neutrality and the government's role on online regulation. next.ngton journal" is ♪ host: good morning, today is monday, april 25. you are looking at a picture of the white house, where the president and the first lady will be hosting an easter egg roll. last week to president administered a task force to look at rising gas prices. today we want to talk about rising gas prices and their impact on the economic recovery

and if you think that rising gas prices are affecting the recovery. give us a call. for republicans, 202-737-0001. for democrats, 202-737-0002. for independents, 202-628-0205. if you have called us in the last 30 days, today is the day to put down the phone and go to the keyboard. you can send us an e-mail. the address is journal@c- span.org. if you are on twitter, you can follow us at twitter.com/c- spanwj. this is the lead story this morning in "usa today." "experts temper economic forecast."

host: mark zandi will be our guest just a little bit later on

in the program. the article goes on to say -- host: that is one look at the relationship between rising gas prices and the economic recovery. we want to see what you have to say. the first call comes from fort

smith, arkansas. caller: thank you for c-span. host: what do you say about rising gas prices, anthony? and the impact on the economic recovery? caller: it will have a big effect on me. what i think that people need to realize is the only reason the gas prices are high is because of the war's going on that america is engaged in. especially with libya. people can say what they want, but the reason we are getting into it with libya is to secure the oil trade. host: how have these rising gas prices affected yupik so far? -- affected you so far?

caller: getting back and forth to work, getting the kids to school. host: are you having to cut back? caller: eventually you will have to, whether you want to were not. host: jim, republican line, talk to was about rising gas prices and how you feel that impacts the economic recovery. caller: just this morning in miami gas prices are $3.88. in tucson they are $3.54. i believe that what this will do is hurt the middle class on down. what we need to do is, like they want to do, focus on the speculator is and why these prices have raised so much. i am conservative, but i think that this will hurt nobody but the middle class on down.

the wealthy can afford to pay for this. host: how does it affect you so far? caller: food. my travel. i am a veteran in the vietnam war. i can only put so much money because i am disabled. i can only put so much money in my car. it is destroying my lifestyle. host: mike, independent line, go ahead. caller: i was talking about all of the gas farms here in detroit, there is no more place to put the gas. this is not supply and demand. i hear these more on republicans talk about drilling for more oil, but why? so that it can go to japan? if you think the american people will reap the benefits from domestic oil, like the gas

companies will give us a break because they are getting our oil? you can forget about it. the reason we are talking about this this morning is to hurt obama's poll numbers. that is what this is about. host: bob, democratic line, go ahead. caller: there is a simple way that everyone can go from $4 per gallon to $2 per gallon and still purchase gas. the next time that you have to replace your car, and i realize that it is expensive, if you are driving a car that gets 20 mpg, there are lots of cars that get nearly 42 miles per gallon. i lived in upstate new york. i have been going for long walks over the last weekend. driveway after driveway there

are so many large vehicles all over the place. it is insane. if you go to europe and you see those kinds of small cars -- micro mercedes-benz, of all things, i saw there. there are cars on the market in the united states. i think that what it will do for the electric car market, but pay attention to these things. i see so much about purely electric vehicles. prices are coming down. there are things that we can do. i note -- i know that is a -- i know that it is expensive to replace a vehicle. but it does not have to but -- break the bank. host: what kind of met -- mileage do you get? caller: 35 miles per hour in my corolla.

host: president obama in his weekly address was discussing his announcement last week that eric holder will have a task force to look into rising gas prices. >> thursday, my attorney general launched a task force with just one job, rooting out fraud or manipulation in the oil markets that might affect gas prices. but we will make sure that no one is taking advantage of the american people for their own short-term gain. we will take another look at the gas subsidies that we give to the oil and gas companies each year. $4 billion that goes to these companies when they are making record profits at the pump. host: peter more reach the -- morrici is writing fo

ronthestreet.com. he writes that --

host: we are talking about rising gas prices and their impact on economic recovery. next, texas, on a long for republicans. you are on "washington journal." caller: good morning. host: where is callisburg caller: 4 miles from the oklahoma border -- callisburg? caller: 4 miles from the oklahoma border. host: hal r. the rising gas prices affecting you where you

are? caller: rising prices everywhere, drilling operations have been picking up for the last four years with horizontal drilling and what not, recovering more gas from wells. otherwise we are not commercially viable. yes, gas prices are going up. i read with the article you are reading. we have not had an energy policy since the 1970's and before. we should have been working on this and longtime ago. we need to get rid of a lot of the red tape that is necessary to make some positive changes. not just drilling and things like that, but i have a friend -- their family owns a gas

stations. i ask them why they are not putting in propane to sell. he said that the red tape is just enormous. they do not have a lot of that infrastructure in place. in this neighborhood it seems like the red tape is the problem for propane. when they have an energy policy, it would be wonderful if in the future we had all sorts of green energy. that is a long time off. no one is likely to put in the resources to do that in bad times. host: we will move on to mississippi, independent line. go ahead. caller: good morning.

i agreed that the price of oil and gas are drastically affecting people in the united states. i am a disabled american veterans. i am on a fixed income. i know that anything that requires transportation, as gas prices go up, those prices will begin to rise as well. when you start doing that, you will start getting inflation. president obama says to take away the $4 billion in aid to the oil companies. i have no doubt at all in my mind that those tests -- those costs will be passed on to was in higher gas prices. we are far below what they pay in europe over there. but they have the vehicles that get 35-55 miles per gallon on

gasoline. if we could do that, we could cut our use in oil here in the united states by having cars that got decent gas mileage until we found an alternate source to power our vehicles. host: jacksonville, florida, democratic line. go ahead. what is on your mind this morning, charlie? caller: i hear a lot about the oil problems in the united states. you never hear anything about australia. what is going on there? they have the same problems. i know that the japanese tried to get in the same area. host: you are saying there is something happening in australia that we should be looking at in the united states? caller: they are doing something economically that we should be looking at. the japanese are definitely in that area, they have been since world war two.

the united states should be looking into that. host: a staff writer with shamrock.com has this --

host: back to the phones. baltimore, maryland. frank, you are of "washington journal." caller: thank you for taking my call. one of the problems is that the president does not have a policy to reduce the gasoline supply in this country. the fact of the matter is that not all of us lived in new york city. many of us live in rural areas. some of us have more than two

children. we have to think about the safety in the distance that we drive. so, we are more comfortable driving in suv. host: what kind of car do you drive? caller: a minivan and an suv. i like them. they are larger. the price of gasoline today is bad. we are blessed with huge resources in this country that we are not tapping into. if we did that, we could reduce the price of gasoline here. host: bill, independent line, greenhill, but rhode island. go ahead. caller: in 1934 congress passed a law to protect the american people against speculators. it said that no wall street speculators could enter the market without reasonable

deportment of the oil that they bought or sold. in 2000, bush and his buddies rescinded that law. that is why we have the high gas prices. speculators are in there and we cannot do anything about it. host: davenport, iowa, on a line for democrats. steve, you are on "washington journal." caller: how are you today? host: what do you think about these rising gas prices and the effect on the economy? caller: it is real bad for the economy. people are hurting out. they cannot get by for the things they have to pay for. what i wanted to say is that maybe we should get back to the individual gas stations, like we had back in the 1950's, 1960's. these days it feels like-

station's control the gas until it goes out of the pump. if they -- these days it feels like the gas station's control the gas until it goes out of the pump. i think that when they put the fuel in the gas stations, they have got control over the gas until it leaves the pump. there is no leeway for someone to sell it for less money. that is why all of the prices are the same across the united states. they set the price and then you can drop it by 3 cents, 4 cents, but if you wanted to drop it 20 cents lower, you do not hardly see that. they have got to get rid of the control the stations have over the gas.

host: goldsboro, n.c., good morning. caller: over the last few days i have travelled over 1,000 miles with my wife. when george bush came into office it was $1.48 per gallon. after dick cheney spoke to his old buddies and i in 2004, that is when it started going up and up. the reason that i know is because i keep a gasoline log. whenever you put ethanol in your take, it does several things. you lose a 30% of your mileage. if you have an older car, it screws up your motor. host: in your opinion, what is your solution to the problem? caller: first of all, if we want to have speculator is they need to do one of two things -- take

possession of the oil at the time that depicted that they do it, -- at the time that they do it, and they need to pay 50 cents -- 50% of the speculation. they need to have some skin in the game to speculate on the oil. host: we are talking about rising gas prices. will the impact the economic recovery in the u.s.? next up is woodbury, new jersey. caller: we do not need to drill for any more oil or natural gas. we can get hydrogen fuel cells. that is what it is. you can run on water and not have to worry about drilling for oil and natural gas. host: how much will it take to get something like that up and running them of caller: is not

that difficult. stainless steel, and electrical impulses. -- something like that up and running? caller: id is not that difficult. stainless steel and electrical impulses. host: this story from alabama -- host: with

host: appleton, wisconsin, democratic line. mike, you wore on "washington journal." caller: good morning, america. unfortunately, i have bad news for everyone whining about gas prices. we represent 5% of the world's population and we take 25% of the oil. when the rest of the world catches up in consumption, we had better get used to $20 per gallon at the pump. get used to it, it is coming. host: dick, republican line, a good morning. how are you? caller: i am doing all right. hopefully you will give me a

chance to finish. i always try to tie everything together. they brought the price of oil up. they have guaranteed society $150 per barrel oil. that is not right. that is our oil. we simply need to start manufacturing again. america, you will wake up someday and realize that there are people out there that god will not blessed to make money. the only way that they can make money is to cheat and steal. i would like to tell the new world order that they are playing a dangerous game. host: there was an article from "the wall street journal" about a man driving around, looking for lower prices. are you in a similar situation? caller: ibm and i will show you where it started. when president obama got the $20

billion out shell, those -- out those gas stations went up first. host: we will leave it there. "new focus on interest rate plan." this is from "the wall street journal." host: back to the phones. will rising gas prices affect the economic recovery? georgia, we are talking with jake online for independence.

caller: good morning. thank you for taking my call. host: are rising gas prices going to affect the economy overall? caller: indeed they will. around here gas prices are are around $3.60 per gallon. i do believe that there are a lot of working class citizens that cannot afford to pay this much to travel to their jobs. it does affect them in terms of cost. i do not see the point of raising gas prices to the point where people cannot afford them anymore. it will impact work and everything else. host: how is it impacting you? caller: well, by car takes $39 to fill up. i have to travel light lot. by pay about $70 per week.

i have to live off of my school money. i am a student with no time to work. between that and everything else, lots of people around here are trying to make ends meet. it would certainly help if gas prices decreased. host: james, kentucky, democratic line. james, how will rising gas prices affect the economic recovery? caller: well, i think that them here in kentucky, bright here they raise the [unintelligible] $60 more per month. i thought that this was the most powerfulest country in the world. i do not see how obama can take over the country from the oil companies.

the poor people, i am a disabled coal miner that is not able to work. i am not able to get out of here to drive, go here, go there. you know? this is ridiculous. you know? host: do you find you have to plan out your trips in more detail? goingr: ain't no trips nowhere. i do not make $100,000 like a lot of these people out there. host: i mean trips to the grocery store, the doctor. caller: if i make a trip, i go about 30 miles. i would have to wait to go to the doctor and a grocery store. something like that. this is ridiculous. the oil companies, i do not

blame them for wanting to make a profit, but there ain't no use in robbing the poor people. host: a couple of more stories this morning about wikileaks releasing more information on prisoners in guantanamo bay. the lead article in "the new york times."

host: also this morning, it is the lead story in "the washington post." wikileaks disclosures, the paper offers details on most guantanamo detainees. host: back to the phones and our talk on rising gas prices. will the impact to the economic recovery?

let's go to end over, new york. republican line. caller: there is a little piece that i would like to cover here. it says the department of energy was instituted in 19707 to lessen our dependence on foreign oil. less than 35 years later and the budget for this necessary department is at $22 billion per year, 16,000 federal employees, approximately 100,000 contract employees. look at the job they have done. what are you slapping your forehead for? 30 years ago, 30% of our fuel consumption was foreign imports. today, 70% of our oil consumption is foreign imports. the banking system, health

care, and the auto industry had been turned over to this government. i think it is time to make a change in the government. host: how would you do that? caller: get rid of most of these crazy departments and bureaus that are tying up the country. as you have heard from the man in houston, he cannot get permits to put the appropriate in his gas station because of the rules and regulations that show owners but you cannot even open a business anymore without having something to do with that the government. host: we will leave it there. we got an e-mail from carl allen in hobbs, new mexico.

>> installing hydrocarbon is simple, it is only the red tape that put this on hold. host: back to the phones, new hampshire, independent line. caller: good morning. i would like to make a suggestion to your wonderful program. i have heard a lot of discussion about cutting costs, trimming down the government. i completely agree. i think that we have not believe look at recent history. we should look at what has happened in alaska. it seems to me that alaska has shown a wonderful profit-making in jobs through the building of

the alaska pipeline. i am told that individuals in alaska, they are given a check every year, instead of a tax, for something like $3,200. host: you think that more domestic drilling would help? caller: yes. the province has much more resources, much more in the ground oil and gas, then alaska did. it is in the same area and it is not under water. host: in the money section of "usa today," the right -- te -- y wrigh

host: baltimore, md., democratic line. caller: i wanted to say, about the debt prices going up that are making everything else going up, food prices and everything

like that, most people in america, the dollar is supposed to be going down with oil prices going up. it don't make no sense. the dollar go down. host: how have -rising gas prices affected your personal economy? caller: they say that gas prices are affectingly, but the dollar going down is affecting me. everything is going up. host: saratoga springs, john, independent line. caller: good morning, c-span. you have a smaller -- a lot of smart callers this morning. but not the usual crop of blame the president. [laughter] host: john, you know that all of

our callers are smart. host: well, it is true. we have to get better cars. i drive a toyota celotex. host: how old is that? caller: 2005 and it runs fine. host: have the rising gas prices affected your personal economy in other areas? caller: not be so much, i work in town and i stick around town. but the people around me that have to drive to albany, a about 30 miles from saratoga. many of the jobs are in albany. weekly, that is a huge chunk of their pay. host: john, sorry to cut you off. this headline in "the washington post," "senators urged more aid for rebels."

this is what john mccain had to say this weekend. >> we should make gaddafi aware that his very life is in danger. but we have to be careful of how we do that. we can achieve the goal of him being finished off by pursuing the battlefield on the ground as well. but i agree, he should not feel safe. >> how do you make him feel not save without going after him? he is riding around in the open air cars, waving. >> he has done that spur of the moment, without warning. no one knows where he is at any given time. the point is, we cannot count on taking him out.

what we can count on is a trained, equipped, well supported liberation force that can force him out and obtain victory or send him to an international court. my emphasis is on winning the battle on the ground, not taking him out with an airstrike. host: john mccain of the state of the union this weekend, talking about the situation in libya. back to the phones and our discussion on rising oil prices and whether or not the impact the economic recovery. our next call comes from alabama, democratic line. caller: you and susan need to lighten up a bit and smile now and then. but i think they should raise the prices to $10 per gallon, $16 per gallon. right now we are not serious in america about energy conservation. drive past and the fast-food

joint in america, you can see suv's in the drive-through, airconditioner blasting. until americans get serious about preserving and getting frugal about gasoline, i would not care if it raised to 50 miles -- $50 per gallon. host: what kind of mileage to do you get on your camaro? caller: 45 miles per gallon. i do not have to put gas in my car but once per month. host: jonathan, go ahead. are you there? caller: yes, sir. host: go ahead. jonathan? caller: how're you doing today, sir? caller -- host: doing fine. anything to say of rising gas prices and the economic recovery? caller: yes, i do.

i believe this is -- yes. host: we are going to move on. this article comes from "usa today." aps that track traffic and compare fuel economy.

host: you can find that in this morning + "usa today." democratic line, missouri. caller: it makes me sick to hear people like john mccain, who someone needs to run out of the country, talking about killing muammar gaddafi or anyone else in the middle east. all that we do is murdered these people after we have set them up as dictators. host: do you want to talk about rising gas prices? color-coded is exactly what i am talking about. can you not hear? host: tell me how killing gaddafi would change gas prices in the united states. caller: they want to take his resources. can you not see?

host: next caller here on "washington journal." caller: i do not see the problem with buying guest in a capitalist system. i have a 10-speed where i get 60 miles per gallon on water, free out of my tap. all you have got to do is buy a smaller car. host: what kind of car do you drive? caller: a buick. most of the time i use a mountain bike. host: how many people use the buick? caller: 3. host: david, schenectady. thank you for the call. in about 45 minutes we will be talking about the american views on the economy and deficit cutting with one of our local pollsters in washington, d.c. coming up after this break, a discussion on the debt ceiling with mark zandi from moody'

seconomy.com. april 25, 2011, you are watching "washington journal." we will be right back. ♪ >> two-thirds of the american people depended on the network news as their primary source of news information about the president of the united states. all of them were hostile to richard nixon. >> looking at a pivotal moments in american history, search and clip, share every c-span program from 1987 through today. washington, your way. >> now available, the c-span congressional directory. inside of a new and returning house and senate members, with

contact information, including twitter addresses and information on the white house, supreme court justices, and governors. order online experts c-span.org -- order online at c-span.org. >> tibor machan, sunday, may 1, on booktv. he will take your live calls, e- mails, and twitter messages, may 1 on c-span 2's "booktv." >> "washington journal" continues. host: mark zandi is the chief economist from moodys.com. before we get too deep into the debt ceiling reduction discussion, we want to continue

the discussion on gas prices. the lead story this morning in usa today -- "usa today," you are quoted as saying that "higher gas prices are upsetting the sharp cut in payroll taxes for 2011, prompting economists to brighten their outlook this year." so, how much will rising gas prices hurt the economic recovery, in your opinion? caller: -- guest: is a big hit. if gas prices stay where they are for the remainder of the year, it will be the equivalent of a tax increase of $100 billion. which is roughly the amount of

tax cut we are getting from the reduction in payroll tax this year. that was part of the deal that congress and the administration came to last year. affectively, we are taking the payroll tax cut in literally putting it into our guest tank. it is fortunate that we got the tax cut when we did, but it means we will not get a boost to the economy that i was hoping for. the economy will not be performing nearly as well as i had hoped even a few months ago. and it is because of the gas prices. host: moving on to the debt reduction ceiling debate, congressman ryan has put out a debt reduction plan. so has the obama administration. compare the highlights between the two and give us your analysis on which is better. host: there is commonality --

guest: there is commonality between them. the consensus from both plans is that we should cut the deficit by roughly $4 trillion over the next 10 to 12 years. there is commonality with respect to the fact that the earliest debt reduction should be on spending restraint. of course, the president's plan also includes some tax increases, particularly very high income households. the riot plan does not include planned also has more spending cuts, particularly with regard to medicare and medicaid. the president has some cuts, but not nearly as significant as the wry and plan emphasizes. makes a big change in the medicare program, essentially privatizing it.

making big cuts as a result of that. i have a courage that intellectual consensus seems to be forming. there is a big gap that needs to be bridged in a great deal of debate that needs to do that. i think that we are moving down the right path and we will wind up in a reasonably good place. it will take a push on the bond market to get there. host: last week you wrote "the sudden proliferation of long- term plans for the but federal budget means that national debate over fiscal challenges have begun in earnest. as the recent trip to the brink of shut down shows -- host: talk to us a little bit about your thoughts regarding what kind of compromises have to

be made between these competing entities in order to get to the deficit reduction and debt reduction that you are talking about. host: one key area that they need to work on is compromise -- guest: one key area that they need to work on is compromise. what will get us to that $4 trillion in deficit reduction over the next 12 years? right now the republican congress is arguing that there should be no tax increases. the administration argues that there should be some on higher income households. certainly an area that will require a significant amount of work and debate. the other area that will require significant compromise is regard to medicare. i think that if we are going to address our long-term fiscal problems, we are going to have to make some changes in the

health-care system to reduce the growth of future health-care costs. it is appropriate that policymakers are focused on that in these budget debates, but there is a big difference there and it will take some hard work to bridge that gulf. in my mind, those are the key areas where there are going to have to be significant amounts of debate, discussion, and ultimately compromise. host: we are talking with mark zandi, the chief economist with moodys.com. we will be talking with him over the next 40 minutes about the debt ceiling and debt reduction. if you would like to get involved in the debate, please give us a call. for republicans, 202-737-0001. for democrats, 202-737-0002. for independents, 202-628-0205. you can also send us messages through e-mail and twitter. arlington, texas, willie is our

first caller on the democratic line. go ahead. caller: i am calling because gas prices going up is bad for a lot of people. i have two cars and me and my wife use them both at the same time. i do not understand why they going up. yet again, money follow wars. guest company tipped the woods to the guest, gassing up. -- the gas company tipped the woods into the gasoline, gassing up. host: what do you think about the deficit reduction program coming from the republican house? caller: it is not producing anything. it reduces them spending a lot of money and take from us, the middle class as usual. america has always eaten off of

us. host: your response to willie? guest: let me respond quickly to both of his topics. energy prices have gone up for a few reasons. the most significant and immediate reason is the unrest in the middle east. there are a democracy movements into turmoil throughout the region. a region that produces a lot of oil and is the key to global energy markets. plus, the man continues to rise, particularly in emerging economies, like china, which is a case in point. also, the value of the dollar has declined a bit. putting pressure on commodity prices, like oil. a smaller reason, all of those

things have come together to push up energy in gasoline prices. it is a confluence of things. there is a good point to be made here. the burden of reducing future deficits is going to fall on all of us. deficit problems are very massive. to give you a sense of it, our budget deficit in the current fiscal year is going to come somewhere close to $1.30 trillion, up $1.40 trillion, close to 9% of the gdp. we need to get that deficit down considerably. it would be nice to be as 0%, but if we could get it down to 2% it would be a great goal. it will require a lot of restraint. including tax increases. you cannot generate enough

revenue, you cannot cut spending and tough, without having the burden fall on all americans. so, everyone is going to pay a price, unfortunately. fundamentally, that is why it is a difficult problem to solve. host: chad, republican line. caller: good morning. i am wondering why we cannot use interstate cop squads to affect the tax on alcohol, pornography, cigarettes. looking at those numbers, we are looking at half of a trillion dollars each year spent on this stuff. as far as i am concerned, you cannot fix these problems over nine. i know that from personal experience. guest: good point. good question. of course, so-called

[unintelligible] taxes, as you mentioned, many states impose high sin taxes. many states have been raising them to address current budget problems. at the end of the day, there is not enough revenue there. the budget problems are much larger than could be solved by taxing those products, even at very high rates. it is worth considering, but i do not think that we can rely on that to significantly solve our problem. we will have to make much deeper changes to the way the government spends money and the way that we tax ourselves. one other point that i would make, there has been some discussion of raising taxes on gasoline. obviously, that will not far fly

in the context of gas prices at $4 for gallon, but i think that there is logic to raising gasoline taxes in the long run. it can raise a significant amount of revenue. putting pressure on people to move away from, change their behavior from, using high energy cars. also, for us as a nation to become more can energy independent. there are a lot of benefits to the economy if we can do that. there seems to be a public sentiment that people do not like that idea, but it is similar sito a sin tax. host: this article comes from "the washington times."

host: give me an example of some of the good effects and bad effects that he is talking about. guest: well, taxes, by their nature, are distortionary. for example, take the payroll tax. literally a tax on work. people for working. their employer and themselves have to pay a tax based on their earnings. so, to raise the tax revenue, which is helpful in reducing the budget problem, it also reduces the willingness and incentive of people to work hard.

of course, we want people to work as hard as possible. it is good for the economy and helps to address our budget problems. there is a good example of a tax with benefits that we have to be careful with. we have to be careful whenever blue -- whenever we raise or lower taxes, looking at the effects that it has on people in terms of investing, working, all kinds of things. host: we are talking about deficit reduction with mark zandi. caller: good morning. i have a couple of questions. why can u.s. government paid down some of the deficit with assets we have? i would like to know how much gold, supposed to be like 147.3

million ounces in fort knox. if we could take our assets and pay them down, why not? i think the price of oil is gone to keep the economy from growing just like it did several years back. the oil companies seem to be doing it for more reasons than just money. i think that is the way mr. obama behalf of manipulating his moves. there henchman up there that speculates for them, you know, causing companies to go back -- answer those for me if you can. guest: with respect to the nation's assets, they are quite sizable. the federal government owns a lot of real estate and office buildings. there is a fair amount of gold in fort knox. frankly, i'm not sure how much that is. i know we cannot sell enough assets to make a significant

dent in our fiscal problems. more important, it does not address the ongoing gap between what we spend and tax revenues that we generate. you could pay down some debt, but you still have a very large gap between our spending and our revenue and that does nothing to close the gap, so it does not solve our problem. we have to close that gap significantly. with respect to energy in gasoline prices, i am not sure i got the exact gist of the point you're trying to make, but it is laudable to look in that direction to see if we can generate more revenue perhaps raising some kind of windfall profit tax on energy companies. but that is not one to generate a lot of revenue. something that will not be sustainable long run. and it to prices, natural gas

prices, will prices go up and down, all around. we need to make changes to our tax code so we can generate more revenue on a consistent basis over the long haul. and focus our energy on the energy industry is not going to be helpful at the end of the day. to the previous point, if you raise taxes on energy companies, there are distortions. one is, reducing incentives of those companies to find different ways to explore, develop and provide energy. if we're going to get the energy prices down, we not only have to conserve more and constrain demand for energy, but increase the supply of energy. that would work against that end. host: next, and so, alabama, democrats. >> one thing your guest missed while ago did not say anything

about, and to the bryan budget, the cuts --ryan budget, the majority of the money he gains in the cuts goes to tax breaks for the wealthy. guest: that is one implication of the plan, that is that congressman ryan does not want to raise taxes or allow tax rates -- tax rates to revert back to where they were prior to the bush tax cuts for the wealthy. in fact, we're not going to generate the revenue. to make up for that lost revenue, congressman ryan has to find spending cuts somewhere else in his budget plan. most of those cuts are found in the cuts to the medicare program.

one way, as you just said, he is trading off lost tax revenue because of a wish not to raise taxes on upper-income house is by cutting medicare more significantly than otherwise would have to be the case. host: independent democrat in new york, sends an e-mail with two questions. the first one, to we have both revenue and spending problem at the federal state levels or just a spending problem as supply-seiters like rep ryan are wont to say? >> i think with a problem both with respect to spending and respect to tax revenue just to give you some numbers, context, total federal tax revenue for total federal revenue as

proportionate to gdp is about 16.5%. since 1980, on average, it has been closer to 18%. at times, measurably higher. in the late 1990's, best of times, well over 20%. revenues are very low relative to the size of the economy. spending is also a very, very high. federal spending as proportionate to gdp is closer to 25%. since 1980, the average has been somewhere around 21%, 22%. from that perspective, i think is fair to say we have both a spending problem and a revenue problem. one other thing, i do think it is appropriate when considering how to address our long-term fiscal problems, the focus more on the spending side than on the tax side.

we need to do both. we need to constrain spending and raise more tax revenue, but i think if you look at other countries that have had similar problems and had to deal with large deficits and debt loads in the past, those countries that addressed the problems largely through spending restraint than tax increases do better than those that focus more on tax increases. it goes back to the distortions we were talking about a few moments ago. also if you raise taxes, it can reduce your competitiveness as a nation. we're in a very global economy and have to remain competitive to maintain growth and generate a lot of jobs. i think we have a spending problem, revenue problem and we need to address this from both sides. but i do think it would be appropriate to focus more on spending than on taxes. by the way, i think of all the

plans i've seen, the president's plan, congressman ryan's plan, that put forth by the fiscal commission to that. most of the deficit reduction in the long run is through spending restraints and not through increased taxes. host: a second question running, have you, mr. zandi, in your professional capacity, run a regression analysis on the theory of the laffer curve? if yes, what praise the top marginal effective rate at which tax revenues collected are the maximum, and any tax increase or decrease from that rate would cause a revenue decline? guest: what the caller is referring to is the relationship between tax rates and tax revenue. the thinking is that when you raise tax rates very high, at some point you're not going to raise any more revenue but lose

revenue because the higher tax rates cause people to pull back on their working and investments. and that loss of revenue from that is more than the increase to to the higher tax rate. abouts a lot of debate this. there are a lot of studies that have been done. i think it is fair to say that the current tax rates, that raising those rates to a modest degree -- and all of the budget debates right now, everyone is talking about modest tax rate increases for income households -- i do not think we will get to the point where we will lose revenue. we may not get as much revenue as you may have hoped for because people might work less, try to move money overseas, try to avoid paying those taxes or higher tax rates, but i do think

we will generate more revenue. the president, for example, talking about allowing the top marginal tax rate to go from 35% closer to 4% where it was prior to the bush tax cuts. -- 40% where it was before the bush tax cuts. the broad concession -- consensus, would say this would generate a lot of tax revenue. i do not think we're in your near the point where tax rates are so high that raising them a bit more would lose the government money. host: we're talking with mark zandi about the deficit and the debt ceiling debate. our next call comes from connecticut's for republicans.

caller: hello, thank you 4 c- span. i have a comment and question rid the comment, in our area, there are a lot of wealthy people. a good many of us make our living working for them. i really hate to hear them villain eyes because they just living their life like anyone else, just a different level. my question is, i do not know a lot about economics but i have been told that mr. ben bernanke and mr. timothy geithner and the president and even hank paulson has had business connections before any of them were put into the positions they are and that between themselves, they are

deliberately doing the dollar so we can pay off china, japan, brazil or whoever we owe money to in worthless paper. i wonder if there's any possible grounds to something like that? i will hang up and listen. thank you. host: mark zandi? guest: no, i don't think so. chairman ben bernanke of the federal reserve was princeton professor. timothy geithner has been a lifelong government official and the federal reserve system and was head of the new york federal reserve and now head of the treasury. he was never, as far as i know, in the private sector. hank paulson was. that was the former treasury

secretary under president bush. he was head of goldman sachs. he had extensive private sector background. quite varied in their backgrounds, have very different perspectives on the economy, financial mall -- markets and policy. going to your point of intentionally debasing the dollar, the answer is no, i do not think that is their intent. i think is ben bernanke's view, appropriately, that the economy is still weak which is represented by 8.8% unemployment rate. we are making progress, starting to create jobs, but still early on in the process. the unemployment rate is very, very high. inflation is still low. even considering the surge in gasoline and food prices,

consumer price inflation is still about 2.5%, quite low by historical standards. inflation expectations which are particularly important for the monetary policy, what people think about future inflation, that also remains very low. from the perspective of the federal reserve, they have made a lot of -- i think is right they should keep interest rates very low. the interest-rate the federal reserve controls is effectively close to zero. because of that, that is putting downward pressure on the value of the dollar. global investors are scouring the globe trying to figure out where is the best place to put their money. meaning, where will it get the highest return? they look at the u.s. and say our interest rates are close to zero, a good place to put my money-and not a good place to put my money because i cannot make a lot of money. i will go somewhere interest

rates are higher, say, brazil. or i would like to invest in china because china is booming and strong potential returns are there. that puts downward pressure on the dollar. but when you step back and take a look at the back of the dollar broadly, it is down but still within the ranges that prevailed since world war ii. on the low side, low-interest rates, but pretty much in the same kind of general band that prevailed since world war ii. i do not think there is an intent to debase the currency, to devalue as a result of the very low interest rates that prevail and lower interest rates are here because of the very difficult economy. another quick point i will make, there are some countries that manage their currency. not determined in the marketplace.

the most notable example is china. china determines its value of its currency, manages it. i think most would agree the chinese currency is significantly undervalued, particularly against the dollar. it would stand to reason for the dollar to fall in value against chinese currency, and that is what is happening. that is where most of the value of the dollar is falling, with the chinese currency. the bottom line, in answer to your question is, no, i do not think there's anything nefarious going on. this is just normal policy. it is good policy. it is the kind of policy we need to help our economy. it is not a slam dunk positive, there are negatives to a. but it is the best approach. dealing with the debt

ceiling, the christian science monitor this morning, one of their lead stories, next test for deal making trio is the headline, talking about the workings between house speaker john boehner, senate majority leader harry reid and the president saying the debt ceiling talks may be a bigger hurdle than hard-fought deal on the 2011 budget. mark zandi, your thoughts about that? guest: it will be a hard-fought battle. at the end of the day, policymakers absolutely, positively need to come together and raise the debt ceiling limit. if they do not raise the limit, then, early july, the government will be put in a position of paying the bills as they come. when there is no more revenue, will stop paying the bills. that will affect everyone

significantly. it may be the case, not only park service's that close, but it is going to be everything related to social security, parts of medicare, medicare recipients may not get money to pay the doctor bills, could be everything that government does will be disrupted. it will be so significant that it would push the u.s. economy back into a very deep and dark recession. it could exacerbate our problems, make a much more difficult to reduce the deficit. in fact, will make a very untenable. the bottom line, absolutely no choice here for policymakers. they have to raise the debt ceiling limit. i do think it is likely and probably a good thing that policy-makers are going to try to use this as a way to make some progress in addressing our

fiscal problems. one possible thing that is a good thing that could come out of this is ever and agrees to some kind of debt trigger. this is an idea there is a mechanism that would be implemented say after the next election that would cut government spending, reduce tax expenditures to raise more money, if in fact the policy makers have not addressed our deficit problems and the debt load is not moving in the right direction. it is not determining exactly how we're going to address our fiscal problem, but it lays out the goals we're going to try to achieve. if we do not achieve those goals, then we have this mechanism in place. i think it policymakers can agree to something like that, the natural progress, that would

be helpful and something good will come out of the state -- out of this breed policymakers have to raise the debt limit unreasonably timely way. they cannot let us preach the debt ceiling. that would be a gracious era, and in my view, a very irresponsible. host: two senators involved in the debate, the machinations of working with the debt ceiling are senator coburn and senator conrad, the chairman of the senate finance committee. they were both interview this weekend on "meet the press" talking about the debt ceiling. >> debt limit does not really mean anything because we have always extended it. the treasury secretary has the ability, even if the debt limit is not extended, has the ability to continue to pay interest on our bonds. the idea that we might say that

this is catastrophic is wrong. what is catastrophic is continue to spend money we don't have on things we do not need and continue to mortgage our future and not fix the very real problems in front of us. >> i have been very clear for the last 10 increases in the debt. i will not support any long-term extension of the debt without a plan or proposal or process in place to deal with the dead. i voted for short-term extensions, but i will not vote for a long-term extension. i won't do it now unless we have a plan to do with this debt. at the end of the day, this represents a fundamental threat to the securities -- >> unless there is linkage, you will not vote for increasing it here? >> those are not my words. my words are clear and have been for years. i will not vote for any long- term extension of the debt, more

than a year, unless there is any -- >> what if it is less than that? >> i don't know. look, i think it's critically important that we get a plan in place to get this debt under control. i will vote for short-term extensions. i think would be catastrophic to renege on our debt, but we have to have a long-term plan to deal with this. host: a correction, senator conrad is the senate budget committee. mark zandi, your response to those sound bites? >> both great senators and working really hard to do the right thing. very helpful i think to the process. with regard to senator coburn's comment about the treasury and interest rate on our debt, i think there's some debate about that. exactly what the treasury is able to do and who they are able to pay, including global

investors. and my mind is irrelevant. a global investors will see what is happening. medicare recipients and not be getting money, but the parks are closed down, the infrastructure projects are being disrupted. they will begin a thing, this can only go on for so long. all of millet, they will start paying me -- stopped paying me, i need to be compensated for that and it will drive up. i'm not sure makes any difference whether the treasury can pay interest on the debt. interest rates will rise and exacerbate the problem. of the government is not making those problems, the economy will tend quickly. it will go back into recession.

many of us will lose our jobs. the fact to try to make interest payments on the debt and my mind is not relevant. i would not use that as a crutch or basis for arguing that we do not need to raise the debt ceiling in a timely way. i agree entirely with senator conrad. i think it is entirely correct that we need to make some progress in writing our fiscal shift now. we can do that as part of this debate around the debt ceiling limit. this goes back to my point about the debt trigger a mentioned, the mechanism. i think that is what senator conrad may have been alluding to in his comments, that if we can agree to some kind of mechanism that more clearly defines the

goals we have with respect to reducing future deficits and debt loads, then that would be enough, in his mind, to go ahead and raise the debt ceiling. at least for a while. and try to make some progress through the political debate between now and the next time we have to address the debt ceiling. i think he is right. it would be good, appropriate, the right thing to do to work hard to try to get something good out of this debate we're going to have as we lead up to the debt ceiling. host: mark zandi is the chief economist at moodys.com, co- founder as well as the chief economy. the research includes macroeconomics, financial and regional economics. our next call from colorado --, i'm sorry, minnesota.

caller: one of the main things i do not understand is i applied for social security in the 1950's. i know with the tax rates were in 1950, with the tariffs were, with the sources of income more for the united states government. i know my uncle's bleed our country was worth fighting for -- and my uncles felt our country was worth fighting for. we are in a situation now where we seem to compartmentalize everything. when we talk about the economy, it is everything. i have to balance my budget by what comes in and what goes out. when you have two senators talking about balancing the budget and each one of them comes from a state that gets more money from the federal government than they pay into it and in their plan they're not

saying how they're going to get to a point where their state will get less money from the federal government than they put into it, they will never have a balanced budget with the federal government. in 2006, the census bureau published a record where it showed 33 states got more money from the federal government than they paid in. 15 states paid in more than they got and two broke even until we correct that, we will never have a balanced budget. host: go ahead. >> let me just say the key reason, i believe, that you have some states that pay less in than they receive from the federal government goes largely to the demographics of that state.

yorks like let's say new has higher-income households, wealthier households, homes worth a lot more, to try receive less in government benefits because they are wealthy and doing well -- they receive less in government benefits because they are doing well. stakes -- states like north dakota and senator conrad, i do not know if this is factual, but north dakota is a relatively poor state, low-income, house prices are very low. it is very likely residents there are much more likely to get government services because they are lower income, paying less in taxes as well. it stands to reason in states like north dakota, they may pay less to the federal government

than they receive in benefits. i will said that may change in the case of north dakota over time because there's a lot of oil and energy in north dakota generating a lot of economic activity and increasingly more tax revenue. nonetheless, i think it goes to the demographics of those states. at the end of the day, that is what has made the u.s. so special, what distinguishes us from let's say the european system right now. europe is having a great deal of difficulty figuring out what the role of the centralized government is relative to each of the individual countries. we figured that out and share costs, help each other out. those states in need to get more help than the states that do not. in part, that is what makes our federal system so good in my mind, and so strong, that we're willing and able to help each other when we need that help.

observing i think it's simply a reflection of that. i am not sure, you know, that is our problem. i think the problems are different and deeper than that. host: in your book, mark zandi, ways for the rest to meet its fiscal challenges. compare for us between what you lay out in your book, "paying the price" and what you see in proposed by the president and the republicans. guest: seemingly close. it is easy to be pessimistic about our ability as a nation to address our fiscal problems. we have not been able to do that in a consistent way in the last decade. -- but i'd do since we

are moving closer to each other. all of the plans to agree we need to reduce the deficit by roughly $4 trillion in the next 10 to 12 years. all the plans agree we need spending restraints, even the president who is proposing some tax increases is arguing we need to focus more on spending cuts than on tax increases. everyone agrees we need to focus on entitlements, on the spending side, and that is looking at the cost of health care and medicare/medicaid, even social security. on the tax side, we need to focus on tax expenditures. we need to reduce the loopholes, increase the size of our tax base, which will raise a lot revenue. there is a lot of consensus here. we're coming much closer to each other. those are the kinds of things i was proposing in the book.

i am increasingly encouraged. it is not want to be easy. we will probably need a push from global investors with that. of high investors, a lot of hand-wringing around this. the politics will be pretty messy. at the end of the day, i think we will come to gather. let me say, we always have. within challenged as a nation in many ways and we have always -- we have been challenged as a nation in many ways and we always risen. this is not anything different. we will figure it out. i am increasingly confident we will. host: we will leave it there, marks an, thank you for being non "washington journal." in 45 minutes, we will take a look at first-place medal school winners in their discussion on net neutrality. coming up after the break,

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legacies as told through speeches and personal insights from the administration officials and experts. it are complete schedules online and son of to have him emailed to you. >> tonight, fcc commissioner on the wireless industry. expansion abroad and in the commission's role in the proposed purchase of t-mobile but at&t. >> we are little different. we are responsible, have a public interest standard which includes looking at competition, you know, how the market looks. how the existing players in the market will be affected, how consumers will be affected. >> tonight on c-span2. >> democratic pollster celinda lake joins us to talk about

american views on the economy and a visit cutting, particularly in light of the poll just released last week that she conducted on attitudes toward deficit-cutting debate in washington. tell me, first off, from your research, how does the thinking among women differ from men on deficit cutting and debt reduction? guest: first of all, men and women differ from this town, washington, real people to fall -- differ a lot. people want a greater role for government in the economy in particular, particularly true among women voters. two-thirds of women voter when a greater role for which his country. in the last to, the number has increased. the second thing we see is that

voters overwhelmingly say the most important thing is to create jobs, even if that increases the deficit. that is true for men and women, but particularly true for women by a margin of 2 to 1. again, that margin has increased since last year. third, we see the majority of voters say they would be worried that deficit reduction will cut programs that have helped family and children and two-thirds of women feel that. so we're seeing a gender gap, a big difference between men and women, but really a big difference between real america and washington. host: we're going to go through some of the numbers for this poll. the first set of numbers, i want to talk about the living paycheck to paycheck. 49% say they live this way muster all of the time.

20%, some of the time. 5% increase from 2010 and living paycheck to paycheck. how might this affect the way voters make decisions at the polls? what do the people you talk about who say they're living paycheck to paycheck, what do they think the government can do to help alleviate the situation? guest: first of all, i think it would keep the economy front and center as the number one issue that voters are voting in the 2012 election. voters will make a very strong judgment about whether or not they think their elected officials understand what is going on in real people's lives. the second thing we see is in terms of the economy, you ask a good question, what can the government do? two things immediately. one thing that has killed people sense of working paycheck to paycheck is rising gas prices.

-and one thing that has fueled people's sense of working paycheck to paycheck is rising gas prices. price gouging. we do not see anything happen from washington on this issue. second is job creation. people overwhelmingly feel the job creation is the number one issue out there. frankly, the best deficit- reduction program is a jobs creation program because people would then be paying more taxes. people believe the wealthy should pay more of their fair share. voters overwhelmingly support taxing, people who make over $250,000 they feel are not paying their share. you hear the president coming out aggressively on that in the last week. host: more figures, favoring a stronger role for government, men, 49% and 162%, a total of

the people polled was 56%. -- and 60 women, 62%, a total of 56%. break that down for us. >> interesting point. first of all, the biggest reason for the gender gap, the reason that are the biggest reason for the gap -- you even have a plurality of men saying the government is to play a bigger role. women believe over plumbing the the government has to be a partnership with themselves and their family, with private enterprise, to make this economy better. two-thirds of women believe that strongly.

the conventional wisdom in this town is that voters do not want government to do anything. in fact, 1994, when he saw the republicans, in, there is a surgeon anti-government feeling. in the last year here, there's been an increase in support for a role for government. people believe there is no way they can do this on their own. >> host: d.c. that going up toward 2012? guest: i think people will be looking for a role in government. you see this in reaction to the ryan budget. people being booed when they said no to privatize medicare. people want government to stay out of the wind terms of creating new jobs, but they think the government has to be a partner. host: we're taking calls celinda lake for, democratic pollster. the numbers are on the screen --

our first call comes on the republican line out of pennsylvania. caller: can you hear me? host: i sure can. caller: i have a listing for quite awhile and many of the issues celinda lake and that is making i really do not agree with. i personally feel that government needs to do less. people need to take responsibility for what they are doing. she mentioned the gas and the caller who said people have to make a decision not to use gas and be more responsible. i absolutely agree with that. the car companies, you can drive big cars, but they will keep making them as long as people keep buying them.

people have to make the choice to do better. i have a concern the time about the long-term prices. fica went down, but federal went up. i thought $25 of pay us take an fi out forca, the $15 for $20 more taken out in federal. i only make $27,000 a year. how much we got in our pocket was only a couple dollars. which was really weird. the so you really did not get that much. talking about gas prices and help with the fight the reduction, there's hardly anything because they took more federal. -- fica production, there's hardly anything because they took more in federal. host: celinda lake? guest: thank you for your

questions. i think he's to the calculations people are making because they are making paychecks -- living paycheck to paycheck. i think one of the points you're making is important. you are paying your taxes. people who are making over $250,000 are not paying their fair share. in fact, the republican budget would propose additional tax cuts for people over $250,000. they certainly do not need any money back at a time when people are struggling paycheck to paycheck. changing the fuel standards of cars, getting into mass transit is part of the solution. in the short run, you see gas prices, for example, dramatically impacting the price of food. we have the single increase-and largest increase in the past year because of fuel costs. it is driven by hedge funds

speculation and oil company profits, which is inappropriate. no one has heard of a port will company. host: albuquerque, new mexico. guest: thank you celinda lake,, for coming forward with the true feelings of those that matter the most, citizens to shore up his government. government it's a bad rap because of former president reagan's remarks about government, the bogeyman, the government needs to be bigger. we can see that from what happened during the bush administration with the food borne illnesses, and not enough people working as inspectors. i believe we had something like 5000 inspectors doing the work of 35,000. that is why so many people were hurt as a result of food borne illness. i've never seen anything like it during those times.

what i wanted to say is the government needs to be bigger. we are the government. there is nothing bad about government. the citizens are the government. what i want to ask you specifically, i marvel at these conversations and there is no talk of military spending. what did these polls say about military spending? thank you for all your doing. caller: you give -- guest: you get a good example about food safety. voters while lee, particularly women, safety standards in the workplace and food and drug, the epa, all of these are the villains in the new congress. voters overwhelmingly, particularly women, support them in terms of keeping their families safe.

in terms of military, interesting question. people are extremely concerned we are engaged on 34 friends -- extremely concerned about the money we are spending and afghanistan, iraq, and want to bring that money home. host: new hampshire, independents. caller: good morning, thank you for c-span. i am confused about the polls you're quoting. i have seen similar polls that seem to support the democratic position on many of the issues and yet we see voters, as we saw in this state, last election, who vote republicans into office or not going to be in favor of those positions. i am puzzled to why this happened rid our people stupid or night or just not voting? do you have any polls that show

what goes into people's decision making process? i would like to hear your opinion on that. i will hang up and take your answer off the air. guest: astute question. thank you for your analysis. in 2010, people voted for the exact same thing they voted for in 2006 and 2008. they voted for someone who will bring about change. as you saw in the town halls that occurred in the last week, with people even booing congress people in their own constituencies, voters said they did not vote for this republican agenda. they did not vote for cutting medicare. did not vote for privatizing medicare, did not vote for cuts to social security. they did not vote for continued will subsidies. ofthere's a great deal dissatisfaction. you see a lot of states like

your own, buyer's remorse. whether an ohio and michigan or wisconsin and ormaine, people would not let the same governor's base into the state capital or the san congress people they sent to washington. host: let's take another call from sarasota, florida, republicans. you're on "washington journal" with celinda lake. caller: i am interested having your guest to explain why the tea party membership seems to grow when their premises -- premise is less government. his wife are very dissatisfied with the quality of people that we are sending to washington, especially those that have been there. such a long time and have become professional politicians.

if you notice, the group that was sent in last november, there were not any professional politicians. there were businessman, on to canoers -- entrepot yours, people who knew how to make the economy work. the only thing they seem to want to work is a method for them to retain their jobs. their only thinking of the next election. i think your polls are terribly skewed. i do not know which town hall meetings you are attending, but people are very pleased with the people they sent to washington. they are pleased because they are standing up against this explosive government, the spending, all of this going on while our economy sinks. i hope she can explain that to

the audience. host: before i let you go, dan, are you still with me? caller: i am. host: there's a poll that says there's a lack of passion for the 2012 republican field. what are your feelings about that? caller: the presidential election? host: that's right. caller: there is plenty of time for someone to step up and really articulate for the electric-plant electorate, where they're coming from. i do not think that has been fully articulated yet. i think part of the reason is the mainstream press is not really covering these republican candidates as effectively as they could be. maybe because that person has not stepped up. now, i have my favorites, but i

am not sure they are really going to be elected by the republican party. it is possible that an effective republican candidate really has not appeared yet. host: celinda lake, go ahead. guest: you point out a couple of things that are important. voters in 2010 remained extremely dissatisfied with the economy and extremely dissatisfied with washington politicians of both parties because they think they are out of touch. what i would disagree with you on is that when we asked directly, would you support job creation even if it increase the deficit, voters said overwhelmingly by two to one, yes, i would. the most important deficit- reduction program right now in the mind of voters is job creation. people are desperately worried

for their own jobs. almost the majority of americans are worried someone in their family will lose their job in the next year. women, in particular are concerned about that. i am concerned about that. you also have some impact -- the tea party, very enthusiastic about their candidates. democrats fallen in their turnouts. it will be interesting to see of that enthusiasm remains for 2012 and where democratic turnout is in 20 tell-in 2012. host: your honor "washington journal." caller: i hope you get over your cold. i agree with the woman who called. it is way over talked about, our deepest problem in our

constant war low. family name bush has minutes fortune off w ofar, war, war and oil, oil, oil since world war i. we're not entirely dumb. we realize we should perhaps consider the fact our village -- millionaire rulers wish us to continue to be in an economic crisis. because then we cannot concentrate on doing the coup d'etat that has happened with this country. we have to take off the blinders and get to work wisconsin-style and fight, fight, fight to restore. guest: thank you. i think it is interesting to of the three callers have talked about the fact we need to set priorities and that is one of

the strongest scenes out there. it is not a question of larger government, smaller government. but it is a question in people's minds, are we spending things on the right priorities? people are desperately worried about the fact we're spending so much money abroad, engaged at least three fronts if not more, and wonder if the affordable is sustainable. host: you have some figures we want to show the audience. despite the so-called recovery, the economic downturn continues to have a real impact on america. over two-thirds of the public says the downturn has impacted their families and putting 20% who say it is that a great deal of impact. this is similar to 2010 levels. what do these numbers say to you? guest: that this economy, for real america, and very serious

shape. and that people have really been struggling for three to four years now. no politician will get elected or reelected in 2012 without touching that. i think washington is isolated in that regard. real people are still suffering with rising prices, hours reduced, real job loss. it is a very serious, very interesting demographic in that pohl but not just women who really felt the issue acutely, but latino voters and also pre- retirement people. people 50-64 desperately worried about age discrimination. host: tell us about the polling. who did you talk to, how many and that sort of thing? guest: we did a very large

sample. we did 1000 people nationwide. then we interviewed extra latinos, african-american women, asia-pacific women, so we could look at those broad -- those. this is the first survey really done an in-depth look at asian- american women. host: why over sampling in the minority communities? guest: so we could really look at them. over sampling is the technical term. i think it is "a pro. " sampling. we need to represent all of these voices from the talk about the polls. host: we're talking with celinda lake. our next call is from dallas, texas, independents. dallas? caller: hello?

is this c-span? i am calling for that against you have. host: what is your question? caller: i want to make several comments in regard your polls. good morning. i was just calling in regard to your comment about we need a bigger government. you know, i do not agree with that assessment at all. i think we have a culture of dependency in this country which is undermining the economic recovery. i think our government has over promised and will under deliver on promises they have made. i do agree with the point on the wars, we absolutely should take a look of that. i think we need to encourage investment in education. if you have a very under

educated population, you will not be able to solve the problems for this country. thank you very much. i take my comments off the air. guest: could comment on education rid this is one of the major areas americans believe we're not investing enough money in. education, such as security, the two top areas that voters do not want to see cut from funding. even at the state level, a includingt4exas, we see strong support. -- we see strong support for funding education even in texas. you have the debate about cuts and higher education, elementary and secondary education cuts, people believing we should maintain funding for education overwhelmingly. interesting you made that remark.

next up is, on the line for republicans. -- tom on the line for republicans. by professionrofessio an appraiser. and in a nation we are in trouble largely due to the collapse in the real-estate market. quite honestly, i have been doing this for 25 years, and every government regulation that has come into the real-estate market has been counterproductive. i guess they have determined real-estate is again in the game and have removed that from purchasers, loan officers, and banking institutions, and ultimately this has played into the hands of the american people, because now we own the

may and freddie mac. -- we own fannie mae and freddie mac. there was also a lot of loans that followed regulations cleanly and ended up providing loans to homeowners, or protect relief often in distress at two times or three times the value of their home. there were things that were promoted by the government that were designed to be impartial, because an appraiser was partial. they were arguably like an auto pilot on a plane taking a plane down and crashing it. they were relying on outdated data. the market was dropping at 20% or 30% quarterly and some of these markets. and they were relying on six-

month old data. indicating the house was worth 400,000. the house was forced to hundred 50,000 at that time. -- was worth 250,000 at that time. i know this because i have been getting calls from loan officers saying the house with worsas wo 400,000. in my point is this, at least in the real-estate market government regulations created much of the mess we're in. the frank-dodd bill was supposed to fix the holes in the market, but it has not done that. there was concerned about how it was being implemented in great concern that we were in for a problem five years out for 13

years out. similar to the crisis in the 1980's. guest: really good point. the housing crisis is not something we have discussed today, but something that is really part of the economic problem. just because the voters want a bigger role for government does not mean they the government should not be doing a better job. the financing sector is an area where massive amounts of reform were needed. one of the most popular bills are out there is a consumer product -- consumer financial products a commission. what you saw there is it was perfectly legal. it was perfectly legal to sell you a mortgage. the consumer financial price -- product safety commission designed to look at those products and tougher

enforcement. people also very upset by the way the implementation or lack there of has been done in terms of refinancing and redoing the mortgages for people who are in trouble. just because people want a bigger role for government does not mean they think there are things that government should be doing better. host: next up, a calller from syracuse on the line for democrats. caller: i am not very worried about the deficit, except for the gap between public opinion and public policy that your guest has exposed. it is obviously very anti- democratic. we hear the same garbage from democrats and republicans about how we have to cut spending. it is nonsense. i am a real person. i am are ready a victim of what

has been happening. i am 65. just gone on medicaid, and now i cannot afford my medicine. i lived in syracuse and it is very cold, and i keep my house at 60 degrees in the daytime and 60 degrees at night. i cannot afford that next year, because the historic compromise has stolen my heating assistance. i live on a little over $700 per month, or i try to. they did not count food in the cost of living. food has gone up maybe 20% in the last year so i eat 20% less. guest: think you for sharing that. -- thank you for sharing that. that is the exact problem. we're seeing that story in the

data and replicated a person after person after person. that is why lots of people are frustrated with their leadership and frustrated with what is going on in this town, it seems out of touch. people want someone who will fight for them and fight for their situation. thank you for sharing that illustrated story. host: jerry on the line for independents. washingtonn tare on the " journal." i will move on to person field, maine. bill on the line for republicans. caller: i keep hearing these people talk about the bank has the bailout, but the banks are the ones that lost the money when congress passed laws that said you have to make it easier for lower-income people to get housing. another thing is i do not understand why they think one

americans should pay a higher rate of tax than another. it does not make any sense. if you have no skin in the game, you will vote for anything. you cannot be expecting people to pass laws that make sense if you say you can have whatever you want, as long as you do not take it from the other guy who does not need that much money. if you do not have any skin in the game, you should not be able to coach. -- not be able to vote. guest: a lot of interesting points you are making. i'd think every american has been in the game. people are working as hard or harder than they ever have before.

people are working harder to hold onto what they have. a lot of americans have skin in the game right now as you say. i think we certainly want to encourage entrepreneurship, but one of the things that has happened is the banks have massively curtailed loans to small businesses. even though we bailed them out, they will not turn that money around to loan out to small businesses. that is wrong. small businesses are the real job engine in this country. we should insist they get the help they need so they can create those jobs. small businesses do not ship those jobs overseas, they stay on main street. host: women without a college degree have especially felt the impact of the economic downturn. three-quarters have been impacted and more than one-third have been deeply impacted. we have the breakdown of the

numbers here. economic downturn numbers on your family. downturnmic impac impact numbers on your family. why is the perception of the economic downturn, why does it differ between non-college in college-educated people? guest: that is really interesting. we are starting to see enormous class differences emerge in the data. very-collar america is bare strongly impacted. when people talk about whether or not they liked the statements about the economy and said the economy is getting better, college-educated americans like it because that is their own situation. blue-collar americans said what planet are you on? it has really been a recession

that has hit hard blue-collar americans. another great example of the debate in this town is raising the retirement age. people who are college-educated are willing to entertain that. people who are working in a diner carrying a tray of dishes, you try doing those jobs at 70. it is a different thing when you were sitting over a jackhammer. host: denise, on the line for democrats. i am very interested in the last comment you made about class warfare. and i am usually with the republicans or tea party associates. i did not see them as entitlement programs. i view it as a safety net. this is one of the few times the government ever concerns itself about what will happen to

people. meannesss such a and animosity. i am a teacher in a state where there is a lot of bias towards teachers. we are being demonized. even in the college level, students are not going to school to learn, they're going to get a better job. we just celebrated easter weekend. i am not a foreign-policy expert. however, we cannot ignore needs of people who are starting, out on the streets. in i see this in my school and all over. the fear that people have that they will lose their job or be out of their homes is very real. no one is suggesting this. congressman ryan with all these numbers and charts -- i would vote for paying higher taxes if

-- i do not think so. not if we have to work as hard as to its three people to keep our jobs . guest: very good point. barry illustrate abubble we're seeing in the data all over the country. -- very illustrative of what we're seeing in dade all over the country. these are entitlement programs. it does not belong to congress to use as a piggy bank or the republican party to take away. very important point to are making. thank you. in host: we have a twitter message that says it is the nature of government to be "not so good." less government is the only answer. guest: there is certainly a

proportion of people that feel that way, a particularly republican men. when i am seeing is critically republican women are disagreeing with that. -- what i am seeing is particularly republican women are disagreeing with that purita. host: when you did this poll, did you look at whether people were republican or democrats? guest: we did it, and what we found is a very bipartisan consensus. and outside of the country a lot of people are grieving. we found out what do you are a democrat, republican, independent, you were very concerned about the economy. very worried about jobs, living paycheck to paycheck. social security for

example. assault would majority -- a solid majority of tea partiers were against cutting social security. caller: i was wondering what your views are. some of the incentives, such as a few years ago you can purchase a new car that was more fuel efficient trading. that is well intended and good, however, many of the gas guzzlers are owned by people who cannot afford to buy new cars or cannot afford to give them financed, so it is not very effective. also, with the unemployment being extended continuously, the benefits for that, i think it might be productive if they've

let this run out and if their plan to do an extension, as a condition with the extension that they would have to do community service of some sort, picking up trash on the side of the road. host: we leaving it there. guest: they think it would be that bad for jobs, but good for jobs. we would be more competitive with the fuel efficient cars that are being produced internationally. people also thinking and wondering what do we do about this -- unemployment? and should there be more investment and a java programmer. how we get this going? i think the economists and the people are concerned about how slowly this recovery is.

host: thank you for coming on the program. good luck with the allergies. coming up, as a discussion on net neutrality. discussion on net neutrality. >> i use the internet every day to talk with friends on websites like twitter and facebook. >> [inaudible] >> i use the internet for research for school papers. >> the internet is something that our generation takes for granted. we use it every day for research, entertainment, and everything in between. it is always free and open, and most americans assume that will

always will be, but will it? for the open director of the internet coalition is it will not. >> the internet is turning that looks moreething like cable television. >> network neutrality or net neutrality is the idea that all traffic flowing across the internet should be free and not blocked. most people would agree that the principle of neutrality makes sense. after all, this is the way internet has operated since the start. it is largely the way it still operates now. >> there is tremendous agreement that right now there is net neutrality in place where

consumers can get the content access of their choice. >> the question is, should the federal government get into the business of enforcing this principle or should this be lost in the private sector? >> if we keep in the private sector, things will remain as they are now, at least we hope they would. in forcing net neutrality could be the demise of the internet. >> the technology that they employ to be able to take content and block it and prioritize it is still in the infancy. that is why we want to have basic rules that say we want to preserve the open and neutral networks that will largely have today. >> however, the chairman of net competiti competition.org belies

differently. >> i would have to most respectfully disagree quite strongly with you in discussing this is just preserving the status quo. you do not need legislation to maintain the status quo. >> to get from status quo to the land of net neutrality there are several paths the government can take. first, the federal communications division has to apply the old regulation. that happened in 2008 when they decided to block comcast. the sec decided to move on to the next one. -- the ftc moved on to the next one.

they would then have a legal enforcement mechanism to deal with them affectively. hear the chairman explains one of the three rules that make up the proposed regulation. >> through adopting a band of unreasonable discrimination, it would make it clear we are not approving fast lanes for some companies but not others. >> right now the commissioners are poised to take a vote on this proposed regulation. >> that rulemaking may culminate as early as december of this year. >> i am here at d.c. headquarters where the commissioners of the vote on the regulation on december 21 of 2010. the result was a vote in favor of the regulation. >> so why did the fcc pursuer

regulatory past rather than legislative? you may be able to find a clue and the results of the midterm elections. republicans gained control of the house and took away the democrats' supermajority in the senate. we found an interesting fact and the results. out of 95 candidates for congress who pledge their support for net neutrality, not elected. one gottent this did not mean the elections were lost because of the candidates support for a net neutrality. however, disinformation did lead to an important conclusion. >> what the show is that the people who most support in the neutrality did not have the support of the american people in the election. >> he offered this prediction on the prospects of net neutrality legislation to was in the interview. -- to us in the interview.

>> how does this issue affect me? on the one hand, that neutrality would level the playing field between big and small companies. >> and open internet is perhaps as much as anything else the great equalizer. it allows people with innovative ideas to succeed on the merits of those ideas. >> on the other hand, [inaudible] rather than spurring innovation, it may produce a place for entrepreneurs to start small businesses. >> when there is no problem, cannot fix it, because basically fixing the problem that does not exist will create many worse problems. >> the issue of net neutrality demonstrates how the federal

government can and have influenced the online community. do not let yourself be fooled. the fact that they have approved this does not mean the battle is over. >> many people are calling for a congressional review of the legislation. there is also no doubt the regulation could face serious legal challenges. so americans should expect to hear more and more about net neutrality in the future as the story unfolds. we do not know what will happen, but one thing is clear, whether you work for or against it, americans cannot afford to stay neutral on net neutrality. >> net neutrality. >> that neutrality. -- net neutrality. host: over the next few days we

want to introduce the winners of the student cam competition. today we are talking to first prize winners in middle school. you just saw their documentary. they are joining us from nashville, tennessee. they are all in eighth grade. congratulations, lady. -- ladies. how did you decide on this issue? >> we really wanted to choose a topic that was unique and not something that everyone else would do. net neutrality is something that is new. it is not something that the general public knows a lot about. after researching of line, we a lot of twistsit had and turns.

we also felt it was a developing story as the documentary was being made. we have to constantly update and change our documentary, and we thought that was pretty cool. when the fcc pass the new regulation, we have to update our documentary. even now it is still developing. we just thought it was a really cool topic that would be something that the american people would be interested in. host: it is not something that a lot of people know about, the words and that neutrality. that's on something like the people in washington, d.c. would did youut, so how hear about it? >> melissa came and told us about the topic. and i decided to research it.

i found it is really important and we have to tell everyone else. and >> when you talk to your family and friends about net neutrality how did you describe it to them? how always explaine would is about to internet openness. they are usually concerned, because it is a confusing topic. it is really important. >> when you sit at your computer at night doing homework or surfing the net, and now you have a different perspective, and are you thinking about net neutrality? guest: definitely. when i am on the computer i think about how i cannot take it for granted. host: let me come back to you, melissa, since you are the one that came up with the initial idea.

what surprised you when you started to work on this issue? guest: what surprised me about working with this issue is we knew when we chose the topic that it was very abstract and that we would have trouble coming up with good visuals, but i never anticipated it would be so hard. i took pictures of newspapers and made video collages and made animations, but our video was still dry after that. the solution finally came to me on a carnival cruise ship of all places. i was doing the interview and i realize the government was trying to arrive at the land of guaranteed net neutralities t through several different paths.

that is where we came up with a hand-drawn map. when i had that in mind, i knew where the legal challenges came and it cleared everything came up here and one other benefit of the mac is that it showed all reactions of the government coming into play in various stages. host: this year's theme is washington through your lens. and what did you learn about washington? there are three branches of government. what did you learn about it? guest: i learned they each had an important role in this, and i learned all of the different paths that the fcc could take. they tried to take some of them, and i learned which one they did take. it was really interesting as the story went on to not only tell other people but learned myself as well. did you have an

opinion when you first are doing this documentary? did it change at all by the end of the process? guest: it definitely did change. i started to see the positives and negatives in it. at first i did not know much about it, and now that i do i definitely do see the positives and negatives for it. guest: what do you think, melissa? guest: i really did not have an opinion at the bidding. and after working with it for so long, i see both sides of the issue will now. i think i am leaning towards the opponent's side. the government wants to get something done and they should try to go to congress first. the fcc took the executive path first because they knew they could not get through congress.

i am opposed to it. host: you think the market can take care of it by itself? what is your view? you say you agree with the opponents. why? have you think this could be handled? guest: i think people should leave this in the private sector, because it broadband providers have to go through fcc every time and ask if this is reasonable, then it would just make work a whole lot harder. i think they should leave this in the private sector, because it is not a problem. host: i did a googol search on all three of your names. -- a google search on all three

of your names. the local newspaper talked about the middle school taking in all sorts of prizes in this contest. honor roll mentioned prizes etc.. total prizes is about $9,250 to the middle school alone. i am just wondering was there a teacher at your school or a that encourage you and others to get involved in this contest? guest: my friends were all behind me. miss reeter was really encouraging. host: how did she help you with this? guest: she always answered our questions when we needed her.

she spent a lot of her own time helping us. sara atkins, along with winning in getting this attention you are getting, there is also prize money that goes along with it. $3,000. what will you do with the money? guest: i will probably save it and donate to church. wanted to go to an jonas brother's concert. host: whenever the coming to tennessee? guest-- when are they coming to tennessee? guest: i am not sure. guest: i think i am going to save up for college, because i

want to get the best college education possible. host: where do you want to go to school? guest: i am interested in math and science. i am not sure. host: katie, what will you do with your portions of the winning? guest: i of also wanted to save money. most of it will go to my church mission that i am planning to go on. host: where are you going for your mission? guest: i do not know. they assign it to you. you do not get to choose. host: talking about the prize- winning documentary. they will be with us for the next half an hour. joining us is lynn stanton. she will help answer questions about net neutrality.

let's review what it is. guest: it is the idea that the provider of their product and cannot say what you will see on the internet and what services and applications you can use. then there are ideas that there should be some kind of safe harbors or limitations or caveat. most people who have broadband service do not want spam, check for viruses, various kinds of a list activity, child pornography, fraud, different issues like this. there is also the issue of congestion. when the networks become so heavy with traffic that all of the people cannot on it cannot do everything they want to do, some decision has to be made where it will be cut back.

whatever happens gets dropped its dropped or whether they say this is a heavy user, let's go after them. host: where did issue stand today? -- where do the issues stand today? guest: right now it is a little bit in limbo. the court ruled earlier this month that challenges to the rule are not yet essentially right. you cannot have a challenge to rules that have not yet taken effect. going to court right now must wait for the rules to effectively say that the rules and the congress have passed. the house has plaster role saying that those rules as past and any similar kind of roles cannot be effective, but that

has to go through the senate on a simple majority. and it would have to either be signed or allow it to be defined by the president. host: what is the likelihood of it coming up in the senate? guest: fairly low. there are aids that have predicted this is such an issue that people view so negatively that democrats would have to vote for because they have acted beyond their authority that they would have to vote for it. obviously democrats control the senate and the democrats in general have come out in favor of net neutrality. host: who are the players? guest: on one hand, for the most part you have broadband internet

providers. for rise verizon, at&t, comcast. also, as possible new competitors, especially as we move from 3g to 4g, we have wireless providers. historically the speed have not been competitive with land line speeds and they have been more expensive, so it has been cheaper to go with the land line provider. host: dan joining us from georgia. good morning. caller: i learned a lot just listening to the students. the one question i have is even if we settle this, what about the internet channels around the world? how would this affect the whole

world if we did this? guest: it is a very interesting question. some parties have indicated that how they handle it at home affects the ability to make arguments about should the 0 internet the open around the world, which is something the state department has said they want to see happen, which would prevent dictators around the world from shutting down the internet which is to organize protest. so on the one hand we want to neutrality, but istnet that allowing the government to come down in an area we do not want them to be, which is a conflict. host: so right now egypt is dealing with this. you are following the debate a

little bit. can you explain what they are wrestling with? guest: they have a different internet economy. here we focus more on trying to promote facility-based competition, which many argue having these rules would undercut because it would th disincentive fis investments if it would not have much of a say or an ability to profit from what travels over the networks, which is the other half of this debate between content providers and the network providers. and in europe they have focused more on having the competition be on one set of areas. they are starting from a different point in terms of looking at it. i think it does to a little bit

color of the debate or policy issues they have to face. host: one viewer tweets this -- let's go to derrick, a democrat and kansas. caller: i would like to complement the three young ladies that undertook this cam thing. it shows great intelligence. i would like a question answered. can there be a way to get rid of -- the lady mentioned pornography and students talking about other students which is out there for the whole world to see and things like that -- is there any way for the fcc to undertake that and forget about

net neutrality? guest: a first to eliminate child pornography on the internet generally come from outside the fcc and more law enforcement. there are laws on the books that allow the broadband providers to help law enforcement do that. that would be without having to worry about the issue of net neutrality. the other issue -- host: talking about bullying. guest: that seems to be canceled at the school level. a lot of schools have their roles in plays that affect students outside of the schools. they seem to be going after it that way. the fcc traditionally has not attended to regulate the actual content that travels, whether it is over cable or the internet. host: lynn stanton is a senior

editor with "telecommunications reports." joining us are the first-prize winners of the students who did a documentary on net neutrality. if your interested in watching the documentary, go to our web site. all of our winners for 2011 of past winners are on the web site. next calller from very, massachusetts. caller: i have a very simple statement question. is net neutrality basically a government takeover? i am a design engineer. when you start taking away what cannot be viewed, where it is,

etc., and now you're talking about also degrading the amount of service -- isn't that a takeover? i really waiting to hear that answer. guest: the supporters would say it is the opposite of a takeover, all they're doing is to not let the user choose what you can watch or see and to some degree not to have your service degraded. historically this has been difficult for internet subscribers to find out exactly what it is they're supposed to get and what did is they are getting, and why maybe they are not seeing what they think is equivalent to what they're paying for. and supporters would say they are trying to do all the things you've just accused the government of trying to take

away. host: melissa, you heard that calller. he thinks the government takeover. when you were interviewing people for this documentary, did that hadpeople similar viewpoints? when you were entering people for the documentary, did you find there was a similar viewpoint as the callers that it could be a government takeover? guest: no. we interviewed chairman cleveland. he did not think it was a government takeover pierre yen it was just the government overstepping its authority. host: when you talk to people when people are not familiar with the issue, did they have that initial reaction that they do not want the government involved? our people mostly on the other side, that they want the

government to get involved? guest: there were some people on that side and some on the proponents side. some people were uneasy about the government getting so involved in the internet, because you can go -- because the internet is so open. some people thought the government would over regulate, not a lot of people who were proponents. host: back to phone calls. caller: my comment is i have been following this issue, and i was confused, but the ladies and young girls in tennessee really explained the situation to me. i send out my thanks to them. i have a question for the young lady who said she was opposed to the government's involvement.

i think just opposite. they really have so much control over what we do in this country. my question is, not so much to the young ladies, but i would like to know what was the issue with comcast that led to the whole issue coming to pass? guest: in the spring of 2009 the fcc directed comcast should not take a particular dealing with congestion that have been using, which was specifically in sight transmission sessions -- ending transmission sessions.

this was going after a specific kind of application, and the idea of net neutrality is your neutral among content and services and applications it would not go after a specific way of using the internet. so they said you cannot do that. comcast challenged it in court. the court said the fcc did not have the authority to do what it has done in terms of directing comcast to not take this path. host: there is a tweet that says this. private companies are monopolies and so they can get a rate. guest: that is certainly an argument of the opponents. right now we have a duopoly. it is a fairly stable duopoly right now. it is two is better than 1 but

not as good as three or five in terms of controlling prices. the other side is not just the price to pay for your internet service, but the price to pay for a service like netflix. they have become the poster child in this argument as of late. they would charge not only you for asking for a video and having it sent to you, but possibly charging a company like netflix for delivering the content you asked them to send you. host: we will go on to vivian, democratic line in austin, texas. caller: they have brought up the very subject -- it was very short-sighted of the girls. did they ever look at the corporations part in this?

i am afraid of those texas text books, but we are in the argument of who controls the message? the government or corporations? it is the lesser of two evils. did they ever look into the part of that? did you look into the part of it that was corporate control? host: part of the roles is that you have to show both sides of the story. do you want to answer that? the calller wanted to know who opposes netd to neutrality in the documentary? that is ok. let me phrase it a little bit different. part of the rules for the

competition is that you talk to both sides of the issue. can you talk about who you all interviewed in this documentary. guest: we interviewed scott clevelanaland. he did not want to regulate it, because he did not think there was a problem. if there was a problem, he would want to regulate it. why fix something if there was not a problem? that was his perspective. host: melissa, who did you talk to that supports the idea of net neutrality? guest: we talked to mark m. ericsson. he thinks the government needs to get involved in this issue, because he thinks there is a problem, and that with government involvement they can internet open.net ope

host: if you want to watch their documentary, go to our web site. jo is an independent in pittsburgh, pennsylvania. caller: what did you think about alan jones in austin, texas, about his views? what if someone disagreed with him and decided he should be banned on the internet? i will listen. thank you. host: talking about limiting people's views on the internet in general. guest: the proponents would say what there are great for is allowing anybody to express their ideas just as we do in other free-speech irina's. -- arenas.

that would be that side of it. even the opponents say that is not what they're interested in doing. they say they're concerned about being able to run the networks in a way that makes sense. i do not think anyone on the opponent's side has said they are interested in controlling what it is to see in terms of content. host: wanita, republican in kentucky. caller: i just want to make a statement. i think it is the way government is trying to close down some talk radio and fox tv. host: have you heard that argument before? guest: this is similar to what they're doing with the radio. not really, no. there was some people who had concerned with the democrats controlling the fcc might go

after that side of broadcast , but i have not heard that they are tried to control the content on the internet, other than the people -- the people that are deeply involved in the policy arguments. host: we are hearing from viewers, a lot of different viewpoints. you say americans can no longer afford to stay neutral. why did you say that? guest: once the government gets involved in the internet, it could affect everyone's internet experience. we all want more innovative technologies on the internet. both sides of the debate argue their position supports innovation. we do not want the next youtube or facebook to be hampered by the distance or lack of net

neutrality regulations, depending on your viewpoint. host: do you think that is a selling point for people your age and older, the this is about social media, the sites that they often use? guest: it is about all of the innovative technologies that the internet -- that small businesses are coming up with. host: let's go to emma, democrats and baltimore, maryland. caller: i would like to commend the ladies on an excellent job. i was not familiar with the issue. thank you. i have a question for your guest. i am unclear whether she is for or against net neutrality. my other question is if you are against it or for it, can you give me an explanation of why? i will hang up and listen to your answer. host: lynn stanton is a

reporter. guest: i do not take positions on issues i cover. host: we will keep taking your phone calls. we're talking to middle school winners, first prize. they are joining us from nashville, tennessee. they took home the prize for first place and $3,000 as well. the issue is net neutrality. studentcam.org is the website. let me ask you about the whole process of doing a documentary. what advice would you give to a friend who is thinking about doing this next year? guest: you need to plan ahead, because there is a lot of work you have to do.

you need to have a good schedule and be devoted to it as well. you definitely can not procrastinate, because that causes a lot of problems. you really need a good schedule and devotion. host: how much time, can you tell us hours or days that you had to put into this? guest: a lot of time. especially with transcribing the interviews. that took me a long time. like five hours per night at a time, because you have to write it word for word, which is a hard job. a lot of hours. host: net neutrality is the topic this morning. next calller from georgia. caller: i have a question for the ladies that work for net neutrality. it relates to taxation.

do you think if it passes through the congress and senate whether or not taxation would follow and how rapidly would it become a factor? host: melissa, i do not know, is that something that came up while you were doing your work? guest: no, i do not think taxation came up when we did this. even the net neutrality repeal that is going through congress, that came up after we submitted our documentary. be a: it doesn't seem to huge issue, but obviously there are costs and burdens to the companies in terms of complying with reporting requirements and making their information transparent to potential subscribers, but that is not typically considered a tax. there is an issue in the budget -- this is tried to get through congress other than the repeal

act method that melissa discussed. it is to simply say they cannot spend any money on enforcing the rules. that is another way of going that sort of ties in to the taxation issue. host: and whitaker was quoted as going to letn't these companies use his ties for free." there will have to be some mechanism for these people to use these hikes to pay for the portion they are using. that was a very controversial statement when it was made, and it did get the ball rolling on discussing net neutrality. guest: although the debate has shifted a little bit, and the idea as he describes it sounds

like a direct payment for sending anything over the pipe, we do not see a lot of providers presenting it in quite that way anymore. they focus more on the idea of net management. host: we will try to get one more phone call in. democratic line. caller: my question was about access to the internet. if you were able to -- companies that were able to pay, we could access it very quickly. whereas others that were not able to pay to put their things on the internet, if we wanted to access it, it would take us forever or something to the effect. i thought it was a degree of access. guest: for starters the companies to provide this content to pay for their access to the internet just like you as the individual pay for your access. obviously they are paying more for it. they