the bill is being a burden to wall street firms, and they are looking to repeal it. we will talk more about it in the first 45 minutes. the telephone numbers are below. an effort by republican sen interests to repeal wall street regulation. journal@cspan.org

here is the press release from the senate. demint's office. >> we must repeal the takeover of the financial markets that favors wall street corporations, over regulate small businesses, and hurts consumers, said senator demand. this financial takeover will strangle our economy, and move jobs overseas unless it is repealed. democrats rammed this government power grab through last year, despite widespread concerns that it would perpetuate federal bailout, and raise costs for all americans. we will be more from that, peter schroeder from "the hill," and he joins us on the phone. where did this effort come from? can you paint the picture of what led up to it? guest: we have heard all wide

variety of criticisms as about dodd-frank, as we try to recover from the recession. on friday, we sought a bill introduced by senator demint and followed up by other republicans from the senate. they are saying that we should scrap all law altogether. host: as far as concerns about this legislation, is it that total stripping of all the rules are just some? guest: we have seen some legislation in the house that is more targeted, but with senate to demint's bill, it is what they want to do with health care as well, passing legislation that would just erase it and go

back to the way things were before. host: why would they want to see it go back to their instead of what is currently in place? guest: as you saw on the press release, they are saying that there is some concern about what dodd-frank might mean for american businesses going forward. the regulations now in place would be overly burdensome, and they are making the case that if we get rid of this new government intervention, it would be better off. host: you talked about the differences between the senate and house efforts. when you say it is more targeted, what did you mean? guest: there is a broad repeal bill in the house but it is not garnered too much attention. there are also pushing a package of smaller bills that target dodd-frank.

but it is nowhere near a full repeal, targeting specific parts of the law. or they make alterations that they said would make a more workable. host: any evidence from wall street that what senator demint is proposing is actually true, the burden on wall street businesses? guest: with had some concern from agencies about pieces of a lot, how they might be implemented by regulators. there is wiggle room to put together how do regulations will work. and they are keeping a close eye on how the regulators are putting together the rules. but there have been expressed concerns about what dodd-frank with me. but we're seeing a lot of uncertainty and that would like to see exactly what they're dealing with so they know what the stakes are.

host: what has been the reaction from the democrats in the senate? guest: 1 equated it to one in to repeal nuclear regulations in the wake of a nuclear meltdown. they're saying there's a gigantic crisis. in response to that crisis, dodd-frank past, and that you want to go back to conditions that they're leading up to that crisis and the first place. host: here's a quote. they continue to side with wall street interest to would pour millions into their campaign coffers. guest: there are indications that there are some donations from wall street to go to both sides of the aisle.

wall street does a good job of making sure they get the attention of most politicians. lawrence kor some people argued that there provisions that lawmakers hope will prevent the type of crisis that we saw a few years ago, wide swaths of the financial market affected in this rapid downturn. their positions that would prevent them from becoming interconnected and becoming "too big to fail," allen the government to step and when a firm gets into trouble and orderly winds them down. and then there is a risks that they can take on.

host: there was a hearing on tarp, and one of the people testifying, neil barofsky, the special inspector general. basically, he had concerns that the efforts to make banks too big to fail, actually made them bigger in the process. guest: that is an ongoing debate, as to whether it was actually addressed in dodd- frank. mr. barofsky as well as some republicans still fill it is an ongoing issue. others maintain that dodd-frank gave them the tools to prevent the sort of situation we saw in 2008, where the government felt they were compelled to step then. if they went down, they would drag down most of the market with them. have a host: heard anything from former senator dodd on the effort? guest: no statement on this. his counterpart, barney frank,

the second half of the name on the legislation, has been adamant about any efforts to roll back the legislation as going back to the conditions that led up to the financial crisis. one would assume that senator dodd would have a similar take. host: peter schroeder tie -- or rights for "the helill." for our first 40 minutes, we want to get your thoughts about senators want to repeal dodd- frank. if you want to weigh in, the numbers will be on your screen. one person says that they want

massive spending by this government. our first phone call is from a democrat in washington, d.c., thank you for joining us. caller: i think that wall street, these regulations are that placed upon them, they cannot form their own policies and use these moneys on wisely. the effort to get these things repealed, they're going to use to get the senators who probably feel uncertain in their districts, to try to repeal this law. but we have to keep this thing, a good watch on wall street.

we had this big bailout and the government has helped them giving them these large bonuses, we cannot allow this to happen anymore. host: trenton, new jersey, bob, go ahead. caller: i am a republican and i'm ticked off at this. the republicans are on a temporary probationary police. they do not repeal obamacare first, there will be another tsunami coming 2012, i guarantee it. we would get rid of these people again. they need to take care of we the people first and get rid of obamacare and then think about wall street. we're getting sick and tired of the republicans, rino's only. host: a story in the "wall

street journal," looking at the pay of certain ceo's. taxpayers will not foot the bill for raises for the chief executives -- host: virginia, democrats line. caller: the problem with the lobbyists, wall street in the different lobby against coming to washington, it is not red or blue problems. it is a green problem. it is money.

you have congressmen who make decent money and get lobbied with millions of dollars coming in from k street lobbyists. if they do get beat either by retirement or actually get defeated, they become lobbyists themselves, like daschle and lott, making millions more. the republicans want to deregulate everything. they want to deregulate the irs. two-thirds of the corporations do not pay any taxes and these corporate people say that you have to lower taxes. two-thirds are not paying any taxes now. what is the problem with lowering when you're not paying anything to begin with? letting but bockscar the in

house is the equivalent of deregulating. host: senators looking to repeal wall street reform legislation signed in 2010. you can still weigh in on this. and you can join this one e-mail and twitter. michigan, independent line. caller: i think the republicans always seem to repeal but they have nothing to replace that legislation with. if there are bad parts of that legislation, in the beginning you mentioned the lack of access for borrowers to credit. that is an issue right now, certainly in the economy. but what are the republicans going to replace that legislation with? that is my comment. host: 0 look at the 10 largest american banks. the assets for the four largest total $5.4 trillion.

that is the equivalent of japan's gross domestic product, the third largest in the world. bryan, ohio, thank you for waiting. caller: i did not try to get in a long time. you always hear republicans and tea party members, going back, but they are worried about the debt we are incurring on our children and grandchildren. you never, ever hear them talking about what type of environment we will leave for our children and grandchildren. as a trout fisherman in an outdoorsman, someone who enjoys the environment, i just do not understand because it seems like in their effort to always catered to the side of money,

they just do not care about the environmental situation in this country, especially as a trout fisherman in pennsylvania right now. that is devastating the trout streams, and you never, ever, ever hear anyone talk about that. that is all i wanted to say. the lakota indians have a saying, we do not inherit our environment from our ancestors, we borrow it from our children. the indians had a right. i wish we were talking about what we're leaving our children and grandchildren as far as the natural world. host: you've been following the effort with wall street. you have heard the acronym tarp. troubled asset relief program, there was a hearing and one of the people testifying was neil barofsky. it was looking -- he overlooked how tarp funds were spent. he talked about the unintended

consequences of tarp. here's what he had to say. >> one of the greatest legacy is is the too big to fail problem. when the secretary told the markets we're not going to let these banks fail, this was instrumental in helping to prevent a financial collapse. but it really exacerbated the problem of too big to fail. it was no longer implicit, it was as act -- the explicit as it could be. it was because of the promise we're not going to let these institutions fail. that has had the unintended consequences of the problem of getting bigger and bigger, more concentrated, and now that to statistical data that backs up what we all know, that they are borrowing money more cheaply, access to credit and capital markets, and right now they are more specifically -- systemic least significant than they were before, if not -- if only for

the fact that there are less of them now. host: senate republicans push to repeal dodd-frank. that is from the senators website on capitol hill. florida, thank you for holding on, richard from the independent line. caller: i agree with one of your previous callers. big business and wall street brought this country down to its knees by sheer greed. and until the politicians of both parties band together and stop the lobbyists from bringing any money to congress, nothing is going to change in the long run. that is all i have to say host: the repeal of this legislation would do what, do you think? caller: i think it will do harm. i do not think there was enough regulation and the first place to allow this debacle to take place. center are later, they will have

to think of the average people in this country and not just the rich people. host: from twitter, someone who identifies himself as dirty water. bethlehem, pa., jim, democrats line. caller: thank you very much for c-span. it appears that the republicans are utilizing a bad situation to push through their agenda for basically stripping this country of everything we have enjoyed for the last 60 years or 70 years as far as a socially rising middle class. it fundamentally appears to me that they do not like the media, they do not like the federal government, legal protections, unions -- anyone who can legislator litigator take issue with them, they are moving on

the state level, federal level, and for people so concerned, why would you possibly let the american people endured the past 10 years this financial meltdown, corporations that drill, the ceo says we did not know we were doing. drug companies making huge settlements for malfeasance. insurance companies canceling people's insurance. the list goes on and on and on. the american people need protection. if not the federal government, i do not know who it is. people need to watch out what will happen here. we will be in part of a bad social and political experiment . host: john on twittered turns to the federal government's efforts to help the automotive industry. he says that the gm bailout has been a huge success --

from york, mary on the independent line. >> i would like to say that the republicans were voted in. there were certain things on the agenda for them to do. they campaigned on smaller government, taking things the way they are supposed to be taken in the government. they have turned to the people that are simply trying to make the common people step third village, and have perpetrated one of the biggest tribe takeovers i have ever seen. host: the next caller is from los angeles, freddie on the republican line. caller: it seems like a bunch of the democratic callers are talking about, what will it be

replaced by? what about the u.s. constitution? rule will flock? freedom, the free enterprise system? these regulations do not help the common person or the small person and the small company. all it does is give the guys in power, the big operations with -- corporations with connections, leeway to get around the rules, all those it to not have to struggle. it is the small companies that have to put up with the paperwork and the over regulation. that stifles competition and new current and new companies and new entrepreneurs. these regulations do not do any good. you have to give back to free enterprise. there is a simple answer. the liberals do not care if it works are not. they care about their religion. host: as far as repealing what is currently on wall street's,

you would see that go through? >> yes. how come fdr's regulations did not work? they did not prevent the downturn. it is the same mall story -- the people with the connections were able to get around them. but did ge. the ge chairman, the corporation does not pay any taxes whatsoever. he is the main body with obama. this is the way that it works. go to a flat tax. host: robert from south carolina in an e-mail. you can communicate with us in a variety of ways this morning. we have 20 minutes to take on this discussion. a couple of things in the papers. the house bill being debated on

the budget looks to cut the fha. they said that the -- the faa. they said that -- it will cut protected spending. the federal government can do more with less. from new jersey, you're next. caller: this has to be about his next election. this is all pandering to his base. it has nothing to do what bank regulations. number two, do you think that this law was passed and that the regulations are being promulgated, not with the help of wall street, when we have

every from wall street sitting in that administration? you've got to be crazy. the banks, there are fewer and bigger investment banks then there were before. they are all bigger than they were before. the regulations are now being nibbled away at. who knows? maybe they will turn out to be just fine. but the banks and wall street have been in the making of this bill from the get go. this is all about demint trying to win his next election. it is also him changing the subject from his opposition to the obamacare bill. they know they cannot touch that. now they are going to start on something else. it is all about 2012. host: i want to talk to you about our "news makers" program.

it is norman dicks talking with reporters on a wide variety of subject, including top number one these days, the prospect of a government shutdown at the senate and house cannot agree on a federal spending bill. >> this is the worst possible outcome. here we are into wards and a major involvement in libya. our intelligence community, all of these people will be adversely affected. troops in the field will not get paid. how can we possibly do this in the middle of all this military controversy customer i think it would be the height of irresponsibility. the height of irresponsibility not to continue to keep the government funded. host: how our guest on the show. you can see at 10:00 in the morning. you can check it big.

-- ken to begin at 6:00 in the evening. also directed to c-span.org to find out more information about that program and others. again, we've been talking about an effort by gop senators to repeal wall street regulation, and dodd-frank as it is commonly known, signed in july 2010. burlington, ill., but on the republican line, go ahead. caller: i think they want to have their cake and eat it too. they do not want to regulate the banks, but they want to bail them out when they fail. you cannot do both. you have to do one or the other. if they want to be bailed out, then they have to be regulated, like the savings banks the fdic. but if we want to deregulate wall street, then we cannot

afford to bail them out. it is just as simple as that, i think. host: we go next to chicago, james and are independent line. caller: this is important and it should've been within the week when most of the viewers are actually watching it. on the topic, regulation only has no effect when the congress puts together study groups, with the people who is meant to regulate as key parts of the regulation, as part of putting the regulations together. i think that they should pass this regulation, remove these regulations, and someone should put an amendment attached to it that all the banks that received tarp they should give all that money back, that day. in that they cannot do it that day, they have to file a

bankruptcy and they have to liquidate all of their stuff, and no, we're not cornice sell half of them to j.p. morgan chase and half of them to another base of the king keep on doing what they're doing. make them disappear. make them go away completely. for the guy who is talking about regulations and how they get in the way of small business, it is only because we let the big businesses make the regulations that are meant to regulate them. thank you for c-span. host: the caller brought up tarp. you just heard from neil barofsky about the unintended consequences. one of the people at the hearing also talking about this was the acting secretary for financial stability. he was defending the program. >> tarp was necessary and did what it was supposed to do. his most significant legacy is that it combined with other government actions helped save our economy from a catastrophic

collapse and may have prevented a second great depression. the lesson we learn from taking these actions was to bring to -- to better protect ourselves and deal with the moral hazard issue, our system needed to be fixed. host: this story from the "washington post," another issue. they talk about efforts that the president is making in fund raising as well. they said the president is setting himself up --

from york, we hear from our republican line. caller: yes, i want to comment on this that president obama has very kindly helping the small business. but the people are not very educated. they do not know where to go. i think we should send them some

kind of form so that they can fill out and according to their needs, they can get from the federal government. so the businesses can flourish. host: michigan, you're next, gregg on the independent line. caller: 1 second. host: we will get back to you. debbie on the republican line, mount vernon. caller: dodd-frank did not write the bill. the people they wrote it was on wall street. there were laws on the bill -- on the books never enforced. otherwise would not have the ponzi scheme with bernie it madoff. it does not make sense to a pile rules and regulations on top of

rules and regulations. they never enforced them. that is the stupidity of it all. host: as far as this effort to repeal, what would you say? caller: i would say repeal it. you're not going to enforce it anyway so what is the point? host: 1 twitter. if you like boot, a couple of stores in the paper that may depress you are not. this is the "wall street journal," this morning.

there are a couple of pictures that accompany this story. it gives you an example of what to expect under the new rule. if you like the double chocolate brownie, you will also have to take in the 410 calories should you read that all by yourself. assign for mcdonald's as well, showing the products that they have. the big mac on the sign, somewhere in the range of 920-0 1,160 calories. that is an example of how the federal government will take their role in that. there is a related story, same topic. different locations. this comes from the business section of the "new york times."

movie theaters do not hesitate to wag the stern finger at their patrons. palm beach, florida, kathy on the democrats' line. caller: 4 c-span. i was sitting there watching on c-span in the house of representatives. as far as the regulation bill, i do not know about anybody that does not have of 401(k) or up pull hundred three -- 403b. i watched mind the way down in 2008. it is coming back now.

but if they do not separate the banking from the insurance and investment, where we put our money, this regulation will not do anything. i would say go back and put glass to go back into it. i was wondering what your thoughts were on that. host: we will let the other callers may commons if they want to. louisville, kentucky, mike on the independent line. caller: congratulate you on your job. every saturday, you look immaculate and professional. any time a person comes from poverty up to a little well, he goes to their head. not everybody, but i'm trying to say the people on wall street, most of them came from street level and now they are up there in the higher echelon. they do -- that forget about the little people. it is just about them. i do not see how they could

perform their jobs without remembering them. it is a case of give-and-take, and for them is always taken never give. thank you for having me on. host: from twitter -- fayetteville, ark., co-head, james on the democrat line. caller: how would like to call to a return for social utility on wall street. they are paid more money than nearly anyone in america. supposedly they know have allocate capital better than anyone else. but the recent mortgage crisis shows that they do not know how to do their job. they are -- this is regardless to glass-stegal. in the 1980's, it was the same problem. the invested money they should

not have. we need of liquidation of these people on wall street. we need to take them, force them to be held accountable, and the only way is to stop bailing them out and let them fail. host: there is a profile of a doctor here to work in a hospital choosing not to open a private practice. it talks about how it plays into the overall role of health care and health care provision, an interesting story as you might read for yourself online or in the paper.

long island, new york, the republican line. go-ahead. caller: it seems like we are all in a big mess and both parties -- listen. our politicians are not listening to us and our corporations are selling us all to go overseas for cheap labor. why don't we put some sweat on them and each one of them, i would not mind putting in $10 a month, we build our own manufacturing plants and make our own things made in america. we could do this for five years, i guarantee it will work. create jobs, create white-collar jobs and everything. we do not need to buy products from g e or these other places. we can start producing our own. then you will see a change. but the people are scattered, light weaklings. we depend on corporations and government. we should depend on ourselves.

give the businesses to people that are well qualified. i would put in $10 a month, no problem, to see this go. someone who knows how the bill washing machines are whatever, we buy our own goods, we college usa companies. host: dayton, ohio, good morning. tom on our independent line. caller: i agree with that guy who was talking right there. we definitely need the regulations. i work for a major distributor of food, and they deregulated that, we did not have the fda in there. the people out here eating this food should really wonder -- we've got to have these regulations. you cannot trust these companies know more, because it is all about the bottom dollar, it is not about america no more. the multinational companies, it makes me so mad. we are in american company by

name only. in other words, we do not give a dam about you. host: if you follow the supreme court, they had a case looking at walmart -- and this case dealt with pay and promotions for current and former female employees. it was whether this large group of women should be allowed to band together in a lawsuit against walmart. this class-action lawsuit could potentially cause the company billions. we have audio from the court case and we invite you to listen to it today. you can see that on c-span at 7:00 today. the coverage from the u.s. supreme court. albany, new york, go ahead please. caller: dodd-frank, it does not matter whether it is repealed and not.

i think it complacency will sit- in and it will be bad again anyway. host: one more call on this topic comes from windsor, vermont. caller: looking back a few months ago, when republicans came in and said that they were not going to do anything they shouldn't pass up such a spectacular do, because they have only continued to corruption. host: we appreciate all who participated this morning. we're going to change gears and talk about an aspect of the economy when it comes to jobs. others reporting today from yesterday that there were 216,000 jobs created. this is the headline from the "new york times," and that brings our employment rate -- unemployment rate to 8.8%. later on we will talk about the

president's strategy with libya, but in terms of talking about unemployment, our guest this greg ip. we will break down the figures and what is behind them when we return. >> this weekend on american history tv on c-span3, last wednesday was that there is a anniversary -- was the 30th anniversary of the attempt on the wrong or reagan. jane pauley and tom rookie on the 1960's and the legacy of the kennedy family.

and david hume kennelly. get the complete schedule at c- span.org where you can have the schedule e-mailed to you. this weekend on both tv, new york times op-ed columnist david brooks on how our unpracticed mind shapes our intelligence and bayh's. ken walsh on long history of african americans serving in the white house residence. and live, your calls and tweets for poet, playwright, and author ismael reed. get our schedules e-mail directly to you. signup for our alert. >> one of the differences between a deputy mayor and the mayor is that i could say what i wanted to is the mayor and the only person that got in trouble

was mean. >> stephen goldsmith sent a -- spent years -- eight years as mayor of indianapolis. today he worked for michael bloomberg. >> i keep the streets of a bit cleaner, make the tax dollars go a little bit farther, and prove that large cities have a vibrant future. and i stay away from things that would detract from that. >> sunday night at 8:00 on c- span. >> policies ban on twitter. it's as the fastest way to get programming and scheduling updates. you can join in the conversation and tweaked questions directly to our "washington journal" gas. -- guests. it started at twitter. >> "washington journal" continues. host: gregory ip of the "

economist" joins us. 8.8% is the unemployment figure. what does that mean for people who does understand it guest: this is the rare month when all the numbers were good numbers. it is still picking up momentum. to give you some perspective, which created about 216,000 non- farm jobs, combined with february, is the most since 2006. the recession has been over for over a year-and-a-half and we're still struggling to create jobs. it is taken this long to pick up momentum but the memorandum is there. on the unemployment rate, it is a mystery on why it is falling as fast as it is. it is great news for president barack obama. it's been making great deal about that.

but when you look into the numbers, it is to -- it is hard to see why it is fallen as fast as it has. host: there is the factor that those who are actually looking for jobs, and those toward given up. guest: some said they did only job because those who were looking gave up the hunt. so they are no longer counted as unemployed. but that is the same what to be going on. discouraged workers is also going done. a lot of people who otherwise would have been working have dropped out of the altogether. perhaps they retire early or they have gone back to school. host: one of the questions we ask, how many jobs created are directed -- are part of the stimulus? guest: it is impossible to disentangle jobs created by stimulus with everything else going on. the neutral people have looked

at this and said that the number could be from 1 million to 3 million. i think there's probably no doubt that if we did not have a stimulus program, unemployment would have been lower and the fact that we did have that tax deal between the republicans in congress and the administration the december, which not only renewed the bush tax cuts, but also implemented several more, a reduction in the payroll tax, that did help maintain some momentum. host: for the jobs created private industry? guest: they were indeed. in fact, government employment declined. that is no surprise if you have been looking at the headlines you see how much stress their ban on state finances. very high-profile confrontation in wisconsin, over the cost of maintaining those large civil service payrolls. host: talk about the perspective

of someone doing the hiring. why are they bringing more people into the fold? guest: one of the mysteries of this recovery -- not really a mystery, but one of the this -- difficult aspects is that we see things like profit and investment growing in the last year-and-a-half. for corporate america, this is been a very strong v-shaped recovery. but for long, that kind of good news has not filtered down to the man on the street. companies want to be convinced that the recovery was for real. they've had so many setbacks, not just the extent of financial crisis in this country, there were problems in europe and rising oil prices. there's a natural caution on the part of businesses to go back hiring. and they have been able to meet their increased sales by higher productivity, taking the workers that they had in getting them to work harder and smarter.

what we have seen is that we are overcoming that caution because employers believe that the recovery is for real. and they have tapped out all of the improvements that can make with their current technology in terms of raising the productivity of their current work force. host: with the specifics and jobs, 78,000 were in the professional business category. guest: they could be accountants and lawyers. but lately they have been in temporary staffing services. these are people to cut the work on a contract basis for a few weeks. that is seen as an encouraging sign. employers come up with their feeling more optimistic but not quite ready to commit to a permanent hire, they will hire a temporary staffer. that is a leading indicator of more permanent job growth. host: sell 40,000 created in the

hospitality field. how does this show how consumers are spending their money? guest: they would be working in the entertainment industry, hotels, restaurants, people feeling more confident about going out to take the family out to dinner. to go to disney world, better this year than a year to ago, when people were trying to watch their pennies. host: gregory ip will be with us to talk about the economy and what it is doing with jobs. if you want to ask a question, the telephone numbers are below. there is also e-mail and twitter. politically, what we're talking about is a potential shutdown. how does that shade with the

economy and do if the government does go into shutdown mode? guest: most of the people who watch this note that politics tends to be rough-and-tumble, a lot of rhetoric and posturing. we have had shuts down before. it is not like in a country their runs out of money like greece and the government cannot pay people because no one will lend it money. it is one of the aspects of our political system. you don't expect there to be panic in the markets, but it is a big inconvenience for businesses that does business with the federal government, a big inconvenience for any business that relies on the customs service are anything related to the regulatory agency to get things done. it sends a negative message about how organized and coherent our politics are and whether they see congress and the administration deadlocked on how handle our budget.

it erodes people's confidence in our government. host: some political perspective -- here is john boehner on what he talked about in the areas of job creation in spending. >> they claim an agreement has been reached on this issue, but let me be clear -- there is no agreement. republicans continue to fight for the large spending cuts possible to help and washington's job crushing spending bids. we need to keep the cuts coming and we need to do much more. host: how that plays out in those doing the hiring and those making these kind of decisions? guest: an interesting debate in washington is cutting our way back to prosperity. we've heard that you need stimulus, lower taxes, more spending to spur demand and create jobs. the republican leadership is making the opposite point.

you need to cut government spending to reassert businesses that they will not be hit with crippling taxes and they will give them confidence. this can go both ways. there are countries where we see in your, they got into serious debt problems. in order to get out of them, if they actually submitted to a program of its pending cuts, it did help restore confidence. it brought down interest rates the economy to grow faster. however, is not necessarily clear that this lesson applies to the united states. in those countries, the debt levels were much higher, over one under% of the gdp. the united states is around 60% or 80%. interest rates was still high because people were nervous about the ability of the government to pay back its debt. has the government undertook austerity, interest rates came down and that boosted private

demand and private investment. here in the united states, the interest rate is at 0%. it would be very difficult to get any boost from that side no matter how much spending cuts we did. and the other thing is that those countries were able to export their way back to prosperity. as they cut spending, their exports boomed. it is hard for the united states to do that. we are just too big. the rest of the world cannot buy enough of our stuff. host: there is a story in the paper about inflation. that might drive up of a sharp increase as far as interest rates. guest: as you know, the federal reserve is made up of 17 policy makers, reserve bank presidents, governors, and there is a debate about inflation. this is made up of the hawkish wing of the fed.

u.s. oil and food prices moving up, the overall rate of inflation will go over 2%, at time when not only is the short- term interest rate at 0% but they have spent trillions of dollars buying up government bonds. they are afraid that that creates of future inflation problem. but you also have people like the president of the new york federal reserve bank to said yesterday that the economy, notwithstanding good news on jobs, is still a long way from either full employment or even having the inflation problem. if you strip out food and energy, underlying inflation is only around 1%. and even though jobs grew, the amount of paid the workers get did not rise at all. in fact it was flat. it is only around 1.5%, only half of what it was before the recession. host: michigan, david on the

republican line. caller: i am thinking that is the same as it was last year, the jobs grew at the time because of the government mailing everybody at check for tax returns, and how much stimulus that will provide for the short term. and then we will see in the summer time that the jobs will diminish again. they will fall back into this cycle. guest: it raises a good point. we have had so much stimulus and the last two years, we worry about that stimulus winding down, do we lose the incremental impulse that supports job demand in creation of a mother to let her come up those jobs petered out and it could have fallen back into recession. there were reasons for that

saucepot. you had a crisis break out in europe over the debt problems, and the final stages of stimulus were winding down. what happened last december, they decided to wind it up again. that might be one thing keeping the economy going in the current year. one of the notes of caution we have to sound is that you see in washington the whole fiscal apparatus moving from stimuluses to tightening. so we will not have that area of support again and we need to keep our eyes on january 1 next year were a lot of measures passed last year expire. i think that private economy will have another vigorou to it that we can withstand the withdrawal of stimulus. host: off of twitter -- guest: that is certainly po

ssible. we have to remember that when castling shot over $4 a gallon in 2008, that was definitely a big hit to the economy. i am not worried at this moment. one of the reasons the price of gasoline is going up is because of the turmoil in the middle east partly. but another reason is that the rest of world is growing healthily. india and china, countries that never had a recession to speak of, growing at 6% and 8%. we live in a global economy. commodities reflect global demand and that helps the u.s. as well. exports of very strong in this recovery. one of the reasons is because the rest of the world is strong. that adds a positive offset to

the it to purchasing power we are experiencing because of the high gasoline prices. host: the president wants to double exports. is that feasible? guest: it is never happened in the past without artificial help from the inflation. we are not exporting more stuff, the price was just going up. .

i just don't understand why people are so critical. guest: it's kind of interesting. people see high unemployment and record deficit and there's a lot of debate which caused which. the fact of the matter are both are the consequence of an extremely weak economy. when the recession hit it blew a big hole in our tax base. that's the reason we have such a large deficit. and part of the debate we were just talk about a minute ago is whether that deficit and the prospect of the tax that is may are to be raised is one of the factors holding the recovery back. certainly that's the argument the republicans in congress,

and there's no sure answer about this. but if we had tried to balance the budget when this recession hit, it would have been devastating for the economy. what we essentially had is while the financial markets froze up, the private sector couldn't or didn't want to borrow. and if everybody had stopped borrowing at once then demand would have collapsed. so the federal government had to step in and the be consumer of last resort. the question now is whether they can withdraw from that role at a sted demand. it depends on how it's done but the version that i've heard them talking about are so rigid that it would be very difficult to still give the economy the kind of necessary support that happens in a recession.

if you think about what happens in the business cycle, as things are getting good, taxes increase and that naturally reduces the deficit. and when you go into a recession taxes decline and you spend more on unemployment insurance, medicaid and food stamps adged these are helpful stabilize torse the economy. they take some of the edge off the weakness of the economy. if the government were forced at every time tax revenues if he will by $1, they would end up aggravating and the recession would be deeper. you see that happening at state levels right now. all the states have balanced budget requirements. and that has been one of the major dampeners on the economy as we were saying a minute ago. you see state and local employment declining for a while now. that's been a major drag on the economy. so what you want is the discipline that's needed to balance the budget over the full cycle. the problem we've been having is that it's not that we run deficits in recessions.

it's that we run deficits during the expang that follow. is that our leaders just cannot seem to stir up the courage and discipline needed to say, all right, the emergency is passed. now is the time to cut spending or raise taxes. host: next call is michigan on our independent line. daniel. caller: good morning, gentlemen. i just wanted to point out a phenomenon that happens every year at this time. and the unemployment goes down. history shows us that once the weather starts to warm landscapers, people that work at amusement parks, summer jobs are starting to be created because these places are gearing up for the u.s. so every year, -- summertime. so every year the unemployment goes down at this time. it's nothing unusual. it happens. i was in the business myself as a seasonal worker. so i think cheering on the president and the economy at this time for this reason is

irresponsible. guest: so he's right that you do have a lot of parts of the economy pick up as the weather gets warmer. people can build more houses, there's more tourism related business. however, the bureau of labor statistics are aware of this. so what they do is something called seasonal adjustment. they take the numbers and adjust them up or down depending on what are the normal patterns. so the number that we actually talk about, the 8.8% are stripped of those seasonal effects. so this is not some predictable calendar effect. there really is something good happening with our job market. host: as far as numbers are concerned, guest: i don't exactly know how they come wup that. i know we've been asking people about their work situation. there's quite a few definitions. to be considered unemployed by the government's deffsnigs, not

only do you have to be out of work touf look for work in the two-week period when they phoned you up and asked you. so it is quite possible that you are unemployed but would like to work and took a few weeks off and therefore be counted, you would not be counted as officially unemployed. when you add in those other definitions of unemployment, including people working parttime but would rather work full time you can arrive at an unemployment rate at 16%. >> one of the rises as far as specific jobs is in the terms of manufacturing. 17,000 jobs. what does that mean about manufacturing as a whole in the united states. guest: the factory sector was really on its knees for a long time. it was sheding millions of jobs. one in six manufacturing job disappeared between 2007 and the middle of last year. but then we have seen this turn around now and we've added manufacturing jobs almost steadily for over a year. the pace of growth is the highest since the 1990s.

but what's behind this. part of this is basically payback. the factory sector was so devastated in the downturn that it had almost nowhere to go but up. when you recall when chrysler and general motors were taken through bankruptcy they shut down for a period of several weeks. and thousands of companies across the midwest had to shut down and lay off people, and lay off half the workforces. now the car companies are coming back, partly because of the restruct urg, partly because of the economy, they're hiring again. i was in the chicago area talking to manufacturers who sell to the heavy equipment and automobile industries, they're hiring. the other thing going on as i was mentioning, the rest of the world is healthy and buying stuff from the united states, often heavy machinery, oil and gas drilling equipment, food and natural resource that is we still have a lot of. that's been helping.

>> host: the current cover is the islam arab revolution. swells stories about the economy. tell us about other things you're covering. guest: we're covering the unrest in the middle east. we're cover continuing to cover what's been going on in japan. there's been severe disruptions to supply chains around the world. this is one of those so-called black swan events. something unexpected that comes along and you have to take in a new account. we wouldn't have thought of an earthquake, tumesie and nuclear reactor accident in janen. interestingly, the global share has been declining for several decades now as their population contracts, their economy stag nates and the rest of the world grows quickly. so you wouldn't expect the problem japan is having to be a major burden on economic recovery. but one of the things we discovered and as my colleague

writes, it's a little like the financial crisis where it turns out that your supply chain had enormous dependence on a few companies in japan you may not have known about and those companies had to idle production or reduce output because their supply lines are broken or their workers can't get to the factories. >> niken and some of the names. >> that's right. even here in the united states, general motors it turns out relies on japanese suppliers for some parts. that's interfered with production around the world. even here in march we saw some anything give pact on automobile sales because some popular models were unavailable. i don't think the problems in japan are going to put us in recession again but it's definitely one additional, albeit small negative, that the economy has to deal with. >> does japan hold u.s. debt? >> it does. i think they're the second largest foreign holder of u.s. treasury bonds after china and there's been some concern that in order to repay the cost of rebuilding the country after this earthquake they would have

to sell those bonds. and if they sold them our interest rates would go up. i think those concerns are considerably overdone. first of all the period of reconstruction will unfold over many months. and secondly, japan is still a net savor. they still earn more than they need to meet all their domestic consumption needs. all they have to do is save a little bit less. they can still actually lend money to the rest of the world. >> marble head, massachusetts. thanks for waiting. ed on our republican line. caller: good morning. and thank you for c-span. mr. ip, since interest rates rose sharply from the time when the fed began its program back in november, do you think it's more likely than long-term interest rates will go up or go back down when the fed program comes to an end in june? guest: that's a great question, because if you recall, the point of qe, which stands for

quantitative easing because the federal reserve wanted to bring interest rates down to stimulate the economy, how do you do that? they buy bonds and print money. and what happens, when they do this, the opposite thing happens, the price of bonds went down and the yields went up. the bond market is gigantic. we're talking about thaily trading. so the fed by going out and buying $600 billion over a period of eight months, ll it's significant they're only one of many players. and what happened roughly around the same time that the fed began this operation is the economy started to show some life. durable goods orders, there was good news on jobs. so people said i'm feeling better. i'm going to sell my bonds. i'm going to buy stocks. so what you had was this rush towards riskier stuff like

stocks and people dumping their sort of like boring old bonds overwhelming the efforts of the feds. now, what happens in june when the program ends. there is some concern that right now the federal reserve is buying more than half of all issued treasury bonds and when they withdraw you'll see pressure on interest rates. i don't think it will be enormous because people have anticipated this already and some will have adjusted for it before hand. but i do think there will be some upward pressure on interest rates. the good news is that the reason they will be allowing that program to end is because the economy doesn't need it any longer. and so i wouldn't expect that rise in interest rates to be that much of a burden on economic growth. host: new haven, connecticut. good morning. caller: good morning, gentlemen. i would like to add to to the manufacturing uprise. number one is the baby boomers are retiring. i know someone who is working in manufacturing in h.r. and they are diligently lining up

people who are interested in that field, and the baby boomers started when they were fresh out of high school, got that diploma and they were the second and third generation working in these small manufacturing fimples. so that's another reason why manufacturing is hiring. another -- i do have a question in regards to the unemployment extension. i was out of work for almost two years and i am past 50 and it was difficult. it was very difficult. so i was offended by the republicans saying that we were couch potatos, lazy, people are really looking for positions in the northeast. it was very difficult. had it not been for those extensions, i would have been foreclosed. had it not been for those modifications, i would have been foreclosed. and believe me, when you went into that courthouse, there were over 200 families trying to save their homes due to them being laid off and unemployed. so i just wanted to comment on that. and i wanted to find out how

the unemployment is affecting the economy. and one more thing. is that a young lady did take a position and she was getting $450 a week from unemployment, took a position. as a temp. and now she is getting $45 a week. she has a mortgage of 1800. she had a high-paying job and the lins stated well no one wants to take a job because they are afraid of losing the higher paid unemployment. could you comment on that. thank you very much. guest: well, obviously she has heard of people and been through difficult times herself. and those are very moving stories. there is a debate over whether -- we have extended unemployment benefits repeatly since the recession. it is now possible to get benefits for up to 99 weeks. and there is a legitimate debate that goes on. if you allow people to collect unemployment insurance for longer do you discourage them them or disincentivize them from going back to work. you can go both ways on this.

it turns out that it's probably the case that at the margin there are people who do continue to look for work longer because they are collecting unemployment insurance checks. and that may not be a bad thing. that extra time may enable them to find a better fit. but it's also the case that there are a lot of people that because there are so few job vacancies right now, i think five people looking for a job for every job opening, that it doesn't matter whether or not you have the incentive to stay home from the unemployment insurance check or not. the jobs are just not there. and when the checks run out you're basically in a situation where your standard of living has to suffer. there's a recent study at princeton by allen cruger. he was surveying in the treasury department and he looked at the behavior of people what happened over the course of time that they were unemployed. he found that the locker they were unemployed, the less they looked for work. as they were repeatedly

rejected for jobs and coming up empty handed they basically were becoming discouraged and their job efforts began to decline. he also didn't find that after their insurance benefits ran up that they upped those efforts. so that does tend to tell us that the argument that all these people are unemployment because they've got unemployment insurance benefits is wrong. host: texas, thanks for waiting. kevin, republican line. caller: good day. with all respect to your guest, i'm presenting the contradiction here. on one side you kind of criticize the efforts to balance the budget saying that would be dangerous because it would affect jobs, it would reduce the jobs. and then on the other hand you said that the problem with the political leaders today is that they want to run deficits and stimulus while the economy is

growing. well, the economy has been growing since president obama took office really. i mean, the turn around was by that summer. so we're doing the thing that is you told us not do do and to me we're spending $1.5 trillion er year. that's stimulus that doesn't exist. it's all controlled by the government pumping the government the economy, and the economy right now, i mean, i think is a lot worse than what it appears. and you have to call -- the caller from new york, with all due respect from her being laid off. she credited the baby boomers. host: sorry to cut you off caller didn't mean to. guest: we were talking about

balancing the budget. i was commenting on a balanced budget amendment being a bad idea. having a rule that it must be balanced every year whether you're in expansion or recession is a bad idea. i think what you should have is a discipline that balancing the budget over a cycle. so when now, you have offsetting surpluses later on. and that is what we have not been doing. right now is a very difficult and delicate time. the budget deficits are enormous. and if we continue to run deficits of this size there is no question we would have a crisis. the deficits are caused not primarily by stimulus or excessive spending but by the damage that's been done to our base by the depth of recession. ordnarely you would say yes let's cut that as quickly as possible, don't worry about the economy. the federal reserve can take care of us. the problem is the reserve has rates at zero. but i deaf agree that we

shouldn't -- it's in some sense a good sign that we have seen both obama and republicans in congress realize that the time right now is to start cutting. they're debating the size of the cuts. but they do realize that this is a question that has to be dealt with sooner rather than later. the british has an interesting example. they're ahead of us. they have a very credible plan to basically reduce their deficit which right now relative to their economy is as big as ours, they're going to get rid of that over a five or six year period. we've seen growth weaken and one reason may be because of that austerity. so that just shows how difficult it is. host: are banks lending more? guest: not very much, unfortunately. we have, as we came out of the crisis one of the problems -- we had two problems. one was banks had lost so much money on their loans that they were reluctant to make new loans. they were trying to basically

rebuild their capital base. and in addition, even when they were willing to lend, they couldn't find anybody to lend to because people wanted to pay down their debts and didn't want to borrow, businesses were pess miss tick or nobody could meet their underlying criteria. all their assets were under water. their credit ratings were depressed because the houses were worth so little plun. we have seen a modest sign of pickup. we have seen the amount of credit that people have taken out on their cards and for car loans has started to inch up. surveys of banks do suggest that they finally started to loosen their criteria. so over the coming year we should still see pickup in banks lending. but it's going to be a long climb back. one of the things you can say fairly confidently about the kind of recovery that follows a financial crisis is that credit growth will be very weak. it will not be expansion built on borrowed money. host: so the increase as we saw job wise are in place even

though we don't see a lot of banks extending creds to companies. guest: i like to say it's like hitting yourself with a hammer. it feels so good when it stops. essentially we were going through a period of hitting ourselves with a hammer as things got worse. house prices kept falling, banks kept running up bigger losses, people kept pulling back. those things have stopped getting worse. they're not coming up but they're not going down longer. banks are not loosening a lot but they're not tightening them any longer so the just the i think flecks point, from things getting worse to not gets worse is helpful. people started saving more. their saving rate went from 1% to 6%. if that kept going up it would have meant that consumption was very weak. but it has stopped going up. as long as people are earning money they can spend more. host: independent, oregon, next. dan, independent line. caller: hello.

my question is i hear a lot about how much in debt the united states all the time, and they scare people all the time with how much we're in debt. what i would like to know is how much is the united states of america worth? how much is the entire country worth in money? host: because? caller: because you say we're $13 trillion in debt, how much are we worth? guest: that's a reasonable question. most of us have a mortgage. that seems like a lot of money. but we also have a house and other assets that are worth more. so the caller has a point. when you're assessing at the financial viability you look at debts and assets. the united states is the weltsiest country in the world. we have the world's most competitive companies, our assets far outweigh our debts. so you can't just look at that debt and say we're toast. but that said, those are government debts that are not

specifically backed by particular oogs sets. and every dollar we borrow now is a $1 that we have to repay in the future. so you can't just sort of say, well werks don't have to worry about this. we have these assets as well. that's why we look at the size of the debt relative to gross domestic product. gdp is basically the income of the entire country and a measure of our ability to support debt. the main goal of fiscal reform right now should be to stop the debt growing faster than the economy so we know that relative to our ability to pay our debts we're not digging ourselves into a deeper hole. host: atlanta, georgia next. as we take your call we're going to look at some of the statistics that were released yesterday. caller: good morning. in response to the last caller real quick, i think with our untapped oil and gas reserves, we could probably easily pay off the national debt and balance our books. but when it comes to gdp and

debt to gdp ratio, i believe canada in 1995, when their debt to gdp rate was 68%, they considered that a crisis. they came together and responsibly enacted 20% across the board cuts. i hearders kin bowls three weeks ago, he was actually criticizing the republicans 61 billion proposed cuts, 3.7 trillion a year budget being 1.5%. he was talking about discretionary, nondiscretionary cuts, we've got to get serious. we run 223 billion worth of debt in february. i don't know how much we racked up last month. another thing that the debt commission recommends that i completely agree with, is complete reform of our tax code. and lowering the rates across the board and eliminating much of these tax expenditures.

and that would do wonders to stimulating growth, in my opinion. host: well, first of all, the call ser absolutely right about canada. i used to live in canada and i was covering the economic situation. and the fact that canada was able to get out of that and today they have one of the lowest debt levels in the industrialized world is an encouraging sign for us. a couple words of caution. canada had high interest rates at the start, so as the government shrank they are able to lower that. and they were able to export more to other countries so those were advantages canada had. touching a minute on what he was saying about the ers kin bowls commission, one of the things that's a little bit troublesome is all the debate we're having, whether or not we're going to cut 30 billion in spending this year as the democrats seem willing to agree to or 60 billion as the republicans would want, we're still only talking about the

discretionary part of the budget. by discretionary i mean that part of the budget that must be authorized by congress and we're leaving out a chunk of that because we're not talking about defense. but there's that other part, the mandatory side 60% of spending that's medicaid, that's medicare, that's social security. and we have still not had a serious discussion about that. that could change in the coming week. paul ryan, the chairman of the budget committee is scheduled to bring out a version of the republican budget and we're hearing that he is going to try to address some of these questions. host: and part of that is looking over a ten-year scope as opposed to other years? or have they always done a ten-year scope? guest: budget resolutions are typically only for a year in some cases two years. so now the president's budget does look out over ten years. so it would be actually intriguing to have a congressional budget resolution that actually looks at the same thing. one of the problems it's been too easy to use accounting ledger to shift expenses around

from one year to the next. have one of the favorite gimmicks is to have a tax cut that's extended for just one year, and then is allowed to expire so you don't have to endure the pain of it. but you also don't have to account for the ten-year cost. if you have a ten-year budget, that takes away some of those gymics. host: our last call, pennsylvania, connie on our democrat's line. caller: yes. hello. i was calling because i'm wondering if anybody has factored in the actual psychological damage when they're saying about they can't figure out why some people, the numbers don't add up. in my family alone, out of my household and my three older children, because i have one that's a senior this year, i have children as old as 37. he was off for only a few months, but he owns his own

business and it is not going to come back. he's going to lose 50% of his income. guest: absolutely. i mean, the confidence in fact is one of the biggest dampeners when the economy goes through a difficult period. one of the things we know is that typically someone who loses their job unvoluntarily, the next job doesn't pay as well. so they not only have to cope with the spell of unemployment, they have to deal with a paycheck that's smaller. the good news is that if you look at the surveys of people's confidence, it seems to be coming off the floor. people are getting more optimistic because they're seeing jobs open up, because like the stock market is doing better and so forth. there is that negative of gasoline prices. but if we can maintain that sort of optimism that develops into that circle of business is hiring, people with jobs being able to spend. produceses more sales for business. host: but is the next report economic indicator going to tell us as far as how the

economy is doing? guest: the first quarter of the year ended on thursday, so i think a lot of people will be looking in a few weeks time to see what the gross domestic product report was for the economy in the first quarter. that's in some sense the gold standard of how the overall economy is doing. it was a little disturbing because as numbers were rolling in on things like car sales and houses, people were lowering their estimates looking at 2 to 2.5%. it's ok but it's not great considering how much faster we should be growing. so that could be a little bit of a reality check. what i'm hopeful of is that the pickup in hiring that we've just seen will extend in the second quarter and that growth will accelerate. host: thank you for your time today. guest: thank you. host: later on in the program we're going to be talking with the former president of shell oil company and talks about energy issues. he will talk about rising gas prices, and this week's announcement by the obama administration as far as what it weants to do with finding

new sources of fuel. but up next we're going to talk about libya in light of what has commonly been known around washington, d.c. as the obama doctrine. and we'll take a look at that topic with lawrence corp, a senior fellow and also former defense secretary under the reagan administration. we'll be right back. today we go to oklahoma to talk to our third prize winner. >> hi. >> so why did you choose funding for the americans with disabilities act for your documentary? >> initially what i was doing my research, i found that it is an issue that affects my community directly and it hits home in the classroom with

different students who need a little more help in terms of their learning or the, like gaining new independence inside and outside the classroom. >> how have you been affected by the act? >> it's a great equal lidser. it does affect the way that i learn how teachers teach students. >> and how does it affect your school and community? >> it helps students realize just because you have a disability doesn't mean you're less intelligent. and having these technologies with the americans disabilities act inside of the classroom just kind of helps students show their true potential. and it doesn't leave them behind. >> why do you think it's important that the federal government continues to fund the american disability act? >> i think it's important that the federal government funds the americans with disabilities act because just like, just because they're a minority of citizens that are living with

disabilities doesn't mean that we should leave them behind in society. and i think because education i think is a key to a lot of things like throughout your life, making sure that students in the classroom have access to the same equipment as students that can see or students that can walk or students that learn the normal way or the average way. doesn't necessarily mean that they should be left behind. and with the americans with disabilities act we can make sure like not just in schools but in jobs and in public places that these individuals have an opportunity to have access to things that any citizens in the united states has access to. >> what is the message that you would like to share with people through your documentary? >> i think the main thing that i want people to take away from this documentary is just knowing that regardless of how someone looks on the outside or the way someone speaks or the different way that they learn doesn't mean that they're less of a human being than you. and that they should get the same opportunities and same

access to education and jobs and opportunities as anyone else. >> thanks for talking with us today. >> thank you for having me. >> and now here's a portion of crystal's documentary, a new vision. >> she has very low vision. it's about 2800 in one eye, just a tiny portion. she uses braille for everything other than math. for matt she is still using large brand, it's way larger than what people would consider large print. it's big. she needs close to television to make it big enough. >> always you have to stay prepared and organized. otherwise, you stay behind. >> when the teacher is explaining in print and then you have to think and gock back to the braille, it's hard. >> and as far as our books go for our kids, when we order our books, instead of it being one

book it will come in about five boxes and it's 36 books of braille. >> and you can see this entire video and all the winning documentaries at student cam.org and continue the conversation at our face book and twitter pages. "washington journal" continues. host: lawrence is with us to talk about events in libya. before we start, if the president, the current president had some type of doctrine when it came to how the united states involves itself with international conflicts, what would that be? >> guest: i think it would have a number of components, multilateral as you can, unilateral only if you must. as he mentioned, unless it's direct throat the united states, trying to get the international community. why? it gives you legitimacy, it gets you to share the cost. and as your priest guests were talking about, we're broke. i think it would also,

basically say that military force would not be the only way to achieve your objectives. in other words, yes, as he said in libya it stopped the killing of the people in benghazi buzz it's not going to achieve the ultimate effort of bringing gaddafi down. that's why you have diplomat pressure. i think it would also we b that you have to way the benefits and costs of any operation before you go in. are the potential benefits worth the cost. because there's a lot of horrible things happening around the world. but you have to take a look and see before you go in. and i think the final thing was that we're not going to solve all problems. some you're going to have to live with and manage. if you put those all together, that would be an obama doctrine. >> do those apply equally for what we have seen so far from this administration, iraq, afghanistan and now libya? >> i think so. because if you take a look at afghanistan where the president

and the campaign said this is critical, we're going to do what's necessary but on the other hand he is willing to negotiate. in fact, he's willing to negotiate because he recognizes he is not going to get a perfect democracy. if you take a look in iraq, he's basically said we've done what we can. in fact, the iraqis asked us to leave. i think people forget that. even before president bush left office he had to agree to get out completely by the end of 2011. and i think we take a look at libya. the arab league asked us, the u.n. legitimized it. other countries are willing to put in support. after the first ten days or so other countries are actually going to take a more important role and a more aggressive role there than we are. as far as what we have seen in libya, does how the united states acted in this case set a precedent for other countries in the world especially in the middle east that are having similar conflicts? >> that's where you get to the

costs and benefits of it. would we like everybody to be a democracy? i think the world was shocked in 1989 when the chinese mass considered people in teen man square. but the costs and benefits. certainly people are not happy with what's happening in syria. but take a look at the cost and benefits of going in there, you have to say that they just right now don't seem in balance. host: as far as how this doctrine compares with others, the economist magazine of our last guest made this comparison. it said this.

guest: with all due respect to general powell, it was really my former boss who enunciated that doctrine. and that gets i think there is a difference where you say if it's only going to be military force to achieve the objective, then of course i think general powell and secretary weinberg are correct you ought to have an exit strategy, be able to use all of the forces necessary. and this is what happened in iraq. remember, general petraeus who led the 101st air borne in said how does this end? you should have thought of that before you did it. i think what president obama said is to stop the killing of the civilians in benghazi and around it. so we've done that. that's the military mission. then of course as more of a mission. i think you can't rely just on military power to achieve your objectives. host: our guest with us until 9:15 to talk about these

issues. if you want to talk and ask him questions you can do so in several ways. for republicans if you want to call in. and democrats, independents, the numbers are on the bottom of the screen. send us an e-mail if you want, and also if you want to reach out to us on twitter. the cease fire proposal that came as far as the rebels are concerned, if that were to go into effect, saying that with no indication if it is or not, what does that mean as far as policy making here as far as the united states is concerned? guest: if you do have a cease fire, then you go into the diplomatic and the economic tools of your foreign policy. you have a cease fire. then the question becomes, ok, what's next? can gadhafi stay in power? will we buy his oil? will we keep sanctions on him?

but the cease fire stops the killing. and i think that's an important thing because then you save human lives and you prevent killing for no good reason. my personal view is given the defection of his foreign minister, given the fact that you have a representative of his son going to britain, the time is on the side of the international community if we're patient. that's what i mean. we as americans like to solve things quickly and get them over with. but look how long it took us to prevail in the cold war. almost 50 years. but we were patient and we made a few mistakes but we kept our goal in sight and we were able to achieve our objective. host: arming the rebels? guest: i think that in fact we should be involved in that because we want -- our mission is to keep them from being killed, unless they have proper arms it's going to be difficult. and nots that much different from using a plane and missiles from the ships to attack particular targets.

host: if you go to that route, arming rebels, does that fall under the general definition of what we've heard over the last couple of weeks as far as mission creep, as far as starting one way and ending another? guest: again, mission creep is where you get your military to do it. in fact, our military is reducing its role. what you're doing is what you did in bosnia. there was an arm's embargo and mill osvitch was killing tens of thousands of people. and finally we started arming the rebels to level the playing field and then we got involved to stop the killings. host: as far as length, where do you see the united states as far as its if this continues to be a prolonged process? particularly for the united states citizens of the united states who watch this and have to support this president and his effort? guest: i think again you've got to be patient. it's not that expensive. in many ways we've already paid

for this operation by spending $553 billion on our base budget exclusive of the war costs. we've got these ships. people say well you fired these missiles. we still have over 3,000 of them. a plane crashed. this week a marine plane crashed on a routine training exercise. well, the -- how much do you have to pay to fly in the no fly zone. as a matter of fact, pilots train all the time. i was a naval flight officer. you're out training. so the costs we've already paid and i think that's really important. in terms of understanding the way that this operation will unfold. host: our guest with us until 9:15. the first call for you is from jay on our democrat's line from miami, florida. caller: yes.

if the rebels are froodm fighters, that will open the door, leave the door open for extremists outside who wish to come and help. that could be a major disaster. i believe the u.s. should take action to eliminate gadhafi somehow. thank you. guest: well, you make a very good point here. the fact is we are not quite sure who these rebels are. and that's why i think it is important for us, we as we now know we have people from the intelligence agency on the ground there to find out who they are and to make sure that when this ends, the situation for people in libya does not become worse. and yes we would like to get gadhafi out. but i think if we're patient, time is on our side. and the cost in terms of blood and treasure will be much pless. host: iowa, william, republican line. caller: i've got a question for you.

if we're over there trying to take care of other people's business, why can't we take care of the business here in the united states? like the homeless and the people that really need help here? guest: you make a great point. i think to use a term of heart, we're going to have to trim our wings in terms of how we deal with situations in the world. and i think that's why the president waited until the arab league asked, the u.n. asked and other countries were willing to step up to the plate because we have these problems here at home. i mean, this operation, the marginal costs over and above what we normally spend is going to be roughly like $40 million a month. and where we're already spending 553, you're not going to have to add on to it flt i would take this one step further and ask like why do we still have 100,000 troops in europe 20 years after the end of the cold war? why do we still build weapons

systems that really deal with threats robotic by air? so we have to take a look at what we spend on national security overall. paul wolfowitz has an op ed in the "washington post" this morning. he writes that guest: well, i think again that's using a diplomatic tool because under international law if it's a civil war there are differences ins of what we call genocide and what we try to protect. the international community has already done that by authorizing the use of force. if this would be one further step in that direction it would

make sense. host: new york you're on the line with larry. mike democrat's line. caller: good morning, gentlemen. host: go heed. caller: mr. cor b, you made a very good point as far as finding out who it is that's on the ground that we are helping. and the best way to do that is to have someone on the ground like the c.i.a. be able to identify these people that we are supposed to be helping. my question is though these people now need weapons. why doesn't the arab countries themselves arm these people? everybody wants the u.s. to do this and do that. and when we do it, that's why i feel bad for the president he's damned if he does and damned if he doesn't. if he doesn't, thousands die. and they blame him for not helping. guest: i think you make a great point. it's very interesting. before he got in people said

well you've got to get in. after he got in, they said this is not a u.s. strategic interest. i think in terms of arming the rebels, secretary gates said the other day, secretary of defense, that others should be able to do that. and again, given our unfortunate experience particularly in iraq and what that's done to the opinion of americans in the arab and muslim world, the fact that we're not taking the lead and we're not out front will help us in this operation. host: pennsylvania, before that this is from the "wall street journal" this morning. you talked about those who identified as rebels on the ground. guest: well, it's interesting. the minimum wagea dean empowered to get rid of the soviets and that was a good thing because i think that hastend the end of the cold war

to get so-called minimum wage ja dean. but i think you have to be careful of what the c.i.a. would call blow back. now what? and our mistake in afghanistan was after we do that we left. after if gadhafi goes we have to be meaning the international don't back off. host: pennsylvania, republican line. bill, go ahead. guest: first thing i would like to do is thank c-span because you showed the clips from al-jazeera and i found they're another great source of news. as far as i'm concerned, mission creep is not going from air strikes to boots on the ground. mission creep are all these war hawks like your guest today, like mccain, like lieberman, that come out in support of this, obama doesn't want to

enter another military action is stuck between a rock and a hard spot. points that we no longer have a two party system, we have a one party system. the voice to be heard is the voice of ron paul and the like which says end the empire, we have no right to be -- i mean, let's face it. we believe in sovereign nations. if they're a sovereign nation whether this guy is the creep or not, they are a sovereign nation. we have no right to be bombarding them. and as far as humanitarianism being the reason, we have uprisings in bahrain, uprisings in yemen, uprisings in syria. host: we'll leave it there. guest: i think senators mccain and lieberman would be surprised to see me in the same camp as them. what i said was if you're going to do it, don't let the united states bear the full costs.

i think that's the saying that people like ron paul and rand paul, congressman and the senator, saying if you are going in, this is -- this is very unusual. i think we're making a transition from super power to super partner. given we've got a lot of these problems and we don't want to build an american empire. if we're going to do this, i think basically we need not to carry the whole burden. i mean, if you look at what we spend for example in iraq, we spent close to $1 trillion. nobody else spends much near that. in kosovo we had 75% of the costs of that. basically, i think the model in this, i mean, i think we'll have less than 50% of the overall cost. host: you mentioned that the defense secretary gates and earlier at a hearing this week he was asked about the application of the war powers

resolution. there was an interchange with randy forbes from virginia about this. i want to get your reaction to this. >> it's says our forces should not be put into hostilities or imminent hostilities by the commander in chief unless one of three things happen. a declaration of war, a specific statutory authorization, or a national emergency created by an attack on the united states or its forces. my question for you today is, which of those three things took place to justify this act? or if it didn't, is it the administration's position to the best of your knowledge that they simply don't have to comply with the war powers act? >> it has been the position of every president since the war powers act was passed that the kind of action that we have undertaken is compliant with law. >> guest: it's a very interesting thing about the war powers act. every president since it was

passed has said it's unconstitutional. but nobody wants to take it to the supreme court because that would restrict it. and again, if you go back and take a look in terms of a military action, when i worked for president reagan we went to lebanon, we invaded grenadea, we attacked gadhafi. you look at the balkans. that in fact presidents technically, as congressman forbes said, have violated the war powers act. i do think that president obama should have consulted more with congress. and again, given how late the u.n. finally passed the resolution and given what was happening in benghazi, it may not have been enough time. but i think obviously because it is a coequal branch of government we should have consulted. it's rather ironic, it was the congress urging president clinton to act and it was people like senator mccain and senator lieberman, they said

you've got to act. you have a crisis on your hands. host: back to 86, are there applications that apply now? guest: i think if you go back to 86, the reason that president reagan ordered the bombing of gadhafi was that he was responsible for killing some americans at a disco in what was then west berlin. and again, you can go and you can say, well, since then we know he's responsible for the locker bebombings. so this is not just another leader. he has inflicted harm on the united states. and so i do think there is that conversation when you decide whether you want to do something about it. host: new jersey, thanks for holding on. maria, independent line. caller: good morning. i just wanted to make a few observations and get some comments. it seems to me that there was tho verification of the slaughter because there was no

real news coverage. they have the same people who are said to be incompetent. we are told there are about 1500 hundred of of them. i think it's a fig leaf. the second thing is we're using our troops as mersnaries who don't even get paid half the time rather than acting in our national interest. and the main problem is that obama is acting as a king under the empire world government. we have to stop our global list activities and coming back to an independent not an interdependent nation. guest: you raised a lot of questions. i think it was pretty well documented by al-jazeera exactly what was happening. in fact, secretary clinton has praised aljazeera which is rather ironic. they've been trying to get on

networks previously and i think they will be. look, i think we can't kid ourselves. one of the reasons we're concerned about that part of the world is oil. and until we get an energy policy our actions there are going to be influenced. that's one of the reasons why we can't put much pressure on saudi arabia. in terms of the troops that we have, i mean, we're not putting ground troops there. the navy around the air force people are already basically you're paying for them. you bought the equipment. and again, i don't think there's anything about a world government. i think what we're saying is that the international community which remember we had a lot set up. it was our idea to set up the united nations, basically can come together when things are so horrible. i think we're still haunted by the memory of the holocaust where the international community didn't do anything to say well waited a second. there are some things, whether it's the balkans or whether it's here now where it's so bad and you can do something that you just can't sit back.

host: we have off of twitter someone asks if you would comment on the c.i.a. operations taking place in libya. guest: well, again for the c.i.a., remember a couple things about the c.i.a. operation. before the president can do this, he has to sign what he calls a finding. and that's sent over to the intelligence committees in the congress. and they can veto it. so in eekt what we don't know everything, this is legal under what the president has done. and i think again, it's an important thing to do because you want to know what's happening there. i mean, really if you go around the world there are c.i.a. agents in most countries of the world. a lot of them are under diplomatic cover. but this is important for us because right now as some of the previous callers have said, we want to know what's happening there. if this -- who we should support, who we should not support. and how we can make this thing come out. host: what level of engagement

are they in now? guest: ostly we don't know. that's one of the things about the c.i.a. i think what they are is providing tactical help to the rebels, to explain where the other side is coming from, things that they might do. also what they're saying is what do they need. so if the international community decides to do something, and the other thing is they're trying to find out who the leaders are and what's really behind this. if we have a situation where this is over, and it's hard to conceive of where it could be worse, you know, than under gadhafi. host: michigan, republican line. dave. caller: good morning. my question is we're seeing that these battles are hard to win with just military force and so on. the 166 cruise missiles, those are all tipped with nuclear war heads, i don't believe there's any nation in the world that would stand a barrage of 166 nuclear weapons falling on

them. wouldn't they soon give up or just completely be blown off the face of the earth? and that also applies to afghanistan. if we were to use nuclear weapons there, wouldn't all these wars be quicker and cheaper there wouldn't be much arguing about who is going to surrender when and where? that's my question. guest: well, i think the problem would be. then what? ok? and what would you do to the world? we go back to an earlier point, you have to take a look at the cost and benefits of the action that you take. and again, i think the last thing we would want is to have a nuclear war because then what would happen. look at what's happening in japan now with the problems just a couple of reactors. that would be, that's tiny compared to what would happen if you dropped 166 nuclear weapons on libya and what you would do to the rest of the region.

as well as the united states reputation in the world. host: new york, thanks for holding on. we go to nick, independent line. caller: i was wondering since your guest concede that had oil is the major fact and there's no humanitarian basis since we don't do anything in bahrain or saudi arabia or even in israel when they do things, if you're going to say and argue that the u.s. should act in this manner what inventive to for countries to abandon the weaments program and against the united states? why should iran not look and say perhaps we do need a nuclear programs? guest: you raise a couple points. i talked about the fact that's why we're concerned about that part of the world. but that then i think you also have to overlay on that is we get a very small percentage of our oil from there. we get 2% from libya. but the real problem is what

gadhafi was doing to his people. i did mention the fact that our relations with saudi arabia and our ability to influence is influenced by the fact that in many senses there are they are our gas station. i don't think you can compare to what the saudis have done in bahrain to what the gadhafi was doing in libya. he was pretty specific about what he would do. so i think you have to put all of those things in context when you decide what your policy will be. host: how has your view of how the nations involved in this effort are working together, particularly since the start of the operation? . .

good that nor this is a. we should be doing. host: what is the best solution? someone in venezuela gives him a mubarak in egypt.

democratic line. president obama's in libya. all he is doing -- is it me? host: go ahead, caller. they're making noise. they hate the u.s.. transportation. guest: if we have not done

the u.n. to act and it was our when we can do something. can you do something about this? people add cinnamon square, there was nothing we could do -- atand it sends a signal to the people in that part of the world that if things get too bad, the just stand aside. host: if the u.n.-nato coalition is successful, whatever that means, will they collectively libya? guest: if they're successful, you have a u.n. peacekeeping

establish a legitimate political system. impression. people say the united states invaded libya. first of all, that is not compare the to religious group who was dead before the russians invaded it someplace like afghanistan. the rebels are a spontaneous group of. the protests. this started as a peaceful demonstration, but they had to take up arms because they were

facing a brutal regime. who are they? they are just trying to get freedom. that is it. points. we have a say on the ground, but we do not have military forces like we do, for example, in iraq or afghanistan. you are right about the rebels, but i think they can be captured by other groups. for gaddafi for a long time. the soviet union, the religious now know as they taliban. there were part of the group

that we worked with in the 1980's when i was in government and he is now part of the karzai government. host: pennsylvania on the republican line. you are next. caller: i have the marine a while back, your guest used a couple of phrases and i was taken aback. one was about a marine at who died recently and the plane crashed during training. i am more ok with that rather than of being a tormented in the i found that odd. patient. i do not think the administration was patient enough. he said people were saying go in. comfortable and have concerns

that we do not have enough information. thank you for c-span and good morning. guest: let me make a couple of points. basically, you have a marine plane crash that was not involved in the war. people were saying that we had problems that crashed in libya and these things happen all the age. all the international problems right away. time is on our side. there would be people in this country in 1956 when the poles and hungarians wanted us to go in, eisenhower did not, and people obviously suffered. it was another 35 years before

those regimes collapsed. finally, i think you should be uncomfortable with not being consulted and it is the job with the president to make sure. he made a statement monday direction. like i said earlier, he should have consulted with closely with the converse before this mission started. host: i want to get you and pressure on other conflicts happening in the world. bahrain? guest: this is where every get back to the question of cost and benefits. bahrain is a country that we had a hand in. they are a country that provides

because they are a shi'ite sanctions, the criminal courts. remember that a lot of these

leaders in syria are about to be indicted for having done things what would be the cost of doing that? engaged in a conflict that you could go and early in dade. in my view, the cost would far outweigh the benefits. you didn't have the international community or arab league pushing you there. we have urged the president to step down, but this is where al qaeda is on the arabian peninsula. we have c.i.a. and we have the drone strikes. we should keep the pressure on him to step down. he is pushing towards 2013 and

in the right direction. we have to take a look at and say, if he were to go -- then what? host: with the devout long-term egypt? -- what do you think about long- guest: will egypt to become turkey? the military will play a role. or will they become pakistan with an unstable government in the military has to keep it? we are allies with both and we are obviously not happy with some of the things, but they are better than under mubarak. host: last call. on their democratic line. caller: good morning. i just wonder people have forgotten on the first of march that the senate passed a resolution to do exactly what president obama is doing.

now everyone is saying that he did not consult enough. i wonder if they consulted with him before they passed that resolution. obama is damned if he does and former speaker gingrich saying interest. consulted them much more we would see less of these host: will libya be a key test guest: the test will be whether

stay with it and whether, in whether the arab league holds host: you were with the center for american progress. tell us about your work. guest: i work on national- security issues. we developed a plan in 2005 about iraq. until you do that, you will not be able to get the situation under control. everyone called us cut and run it is something the iraqi government insisted on when the u.n. mandate expired. we do reports of afghanistan and talk about now is the good time for negotiating. it looks like there is some kind of negotiating, but you cannot

win militarily. we have done were gon -- work on don't ask, don't tell. host: al-jazeera is showing a video about the violence breaking down there. guest: pastor jones burning the karan, which is very sensitive to people in the arab world. they are not in favor of the talent than and there was enough bed in yesterday's "the washington post" talking about that, but the fact the matter is they are not wild about foreign occupation. people who do not want us there, will play this up. this is the type of people who come here. they take control, basically you will not be able to read the qaran. in this media age, you have to be careful. it is a whole host of things.

it is so important for us to but the hearings that rep came -- king had with the muslims and the mosques in new york. host: lawrence kolp, thank you for joining us today. we are right to be looking at energy policy with the former ceo of shell. here is the week's news via political cartoons.

host: earlier this week, president obama laid out a policy for energy and he followed up today with his weekly video address. >> to see that all of america's uses 25% of the world's oil. we have 2% of the world oil reserves. even if we used every last drop of all the oil we have, it would not be enough to meet long-term energy needs. real energy security can only come if we find ways to use less oil, if we invest in cleaner fuel and greater efficiency. host: here to talk to us about those proposals as well as other aspects of energy policy is drawn hoffmeister -- john the book is a "why we hate the

are these good impacts as well as reducing our dependence on guest: it is important to put into perspective how much will context of where we are today perhaps in the future. day. second that we burn in the country. day of the 20 million barrels which means we are bringing in that is the fuel in the

defined security and exchange hundreds of billions of barrels of oil that are not yet ready to

to see it is alleged to% is just dead wrong and it makes them look a bit silly. host: what percentage of oil can we get from our own ground? guest: we produce 7 billion barrels per day but we are down to six biggest shutdown the gulf of mexico. we could go back to 10 and we could sustain that for decades to come. that is 50% of our production. here is the reality. for all of the president's aspirations, we are not shifting away from oil during the terms in office. during the president's's terms and they are not going away. the tens of thousands of airplanes, trucks, and so forth are not going away quickly.

if we do not produce more oil, we are at the mercy of the foreign markets that in court to us and we get more libyas or a competition with china over its future oil supply. it will only get worse. in addition, we can move to alternatives. i have been backing them for one dozen years and i will continue to back them. host: as far as infrastructure develop resources, what would that take as far as money and what areas of the country will be most affected? guest: that is a great question. i testified in congress in february and if we want to produce 3 billion more barrels

per day, we would produce 3 million new jobs without one dime of government money. the private investment community would be motivated to the private investment dollars behind producing the value that is created by more oil production.

in the case of early alaska oil take the nature of the oil. there is a sweetness or of the oil, most alaskan oil over the last 30 years has gone to california or washington state. the notion that oil once produced goes immediately into the global marketplace and not united states and sold here

because it is the biggest market been established, said up, -- set up to do so. it does go at the global prices. from and ports.

higher mpg is automobiles which is even less oil. the president said 30%. i think we could be more he said we should rule for more oil but did not set a target. why does the u.s. not set a own national resources? complete this service have to would be terribly vulnerable

systems of any manner of few urban areas. that is the tens of millions of their automobile would be which does not provide them with i do not see any appetite for host: republican from atlanta. caller: i would like to ask mr. hoffmeister if he believes the obama and he if he would be

interested in being the energy administration or if he has any political goals? guest: no political ambitions because i detest the american money-raising politics that takes place. as a personal protest, i would not offer service for an elected office. were i to be asked to serve the public at this stage of my career in appointed role, i would have to seriously consider that. the president and i would have had some clear understanding if i were to be in public service that i would not politicize my agenda in the way that so many people politicize their agenda for the sake of electoral politics. that is why my book is called " why we eat thick oil companies: straight talk from an energy insider."

i suggest an alternative way forward that meet its today's infrastructure requirements as well as permits a carbon free energy system 50 or 60 years from now to lay out the transition of how we get from where we are to where we are going. i welcome the opportunity to help the nation moved along that path either as a private citizen in my current role in the my current foundation, citizens for affordable energy, or in an official capacity. the nation has to move forward on energy or we are headed otherwise for gas lines, blackouts. we have not addressed the energy future since richard nixon climb energy independence. eight presidents have failed us, 19 congresses have failed to develop a 21st century system.

host: baltimore, md., good morning. democratic line. i wonder what your plan is for using natural gas and how soon could something like that the ramp up? guest: the pickens plan is good because it takes an abundant natural resources and it takes them off diesel. it takes them off of gasoline. that would be a substitute, much like biofuels, and make us less dependent. it would take years, not months. if we get started, that would be

good. i understand there may be a bill introduced in congress in the next week or so. boone pickens has been at this for a very long time. it is not a complete energy plan, but a very important tactical addition to a very i hope we are successful in says the estimates of the entire says there now as high as 2500

oil as well that would be side by side in most ideologies. to focus on domestic energy notion that we can only exist we can manage the environment highest standards in the world right here in this country, but they're always going to be risks of the power.

companies? transit. that comes in community after i know and understand the sun -- very much.

endeavor that would probably it would take decades to build the business plan. gas in houston? guest: $3.60 for regular gas host: how much do you see that going up? guest: i predicted december 2010 before the middle east turmoil

yes, permits are starting to be granted. eight permits in the last year basically since the macondo foreign imports will decrease which will help to raise the shh chinese consumers bought 35 billion barrels consumption per day to 15 billion barrels per

have spent

coupons the campaign for elected office? energy interests -- be it the interest, there is a tendency

we'd money from every potential when things that ought to think free. we should be thinking about hydropower. we have a whole infrastructure that needs coal, oil, natural from four sources.

if we double the wind and solar, triple the wind and solar in single-digit contributions to the electrons that we need every permits, building a coal plants. is now 38 years old. the reserves? land? if the state does not want to

permit offshore drilling, do you want the government to require people, should have first dibs states have a role to play. federal land. it is on federal land and particularly in colorado.

unemployment and shortages of workers in what is a developing host: next call from washington, caller: think you for taking my he sounds to me like a very good mouthpiece for the oil industry. and we only produce seven.

ramp this output. if you are talking about in the pocket. the price will skyrocket beyond the balance between the two is

plan. term. we have to wake up in the morning knowing there are 20 it sings because people cannot i do not compare oil with it is the lubricant of the

american society we have built 100 years developing. sort. some things are technically now ready for prime time yet. technology. if we look at this over a 10, the money and the people. host: on twitter, nancy asks this up?" guest: we will never need all of it will last until we do not choose to use it anymore.

not new. it is roughly 1.5 trillion barrels.

as soon as they did that, they told all of their leases and crashed of the cars. they sold the battery rights to different body styles on the same chassis. car. overnight. you get 300 miles are you not

misleading -- the eve efforts were not part of anyone's plan. it was a response to a single itself reneged on the subsidy that the manufacturing and we lost that opportunity. we're losing the opportunity of we have no plan for the future germany and japan, china and korea are going gangbusters on

i am part of the committee and the cost of the technology is really far away from the average consumer's available disposable dollar. fleet. $42,000 leased vehicle. purchase price, and frankly most americans. we have to give the price down if the batteries are to take be fully competitive with

vehicles available today to not use any oil. we can get there, but we have to have the persistence third time -- through time. host: college park, maryland. i have a comment. what makes you more credible than the sec? estimate that we did not know? why should we go with the and noun rather than they now provided by the sec? that is my first question.

need? the president comes on television and talks about this every time. he has been in power for two years and each time he talks what else do you want him to talk about parks what else do against it, and now you are you were a ceo for three years. shelducks -- shell? the blood of the people that you have when you work that show, why do you not tell us about the benefits that you yourself got from shelf? guest: the sec definition

the rest of the world looks at the number that i described. reserves plus probable reserves and the natural resource base slice of the estimate and i think that is unfair to the american people not to hear of the whole story to be able to make good judgments. that are needed.

everywhere we want to go. that does not exist.

the second point, you said you are a redgestrd democrat and you voted for the president. guest: yes, i am and have been for many, many years. that doesn't mean i agree with president obama's approach to energy, which i frankly do not. it is so politicized and it is

so i think dangerous to the ongoing strength of the american economy that i have been persistent in saying to him as a person and to members of his administration and to members of congress we have to have both more oil and the alternatives we seek. with respect to the federal energy resources board, we have watched richard nixon through barack obama as president and 19 congresses play politics with the nation's energy. it is not working. we are going backwards, not fords. with all due respect to current elected officials, the 111th congress that just finished in 2010 did not produce a single energy bill. not one. not one. and the 110th congress did not ing about hi gas prices. so what are these people doing on behalf of the american people? and i am suggesting that the

politics of energy is dominating and we need a way to get politics out of energy. host: we have time for one more call. caller: thanks for your time. i would like to ask you about reflecting on the findsings of the blowout preventer not being able to operate in the deep water drilling. and if you would speak to peak oil as it regards to cheap recoverable oil. do you disagree with the bell curve that is being promoted? and the subsidies that you speak of, don't you think there's plenty of subsidies going to the oil companies right now? guest: thank you. it's it's tragic that the preventer was not as robust or designed in a manner to deal with what it should have dealt with. the blowout prevent ser designed to be the fail safe mechanism. it did not work. unfortunately, it should have,

it could have. and in the future they must work. that should be a condition of operating that blowout protectors do serve the role they're supposed to play. and i support the regulatory changes necessary to make sure that happens. with respect to the subsidies or so-called tax subsidies, these are in the tax law for decades and decades that are designed to enable the industry to keep operating during good times and bad times. don't forget, while we've had $147 oil price three years ago, we had $10 oil price 13 years ago. and companies across the u.s. just started shuthing down, shedding thousands of jobs. and ultimately that would make oil more expensive so the government set up these tax deduction soss that companies would keep operating. much as they do for almost every industry that mfers something in this country. so we have to take into account what is the oil price relative the tax break, d