beginning at 9:00 a.m. eastern. in 45 minutes, illinois republican joe walsh on federal spending and the economy. then, the chairman of the congressional tarp oversight panel, ted kaufman. japanese military helicopters are dumping more water onto the crippled nuclear power plant. initial reports said that it is not clear whether the water drops succeeded in cooling down the reactor. the u.s. authorized the first evacuation of americans last night of the japan. here in washington, we are covering hearings with the head of the u.s. geological survey, also the head of fema -- both of

those will be alive today on c- span3. on the floor of the u.s. senate, the continuing resolution, a three week temporary extension of government funding. that will go on to the president for his signature. on the floor of the house of representatives, they will take a bill to defund npr, national public radio. the mid-afternoon vote is expected there. we want to get your thoughts for this first 40 minutes of "washington journal." democrats -- (202)737-0002. republicans -- (202)737-0001. independents -- (202)628-0205. the houses in at 9:00 a.m. eastern today, so we will have just the two-hour "washington journal." "the washington post" shows workers carrying the body removed from a village following the tsunami and the earthquake

did the headline says "anxiety over nuclear plant deepens. the u.s. appraisal is more dire than japan's." we learned that yesterday. the state department is offering to is that we americans from three cities. six days into the world's worst nuclear emergency in 25 years, the crisis is worsening. the u.s. has offered wednesday night to evacuate family members of the state department -- that's the front page of the washington post "." "the new york times" --

that came from the hearing we heard yesterday. the sub-head says -- there is a story just below that that says, in tokyo, there is a dearth of kacandor.

we will have more a little bit later, a lot more in the papers today. we want to get to the npr story. the houses in at 9:00 a.m. they will take up this legislation around early afternoon. the final vote and could happen around 3:00 p.m. the house is to vote on the gop plan to block and your funding. the bill is number 1076. it would prohibit federal money from being used to directly fund or purchase content from npr. the house will consider the measure under a closed rule. the rule would block any attempts to amend the bill. what do you think about this effort we have read so much about? brentwood, california, cliff,

republican. you are up first. caller: this video that is 45 minutes long shows the director discussing with the donors how they could take the $5 million and keep it secret from auditors. it's really clear that npr is a liberal outfit, which is fine, but why should all americans subsidize it? especially in times like these, when we cannot afford medicare. the obama care cut medicare by $500 billion. we cannot afford that in times like these. the director also says that, without that kind of the nation -- donation, stations would go dark. npr cannot sustain itself in the market. it is a money-loser.

host: thank you for calling. let's hear from bernice, a democrat. caller: we should fund and pr. -- npr. host: what you think of the gop- led effort to defund? what you think this is all about? caller: this is just political. you know, they are just trying to find a way where the democrats cannot get the information as far as voting. this is going to hurt only the small radio stations, not the larger ones. they only get, what? 10% of government funds, 90% funded by private donors. is that not true? host: thank you for your thoughts. let's get some details from jordan fabian on this

legislation. he is a staff writer for "of the hill." -- for "the hill." can you help us understand the bill? guest: this bill will be on the floor for a vote today. this bill targets and pr directly and would permanently ban -- npr directly and would permanently ban the federal government from giving npr money. it would prevent local public radio stations from using federal funds to pay their npr dues and acquire programming from npr. it's essentially cutting off npr from the federal government on a permanent basis. host: how much money are we talking about, and what does it mean to npr if it goes away? guest: it is not much money. this bill -- and be our receives about $5 million in direct

federal funding -- npr received about $5 billion in direct federal funding last year. it is not that much money. obviously, this thing is very targeted. host: why this and why now, mr. fabian? guest: there have been a couple of controversies that have gotten republicans riled up about npr. the decision to fire news analyst juan williams and the video that was released a couple of weeks ago that showed an npr executive saying, first of all, it was slamming conservatives. it said that npr could survive without public funds. republicans turned around and said, why don't we take away their funding? host: paint a picture for the floor debate. what will this be like? guest: it's going to be a closed debate.

they had an emergency meeting in the rules committee yesterday to bring this to the floor. there'll be a closed-door meeting. there will not be much involvement. it will be one hour of debate and they will move to the boat. if the legislation moves to the senate, it has a slim chance of passing, considering the democrats control it. president obama has defended funds for public radio in the past. i would assume he would not signs of been like this. host: what can we look forward to in terms of debate today? guest: npr has been able to self-fund. they say that the corporation for public broadcasting only -- it should be 70% of their funding. npr has shown that it has a left-wing by its -- bias. defenders say that npr need the

federal funds -- needs the federal funds. npr and public media serves under-served areas. entertainment programs that they might not normally get and they are important to fund. host: jordan fabian, thank you. what do you have on the final vote on the continuing resolution in the senate today? guest: the continuing resolution -- there are about six senators who will vote against it. last time, the bill passed 91 to 9. there will be a few more senators voting against it, but i still believe it is going to pass. it will be and the president's desk by 5:00 a.m. -- it will be on the president's desk by 5:00 a.m. to avoid a government shutdown.

host: thank you. back to your calls now. the house is going to vote on whether to end funding for npr. what do you think? caller: sesame street, all of these wonderful things -- i am sure people are not all left- wing or democrats. it seems kind of silly. charlie rose, ken burns. i do not have all the facts. $1.35 perhing about person, like half a penny per day. cultural jazz and art can be seen on npr. this is very strange. host: let's move on to joe in

san francisco, the republican line. your thoughts this morning. [low and indistinct chatter] -- caller: this is a nice thing -- to cut money. $5 million -- i would like to have a quarter of that -- but $5 million is just a drop in the bucket. it is probably not going to hurt "charlie rose" or "sesame street." but it may hurt somebody in -- wherever -- iowa. host: we're talking more possibly about npr radio -- more specifically about npr. caller: i watch and listen to npr. it gets to people in rural areas that do not have a lot of funding. it is not going to hurt anybody in new york, san francisco, miami, des moines.

but it is going to hurt people in towns of 5000 that do not live anywhere near a big city. like the last caller said, it is like 3 cents per day or 5 cents per day for the average american to pay for this. host: joe, appreciate your thoughts. this measure is part of a broader debate over the corporation for public broadcasting. it is a non-profit entity created by congress to finance our book broadcasting -- public broadcasting.

let's hear what chicago has today. james on our democrat line. caller: it surprised me about the republican party. they will not ban giving money to billionaires' and trainers, -- billionaires and tri llionaires. it is ludicrous to me that they want to take money from poor people. that's all it is. it is just greed. purely greed. that's all i look edit, agreed.

host: moving on to another caller. your thoughts? caller: i believe that this country is in a war with itself. i would love to have $1 million to do anything i wanted to do with it. they can get all the funding they want from all of their rich, liberal friends. george soros could write a check right now and pay for npr. "the new york times" is totally left-wing biased. the more money they get, the more money they will use. i see harry reid crying about cowboy poetry. "is only $1 million, it's only $1 billion." the average person cannot even conceive of what $1 million is. this country is broke.

we have no more money to spend. and to have the democrats up there crying about it's only $1 million, it's only $1 billion -- they throw money around like drunken sailors. we're spending our grandchildren's money. we will be taken over by every other country that we owe money to. you cannot survive on someone else's money. they are going to call on their debt = = in their debt. host: schaumburg, illinois, a democratic caller. caller: good morning, c-span. i have watched the republican house since they have taken charge with speaker boehner. nothing has gotten done. they cut programs. they have been stalling and wasting time.

this is a joke. it is a waste of time. i want to know when are they going to create jobs and come up with the jobs plan, period. that's all the american people care about is jobs, jobs, and more jobs. that's it. anything else is a waste of time. everything the new house has done with the tea party republicans has been a waste of the american people's time and tax dollars. host: u.s. house comes in at 9:00 a.m. eastern time, beginning with one-minute speeches, then debate over afghanistan troops under the war powers act. here is the print-out of eric cantor, the majority leader's daily schedule. they will take up the rule that will set up debate -- they will set up a bit, then debate for one hour, no amendments, and look for a final vote around

3:00 eastern time. it will be about the same time the senate might be voting about the continuing res -- continuing resolution on c-span2. we have a call from scottsdale, arizona. donald gummer independent. what you make of this republican house effort? theer: it's an effort on republican party to try to keep the real news out of the individual's psyche. there is no telling how big a tax break fox news gets and they are owned by rupert murdoch, a man who is not even a citizen of the united states. the republicans, you know, they want to limit the knowledge going out to the public. they, you know, back in the

1960's and 1970's and 1980's, before the fall of the u.s.s.r., they had the propaganda arm of the communist party. that is what we have with fox news now. fox news is the propaganda arm of the republican party. and i think, you know, the republicans try to do anything they can to try and limit the from thehe true news individuals out in the countryside. and i think that's a shame. host: thank you, donald. we will continue on this topic for the next 20 minutes or so and then move onto other items in the program, including the

budget, including the tarp program later. here is 1 twitter message. if you want to send us a tweet, our address is twitter.com/cspan. there are lots of different ways to get into the program. from one viewer, it's a free country. harry is on the line for democrats from philadelphia. what do you make of this npr bill? caller: the whole thing makes me sick. republicans in general make me sick. the gentleman from alabama really hit the nail on the head when he said that they depend on keeping their rank-and-file ignorant. that is the whole purpose of fox news is to keep people in ignorance. when i think about $5 million, y ou know, we spent $5 million on

dick cheney's medical costs and his protection. here is a man with the blood of 100,000 people on his hands. i would really rather see the money go to npr then keeping that fellow on the planet. host: page 2 of a washing of times go -- of "the washington times."

that is in "the washington times." representative earl blumenauer from oregon spoke on the house floor yesterday about this. here is what he had his say. >> this proposal would prohibit public -- not just purchase of npr, which is the target. ironically, national public radio has a miniscule level of support from the federal government. most of this money flows to provide content and programming to smaller stations, rural, small town america, where they do not have the financial base to be able to provide robust public broadcasting. host: that was from the house floor yesterday. back to your calls. republican, susan, va.

good morning. caller: good morning. when you hear people calling in and asking where are the jobs, why do we not dissect what republicans and the tea party members are trying to do in congress to give us jobs? they are trying to bring down what we owe as a country. 70 cents of every dollar. people do not get that. $5 million or npr -- whenever the amount -- $5 million for npr, whatever the amount, every little bit counts. when you see what people are doing at their kitchen tables, they do cut $5 a year, $10 here. in washington, that is $5 million here, $10 million here. i agree with the caller who said -- george soros, all the wonderful millionaires and billionaires -- bill gates. they should put their money, instead of in other countries in the world, back here in the united states, supporting npr

and the wonderful programs that everybody is trying to strike away. we need to start but never ourselves and the reality of what it would take to get -- start looking at ourselves and the reality of what it would take to help businesses grow in this country. we're basically just talking in circles in terms of everything that we want, everything we expect our government to give us. the fact that $5 million, $10 million, $1 million, $1 billion -- they make a difference. we need to stop looking and asking for everything and looking where we need to cut to make all of this happen. thank you very much. host: here is an e-mail from one viewer to the first caller this morning. "we cannot afford to not fund npr --

matt is on the line from clearwater, florida. good morning. caller: hello. i believe -- you might know the answer to this better than i would -- but i believe it was thomas jefferson who once stated that education is the best defense against tyranny. what you're seeing happen right now with the attack on npr and public education in general, it basically comes down to this -- you are talking about people are talking -- people are talking about how they want to get their jobs back here republicans, especially john mccain -- get their jobs back. republicans, especially john mccain when he ran in 2008, saying, these jobs are not coming back, it gives an indication as to where the republicans are on this issue as far as outsourcing. they were completely behind it.

they see no point in trying to get jobs back here. now, they are trying to cut pbs and npr and all of these public, educational all let's. they are doing it for several reasons. it is to create ignorance in our society. that is what it is. when you consider thomas dickerson and benjamin franklin and james madison thomas -- thomas jefferson, benjamin franklin, james madison -- they were students of the enlightenment movement. that was how they learned to appreciate democracy. you take that away from people, you take education away from people, they cannot be taught of the principles of democracy. host: that was matt from clearwater, florida. jean is on the line. what the make of this house vote today? caller: i think it is really

sad that the republicans are attacking the port of the country -- poor of the country. people in kentucky will no longer have pbs and learn how to read. already, a lot of them have trouble learning and pulling themselves up by their bootstraps. that's what brings you up, education. they are cutting education from the poorest of the country. that is how they do them. they take away headstart, planned parenthood. those are jobs that they are cutting. they are cutting $5 million. i do not know how many people they are hurting to cause themselves to save $5 million. they will be the first ones to stand up and say we are against

abortion. do they not know that the same children that they want to be born -- they are taking food out of their mouths. they are taking education out of their mouths. they want to say that as the american way. i want republicans to know that we have a lot of different people from different countries. it is sad to hear them talk about us. it's sad. when you talk about america, people are listening. people all over the world, people on fox talk about it. it's japan's fault that they've got the earthquake. host: thank you. terry from florida.

npr bill in the house to defund npr. what do you think? caller: i think that it should be funded. the more people -- the more jobs we cut, you know npr will have to lay off some people because of this. the more people we lay off, the more people are going to get laid off. the people at npr shop at local stores. now, they are going to have to cut back. we are like in a downward spiral. you said republican. i vote for whoever the best person is g. i do not agree with the tea party. to me, they do not represent america. we need to create more jobs, not look at laying off people. host: thank you, caller. let's take a look at twitter. here is another message on the

npr bill. one of the editorials and "the new york times" calls in "the new york times" comments on this.

n.c., ward, you're on the line. independent caller. caller: i listen to npr almost every day. if they take away my funding, i will not vote for my republican representative. i do not vote for him anyway. he is just like these tea party idiots. no, don't take my npr away. i agree with most of your callers, except for those tea party callers. that lady is an idiot.

host: james in los angeles, california, a democractic caller. what -- democratic caller. what are your thoughts? caller: we are paying lower taxes than ever. the middle-class is not progressing financially. there is just not the man. the people with the money are not investing because there is no demand so they do not see any benefit. your interview with fabian -- you took what he said at face value, including the so-called republican activists, is so- called interview with the and pr people. those were highly-edited. this guy has been disgraced and times by legitimate journalists -- many times by legitimate

journalists. it is hard that you are taking at face value and passing it on as legitimate information. this is one thing that npr tried to -- tries to avoid, this un knowledgeable, and informed news that you displayed -- uninformed news that you displayed there. host: thank you. that is on the front page of "usa today" on this thursday. some news out of china on all of this the financial times "" reports that china is halting nuclear projects -- some news on

china -- out of china on all of this. "the financial times" reports that china is halting nuclear projects. "the washington post" points out that officials in the u.s., obama officials, they write, are defending the nuclear program. unlike some countries, the u.s. has no plans to shut down plants, something steven chu talked about yesterday at this hearing. here is what he said. >> [no audio] host: let's move on to another caller. laurel, maryland, sean.

caller: the firing of juan williams brought about an in- house review by npr. they found they are left- leaning, so i would this be the first caller. george soros gave $1.24 million toward them last year. we know what george soros is about. with my e-mail contact six months ago -- every little three- to five-minutes, they mention obama's name. that's when he's not on vacation. they are a left-wing extension of the democratic party. they are definitely biased. i dispute the contention that they are not biased.

host: we want to go back to the clip of steven chu. >> does the president support new nuclear power plant construction in the united states? >> the present budget is what it is. we are asking for loan guarantees. the present budget is also calling for modular reactors. position has not changed. >> soap that is a yes? >> yes. host: back to "u.s.a. today." it points that there is a slower reaction to the japanese cause. wall street journal poll -- "the

wall street journal talks about the iaea. that is the wall street journal. westminster, md., wayne of the democratic line. caller: good morning. i do not know how many people are familiar with npr. every week, they have "hot jazz saturday night," which is old

jazz from the 1920's and through the war years. they play educational radio. corporate media favorites, fox news -- they like constantly about the weapons of mass destruction in iraq, sending our troops to a war that was presented to us based strictly on lies and innuendo. npr was a shining light above that. npr was pacifica. they were yelling even louder, these were lies, these were lies. if they take this media away

from us, we're doomed to be controlled by the same people who brought us adolf hitler and his gang. host: the u.s. house votes today on whether to end funding for npr. what do you think? caller: taxpayers would be better served if we donated the money to c-span. they come the closest, in my opinion, for being unbiased. people can listen to you all and make up our own minds. host: fond du lac, wisconsin. we do not take taxpayer money here, for the record. caller: i will make the short and sweet. 1 1/2 minutes. unlike other callers, i like to listen to all media. npr is one of the great ones.

they have some great entertainment. one thing i recall -- all media back in 1995 -- bill clinton gave china most favored nation status, opening the door to all of our businesses going over there. bush had nothing to do with losing our jobs. i have heard that on npr, fox, all the others. i say give them as much money as they need. all of the media is better than no media at all. thank you. bill clinton gave the jobs wickremanayake bush. clear it up. listen to other stations -- gave the jobs away. not bush. clear that up here listen to other stations. host: from e-mail --

las vegass, tj, democrat. good morning. caller: good morning. your callers are something else. elizabeth warren is trying to clean it up here the same people who are trying to take npr's money -- clean it up. the same people who are trying to take npr's money are trying to get rid of elizabeth warren. if we can fund wars that i do not necessarily agree with -- we find churches and religious things -- the government funds everything. they can fund npr. there are a lot of people out there that need it in the little towns and everything. as far as jobs are concerned, when you stop paying all of these senators to run the country and when they stop money from -- stop getting money from all of these businesses and the

campaign's finance, maybe we can get people who are there to do the work, not just fill there pockets. we can start taxing companies. the reason that we have all of these money problems is because we are allowing our citizens and our cars people -- senators and congress people, because they want to keep their pockets lined, to go offshore, pocket their banking, have their business, come back and sell it to us. host: got the point, caller. we appreciate your contribution -- everybody's contributions. we found this story in "the washington times." "eight countries that do not -- aid targeted for countries that do not like us."

that is in the "washington times." "the washington post" -- this was after a day of negotiations inside the u.n. security council. it remained unclear whether the u.s. or allied governments are making concrete plans to intervene militarily against the dock the's forces.

they pull out he is making significant gains on the ground. santa barbara, california, a republican. what do you think of the and your funding bill? caller: -- the npr funding bill? caller: i have had experience with one company that had a program nearby. we were very comfortable with the crew. they were great. the whole thing was ridiculous. bobby luck -- bob vila was a complete fraud. he did not know a hammer from a chain saw. the group was staying in a five- star hotel. the biggest problem of the day was where are we going to eat, because there are a lot of nice restaurant in santa barbara. they were great people and i enjoyed the show, but they were

not on any kind of stringent budget. i am not sure whether that applies to the radio station as well. anyway, that is my own knowledge. thank you. host: one last call from here in the district, tony, independent. what do you think? caller: it's a red herring. they are not going to address any kind of problem. they will not have to deal with real problems. they go after npr and baseball players who used steroids. this economy is owned by the central bankers. they're not there to address real problems like the pentagon receiving taxpayer money that they cannot even account for.

they are giving money out to operations like mk-ultra to convince people to think in a certain way. the pentagon funding newspapers and movies and things like act to brainwash people -- like that to brainwash people. they pushed the illegal invasion in iraq and masked it as a war. they probably never think about -- [unintelligible] the thing about npr is just a red herring. people are caught up in supervision positions of democrat and republican when they are working together. the democrats cannot do anything without republicans and the

republicans cannot do anything without the democrats. they take a few democrats and crossed them over to the republicans. they take a few republicans and across them over to the democrats -- and cross them over to the democrats. host: that was tony. we got close to 30 of you in for this first 45 minutes of the program. president obama takes part in some st. patrick's day activities at the white house. we have some video this morning of a green fountain in honor of st. patrick's day. in a couple of minutes, about 45 minutes, we'll talk with ted kaufman of the congressional oversight panel on tarp, a former senator from delaware. coming up in a few minutes is congressman joe walsh, a republican from illinois.

we will be right back. >> this weekend on c-span's wrote to the white house, herman cain on the economy, the spiraling downward of america, and whether he will run for the republican nomination. >> i put my toe in the water. it is now up to my neck. feedback we've gotten from people across this country -- tens of thousands who are willing to volunteer. >> this sunday at 6:00 27:30 p.m. eastern and pacific. >> in the 1960's and 1970's -- >> she heads the nonprofit partnership for new york city. she will talk about how new york can regain that position. >> with wall street's

reemergence, new york city was really pulled into the global economy and became america's gateway into the economy and has really prospered ever since. now watch the rest of the interview sunday night on c-span boss "q&a." -- c-span2's "q&a." >> this weekend, american history to v. panelists will talk about the rise and fall of enron. they will remember -- we will remember the tragedy of the fire that killed 146 young people, mostly women. this year marks the 10th anniversary of 9/11. for the complete schedule, go to suspend or -- c-span.org.

>> "washington journal" continues. host: our guest is joe walsh, republican from illinois, at eighth district, palatine, mchenry, zion. we have been talking about something that you will be voting on today, the defunding of npr. why this bill now? how are you going to vote? guest: it interesting. there are a lot of important things we have been dealing with -- it is interesting. there are a lot of important things we have been dealing with. a lot of areas need to be looked at. i do not want to get into the liberal-conservative bias. the world has changed. it isn't needed. there are so many private sources for news and programming. it is just like so many of these

often very well-intentioned government programs. they get into the system and they are hard to get out. people are so hesitant to look at things. i do not see the need anymore for npr. i think the market works. there are more important places that the government should be sending money. host: let's get to other matters, the continuing resolution, which the senate votes on today. yo uvot -- you voted no. how come? guest: i did not think it was bold enough. i think the american people are ahead of us. they're ready for a very respectful fight on how much the government is spending and what the government should be doing. i would welcome that. i think it would be a good, healthy thing. host: you voted yes, previously, on the cr. explain your thinking? guest: i give the democratic

leadership credit. -- the republican leaders of credit. they asked for a couple of weeks to get the democrats to talk. i have to be honest. it is like republicans are talking with themselves. the white house are absent. democrats in the senate do not seem to understand what spending cuts are. i give speaker boehner and the leadership a lot of credit because they took two weeks to try to have the discussion. host: the phone numbers are on the bottom of the screen for our guest, joe walsh, a freshman member who won by 291 votes. guest: landslide. host: after a recount. we have a lot of pertinent matters to talk about. he is a member of the republican study committee. why did you run in the first place? what is your goal in washington? guest: i ran because i felt like

a lot of these members of the freshman class felt. i felt like i was losing my country. i felt like this country that i loved and adored -- i almost did not recognize it the last few years. there is an amazing debate going on right now about the role of government. it did not start with president obama. for the last two years, clearly, there is a mindset that once washington, d.c., more involved in people's lives. i think the american people have recoiled against that. it has been what send a lot of people like me to washington. we are respectfully hellbent on stopping what has been going on the last couple of years and beginning to turn it around. host: there is a headline in "usa today" that speaks to this. they point out that folks are irked that 30 members backed the

bill. what you make of the others who voted for it? guest: the media just assume this entire freshman class is one block. we are not. there is a core group of fiscal conservatives in the house. many of whom are freshmen. they opposed the cr. i think the tea party's instinct are correct here -- instincts are correct here. -- boldlyto vold have the fight. host: "the new york times" --0 broad question -- how is the gop leadership doing so far? guest: this may surprise you, but i think wonderfully. i think the tone that the

speaker has said has been masterful from day one. humble andand -- resolute. you do not see republicans walking around and high- fiving one another. i sleep in my office. i am not taking benefits. speaker boehner has listened to the freshmen. i'm amazed at the amount of listening that has been going on. he has a tough chore. even though i voted against this cr, to me, it was a strategic difference of opinion. adding speaker boehner's has done a great job. -- i think speaker boehner's done a great job. host: what about complaints

about the leadership? guest: i expected the freshman class to come in and have real tension with the leadership right away. i was amazed at how open-armed the leadership was. in general, i have been pleasantly surprised. there is tension and there has been tension. we have helped turn the conference in a different direction. speaker boehner understands every bit as joe walsh does that we're in a financial crisis. we're going to take on entitlement reform. white house will not, but we will. speaker boehner has called it a moral failure if we do not appear that is good stuff -- if we do not. it that is good stuff. host: first caller, mass achusetts. caller: i think everybody agrees that the most important of congress at this time is to

create jobs. when jobs are created, that will grow the economy, bring in the revenue, close down the deficit. i would like to ask you if you are aware of the fact that, during the first 18 months of the barack obama administration, when we had a democratic house and a democratic senate, more private-sector jobs were created in those first 18 months than were created in the eight years of the bush administration. the republican cuts, according to most analysts, republican analysts, are going to destroy, take away, at least 700, possibly 1 million jobs from the economy at this critical moment. can you please comment on that? guest: thank you. respectfully, i disagree with your numbers.

historically, most experts would say, when it comes to the recovery, this has probably been the most anemic -- in fact, it has been the most anemic jobs recovery we have had. i do not blame president obama for the recession. this recovery is is. when you compare the job creation in this recovery to pass recoveries, it is not even close. again, this is a difference of opinion. i think everything this president has set out to do as per to job creation. republican philosophy -- to do has hurt job creation. we will be steadfast in going after what we do believe are government regulations that killed jobs. we need to get government out of the way. i think right now -- i know this. when it comes to the health care legislation, a lot of these

regulations, a business, right now, is holding back. they are afraid to hire. host: good morning, darrell. caller: good morning. i listened to the ignorant put out by the left-wing loons. it's amazing. y'all made this npr separate. in other words, you're telling me, as a tea party member, i am stupid. you know good and well that the bill cannot go anywhere. why was it not part of the cr? i mean, i guess you think we are stupid. we put you boys there to get the job done. we expect this deficit to be cut. i mean, i do not know what it is -- what do we got to do to get through to you people? what is it?

host: darrell wants more. guest: have some patience. i want more as well. the freshmen conservatives have done well to push the party to do more. guest: i voted a month ago for a full cr that asked for the full $100 billion. i am not convinced that this npr vote is going anywhere. can you imagine if a couple conservative causes -- leaders of conservative causes -- had been caught saying what they said? there would be an uproar in the media. i think the time is right and the senate may well go along with this to the fund -- defund npr >

host: april 8 is the operative date. if it comes down to it, will you vote to shut the government down? guest: i do not mean to sound like a politician. i will vote for as many spending cuts as we can get. i will vote to defund obamacare, npr, and the epa. if we cannot come close to an agreement, do i want the government to be shut down? no, but made the government shut down? yes. there are many of us that feel, as a country, we need to be shaken up. host: speak to entitlements. that is where people say the real money is. exactly, what would your approach be?

guest: no doubt, this exercise we have been doing this past month -- we are going at small pieces of the pie. we know that. but it does not minimize the importance of what we're doing. the biggest money is in entitlements. shame on the president's for absolutely providing the leadership. he puts out his budget and does not touch it, purely for political reasons. he is begging republicans to put our necks out there. he does not need to beg us. we understand we have to. i think you are going to see, paul, when we come out with our budget, not just language on social security, medicare, medicaid, but specific form ideas with medicaid block granting, returning it to the states so that governors can deal with it.

medicare is a big issue, as well as social security. we want to be clear, this is a generational understanding. folks our age and younger, we have to present different options to. the baby boomers are just turning to retire. medicare and social security are not sustainable. host: next phone call. independent line. you are on with congressman wallacwalsh. caller: your ideas for cutting funding to npr, planned parenthood, it seems like it is only social programs that are on the chopping block with republicans. what about israel? i am not saying we should cut off foreign aid entirely, but this is a huge chunk of

seemingly ineffective money. they voted against us in the un. why are you supporting this if you are for fiscal responsibility? guest: oftentimes, republicans put out things that need to be cut and ignore the usual suspects. i can tell you, republicans are open to and are going to examine -- let me start with the facts. the defense department. there is much that can be cut in defense. there is much that we can do to make the defense department more efficient and not jeopardize what we're doing. when it comes to what government should be doing, it is a matter of priorities. clearly, i am and limited government conservative who wants my government to do a few things and do it well. defending ourselves is one of the major chores of government.

when it comes to foreign aid -- i saw in your earlier segment -- there is a proposal to reduce foreign aid to each and every country. it is a wonderful idea. we should look at who we are giving money to. too often, the money goes to opponents of hours. too often, the money never reaches the source where it should reach. israel is our closest ally in the world, certainly in that region. they are awash in a sea of enemies that are trying to annihilate the country. ands in israel's interest our interest to expand whatever resources we can to defend the country. but when it comes to other countries, i love the idea. host: on twitter, a bit more detail on defense.

which foreign bases should close, they ask. guest: there is much duplication that goes on in the fence. there is much inefficiency here and abroad. there are probably bases outside of america that we can look at. our focus should be that we are engaged on -- in a war on terror. this will be a long, drawn-out battle. we are up against a radical strain of people that want to kill us. we need to spend every dime we have and then some to go after that. but having bases in certain parts of the world where we are still fighting in world war ii mentality, absolutely, we need to look at that. host: there is a second part to that tweet. when would you and the wars in iraq and afghanistan? guest: clearly, we ran at a

point where we will have a presence in iraq that will continue to minimize. afghanistan is the big one. i have always been part of a group of us up here that says we have to stay there and do the job and win. from the folks back home, that is tougher to say every week. what i do not want to do, there is an enemy there, and i do not want to give them an idea when we're going to pull out. we are still engaged there. david petraeus testified this week, seemed to offer a fairly optimistic view of how things are going. in my mind, the commanders in the field are calling the shots. the american people are getting pretty impatient, though. this is an issue we have lost track of because we have been so

involved in the financial battle here. we aren't losing men and women all the time and we are spending a lot of money even republicans want to take a focus on what we are doing. host: beverly from hartford, california. good morning. are you there? let's try inverness, florida. ben. caller: happy st. patrick's day. i agree with stopping funding for npr. people seem to forget that the veteran and social security benefits -- there has been no increase for the past four years. i am a 100% disabled navy vet.

i know there are lot of legalities involved, but possibly, something that could create jobs in the united states, all these things about the highways, cleaning up roads, and these things that are voluntarily done, if it was funded by state or federal governments to give people some sort of pay, a bit of pride in themselves, and then that money would go back into the economy, instead of having voluntary work or work done by prisoners, work camps. i think that could be beneficial. guest: thank you. i believe every dollar you take out of washington and you put into the private sector, that will go toward job creation.

we need an energy policy in this country. if we can drill on our shores and land, that will go a long ways to creating jobs. we are overdue in improving our infrastructure in this country. we are not interested in temporary work. we need to cut down what this city does, send that money back into the private sector, and the private sector will create jobs. that is what we believe. host: miami, florida. sylvia, a democrat. caller: i would like to find out what is in the water that the tea party caucus is drinking. i have been following closely what they have been doing. they are cloaked in the mantle of fiscal responsibility. what they are pursuing is a

social agenda, like npr, planned parenthood, denying citizenship to babies born in the u.s. to immigrant parents. john boehner keeps asking where are the jobs. i have not seen one single bill, moved towards creating jobs. host: a social agenda. guest: i disagree, but i love the fact you are informed. it is not a social agenda. there is a once in every 50, 70- year fight in this country about what we want our government to do. i used to teach american government. both republicans and democrats want us to be energy efficient. both want us to have good schools. both want us to have businesses

that create jobs. we disagree vehemently on how we go about doing those things. the democratic party generally once the government to do more. we have seen that. it has not worked the past couple of years. it is one got a lot of republicans elected in the house. we have a different mindset. we believe businesses, churches, the private sector is where the focus should be. host: 15 minutes left with our guest, and joe walsh from illinois. member of the small business committee, tea party caucus, member of the republican study committee. tell us about yourself how did you get to your way of thinking? guest: born and raised in chicago. i did some social work, i was a teacher.

i have worked, from day one, to advance free-market causes. what i worked on the longest was school choice, school vouchers. given the choice to families to allow -- giving family is the choice to decide where they want to send their kids to school. the more we ask government to do, the less we ask of ourselves. that has always been my philosophy. it comes from the policy world. i ran two years ago because i was scared about the direction the country was going. it was going so quickly in a direction i did not believe in. host: you will be asked soon to vote on the country's debt. a big but that we all know is coming. how will you vote, and what, if anything, should be tied to the

vote? guest: i will give the politically, maybe, not correct answer. this country that we love -- and it is happening right now -- needs to be woken and shaken up. i do not like the notion of raising the debt ceiling, because future generations will never forgive us for this. clearly, for something like that to happen, there needs to be something major on the spending, spending reform side, like a balanced reform amendment, entitlement reform. something that is a clear indicator that it is a long-term structural spending. host: edberg, massachusetts. scott is a republican. caller: thank you for taking my call. i would really appreciate when

people call, if they could give suggestions that are real, that the congressman could take with him. he is listening to people gripe, and that is okay, but in my opinion, this is a session to present some potential answers. i believe there should be a constitutional amendment that says for every ex-amount of citizenry in the country there can only be y-amount of public employed people. this would keep the control of government jobs, the ratio. another suggestion. everything made in this country should be tax-free. anything coming from overseas from countries who did not participate on the war on terror should have a war on terror attacks which cannot be

passed on to the consumer. real suggestion that the congressman could take back and present to congress and say, these are practical suggestions we could implement another thing. have the books open up and have any reputable firm look at it. if that comes to fruition, and that in evaluating agency gets a percentage of the savings. guest: i appreciate your sentiment. it is part of what we do here. we are here to listen to all sides. first, your final notion of opening up the books, you are beginning to see this happen in municipalities and states all over the country. it is a first step to limit what government does. we need to see what they do. when it comes to the notion of

taxing products coming in from other countries, we need to be careful. this is a worldwide market. american markets are now importing, exporting. we are all tied up together and we need to be careful about penalizing certain products because it may come back to bite us. host: speak to us about the exchange of ideas between the tea party caucus, folks like you, and leadership. how does it work on a regular basis? how do you put the pressure that you want to put on leadership? guest: we meet formally, informally, we rub elbows and talk on the floor. we pull each other aside in rooms and hallways. we have been meeting formally, as a class, with leadership once or twice a week. most of those sessions is us

talking and leadership listening. is it all hundred sorry? no, there have been some frank discussions. but the dialogue has been very active. host: another dealer wants more details on twitter. can you get specific? guest: medicare and medicaid were set up 50 years ago to be safety nets. they have now become middle class entitlements. when it comes to medicaid, the federal government needs to get that back to the state governors in a block grant so that they can more efficiently spend their money. we need to get back to an effective safety net for those who use it. one notion we need to look at is, the paul ryan road map model of a voucher for medicare

recipients, so that they can more efficiently spend their resources. when it comes to social security, this one is simpler. a lot of people still do not want to say it. it is ridiculous we have not raised the retirement age, and we need to do so soon. we need to look at means testing, benefits for wealthier recipients. we need to look at things where you take my generation and folks number than us and provide them all other options to plan for their retirement. we need to all put something on the table. everything that i said, people are typically afraid to say. they will say, my god, some special interest group is after me. i said at the beginning when we sat down, the people out there are miles ahead of where we are. host: san antonio.

john is a republican. caller: very interesting discussion this morning. i have one small problem. i do not think you or the average person in congress understands government does not create wealth. they only create thadebt. guest: thank you. caller: government workers live well. they work a lot better -- they live a lot better than the rest. by the way, they are the ruling class. every time they take a pay raise, we take a pay cut in the private sector. no one seems to understand that portion of it. why must government live so much better than we? they do not create wealth. the wealth they get is a result

of taxing me and others. i guess the question i need to ask is, how long do you think the private sector will carry the government on their backs? i kind of agree with the last caller, we need a better plan. right now, you guys do not have a good plan. i would like to see them cut the department of education today. guest: perhaps i have not been clear and i need more profit. this has always frustrated me. -- more coffee. people up here agree with you. the government does not create wealth or jobs. the republican philosophy is pretty simple. let the private sector take off, get the government out of the way. how long can the private sector

in your what is going on? not very long. that is a big part of why republicans were sent to washington, to provide relief for the private sector. the mind-set that has been in charge for the past two years believes the opposite. they believe and want government to create wealth. i want government to get out of the way, cut taxes, allow businesses to grow. host: team that is a democrat in ohio. good morning. caller: the health care bill, if it was repealed, would you cut the $800 out of the pell grant? with the cost of college going up, that one thing would be a big mistake. also, i was wondering, would you vote for the tax-oil subsidy to help balance the budget?

guest: thank you for specific questions. the telegram issue should not even be part of health care. it should be treated separately. -- pell grant issue should not even be part of the health care issue. when it comes to pell grants, othis is a tough issue. just about every office has been bombarded by people saying i know we need to cut government, but not my program. everything is on the table. this non-defense discretionary spending area we have been cutting has grown 25% in the last two years. what we are doing is proposing to get them back to levels before the more recent increase -- i am for getting her second issue. host: oil subsidies.

are you still there? guest: i am with you. we republicans tend to rattle on hard about welfare programs in government. we do not want government doing it, i agree. there is too much corporate welfare going on in the big cities as well. those all contribute to debt. host: you say that you want to term limit yourself. you plan to stop at three terms. with so much money involved, what can you accomplish in those six years, if you get them? guest: the self-limit has only exaggerated the real sense of mission that i need to get something done. having taught american government, republicans and democrats tend to come to the city, they stay a long time and become something different from the folks back home.

we need to get away from that. i need to become what i think our founders envisioned, which is a radically old form of revision. you sleep on your couch, it should not be comfortable, you go home on the time. and it is temporary. then you go back after eight, 10 years, and somebody else replaces you. i believe we can get a lot done. our job now is to stop and undo a lot of the harm that has been done. then i am hopeful we can begin turning things around and replacing everything. host: carolyn is our next phone call. ohio. caller: i have been listening and both of the callers covered the topics i wanted to talk about. i wanted to point out, he used the word entitlement.

people with social security field is entitlement. actually, it is an entitlement to the people of america. we paid social security all of our working lives. to use that word -- the government is the one that started to use that money for everything. my main issue, you want to make these cuts to workers and the poor. how about we go back into government and every one of you in state and federal take pay cuts, pay for your own top of the line insurance and pensions maybe that would give you a bigger budget to work with. i have been a registered republican all my life, but i will never vote republican again. host: final word from our guest. guest: i agree. it is important to lead by example.

i turned down my health and retirement benefits. when speaker danger took over, we -- boehner, took over, we cut our budget by 5%. it is not just poor, it is everyone. we need to radically diminish what government does so that we can inspire and build up the private sector again. host: congressman joe walsh, tea party member, republican study member. the first visit here on "wash. journal." we hope you will come back. the house of representatives comes in at 9:00 eastern time, but we will spend the next half hour talking about the t.a.r.p. program. we must be to ted kaufman, chairman of the congressional oversight panel, and your phone calls on t.a.r.p.

>> and the administration believes the have to be looking closely at the events in japan. as you said before, we have to apply whatever lessons can and will be learned. >> energy secretary steven chu testifying on the energy department's fiscal year budget. and nuclear power issues. watch the complete hearing now, online, at the c-span video library. it is washington, your way.

this weekend, on "after words" economic scales have been tipped in favor of the developing world. questions on whether obama wrote his memoirs. and three former high-level pentagon insiders take an inside look on how they operate. look for the complete schedule on booktv.org. host: at the table now is ted kaufman, former senator of delaware. chairman of the congressional oversight panel established by congress to oversee t.a.r.p., the troubled assets relief program. the final report has come out.

remind us what t.a.r.p. was intended to do guest. guest: you have to go back to 2009. it is important for us to remember what was going on then. i had just come into the senate and i was meeting with economic leaders in the country. there was concern about the future financial system in the u.s., in fact, the world. a lot of different programs were put in place to try to stop this panic that could steart. one of them was t.a.r.p. it was designed to do a bunch of things congress has charged. it was about stopping the panic. in that regard, the report says that the panic was stopped.

ben bernanke said be almost came close to a great depression, and i believe that is true. t.a.r.p. did a great deal to stop the panic, financial crisis. in that matter, it worked. my second point is, originally, people were talking about 70 -- $700 billion. 60% of americans believe that we have lost all the money. in all, it is going to only cost about $25 billion. the american people understand this. you create a feeling among some people in certain businesses that they are too big to fail, that they do not have to worry about failing. there is a problem with that. they begin to feel like they are too big to fail, they take risks. the final piece, clearly, t.a.r.p. was much better to wall

street than it was to main street. host: the congressional oversight panel will happen and this april 3. ted kaufman is here to give some of the details. the idea of too big to fail. this is from the panel report. you mentioned the public perception is that all the money is lost. how did it come to that? guest: frankly, in the beginning, nobody said it was not going to cost that much. it would be normal for people to think that the money is spent. and remember, this is a key issue in the 2009 campaign. bob bennett, a very conservative republican from utah, one of the reasons he was beat was because he voted for t.a.r.p.

there are a whole lot of folks out there who believe t.a.r.p. lost all the money. it was politically expedient to say that. host: could there be another t.a.r.p.-type program? guest: people ask that, i sure as hell hope we do not get stuck in that situation again. george bush, not seen as a government guy, bailout -- when faced with the situation -- he and secretary paulson, these are very conservative people. they went ahead with this program. ben bernanke, same kind of person. if we do not put in place the things we have to put in place to stop this, absolutely, we could be faced with this again. it is like everything else,

paul. if we do not put in place the things to prevent this from happening again, somebody in the future is going to be saying, how did we get here again? host: that leads me to one other question on the senate. what do you see them doing? these things to prevent, put things in place? guest: first, dodd-frank. that bill is key. i was here as a senator when it went through and i spoke about my concerns of it. there are a lot of things in dodd-frank that could help make this work out. if you have good regulators, if they decide they are going to take away too big to fail, put more capital in place, then we can have this happen, but right

now the answer is the regulators. host: the senate banking committee is meeting today. witnesses included several members from the committee -- guest: just me, tim massad. host: the acting assistant treasury secretary. we will get more information on the hearing and read about it in the papers tomorrow. first phone call. mary from lakewood, indiana. caller: i believe you did a good job in the two years that you were in there. i also watched elizabeth warren. i believe that she has done a great oversight job and is very much middle of the road, honest.

i am looking forward to her beginning in july, i believe, her program will be initiated. i am wondering why no one on wall street, other than bernie madoff, has been prosecuted? under fdr, i remember many people got prosecuted. i would like to see prosecution of those that made people homeless. there is so much suffering out there. i am looking forward to elizabeth morgan. we need oversight, not too big to fail. a lot of consolidation is going on. people need a simple home and a roof. i listened to "60 minutes" two weeks ago, and there was a

congress been talking about starving, homeless children. you can google him at mcdermott.house.gov, and you can click on the video. the children were talking about how they had to go to walmart to brush their teeth and wash up before going to school and how much their tummy hurt because they had nothing to eat. guest: one of my disappointment as a senator -- i came here and worked with senator leahy and senator grassley. i share your concern that not much has been done. as you say, bernie madoff. people not going to jail. people went to jail during the savings-and-loan crisis. one of our problems, by the time

we got the people in there, the trail was pretty cold. what happened after september 11 -- it was the right thing to do. the fbi agents, prosecutors moved over to look at terrorism. we had only about 250 booking at financial fraud. when the financial front hit us, we had about 1000. we put the money in the congress. congress had to put the money -- when i was in the senate, clearly -- i do not know if you saw this subcommittee on investigations. there were hearings on washington mutual. the inspector general for the treasury said that this was a financial fraud environment. so, no, it is disappointing that more people did not go to jail

or fined. host: you may remember ted kaufman was a senator from the state of delaware from 2009 to 2010, replaced joe biden when he became vice president. prior to being a senator, he served on then-senator joseph biden's chief of staff. host: next phone call. caller: i am still a republican but i am leaning more democrat these days. i am wondering how you feel about defunding npr. i like npr even though my life has been a republican voting record. i finally voted for obama in 2008. it was too many years of no regulation, lower taxes, too

much for the wreckage. -- the rich. it all fell into obama's lap at the end of the push the administration. i lost my job, i have come away from the republican point of view, and the more i hear about the regulation, no taxes, the more i see how important npr is. guest: i was on the board of whyy, the public television station in philadelphia. i am a big fan of npr. as a former senator, my big problem with this -- all this emphasis on domestic discretionary. that makes up less than 20% of the budget. there was a bank robber from philadelphia, and one day they

asked him, why did you run the bank? he said that is where the money is. all of this discretionary spending -- we have a $1.40 trillion deficit. we have to do something across the board. when bill clinton was president, we ran a surplus. the way we did it -- george h. w. bush broke his pledge, read my lips, no new taxes, and they went ahead and implemented pay go. then bill clinton passed the largest tax increase in history. in 1999, we were running a surplus. erskine bowles and alan simpson came up with a good plan. that is what we have to do. this concentration on domestic discretionary -- let me put it this way. we can eliminate all domestic discretionary -- everything --

and we would have close to a $700 billion deficit. we could eliminate all domestic discretionary and defense and it would be $200 billion. everything has to be on the table. host: the senate banking committee will be holding a hearing today on t.a.r.p. with the special inspector general for t.a.r.p. and others. you can watch it today on 10:00 -- at 10:00 on c-span. ted kaufman is our guest. our next phone call is lawrence. caller: my problem is the debt that this country owes. i have been a professor of math for 20 years. i doubt if any of your listeners or guests at truly

understand what $1 trillion means. the way the congressional budget office at figures it, that math does not work. you cannot set up artificial boundaries and bass lines around legislation and, not with an accurate picture. we 0 $15 trillion, and we are at a tipping point. since most people do not understand, let me put it in terms of arithmetic, so everyone understands. if we paid this debt off at $1 per second, how long would it take to pay this off? do you know? guest: a long, long, long time. host: on the t.a.r.p., as we look at the takeaways on the screen, we have talked abut this concept of too big to fail.

speak more, dig more deeply into when this might mean for the future. guest: 12 are a decision maker, you are faced with a knock down, if the government steps is going to create the mentality in people that the government will always stepped in. 15 years ago, the top 15 banks and america made up 7% of assets. today, it is 63% of gdp. these banks are gigantic. $2 trillion in assets for some of them. these are very big banks. if they ever failed, but we know in the past -- remember merrill lynch?

washington mutual went down, j.p. morgan bought them. they are so big, could the government ever let them fail? that we have added to the problem. automobile companies are important to us, lots of jobs. we decided to go into them. now, do we have other non- financial businesses that potentially could think they are too big to fail? once you have an organization that things they are too big to fail, it is not just the taxpayers to bail them out. but once this happens, they adopt the following policy, which is, i am going to take a lot of risk and get a higher return. because if i hit, i make a fortune. if i miss, the cover but will bail me out. host: the oversight panel

oversaw $700 billion. how complicated was this effort? walk us through their process. guest: there were 30 reports that came out. i am going to blink on a number, but there were some of the hearings. on c-span 3 right now, they are running one of our hearings. if you listen to that for 50 minutes, you get an idea of how incredibly complex this is. elizabeth warren was the chair for most of the life of this panel. it was an incredible effort. a great effort by people. i am a big believer in oversight. i believe it is key. t.a.r.p. probably now has more oversight that any operation. treasury overseas it, the special investigator on t.a.r.p., the gao.

host: we have chris on the democratic line. caller: a couple of questions. i want some clarification. my first question, back in 2010, the democrats, without the republicans help, did you pass a bill for the bill in 2011 that included tax benefits for businesses, so that they could create jobs? the gentleman that was on earlier, he said that nothing was done to create jobs. my other question, if money was sent to all the states to help them in the last two years to help balance their budget, and if they had not received that

money from the state's, wouldn't we be worse off than we are now? guest: absolutely. in the economic recovery act -- what is ironic, people talk about the stimulus bill. one-third of the bill went to tax cuts. i have met -- never met anybody in america who understood that. most of that was at your request of republicans, who believe that it is a good way to spur the economy. democrats believe that we need to find ways to create jobs directly. clearly, in the bill, there was lots of tax increases. then all the way down the road, and number of benefits for businesses to get business rolling. the problem is, there was a lot done to help banks get back on their feet, get corporations back up on their feet.

both banks and corporations have not been spending the money. they have the money. but they are not spending it because they are concerned about their business. they are just now starting to spend. that is key to getting jobs back. host: bryce is an independent caller. what is your comment? caller: how are you doing? a couple of ideas. the way the economy is right now, it seems americans are getting paid less, illegals are still getting services. if america is so tight -- like, medical marijuana. you see them burning of $10 million worth of marijuana. why doesn't the government take that, take half the profit, and give it to the distributors who are going to sell it to the medical people that need it, and

they kept the money? they are burning all this pot when they could be giving it to people for medical reasons. i am no genius on this, but there is a way that the government could be overseeing the matter -- medical marijuana industry. the legal growers are making tons of money in the mountains. when they confiscate it, medical purposes. if they catch hundreds of pounds coming across the border, use it for medical reasons. guest: frankly, that is not my area of expertise. that is something that you should talk to a member of congress about doing. i think california is one of the few states that has medical marijuana. clearly, the whole marijuana business is a criminal activity. try to deal with a criminal

activity by the government is an interesting idea, but not something that i would ever want to spend looking into. host: what are you expecting at the t.a.r.p. hearing today? guest: i want to see good oversight. special investigator of t.a.r.p., treasury, congressional oversight panel. i think senator johnson, ranking member shall be, other senators will be asking questions about how the oversight worked, what do we think. we just came out with a report about lessons learned. what did we learn, but could we have done differently, looking back after two and a half years? i expect a good hearing. host: from paul atkins in the "wall street journal" --

they go on and on with their arguments. what do you make of the peace? guest: i do not know paul

atkins, but i know the others who work on the panel. they raise some interesting points. i recommend anyone interested to go to our website and read the total report, which includes all five members. they raised some good points. host: if you could put it in terms for us to understand, what lesson would you learn -- what lessons did you learn? guest: prevention, prevention, prevention. when you are put in an impossible situation, where you endanger the entire financial system coming down on our heads -- i know i have heard some people say, why do we not just do anything? i would suggest people go back and see the movie "grapes of wrath" to see what happened in this country when we had a great depression. it is so far beyond what this

country can bear, should have to bear. this, right now, is a disaster. 13 million unemployed, 2.5 million worried about their homes being foreclosed. what we have to do is put in place now those things that will make sure we never faced this problem again. we can do some things around the edges, but if the financial system is going down the drain, and you put money in that system, you are now reenforcing too big to fail, moral hazard. it is not either or. you can stand by or do nothing or a little bit and watch the system come down on your head. do you want to see deficits? if this financial system had failed, if t.a.r.p. had not worked, the deficits would be out of the roof. our revenues would have dropped

through the bottom, if we had gone into another great depression. the answer is prevention. you can read our report. we have a lessons learned on each of the things, a eddy, banks. i would say, clearly, the simple and accurate answer is prevention. host: you can read the report at cop.senate.gov. next phone call. robert is a republican. caller: my question is, do you believe the mechanism for too big to fail was created by deregulation and the financial industry, and can those restraints be put back in place? can a plan b developed that would allow for failure and have a zero level architecture that could rebuild finance industry,

a plan in place to create a moral hazard again? guest: i absolutely believe that we need to regulate. what we did after the great depression, we had a commission that came in and said, we have to stop the bank runs. the way they did that, they took the banks. if you oversee regulation, we will give you fdic insurance. we need people to put their money into a bank and know that it is safe. but if you do that, you cannot be in these risky investment banking schemes. so you have a decision to make. so from then until essentially three years ago, it worked. you had one bank that was fdic-

injured, regular commercial banking things, and then you had the investment bankers off to the side. you have the taxpayer helping the non-risk and then helping the risk. then we came in with glass- steagall and said that you could be in both businesses. that was a big mistake. then we legislated and said you could not do anything about derivatives, which was another problem. and you have to remember, at the time, 2003, there was a feeling in the country -- and it feels like it is starting again. laissez-faire. that is starting again. ron reagan made a speech the other week, i never thought the regulation would do this. we have to separate risk. there is a proposal in dodd- frank, double car up amendment, sponsored by carl levin and just

berkeley. you cannot allow banks to be in a proprietary business. host: quick phone call from pittsburg, california. caller: i am confused what bible people from congress are reading from? i do not see anything in there that says that we should be proud from making tools and gold from the devil. people say t.a.r.p. is great because we are making a profit. guest: oh no -- caller: this is what we keep on hearing. it is ok to lie with the devil of long as we get jewels and gold. the american people are still on the hope for those bad investment. we should have stepped in there and for those companies apart.

there are many good americans that would have stepped in and taking those assets, as long as they were backed by the american people, which we are currently doing. we left the devil in charge. guest: i do not think anyone says that we made money -- it would be great -- by the way, i agree with the second half of your question. there are a lot of people who believe that we should have done with the banks we did with the auto companies. we fire the managers, we broke up gm, we sold hummer. we made aig get out of businesses and things like that. with the central banks, there was nothing to be paid. the biggest problem they paid was, how soon can they get back to our bonuses? i understand your concern about the fact that so many people on wall street's, who i believe for

a pickup -- part of causing this problem, came out just fine. in fact, coming out with bigger bonuses. i think the american people are justified the upset. the people that were a major part of causing the problem -- there were other things. there was not proper regulation inthe fact of the matter is the back of the matter is that -- the fact of the matter is that the people who did this are turning out fine. host: our guest has been the chair of the congressional oversight panel. thank you for being here. we go to the house floor now. they will begin with one-minute speeches. they have changed the order of items today. the npr defunding bill will come up first today on the schedule. watch for that in this next 30 minutes. [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2011] signed, john a. boehner,

speaker of the house of representatives. the speaker pro tempore: the prayer will be offered by our chaplain, father coughlin. the chair: lord, may the celebration of the feast of st. patrick give people smiling and grateful hearts. though work in government is hard in today's world, we pray that the following celticed aage may be here in this congress of the united states. may you see in what you do the beauty of your own soul. may the sacredness of your work bring healing light and renewal to those who work with you and those who see and receive your work. may your work never weary you.

may every dawn find you alert, approach you in the new day with dreams, possibilities and promises. may every evening find you gracious and fulfilled. and may every good work wrapped in prayer calm, console and renew you. amen. the speaker pro tempore: the chair has examined the journal of the last day's proceedings and announces to the house his approval thereof. pursuant to clause 1 of rule 1 the journal stands approved. the pledge of allegiance will be led by the gentleman from georgia, mr. barrow. mr. barrow: members, staff and guests, please join with me in reciting the pledge of allegiance. i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america and to the republic for which

it stands, one nation under god, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. the speaker pro tempore: the chair will entertain up to five requests for one-minute speeches on each side of the aisle. for what purpose does the gentleman from west virginia rise? >> mr. speaker, i ask unanimous consent to address the house for one minute. the speaker pro tempore: without objection, the man is recognized. mr. mckinley: thank you. mr. speaker, this past week, west virginia experienced a tremendous loss. private first class andrew harper from maysville, west virginia, died from injuries he sustained while serving in afghanistan. he represented america with the just most pride and dignity. -- utmost pride and dignity. a graduate from morgantown, private harper was stationed in kandahar province when he sustained his fatal injuries during a noncombat incident.

the admiration of our community felt for this 19-year-old man and this service are immense. so many are shocked by the news of andrew's passing. this brave young man was so very promising. there is no question that andrew left a great legacy and his memory should be honored. my wife, mary, and i as well as all west virginians will keep private harper, his family, his friends and his entire unit in our thoughts and prayers. thank you, mr. speaker. and i yield back my time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman yields back. for what purpose does the gentleman from georgia rise? mr. barrow: i ask permission to address the house for one minute and to revise and extend. the speaker pro tempore: without objection. mr. barrow: mr. speaker, i rise today to commemorate the 46th anniversary of bloody sunday and to recognize the courage of my colleague, congressman john lewis, and the many other members of the civil rights

movement. i was privileged to retrace the footsteps with john lewis and walk across the edmund pettis bridge in south carolina. on the bridge they were savagedly attacked from state and local lawmen. journalists captured that and that led to the voting rights of 1965. john lewis was again met by a large group of police. this time as an honor guard. we've come a long way in the last 50 years, and we still have a long way to go to ensure the quality and justice for all. but we never could have come as far as we have without the countless devotion of men and women like john lewis. i yield back the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman yields back. for what purpose does the gentleman from ohio rise? >> mr. speaker, to address the house for one minute and to

revise and extend. the speaker pro tempore: without objection. >> mr. speaker, in my nearly 27 years in the united states air force, i learned that one of the most critical elements necessary to overcome a determined enemy is the element of surprise. based on my experience and the proven battle tested history of the many successful conflicts that our nation has endured over the years, i must stand in opposition to house continuing resolution 28. surprised is a tactical element best determined by field commanders based on battlefield conditions. mr. johnson: as such, decisions on troop movements should be made by commanders in the field, not by politicians in washington. should this bill pass, we give up the element of surprise, we break the trust and the relationship we have built with the afghan people and our allies. and the sacrifice of our young men and women in uniform would be meaningless if we simply walk away. general petraeus has said the taliban and al qaeda obviously would trumpet this as a victory as a success.

needless to say it would completely undermine everything our troopers have fought so much for and sacrificed so much for. i urge my colleagues to vote no and, mr. speaker, i yield back my time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman yields back his time. for what purpose does the gentleman from north carolina rise? mr. butterfield: i ask permission to address the house for one minute. the speaker pro tempore: without objection, the gentleman from north carolina is recognized. mr. butterfield: one year ago president obama signed the historic affordable care act into law. since that time we have seen an all-out assault by the health insurance companies. americans are tired of this debate. they are tired of the misinformation. our congress must stand up for the middle class. we must protect families. we must stop companies from arbitrarily canceling coverage after patients become sick, prevent children from being denied coverage due to pre-existing conditions, and never again let insurance companies place lifetime limits on health coverage. mr. speaker, let's give the reform a chance to work.

reject the special interests and extreme rhetoric. make sure every american family is protected when it comes to health care. i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman yields back. for what purpose does the gentleman from utah rise? mr. chaffetz: i ask unanimous consent to address the house for one minute and to revise and extend my remarks. the speaker pro tempore: without objection, the gentleman from utah is recognized. mr. chaffetz: thank you, mr. speaker. the united states congress is the only place that i know of that we talk about trillions of dollars, trillion with a t. how much is a trillion dollars? it's a number so large it's hard to get your arms around it. but if you were to spend $1 million a day, $1 million every day it would take you almost 3,000 years to get to $1 trillion. this nation right now is almost $14 trillion in debt. the country is going to spend more than $3.5 trillion over 12 months. we're more than $220 billion was added to our debt just last month. somehow someway this government

has got to recognize that we are going to have to do more with less, that the proper role of government does not allow us to unilaterally use this, the voting card of the united states congress, as the biggest credit card that has ever faced this planet. we have to do more with less. we have to be disciplined. and with that i yield back the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman yields back. for what purpose does the gentlelady from texas rise? ms. johnson: i ask unanimous consent to address the house for one minute. the speaker pro tempore: the gentlelady from texas is recognized for one minute. ms. johnson: thank you, mr. speaker. i've come to the floor today to talk about a crisis that our country is facing. we all know that our nation's future strength is directly dependent upon our commitment to a robust science agenda. the cuts of our nation's science programs in the c.r. threatens to set our nation back even as we continue to look forward to our future.

and investment in science is about ensuring we invest in dreams that are even brighter. as an author of the first bipartisan american competes act, we responded to many top academics and corporate and business leaders who knew that investments in stem education is what will ensure that our nation's future science and engineering leaders will never need to leave our shores in order to obtain a world-class education. in december, 2010, it was one of our finest hours as a congress when we returned to our triumphant moment of passing the american competes re-authorization act. thank you, mr. speaker. i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: the gentlelady's time has expired. for what purpose does the gentleman from california rise? mr. lungren: request permission to address the house for one minute and to revise and extend my remarks.

the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from california is recognized for one minute. mr. lungren: mr. speaker, our colleagues on the other side of the aisle continue to refer to the so-called health care reform bill as the affordable health care act. there are a lot of questions after one year after passage, but one question has been answered. it is not the affordable medical care act. it is the unaffordable medical care act. why do i say that? well, h.h.s. has decided to give over 1,000 waivers to businesses, to unions and now even to state because they find they can't afford what's required in the bill. secondly, i haven't met a single constituent whose health care costs by way of their insurance policies or programs has gone down. they've all gone up as a direct result of the bill passed on this floor and signed by the president. so at least have some truth in labeling. it's not the affordable health care act.

it's increasingly becoming the unaffordable health care act. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman's time has expired. for what purpose does the gentlelady from illinois rise? ms. schakowsky: to address the house for one minute. the speaker pro tempore: without objection, the gentlelady is recognized for one minute. ms. schakowsky: march 25 marks the 100th anniversary of the triangle factory fire. the death of 146 workers, mostly one women, were avoidable. if the owners of the factory had not locked the doors to the stairwells and exits, if they had installed a fire escape or sprinklers, many of those lives would not have been painfully and tragically lost. the international women's workers union organized. it passed worker protections, not just new fire safety laws but laws against the seven-day workweek and child labor. the triangle tragedy expand the right to union representation,

a voice at work. 100 years later we confront a coordinated effort to roll back those hard-fought gains just as the triangle fire spurred people into action, the anti-working family agenda of wisconsin governor scott walker has mobilized millions. the message is clear. we will not go back. i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: the gentlelady yields back her time. for what purpose does the gentleman from pennsylvania rise? >> i ask unanimous consent to address the house for one minute. the speaker pro tempore: without objection, the gentleman from pennsylvania is recognized. mr. fattah: let me wish everyone a happy st. patty's day. it's unfortunate that we have so much effort here on the house to recite the problem rather than focus on solutions. and we hear this discussion about our national debt. we have these poultry efforts. we cut $6 billion on the way the debt went up $72 billion. we have a proposal by the

majority to address the debt by cutting 1.5% out of a small corner of the budget doing serious damage to our nation's efforts in education and science and innovation. well, i would help that we would think for a minute about what we can actually do to take america's exceptional past and make a real road map for our nation's future, ensuring it on a fiscal footing that would be fiscally stronger. i introduced h.r. 1125. it is a proposal to address the nation's debt, create a debt-free america. i invite the house to debate on it. thank you very much. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman's time has expired. for what purpose does the gentleman from california rise? mr. lungren: mr. speaker, i ask unanimous consent to take from the speaker's table house resolution 147 and ask for its immediate consideration in the

house. the speaker pro tempore: the clerk will report the title of the resolution. the clerk: house resolution 147, resolution providing for the expenses of certain committees of the house of representatives in the 112th congress. the speaker pro tempore: is there objection to the consideration of the resolution? without objection, the resolution is agreed to and the motion is -- to reconsider is laid on the table. .

the speaker pro tempore: for what purpose does the gentleman from florida rise? >> mr. speaker, by direction of the committee on rules i call up house resolution 174 and ask for its immediate consideration. the speaker pro tempore: the clerk will report the resolution. the clerk: house calendar number 19, house resolution 174, resolved that upon the adoption of this resolution it shall be in order to consider in the house the bill, h.r. 1076, to prohibit federal funding of national public radio and the use of federal funds to acquire radio content. all points of order against consideration of the bill are waived. the bill shall be considered as read. all points of order against provisions in the bill are waived. the previous question shall be considered as ordered on the bill to final passage without intervening motion except one, one hour of debate equally divided and controlled by the chair and ranking minority member of the committee on energy and commerce. and two, one motion to recommit.

the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from florida is recognized for one hour. >> for the purpose of debate only, i yield the customary 30 minutes to the gentlewoman from new york, ms. slaughter. pending which i yield myself such time as i may consume. during consideration of this resolution all time yielded is for the purpose of debate only. mr. speaker, i ask for unanimous consent that all members may have five legislative days to revise and extend their remarks. the speaker pro tempore: without objection. mr. new gent -- mr. nugent: house resolution 174 provides for a closed rule for consideration of h.r. 1076. the rule provides for ample debate on this bill and gives members of both the minority and majority an opportunity to participate in the debate. mr. speaker, i rise today in support of 24 -- this rule and the underlying bill. h.r. 1076 prohibits direct

funding to n.p.r., national public radio. in fiscal year 2010, n.p.r. received over $5 million in direct federal funding from the corporation for public broadcasting, the department of education, the department of commerce, and the national endowment for the arts. moreover, hundreds of public radio stations received direct radio grants in the amount of $67 million. radio stations can use these grants for whatever they want. it's unrestricted. often stations use these funds to pay dues to n.p.r. and pay fees for n.p.r. programming. according to n.p.r.'s website, they are an independent, self-supporting media organization. however they also admit their revenue comes primarily from fees paid by their member stations. in fact, membership dues,

station programming fees account for 36% of n.p.r.'s funding. in h.r. 1 we started the process of letting n.p.r. operate on its own. without taxpayer involvement by defunding it for the remainder of fiscal year 2011. however h.r. 1 only addressed appropriated funds for the rest of the current fiscal year. the bill we have before us today addresses the authorized use of funds not just for the rest of fiscal year 2011 but going forward. under this bill, n.p.r. will continue to provide its programming. they just can't use taxpayer dollars to subsidize it. moreover, our goal on h.r. 1076 is that there won't be a need for this funding going forward. this is something the appropriations committee can

factor into their funding decisions for fiscal year 2012, and the future. let me stress again, this bill does not fully defund n.p.r. what this bill does do is start weaning n.p.r. off federal dollars. local radio stations are still allowed to pay membership dues, but -- and they can still buy n.p.r. programs. they just can't use your and my hard earned tax dollars to pay for them. instead, the grants for these local stations get will be used for local needs. they can create more original programming about issues happening in their areas important to their communities. they can pay for their staff and even hire more local producers and hosts for their new programming. the federal government's addiction to spending has driven us to our current $14 trillion debt.

we need to refocus on what our core mission is. we should not be using tax dollars that american citizens worked hard to earn for something that can be paid for privately. once again, mr. speaker, i rise in support of this rule and underlying legislation and i encourage my colleagues to vote yes on the rule and yes on the underlying bill. i reserve the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from florida reserves the balance of his time. the gentlelady from new york is recognized. ms. slaughter: thank you very much, mr. speaker. i thank my friend from florida for yielding me the customary time. mr. speaker, this bill yesterday was brought to the rules committee as an emergency meeting. now, what would be emergency in the united states? the cost of the war? damage of the war? unemployment figures? the deficit? home foreclosure? the tragedy in japan? a no-fly zone over libya?

no, the emergency is that they want to destroy national public radio. this is the latest in a long string of misplaced priorities by the republican party. it does nothing to fix the long-term fiscal condition. nor does it create a single job. in fact it will lose some. the congressional budget office has determined that the legislation does absolutely zero to reduce the deficit. when so many americans want our representatives create jobs to responsibly reduce the deficit, bring our sons and daughters home from the battlefields overseas, why are we wasting valuable floor time on an ideological battle that does nothing to achieve any of those goals? because the bill is a political stunt, it has been rushed through congress under draconian rules. violating their own promises of

transparency, the republican majority held no hearings, no committee action of any kind, listened to no expert testimony, and provided no chance for the american people to weigh in. and just by saying it is an emergency apparently in many minds it does become one. by not providing a true 72 hours and there -- the bill itself omitted the fact the bill would lay over to allow all members to review the legislation, they violated the spirit of transparency they promised the american people just five months ago. my colleagues on the other side must know they have to pass this legislation quickly before the american people who have said to the rate of 69% that they do not want this to happen before they are allowed to speak to tell them it's something they don't want to hear. for the american people, unlike the far right wing, they know

that n.p.r. is not an ideological news outlet and n.p.r. radio bases their reporting in fact. and really an anomaly today in the united states. n.p.r. doesn't try to blow the line between opinion fact and political agenda. instead, it takes the time and spends the money to do in-depth reporting across the country and around the globe and go where no other news organization will go. unlike commercial news outlets that are driven by the need to garner ratings and sell commercial advertising, national public radio concerns itself first and foremost with informing the nation on the complex issues that face our country. in stark contrast to the bare-bones and sensationalist reporting found everywhere, national public radio operates 17 foreign bureaus. in fact, it is one of the few news outlets to maintain a

full-time bureau in afghanistan. reporting from the frontlines of a largely forgotten war. it's also in the process of opening a bureau in turkey to report firsthand on the democratic uprisings throughout the middle east. in the united states its correspondents spread out across the united states from texas to oregon telling the stories not covered by cable news pundits we see on tv every day. in rural america, particularly, n.p.r. can be the only best source of news. defunding n.p.r. will cut off this valuable source of news from the southern tier of western new york to the plains of the upper midwest. and would put rural communities at a major disadvantage in the information age. it's because of their valuable, reporting that americans increasingly turn to n.p.r. to learn about our ever-changing world. in fact, despite the

challemmings face -- challenges facing the news media, a new report has shown that n.p.r. is strong and growing more popular every day, according to the report, n.p.r.'s audience has grown to 27.2 million weekly listeners. this is a 58% increase since the year 2000. in addition the website is a premier online news destination, garnering 15.7 million visitors a month, an increase of more than five million people over the course of a single year. are those people really going to be angry. i have been a proud supporter of n.p.r. my whole life in public service. while serving the new york state legislature, i fought for a launch of news programming on my local public radio station, wxxi. from that humble beginning over 30 years ago i find myself standing on the floor of the house of representatives fighting for n.p.r. again today, 30 years later. i stand here because quite

simply facts matter. 7 -- we houghed and puffed and wished it was so. we didn't become global leaders by 24-hour cable news. we arpt solving fundamental issues that face our nation by passing this politically driven legislation to appease the far right. our nation was built an will be rebuilt by the quiet efforts of millions of americans across the country who will never make it on cable news and will never appear on national television. it's these very americans who n.p.r. dedicates its resources through findings, through covering, and through sharing the world with. these stories aren't simple. their efforts don't sell advertising space but their stories matter. n.p.r.'s work to find the stories that matter and the in-depth intelligent report that i fight for today. no matter what i say, some will still believe that n.p.r. isn't worth funding because they want

it to be true. some will find it in their interest to scare americans into believing that an n.p.r. strawman. while others take comfort in watching the strawman fall. but deep in our hearts all of us know that governing through fear and divisive legislation is not a responsible way to move this country forward. it is certainly no replacement for creating jobs. with millions of americans, unemployed, struggling to live we can't waste another minute on the house floor without debating a bill that will put some americans back to work. we should not waste another minute ignoring the needs of millions of americans while playing cheap political games. yesterday i asked why only national public radio? why not television? i think i know the answer to that. a few years ago that was tried. the house of representatives actually tried to kill big bird,

destroy elmo, get rid of bert and ernie, but it didn't work. and i think they didn't want to try that one yet again. as the backers of this bill said to me yesterday, the taxpayers shouldn't have to fund with their hard-earned money what they don't believe in. well, that's an interesting theory but democracies don't operate that way. if they could, my husband and i and 2/3 of the people in america, would gladly be excused from paying the $8 billion a month that we pay for a war which we profoundly do not believe in. we simply must stop this nonsense if it makes us look ridiculous in the eyes of the world. national public radio is something you could turn off if you don't want to hear it. but for the millions of americans who depend on it, this just cannot be done. for this reason i urge my

colleagues to vote no on the rule and no on the underlying bill. and i reserve the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentlelady from new york reserves the balance of her time. the gentleman from florida is recognized. mr. nugent: mr. speaker, i yield two minutes to the gentleman from utah. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from utah is recognized for two minutes. mr. chaffetz: thank you. i rise in support of this rule. i think the american people deserve an opportunity to have their representatives vote on the funding of n.p.r. . really, what this is ultimately going to do is talk about the funding of less than 5% of n.p.r. it's not as if this is going right off the radio right away. i'm not here to debate the comment or make some editorial comment about their editorial comment but we have to deal with the fiscal reality of this country. every time we turn around nobody wants to cut anything. we are going to have to figure out in this country how to do more with less.

the reality is we are $14 trillion in debt. we pay more than $600 million a day on interest on that debt. we can't be all things to all people. we have to understand the proper role of government. every time we make a decision about spending what we're talking about is, should we go into somebody's pocket, pull money out and give it to somebody else? and in the case of our federal government now, we're also doing that but we're also borrowing the money. we're borrowing the money. and so in the case of n.p.r., which has been wildly successful, as the gentlewoman properly accounted for, mr. speaker, their listenership is rising which gives a lot of us the belief that really they should be moving towards the model where we can sustain themselves through their donations and other funding mechanisms rather than relying on the taxpayers to fund them because we don't have any

money. we're broke. and so i'm proud of the fact that early in this republican control of the house of representatives that we're going to bring this up for the vote, let the representatives vote. i yield back the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman yields. the gentleman from florida reserves. the gentlelady from new york is recognized. ms. slaughter: i yield three minutes to the gentleman from massachusetts, a member of the rules committee, mr. mcgovern. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from massachusetts is recognized for three minutes. mr. mcgovern: thank you. mr. speaker, i want to thank the ranking member for the time, and i rise in strong opposition to this closed rule and to the underlying bill. mr. speaker, this process in this house is awful. on this bill, h.r. 1076, there were no hearings at all. and to top it off, we had an

emergency consideration in the rules committee. did you think it was about jobs, did you think it was about health care? no, it was about defunding n.p.r. that's what this new majority thinks is an emergency. not jobs, not the economy but defunding the national public radio. mr. speaker, h.r. 1076 is a horrible idea and i hope everybody in this chamber realizes this doesn't cut one dollar, not one dime, not one penny from the federal deficit. we all know what's going on here. the reason this bill is before us is a discredited right-wing activist made a selectively edited misleading 11-minute video of a two-hour conversation. the target of his little sting was a fundraising executive at n.p.r. who no longer works there. mrs. blackburn from the energy and commerce committee made it clear in the rules committee last night that their justification for this bill is that the american people should not be forced to subsidize content with which they might not agree. well, that's a lousy way to make decisions, in my view. but if my republican friends insist on going down this road,

mr. speaker, then we should be fair and balance in the way we do it. over the past several years it's made clear that fox news is widely biased. they continue to employ a talk show host who talks bad about president obama. their parent company has donated millions and millions of dollars to g.o.p.-linked groups. yesterday, i offered an amendment in the rules committee to prohibit federal funds, taxpayer dollars from being used for advertising on the partisan political platform of fox news. if my friends on the other side of the aisle want to strip funding from n.p.r. because they believe wrongly, in my view, that n.p.r. is biased, then we should be given the same opportunity. unfortunately my amendment was defeated on a part line vote. this is a closed rule. so much for the open process we were promised.

and then hundreds of millions of dollars are television advertising. according to a study the department of defense spent over $600 million in taxpayer money advertising in 2007. and i believe we should figure out whether that spending is a good use of taxpayer dollars. that amendment was also blocked on a party line vote. again, this is a big fat closed rule that we're dealing with here. mr. speaker, this bill was rushed to the house floor, again, without a single hearing and without a single markup. so much for regular order. may i have an additional 30 seconds? ms. slaughter: 30 is all i can spare. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman is recognized for 30 additional seconds. mr. mcgovern: my office has been flooded with calls from constituents urging me to reject this bill and the continued support programming on national public radio. my friends talk about the will of the american people. the will of the american people wants us to reject what we are doing here today and that's exactly what i will do here today. i ask my colleagues to reject

this closed rule and vote no on the underlying bill. i yield back the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman yields back. the gentlelady from new york reserves. the gentleman from florida is recognized. mr. nugent: mr. speaker, i yield three minutes to the gentleman, mr. lungren from california. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman is recognized for three minutes. mr. lungren: thank you. i was actually not going to speak on this rule until i heard the ranking member of the rules committee speak and she made our point so eloquently i want to underscore it. i couldn't believe that she suggested that there was somehow a parody between national defense and n.p.r. she said if we're going to come here and talk about defunding n.p.r., then why shouldn't she get a shot at denying the defense department $8 billion or whatever it is? that's the point we're trying to make. we have a huge deficit, $228 billion in one month. in fact, it was the shortest

month of the year, which just happened to be the total deficit for i think the entire year of 2007. you know, i don't know. i heard people on the other side of the aisle criticizing president bush for deficits. he's a piker compared to what we're seeing at the white house. how do we do anything here on the floor with respect to trying to bring spending under control if, as the gentlelady from new york suggests, we should treat equally the question of national defense and n.p.r.? that's what the american people are rejecting. they're saying to you, why aren't you establishing priorities the way we established priority? and to come to the floor and suggest that somehow n.p.r. is contained in the constitution as does the subject of national defense i think is frankly ludicrous. so i hope the american people are listening. this is a debate on the rule to allow the bill to be brought to the floor, but the gentlelady

from new york has done a very good job of crystallizing the issue. if you don't believe we ought to set priorities, if you believe that n.p.r. is important to this nation as national defense, then reject the rule and reject the bill because the gentlelady is correct. if they're equal, wait. this is unfair because we are talking about n.p.r. we are not talking about somehow gutting national defense. if you believe that somehow national defense has a slightly higher priority in the constitution and in our constitutional governmental structure than does n.p.r., then you would reject the gentlelady's suggestion and say we tried to come here and change things. we tried to come here and somehow try to balance our books at sometime in the future. but the way to do that is to establish priorities. if we in fact believe that saving n.p.r. or giving n.p.r. federal funding is the same as funding our troops, then all is lost, then all is lost.

but i frankly was surprised to hear the comparison of us debating on money to keep our troops in the war zone versus n.p.r. that is the best example i have seen on the floor, perhaps the most honest example i have seen on the floor of the differences of the two parties and the difference in i think what the american people want us to do and some in the leadership on the democratic side -- mr. nugent: i am glad to yield an additional minute. mr. lungren: well, i thank the gentleman for yielding. i, as many are going home hopefully this afternoon and will have town halls and maybe i'll ask the question at my town halls, do you believe that funding n.p.r. is of the same importance or moment as funding our troops in the war zone? i believe that i will have an overwhelming response by the people of my district who

suggest what we are doing with this rule is to allow us to deal with those kinds of issues, setting priorities that they sent us to washington to do. so i thank the gentleman for his time. i thank the gentlelady for expolice indicating the difference between the -- ex plicatting the difference between the two parties. for me, i will easily say that even though it may be a tough decision, i would vote to take federal funding away from n.p.r. in order to try and balance our books in the future. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman's time has expired. mr. lungren: and do what is necessary, defend this country. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman's time has expired. the gentleman from florida reserves. the gentlelady from new york. ms. slaughter: i am going to yield myself 30 seconds to tell the gentleman from california to calm himself. we are not equating war with n.p.r.

i say people should not have to pay for what they don't believe in. if that's going to be the way the majority is going to run this house, then 66% of americans would like you not to pay for the war. and i yield two minutes to the gentleman from new jersey, mr. andrews. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from new jersey is recognized for two minutes. mr. andrews: i ask unanimous consent to revise and extend my remarks. the speaker pro tempore: without objection. mr. andrews: thank you, mr. speaker. thank you, mr. speaker. i thank my friend for yielding. for at least 15 million americans this is another day without a job and tomorrow will be another friday without a paycheck. what are we doing? after 11 consecutive weeks of this majority producing not a word, not a bill, not one idea about how to create jobs, what we're doing this morning is debating whether or not to defund and get rid of national public radio. now, the excuse that we heard

is, well, this will save money. a preliminary estimate from the congressional budget office says this will save zero. so what we are doing is spending the time of the country on whether to defund national public radio. here's what we should do instead. with gasoline prices approaching $4 a gallon at the pump, why don't we can sell out $40 billion in giveaways to the oil industry? why don't we take most of that money and use it to reduce the deficit? and why don't we take some of that money and use it to put americans back to work building clean water systems, schools, roads, research facilities and other things that we need? why aren't we debating that bill? now, members of congress can say they disagree with that

bill. they can amend it. they can vote for it or against it. why don't we debate that bill? instead of whether or not to pull the plug on national public radio? 11 weeks, not one idea on jobs, not one word of debate on jobs and abandonment of the issue americans care most of it. i am hopeful that the leader on our side of the rules committee will give us a chance to vote on a real bill to create jobs for the american people. i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman's time has expired. the gentlelady from new york reserves. the gentleman from florida is recognized. mr. nugent: mr. speaker, i yield five minutes to the gentleman -- i am going to reserve the balance of my time. could i inquire to the gentlewoman from new york how many more speakers you are going to have? ms. slaughter: mr. speaker, we

have five remaining. mr. nugent: and how much time is remaining on each side? the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from florida has 20 minutes. the gentlelady from new york has 15 1/2 minutes. mr. nugent: thank you. the speaker pro tempore: the gentlelady from new york. ms. slaughter: i yield two minutes to the gentleman from vermont, mr. welch. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from vermont is recognized for two minutes. mr. welch: i thank the gentlelady. there's really two questions that this bill raises. first, is this a way to deal with the serious problem we have in this country which is the deficit? and the answer is it isn't. i salute the republicans in this congress for focusing attention on the need to restore fiscal balance. you're right. but the plan you're pursuing to achieve it is dead wrong. you cannot by cutting 12% of the budget, the nondefense discretionary budget, achieve the fiscal balance that we need.

and why you have a plan where you attack national public radio, where you attack planned parenthood, you attack home heating assistance, but leaving a swollen pentagon budget, that means this is not going to succeed even if we wiped out the entire nondefense discretionary budget we would still have a deficit of $1 trillion. so serious budget cutters have a serious plan that puts everything on the table. . secondly, why have a proposal that destroys institutions. my public radio is the link between 251 towns, cities, and vittages in the state of vermont. farmers listen to it in their barns. parents listen to it on the way to bring their kids to school. people at work listen to it for the weather report and it welds together the political discussions in the state of vermont which is vibrant, which is varied, which has people with different points of view having

a common reference point. public radio is an institution that allows democracy to thrive. why do we have to have a budget plan that, a, by its design will fail, and b, by its im plementation will destroy institution that is democracy depends on. vermont public radio is an essential institution to all of the people in the state of vermont, republicans, democrats, and independents. we need to preserve it. i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman's time has expired. the gentlelady from new york reserves. the gentleman from florida is recognized. mr. nugent: mr. speaker, i yield the amount of time necessary for my good friend, the chairman of the rules committee, from california, mr. dreier. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from california is recognized for as much time as he wishes to consume. mr. dreier: i ask unanimous consent to revise and extend my remarks. the speaker pro tempore: without objection. mr. dreier: mr. speaker, let me begin by extending congratulations to my very good

friend, the gentleman from spring hill, our former sheriff, mr. nugent, for his maiden voyage in managing this rule. he's done a suburb job in taking on this issue. let -- superb job in taking on this issue. let me say, having listened to the debate from my colleagues on the other side of the aisle, every single thing that we have been doing on the floor of the house of representatives is focused on job creation and economic growth. virtually everything that we have done is focused on job creation and economic growth. now, some say why is it you are talking about national public radio now? what does that have to do with creating jobs? the fact of the matter is if we don't, if we don't take on the $14 trillion national debt that we have in this country, and the $1.6 trillion annual deficits that we have as far as the eye can see, we are not going to be implementing pro-growth economic policies. my freppeds on the other side of the aisle might -- my friends on

the other side of the aisle might argue bringing about some reduction in national public radio will cost jobs shall the disparity is that my friends on the other side of the aisle tend to focus on government created jobs and we want to focus on what it is the american people desperately want and need, is long-term, good, private sector jobs. so everything that we do to try and reduce the size and scope and reach of government is focused on getting, as my friend from vermont has just said, getting our fiscal house in order so we can create jobs. i guess up in the rules committee my california colleague, ms. eshoo, referred to national public radio as a national treasure. now, mr. speaker, i happen to be a fan of national public radio. i think that the term national treasure may just be a little bit of a stretch. i have been proud to support

three local stations. two in los angeles, kpcc and kcrw, here in washington d.c., wamu. i have been proud to participate in pledge drives for all these stations. i have done it for public television. i believe in voluntary contributions. yesterday, ms. eshoo said every american pays 77 cents for the benefit of national public radio. and while i'm proud listener of national public radio, i will say that i reckon that there are probably half the american people, that's just a wild guess on my part, maybe half the american people who have never even heard of, much less even listened to national public radio. and the notion of taking 77 cents from them for national public radio is to me an anathema to the whole concept of what it is that we are trying to

do as a nation. now, my friend from rochester, the distinguished ranking member of the committee, the former chairman of the rules committee, referred to national public radio as -- this is not the exact words used, but a -- rather than cable television, we have this great, great model of national public radio. something to which we can all bow and listen to as the one truth before us. with all due respect, mr. speaker, i've got to say that i heard some inaccurate things on national public radio before. not just things with which i disagree, but there have been inaccuracies, with all of the choices out there, i believe that national public radio should be one of them. but they are only one of the choices that people have. and since national public radio and the corporation for public broadcasting came into existence, we all know that we have experienced this explosion

of information from all kinds of sources. and so that's why, mr. speaker, while this measure doesn't obliterate funding for national public radio, what it does is, it puts us, as my friend from spring hill has said so well, on a glide path towards recognizing that since national public radio receives a very small amount of its funding that they utilize totally from the federal government, this puts them on a glide path towards something i believe will dramatically enhance the quality of coverage and the credibility of national public radio, and that is to have voluntary support. and i will say right here that when we are successful, when we are successful at weaning national public radio and the corporation for public broadcasting away from pulsery taxpayer dollars used to fund them, i personally will increase my level of contributions. my level of contributions to

those local stations and to other aspects. we need to look at ways in which this shortfall that will exist is addressed. and i believe that we can do that. i have to say that procedurally it's very interesting to listen to people talk about the characterization of this rule that has come down before us. it's simply because less than 48 hours was provided for the announcement of simply the rules committee meeting, not the fact that we are here on the floor. and my distinguished friend from rochester had on nearly 70 occasions when she was chairman of the rules committee, including the several scenic river studies that were put into place and other legislation like that, called emergency meetings of the house rules committee. so i think that to characterize this procedure as has been is not quite as appropriate as it

should be. and the fact is, mr. speaker, i wish this could have been handled a little differently. we all know we passed h.r. 1 as it is. in fact does defund the corporation for public broadcasting. but this measure in and of itself focusings on a problem that is out there. it needs to be addressed. and i urge my colleagues to support this rule and to support the underlying legislation. with that i yield back the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman yields back the balance of his time. the gentleman from florida reserves. the gentlelady from new york is recognized. ms. slaughter: i yield one minute to the gentlewoman from california, mrs. davis. the speaker pro tempore: the gentlelady from california is recognized for one minute. mrs. davis: thank you, mr. speaker. all i can say is our office is being flooded by calls from people who are saying, i thought you-all were working on creating jobs for the american people. making sure that working class families can support their families. and instead we are defunding federal funding of national public radio. and that seems like just a terrible distraction to the

calls we are getting. for many people in the san diego rageo, we have an n.p.r. station and it's a way to connect people to local community issues and world events. where else can you find that kind of in-depth reporting? i don't think we can point to other stations that do that. so i'm not up here just to defend n.p.r. but to say we do have, my colleague said it's not a treasure. well, to a lot of people that participate, yes, they will continue to fund it with their own dollars. but there is a consistency, there is a continuity, there is an expectation that this is something that is important to our communities and it would endanger over 9,000 jobs at local radio station it is this funding goes away. the speaker pro tempore: the gentlelady from california reserves. the gentleman from florida is recognized. mr. nugent: i yield three

minutes to the gentleman from, mr. woodall, from the great state of georgia. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from georgia is recognized for three minutes. mr. woodall: i thank my good friend from florida for yielding. i'm pleased to serve beside him on the rules committee. i went to work on the rules committee because of my enthusiasm about openness in this process. one of the very first things we learned during freshman orientation is we have a leadership team that is committed to openness the likes of which this congress hasn't seen in decades. decades. i didn't plan to come down to speak this morning where i'm sitting back in my office and listening to the characterization of what's happening here today and it caused me to think about my 65 days here in congress so far. the process was more open and involved more debate on the repeal of health care than it did the implementation of health care. i happen to have brought down the n.p.r. bill today. i'm here in strong support of the rule that is bringing this bill to the floor. i hope folks vote their

conscience on the underlying bill. i hope that happens. one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, seven pages. here today that we have asked members to read and digest in three days. 72 pages. i wasn't here the last congress when 1,000 pages bills rolled through this body with the same closed process and length of time. i tell you this my constituents can read seven pages and i read them and i'll vote my conscience. folks, we are involved in a process here that we need to be applauding not condemning. we are involved in a process here that we need to be nurturing not undercutting. have you seen the debate on the floor of the house over the last two months? have you experienced the back and forth on the floor of the house for the last two months? do you feel the difference? because i do.

i absolutely -- i don't just feel it, i hear it. when i go back home. we are in the people's house. the chain across the front steps must be a photo-op this morning. the chain was down. felt different walking in this morning because you can walk up the steps. folks, the chains that come down in this house, the chains have come down in the house and we are free to engage in this debate, and that's what we are doing. right here today we are engaged in this debate. should we have extensive committee hearings to everything that comes to the floor? i believe we should. should we have an open process for everything that comes to the floor? i think that's a laudable goal. do we have constraints that require the rules of the house, the 435 of us, not like that well oiled body across the hall where they only have 100 members and get along well. we have 435 folks with lots of passion and opinions and we need some structure to make that happen, but this leadership team with this congress, both on the

left and right, has created the most open process with the most extensive amendment process with the most full debate process that this body's seen in 10 years. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman's time has expired. mr. woodall: i thank the leadership team for doing that and i rise in strong support of the rule. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from florida reserves. the gentlelady from new york is recognized. ms. slaughter: i yield one minute to the gentleman from ohio, mr. kucinich. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from ohio is recognized for one minute. mr. kucinich: i thank the gentlelady. we need to go back to basic principles here. in 1934 when the federal communications act was passed, people were given broadcast licenses to serve in the public interest, convenience, and necessity.

the public owns the airwaves. in a country that wasn't run by corporations, we wouldn't be having this debate. because the public has the inherent right to ownership of the' waves. -- of the' waves. they're -- of the airwaves, theoretically we should all own public radio. this bill would stop that from being funded. it is absolutely unimaginable that members of congress are not aware of the history of how broadcast radio and tv came into being. this isn't about private ownership of the airwaves. this is about a basic public right, and if you take that right away, what you have done is totally capitulate to corporations in america. protect n.p.r. the speaker pro tempore: the nt