unemployment. all these veterans, if they are coming back being discharged from the military, they're entitled to unemployment compensation. i don't know if you know but i want to tell that everybody

that they are entitled to that from the military. host: i thank the caller. guest: absolutely. and the veterans do know that. but what you're dealing with here in this demographic for military veterans is you don't see a lot of veterans that classify themselves, well, i'm a republican, i'm a democrat, i'm a liberal, -- liberal, but what you can classify them as is proud, they are all very proud and want to work. these are very motivated individuals who have come from an environment where they have a lot of responsibility levied on their shoulders and boo stowed upon them. they want -- bestowed upon them. they want to be an asset. they want to be a player. they don't want to sit on the sidelines. so many times the veterans that we work with will tell us i'm on unemployment but i want a job. this is not what i want to do. and as we all know, unemployment only last soss long. they want a career. they want a future. they didn't get out of the military to do nothing. they got out of the military to succeed. they want to take the skill sets that they learned, the

leadership and thing that is they built upon and that service, they want to be an asset again and they want to grow into whatever new career they choose. so they absolutely know and our organization knows and if we have someone who is truly in dire need, you know, we certainly direct them in the right, put them in the right direction to get that unemployment. but that certainly isn't our ultimate goal. we want them to find a career, find a job, and be successful. because the more successful veterans we have in this country, the more they're going to employ of their own. the faster we're going to see this veteran unemployment rate for young men that are coming back from iraq and afghanistan lower than 20%, just over 120% right now. host: steve from wyoming, pennsylvania. caller: thank you for receiving my call. i'm a vietnam veteran, four years in the army and i just want to give you my perspective on it. when i came back, in to the civilian life, i really had a rough time adjusting mentally.

it took me one year to get my head straight so i can fit into the civilian population. because like you said, it was all military, all discipline. and basically, i had to really adjust. and it took me one year. and i think that all veterans should get one year of housing, one year of a car and insurance and food assistance for one year to get them accustomed to civilian life. and if you start a lobby in congress for this, you've got my vote. and thank you very much for my voice. guest: we appreciate your vote, sir. we really do and we appreciate your passion for veterans. you know, unfortunately in economic times like this where we have, we're cutting spending so much i don't ever see a program like that evolving but what i do see happening and what i think should happen is going back to the transition

assistance programs. three days just isn't enough. and it does take some time to mentally adjust to the civilian life. it's a completely different environment. when you're in the military it's a scomplitely different environment than being a civilian and looking for a job. and, again, that onus is on our government and on our military but it's also on us as a veteran population to do it ourselves. and to research. if i'm a veteran and i know i'm getting out in a year, i know i'm getting out in six months or i'm wounded, i'm at walter reed and i know i'm getting out soon, it's on my shoulders to start researching this as well. and they can certainly come to us, call us, we do hundreds of career counseling sessions a week with these veterans who may not be ready to find a job yet. they're still months from getting out but they have all these questions. they have hundreds of questions for us. and we've been there. we've walked in their shoes, we've walked down that road. we have those answers. we work with tons of organization that is can help

them in any different field they're looking for wlrks financial assistance, education assistance, g.i. bill assistance, we can point them in all you will -- all the right directions. host: fort worth, texas. thanks for waiting. independent line. caller: good morning. and i'm a vietnam veteran. i served special forces in vietnam and i came to the conclusion a long time ago that the government really isn't going to do that much to help us out long term. short term they may do a little bit, but long term they really aren't. the only president that really went out of his way to help the veteran was president franklin dell nor roosevelt who did the g.i. bill. so i came to the conclusion that we have to use the

american free enterprise system to help ourselves. and i came up with an idea, a vision, if you will, some time back. i just can't seem to get it off the ground. i'm not well connected. i really don't know that many people would help. but it's an idea that i've run past several knowledgeable people. host: sorry i accidentally cut him off. guest: well, sir, if you're still watching, certainly we have numerous contact numbers and e-mails on our website. again it's hire heroes u.s.a..org. contact us. i am very fortunate, my team is very fortunate that we have a lot of connections. and basically we were started by men who basically agreed with the last caller and said, ok, it's up to americans to do something a little bit more for these veterans. hey, i'm a successful american because of these men and women

who served overseas. that's how hire heroes u.s.a. was created by men who is a c.e.o. of a company named john bart yiss and he had had enough and he devotes a big part of his life to helping veterans. and if we had more americans like him, you know, the unemployment rate for veterans would be a third of what it is today. host: so call us with your idea . host: off of twilter. guest: absolutely. absolutely. and specifically to answer those questions what happens is a lot of times is we see veterans that are transitioning out of the military. they think that they have a plan. you know, they have a friend back home who has got a company that does this that's going to pay them this amount of money. they don't put enough detail into their plan and sometimes we as veterans take it for granted how difficult the economy is. and with the military

transition assistance programs being poor, like they are right now, they're not warning our veterans enough that, you know what? when you're in the military you get paid every two weeks. but when you get out and don't have a job, that money will run out, you will not be able to pay your rent. that's how that happens. and it's difficult for us because many times these homeless veterans will contact us and our program takes weeks to train them. it takes a couple days to write an effective resume. i9 takes practice sessions. it takes a couple weeks to get your foot in the door for a company that likes your resume and wants to interview homeless veterans don't have that amount of time. so flr specific times where we'll try to raise money for that specific person and maybe pay their bills before they get evicted so they can keep their cars so they can drive to different places. so if you're a homeless veterans out there, give us a call. do what you can do and we'll do everything we can to help you. host: mr. stan, you were asked about your operation asking if there's a fee for veterans who

use your service ors the private companies that work with your organizations. guest: no, there is not. there is a small fee for private organization that is we consider a donation to post their open jons just like they would on monster or linked in. a monthly fee. if they're going to post more than five jobs on our website then we charge a small fee. per month. but for the veterans, everything is absolutely fry. for the bases, the wounded warrior rehabilitation centers that we visit to run our seminars is absolutely free. we do all of this on our own dime and our own dime is all donated dollars from great americans who donate to our organization so that we can continue to help veterans find jobs. host: wendy on our democrat's line. caller: good morning, gentleman. i'm a veteran and i want to say thank you for what you're doing. i think you're up a against a huge opposition. so i have a comment and a question. when i was exiting out of the navy, the transition program was limited. and it didn't help me.

however, before i transitioned out i volunteered for a gentleman who was in the navy as well working to create his own newspaper. and become a publisher. that was an experience that i transitioned into my resume. since i've been out i complete school and competed for an accounting technician position along with another man. we're both two point preference. the government overlooked both of our applications and boats of our percentages to hire someone else. he was a cpa and i have at least more than 24 credits within the accounting field. host: go ahead and ask your question then. guest: my question is, in response to that, along with several of the callers, i think that becoming an entrepreneur, having a business plan, having

innovation to help funnel you into a prodeucing aspect of this country rather than a consumer, because largely they don't have the attitude that they value what we've done in our service and our training and discipline. and i liked your attitude and your speak on how you made that transition to language transition. host: we'll have to leave it there. i also want to add the thought of someone from twitter guest: absolutely they can. and many are doing that. there's no doubt about it. but at the same time, it's easy to say, hey, be an entrepreneur right now. but banks aren't loaning money so it's difficult to get the startup capital. i think, hopefully if the economy turns in the next anywhere from five to ten to 15 years, i think you will see more iraq and afghanistan vets becoming entrepreneurs and

starting their own business, et cetera. but right now it's very difficult to find the funds to do so. you can have the great ideas and leadership skills. but finding the money to do the it in this economy is the reason why we're not seeing as much of that. now, there are programs that we work with that do fund fellowships for veterans as well. an organization i work closely with, a foundation that was found bid the parents of one of my best friends who was killed in iraq, they raised money to sponsor veterans on six-month fellowships to work with organizations like mine where they can learn specific skills to add to their resumes in hopes of finding a job after their six-month fellowship. so certainly those programs exist as well. but i'm all for veterans becoming entrepreneurs. but the complaints that we're hearing is they just can't find the money to do so. host: ohio, republican line. james. caller: i am a former marine. i'm also service connected at 10%.

when i first got out of the service i was told that i got out at 2512, tried to go to the ohio park police. they said you were taught wrong because you were taught how to short cut to get the job done. now being service connected, it's hard to find because once a month turf go to the v.a. to try to make it outside work but it doesn't work that way. the v.a. clinic are only open from 8:00 to 4:00 and most jobs don't provide you for that and the company doesn't want to hire somebody that's going to have to miss one day a month even if they only need two hours of the day. guest: again, it goes back to just some disappointment in american employers if that's the case. you know, for my organization, i obviously employ a team of seven people that all have run this national organization and luckily due to one due to our performance but due to the donation we receive we continu