that would strip most public workers of their collective bargaining rights. it will be sent to the senate. it is unclear when a vote in the wisconsin senate may take place. democrats there have fled the state to avoid a vote. meanwhile, the winter meeting of the national governors association gets under way. and congress is back in session next week. they will debate whether to keep the federal government running through september. congress must pass a measure to prevent the government from shutting down. we want to begin on this friday morning to talk about oil prices and the economy. the numbers are on the screen. let's begin with the wisconsin story and some of the headlines

from the state journal where school districts are now scrambling. as many as 2000 teachers will be getting layoff notices because of budget cuts in rhode island. school districts have until monday to send out their preliminary layoff notices. also, the layoff clock is ticking, that is the headline from the "milwaukee journal sentinel." public workers' share of fears about changes. saudi vows to boost oil production and it's the turmoil, most notably in libya. and gm braces for higher prices. there is a headline that i want to catch your attention on oil prices that puts the fragile u.s. economy at risk. one of the photographs is from 1973.

"sorry, no gas. asked nixon for some" is the assigned. -- is assigned. our question -- just how fragile is the u.s. economy? we will start with ronald joining us from cleveland, ohio, democrats line. good morning. caller: good morning. i have a question. why doesn't the media describe the pythagorean mindset? what is the idea of controlling the economy and wealth disposal and wealth centralization, why isn't it discussed?

obviously, our rising prices, whether it be all sorts of economy, this is pythagorean mine said. if the media would explain the book -- of the pythagorean mine said, that our problems would be solved. there must be a balanced idea. host: todd is joining us from morgan. just how fragile is the u.s. economy? caller: they made cars back in the 1980's called ngo metro station wagons with two doors. they got 50 miles per gallon on the interstate. they've got the technology and everything to make the good gas mileage cars. they might be a bit smaller than what people want who have suv's, but they have the technology to make them get

caught -- to make suv's get better gas mileage. i think we are all going down hard, and god bless america. host: john on the republican line from benaissa, florida. welcome to the conversation. caller: good morning. host: go ahead, john. caller: i just want to point out that china has been gobbling up leases all over the world everywhere they can come of oil leases. -- everywhere they can, oil leases. it is imperative that we start drilling everywhere we can come off shore, in the gulf. we need to start producing oil everywhere we can. this alternative energy business is okay, but we've got to do it

at a moderate pace. host: we will be talking to the chief economist of the american petroleum institute later to talk about u.s. gas production, oil production, and the amount we get worldwide. from canada and mexico, that is number one. we get anywhere from 2% to 5% from libya. the front page of the "new york times" has this headline. the piece begins with these words.

the story this morning is on the front page of the "new york times." and marilyn is joining us from evansville, indiana. caller: good morning. i want to make a comment that i am in the midwest where things are just really bad year because we are more of -- really bad here because we are more of an industrial economy our economy is in terrible shape. we sold our sovereignty. we keep selling it away. china is going to own all of

this and they're going to want their debt paid back. they're going to start taking over. we are fed up, and for some reason -- i do not know why they cannot see what is going on. i am 65. , have lived through the '50s '60s, '70s. i have never in my life seen the country this way. a, i am afraid, and i have never been afraid, ever. we always stand together, this country. we always pick our shirts up and got back up there. i do not see that this time. i see it getting worse. host: thanks for the call. our question this morning, how fragile is the u.s. economy? give us a call or send us a

tweet. or you can e-mail us. in the "usa today" the headline is governors had to d.c., mines on the economy. james polman is joining us live on the phone from the politico.com -- james coleman who is joining us live on the phone from the politico. -- james hohmann is joining us live on the phone from the politico. let me point out today that it is just the democratic governors at the white house. there will be a dinner for all of the invited governors on sunday. and a business meeting on

monday. do you know who will be in attendance for those democratic governors and what specific job creation items are on the agenda? guest: there will be 14 governors have this session for the white house. it is not expected to delve too deeply into specifics. it is a way for a lot of democratic governors to endorse what they are doing to get the economy back on track, sort of a way for the 14 who will be here to express solidarity. you just mentioned the usa today story. the two governors from the two largest states will not be there. but a lot of people are facing giant deficits back home. like connecticut and washington. those governors will be here and it is a chance to have

solidarity with other credit -- other democrats. host: you write this morning that the gop is praising walker, but stop there. how so? guest: a lot of them are watching what he is doing in wisconsin, but not endorsing his confrontational approach. i looked at with 29 republican governors are doing and a lot of them are either testedly responding -- tepidly responding or they are not endorsing what walker is doing. a lot of governors have decided it is not worth wasting the political capital fighting unions, as we have seen walker do in wisconsin when they are not responsible for that much of their budget to start with. in places like wyoming or alabama.

host: you have said that they have not embraced the "politically risky," using your words, behavior. guest: right, they have not taken on the collective bargaining when they will not be able to take on that fight. -- arwin mnf-i. the governor of iowa, -- not going to be able to win that fight. the governor of iowa has said that he would like to change collective bargaining, but democrats control the state senate. he is realistic in that he would not be able to win that fight, so why even started? -- start it? host: the last two years they received of to $105 billion in federal funds. that money will not be here this year. guest: and that is a huge

problem. 25 new governors were elected this last november. while there are some partisan activities between the republicans and democrats, there are a lot of panels to talk about issues like this. if you talk to republican governors privately, they will of knowledge that stimulus money was clutch in helping them felder shortfalls -- fill their shortfalls in the last few years. they have used up half their rainy day fund and a lot of them have come into office pledging not to raise taxes. so, their hands are tied. this is a meeting to talk about a creative solutions to close this gap. host: among the creative solutions that have been talked about in the papers this morning, many states are selling of park lands, trying to figure out ways they can sell state offices, trim personnel. in wisconsin, the biggest issue seems to be these pensions.

guest: ultimately, it is the king we are seeing in washington where republicans -- is the thing we are seeing in washington where the republicans are taking on all of the spending. it accounts for one eighth of the whole budget. in a lot of these states, it is a huge part of the pie chart, pensions. and the skyrocketing costs that are locked into place that we are currently seeing. ultimately, both democrats and republicans would say we need to address those in order to ensure the fiscal long-term of any state. they're not like the federal government. they cannot take on debt year after year. host: thanks as always for sharing your expertise with our c-span audience. andy "washington journal has this -- "washington" has this headline.

almost every state is facing declining tax revenues and shortfalls. a look at the big picture from the "wall street journal" and the chart showing those in deeper red with the more severe financial difficulties is found on difficultiesa6 of uconn ordaz -- on page a6 of the 40 wall street -- of the "wall street journal." good morning, gary, in texas. caller: i have been living off of a four-member dollars per month and they need to give us a cost-of-living raise.

i live in texas and gas about $3 per gallon now, but in other places it is about $4. the government means to tell people who have private colmes to shut them down and we would have enough. -- private, to shut them down and we would have enough. we need to do what they're doing in the middle east and get the government to do what they are supposed to. host: here is another headline.

next is doug from montgomery, alabama. good morning. caller: good morning. obama and the democrats would rather borrow and spend rather than tax and spend. it is tearing the state to up. in 2010, the analysts published data saying the entire transaction is -- $5.60 trillion is how much is met. 1.75 -- $1.75 trillion in debt this year. $2 trillion a year in medicare tax because medicare is 50% unfunded. they treating -- it should be

increased from 2% to 4% because of the shortfall and another 2% to cover the eight years of debt. that would be 6% on the wages. and on top of that, we have the fannie mae and freddie mac welfare mortgages. people do not have enough money to pay taxes, but they get a welfare mortgage? 50% are the people that cannot even pay tax. and that is $2 trillion per year. add that up and you are coming up with more debt every year in the united states than ever when makes. host: thanks for your call this morning. state senator julie lassa is six

months pregnant. she is also the mother of a six and a 3-year-old. last year she endured a grueling race to replace retiring rep. that story this morning from inside the "new york post." linda is joining us from connecticut. the question we are asking this morning, just how fragile is the u.s. economy? caller: the u.s. economy is as fragile as we americans wanted to be. we have doled of fear over taxes, fear over wars. stop being divided. i live in a state where we paid

one of fisa -- we get back one of the highest rates from our federal tax dollars paid. we have to pay for america. if we want to be afraid, if we want to let a few control our message, so be it. we must chinn. it belongs to all of us. if we have to pay more in taxes, so be it. if i have to pay for alabama schools, so be it. the drilling is nonsensical. we have to turn that corner. the states that say to drill are the same ones that need our tax dollars to help clean up the oil spills.

we have to stop being divided. we have to help pay for the mess. this is ours. take ownership. if we have to pay for something that is good and decent, like education, -- when was the last time you heard my fellow americans -- heard "my fellow americans" from a politician? we need to stop fighting with each other. take a careful assessment of what we all can do and do it. please, be american and buy american. host: linda, thanks for the call. no state has a bigger budget problem that california, a $26 billion shortfall. there is this a headline in the "new york times" --

if taxes go up it has to be through a proposition in the the state of california. one of a 22-member panel that met with the president, he talkedthe sectiosession, about prices. >> we will have to see what happens next and weller things settle in. there is not a lot of core inflation even today and i would say in general, the economy's getting better every day as a backdrop. host: next caller from louisville, texas. caller: the economy is extremely

fragile. gas prices going up, diesel prices -- i live right outside of interstate 35, which is a major corridor in freight and all types of goods. in the last two weeks i have seen diesel prices rise and with that comes an increase in everything that we get and pay for. in my opinion, with oil going up, if it goes up $140, $180, $200 per barrel, it will totally wrecked what little recovery we are having right now. host: a headline this morning from "the financial times" --

there is a related story from inside the financial times. we showed it earlier, but here it is again. it points out that the biggest change since the 1970's is that the u.s. can now produce a lot more crude-oil per barrel. david is joining us from charleston, south carolina. good morning. caller: good morning. but the fragility of the economy is quite troubling, i think. it can be directly tied to the

confidence americans have in the value of a dollar and the standard of living and whether or not they are going to continue this standard of living. and the events of the last few days in wisconsin and the fact that in the last 30 years there has been a push to eliminate unions, which really equate to the middle class, it is a very troubling development. the unions to represent the middle class. when was the last time you saw a union for the wealthy? and this confidence factor is the key to generating our strong economy. we have to have faith in this economy. therefore, we have to go back and look at the basic premise of these united states where we

set "all men are created equal" and stop this class warfare that the wealthy have agreed on the middle class. we have got to do this or we will be in serious trouble. host: thank you. one of our twitter comments on also this morning from overseas, and from canada -- in an editorial in the new york times, --

back to your calls on the issue of the economy, greg in new york city, good morning. caller: good morning, america. this vintage c-span watcher is glad he is on the phone right now. i want to give a shout out to the woman from convention get -- connecticut, who was very proficient in what she had to say. 15: listen to what she said, we would have a better understanding -- she was a very proficient in what she had to say. and if we would listen to what she said, would have a better understanding of who we are to be. divide and conquer it is what we always do in america.

they need to have enemies when meanwhile, we are the same. hank paulson, the treasurer of the united states, i wonder how many people of this country are aware when he turned in his $450 million worth of stocks, he did not pay any taxes on that. if you want to fact check that, go find a copy of "the inside job" about the financial crisis. my second point, i wish people would stop blaming poor people for your problems. and for those who vote republican, shame on you. stop complaining and get up and get involved. realize that most people are the same and in the same boat. pretty soon that gas is going to be $10 and you think you will get financial assistance to help you pay your bills? it is not going to happen.

host: a story from the "washington *" rhey is joining us from pennsylvania. good morning. republican line. caller: good morning. to address your question, i believe the economy is very fragile. i do not think it will get much better until we address the problem in the monetary system, which is the federal reserve that creates money out of the air and charges interest just because they create it. host: thanks for the call. we will have live coverage of the democratic governors' association. they are meeting here in advance

of the bipartisan meeting tomorrow. we will have live coverage throughout the weekend. the democratic governors -- association will be meeting here today in washington at 2:00 p.m. there will be discussing ways to move ahead with america's economy. allen is joining us from virginia. caller: let gentleman that was just speaking about the federal reserve thing, i agree with him. but i also agree with the gentleman from texas -- from texas about the gas tax. but with gas is rising, but we do not get a cost-of-living raise on other things.

people have to do without. people living on retirement, they have to do without. you have these big corporations that are stealing people's homes by raising rates is so wide that they cannot make their payments. our economic crisis just goes along the same thing. there are too many people that re keepeir fingers in thei the money for themselves. all of the rich kids go to harvard and we do not. host: thank you for the call. it will come back to the call on the issue of the economy in about 10 minutes. a couple of headlines from the of "washington times" this morning.

frank oliveri has been following this story. thanks for joining us. guest: my pleasure. host: there has been a back and forth between boeing and eads in europe. will there be to a back-and- forth still? guest: it is an open question. when eads lost its contract yesterday, they left options open. there ceo said they want to examine this closely because it affects many jobs, something like 48,000 jobs, i believe. the air force has been wanting to do this program since 2002. their first plan was to lease

tankers from boeing. that was thrown out by a congressional panel. that led eventually to the arrest and incarceration of a u.s. acquisition official who basically negotiated herself a job with boeing. there were some boeing employees that went to jail. this has been a long, drawn-out thing. the most recent dry was in 2008 and the award went to eads and boeing challenged it and the government accountability process -- the gao reviewed it and said it was an unfair process. the alabama delegation wants them to look at this very carefully. they have a certain time frame where they can put this forward for the gao and the gao would have about 100 days off to sort it out and make a decision.

my sources are telling me that because this came down to a pure question of cost, really, the air force had simplified this contract, and that it is a much more difficult challenge to make because they are saying that the boeing proposal was better than 1% better than what was offered by eads. it is a $35 billion contract, so not a small amount of money. both were found to meet the mandatory requirements of the aircraft. there were things called non- mandatory requirements that if they were very close, they would try to -- if the requirements were very close, they would try to review the non-mandatory requirements. however, those things are more subjective. in the case of cost, it is not as a subjective.

you cannot say that they would not overturn it, because we do not know the details. it is a very complex program. they are reviewing it. we will have to see. host: let me follow-up on two things. this aircraft, they call it the gas station in the sky. it basically provides fuel for those smaller fighter jets. who designed it, and specifically, how does it operate, 35 -- 30,000 feet in the air? guest: the designers are boeing corp., and they take a 767 aircraft and modify it. it is able to restore an enormous amount of fuel in this aircraft. it has what they call a boom, which is a long pole.

when you go to the gas station, the long pipe that you put into your gas tank, this is essentially that. there is a control that guides that boomed down to the fuel tank, which is usually at the top of these fighter aircraft. and they are able to refuel in flight. it is a very precise process. it is something that they do or thousands of times per year. it is technology that they have had for a long time. it is -- i have flown in some of these tankers. it is a fairly fascinating process. it is not simple, but they do it so much that it is one of those technologies that is proven. the navy and the aircraft are able to keep their aircraft flying for a long time without coming back down to the ground.

host: alabama is disappointed because it would have created jobs there. of course, washington state where boeing has its operations -- the company is based in chicago. will that come up in this post -- -- in this post-award look? guest: it has been said that eads clearly offers the more capable aircraft. there are world trade organization allegations -- not

allegations, but wto did find some problems with eads over time because airbus is subsidized in some european countries. on the boeing side, there are enormous tax breaks that are given to u.s. corporations of a time. and it is one of these debates where you see a lot of people upset. it is 48,000 jobs that would benefit washington, kansas, and connecticut. connecticut would build the engine primarily. alabama would benefit from an eads win and that would mean many jobs. that is a very difficult situation. basically, the folks that watch this very carefully, they have shown an ability to affect the process. and in some cases, they were right. in 2002, senator mccain raised

some questions about this plan with boeing, and it turned out there was some kind -- corruption there. and gao did have a problem with how the award was given out in 2008. i think the air force did take some steps to drop and rfp proposal that was more detail than in the past. where were able to find ways to take subjectivity out of the process by hanging a lot on cost. host: frank oliveri, your final point? guest: when you look at cost, there are fewer variables for google to look at. host: and you said it was 1%? guest: greater than 1%. host: 80 or force awarded the contract -- the air force

awarded the contract to boeing, which is headquartered in chicago. a couple more minutes of your phone calls. how fragile is the u.s. economy? meanwhile, we focus on the continuing resolution of next week to keep the government running this fiscal year while the debate is on about next fiscal year. further into the body of the story, though, many think that is not enough.

raymond is joining us from pittsburgh. good morning. caller: good morning, steve. you mentioned that something about this economy. it is very fragile and it is going to get worse this summer when gasoline goes up. the individual but you had on their that met with the president and the council, who said that the core inflation -- and there was no indication that core inflation was going up. he'd better go to the grocery store. by summer, i think you're going to see rights and the street in some places because al-nahda older people are being -- because a lot of older people are being laid off.

my wife went to the grocery store last night and remarked about things going up. this is a bogus thing about breaking these collective bargaining unions. i am a police officer with the state. i am retired. we did not have a union, but we had an fop that bargained. and we did not get the pay raises that a lot of people got. and we were not forced to join the fop if we were police officers in the state. however, in wisconsin in any of these public employee unions, and required to get a job -- if you get a job with the state, you are required to join the union and they will take do is out of their pay.

all the governor wants to do -- and they will take the jews out of their pay. all the governor was to do is stop that -- they will take the dues out of their pay. all the governor wants to do is stop that. host: thanks for the call. while you were making your comments, someone to -- we begitweeted in -- scot ross is going to be joining us in just a couple of minutes to give us his perspective. later we will talk to charlie cook of the cook political report on the political calendar and they plan to aid in 2012.

next is randy in chicago. good morning on the democrats line. caller: i'm calling on the democrats line and the economy is really fragile. especially with what's happening in the middle east. we had a good thing going here, but when gas started going up to $4 or $5, it's sort of slowing things down. the same thing with the republican bills that they put in. it destroys jobs. i have a last piece, because i think our last caller, so listen to my pc. -- listen to my piece. when you create a platform it creates an atmosphere of

viability. and what it does is terms of fiber of democracy. you guys are instrumental in doing this. my prayer every morning is that i pray for the demise of the "washington journal" -- not you as a human being, but for the demise of it because you are not doing any favors for the democracy. you turn the fight because you have created this atmosphere that they can speak from. especially how you promoted the tea party right from the beginning. that was a bunch of ignorant, racist hypocrites'. but hey, they were backed by rich people. host: randy, you have the right to your opinion. this program and the calls are really a reflection of what is

being talked about and discussed. it is a snapshot of different opinions. our agenda is a simple one, to educate you on how politics in government works and to give you a forum to express your point of view on the issues of the day and to express your point of view on the things that are driving them. next is re joining us from mcchrystal, ohio. -- ray joining us from licasville, ohio. caller: good morning. number one, i would call for the impeachment of obama. number two, i have many friends that our seniors and the senior citizens in this country on fixed incomes are being buried. nobody wants to talk about that. i watch people at the grocery

store walking around, picking items up, and setting them back down because of the prices. this country is in the worst condition that i have ever seen it in the 70 years i have been living. there is no way out of this. and when the people of of this country, out of the nile -- when the people of this country come out of denial and realize that both parties have literally destroyed what we have -- we have nothing but grief in this country. nobody wants to face the fact -- we have nothing but greed in this country. nobody wants to face the facts of that. the senior citizens in this country, some of them are starving. some of them are not taking their medications. nobody wants to talk about that. host: thanks for your comments.

there was conflict -- wisconsin assembly passed the bill and the question remains whether the senate democrats' bill come back and vote on it. we have been getting some calls about the audio on this network. some people have been calling and saying that there has been a drop in the audio. it then comes back up and then a drop again. our technical team is aware of the problem and we are figuring out how to improve its so the cable system -- to improve it so the cable system is consistent. we would like you to give us a call or send us an e-mail. we want to find your name, where you live, and to your cable provider is. of course, we will keep this information confidential, but we want to track down where the problem is and how we can fix

it. the number to call is on the screen. or you can send us an e-mail, also on the screen. if you're listening to a program, watching an interview and the audio drops, and then suddenly comes back up, we want to figure out why that is happening. if your help will help us to alleviate that and fix it as soon as possible. we will have the no. later on the screen in our program -- will have the number on the screen later in our program. meanwhile, this break. >> this weekend, governors will talk about how to grow their economies, education, and cyber security as a threat -- to gather in washington for the annual meeting for the national governors association. we will have live coverage throughout the weekend on c- span. >> this weekend on c-span to,

michael schoeder. on afterwards, susan jacoby discusses the health industry. to get our e-mail directly to you, sign up for our book tv alert. sunday, on c-span's road to the white house, mike huckabee is promoting his current book, "a simple government." he shares his thoughts on president obama, fiscal issues, and a possible run for 2012 election. watch c-span's road to the white house sunday at 6:30 p.m. and 9:03 p.m. eastern and pacific. >> power -- i think our system of government is breaking down and i think this system of

checks and balances we have in our system are not operating properly. >> winslow wheeler has the defense project at the center for defense information. >> congress has three essential key powers, the power to go to war, the power of the purse, and the power to investigate. the first two hours, to go to war and of the purse, are meaningless. if congress does not exercise the power to investigate. and it is not doing that. >> see the rest of the interview sunday night on c-span's q&a. >> "washington journal" continues. host: scot ross is the executive director of one wisconsin now. thank you for joining us on c- span. guest: thank you for having me. host: madison has been called the ground zero in the fight on

the issue of collective bargaining. how did it get to this point? guest: steve, what happened was the governor, scott walker, pushed out a budget repair bill, what he called a solution to some economic challenges he feel the state of wisconsin has. he tried to ram it through in less than a week. all heck broke loose. there was a hearing of our budget writing committee, which is called the joint finance committee. in the middle of the committee with hundred and wisconsin -- with hundreds and hundreds of wisconsinites ready to talk and have their say on this piece of legislation that they were trying to get through in less than seven days, the republicans cut the debate off. they are the majority party in both the house and senate. they cut off the debate and the citizens were outraged. the democrats decided to continue a series of public

hearings that have been ongoing in the state capital since this travesty began. iwhen the senate when to take up the bill and they called for a quorum, 14 democratic senators have left the state to deny the republicans the ability to take away the bargaining rights of 175,000 middle class was on tonight's -- wisconsinites without a full debate on the issue. from there, it went to the state assembly where they have been in marathon hearings -- i'm sorry, marathon floor session that ended the scoring at 1:00 a.m. central time, where the republicans abruptly engaged in a partisan procedural move to close debate. in fact, democrats were denied

the right to talk on the floor had 1:00 a.m. this morning. every aspect of this legislation is nothing but hard core of partisan politics. the state of wisconsin is not in a fiscal crisis. for instance, the governor passed a $140 million in new special-interest spending in january alone. if we are in a fiscal crisis, why is he going out special interest gimme's? that is what the people of wisconsin are asking themselves. where are we spending a bunch of money, but then suddenly claiming that to balance the budget we need to deny basic to workingsic rights families. one of the reasons they are opposed to it is the fact that labour has come up with the concessions and they have said,

if you call this a budget issue and you say you need to increase our comp -- our contribution to health care and pensions, we are one to solve the. we will solve the budget crisis, as you say it. but again, this was never about a budget crisis. this was about scott walker wanting to end the rights of wisconsinites from having a real say in their government. that is why people are mobile across wisconsin not just in madison. literally, hundreds of thousands of people have mobilized across the state to try to stop this undemocratic bill. now it is up to the senators to either come up with a solution to this, or it is up to the governor for once and -- to once and for all sit down and hammer out a deal. that is all people have been asking for. host: robert ostrow is a

professor at the university of arkansas and has this in the "washington journal" this morning. guest: let me say a couple of things about that. the economic policy institute did it very comprehensive analysis that showed public employees in the state of wisconsin earned 8.2% less in

pay and benefits than their equally educated private-sector counterparts. the study that you are talking about when it comes to pay and benefits of milwaukee teachers is built on suspect data, to say the least. the teachers of milwaukee and the teachers of wisconsin are at the national average in terms of their pay and benefits. one of the reasons that wisconsin has some of the best public schools in america is because we have good teachers. the last thing we need to do is take away their voice in issues of class size, the quality of the classroom, how much prep time that is available in order to teach our kids. wisconsin has great public schools and we have great public school teachers. that is not something we should be sacrificing some of the because governor weicker wants to make a political point. host: americans for austerity

has put together this 30-second spot in wisconsin. let's listen. >> who decide wisconsins future, voters or government unions? government workers fight to keep benefits far better than the private sector. democratic senators refused to show up for their jobs, hiding out in other states. and incredibly, president obama supports the union bosses. governor weicker wants to do what's right for wisconsin. stand with walker. host: the dads have been on the airwaves -- these ads have been on the airwaves on both sides of the aisle. guest: you need not tell the people of wisconsin that the cowger brothers are involved -- the koch brothers are involved

in this. it is a good indication that this is, again, about hard-core partisan politics. president obama has nothing to do with this but to -- this political battle in wisconsin. invoking him in and had to move the debate is a good indication of how flimsy their case is. the working men and women of wisconsin over a week ago said, if this is about the budget, we will solve the problem. yes, we took a 3% pay cut during the last budgeting, but we are willing to do what is necessary to of wisconsin forward. if they offered to pay exactly what the governor asked on -- they offered to pay exactly what the governor and on pension and on health care. it is up to the governor to make some sort of concession, or at

least even sit down. that is the thing. he has not even been willing to sit down with the people of wisconsin. that is something that governors in the badger state have been doing for 50 years. when you are talking about ending the rights of the working people, you have to have a pretty good case. i do not know that there is a case. i do not think there is, but the governor, for sure has not made it. the last thing we need to do is allow corporate special interests like the koch brothers to have the only say in our debate. this is not about wall street. unfortunately, governor weicker wants to do the bidding of wall street and leave wisconsin behind. host: what is the mission statement of your organization?

guest: we are a progressive advocacy organization and our mission is a wisconsin with equal economic opportunity for all. host: let me put on the screen nationwide union membership. this year, about 12% of households are union membership. that averages to about 14.5 million homes, compared to 20% in 1983, which is 17.7 million, and then the breakdown with the public sector and the private sector. if the public sector is about 36%, and up hybrid sector -- and the private sector is about 7%. what do the numbers tell you? tells you that corporate special interests have been successful in demonizing the idea of working men and women coming together with a

collective voice, and the power of legislation that has helped to impede the ability of people to join a collective voice and have a say in the workplace. collective bargaining provides a forum for hammering out problems, setting up rules, dealing with disputes, and i will point out that of the nine states in america that have absolutely no collective bargaining rights for public employees, those states in 2011 have an average budget deficit of 16.5%. for the 15 states that provide state and public employees the ability to collectively bargain, they have an average budget deficit of 16.2%. cutting the right to working people does not solve crises

seas, and i would argue it makes it worse because when you drive good people out of public employment, if you will get a lower quality of service and have less tax revenue as a result of their lack of spending power. i think that is something the needs to be considered in all of this. wisconsin has a very proud tradition of public service and public employment, and our teachers, all emt's, our nurses, our snow plow drivers, something we need, all do a fantastic job. taking away their voice and their ability to make sure they are serving the public best will not help the state of wisconsin, and will not solve our budget crisis. we have seen labor. i do not think this can be stated enough. they are willing to solve what

governor walker called a budget crisis, and now he has walked away from the deal. this is proof positive that this is about union-busting, and one only needs to listen to the recording that was released two days ago about governor walker who thought he was talking to a billionaire david koch, and how much the governor and invoked the idea of the union-busting that ronald reagan did, and how he would take a baseball bat to the rights of middle-class families. it was shocking. the fact that he was willing to say he was going to put the layoff notices out for 5000-6000 men and women because he wants to ratchet it up? that invokes the most despicable, i think, willingness to put the livelihoods of men and women on the line, and hurt

their families to make political points. that is not what people of wisconsin are about. that is not what the united states is about. we want fair solutions. governor walker says we have a budget deficit. labour says we will give you the money. governor walker will not talk to them then. he wants to end public unions. this is the first step. we had mobilizations yesterday that we heard above with 2500 people at stevens point at night, 500 people in lacrosse, 500 people in racine, 500 people in the birthplace of the republican party. people are standing up and saying this is a bad deal for wisconsin. the situation is sort of the worst of what politics has to

offer in terms of governor walker's on abstinence, but it also shows the best -- abstinence, but it also shows the best. >host: i want to show the audience the scenes from madison, wisconsin, and we have a lot of people on the phone. the headlines from "the milwaukee journal." howard joins us from california on our line for republicans. thank you for waiting. caller: thank you. this is a great conversation. scot, you are magnificent with your explanation of your point of view. i have a couple of questions. i think that wisconsin went

through an election, and i think they elected a republican governor, and they do control both the house and the senate to reject the republicans do. you keep saying that -- the republicans do. you keep saying that we need to negotiate and the governor is not dealing with negotiations. as i understand, the campaign was full of rhetoric on both sides of the aisle, the republicans and democrats explain their positions on state budgets and what needs to be done. are you there? i cannot hear you. host: he is here, and he will respond. caller: thank you for the, -- guest: thank you for the compliment. governor walker never said during his two-year campaign that he wanted to end collective bargaining rights for public

employees or private-sector employees. he never said that, but he came out the other day and said he talked about it all along. the independence -- the independent polticifact gave him a false because he never said that during the campaign. host: good morning. caller: i want to point out another thing that was caused by the bell down on a wall street read all of these governors -- meltdown on wall street read all of these governors invested -- wall street. all of these governors and vested. one more thing about president obama. when the unions and the

manufacturing places had contracts, they had to renegotiate their contracts. when it comes to the fat cats on wall street, they had contracts, but we could not touch them. what is the deal with that? don.: thank you, th guest: i will say one thing. when it comes to pensions, the state of wisconsin according to an analysis, our pension fund is fully funded. that is one thing the state has done very well. host: from our twitter page -- what is the average pay for these public employees, including benefits?

is 100,000 per year accurate? guest: that is not accurate. they took the budget and/the number of employees. it is the back of the envelope math. it is much lower than that. i do not know what the figure is, but i know that analysis is not corrected. host: we have seen these demonstrations. are these wisconsin residence? some of the indicated these protesters are being bused in from neighboring states. guest: i have been there every single day, and i can tell you that i see my friends from all across wisconsin there. this is a wisconsin issue, in the state of wisconsin. i will tell you there are people who feel so strongly that they have come here. but, for instance the nearly

100,000 people that were in madison at the state capitol on saturday was a full contingent of wisconsin. this is not an outside manufactured issue. this is the people of wisconsin standing up. ardennes. 2500 people -- again, 2500 people last night at stevens point. we are seeing people come up to town halls to was their opposition -- to voice their opposition. bad boys is important because republicans have not been willing to get -- that voice is important because republicans have not been willing to give them their voice. host: higher rain from maryland. good morning. caller: i agree with your presentation, but i have been in this world for 80 years, and i

have seen a lot of things happen, particularly politically. unfortunately, it is the electorate that is not educated. if they listen to sound bites, and this is how they make their decision. mr. walker has not presented a campaign that was truthful. i bet you, sir, all the way. -- back you, sir, all the way. guest: i cannot disagree with that. thank you. i think it is important that the public be informed. it took awhile for public employees to say we will solve the budget deficit for you. they will give them $300 million over the next two years, and the fact that the governor refuses to discuss this -- i did think of a point regarding the last

caller regarding people coming out from outside of wisconsin is another false lead the governor was given. host: georgia. good morning. to engage ifappy we have enough time, but the point he made earlier about the money -- the impact of the state employees not being able to contribute to the economy, that is a speech was argument to the money is not materialize from thin air. whether the money is spent by city employees or by taxpayers, that pretty much just cancels itself out. regarding the collective

bargaining, and whether governor walker campaigned on the issue or not is a move to in my mind, -- moot in my mind, because unless you get a hold of the collective bargaining agreement -- agreement, and the economy recovers, the employees will want their benefits back, and you will come back to where you were before. host: how will you respond? guest: ltd. the second point first. that is how you negotiate. it is about negotiation. there was a study done for -- by the institute for wisconsin's future, that showed that there will be massive problematic and economic subterfuge as a result of the lost in spending power by public employees here, in the state of wisconsin. you can check that out their website carry i thought their

analysis showed there would be sent -- website. i thought there substantial -- their analysis showed there would be substantial loss. it is not hire here than it is in other states, but again, losing that buying power would be devastating to local economies, and your caller was simply incorrect. host: one of the photographs this morning from "the wisconsin state journal." this poster. from our twitter page. guest: that is why the governor has tried to ram this through. it is not necessarily senate

democrats let's stop it, or assembly democrats, although they have all -- that stopped it, or assembly democrats, although they have performed admirably. it is the people of wisconsin that put the brakes on this bill. that is the way it is supposed to be. if we are a representative democracy. the people rose up and said no. you see people of all ages, all colors, all creeds, at these demonstrations. they are united in preserving the rights of middle-class working families. our next call is banned from st. michael's maryland -- st. michaels, maryland. caller: my point is that collective bargaining with unions in and of itself is ok in the private sector, however in the public sector, it is

inherently corrupt. this is why. it is an adversarial relationship. in the public sector what you have is unions contributing to the election of candidates that are going to make decisions in negotiations regarding union contract. they're supposed to be this to words of taxpayer dollars. when you can have somebody putting money in and putting in place individuals that are supposed to be the arbitrators and hard-core negotiators to protect the taxpayer dollar, you have a corrupt system. so, lead collective bargaining to the private sector, but do not put public and -- public sector employees in a position to put in place individuals that they will then sit down at the negotiating table with her and say this is what we want.

host: thank you, dan. scot ross? guest: i think that is a terrible question. if you just think about the koch brothers foundation giving money to the campaign, the second largest donor. david koch personally donated $1 million to the republican governors association, and now they are running television ads to tell people we are on your side and we needo take away your rights, i think that just shows that the caller is simply opposed to unions, and as the debate were about private- sector unions, he would complain about private-sector unions. host: one of our twitter

followers has this point. guest: i have to tell you this. governor walker has been very vocal in saying this is about shared sacrifice. i do not know about you, steve, but i did not hear governor walker on that call talk to david koch, who he thought it was, i did not hear him, and i read the transcript, and i did not hear him ask for shared sacrifice. the guy, between him and does brother have $43 billion in assets, and i think they could share a little bit. host: the source of that is available at buffalobeast.com.

caller: i love listening to these republicans and they won the election. the democrats won a big election in 2008. if the the republicans rolled over and let them do whatever they want? note. they used the filibuster. they used the tea party. they did everything they possibly could to block any votes. now that the shoe is on the other foot, why is it wrong for democrats to the st. regis to do the same thing? good for the people of wisconsin and the 14 democrats doing the of the thing they can to stop this. guest: we were joking the other day. we have had two tea party rallies in successive years, first on april 15, 2009, then on april 15, 2010, and me and a couple of my staff members and dressed as rich guys, same do

not tax my boss's yacht, and get back to work, and there was a mbotron.giant ju we joked why don't we have one? there is massive money and and the structure behind the tea party. the americans for prosperity aspects -- assets were $40 million. again, the tea party has been utterly irrelevant in this discussion, despite what governor walter has -- governor walker is in trees to them. the crowd estimate in madison for the tea party was about

2000-3000. take that for what it is worth in terms of real mobilization when real people get involved. host: we're talking to scot ross of one wisconsin now . guest: i think that is ridiculous. i have heard enough union members will groused about democrats, and the other way around. it is ridiculous. i think the question for a lot of elected officials, the more conservative ones, when they say they are not getting the financial support of hard working men and women, the question is not why are the democrats to getting that support, the question is why are republicans not getting the support?

host: two point it's all of you in "the u.s. it today" and "the new york times." host: the "los angeles times" points out that the easiest thing would be to renegotiate. host: two different points of view, david brooks, and an editorial from "the l.a. times." guest: let's talk about the finances. governor walker has said we have this massive budget deficit that

has not been proven. the second thing is that governor walker and the republicans in january if past three separate massive spending bills, -- passed three separate massive spending bills that will not do anything to create jobs in the state of wisconsin. if we are in dire straits that we need to consider removing the collective bargaining rights that wisconsin workers have enjoyed for nearly 70 years, you will need to make a good case why those special interest money is went out. this is why so many people in wisconsin and across the country are outraged. cannot spend $140 million on one hand, and say we do not have enough money, i have to kill the union. host: another viewer says.

host: on our republican line, christopher joins us from brooklyn, new york." caller: thank you. you try to talk about corporate donations, and things like that. the teachers union contributes more to political campaigns than any other union there is. the real issue is the union is trying to protect their member'' jobs and benefits. not all word has been spoken about the word -- the kids of wisconsin to watch their teachers make fake doctor snell -- doctor's notes. when the dropout rates come out,

it calls into question are the people getting paid -- getting what they paid for. could you address how the children are treated? guest: wisconsin has some of the best test scores in the country, and our public schools are some of the best in the country. for your brooklyn caller, that is where the evidence lies. cards on the table -- my mom is watching. she was a 36-year union teacher out of the suburbs of pittsburgh. i do not have a lot of of activity when it comes to teachers, because i know what happened when if things got really bad in our area when i was a teenager, and what having

a stable income did for our community and our household. investing in education is so very critical. in wisconsin, we have our milwaukee public schools, which have to deal with one of the highest poverty rates among the public school system in the country. it costs more to educate kids who do not have that kind of support because they live in poverty. there is always room for improvement, but our teachers in wisconsin to a really good job, and we cannot take away their rights to have a say in the quality of the classroom and class sizes. if you look to the statistics, places that invest in education have higher per capita incomes. places that invest less in education, have lower per- capita income. if so, it is absolutely critical to make the smaller investment

now, for the larger investment down the road. here, in wisconsin, we are served very well by our teachers. host: scot ross is a graduate of the university of pittsburgh. he earned his master's here, at george washington university. one of our twitter followers says -- >> this headline from the "de new york post -- host: this headline from "the new york post ." host: gary joins us, our last call from cincinnati. good morning. caller: i cannot believe everyone is giving the teachers such a hard time when that as the most important job that anyone has in america.

the reason i was calling is i want to say i keep hearing everyone talked about how to make everybody in america pay a fair amount of the bills every state in the union is in debt. -- bills. every state in the union is in that. if you want to make it fair, everyone has tax cuts here and there, and they have screwed that up, so why doesn't everyone who called themselves an american citizen and give up one day of work, one day of profit, take your annual gross income, and give up one day? i am talking of the country stars, the rap stars, the tv personalities, the president, you know? every poor person i have talked

to said they would give up a day in a heartbeat. give it to the federal government, not that they deserve it. if we are spending 40 cents of every dollar the federal government says. let's make the american dollar strong again. host: gary, thank you for the call. scot ross? guest: it brings up an interesting point that it is not for public employees because this budget crisis, you know? making them try to pay for all of this by taking away their rights is a terrible idea. thank you to the caller for reminding me of that. host: as this now most potentially into its third week, and we know the latest is the assembly passed the measure along partisan lines, the question is whether the proposal will ultimately come up to a vote in the wisconsin senate. if you could take your partisan hat off, and give us your

perspective on what the next step is in this debate guest: the next steps are either -- debate. guest: the next upstart by their republican senators are going to have to oppose this plan, or governor walker is going to have to sit down for the first time and hammer something out. if i watched 11 of the 14 democratic senators on cable television last night, and they're not coming back. we need to come up with an agreement. again, the eyes of the world are on wisconsin, and if they are on the opera -- the opportunity to have a real debate about fairness, and the rights of working men and women, it will be worth it. my belief is we will absolutely per mile in the collective bargaining rights for middle- class families -- curve well, and the collective bargaining

rights for middle-class families will be preserved. host: scot ross, thank you. guest: thank you. host: john felmy will be with us, and later in the program our conversation with charlie cook as we look ahead to 2012 for some of the battleground states in 2012, and the potential makeup of the gop field. before we take a short break, we want to bring up an issue we have received with an audio drop on c-span television. asked if you are experiencing the problem, we want to point out that our technical team is working on the. we need your help and diligence. so we have a phone number and your e-mail address -- and an e- mail address. if you have watched this network, and have noticed the

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>> "washington journal" continues. host: john felmy is from the american petroleum institute. let me share two headlines. host: the situation in libya is impacting the oil we get from the middle east and having a direct impact on the concerns of the u.s. economy. where is this heading. there are two factors. the general market that we have experienced for the past year because of demand growth we have had movement toward a record demand in 2010 and this year. you have an underlying demand increase, and this instability adds to that. host: if you look at the amount of oil we get from libya, it

really is inconsequential. guest: on a world market, when you lose any supplies, you tend to have been accentuated impact. the other thing is the futures market is responding to this in many different ways far beyond libya. host: this headline from "the financial times." how much will they boosted, and what will the impact be? guest: they have excess capacity. they could increase production. we do not know what type of oil they could increase production on, how long it would take, and what it would do. host: let's look the figures. this is in terms of barrels per day our no. 1 importer comes from canada. mexico is number two. saudi arabia is third.

venezuela and nigeria are fourth and fifth. guest: that tells you we get most of our oil from the north american continent. we are getting a lot of oil from sources of supply, but we need to remember there are other supplies from the world. host: is the suez canal is disrupted, what impact could that have on oil prices? guest: it is hard to say. there are work-around options in terms of tankers around south africa. if it would take longer. we are not sure what the cost will be. if those are things we have not seen happen yet. host: earlier this week we reacted to the headline of $5 per gallon. how realistic is that? guest: you have to look at why

you'd get to $5. how did we get to $4.11 in 2008? the question is how we get to a much higher level of crude oil prices as the relationships of supply and demand hold? you're talking about $4 per gallon of oil, which is over $160 a barrel if you look at past relationships. host: the profits of exxon and bp continue to increase -- increase. how much of it is profits hearing? guest: they have a fair rate of return for all the companies have done. refineries improve their situation because they had been losing money. you cannot attribute most a vet change to the earnings. host: the u.s. cannot get a break -- now the instability in the middle east following

greece. host: energy is a -- guest: energy is a problem in the united states we have been arguing for policy that does something about it. host: would go back to the 1970's when jimmy carter called for a national energy policy, and nothing has really happened in terms of a nationwide policy. guest: unfortunate, those policies were a dismal failure. the reason we have guests lyons were because of controls. they increased imports, and they frittered the money away on things i did not work toward the let's not repeat those mistakes. we can do things if we recognize what our needs are. host: what is that something? guest: we will need all types of energy. we have to wonder 50 million

cars that use petroleum. they do not plug in to use renewable sources. let's recognize if we are going to use petroleum for the foreseeable future, let's use it here. if we can also improve efficiency. consumers can help out in terms of using products wisely. it needs to be comprehensive. host: the obama administration has talked about clean energy. what kind of grade would you give them? guest: those will be important in the future, but right now they are about 1%. if you have a long way to go to supply our existing infrastructure. in particular, the tax policies are a repeat of the mistakes of the past. they will take money away from the industry, it will result in lower production. "washington journal the alternative is to expand production in this country, open up areas that are law -- lost, and that will improve.

host: some areas are off the coast of alaska. would you support drilling in those areas. guest: it is something we need to look at. taking it off limits will not help american consumers. host: our viewer has this. guest: on the day-to-day operations, it is what the market is. when you know what barrel price equals the future price, the question is not the wrong price. the only way i can assess that is what is happening with world inventories? they are not changing much. we have a market-determined price. host: our conversation is with john felmy, the chief economist of the american petroleum institute. he is a graduate of penn state. our phone lines are open .

host: there are a lot of ways to participate. send us an e-mail, or send us a twitter comment. let's go to jamie, in michigan. good morning. caller: good morning. are you still there? there you are. i'm wondering about oil companies. when did they ever get enough money? if they have profits coming out of their ears, and it is never enough. when will they give the consumers out here a break? tell mr. koch that his days are numbered. host: a response?

guest: look at the profit rates. the companies are large, so the earnings are large. if you look at how big the companies are, it is not out of proportion. they made far less than many other industries, and less than, say, the average for the dow jones industrial companies. the second thing is that money goes to people, not companies. you probably own a piece of an oil company whether you know it or not. it is owned by pension funds and retirees. let's look at perspective an instead of rhetoric. host: how you justify the tax giveaways to the oil industry? guest: the are not giveaways. that is washington spend perritt the key factor is why are you signalling of the oil and gas industry? it is popular for politicians. you can call it anyway you want, but it is an increase in taxes when you change provisions, and it was all -- will result in failure.

host: our guest is the chief economist from the american petroleum institute. joe joins us from dupont, washington. good morning. caller: you put a graph up about the effect of the largest exporter of oil to the united states was canada, and of course there oil comes from alberta, and it is really and 30 oil -- dirty oil in the sense there is a cost to extract it, etc. at the beginning of the obama administration and obama and all the environmentalist or talking about how they did not want canadian oil. now that the middle east supply is in in jeopardy, you do not hear anyone, any more about the

fact that they do not want canadian oil, which is probably the most reliable source to the united states, compared to the middle east, venezuela, etc. i find it ironic that i do not hear anything more from the invite jim -- environmentalists that oil prices are -- now that oil prices are at $100 a barrel. guest: canada as an important source. have a vast amount of supplies that can be developed, and they will develop them. asked the question is where should that oil go? his argument against canadian oil mixups leno's cents pair they will produce that resource. -- makes no sense.

they will produce better resource. let's look and remember this is an important secure source of oil supply. host: why the huge spike in gasoline prices one art supplies are up and our imports of oil from libya are insignificant? guest: we have seen the cost of crude oil goal up from $80 to $98 a barrel. there are 42 gallons per barrel. it is not out of line. as the cost of making the product. host: demand will not be high enough to forecast $5 a barrel next guest: i am not in that business of forecasting, but the forecast is for records. that is a tight market.

host: could america, or north america, take out the middle east, ever be the self- sustaining? guest: mathematically, we have 116 billion barrels of conventional oil we think is there. if you could produce that, all you could have dramatic increases in oil production. mathematically, over 30 years, it would be 10 million barrels a day. that is how much oil is there, and that does not include oil shales and other types of on conventional oil that could be developed. caller: since your first guest brought the koch brothers, i

will bring up trumka. trumka goes to the white house two or three times a week. he talks to the white house, and he has it on tape. host: please go ahead with your question. i would totally disagree of your earlier point. we have all sides on this program seven days a week. i would disagree with your point that we are biased to one side or the other. go ahead with your question. caller: you are the worst of all. you are the most liberal. all of your e-mail and tweets were liberal this morning. third of all, if you did not question him about the hitler signs about scott walker. why did you not ask him how

about that? host: do you have a question for john felmy? caller: you are a corrupt person on c-span because no republican should ever watch your show when you are on. guest: we try to work closely with unions, and i will not criticize mr. trumka. is a fellow penn state graduate. host: you are wearing a penn state tight. -- tie. good morning, dan. caller: it is an honor to speak with a gentleman from the petroleum institute of america, and i would like to point out what very few americans understand -- america is absolutely the technological leader in the field of oil

drilling. on that there can be no question. the innovations, the designs, the inventions are courtesy of texas, and i did not know if they have been shipped over to china or russia by now, but every significant drill string was built in texas by cameron. when the residents said a world record with a 35,000 foot string, it was cameron. this business of ethanol -- that is an abomination. i wanted to speak to steve earlier in the program when he said is the economy fragile? it is fragile, and this ethanol production has a ripple effect that extends to every aspect of our lives.

this is corn that is being used to fuel cars. it is deleterious to the cars, and to the world economy of food. host: thank you for the call. guest: it is good to hear a call from florida. florida is an oil-producing state. in the 1970's, they were the largest -- the ninth largest producing state. we are a technologically- advanced industry. we use more computing power than any other entity decide perhaps the federal government. -- besides perhaps the federal government. this is a good industry to join. if there are good-paying jobs. with the way retirement's let's, you will be running the show before very long. i mention crude oil prices, but it is also to a degree and ethanol.

a lot of gasoline as glenn beck at%, and it will continue to be that way -- is blended at 10%. it will continue to be that way. if it is blended and%, that is another 3 cents or so. we are struggling to understand how we will meet the requirements of ethanol because right now, the 140 million gallons, japan only blind that 10%. if -- you can only blinds that at 10%. we are facing a real challenge in that area. h 41 to go back to this headline from "at the financial times." -- host: i want to go back to this headlines from "the financial times." guest: the saudis have the predominant share. the change were to happen, the weight would have to be. by the saudis.

we have not heard as a broad statement what they are doing. they do not have a scheduled meeting until june 2. host: john felmy is the chief economist with the american petroleum institute. there was testimony on capitol hill about the amount of oil that we import. >> widely need to become energy independent? we believe in free trade. --all have of stallionti we all have italian ties, chinese computer chips. it is a global commodity, globally priced. >> you do not think it is tied to the security of the nation? >> it ties to an aspect, but it

is not one of them. -- it is not the only one. host: how would you respond to that? guest: trying to be energy independence has been a goal for a long time, and it has not happened. we import everything, and we export a lot. the more we produce in this country, the more jobs we generate and the more revenue the federal government gets. let's look of those factors and recognize the more we produce, the more economic value added we generate. host: chris as above the situation in the gulf coast. he says how many jobs would be lost if there was another blowout in louisiana, and what impact would have on u.s. supply? guest: we are losing a lot of jobs right now. the gulf of mexico is virtually shut down. we had a moratorium. very few permits have been issued. the rigs have gone not used. we are already experiencing

that, and we need to change that because we can demonstrate that we can do it in an environmentally sound way. we learned a lot from what happened. was a tragedy -- it was a tragedy. as far as what would happen in the future, i cannot speculate on those things can we're working hard to make certain we do not repeat those things. host: sell says the gas station in his home, a mile from his house, the price was $3.61. independent line, good morning. caller: what i am curious about, and really baffled was because no one talks about this was back in 2008, when the price for oil was driven to about $150 a barrel, the word on the street was the biggest companies that

held oil futures were goldman sachs, morgan stanley, these financial institutions driving .he price popuup at the time, people on tv were all saying that $100 oil is here to stay. we will now if it comes -- know if the price comes crashing down. if the price came crashing down to $35 a barrel, and everyone was st. great, but it was the financial institutions buying and pushing the price up over whether the $50 a barrel. -- pushing the price of over $150 a barrel. if this is not a supply and demand issue. it is an opportunity to push the oil up to a higher price.

personally, i think the oil should be at a higher price because we need to find other means of getting energy rather than burning the super-hydraulic fluid, which i believe is the blood of our earth because we saw it all out. talk about earthquakes, you are losing all the cushion that the oil is provided. i would like your thoughts about the cost manipulation in the futures market, which is a worldwide market that anyone can get into, and you cannot even find out who was buying them. host: thank you for the call, dan, from massachusetts. guest: you can find out who was blinded. is heavily regulated. in terms of the 2008 situation, i look at it differently. we had strong growth in the areas we talked about before like china, and we had china getting ready for the olympics. they had an earthquake.

we had an economy that had just barely entered into recession, but you have not seen a drop in terms of the man, -- demand, and then everything changed. you saw a collapse from $147 a barrel down to $33. i see that as the fundamentals of supply and demand. if you argue that it is the wrong price for any reason, manipulation, speculation, whatever, think about economy 101 where you have the intersection of supply and demand curves. the prices too high, you have supply greater than the man, and inventory should accumulate. in 2008, inventory levels were identical in january and july. even though you had other participants, they were moving the price to what it should have been. at the world level, we do not have complete information outside of developed countries. you cannot say with absolute

certainty one way or the other. host: "the detroit free press points out that yesterday alone, and the cafe standards that we have with automobiles around the country. are we doing a better job producing electric vehicles? guest: we are producing more vehicles that are more fuel efficient efficiency across the board is very important in terms of what we need to do to use fuel wisely. we have had an encroachment argue are seen standards go up. they are not without cost -- we are seeing standards go what. there are without cost -- they're not without cost. it does help in the situation. .

. with the oil companies in that i ran a station back when jimmy carter was president. and we had our supplies cut to rock bottom. by the same token, we could actually go into new york city,

which -- you could go and buy for cash money as much as gas as you wanted in the market. but we know in canada, they are bringing in approximately over 3,000 whales a year it's not destroying the environment. why can't we do this here? i see this oil-speculated market and everything. and nobody ever discloses to exxonmobile what do they really pay for a gallon or barrel of oil. like i said i have about 30 years experience dealing with the oil companies, their charades and everything else. we paid for the alaskan pipeline. what comes through the lower 48? i mean, i would hold on for your answer. thank you.

host: thank you. guest: let's start with the alaska pipeline. virtuely 100% of that comes to the west coast. that's one of the urban myths i hear constantly. only a little bit goes to canada. a very small amount because of the location. what does the exxonmobile company pay for anything? it's disclosed in their financial documents. you're right gas lines and a situation where fuel was available one place and not the other, i'm not surprised that you could go buy fuel somewhere else even though you couldn't get it in alabama. that was really bad energy policy. so let's not repeat that. host: next missouri democrats line with john felmy who is the chief economist at the american petroleum institute. caller: i'd like to talk about energy policy in general. you keep bringing up carter and the prices.

it was jimmy carter who put solar panels on top of the white house and the first thing ronald reagan did when he got in there was take them off. can you imagine how much it would have helped if since jimmy carter days every new home that was built had solar panels installed on their roof as part of their construction? but wait a minute. champion mobile can't control the sun. so we better not do that, because exxonmobile might lose some money. thank you very much. host: john? guest: well, president carter did have solar panelings and my suspicion reagan why reagan took them off was because of the maintenance cost. solar panels are more expensive. solar panel, the key is you have to have an electricity pricing scheme that actually reflects the cost of

electricity so if you can use them you have a higher price but the limitations have nothing to do with champion mobile. these policies are going to grow, but we've got to be understanding of what the real role is and it's about 1%, and it does nothing for the american consumer that has a car that does not plug in. host: next sandy from casper, wyoming. good morning. caller: good morning. i'm almost 60 years old. i've lived in wyoming. i'm just so tired of everyone demonizing the oil companies. you know, they give so much. they give to you communities they are in. they help build schools. they help employ teachers. they help build roads and help small businesses grow. i've seen this for 60 years

myself. and without them, a lot of our communities would not have grown. and they support the charities in the communities and states they are in. they do a lot of good. they employ people with good jobs and good health care. let's drill here. let's employ some people. and maybe the environmentalists need to take a back seat for a while. host: thank you sandy. 2008 the slowingens for the republicans was drill, baby, drill. guest: thank you sandy. you've got to look at what the oil industry is. the oil industry supports 9.2 million jobs in america where the gross domestic product was owned by many and retirees and pension funds were owning oil.

if we're going to need oil, we should produce it here, because that will produce jobs and improve deficit and energy security. 10 let's look at it in that lens instead of the rhetoric we see all too often. host: the picture from the financial times in 1973 in reference to richard nixon one of our guests said i think they were started by president nixon and deregulation was done by carter. guest: well yes but of -- because of all the changes, they should have been reduced at carter's inauguration. they were a classic failure. whether they were started or not, there were in that administration. host: randy, you get the last

word. good morning. caller: good morning. thank you for taking my call. i just want to say that the oil industry creates a lot of jobs, and i think they get a bad bashing. but i also wanted to know how much it would help if a lot of our cars could run on natural gas and if we get a few power plants built in this country to cut down on the cost of energy and everything. guest: good question, randy. 94% of the fuel transportation is oil and 3% natural gas. we could expand that dramatically. we have wonderful increases in terms of natural gas production in for instance my home state of pennsylvania, which desperately needs jobs. but it's a question of cost and time. terms of nuclear power plants you could expand that. but there's a couple of unintended consequences. 70% of the nuclear power is imported from the former soviet

union. buts the imported and if we have a fleet of electric cars we're going to import a lot of lithium from bolivia, which is not a particularly friendly country. so let's look at all these possibilities and remember there are unintended consequences of everything. >> finally you're an economist and not a forecaster but look ahead at prices at the gas pump and broadly with the economy. >> first we have to see what unfolds in the middle east then we have the growth driving the market before that. so what your viewers should do. open up the newspaper. look at the price of oil. look at the futures market and divide by 42, that gives you the price of crude then add on 48 cents in taxes and it will help a consumer understand where we're going.

beyond that if i could forecast prices i wouldn't be sitting here, because i would be a very wealthy person. host: thank you for taking our calls and emails. charlie cook will be joining us as we look ahead to 2012 and 2011. how is the president doing and how is the republican field shaping up for the next presidential cycle. we've been talking about calls we've received, people watch ing thisnetwork and noticed a sudden audio drop and then it will pick up again. we've been asking you to call a number. we're going to ask you to hold off. the voice mail is full. phone later in the afternoon 202-626-3400. more immediately, you can send us an email.

audioproblems@c-span.org. if in the community you live in if you've noticed as you've watched the house of representatives on c-span or one of the many programs we do and the audio drops and then picks up, we want to find out about it. our technical team is working on the problem but send us where you live and who your cable provider is and your help is greatly appreciated. when we come back, politics with charlie cook. >> this weekend governors will talk about how to grow their state's economies, education and as they gather for the winter meeting of the annual governor's association. we'll have live coverage on c-span. >> this evening michael shaur, former chief of the c.i.a.'s

osama bin laden unit on the continuing war against the u.s., he thinks the tarnished reputation of the trusted news source is something to talk about. and look for the complete schedule at book tv.gov and get our schedules emailed directly to you. sign up for our book tel aviv alert. -- book tv alert. >> former arkansas governor and presidential candidate mike huckabee shares his thoughts on president obama, social and fiscal issues and his possible run in the 2012 election as the g.o.p. field gets ready to take shape, watch c-span. road to the white house. >> i think our system of government is breaking down. i think the system of checks and balances we have in our system are not operating properly.

>> wins lowe wheeler heads at the center for defense information. he's written two essays in the pentagon labyrinth. >> congress has the power to go to war. 2 power of the purse. and the power to investigate. the first two powers to go to war and of the purse are meaningless if congress doesn't exercise the power to investigate. and it's not doing that. >> see the rest of the interview sunday night on c-span's q & a. >> "washington journal" continues. host: whether it's on this program or other coverage charlie cook is a regular on the network. glad to have you back. guest: gosh. aye been doing it for 20 years or so. host: and you haven't aged a bifment i want to start with the gallup poll that looked at solid democratic states.

a comparison from 2008 to 2010. these solid blue states cut in half. what does that tell you? >> well, 2008 was a peak year for democrats. 2 republican party had been going through a really long slot. if you look at the broader party identification numbers, what you see is democrats have gone down. independents have gone up a lot, which doesn't reflect on the map, because that's just democrats and republicans. but the democrats have peaked out. it's not that republicans in this version where they push the independents one way or the other. if you look at the raw numbers it's for independents that go up. >> again, this is a snap shot? 2011. in terms of democrats and republicans, the states include indiana, wisconsin, v virginia.

florida, texas, nevada, minnesota and -- new mexico and arizona. not arizona but new mexico, and nevada. >> start off with the 2008 map which states that mccain and obama kwon. then you sort of assume mccain was a low water mark for republicans and obama was a high water mark. then look at the states where senator obama won just barely. and those would be the ones that republicans are going to try to reach if he could hang on to them. if president obama could hold on to the virginias and north carolinas and indianas. then he wins. and if he wins. if he can't, then he doesn't. >> you've been recapping some of the races. some of the candidates of 2010 and now 2012. joe lieberman, independent who

sides with the democrats of connecticut and two republican retirements. guest: well, the top ones for democrats is that the two republican retirements, kay bailey hutchison and john kyle. it's pretty unlikely those democrats can pick those up that republicans have a better chance of picking up those open democratic seats than vice versea. but i think we're seeing that democrats have 23 seats at risk in 2012. republicans only have 10. two years after that democrats have 20, republicans have 3. so a lot of democrats are saying wow, the odds are pretty high we're going to lose control of the senate. do i want to stick around if i'm in the minority? if i'm in the -- if i stick around, i'm in the minority and if i don't i'm defeated.

host: the top states in the senate races include massachusetts, montana. nebraska, nevada. new mexico. and north dakota, virginia and west virginia. >> if you look at where democrats have problems now more than say 15-20 years ago, it's states with higher sort of small-town, rural vote. that sort of thing. democrats have lost a lot of ground in sort of rural america. in fact our house senator david wotsalman figured out while democrats last only 25% of the seats in their house, they lost 60% of the land area. and now the democrats strength is more confined to cities and

the suburbs, unless host: let me ask you about the presidential race. this morning david brooks writes run, mitch, run. and i ask you this with what you just said a minute ago about thousand political climate benefits the republican races. he says -- he is seriously thinking about not running. and govern daniels has been a comp tent manager. and it says governor calls for someone run things efficiently. governor daniels has spent his entire career preparing for this kind of moment. guest: yes. i've known him since he was a staffer in the early 190's. as you probably did. incredibly talented guy and serious adult and i think he's

really torn about whether to run or not. it's an enormous time out of someone's life. i think he genuinely hasn't decided. but if you took a poll of pundits, the feeling is he's less likely to run than run. but he's such a talented guy. he'd make the race a lot more interesting and i think would elevate the conversation. host: florida wants to move its primary up to january 31 pitting us back in 2008 where we were speppeding christmas of 2008 in iowa preparing for the caucuses. guest: i don't want to speak for you. but i suspect. i love iowa but i just as soon spend new year's eve at home. back in 2007, there we were having dinner on new year's eve

in des moines. yes. i think there's a feeling in both parties. let's not crowd christmas. let's just let the thing kind of not front led to quite as much. and we're sort of all hoping that florida will play by the rules. you know, the party's -- the parties can and will sanction states by cutting their number of delegates in half if they jump the calendar. i certainly hope florida won't do that. host: i'm going to ask you how do you think the republican field will take shape and when? guest: well, one theory, bill mack enturf you've had on the show many times, a republican pollster. he used to have a theory that think of it in terms of an ncaa basketball tournament where you have brackets. so different candidates are

competing in different brackets early on until you get to the semifinals and then finals. so the way you might look at it is there's a tea party bracket of people competing to be the tea party candidate and maybe there's a religious bracket. then there's probably a larger main stream kind of secular bracket. bracket of candidates competing there. so if you have people, like, let's just say hypothetical sarah palin and mike huckabee don't run, then whose the cultural conservative in that group? i know senator san torah running there but rick perry who i noticed was on c-span, is he competing in that early on that can pull somebody else in. if certain big players don't end up running.

host: in terms of announcements, governor clinton didn't announce until october of 191 and governor george w. bush didn't announce until june the year before the election in 2000. guest: but we might as well be talking about the dinosaur era. now the republican nominee will need to raise maybe $200 million between now and winning the nomination, the last primaries would be june of 2012. nobody's in yet. my guess is we'll start hearing candidates, people announcing march, april, may. so they'll be needing to raise, you know, just short of a million bucks a day from the day they announce their candidacy. so the luxury of holding back until the fall of this year, i don't think it's there. host: and with with regard to

president obama, you wrote hang on tight. it may not recommend the deepest cuts by any democratic in the history, but it comes close. guest: yes. i think what we've seen since the midterm election is the president's sort of shifted course and acknowledged that things have changed. and it's not a matter of republicans will be proposing cuts of this level and we'll end up somewhere in between, probably a lot more than democrats want and less than republicans want and hopefully it gets the country headed back on more of a st. court. but hopefully not too much. host: you can send us an email or tweet us on twitter.

in 2006 when the democrats gained back control of the house, they picked up additional seats in 2008 and lost in 2010. as you look early ahead for 2012 for the house and where the republicans and democrats stand, what are your thoughts guest: the factor going inspection democrats' favor is when a party picks up 63 seats, like republicans have picked up, there's some people that -- republicans that won because there was a 70 miles an hour tail wind at their backs that may not rezist at in 2012. so sometimes you get these land shide wins that are hard to hold on to. democrats are going to be in a

stronger position in redistricting than at any time in modern times, so you've got some offsetting factors here. then one data point that may or may not be the first time a -- my hunch is that you're not likely to see a over the of more than 10 seats one way or the other, which obviously, if democrats picked up 10 seats, they are still short of a majority. at this early stage i don't see a waive and so it would obviously be a departmentture from what happened in 2008 and 2010. host: do americans like a divided government?

and if yes, what chances does that have on the president's chances? guest: well, i think republicans in congress are starting to kind of figure out that their success is not necessarily contingent upon president obama's failure. and that people do like this divided government thing. so i -- it's way too early. presidential job approval rate ings. but looking at where the economy is going. it's pointing towards a close race, but probably not quite as bad for the president as it looked five months ago. host: let me bring it back to this map from the gallup organization. the democrats losing 16 states the viewed as solid democratic states.

now introduced there are states that are put in the gallup category. in terms of identification. it's probably a bigger number than i would put. but this is a country that independence has played a huge role in the outcomes. for example, in 2006, independent voters voted by an 18-point margin for democrats in congress. in 2008 independent voters voted in favor of democrats for congress. and senator obama over senator mccain thirned around voted in favor of republicans in 2010. so if this were an austin powers movie is -- they are going to play the key role in everything next year. host: let me take those numbers

one step further. for 2010 listed 14 states, nine lean democratic. 18 competitive states. tossup states. five leaning republican and five are solid republican. diane is joining us from washington, d.c. with charlie cook of the cook political report. good morning. >> we're food. how are you? >> fine. >> first of all i'm very sorry that you had to listen to the gentleman's negative comments about you. i think that you are probably -- i will not say you're the fairest person on c-span, but that's not why we watch. we don't care if you're fair or not. what we do care about is you let people express their opinion. people get to call in and say what they want to say. you don't try to dissuade anybody or convince them to think the way you think.

so it doesn't matter if he our anybody thinks u -- so it's sfwreat to touk to a policy person or lawmaker or maybe somebody who wouldn't get an ordinary chance to speak to. so i just want to say i love when you're on. i always know i'm going to learn something and hear something interesting. that's the first thing. host: we'll give you his phone number so you can give him a call. just kidding. caller: [laughter] and this is so wonderful for me, because i met you. i'm sure you won't remember it, but i won't forget it. i was very rude, actually, because you had just picked up your dinner from a thai restaurant, and you were in an underground tunnel in the bethesda metro and this big, black woman just got you.

[laughter] but i introduce -- people were walking by and i was, like, do you know who this is? this is charlie cook! but what was so wonderful about it, you actually stopped for almost 10 minutes, and you just let me talk to you about my feelings about politics. and i won't remind you who the person was that i had voted for, but what i thought was just so wonderful was you actually listened to what i had to say and asked me questions, so i just want to say i think that's why you are and have been as successful as you are. because truly more than posters, i care about what you do and the opinions. as best you can, you really do try to base it on what people are actually thinking as opposed to, this is my opinion. guest: well, thank you. i will have a spring in my step the rest of the day and no,

this isn't my wife calling in. thank you very much. host: james tweeting in, sticking to charlie cook is a pretty big deal. he's a big star. guest: well these people are the most scrupe lousely down the middle eptty in american politics and i've never noted any tilt here whatsoever. so that's why i love going on, because you know it's always going to be abc louisly. thoip nation's governor is meeting here in washington this weekend and you write about the intense emotion and anger by the american people to the left and the right, and it's crystallized here right now in madison, wisconsin.

guest: i think part of thi thin comes from a frustration. but on a second with the problems facing the country and the fact that we haven't addressed them. but on a deeper level, though. i think one of the causes of frustration is that, and particularly just sort of aveiving from last year, the te party movement is there's a why won't these people in the building down the street address this? we are not talking about waste, fraud and abuse or foreign aid. these are rounding errors. 2 big stuff is medicare. social security. transfer payments. these decisions are really, real, really hard ones. and very, very painful ones

and you know, i wish that our budget problems were easy enough that we could deal with it in terdg of waste, fraud and abuse. but i think people have justifyably cy je to a point where they agree there's an enormous problem, but i think the suspiicaon is the solutions are easier than they really are. host: for charlie cook, jerry from ohio. our line for democrats. good morning. caller: good morning. one of the points i want to point out is the decline in the democratic party since 2008 i believe was caused by republican filibusters in the senate. the democrats came in with a very strong a fonda, and that was to have over 200 bills passed in the house, and they were absolutely killed in the senate. the strategy when the

supermajority was in the senate was to get a couple democrats to switch their way and then unveil the filibuster. but after kennedy died, they got a republican and they knew that was going to be the reper klican strated in. and once they took oorsice in 2009, they could have changed the fili he but they didn't do it. anyway, 200 bills that died in the house were the democratic agenda that never got passed. host: and this congress, no changes in the filibuster rule. guest: right. and the rules demhiorats and republicans must feel about tclibusters, you may have the republicans frustrated but the

thing is the upon crest of unlimited debate is it's part of the senate. part of the fabric of the senate part of the historal s and while the rules may be adjusted here and there and should be changed to a certain extent, the filibuster is never going to go awaal s s the part of what that institution is all about. but to say the demhioratic pas may, its downfall is becaus of the filibusters, the 2006-2008 elections were horrific for republicans and in 2006 the tpwhar iraq was at its to -- it did mark a rock-bottom low point for the republican party, which a dio means a higd point for the democratic party.

and once it gets past that, you're g cyng to have the two parties coming back towards the equi li and. yeah. in if -- now we're kind of moving the librium. host: we talked about two democratic states where two republicans seeking re-election. what's the challenge for these two in a year that might be good for republicans but these two states soven go democratic. guest: two months ago there were no signs. it was kind of like revpiiution in tunisia or egypt. there was no sign it could

happen but then you could really tell wow, something is going on here testibut irepubli have a reper klican senator in massachusetts is just extraordinary. and i think a lot of fpiiks on the tea party side are very frustrated with brobui, because he is moving to the middle. but if scott brown has any chance of bbusng re-electebut a he's got to find that center point in massachusetts which is a center point that's a lot far thur to the -- the folks on the reper klican and demhiorati side have to understand. i heard one tell a group in his long, deep, southern drawl, i

know you may mind to hard to understanbut a but i couldn't g itrepublica- get elected in ver so scott brown's got -- he's fot a lot of positioning to do to get himself in a place where he can run for ro thelection. nevada is ateaery,teaery swing state. harry reid had a really tough race and was able to win. but he had extremely weak republican opposition. j, jn ennisen with his scandal problems. i'm not going to say the guy's unelecti but it sure as heck looks that general direction. my hunch is there will be a different republican nominee and it's g cyng to be ateaery, he but i kind of doubt if you'll see j, jn e oneisen on the ball

nf st year. host: good morning. caller: i'd lan gentleman what he thinks of sara steelman. i've actually met her. she's ateaery good candidate. she's actually running for the hoenate seat against claire mccassical. i'd just like to see what the gentleman thinks about him. guest: inine never met sarah steelman. she's not necessarily a cookie cutter republican. i know, for example, she's had houppos ma from trial lawyers which is not usually normal for a republican. but i don't know whether she's foing to be the republican nominee or not. whie's certainly the best knobu republican running and jim talented indicated he's not going to run for that seat. so we've got to wait and see

and let the reper klican eny jination sort itself ou but she stepped aside previously, and that might give her sy je moral high ground, if you will, towards getting the republican ny jination this time. but we've got to let it sort itself out. but that's likely to be one of the premiere senate races in the countral s because missouri is a classic swing state and a state that sooked lan trend back towards democrats but leaning back toward republicans recentlal s it was one of the closest states in the election. the 2008 presidential election. but i think you'll see a first-classyer.s. senate race that mccassical is going to have. it's g cyng to be a tough race. host: we're talking to charlie cook and discussing the gal hup polls. you can log on to gallup.com. looking at some of the states

that are looking spiiid for the president, hawaii. a drop, the website is fal hup.coar frank? good morning. caller: good morning. i was calling to check with mr. cook to see if he was in the navy before. fuest: no. inine got a son that was in the army and a dad that was in the aessy air corps. but no. no navy connections. host: randy, reper klican line. caller: hi, mr. cook. how are you doing? inine got is to say that while don't always agree with you, i always respect your insights and opinions. ler cy jment is that i feel tha i see a skizzm in the republican party between the old guard country republicans

and the grassroots tea paray reper klicans. and in regards to 2012, the presidential ny jinations that possi it by someone like mitt romney and ateaice presidential candidate like alan west or herman kane or if sarah palin were to get the ny jination, maybe they could balance the ticket with halfer barber or ti there's at least two if not thee or four factions in the -- there's a certain amount of ticket balancing that has to take place. when you look the senator mccain was behind in terms of polls and organization and behind in terdg of money.

and you know, when he had to m ne his pick g cyng into the reper klican convention, it was sort of fourth and long yardage. and what were they looking far? they wanted somebody who had no co oneection to the bush-chenfe administration and never worked in washington and not be considered as part of the insider beltway crowd. they had to be pro lt goe. that some of the fpiiks, that senator mccain would have loved to have picked. joe liebeessan, for example. tom ridge were pro choice or eny jinally pro choice, tha was told the republican delegates will burn the building down t go you he was almost 17-18 points bipt. among female voters, they could

reallyyerse sy jt gody that somebody that's been to washington beforeteaersus hoy jt gody whose onlyteaisited couple times. so it is a time to shos maenyer whiort comings in the whole running mate contest. host: 193 democrats in the house of representatives. 242 republicans. 2essa needed for a majority in the senate. as we talked about it. 53 demblirats, 47 reper klicans 51 seats needed for majority in the senate. and looking at the governor. all0 dembliratic g repu independent in maine and 29 republican g repubernors. guesuall0 actually you're showi a news article and we've got

hoy je great scat graphs coming up where you have got the house of representatives ploing to ce every seat by which side young and by how much in the presidentuntl race. hosuall0 and this is what the s looks like. sease go aheaeb fuest: thank you. thanks for the plug. yes. the chas ma is s sinieedcantly dt gor. crent than it was six months ago and will be ict gor. crent again sy jewhat this election. buts the all a dynamic thing and we all have to watch events unfold and watch how if pendulum swings back and forth. the pent gor hum is the magic o should be thinking about. t go it ghe hs too far that waas i think we're sort of headed towards a middle spot for a while. hosuall0 j cyningyers from lake charles, louisiana, your home hotate. food motheying. democrats line. caller: good morning.

ler qphsstion is. what kind of plan did the republican bring? we alreasee i know what the demowashat brought. but the plan that the republican so say they are bringing, you don't see anything. host: on what issphs in hopeicaeedc? >> well, method -- guest: i'm actually g cyng to b in st. charles d cyng a luncheo for an awards dinner for a joutheyalistidedevent there. the way i would look at it is look, for the last two years, demowashats had the presidency and the house and senate. so what republicans wanted to t l a reper klican ait inda wou have been largely eirrelevant. now we've got a slightly ict gor. crent situation. we have got a nominally testify

t l you are stas maing to see m proposalsened with a budget that you may or may not agree with. wenine seen again impartial power for less than two months enow, but youtoml stas ma s what the agenda is. as i said on the outset of the hohowin what you're g cyng to b seeing is democrats advocating budit it cuts of this level and republicans over here, and we're going to adopt -- end up with sy jething in between. that's how this is built. on the premise of cy jpry jise. and i think one things that somewhat refreshing is that i think spe ner bhe hhner is cy jmiing to ced to as much as

possible doing open rules in the house. which means other members in a previous which -- it's messy, and i think we have seen and tsill see speaker boehn black eye and a fat lexa losing a flike.teaotes on the floor th way. but it really is a more demowashatic process. and -- but we'll see both sides putting up plans on it. and youtoml see better now that you've got gra great -- host: you write that the cy jin

eedght repuber the dt gt ceili will require the legislative and preqitical delicacy of brai surgery. guest: yes. this fight over the resreqution it's gw ng to happen. in all likelihood -- hosuall0 no g repubernment shut guesuall0 well maybe but just a few hours or a day. yo e not gw ng to see air trafeedc controllers coming dow from the towers or those in beeghanistan t l if there's one i think most people will never noticemay- if the dt gt cs. isn't rrdssed, the u.s. government will default on its ict gt. and you waust can, y have that

happen. the question is what cy jpry jises? tshat really painful co are people going to have to cy je up with? you need 218 votes. my guess is there will be those in favor of rrdssing the dt gt ceiling and what does it take for these 109teaotes. conversely, y at demblirats h to say we couldn't let the f repuberh ent desetult. i know these are deeper cuts than i would want to do and you es.uld want to do but we had to do it, but it's going to require an enormous amount of delicaard. host: joining us, from arizona, welcome to the convers caller: good motheying. i have a couple comments and a

couple you'estions. number one for c-spass. i would love to see you do a show asking prin se in they were president for a day, how they would handle it. and reper klicans were allowed through the supreme court to pump in all kinds of money and the prank call in wisconsin proved it. so completely, and the kind of montivs that buyingteaotes. the rich against the poor. and also one morech a% pck thing. ico yolour. cel that what is bs. said in the newspapers and on the nlike.s is fuleedlling prophesies? one day they say oil will go to

$100. the nf st day it does. i've seen this several times. we lost our own tru seing cy jpany that way. knox they talk to gaddafi and say we are worried he might buthey his oil fs thelds. the next day he's doing something to sabote oe the oil eedelconv. host: thank you for your question and question. fphsst: let me als on another suggestion. if you could advise the president to talk to one or tes or three people and listen to them, who would it be waust sit icown and have lunch with and have a conversation with and pick ths. in terms of the supreme court decision and the big issue is lliout all these third parties, independent groups, independent of the candiwin tes and independent of paray oing

apparatus coming in and gending. and the caller is right. in 2010 there was an enormous amount of montiv cy jing in on behalf of the reper klicans and in fairness there was a lot more demblirats and ltest of center money. so again, this is the pendulum howasheaming back and forth. t go the money is evil in 2010. then doesn't that mean the icembliratic montiv on the othe side in 2006 and 2008 was too? and there's a tenden as i that pea le have that any money spent on behalf of the side i like is waust prin se earnestly seeking democracy and on the other side it's e200l. i think it's just sort of like fuel and used up. i forgot the last part of the qphsstio nf or did i get it? host: i think you got it.

i want to go back to the mle i that we've been showing from 2008 to 2010. do onea has this you'estion. hoo you think more states will be turning red in this nf st voting cycle? guest: i think it depends on what we're talking about. i think we're gw ng to have a very competitive presidential race. i would not begin to predih e i right now. but if the economic indicatorre and i noticed that the revision of third-quarter g.d.p. came in at 2 .8 instead of 3.2, whic how3 .00 is the point at which we sort of start to really look at job creatio nf

guest: i think the house, i think it wouldnt at change a tshole lot and i thi3 r if you were going to put odds on the presil iential racalki i would probably . i ve the president a little higher odds of getting reeldidted than not. keep in mind only one newly elected president has lost re-eleh eion which was waimknox carter losing to ronald reagan. eldidted presil ients see wto have or tend to have a lot more re stillian as i than we give them washedit for. host: grinn't e herbert walker bush succeeded ronald reagan. guesedi yes. cas maer was the only newly elected president that took repuber fro wthe other sil ie to sose. but the problem is when you come over, you get your lease renewed once and carter-reagan is the when george herbes ma

tsalker es. nf but that's the only time at least going back to roosevelt-iephsman that the party was able to win a third straight time. hoo that but we've got a long way to go. host: our viewers liked your you'estion. tweeting in talk to michael more, mr. president. fphsst: that would be one person. just make sure you're talking to who you know you're talking to and not a david coke a feaux david coke. host: good motheying. caller: my question is the incidents that are going on in the mil idle east as far as obviously you've gottliebya, greece. do you see aeau of the type of protesting that's going on over there, do you see that ah euall

ieicklating in the -- do you see maybe certain states that are turning more reper klican? ico you see a lot more protests in each individual state and do you see that swaying the next presidential election if enough states get together and see the i guess you could say order that's going on in these other countries, do you see that having an affect on the next presidenthal case? >> well, i thi3 r you rrdssed a steent storm we were not seeing that. themaychayou weren't seeing the protests you're seeing in greetia with sy je of the gending and budblyt cutbacks over there. and the reason was we wereng i doing anything. we weren't doing anything dramatic. so naiody had aeau reason to

particularly protest. because we weren't tr,ing a lot of the tough ah eio nf it would be very interesting to watch. i was talking to sy je britigo. government officials yesterday, and the blicblyt cut, f ses that prime minister cthe lron has pu into place, they don't really start and cicking in until apri that's when the pain from the cutbacks and theirteaery aggresscoke m repubes to balant their budget start kicking in. but as blicblyt cut, f ses. severe blicblyts stas ma gw ng place, yes, you're going to have pea le stas ma swasheamin ble atdy murderer. that's what happens. but the truth we the protests are a ls the ical outcome when start administering tough medi6 c13 bne. repupresie the cut, f ses go back too far, maybe not far enough.

but aeau cut, f ses drysical pain, and when there's pain, people scream. and that so i think you're going to see a lot more of it. and whether it impacts on the presidential race, who knows? hosedi we're talking to charls ce atk who writes for the "congress daily" and the editor and per kligo.er of "the ce atk political report." we have a tweet saying obama may be beatenmay- o, f repu may carter, if unemployment remains high and gas. guesedi i dong i thi3 r this situation in libya is going to remain wheres the today more than a week or % pro weeks or a month. that's just my h" see w l spikes that economists

will tell you that oil has to remrdsn ethinkraordiobrily h ih for lliout a year before fofe -- it will have a political ithe but before that. and in terms of inemployment. my general rule of thumb is in the last report, it was 9%. and it was kind of squirly. t one before that waslig.4 and before that 9.8. but i think unemployment.8 -- i think iftestsnethe down to 8%, closer to 8%, i think it would be harder for reper klicans to debate him. unemployment had been up to 10.8% at thes eldidtion and dropped down to