takes your questions about recent innovations in madison at 8:30 a.m. eastern. we will be joined by "bloomberg businessweek" writer roger lowenstein, who is written about nixon's decision 40 years ago to stop backing the dollar with gold and how that decision affects the economy today. "washington journal" is next. ♪ host: good morning. welcome to "washington journal." the house returns this morning. the senate is also in. president obama is preparing to address congress toman night. jobs were on the mind of republican presidential candidates. mitt romney unveiled his economic plan yesterday in las

vegas, nevada. what do you think about the mitt romney plan for jobs and the economy? democrats, 202-624-1111. republicans, 202-624-1115. independent scholars, 202-624- 0760. you can also e-mail us at journal@c-span.org, send us a twitter at twitter.com/c-spanwj, or reach us on our facebook page. this story this morning from "the washington post," --

host: "the new york times," as of the top rate down for his plan -- has the top a break down for the mitt romney plan. host: governor romney and other republican candidates will face off at the ronald reagan presidential library in california tonight. mike allen is with us to talk about that. good morning.

caller: good morning from the ronald reagan pavilion. host: thank you for doing us so early in the morning, california time. what are you looking for from tonight? caller: rick perry and whether he can take a punch. all of the other candidates are going to be ganging up on him. he has made incredible progress in the polls. mitt romney has been the front- runner until now. we will be looking to see if he can also throw a punch. can he mix it up and take advantage of his status? host: what about michelle bachmann? what does she need to prove tonight?

caller: even her strategists have allowed that it is a race between mitt romney and perry. she peeked a few weeks ago and has the potential to do well. but rick perry has just suck up all for oxygen. she needs to prove that she is part of the front of the pack and can make her own arguments, not just be in the spotlight of parry and romani. host: what does mitt romney need to do tonight? is he on the defensive? or can he go on the offensive? caller: rick perry is expected to take punches and he will not be taking chances.

in the past he has not been much for debate. in his last campaign he did not go before editorial boards. taking a look back at his other debates, he sort of one by not losing. host: mitt romney, his plan for the economy and jobs, will he be hanging off of the points that he made in nevada? [no audio] host: it sounds like we might have lost him. another moment. mike, are you with us? that was mike allen, joining us from the ronald reagan presidential library. we lost our connection, but we will be reporting again tonight.

the topic this morning, focusing on mitt romney and the plan for the economy. we will get back to those points in a moment, but first let's hear from derek in atlanta, georgia. caller: i think that the mitt romney job plan is a piece of garbage. president obama is a democrat with a democratic administration, and they are still pushing republican policies. change these things. get out of these wars in afghanistan and iraq. if if the economy is slowing to stay stagnant, it might regress. it needs to charge up with a lithium in afghanistan and the

opium. lithium can be used to make lithium batteries to start a new electrical and battery power plant. these things need to be manufactured in the united states. i have a whole lot more ideas. host: republican line, bradford. caller: i am sorry that mike allen was not there. i m and 85-year-old republican. i am still a capitalist. we do not have an industrial policy. without an industrial policy, you do not realize the problems. i will give you an example. i meet with my friends. we are all pretty old. my problem is, do you think that $10,000 per year in health-

care for those chinese that they employ, do you think they would be in china? i invested in companies and i could tell you truthfully, they are overseas. the one big investment we made in the united states just announced it was folding. it was in the finger lakes area. we went to canada all along the 202. it was 40 people. now it will be 200. healthcare is a detriment to business. a big change, because the lobbies are all health care. those golden parachutes, we have not had a discussion on why health care costs so much. when the doctor gets a couple of million, health care gets a couple of million.

to darryl ino sterling heights, michigan. caller: good morning. thank you for letting me be on c-span this morning. the debate tonight with mitt romney, feels like and like the back when ross perot -- excuse me, pat the cannon was having a tough time getting on these debates. we had a candidate on your channel, buddy roemer. i loved what he did in front of the chinese embassy in washington. i would love to see on c-span. he is very interesting and i think he gets to the root of the problem that we negotiated poorly. we need to get those things revised and get america back on with the rest of these third- world nations. about mitt talk

romney and trade. host: san diego, california, priscilla, democratic line. caller: regarding that romney, depending on which way the wind blows, he changes his economic ideas, giving tax breaks to the wealthiest americans in this country, that money is there to create jobs. for the first time in american history, you have more equal amounts of american money on the sidelines as it is in the stock

market. here you have romney wanting to be the president of the united states and he is controlled by a few in this country, reducing the tax burden on the rich to generate jobs. if that was the case, we would not be in the financial situation that we are in. host: looking at the mitt romney plan for taxes, he would lower rates, broaden the tax base, eliminate the estate tax, eliminate interest are intact -- capital gains for taxpayers below $200,000. if cutting the top corporate tax rate and moving the territorial system so that profits made outside of u.s. would not be taxed. let's listen to him talk about trade. >> the people in this country can do more per person.

what would we need so many people? how would we find jobs? if it were making more stuff person. the answer is that we will find more jobs per person if we can sell to other nations. it is good to have trade as long as the people that we trade with play by the rules. host: next, malibu, caesar, republican. go ahead, you are on the program. caller: thank you. i would agree that we need to have trade. but i think it is one-sided. it is very one-sided toward china and the rest of the countries. we are importing more than we are exporting. earning minimum wage back in 1990, it was $4.25. today i talked to young folks

who work a minimum wage of $8.50. at $4 in 25 cents in 20 years, we need to focus on page american citizens, giving more benefit to the american citizens who work. once those benefits stop, these people will go to work. once unemployment is raised, these people will go to work. host: here is how "the new york times," reported on the mitt romney plan.

host: cranberry, texas. tom, welcome. caller: can you hear me? host: yes. caller: i have watched rick perry over the last 10 years. i believe that we need him poor president the way that we needed a lobotomy. mitt romney, in general i rather agree with some of his policies. the idea of cutting more taxes,

we have cut them for the last 11 years. it has not provided more jobs over the last 11 years, i cannot see how it will provide more jobs over the next 10 years. we need to assure the united states people that we have a fair shake between trading partners. but we need a demand from the american people that this happens. what we have been craving in demanding since the last election cycle, we have always had a trade imbalance. let's clean that up. host: this comment comes to us from twitter --

+ host: richard, democratic line, good morning. caller: i think that citizens should take a hard look at anything the republicans are going to put forward. there one objective is to cut out every system that supports the people. i think is that important. host: william, republican line. have you picked out to you like in the field of candidates? caller: i think that i like rick perry. host: what do you think about the mitt romney jobs plan? caller: i like mad running, but his health care state does not

make sense to me. host: how so? caller: is almost like obama- care. more oft's listen to what mitt romney had to say yesterday. >> this is the result of practical work. it is a practical plan to get america back to work and strengthen the foundations of our economy. it is also immediate. it is not something that will take years to put into place. day one, i have five executive orders. let's see. there we go. look at that. the magic of technology. day one i will put into place five executive orders. the first one will direct the secretary of health and human services to grant a waiver to

obama care in all 50 states so that we can stop it in its tracks. the second one will see if jobs are cut. when the third one is going to open up production of energy across this country and get jobs as we to do so when -- as we do so. we're going to open trade in a way that no other president has done in history, clamping down on china and making sure that they get sanctioned, for not living by the rules that they signed up for. finally, we will say to the american workers that we will protect you with the right for a secret ballot. we will not oppose unions if you do not want them. we will not take money from your paycheck for campaigns that you do not agree with.

host: mitt romney, speaking yesterday from nevada. facebook, you can look and by going to c-span. host: maryland, james, democratic line, good morning. dollar co how are you this morning? host: fine, how are you -- caller: how are you this morning? fine -- host: fine, how are you? caller: if people would just stop and think.

republicans always go back to the same thing that they had in the past. just like the blind leading the blind with republicans and tea parties. when you leave them alone, they will wind up in a pit. that is where we will wind up that. they are not going to do anything. it will be soft ball questions tonight. neither one of them is going to come out in this debate tonight. rick perry, stuck behind the back door with that money from the stimulus. doing a bunch of pay grade jobs, trying to get credit like he has not done a whole lot. mitt romney, flipping and flopping, like a swinging door, going both ways.

everyone should know, sarah palin, they are trying to encourage her to come into it. she is only saying what she is told to say. she only does what her husband tells her to. and if people would stop being so stupid -- host: do you think that female candidates only do what their husbands say? caller: they live in a group that would burn the flag -- host: that is alaska -- caller: i do not care what group id is. host: let's go to another james, independent line, omaha, nebraska. what do you think about the rick perry plan for jobs? caller: it is a great idea. and at 9.1% unemployment, i do

not think anyone is doing the right thing. a lot of people say they will do something, then once they get elected it is a whole different story. hopefully we can get it all figured out at 9.1% unemployment. host: what do you think happens when folks get into office? you say there is a difference between the campaign trail and when they are elected? caller: once they get into office, they change their story. it is a whole different story. everyone wants to be in office and make all that money. but the people are suffering. host: let's look more at coverage of the mitt romney plan for jobs in the economy. the mitt romney plan offers standard republican principles

-- host: albany, new york. tom, good morning. caller: my problem is that the founding fathers of this country were more stuck together that the people running this country today. this country was founded and supported by other countries, the constitution, and religious freedom. there is a reason that we recognize the english-language as the standard language rather

than the 13 different dialects of spanish, that is because of the ability to trade. our trade deficit is higher than the budget deficit and the congressman are talking about. it is the will that supports what obama has accomplished and obama will go down in history as having accomplished more than the last 10 presidents by defeating the extremists. that is what i have to say. host: james, democratic caller, hello. caller: i am listening to everyone in it is ridiculous. i have been unemployed for over one year. i was with of the local law electrical union.

it is just ridiculous that there are no jobs out here. there are no jobs. regardless of if you are a republican or democrat, the economy has to pick up. mitt romney can say whatever he wants. michele bachmann 2. the bottom line, there are no jobs out there. what if someone wanted to do something that was corrupt? host: look at hal "usa today," talks about just what you are raising as an issue.

host: holbrook, new york. democratic line. good morning. kohl -- caller: the economy collapsing, it is the people of this country. when you go to the store, it is not made in america? do not buy it. i am 59. back then there were not that many foreign cars. the foreign cars come here, people come out and purchase foreign cars and it hurts american companies. i am just as guilty as everyone else. when i go to the store, it might cost me $3, $5 more. if it is not made it in america, i will not buy it. they are not going to be able to fill all of these promises.

if we, the people, in this country do not stick together, everyone will be out of work. the other thing, stop using the internet to do mail service. you are putting mailmen out of work. how many people have gotten away with computer fraud over the last five years? you want americans to keep going? you want the country to keep going? time for the people of this country to stick together. we, the people, will put everyone back to work. the only thing that the government can do to help us is if they stop doing business with all of the countries that moved out of this country. this will force the companies back to the united states. let's put our people back to

work and show that we care about our people. host: let's hear from jodie, on twitter -- host: a piece from "the washington post," today, called "free to take sides."

host: tecumseh, oklahoma. daniel, republican line. caller: ben, actually. host: go ahead. caller: mitt romney has a plan. obama seems like all that he has is to get into office.

after that his next plan is to stay in office. there are people in this country and we are the government. our people should be the government. congress, voting for them, the people that we want in there. maybe the president should not be president, you know? if i do a job and do not do what i am supposed to do, they will probably let me go. it seems to me like so many people get in and do not fulfil their promises. do not fulfill the goals that they say. when it comes down to the health of people, they should be working for us as the people of this country.

we have got to do foreign trade. host: this is from bob -- host: that came to us by e-mail. you can send us your e-mail, we are at journal@c-span.org. corpus christi, democratic line. good morning. caller: i wanted to start by saying we, the people, by, the people, for, the people. it does not mean anything anymore. i am not a politician, but i once watched the senate vote on whether or not they should be voting on something rather than getting together and actually voting on a particular issue. i watched for one hour as the

yield of their time back and forth to each other and the only thing that they did was vote on whether or not they should be there to vote for something. it makes no sense to me. i do not understand how placing some kind of sanctions on china is going to help us. overall, who are we going to go to for more money? the other thing is, we should start doing to create jobs is make incentives for employers to keep longtime employees. nowadays an employer can fire you without cause. cutting taxes seems geared only towards making the rich richer. if there were higher taxes on the rich, the rich would not be rich. that is all i have to say. host: next caller.

caller: mitt romney probably has some good ideas. but when he was governor he was 47 out of 50. take rick perry, he is running on his record. the american people can see the difference between these men. host: recently used in a jon huntsman campaign advertisement. for now, let's go to clinton, maryland. caller: i have a couple of points i want to make. i feel like a lot of the republican candidates are tremendous hypocrites. obama gave tax cuts, then the republicans turn around and pointed to it as borrowed money.

they hate the government, but every time they get in trouble, they look to the government. we had the oil spill, private industry was responsible. host: the jon huntsman campaign advertisement came out yesterday, attacking mitt romney. >> beneath the razzle and dazzle, numbers never lie. as the conservative governor of utah, jon huntsman quietly, thoughtfully led utah to leading the nation in job creation.

utah, number one. at about the same time, another governor lead massachusetts close to the very bottom. they wound up 47th in job creation. 47th out of 50. number one, the leader in job creation, or one of the saddest records. beneath all the bluster, that is our choice. who can we trust to create jobs when obama has failed? number one? or number 47? one man's record is sadly similar to that of obama's. the other man has a proven no. 1 job creation background and temperament to be barack obama.

for your family, for america. host: that was the jon huntsman campaign ad, attacking mitt romney. jacob, jersey city. what did you think? caller: good morning. first-time caller. the trade agreement whoever would want to do a fair trade agreement with us, who would want to be our trade partners? china and all of that, sold to china. keep all of the rest over there. keep those items over there. nothing but modern mercantilism.

just like texas oil. shutting the door on everything. i do not care if it is a so- called american company. just so that they can make a dollar. raising the oil prices across the board, that would be a fair trade agreement right there. host: this is one of the "the new york times" top stories.

host: "the new york times," goes on to report -- host: a couple of other news stories, this one from "the washington post," "k street has close ties to the debt panel."

host: other stories in the news, "farmers pressing gop on hiring undocumented workers." this is from "the wall street journal."

host: there are a lot of jobs it stories right now. we are talking about the mitt romney plan to boost jobs and encourage economic growth. texas, what did you think about the plan? caller: the one thing that i agree with is the tariff situation around the world. we are creating a lot of problems. there needs to be a level playing field. i would like to point out an instance of this.

obama, six months ago, the import duty on tires manufactured in china was raised. the order was for companies in the united states to be able to compete. the reason that they cannot compete, in china, the government gives the company's land and financial support. the field is not very level. the only way we will get back to having those kinds of jobs created in this country, like we used that -- like we used to have, is through manufacturing. host: what did you think about the mitt romney plan when it came to china and trade in

general? caller: there needs to be a review of that, absolutely. the bottom line is if they get all of the kinds of subsidies that they get, it is very difficult for companies in this country to compete. first of all, there is the difference in labor costs. in addition to that, there are a great deal of other problems. when people talk about demand, saying that there should be demand for products for companies to manufacture, take the situation with apple computer. where do you think they make the iphone? host: let's look at "the new york times," and how the economists are reviewing the mitt romney plan.

host: pittsburgh, pennsylvania. ralph, and welcome. -- ralph, welcome. caller: it is the philosophy of the republicans. our money system is ridiculous. we should go back to the silver standard. what about ron paul? his philosophies are phenomenal. i would skip the democrats and

republicans just to vote for him. i have been a democrat my whole life. just a little bit of common sense, and if you listen to ron paul for 10 minutes, it is frightening how our banking system is. host: what do you think about his plans for the economy? caller: [unintelligible] no one understands that. i cannot figure out. host: other stories in the news, tackling the question of jobs.

republicans are offering an olive branch, this is from "usa today." host: will look at the president's plan speech for tomorrow night. -- host: we will look at the president's plan the speech for toman night. since we will be focusing on the republican debate tonight, let's look at this story about the michele bachmann campaign. losing two top aides, raising

questions over her campaign for president. "the new york times," writes -- "a well-known strategists that she hired eyeing in june stepped aside monday night, according to the campaign. another staffer that resigned was seen by outside supporters and strategists that the campaign is at a critical juncture." getting back to the question of the mitt romney economic plan, robert writes this on twitter -- host: coming up in a moment, we will keep talking about jobs in

small business growth with karen kerrigan. and we will talk about innovations in medicine with the head of the national institutes of health, coming up. ♪ host: watched more video of the candidates. see what political reporters are saying, track campaign contributions with at the c-span website for campaign 2012. easy to use, making it simple to navigate, along with links to c- span media partners. all of it at c-span.org

/campaign2012. >> this weekend, the 10 year anniversary of 9/11 on the c- span network, with live coverage from all of the memorial sites. saturday, 12:30 eastern, the flight 93 national memorial dedication ceremony. sunday morning, 8:30, a memorial ceremony from the world trade center site. at 9:00, vice president biden from the pentagon. c-span 3 at 9:30, honoring those that lost their lives on flight 93. 9/11, remembered on the c-span network. >> every weekend, american history television on c-span 3, starting on saturday morning. watch personal interviews and

historic events with oral histories. featuring some of the best known history writers, visit college classrooms across the country during lectures in history, and go behind the scenes with american artifacts. the presidency looks at the policies and legacies of past american presidents. our complete schedule is that c- span.org/history. sign up to have the schedule e- mail to you. >> "washington journal" continues. host: karen karrigan is the president and ceo of the small business council. we want to hear your take on jobs and the economy this week. what is happening on that front as far as hearing the plans from some of the gop presidential candidates?

the president, what do you want to hear from him? guest: small businesses are really looking for some more leadership, definitely. more than just hearings. there have been a lot of speeches, a lot of different types of plans that the president has attempted to implement over the last couple of years, and they have not been beneficial for small business owners and the economy, from their perspective. frankly, i think that their expectations are fairly low. they would like to hear him address their key concerns. obviously, revenue is weak. we do need to see an uptick in revenues. the economy performing, overall,

very well. they would like to see some additional moves, like the one that he made last week, reining in epo. there are a variety of motions moving to agencies right now. over 200, many of which impact small businesses. the reining in of regulations. i think that every time the president talks about tax increases, it creates uncertainty for small businesses. i do not know what the taxes are going to be in the future. there are a lot of items that are expiring. stability in terms of the tax system. relief on the regulatory and.

being open to listening to ideas to improve the health care reform he listed. there will be many elements of that that will continue to raise the burden and cost on small business owners. host: we do have a line set up for small business owners. and democrats, 202-624-1111. for republicans, 202-737-0001. for independents, 202-624-0760. if you are a small business owner, 202-737-2579. let's look at the coverage from "the new york times," on the president's plan for this week.

host: going on into the story, in "the new york times," moody's has reported -- tax cuts expiring in 2012, what you think of that? guest: extending it? it would put more money into the pockets of consumers and continues to be a decent idea. from the small business perspective, it is not enough. certainly, we continue to see increases in prices, fuel costs, things along that line. it is more of the same and i

think they are looking for more bold ideas and action. what is happening with the tax code, are we going to extend the current tax group? are we going to rein in an additional regulations? what else can we do on health care front? without continuing to see the upticks that we have seen that have been unbearable for small business owners, who have to provide insurance to compete in this economy. host: c-span will broadcast the president's speech tomorrow night. he will address a joint session of congress from the u.s. capitol building to the house chambers. let's hear from janet, small business owner, joining us from baltimore, maryland. caller: good morning. host: go right ahead.

caller: one question. i would like to know your guests definition of small business. host: good question. let's start there. guest: the government's definition is any business with 500 employees or less. in terms of the makeup of our organization, our members, the employee sizes are much smaller than that. 90% or more members have 10 employees. if you look at the $5.9 million in employer firms that exist in this country, many have 100 employees or less. those small businesses that have employees with five, 10, 15, 20, even 100 or less, you get more

to mid-sized choices in this range. caller: i have a small business. i understand what she said as far as president obama, but i think he has done the best that he can with what he has as far as trying to get revenue for small businesses. my business thrived when president clinton was in office. i was able to employ individuals in my small- business. that is why, when i asked for the definition, i am not thinking of the small business making over $1 million per year. i am talking about someone who only employs two people to five people.

guest: that kind of business is really the heart and soul of the american economy. in fact, 21 million of these small businesses are self- employed. they do not have any employees, though some may aspire to that. i agree, moving forward, particularly now, we are facing the prospect of a government recession will the president and congress need to find common ground on issues. i think that they can do. there are bipartisan bills before congress waiting for more small business input into regulations. perhaps there are tax proposals or additional ideas for

precluding the health-care laws in place. there are areas of common ground that they just have to work through. host: ohio, good morning. caller: good morning. how are you. listen. the trouble, nowadays, with all of the people who are making -- host: i think that if you turn down your television -- caller: i do not hear the television. host: ok. caller: the people who have retired and are making 100% of their top dollar, they have 100%

of their health-care and everything like that. i know someone who is making $120,000 and he is 86 years old. he has been retired for 37 years. host: we will leave it there. guest: i think that what she may have been addressing was the area of entitlement. social security, perhaps. medicare reform. certainly, that is a huge issue that needs to be addressed. certainly, there should be income testing into those programs, as well as, in terms

of social security, looking at the retirement age. i will be interested to hear, tonight, during those republican presidential debates, the specifics from some of the candidates and what they address in terms of those issues. oif you what spending and control, you have to address the issue of entitlements. reform ideas out there, that issue can be tackled right away. there just needs to be political leadership on this issue. host: let's listen to mitt romney, speaking yesterday in nevada. >> why is the obama economy so

tepid? how has it failed to put americans to work? he will be giving a speech in a couple of days. i know that it is coming. and 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, they are not working. [applause] we are now using smart phones, not pay phones. is adent obama's strategy payphone strategy and we are a smart phone world. we have to change what he is doing. he is taking quarters and stuffing it into the pay phone and cannot figure out why it is not working. it is not connected, anymore, mr. president. coast of that was mitt romney, talking about his jobs plan yesterday in nevada.

-- host: that was mitt romney, talking about his jobs plan yesterday in nevada. guest: with it in a very modern, competitive, fast-paced, changing economy. the the old kinds of policies and rules, centralized types of government, washington knows best, just does not cut it in today's economy. so, we need more policies that empower individuals and entrepreneurs. if you want to continue to get that type of innovation and is unable entrepreneurship,

government has to get out of the way. particularly when you look at what is happening on a global level in emerging countries around the world. perhaps they are not major competitors right bell, but they are competitors. they are cutting taxes, eliminating capital defense taxes, simplifying the tax system. and getting out of the way, really, of regulatory relief and reform. capital being as mobile as this is, it will go to the lowest tax friendly haven. pakistan, a few years ago, they had major plans in place to put

their entrepreneurs out to attract investments. i still argue that we have the most creativity in the world and we do not have the corruption issue that many of these countries do. still, we need to be getting better. and if we are not getting better, we are getting worse. we are doing a good job at attracting capital, outside investors, and corporations, doing business over there and building facilities in this country. host: and twitter -- guest: they can. they certainly can't. right now they are hamstrung by government, in terms of burton's and regulations.

the cost of federal regulations as 1.75 trillion. small businesses are effected more than large businesses. small businesses, a very smallest, those of 20 employees or less, have incurred regulatory burdens of $10,000 or more. so, yes, small businesses can compete on the international level, if they are given the opportunity to do so. certainly, more small businesses are competing in the international marketplace in terms of selling their goods and services abroad, but again, there are some issues and regulations, and paperwork, and burdens involved in the process that are needing to be fixed, and needed to be streamlined. h., karen kerrigan is president

and ceo of the small business and entrepreneurship council. she has also been involved in the women's on to producers inc.. she participated in the u.s.- iraq business dialogue, and joined a bipartisan debt reduction task force in february of last year. let's go to the telephones. if you are a caller that is an owner of a small business and want to weigh in, you can do that. here are the numbers to call. host: joseph, in abilene, texas. democrats line. >> my name is joseph. i have a couple of commons.

i would like to say that if i were a republican, i would be happy to vote for rick perry. he is a -- is very good with money. the state invests wide sweep it wisely. i'm not a republican. i have big political issues with the republican party. since i am a democrat, and we are talking about the economy and job creation, i will tell you that the economy has been run by closed doors. basically, our economic decisions have been made behind closed doors. all of this information is classified, probably. it is not given to our democratic president, who we elected democratically, president obama. i do not think he has never

really had a chance, and had all of the real facts of our economy, and is not capable of making the decision because he does not have all of the facts. guest: the president has some very smart, and very bright advisers that he works with, and work for him. you know, i think the information that he wants to get, he can get his hands on. i do sense from a caller that he is right -- there is a lot that happens in washington that impacts the economy, and impact business, that we just -- the average small business owner, the average american, does not know about. if you look at the regulatory agencies alone, but they said, there are 420,000 regulations go into the business -- to the system. -- through the system.

most small-business owners did not know how the process works, if they can have input, and before they note, there are required to fill out paperwork, or comply with some rule that impacts their business. so, the size and scope of government is such that there is a lot that is happening that we do not know about, and certainly transparency is a huge issue, and there has to be more down to give individuals access to the system, and from a small business perspective, we are fighting to get more input into these regulations. we want more of the agencies to have to be able to convene round tables, before they finalize a row, they had to listen to small-business owners. they will listen to how it would impact them, and either they decide not to the regulation, or they move forward with the regulation that perhaps might have alternatives for small

businesses, or perhaps they are exempted from that regulation. it is interesting that the caller did bring up rick perry. he just entered the race, and, clearly, texas has been very successful in terms of its policies, in terms of tax policy, in terms of legal reform, and some of the other pro-business reform the state has done to attract business and investment, and also a huge number of people into that state. the state is growing phenomenally. we have a small business survival index that ranks the states. people can go to our web site to see how states rank. texas ranks three on our index. they're very competitive. they do quite well. i think rick perry will be one of the candidates that have crossover appeal to independents

and democrats. i mean, we will see, and he is not, with a big proposal like mitt romney or jon huntsman, but i think it will get quite interesting after tonight. host: is anyone emerging as a front-runner among small- business owners for the gop nomination? guest: i did not think so. we have not done any polling to see if that is the case, but from what i hear there are some pepper for one or the other, some that hope there are other contenders to get into the race, looking for that elusive candidate, but now i think we are beginning to see more specifics. we are beginning to see governor mitt romney's plan. jon huntsman put out a plan. the candidates are beginning to articulate more specifically how they stand on the issues. perhaps, after tonight's debate,

and perhaps if there are additional plans that are released, and if the candidates have the opportunity to articulate specifics in their debate tonight and moving forward, there will be. right now, there is no front- runner. i would say that. host: arnold, another small business owner in memphis, tennessee. guest: good morning. morning. good i'm skeptical about rick perry. when you call back the layers, the majority of the well-paying jobs have been a result of the oil industries that have kept a lot of the other jobs are minimum wage jobs with no benefits. i'm not sure what that is doing for folks. beyond that, you say you represent really small businesses, and i have been a

small-business owner for a long time, and i'm in trade organizations, and our discussions are never about regulations that are coming down, or tax increases. that is not the kind of things that we talk or worry about. i hear that, but nobody in small business that i ever talk about covers those things with their concerns. entrepreneurship, at its core, as uncertainty. that is a big part of it. if people have ideas that they want to explore, i do not think they think about regulations, and whether taxes will be increased two years from now. that never seems to come up. host: arnold, what kinds of conversations are you having with fellow business owners? caller: what can be done about demand. the fact that lending has contracted. how it is impossible to get small business loans.

guest: right. well, i wish small business owners were not talking about taxes and regulations, but they are talking about these things. particularly, when you are looking -- one example is the new health-care bill. the health care law, the patient protection and affordable care at -- they are concerned about what that is doing for their cost of coverage. it continues to go up, and not down. there are concerns on how the regulations will be written, in terms of their -- the employer mandate. they are concerned about what makes up an essential benefits package, and whether that package is much richer than what they currently offer, which would drive their costs up. they are concerned about the

health care tax credit that was passed as a part of this bill. many of them do not qualify for it, or they say it is too complex. we did a survey that found that only 7% of business owners actually utilize the health care tax credit, which is quite low. and the regulatory front, you know, it might vary depending on the industry, but if you are in the agricultural sector, manufacturing, many of these sectors are very concerned about regulations in the pipeline, and how they will impact their business. i do have to say, the top issue is revenue, and demand, and increasing revenue, and then -- what was the addition he brought up? and access to capital-letter access to loans. that continues to be a major

project to capital. -- access to loans and capital. those continue to be issues. the business owners then i talked to do talk about the role of government, and its role -- that i talk to do talk about the role of government, and the potential burdens as well. host: karen kerrigan is our guest. we were just talking about the republican debate that is tonight. here are the details. 8:00 p.m. eastern time at the rate in california -- great library in california -- the reagan library in california. host: last year from andrew, an

independent scholar in los angeles. -- and independent caller from los angeles. caller: [unintelligible] host: we are having trouble to understanding it. i understand you're talking about the post office. let's go to our guest. the senator brought it up yesterday 1 folks from the post office appeared before a senate committee, and there was concern about saturday's service being stopped, and how that could hurt small businesses. our small businesses. with potential closures and ?utbacks nex guest: that is an issue we have not heard much about.

perhaps as it becomes more of a reality, we will hear more from business owners, by i i am one that says there may have to be some changes. this has been an ongoing issue. in terms of fiscal stability, and its ability to really survive in the modern economy, with people paying more bills online, and more electronic transactions -- anyway, that is something we will be listening for as it becomes more of a reality, to see whether this will have a major impact on small business owners or not. i have not gotten one e-mail on that issue yet. host: james asks from twitter -- guest: we have to start with the

big one, the health-care bill right now. there are multiple regulations in the new health care law that are impacting small businesses. one, for example, the grandfather regulation or rule that they put together. when president obama signed, or talked about the bill before it became a law, he said you can keep the health-care plan that you currently have. we will not take that away. so, small business owners, when that issue was in the law, we thought that to mean that the current health care plan that we have right now, even though they read all of the new rules, we will be able to offer the insurance plan that we currently have right now. well, that is not the case. this is going to be huge for a lot of small-business owners. again, they will have to meet

all lot of these requirements of the packages, whether it is the new essential health package that will be richer than what they currently offer, if they currently offer a consumer- directed plan, or a health savings plan, you know, whether those will be legal plans when all of these new regulations are written. that is a major issue for a lot of small-business owners. the employer mandate in the new health care law -- i would get rid of the individual mandate -- that will impact point to 1 million self-employed individuals. some have insurance, some did not. this will have a huge impact on their ability to grow. host: we had done a congress

watch director with "public citizen. , he talked about the dangers that he perceives in rolling back regulations. the obama administration it is in the process of rolling back regulations. let's listen to what we have to say last week. guest: we have experience with that a number of times. we just experimented with radical deregulation in the financial-services sector, and the banking sector imploded. it destroyed itself. before we had good regulation of good drugs and medical devices, those are the days of snake oil, where anybody could sell you anything from the back of their truck, and there was no effective market. the point here is not just that things were not saved, but the market itself did not exist or broken down. so, there was no market for companies to do research and

produce safe, effective, sound trucks, and so there was a government regulator overseeing that government. until you have somebody separating the good from the bad, bad behavior does not go punished, and bad behavior will win out over the behavior. host: david r. tisch, speaking on washington journal -- on " washington journal" west 3. guest: i do not think anyone is talking about radical deregulation. the president is basically looking at outdated regulations, ways to streamline the system for small businesses and all size businesses. perhaps they could get rid of some things that really are not necessary in the modern economy. so, that type of review should happen on an ongoing basis. we think there should be

codified in the law, and all agencies should be doing that every day on a regular basis. if there are applying new regulations, they need to look of the things that are not needed. there is legislation to make this process permit. -- permanent. but the president has done is not radical. getting 500 recommendations, $10 billion worth of small -- cost savings, when you have a $1.75 trillion deficit, we need to bring some common sense to the regulatory process. we need to do cost-benefit analysis, get impact from small business owners to find out the direct and indirect consequences. what are they for our economy, small businesses, competitors,

workers? what are we doing? there are a lot of regulations on the books, and modernizing, streamlining, bringing common sense to the process, it is very important to get our economy back on track. host: frank, on staten island, a republican. caller: democrats want high- speed rail. republicans want to build the border. why no build a border from texas to california and throw a high- speed rail on it? we have been losing the war on drugs for 30 years. legalize marijuana. tax it, and take that money and put it into a special, for just for social security, or for health care. i think if we could come to some

sort of consensus, and some sort of mutual agreement, we can get the economy started. host: let's leave it there and get a response from our guest. guest: i agree. there is room for common ground. i do not know if the franc plan will fly on capitol hill in terms of legalizing drugs, or even -- i get what he is saying about the high-speed rail, but even if we look at infrastructure projects, and our crumbling infrastructure, and what we need to do to upkeep the bridges and the roads, etc., that definitely is important for the competitiveness of the u.s. economy, but we would argue as representing small business honors, and construction companies, that if you have these types of projects, there

should not be requirements or it should not be strongly suggested there project-labor agreements. these contracts should be open to the entire business community, and they should not have these conditions placed on them. that way, you get the best value. you will open these contracts to more small-to-mid-size businesses, which we should have if we have these infrastructure projects. host: john is a business owner, and joining us from philadelphia. good morning? did we lose them? we lost compared let's go on to saying louis, missouri. dee, a democrat. caller: the clip he showed from david and stole the thunder from my point, but not entirely.

i believe in a community that at -- i live in a community that has been impacted by regulation. there are so few people and so few regulations with regards to how they dispose of their material, that my community is impacted by these "small businesses" and the lack of regulation that exists for them, and if it is not the lack of regulation, it is the lack of manpower that our local governments actually have to monitor their activities because of the political impact of some of these small businesses. host: linda writes on twitter

that she thinks the bulk of regulations do not apply to small businesses and are geared more toward bigger companies. guest: there are two things. no one is saying that we will got all regulation, and there is not a place for regulation when there is a problem, a severe problem, or if there has the market failure. so, regulation does have a place, and, certainly, we're not for getting rid of all regulations. we think there is to be common sense. host: the caller sounded like she believed more regulations should be in place. guest: right. there are some regulations and actions that really needs to be more in the state and local governments. they need to step ahead and provide that type of framework for the regulations, -- stepped up and provide that type of framework for the regulations.

if someone. washington at this epa, or what -- is someone here, in washington, at the epa, or some organization is going to be more effective. there are a lot of regulations. you have workplace regulations, health care regulations, a range of not only federal regulations, but local and state regulations that do impact small businesses. for the really tiny businesses, for those working from home, someone that is maybe not labour-intensive, they will not feel the weight and the burden of regulation. they will not have so many requirements placed on them, but even if you look at the direct impact of regulations and the indirect impact -- certainly,

when you regulate a large corporation, there are certain things they have to do. they will raise prices. they will do a number of things. this has no direct effect on the economy. so, certainly, regulation of large industry will impact, or does have an intent of small- business owners and consumers -- impact on small businesses and consumers. host: let's get one last call in. marshall is a small-business owner in illinois. caller: i think the problem has nothing to do with regulation. deregulation actually hurts small businesses because of a level playing field. i think this is politics mixing with business. and the reality is it is the demand. if our customers have more money, they spend more money.

if you deregulate things, it is the bigger businesses and their rich, small businesses, an advantage over the genuine small businesses. i did not think this has anything to do with regulations. the statistics show that companies are sitting on more capital than they have ever had. how do they have that in this regulated world? this is a ploy from a political perspective. i am an independent. who cares to the president is. i am doing business. i do not have a political bone to pick with anyone. host: let's get a response. guest: in terms of corporations sitting on cash, they are sitting on a lot of it, several trillion. certainly, the state of the economy, a lot of uncertainty, that is driving that. we need these corporations to be spending this money. the average u.s. modify-national does business with 6000 small-

business owners. -- multi-national does business with 6000 small-business owners. there holding onto their money, they're not helping the economy or hiring people and is now helping small-business suppliers. in terms of regulation, there are things on the books that are impacting business, things in the pipeline that will impact businesses of all sizes, but the issue, again, is getting the economy back on track. but consumers' confidence. get more disposable income in their pockets. again, if small businesses have more of those resources, they can hire more people. i'll be interested to hear what the president has to say about all of this in his speech, and then listen to the republicans as well. host: the republican debate is at 8:00 p.m. eastern time, and

the president speaks at 7:00 p.m. eastern time tomorrow night. thank you, karen kerrigan, the president and chief field of the small business and entrepreneurship council. she is also the founder of women's and the producers inc.. she joined a bipartisan debt force last year. coming up, we'll talk about nixon's decision to step back in the dollar with gold, but first a conversation about medicine with the director the national institute of health. >> here are some of the headlines. lawyers for john edwards have filed motions seeking the dismissal of all charges against the former north carolina senator and vice presidential nominee. he is accused of conspiracy, issuing false statements, and violating campaign contribution laws.

if convicted on all counts, he could face up to 30 years in prison, and a fine of up to $1.5 billion. german chancellor of angela merkel says her country's high court decision to uphold her country's participation in bailout funds -- she noted that no countries with a shared currency have never gone to war with one another. a global economic group says the u.s. is losing ground among competitive economy is due to huge deficits and pessimism about government. switzerland retained the top spot in the geneva-based world economic forum annual ranking, based on a survey from 15,000 business executives. the list was followed by singapore, sweden, and finland. to fifth, fromed fro

fourth. a spokesman says former rebels know where muammar gaddafi is hiding. they say he is still in libya, and has been tracked using human intelligence and technology. those are some of the latest headlines on c-span radio. >> in 1844, henry clay ran for president of the united states and lost, but change political history. is where the 49 featured in c- span plans a new series, "the contenders." friday, 8:00 p.m. eastern. this weekend, the 10-year anniversary of 9/11, with live coverage of each of memorial site. here's our live schedule.

saturday, on c-span, a 12:30 p.m. eastern, the flight 93 national memorial dedication ceremony. sunday morning, 8:30 a.m., president obama and former president bush. on c-span to the wall, vice president joe biden from the pentagon. and c-span 3, and not to cut 30, either in those who lost their lives. -- 9:30, honoring those who lost their lives. >> "washington journal" continues. host: dr. francis collins joins us. tell us about the work you do. guest: the national institute of health is the largest funder of

biomedical research in the world. research that aims to try to improve its human health, reduce disabilities, improve longevity, and save lives. we are pretty to ed. we support the investigators that are making breakthroughs did cancer, autism, lung disease, every day. yet, when you hear about those break is, you might the realizes the national institutes of health that is behind that support. and rightly so. these are phenomenal people. the best and the brightest of the current generation of scientists, working hard in a competitive atmosphere, but was getting funding is tighter and tighter and. -- because getting funniest tighter and tighter credit when the new discovery, they are understand -- because getting

funding is tighter and tighter. host: are there concerns about funding you have for the nih project? guest: i think evidence that it is a good investment is quite clear. if you look at extensions in longevity in the united states, we have been gaining about one year of the average life span every six years. if you add up the economic value of that over the last 40 years, it is about $95 trillion worth of economic activity that has been preserved. if you look at what has happened with heart attacks and strokes -- most people do not realize death by heart attacks are down by more than 60%, and by strokes by more than 70%. you can trace that back to research at nih funded, that led to regulations about how to prevent and track those treatments. things are tight.

we are part of the u.s. discretionary budget. we are supported by taxpayers. we are, of course, responsive to their needs, but it has gotten pretty tight. in the course of the last eight years, funding has essentially been flat, and in the current year, it actually slipped up. when you consider the fact of inflation, we have lost about 20% of our purchasing power. what does that mean? if you are an investigator at harvard, you send a grant, and over the last several years, your chance of getting funding has been dropping, from about one in three, 21 in five. that is critical -- to on ine in

five. that keeps me awake at night. how do we keep this engine running at a time when resources are tied? host: there was a report this week that you are in danger -- this is our guest, dr. francis collins -- if you are in danger host: in which the distracted, highly-polarized by the scenes on likely to pass before the new fiscal year begins. tell us about the center, and where does it stand?

guest: i am happy to. we have had a betty liu share of discovery about the -- a deluge of discovery the last few years. i led to the -- are led the human genome project current some of the tools developed with -- project. some of the tolls develop from that have made it possible to one cover about 4000 diseases. now we have that basic molecular understanding, and can move that ford toward new treatment, prevention, and better diagnostics. that needs an investment. that is what is called translation. the private sector does a great deal of work in this space, but it is clear the opportunities here are exceptional, so clear

that developing the new therapeutic, it is a very error- prone, long, and prolonged process. it takes on average, about 14 years to get from the discovery to a treatment, and the failure rate is about 98%. an engineer looking at that would go is that your pipeline? the science has come a long very exciting ways, to enable us to tackle this process in a new creative atmosphere. that is what i think nih could contribute in partnership with the private sector. i talked a lot with people and their generally enthusiastic about this and establishing this new center. i would love to see this gets started on october 1. it is obviously a circumstance where there is a lot going on in this town, and it cannot be

started without a congressional appropriation. in both parties, in both houses, there is a fair amount of enthusiasm, but it is not quite clear how it will come to pass, and whether it will be possible as soon as next month. i think the compelling argument for the value of this will win the day, but it might take longer than the next three weeks. h., francis collins is director of the national institute for help. let's get to the phones. bonny, new jersey. caller: i like to ask about the crisis we face with the shortage of generic drugs, a lot of them used for chemotherapy, and other serious drug problems. it is wonderful that we're creating new drugs, but if we are dying because we cannot get the drug said have already been created -- i think a big problem is, i just do not understand.

there were 178 drug shortages in 2010, up from 157 the year before, and only 55, which is more than it should be, five years prior. we're getting parts from china -- hip replacements, knee replacements, people going through surgery and winding up worse off than they were. before we start innovating, we should maybe get a handle on what we have. host: here is a story from "the new york times." we had a doctor last week talking about how cancer drugs were in short supply. doctors are coming up empty. guest: it is a serious problem the doctor has put forth clearly in terms of the -- problem.

the caller has put it forth clearly in terms of a shortage. they're not entirely drugs for cancer, but oftentimes they are, and many of them are in injectable, and have to be sterilized, and can not be kept around forever. the problem seems to have grown in part because of manufacturing problems. if you run into a manufacturing problem, what is the motivation to fix it as opposed to say let's move on and do something else? for patients, some of these drugs are critical, and i do not think we can turn our heads and look away from this at all. this is a serious problem. my boss, secretary kathleen sebelius, has gotten very engaged in this issue, and their high level conversations going on about ways that might be a imagined that could help with

the situation to assure the caller that this had gone from being a little bit off on the side as an issue, to very much front end center and something needs to be addressed. host: sarasota, florida, in the penn line. good morning. caller: good morning. i am concerned about how tax dollars are spent in health in general for us, the u.s. citizens. because of the economy, so many people depend on medicaid, and there are the medicare people. i am on medicare myself. i am concerned about the money that goes toward medicaid for the illegals , and those that have the kids here, those that get automatic citizenship, which means we are paying for all of their health care, but not for the u.s. citizen, and not for

things that we really need like research. guest: i appreciate the plug for research, because that is what my job entails as the director of the national institutes of health. that is what we do. in terms of health care, where supporters of the data that people need in order to make good decisions about what works and what does not. we are the source of evidence. i might say we are also working very hard in ways to reduce the incidences of certain diseases. let me give you the example of diabetes. there were reports about research that shows that perhaps as much as 80% of diabetes could be prevented by a combination of intervention that involves lifestyle changes -- diet, exercise, keeping your body weight down, avoiding

cigarettes and alcohol. the numbers here are stunning, considering how many people are coming down with this disease, but here, it is clear we could prevent that. we have been working quite closely with the medicare and medicaid folks to try to see house of of this research data could be introduced more systematically for people, particularly those at high risk, to prevent the disease. that would identify those people substantially, because this is a disease with many terrible consequences -- blindness, kidney failure, heart disease, so on. it could also save our country a tremendous amount of money. we are spending wanted $70 billion. we could reduce debt substantially -- $170 billion. we could reduce that substantially. host: here is a story from "time

magazine." this is a study led by jerad reis. guest: that is the story i am infering -- referring to. those are our guys. host: our guest is the director of the nih, who was previously the director of the human genome research institute at nih. working on the human genome project, and mapping the human genome -- u.s. we did that for yourself. you had people look at your makeup, and find out what you might be at risk for, and one of the things that came up was more of the risk for diabetes. guest: indeed. we have discovered more than 1000 of the genetic risk factors, and it is possible now,

although it is still not perfect, for individuals to find out something more about their own risk, and perhaps use that information to their own plan for prevention. this seems like a good idea. right now, it is done largely as a one-size-fits-all. we are all different people. if you could optimize that on your personal risks, it could be more effective. it might be more motivated for people that might be inclined to not pay a lot of attention. having a bad deal, i decided i could go to the process by separate having that view, i decided i could go to the process -- by having that you, i could go to the process myself. name.that as sosumed

the good news is they get the same answers to the lead methods are very good. there were differences in interpretation of what it meant, but they all agree that my risk for diabetes was substantially higher than the average person, which was kind of a surprise to me. i did not have that in my family, but on the other hand, this was two years ago, but i was aware that people except for me were pretty lean and athletic, and i had ceased to beat either of those. it got my attention. hit motivated me to step back and say i am getting close to 60 years old, not following the exercise program, and give in to muffins and honeybunch a lot more than i should. i did get motivated. i got a personal trainer is involved. i lost 30 pounds, and i have taught that same plan going for two years, and i feel a lot better and i think my diabetes risk has gone down host: richard

is a republican in mount vernon -- dahlin. host: richard is a republican begin mount vernon, new york. caller: the u.s. has the highest infant mortality rate next to these third world nations, and that is directly with fluoride and water because of bone cancer and hormones in build. that gives you board -- bone cancer. plastics is one of joint chemicals that mimics the hormones. i think we are directly responsible in making more homosexuals. they tried to say he was homophobic because it was making mice and frogs have both

genders, and everything from rick perry -- host: lets stay on the topic. richard brings up concerns about toxins and chemicals, some of which we have intentionally put in our supply -- fluoride been one -- being one. he mentioned estrogen. i have not read studies linking homosexuality at all, but there are talks about a surgeon. talk about that. guest: we try to assess what are the environmental factors around us making us sick, and of course, almost any substance, including water, will make you sick if you did too much of it. part of the challenges we are pretty good at detecting tiny quantities of all kinds of things in the water and the air,

but it is often very difficult to assess whether those tiny quantities big difference or not. there is an example where it is clear a large dose would not be andd for any organism, but d god said we are exposed to, -- but the amount that we are exposed to, there is some question about whether that would have any cause. the agenda is to set rigorous studies of animals and people to get the data to learn what really are the consequences? there's a lot of information out there, which is more anecdotal, and not necessarily scientifically derived. when i try to provide the evidence so people can make decisions. host: mass., catherine, a democratic caller. caller: i'm morbid how the current economic crisis in the

-- i am wondering how the current economic crisis the country is affecting promising research for people. i have multiple sclerosis. host: thank you for the call. i will be in boston on friday giving rounds at the massachusetts hospital and the woman's hospital. there is exciting research on stem sells and many other institutions as well. this has been one of the most amazing developments in science in the course of the last few years -- the ability to see this certain cell types could be transferred into other types more easily than thought has given us hope. much better remains to be proven. you may know that the first three human trials of embryonic stem cell therapy are now under

way. there is great excitement about a new field of ips cell research. if you take a skin biopsy, or a blood sample from you or me, it is actually possible to caox the cells to go back in time, and become capable of becoming almost any other tissue typing your body. and isn't -- imagines how powerful that could be if you ells?those sc those would be yours, so there is huge excitement. there is huge excitement. privacy, stem -- obviously, stem cell research has been

controversial. it is being reviewed to see if they have been derived ethically, and putting them on a registry so that federal funds can be used to study them in research says gone through appropriate oversight. i think progress is being made a significant rate, although it is certainly true that this is happening in other countries, and the evidence could go faster. when the things i have done that nih is creating new center for regenerative message, which has as a goal tried to push the stem cell research ford into real clinical operation, so we will know what is the chemical -- clinical process. host: james follows up on twitter -- we do not have to tell embryos

at all. -- kill embryos at all. guest: they have this appeal because they do not have to be fertilized, but in order to assess whether they have the right properties, we need to compare them with human embryonic stem cells. no federal funds are used for deriving those lines, but was to have been derived, it is possible to study them, to make sure that we really understand what we are doing. an rea six them -- had embryonic stem cells are still the gold standard. host: north dakota. caller: i have just finished reading a book called "planet of the viruses."

you were mentioned. it talks about all the different viruses, and breaking them down. if we have an overwhelming the outbreak, people are worried that we will have this huge pandemic, but zimmer explains that those viruses will eventually die out, or contain themselves. i am bringing this out because i would like to know what information you could give on the bio-terrorism that was brought up yesterday about 9/11, and if we have this overwhelming attack, and hospitals having no room -- what exactly is nih doing to prepare for something like this? guest: quite a lot actually. pandemic come about because of a virus that emerges and it spread

rapidly through the population. some infectious agent. the concerns about bioterrorism where such an agent might be produced on purpose and used to do great damage to the population. the kinds of defenses against those situations are certainly related to each other. you want academic investigators engaged in this to develop new vaccines and antibiotics in the case of bacteria. nih is the world leader in this kind of research. you can see real progress being made, especially in the last few years, as we put together some new scientific fields. let me mention what is happening with influenza. we all went through the age 1 and 1 epidemic -- h1n1 epidemic.

there is a possibility that the avian variety will leave at birds and chickens. in fact, looking at influenza, it may be possible to develop a vaccine that would work against every influenza strain because we have now learned which parts of this virus are actually constant. they do not vary from year to year or restraint to strain. if you could make a vaccine to those constant parts, you have an unity to all viruses. it is more optimistic that we will get their. would that not be great? we would not have this fear of a huge new human epidemic and you would probably not have to have your flu shot every year

because it you got it once it would protect you from whatever came along in future years. it would not be the same thing where you would have to go every year. that kind of science is what nih does. we think we are pretty darn good at it. we have great individuals who are pulling together a new science to make this go faster. this is another example of our translation the work. host: our caller mentioned the book, "the planet of viruses." if you stack every virus and to end, it would stretch 100,000 light years. >director of the national institutes of health, dr. francis collins, overseeing the work of the largest importer of biomedical research in the world. his past work includes running the human genome project which

he was the director at the national human genome research institute at nih. he has received the presidential medal of freedom. todd writes on twitter -- you described earlier the public-private partnership then goes on at nih and with institutions through funding, but what do you think about those comments? guest: i say we are not going to develop the products that the public needs without the private sector. this is what they do and they do really well. this partnership supporting the basic science and some of the translation all steps and companies that pick it up and turn it into a product to make it available, that is the success of the enterprise. of course, people may be concerned.

wait a minute. the public invested in all of that research bonding shouldn't there be a return on that? in fact, the research that we do is largely funded in universities because of something -- because of an act. if it is something that deserves intellectual property protection, they can then license that to a company and ultimately if profits result, everybody benefits. it is not a total giveaway. host: orlando, fla., gale, good morning. guest caller: good morning. i wonder if dr. collins could talk about the contrast between researchers and pharmaceutical companies, specifically in terms of developing medications.

guest: very timely question. i would say having worked myself in biomedical research for most of my career, the vast majority of researchers are people of high ethical standards who would not dream of putting themselves in a position or compromising their integrity on the basis of financial rewards that they might be getting under the table. this is something that for the most part scientists would not consider. in the past, we have had a rigorous oversight system. the whole integrity of the scientific enterprise is at risk if a few such bad apples emerge, and people begin to wonder whether they can trust the researchers publishing papers about new applications were in some way influenced by financial considerations. so we have just, after the course of two years, have had

extensive public input from every sector and issued a new set of rules about conflict of interest for our grantees and the institutions that support them which requires more oversight and disclosure about the kinds of conflicts that are there. if so, how is that going to be dealt with and resolved? there will be a lot more sunshine in this situation which i believe is the best disinfectant. i believe we will have more assurances that the field is free of that kind of contamination of the possibility of conflict of interest of the financial sort that would not be good. what we do not want to do is put this out in a way that discourages university investigators from collaborating with companies which is a part of the future that we need to see happen because they bring different skills to the

enterprise. what we have, i think, now is a framework that encourages that collaboration but puts in place a system of oversight so the collaboration is based on science with no opportunity for a conflict of interest. host: the washington post reported last month from the proposed rules last year, institutions will not be forced to disclose conflicts of interest guidelines online. why that decision? guest: there was a big debate about how to disclose the information. i think many institutions found the idea of their regularly updated web site to be somewhat burdensome. the alternative being required to disclose information about conflicts within 5 business days to anyone who asked was therefore inserted as an

alternative. we still believe that accomplishes the goal of open access but does not put such a heavy burden on institutions. host: black scientists less likely to win research grants. nih commissioned the study. they said they would follow up to discover the disparities to fix. tell me about the steady. -- the study. guest: this is a very troubling result. nih did commission to study. we wanted to know what was going on here after hearing anecdotes that black africans were less

successful from getting grants from our peer-review process. many of us thought if the study showed a different week should be able to understand some differences related to the educational pathway that the applicant followed, but it turned out we could not explain the different. this is troubling and unacceptable that nih would be in a situation where a black applicant finds less likely opportunity to get support then somebody from another group. we need to understand the reasons from this. is this a consequence of what you would call cumulative advantage to other applicants that are a part of a network with a get perhaps better mentoring, training, or how you write a grant? better opportunities to know the community that you work in,

where it influences others so black africans have less access to that network. conscious intentional bias is hard to imagine. when they look at a grant application, there is nothing there to tell them the ethnicity or the race of the individual. they might be able to infer that in some instances. unconscious bias may and fax to be present in our field as well. of our society has not reached this ultimate ideal of being completely blind. we may have some of that going on as well. i am determined as the director to get to the bottom of this and institute changes to make this go away. one of those is to give junior faculty the chance to participate themselves in peer review. that has been one of the most

useful experiences that someone is going to write a grant to sit in a panel where other grants are being looked at and learn what seems to work and what seems to have not. many times, a junior faculty do not get that chance then bank this is an opportunity to change that. we are really seeking wide input from the community about this. i have put together a very high- level group to look at all of the factors that might be playing out and make recommendations about what we should do. host: let's go to charlotte, n.c., and hear from charles, a republican collar. caller: good morning. i wonder if you feel like we are in a losing battle, that america is a factor than is ever been. some lobbyists were trying to get fast food, and people were

using their food stamps to buy fast food. i just wonder what these gains we are getting with your research, counteracted by poor personal habits. guest: it is a great question and a very troubling set of pathway trajectories. we are in fact getting fatter. if it could well be that if we do not turn this around, this will be the first generation where our children have a limited -- have more o limited life span and we do. a whole host of health problems, even cancer. it is clearly there. what to do about this has been the source of many discussions. at the nih, we have recently issued a comprehensive research

plan for obesity. it goes all the way from very basic studies to try to understand the pathways of appetite influence with people seeking help to try to control their weight. all the way to public health interventions like the availability of snack foods and soda pop in schools. such things as how you actually motivate people to get engaged in paying attention to their weight and to stick with it which is often a problem. their attention does not get sustained surrounded by an environment that does not do much to support them. we are a big player in trying to provide the evidence to turn this epidemic around. it is still going to have to be implemented, which is going to take all of us recognizing this as a very important problem. i think michelle obama has been

very effective in getting this message out there particularly about childhood obesity, but it is going to take all of us working together to turn this around. host: let's go to patrick in pittsburgh. caller: thank you for taking my call. i have to tell you, i am astounded that the united states government does not understand that a healthy environment is related to the mechanisms and foundations of national health. when you look at bat populations, bird populations cannot being utterly decimated, these are some biotic organisms that the human species is dependent upon. the brown bat population is being assimilated to the small pox that was brought over by the european it. to show you the magnitude of this, 100 brown bats will eat

over 100,000 mosquitos per night. as the u.s. government fails in recognizing the magnitude of this, your job in the national institutes of health in failing to link various environmental aspects together -- this country is going to page a huge price in the future. host: let's get a response. what do you do for the futurists? caller: i advise them on future environment virtually around the world. host: let's leave it there and get a response. guest: a big focus of nih is and our mental health and whether there are factors causing more health problems than we realize. our role is to generate rigorous data. i just want to mention one program that we are working on jointly with the epa to try to

come up with better methods to be able to assess whether a particular substance is toxic or not. the way we have done that in the past has not necessarily given us the data that we need. now, with the ability to be able, with human cells, that you can differentiate to become different cells, we have the chance to look at toxicology in a different way. working jointly, we have mounted a program which i got briefed on 10 days ago that i think is going to provide us a whole new window into assessing what compound are out there that we consider save that are not and what things are out there that people are worried about that might not be as dangerous as we think. again, i think we have to guard

against the idea that everything in the environment that is new is necessarily bad. i think, also, sometimes cannot legends get built up about compounds that we think might be dangerous to us without having the data. what is the truth here? host: dr. francis collins, director of the national institutes of health, thank you for being here this morning. guest: it has been a pleasure. host: coming up, we will look at a piece from roger lowenstein from "businessweek." first, a news update from c-span radio. >> here are some of the headlines. rick perry's president to aspirations hit the national stage tonight in the first of three debates over the next three weeks among republican candidates. he and mitt romney are the

current front-runners, while michele bachmann looks to improve her third status. meanwhile, a new super political action committee backing gov. rick perry is aiming to spend $55 million through next spring to help him gain the republican presidential nomination. it is being run by one of governor. 's former aids -- it is being run by one of the governor's former aides. a new analysis shows that since 1989, the health-care industry has given more than $17 million to the 12 lawmakers on that new congressional committee that is tackling government debt and curbing federal spending. the new study is by the nonpartisan center for

responsive politics. the oil industry's largest lobbying group is out with a report claiming that an increase in domestic energy production could create up to 1 million jobs over the next seven years. the report calls for policies to expand offshore oil drilling, boost production of natural gas, and build a canada-to-texas pipeline. some of the latest headlines on c-span radio. >> what's more video of the candidates and track the latest contributions -- watch more video of the candidates and track the latest contributions. it helps you navigate the political landscape. candidate biographies in the latest polling data, plus links to c-span media partners. >> this weekend, the 10-year

anniversary of 9/11 on the c- span networks with live coverage from each of the memorial sites. here is our lives schedule. saturday on c-span at 12:30 p.m. eastern, the flight 93 national memorial dedication ceremony from pennsylvania. sunday at 8:30, the memorial ceremony from the world trade center site. on c-span2 at 9:00, the vice- president joe biden from the pentagon. on c-span3 -- 9/11 remembered, this weekend on the c-span networks. >> "washington journal" continues. host: every wednesday in the last hour of the washington journal, we will feature an interesting magazine article. this week, a recent article on nixon's decision to stop backing the dollar with gold.

roger lowenstein joins us from boston. good morning. the nixon shock -- you wrote it was 40 years ago that the white house ordered a drastic reordering of the financial system. guest: in one sense, it started when they first started mining gold thousands of years b.c., but we will not go that far back. after world war ii, the allied victors put in place a system to regulate the world economy. they basically said america is the strongest nation so every other currency, all of it, would be tied to the dollar. to make sure that the dollar was worth something, they said the dollar would be tied to gold. so the french could exchange their francs for dollars, but if

they got too many dollars and did not like it, they could call up washington and say we would rather have a gold, thank you. that worked as a check on washington. they realized they cannot print to many dollars because foreign nations would start to turn in their dollars for gold. after world war ii, the system worked really well. we were the strongest manufacturer in the world. everybody wanted dollars because they wanted to buy things and america. in the 1960's, two things happened. the rest of the developed world began to catch up. german manufacturing, japanese, french, and so on. they did not need as many dollars. we began to have inflation in the u.s. and began to print too

many dollars in part because of the great society and lyndon johnson and the vietnam war. suddenly, the nation's overseas began to wake up and say, "what do we going to do with all of these dollars?" they started to turn them in for gold. a crisis developed which was we did not have enough gold potentially to meet all of the demand, and something had to give. host: the gold standard -- where did you get that name? guest: brianne woods is a lovely resort in new hampshire -- brenton woods is a lovely resort in new hampshire. towards the end of the war, all of the allied nations sent representatives there to figure out this new system. a lot of american representatives of course.

the russians decided not to participate. it was there with a funded this system where every currency would be tied to the dollar, and the dollar would be tied to gold. host: you interviewed some names that are very familiar with us, people like paul volcker. who do talk to for this piece? we are seeing a cast of characters that we saw during the nixon administration. guest: nixon, say what you will about him, had amazing characters working for him and with an. paul volcker went on to beat the fed chairman later on. i talked to george schultze who had other jobs during that time who went on to the secretary of state and a celebrated career as an international negotiator with the soviets and others. arthur burns is a very

forgotten fed chief but he was the ben bernanke of his day. he has a diary that came out recently that gives us almost a clockwork, hour by hour, day-by- day account of the crisis and his response to it. then there are various other people who were around that were either working for the fed or for the nixon administration who knew what their bosses were up to in 197140 years ago. host: our guest is roger lowenstein. we are talking about a peace of president nixon moving away from the gold standard. let's read from the storied. -- tehe story. why so urgent?

guest: well, exactly for the problem that we were just talking about. dollars were piling up overseas. foreigners did not want these dollars. remember, currency values were all fixed. it was not so easy for them if the relationship between the dollar and the franc was fixed, they kept getting more dollars, there was nothing for them to do with dollars. and there were not enough products in the u.s. that they wanted them bank they would threaten to bolt. it would tell the world that no one had faith in the dollar. that was happening. by the time, two years later rolled around, this was actually happening. countries were demanding gold

because they did not want dollars anymore. host: let's go to the phone lines. our republican line. good morning, jessie. caller: ron paul has been talking a lot about the gold standard lady. -- standard lately. hi think we should consider him. host: let's get your response. guest: sure. let's talk about a few things that happened on that august 15 date. it was called the nixon shock for a regioreason. he said no more gold. another it. -- what followed from that naturally was since the dollar was no longer pegged, there was

no particular reason for foreign countries to peg their currencies to the dollar. we saw a tremendous chaos in the 1970's and now because no one can figure out what the proper relationship should be with the euro, the dollar, the swiss franc, and so on. another thing nixon did -- he grew up politically as a pretty right wing republican in his early career -- he put a freeze on wages and prices because they were so worried without the gold check on the dollar, there would be inflation. as we can talk about later, it did not work very well. gold has been very attractive.

nixon took it off. we have to remember that we have lots and lots of serious problems under the gold standard. the good things about gold is it says you can not print any more money than gold in the ground or gold in the vault. that is also the bad thing because as we are seeing right now, not enough money circulating is also a problem. is a problem that ben bernanke is dealing with now. before brenton woods, in the years of a very tightly disciplined gold standard, the banks ran out of money and we would have very severe depressions every eight to 10 years which are not a lot of fun. it is hard to find a system that works perfectly. the parts i and most nostalgic

about when we talk about this shock was the series of order relationships between the different currencies so that it was not all left to the whim of currency speculators. host: let's read from roger lowenstein's piece, setting up this moment where nixon is making this big decision. tell us about the packaging of this. guest: well, the nixon administration was a very curious combination of the ideologues and complete pragmatists spendin. paul volcker was more conservative. he believed in brenton woods and

this ordered a framework. john connally who nixon brought in really had no political and economic ideology at all except maybe what worked. he was famous for saying, "i complete it square -- i can play it round, i can play it square. just tell me how to play it." he really put together the idea of saying instead of us going to the world and saying we, the united states, cannot support your demand for gold anymore, he decided to turn it into a moment of hubris and said you are not going to take our gold anymore and we are going to set controls

on imports. we are not going to send our dollars outside the country any more. we are going to demand more favorable exchange rates. it became a very red, white, and blue moment. he also put on wage and price controls which was a political winner. the right and left, the new york times celebrated. and adviser of the nixon administration hated to be a free marketer, but the public at large saw the administration taking control of its own destiny and in the short term it played out very well. host: dayton, ohio, the democrats' line. caller: i have two thirds of my family unemployed.

guest: i am in sympathy with you. what they did back in 1971 proved to be very short-term. their idea was if we slapped controls on wages and prices, that would control inflation. that was paul volker's idea of. it turns out you cannot put the yolk back into the egg shell. they never set up a new system. when the controls can of, inflation was worse than ever. it rose up to 12% and even higher in the late 1970's. i think we are seeing a similar echo of that today, a terrible instability in markets and world economies where i think we are

lurching very uncertainly still but hopefully to some new order, something other than the chaos that we are in now. host: susan writes on twitter -- talking about the british economist. what do you think? guest: well, you know, i am not sure what ditch he is talking about because brenton woods worked pretty well. by 1970, it was not working so well. in 1971, it was abandoned. if you can set up an economic system that works well for 25 years, that is a pretty good ditch. we have been struggling for several years to reorient this country's relationship to the world. nothing is forever, but what

they set up their work well for generations. i do not think we should expect much better than that. host: rosie is in maryland. good morning. caller: i think we are still at the beginning stages of an economic depression. simply money printing -- let's face it. it did not take time for the whole system to blow up. what we are dealing with is a debt pyramid, hundreds of trillions of dollars, when you look at the western world, the united states and europe combined. our government and their governments will never be able to repay that. there are literally destroying the dollar and under the mining mine and everybody else's standard living of wealth.

guest: i think we agree more than you might expect. i thought this system worked relatively well for those 25 years. i agree with the caller that when mixed and abandon the system and when the u.s. and other nations failed to adopt any system in its place, i agree with it, that that is the root of some of the problems that we face today. if you step back, in the pre- 1971 world, if you wanted a mortgage, it was the banker who decided whether or not you qualify for a mortgage. if you wanted to know what the price of the dollar-yen was, whatever currency, these were set by international bankers as well. since then, we have moved to a very different system.

exchange rates cannot leave it to market. speculators can drive rates up or down. who get a mortgage? that depends on rich investors backing securities. we are seeing markets make mistakes. they can underwrite mortgages that are not so good. the system that we had back then in retrospect, to me anyway, does not look so bad. host: our guest writes in "businessweek" --

guest: so, there you go. onc currente sees began to float, countries have to adjust their interest rates, more often with competition with each other. if people could change freely their dollars into francs or the japanese yen and so on, they would be introduced by what they could earn in this various countries. therefore, people began to demand a way to seek higher or lower interest rates to trade them and so forth, leading to the world that we now have with this wealth of instruments where you can bet on any sort of instrument you want or any metric you want. we have this world of tremendous financial volatility and instability. the crashes that we have had --

2001, 2002, 1998, and asian currency meltdown in 1977 -- it did not used to be this way. it was left to us when bretton woods collapsed. host: roger lowenstein is a writer for "businessweek," and writes for the wall street journal, newsweek, the new york times magazine, and other publications. he is the author of books that include three new york times bestsellers. from joe in fort worth, texas, the republican line. good morning. caller: dick morris stated, i

think last week, that if the u.s. were to return to the gold standard, growth would be limited to the amount of gold discovered in the ground. isn't it true that supply and demand would continue independent from currency supply? also, i started paying a lot of attention to this congressmen from texas ron paul. it seems like he is the only candidate talking about the currency issue, but when he talks about the economy in general, the other candidates do not address this point. this seems to be one of the most important issues facing this country, but it is hard to interpret the motion and bank what would you say to people to try to get them to pay more attention to the currency issue? guest: let's take gold first. i think you're very right, by the way, to mention the emotion

of it. i think gold has a very emotional appeal. i am nostalgic to some framework that we had under bretton woods dickm wary of thethe same as morris was with gold. i think that is the reason that none of the other candidates are going there. you need some flexibility to say, we are in the mortgage crisis, the economy has slowed down. we need to get people working and some money flowing again. if you have a very tight gold standard, you cannot do that. by the way, bretton woods was a little looser.

foreign countries could turn in dollars for gold, but americans could not. if you go back to the 1890's, anybody could turn in their dollars for gold. that is what a dollar was. we used to have very severe depressions, really every eight years to 10 years. i do not think there is going to be much support for that idea or the extreme ron paul version. host: touching on ron paul which a couple of our folks on twitter have mentioned, why do you think his message has resonated for a segment of the population? we did very passionate calls and tweets that are very interested in his perspective on the gold standard. guest: there is an aspect of what winston churchill said

about democracy being the worst system of government except for any of the others that the been tried. you can sort of say that about various currency systems including gold. no one is happy with this system now. the one huge benefit to gold is the discipline that it exerts. we have had the federal reserve and central banks overseas who have been very willing and eager to bail out, to expand the money supply, every time there is a problem to create more hazard so if there is trouble they will come running and create more running which lessens people's incentives to behave in a prudent manner. so, the system is not perfect, and the system we have now is not perfect. i think there is a lot that attracts people to this idea that there will be an ironclad

check. there is a nostalgic and in some sense an economic appeal to. host: one tweet says -- to louisburg, ohio, gene is on our independent line. caller: good morning. i was thinking for a long time that the u.s. dollar was the reserve currency for anyone to buy oil. is that true? guest: well, oil trades freely now. it is priced in dollars. saudi arabia or an oil company will say, you know, this oil costs $60 a barrel or whatever it costs, but you can take british pounds and convert them

into dollars or japanese yen. you can buy oil with whatever kind of money you want. i want to refer to that tweet that we got a minute ago about ron paul and he can investigate the fed because there is this sentiment, a very tea party- types sentiment, that the fed is selling us down the river and we should investigate because they are printing too much money and all of that. we heard rick perry say if ben bernanke would come to texas, they would treat him in a very rough fashion. i want to respond to all of that. no one has been working harder or longer to solve this thing then ben bernanke. everybody, including candidate rick perry, should realize that

and treat him with some respect. the other thing is is very interesting to me that the populist opposition to the fed now are people who are saying that the fed is printing too much money. if we go back 100 years, it was exactly the opposite. farmers were saying we do not want this gold standard because you are killing us. we want looser money. we do not want some central bank full of bankers harnessing us to this very tight money supply. we want some insulation. now, for whatever reason, the populist sentiment in this country has switched. "we want tight money." is the bankers in new york who are saying, "we need a little bit of inflation actually to get the economy going again."

host: we are looking at a magazine piece that caught our attention. right now, we are talking about the "nixon shock." our guest is roger lowenstein, its writer. i want to read one section. roger, du go through some of the fallout that took place at. was there any political fallout for president nixon? did he see any effects of this? guest: the political fallout, i guess, was overridden by watergate which was all of the fallout that he needed. it is astonishing how blatantly political his management of the economy and even the federal reserve was. when arthur burns was hired to

be his fed chief, nixon said to him you see to it that there is no recession. nixon was thinking very much about his reelection chances. in 1960, he was the vice president. arthur burns was an advisor to president eisenhower. he said to nixon that the fed may tighten rates. if we do that, we might have a recession and you might lose the election. all those things happened. we did have a recession in the 1960's, and president kennedy won. when he was elected, he said this was the guy that i want. he named arthur burns to be his fed chief. he really rode him. there is a memo that said you

gave me absolute assurance that you would supply enough money to keep the economy growing. there is a handwritten note that neighbor -- that said he never gave him absolute assurance. in fact, burns was influenced by the pressure from nixon. you can see the files where he feels like a part of the administration and committed to its success. we have glazed over one of the most dramatic aspects of this story which was when nixon decided to do this shock, he pulled all of his economic advisers to camp david including arthur burns so he could get them all on board on the same page and come out with a big television announcement at the end of the weekend, saying what the policy was going to be. burns did what nixon wanted.

he kept the economy dawning full speed. the justification was we are not going to have inflation because we have controls. price controls only work for a while, and overtime, they began to not work very well. because people fear the inflation. the government was afraid that it would first be 90 days, and then there was phase two. then phase. . than they had controls that they try to take them off in sequence. there was a famous episode where there were controls on some points of the food chain at the very end because they did not want food prices in the supermarket to go up too much because that would be bad politically, but they were still telling farmers you could charge

so much. one former on television drowned 40 chicks because he was not allowed to raise prices. peoplesoft chickens drowning on television. -- people saw chickens drowning on television. by then, nixon was being driven out by watergate. by the time he left, the economy was in a recession with 12% inflation. it was a terrible, terrible mess. host: barry in florida. welcome. caller: how are you doing? this nation's monetary system is based on one thing. being in a closed circle.

[unintelligible] and they spend their money. the echoes to the old devalue to the dollar because we have so many holes in our circle. these immigrants that are here working, a lot of them who make money, can send their money back home. outside of the united states many times. i can spend the american dollar anywhere. what the fed has to keep doing is keep this money from sliding out the window. has there any been a time where they have taken money out of the system to stop inflation? why don't they spend monetary policy on a number of years

average of the nation's gdp? guest: that last question is a very interesting because one of the suggestions for how to regulate our currency relative to other currencies, the euro and the japanese yen and so on, is to do something like adjust them as our gdp's change. not leave them to speculator it. -- speculators. that is one idea. you asked another great question. has there any been a time with the fed has taken money out of the system? very famously, that was with paul volcker. by 1979, inflation was up to around 15%. boy, paul volcker took money out of the system. the way you do that is raise

interest rates. he raised rates to around 21%. of course, we had two terrible recessions back-to-back, but he really cured inflation. i think most people would say it was the gutsiest performance by a fed chief ever. host: a question on twitter -- guest: you know, i do not think things are that simple to say because of going off the gold standard and bretton woods, that led directly. but they ushered in a kind of world where we had many more trade instruments, where free markets are in control of virtually every aspect of our economic lives, as was seen from markets can err.

just because investors decide to underwrite a mortgage, that does not mean it is necessarily a good mortgage. and with the fed had much more leeway to bail out banks and companies and so on. i think this decision we have been talking about in 1971 led to a world where booms and busts have become much more common. host: chris is in boston. good morning. caller: before you can really address this problem substantially, you need to talk about spending. mr. roger lowenstein said there would not be a large enough money supply if we went back to the gold standard. it would not be infinite which is what has gotten us into some much trouble. as the fed prints money and monetizes at the debt, it allows

us to rack up these enormous deficits and start all of these wars. and that is why the founders in the constitution were very specific on how to coin money belonging to the congress -- host: let's leave it there. guest: it is interesting. if chris is saying that we need to go back to congress because they are the guardians of our financial, you know, chasing this, so to speak, you are probably in a small minority. there are such reckless deficit spenders, but i agree with you that we need to get spending under control. host: richard in new york on the republican line, good morning. caller: good morning. i was watching the other day and

they asked alan greenspan and he said we would never default on our debt. we would just print more money. the only one who talks about this is ron paul. you have this rodeo clown rick perry trying to sound like ron paul. guest: that is a very real possibility, printing more money or raising the inflation rate because that would make money cheaper and easier for people to pay back debt it. is not fair at all when you cut rates to zero and make money worth less. it is not fair to the people who lend the money who are expected to be paid back. nor is it fair to the people who depend on a fixed income or made investments in bonds and so on because that 2%, 3%, or 4%

yield or whatever they are getting to my days are getting that yield in dollars that are not worth as much. we are taking money out of the hands of people who lent it and giving it to the people are when it. it is not a neutral decision. host: what does president nixon's decision to say about the currency of china and allowing it to float? guest: the view of the americans is chinese should float their currencies and should be allowed to go higher. they should -- if they want to beat a world player in the economy, they should have a free market economy like everyone else. the chinese has said we have seen what happens to free market currency trading. we have seen the economy's go

boom and bust because of the george soros age fund plow in one day and file out the next. no thanks. we are very happy setting our own currency rates. what we in the u.s. would like to see so we can sell them more products is a readjustment in the rates. you can also understand the point of the of -- the point of view of the chinese. host: let's go to california where ray is on our democrats lined. good morning. caller: how much gold does america have? what is the value of one gold bar? guest: you know, always be where someone who says they have a simple question. i do not know how much gold that we have now. the value of