minarik at 8:30. then we will be joined by john wonderlich. ♪ host: good morning. welcome to "washington journal," tuesday, november 11. we will begin the issue with life on death sentences and whether or not years on death row subs -- stand for cruel and unusual punishment. for democrats, 202-737-0001. for republicans, 202-737-0002. for independents, 202-628-0205. we will begin with this piece, from "the new york times," this morning. he begins his column with a case

from 1978, when a 27-year-old man killed a police officer in florida.

host: we want to get your take on this. justice brier says that it is cruel and unusual to remain on death row for years. others disagree. we want to get your thoughts and comments on this. we have more from "the new york times," this morning. "linked the

host: that seeming contradiction misses a larger point, wrote justice breyer. host: we have got some facts and figures here for you.

first, wanda, democratic caller, dallas, texas. what do you think? caller: i am against the death penalty. i think that we should leave our death up to god. we should not oppose it at all. i detest governor rick perry. i think that we should leave it up to god. if someone commits a crime, they should be locked up and that is it. someone kills, and we turn around and kill them for it? that should be up to god. host: all right. good morning, florida. caller: if you want to go off of the bible, it says an eye for an

eye. i do not think that a murderer should be able to prolong their case. you have to think about the families of the folks that they murdered. they will have to spend the rest of their lives, having to think about the family member that was killed. what good is it for a justice to talk about it being cruel and unusual punishment? host: so, you just do not think they should be able to prolong it? caller:. host: i think that that is what the justice is arguing. that the time between the sentence and the actual execution is too long. caller: that is something they should look at. these people in prison, they can study the law and get a degree.

lots of people do that. you have a lot of jailhouse lawyers. and you have people who support felons for committing murder. saying that they did not get justice correct. appeals to continue and continue. -- appeals that continue and continue. host: you and others might be interested in this. back to "the new york times," article.

host: john, massachusetts.

you are next on this topic. what do you think? death row, cruel and unusual? caller: i think that it is. this all started in 1918 by and on holding subsidiary of bankers, media, -- on holy subsidiary of bankers -- unholy subsidiary of bankers, media, and lawyers. the federal reserve was introduced with these rich families -- host: you are going off on another tangent. boston, good morning. frederick? i think that we lost him. judy? caller: good morning. host: what do you think of this topic, this morning? caller: the killing happened right in front of my house in 1978. that is why i am calling.

it was a horrible thing. i think that the justice has it right. if someone is going to be executed, the pathway should be a lot faster it is torture on the prisoner and the legal system. host: when the story broke, what was it like for the area? caller: when the crime itself happened, the whole area was lit up. it was nighttime by the time the police got there. the policemen that was killed, his canine dog was in the car with them. it took quite a long time to even get to the police officer, because they could not contain the dog. they started a huge manhunt, immediately.

i think that the man was found the next day, in miami beach. it was very unnerving. that was the time in miami when there was a terrible, terrible drug and crime problem. people fought that it was another drug crime that had gone wrong. host: have you been following this case and this gentleman's appeal? caller: i have not. i saw a news of his execution a few weeks ago and it reminded me, you know, of the night that it happened. it brought back all of those pretty awful memories. the gunshots. it was very unnerving. host: judy, sarasota, florida. statistics on death row, from

"the new york times," and the bureau of death and statistics. host: and then, that broke cost in california. -- death row costs in california.

host: that is according to "the los angeles times," this morning. rosa, republican, kingston, washington. good morning. caller: morning. i think that the justice should consider that the person who is being put to death did not give his victim 33 years to live. he should consider himself lucky that he don't get the same thing that he gave his victim. host: all right. tony, a democrat, michigan. caller: good morning. i worked in the penal system. i noticed the inconsistencies of sentences by judges. so, that is why i am against

capital punishment. i think that it is a waste of money for those men to sit for all of those years, and be fed, and everything. so, it really needs to be cut. the time on things really needs to be decreased. host: do you see inconsistency when it comes to this issue? caller: know, just the sentencing of criminals into the prison system. that one lady talked about god, but when you do a crime, you need to do the time. but, i am against capital punishment, because everybody don't get treated fairly. sentenced properly.

host: we have your point. duke, next. st. petersburg. oh, he is not there. tallahassee, florida. duane, republican. caller: i support the death penalty. the old point of having a crime -- someone does a crime, during the time. she was very right. but i cannot support, being conservative, is the cost. the cost of putting one person to death in a legal system, it has become of business. the entire penal system has become a huge business. sometimes you have to weigh the cost against what we are doing. you could feed people for years for what one person is put to death for. i do not think that they should have any rights.

you want to do something to cut costs? we are forming these other jobs overseas. -- farming these jobs overseas. let's do that. host: resulting in a death sentence, the eventual cost in the state of maryland is $3 million.

host: so, you can assume those costs are higher, if you look at the trend. , st. petersburg, sorry about that. you are back. caller: ecclesiastes says that sentencing against an evil work is not executed, there for the hearts of the sons of men are fully set to commit evil. the reason that these police officers are being systematically shot in this country is because of this dereliction and pusillanimous pipsqueaks not doing what the

bible says. there has to be a speedy enforcement. otherwise, you get a travesty by what happened in the state of florida. the criminals in this country are in the judiciary. they are the spineless justices that are crying crocodile feels -- years for his murderers. they should be drowning in their own blood. host: we will leave it there. south carolina, we want to show you the states with the death penalty. kenny, south carolina, go ahead. caller: what the justice said, talking about the number of overturned in conviction, how many people are actually found innocent of the crimes that they

were supposed to have committed? you have a lot of people who have gotten out of prison because they have found that dna evidence that they did not commit these crimes. how many people got executed for crimes that they did not commit? we talk about cost, of what it is to imprison and execute a prisoner. but there is a moral cost associated. host: all right, so carolina. if you want to post your comment on our facebook page, go to facebook and search c-span. here are a few of the comments. host: you can also send us a twitter message, if you go to twitter.com. twitter.com/c-spanwj is the

handle. . host: we want to give you some headlines on other topics this morning. this is the front page of "the wall street journal," talking about the financial crisis in europe. host: that is the front page of "the wall street journal," this morning. from "the washington times,"

this story is in many papers this morning. the front page of "the washington post," talks about libya. host: that is open "the washington post," this morning. a picture next to that untitled "higher ground, but barely." host: those are some of the headlines this morning. back to our topic. john, new jersey. what do you think?

caller: the people are making judgments about whether or not we should retain the death penalty in selected states. looking for the kinds of changes that people ought to go for, caught in cages. that is what the prisoners call themselves. i have been a volunteer chaplain for 14 years and i have seen this firsthand. the other thing that people forget about, every time we put someone to death, something happens to our nation. i believe that we diminish our moral strength by seeking vengeance over justice. really, that is about it, but people should understand what they are talking about. this is not a wild west show. we are dealing with human beings that need assistance. there are some states in our country that believed in what

they called restorative justice. by putting people together, getting those who have been offended with those who are the offenders to understand just what was going on and why these horrible crimes were committed, in that way the people who have suffered an injury by the death of one of their relatives can better restore their own sense of being. did anyone ever study, for example, how people feel after an offender has been executed? i doubt it. host: before you go, the justice wrote that years on death row is an unusual punishment is cruel. you agree? caller: absolutely. host: why do you think that is true? caller: of the isolation from

their relatives and friends, it destroys them. plus, society is looking at them as a bunch of horrible scabs, increasing the punishment that these people suffer. on top of that, the issue that knowing one of these days they will be killed as a horribly negative effect on their minds. there is no opportunity for them to live in our society, albeit in prison. host: what about a life sentence without parole? caller: i believe very much in that. at least here people have an opportunity to change in prison. i have seen that myself. host: we have heard a lot of callers saying -- what about the

victims? they did not get 33 years. caller: that is very true. i have to admit, i have known families of the victims as well. my point is that it is better to know that someone who has killed a loved one is still alive and, in that sense, suffering because of their isolation from society, rather than having them killed. we do not hang people anymore, but the modern system of injections is still the same. i think that this is an on fulfilling expectations on the part of the family that has suffered the murder themselves, telling them that they will feel fine once a person is killed. by and by experience, this is never the case. people who have lost someone to a murderer or otherwise, usually

feel worse after the person involved is killed. host: thank you, john. this is the front page of "roll call." "awkward hearing set for deficit panel." we will be following that here it on c-span 3 and c-span radio -- hearing on c-span 3 and c- span radio. they will be hearing from people who have put this proposal forward in the past. it is expected that those testifying will call on numbers that are bigger than they are thinking of. also, president obama announces another executive order. this one is to deal with the shortage of drugs.

-- shortage of jobs. . host: that is "the financial times," this morning. from "the new york times," "light at the end of the campaign tunnel."

host: michigan, eric, independent caller. what you think about the opinion from justice breyer, the years on death row constitute cruel and unusual punishment? caller: it does. in the state of illinois, they decided to discontinue the death penalty because there were so many innocent men on death row that should not have been there. so, they had to stop. host: carol, democratic caller. baltimore, maryland. caller: doing a death penalty case means a complete investigation without it being political. you know, like some part -- some

people here certain cases. it hits the news and the prosecutor, the judge, some people ask for forgiveness. to make sure that innocent persons do not get executed. if they are executed, you cannot bring them back. host: robert, republican line. your thoughts? caller: i would like to express my agreement with the chaplain from new jersey. the death penalty is cruel and unusual, not just to the perpetrator of the crime, but to the family of the victim. once you execute someone, there is no opportunity for the family to 40 of on the back side. if the family has no opportunity to forgive, truly there is no opportunity wore them to ever heal. host: are you still there?

caller: that was my comment. host: thank you, robert. this is from "the wall street journal." "mccain says he was falsely accused -- herman cain says he was falsely accused." >> in my years of experience running businesses and corporations, i have never sexually harassed anyone. no. 2, while at the restaurant association, i was accused of sexual harassment. falsely accused, i might add. i was falsely accused. when the charges were brought, as the leader of the organization, i recused myself and allowed my general counsel and human resources officer to deal with it the situation.

he concluded, after a thorough investigation, that it had no basis. as far as a settlement, i am unaware of any settlement. i hope there was not one, because i did not do it. but the fact is, i am not aware of any settlement that came from that accusation. host: that was herman cain yesterday, addressing those sexual harassment allegations. david, washington, d.c. go ahead, we are talking about whether or not years on death row constitutes cruel and unusual punishment. host: if someone commits a crime this so heinous that they should be put to death, why not take the money that would be spent having them on death row for years and put them on life without parole, using that money instead for social services.

host: ok. david, hello. caller: we have a faith based incentive and we communicate with a lot of female inmates on death row. some of their concerns are that you have certain death row inmates who want to exhaust all of their remedies, but others want to be put to death. others have concerns about the constitution, confinement and food conditions. recreation time being denied, being denied the rights to go do research. i definitely feel that it is cruel and unusual. i think that the provisions

should be revised to the here and now. you have got to look at the families. you have got to look at the victims. my main thing is that i have to be kind of neutral, from both sides, because of my position as a lobbyist. but when you look at a situation that is cruel and unusual, not just for the inmates and how they are treated, but the families when they're visiting, just everything is corrupted. hopefully, we can get it resolved. thank you so much. host: here is a clear message from pamela. -- here is a twister message from pamela.

-- here is a twister message from pamela. host: this is from "the washington post." host: covington, kentucky,

jesse, independent color. go ahead. caller: i think that when a person, a man or a woman, abuses, rapes, and kills a child, i think that they need cruel and unusual punishment. i think that they need to be put to death. any person that killed a police officer should be put to death. i do not think that they should wait 30 years or 10 years. they should get rid of them. send them back to where they belong. host: all right. fort lauderdale, florida. caller: thank you for c-span. the chaplain in new jersey was right on. i am amazed that he is a republican. perhaps he is seeing the light on the issue. i am down here in south florida.

i am firmly convinced that the poorest minority to the richest white-minority, -- white majority, they are not being adequately defended for doing the same crime. they have never been adequately defended. it is just not fair or equitable. however, with all that is going on in the supreme court in this country, by am afraid that with these votes, we bill be losing the women's right to choose. there is an agenda there, they say they have no alter real motive when they screen -- no ulterior motive when the screen justices, but they do. host: this story is about banks charging fees for using atm,

rescinding fees for debit cards. here is the daschle section of "the new york times." "nearly 20 current members have missed a 20% of the vote this year." that is from "the new york times, closed what this morning. "usa today," has this story about 18 different proposals for a balanced budget amendment. if that is something that you support or are interested in, you can read that story today, he goes through all 18 in comparison. also, for the justice department in "the washington times," this

morning, saying on monday that he regrets not only deposing the leadership on problems over probes for the bush administration, as he feels that this is a fast and furious story, but the assistant attorney general says that he knew that investigators in the 20 -- 2006 pro but allowed for hundreds of guns to be transferred. more on that fast and furious a story in the papers this morning. this is the front page of "the new york times." the former new jersey governor and senator, john corzine, making the papers this morning. "federal regulators have discovered the hundreds of billions of dollars that have gone missing from and left low over recent days --

host: some say that the figure has fallen to less than 700 million by monday. john, republican, your thoughts this morning? caller: we had a problem in oregon that was resolved. we had a gentle man that was sentenced to death, i do not know how many years ago. he was fighting to die. you get to court.

his attorney fought against him. he went and hired an attorney to have another trial. and they finally went and had hampered go through a psychological review. they found out that he was mentally shallow. the judge, after two or three times, finally sentenced him to death. i think that he died in december. i am not sure. but i think this is just a way for lawyers to make more money. i really do. host: john, democratic caller, tennessee. caller: i have lost two family members to crime. my brother was carjacked. in that lost a nephew. what about the cruel and unusual

punishment my family? we do not get that back. these people do the crime, they need to do that time. host: in "the washington post," there was this article by lisa miller. "justice scalia believes that --

host: that is a piece in "the washington post," from saturday, if you are interested in reading that. also on line, making the rounds, a recent event in new hampshire. texas governor rick perry and a speech that he gave, speculation over his being drunk. that is this week's editorial staff, with this. "rick perry, a truly bizarre speech, was he drunk"? i want to show you a little bit of that video. >> this is such a cool state. c'mon, live free or die? [laughter] you have got to love that,

right? [applause] i come from a state where they had this little place called the alamo, they declared victory or death. we are kind of into those slogans, man. victory or death. live free or die. bring it. i love talking about death. host: speaking of primaries, in boston, bill gardner will announce at 11:00 a.m.. host: we will be watching that and we will be giving you an update. arkansas, good morning. louis, ahead, we are listening.

caller: i would like to comment on the death penalty. i do not think that all law care is one way or up the other if you are guilty or innocent. they have ways of finding out. they can use truth serum or put you on a machine. is all for money. if they put them on a polygraph machine, and they are innocent, set them loose. do not take 25 years for lawyers to get rich. host: muskegon, michigan. caller: good morning. thank you for c-span. if a police officer killed someone, i have never heard of them being put to the death penalty. all of the people being killed and murdered in the cell, you

know that they never went to the death penalty. round up all of those people that killed all of those black people down there and give them the death penalty. it is all politics, just like the guy says. outboard government kills people in the name of the government. host: we will leave it there. this figure is 7 billion. from "the oregon register," 7 billion people creating population issues. curtis, you are left on this topic. caller: good morning. my thoughts on the death penalty are that when you consider the number of murders that take place in this country each year as opposed to those that are put to death for the

crime of murder, i think that it is very small. i think that when you take a life, you need to pay for it with your life. i think that all of this other talk about racism, whatever it is, i believe that if you take a life, you forfeit your life. host: for the next hour and a half or so, "the washington journal," we will be talking about the deficit reduction committee. next we will be taking a look at different proposals outlined by democrats and republicans on that panel. we will be right back. ♪

>> you will receive your answer in due course. >> i am prepared to wait for my answer until hell freezes over. >> he was the u.n. ambassador for president kennedy, twice running as the democratic nominee for president. adlai stevenson, appearing this week on "the contenders." for a preview, including more of his speeches, go to our special web site for the series, c-

span.org/thecontenders. >> every person that i worked with, i got a rejection letter from. which was kind of cool. [laughter] >> in his nonfiction essays, ben mezrich talks about social constructs. his latest book tracks a possible astronaut candidate that steals a safe filled with moon rocks. sunday, noon eastern, but tv, on c-span 2. >> every weekend, let the c-span network your source for public affairs, nonfiction books, in history. c-span 2 has booktv.

american history tv on c-span 3, showcasing the people and events that shaped our country. these are all available any time at the c-span library. c-span networks, washington, your way. >> "washington journal" continues. host: we are backed with sean lengell, of "congressional times." is similar headline that we have seen in many papers, two democrats and republicans on this committee, are they as far apart on this as the headline suggests? guest: they have been meeting in secret so much, " we know has been leaked and trickled out. it is hard to get a handle on where they are. we know that last week there

were two plans. one by each part that were leaked. we do not even have documents, or anything like that. the plan calls for a $3 trillion coppola one point -- $3 trillion, one. dollars -- $1 -- $1.30 trillion in spending cuts, and 25% of that is tax increases. that has really been the sticking point. taxes. basically, the democrats have been resistant to tax increases -- i am sorry, basically the democrats have wanted a balance

between tax increases and spending cuts. republicans have really resisted any tax increases. host: "the new york times," this morning, releasing this editorial. "republicans will not move an inch on taxes." where do they go from here? guest: good question. they still have a little over three weeks. the deadline for the super- committee to come up with a plan is the day before thanksgiving. i think that we will really start to see the movement taken here over 10 days, even a week before the deadline. host: the leadership, the split

in the senate and the house, what are they saying about the committee and what they are hearing? guest: across the board, they have tried to take a hands-off approach. when you ask leaders in the chambers, most of the time they say that they will defer to members of the committee. that they will defer to their judgment. certainly, these plans that we saw that were released last week, they would not have been plans without the blessing of leadership. so, they are actively involved. host: when you talk about the blessing of leadership, the democratic proposal that we went through, including $100 billion

in medicaid cuts, $400 billion in federal benefit cuts, and a new infant formula have to talk about social security benefits, is that the blessing of both senate majority leader harry reid and house speaker nancy pelosi? caller: -- guest: again, we do not know. that is the short answer. i doubt that the plan would be in draft form without the blessing of both of them. host: there are about 100, led by congressman simpson, expected to release a letter asking the super-committee to find $4 trillion in savings. do you see an appetite from any of them to go big? guest: it is possible. $4 trillion has been a sort of magic number for others in the

deficit-reduction commission. the simpson bowls commission that came out at the end of last year, it was kind of a template for some other commissions and plans. it was at the $4 trillion mark. i think that it is possible. even the democratic plan, the $4 trillion has been pushed by the democrats, more than the republicans. even the democratic plan only called for $3 trillion. i think it we would be hard- pressed to see a $4 trillion plan. between the $2.20 trillion proposed by republicans and the

$3 trillion proposed by democrats. host: when you look at these proposals, where are most of these savings coming from, when you talk about non-defense spending cuts? guest: health care. even the democratic plan called for about $500 billion from healthcare, medicare cuts for medicaid. host: for the elderly and the poor. guest: right. there are different gimmicks that you can do immediately, but we are talking about reductions. maybe some caps on for a certain amount of years and how much benefits are.

host: the former deficit proposal put forward by the likes of alan simpson, when they worked on the bipartisan deficit commission, they will be tough to find today before the super- committee. live coverage on c-span 3 and c- span radio. we will also hear from others with it their own deficit reduction proposals. we also touched on what the leadership is saying about the super committee. john boehner talked about it yesterday. here is what he had to say. >> patricia murray, could not be more different from a democrat, ideologically. but none of them are going to compromise on their principles. but i believe that they share a commitment to find solutions,

finding those areas of overlap between the parties, like getting this job done. common ground. without compromising our principles. it has produced some of the greatest policy milestones in recent memory. host: democratic minority leader, nancy pelosi, she also talked about the deficit reduction committee and what she expected from them. here she is from last week. >> they are responsible leaders, knowing the message it will send to the world and the american people. the confidence that it will build. it is a missed opportunity -- worse than that, if we do not do this. it will take all of us, being as open as possible.

we all know what we believe. we will be true to our beliefs. in terms of how we get there, it is a new way of thinking about proposals on the table. host: the top republican and the top democrat in the house. we want to get to your speaker questions. here is a twitter message -- be -- will social security be on the table? guest: one area that both sides have had a semblance of agreement on, the republican and democratic plan proposed pretty complicated measures that would basically slowdown social security payments, pushing

people into a higher tax bracket, saving them some money. it could be an area of compromise. it could also be a tipping point as well. many liberal groups, many unions, many democrats are actually opposed to touching social security. host: this is the front page of "politico." "gaining some traction, a move that has been politically unthinkable for years." we will be talking about social security and the status of the trust fund at 8:30, eastern time. patrick, fishkill, new york. go ahead. caller: thank you. i am enjoying your guest on the program. i would appreciate it if you

would allow me to complete my fought and follow up with a response. but it is all about health care. these costs are really hurting the economy. medicare, in my opinion, and i do not understand why it is not, and if you would allow me to complete my thought, i would appreciate it. i pay $500 per month to buy company. i would much rather get -- why it has not opened up to younger and healthier people, 80% -- people with health insurance and do not use it. i pay $6,000 per year. i would like to get an individual plan with medicare. i use about $200 of my insurance each year. $1,500, along with millions of people like me, raising a fortune of money.

an old song, you have got to get in to get out, an old song from genesis. host: we got your point. guest: guest: last week, the democratic plan was condemned pretty strongly. pretty much thinking that the democratic plan had gone too far. so the democrats are getting some push back from both sides in this. host: michigan, a republican. caller: good morning. i would like you to talk about baseline budgeting. my understanding is the budget automatically goes up 8% every year if nothing is done. if the budget was allowed to go up the amount of inflation and

any other increases were specifically put in, i think that could make a huge difference in the budget and balancing the budget. guest: the caller makes a great point. we have not seen that come out of this committee so far. host: here is another tweet from our viewers -- there any way to get around this deadline? guest: sure. if the committee fails to meet its deadline, and that certainly could happen, then what would happen is there would be -- let me back up.

the goal is by november 23 to find $1.50 trillion in savings. and other words, cut $1.50 trillion from the debt which is right now is under $15 trillion. if they do not reach that goal of finding $1.50 trillion, there is an automatic trigger. this is written into the law that created this committee. trigger is $1.20 trillion automatically would be cut. half of that would be defense, the other half would be other spending. one way or the other, the deficit will be cut through this process. host: could they pass something by november 23 that includes some cuts but then have bigger

items and let the committee take that up? guest: that is another scenario that this committee might give the appropriations committees vague orders on and let this work out in the committee process which is normally held it is done anyway. host: let's take a look at the republican proposal put out last week. 75% of the savings could come from non-defense spending cut, and 25% from non-tax revenues. tax increases, not on the table for republicans. are they going to hold firm? guest: there is some sort of gray area in that in reforming

the tax code depending on who you talk to them could be considered a tax increase. -we are going to see -- we are not going to see reforming the tax code coming out of this committee. it is an incredible, long, laborious process that committees are going to have to do. i think we might see this committee instruct the tax- writing committee that you must formed the code this way or that way. but, so far, the republicans have held firm on tax increases. host: this is the front page of "cq" today --

tracy, an independent in michigan. are you there? diana, a democratic caller from athens, ohio. good morning. caller: i would like to read something to you out of the paper. "medicare yanks license and then gives it back." medicare providers quickly reinstated them after an appeals series. the federal prosecutors say the speed the reinstatement will help legitimate priors who get snagged.

host terry all right. medicare fraud, waste and abuse. guest: certainly cannot waste and abuse is something i think everyone on both sides wants to trim. but i think both sides realize that going after waste, and that is a very subjective thing to begin with, is not enough. we have to do some major reforms. we also have to increase taxes. host: that is a question from twitter. guest: well, again, when you talk to democrats, they will say that there is no way to significantly reduce the debt without increased revenue. republicans feel differently. i should say that the term

"revenues" -- the republican plan includes new revenues, but not tax increases. revenues such as selling public lands, selling the wirelss spectrum, portions of that. so there are ways to raise revenue without raising taxes. host: richard, an independent from florida loud. caller: good morning. congress has made itself irrelevant by not doing their jobs. for example, they have not declared war since world war ii yet we have been involved in hostile actions in probably 20

or 30 countries. they do not legislate hardly, which is why we see legislation come from the judicial branch. the constitution requires them to control the monetary system which they turned over to the federal reserve 100 years ago. host: mike, a republican from louisville, ky. caller: i think we need to work together as americans. everybody is going to have to pay. we need to vote for who we think will do the right thing not just because they are a republican or democrat or independent. there is scripture and the bible that says a house divided will not stand.

host: are you willing to support cuts to medicare and social security? caller: some of the fraudulent stuff, absolutely. i am on social security. i worked most of my life. i draw $780 a month. yes, i would even say that it is hard for me. my wife has a good job, thank god. i would be willing to forgo -- maybe even the credits that we get on our medicine and stuff. now, companies are paying for drugs that cost you only $5 instead of $60. we all need to pull together. host: michigan cannot market is an independent caller. caller: good morning, c-span. good morning, america.

i have a suggestion to the super committee. until we learn to come together and realize we have had trillions of dollars stolen from us, we do not have the jobs problem or a revenue problem. we have a theft problem. i have been trying to give this evidence to the authorities for the past five years, but i have been completely ignored. if this money was returned to the american taxpayers, then they would have the money to start businesses, to start of jobs. that is the problem. we have a very small number of people stealing a whole lot of money. host: we will leave it there. you heard from the previous caller who is willing to take less of a medicare benefit. is that a sentiments that those on the super committee hear enough of it? what do the poll numbers show?

what are the politics of this? guest: it is hard to tell because we have not seen a unified super committee plan. we just see these divergent, two-party plans. cutting entitlements, basically medicare, medicaid, and social security, or slowing benefits down, it will be a tight sell i think across the board, but it depends on how much. the devil is in the details. slowing down the rate of the inflation rate, so maybe your benefits will increase as much over the next 10 years or so, that might be something people

could support. i have not really seen many poll numbers. i do not know if there are in the poll numbers on these plans. host: the papers are saying this morning that the super committee today when they meet at 1:30 p.m. are going to feel the pressure on the politically touchy issues like medicare and social security from those who have put forth their own deficit-reduction proposals. we are covering that hearing today at 1:30 p.m. eastern time on c-span3 and c-span radio. good morning. caller: good morning. host: roger, go ahead. caller: i just wanted to say that it is crazy to listen to two sides.

people that are not fortunate enough that have jobs and stuff like that -- it is really crazy right now. we just need to come together and get rid of all these republican. that is how i feel. host: this tweet for all of you -- a republican in illinois, what do you think? caller: good morning. thank you for taking my call. i am retired law-enforcement. i would like to say that those of us retired law enforcement, public pensioners, we have paid into social security at a full- time rate.

i think that the super committee -- sean needs to put this in his notes today. the law enforcement folks could pay -- who paid in full to social security are not getting the. where has this money gone to? this is not fair to us. what have all of these officers been killed in the line of duty for? it is not fair to us who have served. i am talking about social security. we paid into social security at a full rate. everybody who was required to pay into social security. when it came time for me to drop my disability, i was cut in half because i was a public pension

there. i think it is unfortunate for those who gave their lives to the community. host: a democratic caller -- we will go to regina -- john in delaware. go ahead, john. caller: what are they going to -- how are they going to indirectly stimulate the economy? they could therefore stimulate jobs and so forth. is there any indirect way they are trying to do this? host: are they are addressing the economy outside of deficits and debt? guest: sure. the two are linked at the hip. i think that is something that definitely everyone on every

side would agree that if the debt was lowered, our economy would improve. so, yes. host: what about the porsche from democrats to include the president's jobs act? the guest: that is a side issue. that is not part of what the super committee is looking at as far as we know. they have met over -- they met about 20 times, and 15 of those times have been behind closed doors. we are not exactly sure what they are discussing and what is on the table. but the president until jobs bill is a separate issue. host: have they said when they are going to say something publicly? guest: no. they have basically taken an

oath of secrecy. it has been really tough reporting on this because when they come out of the meeting, there will be 20, 30, or 50 reporters standing around. they will come out and smile and say nothing or gives some sound byte. they are unified in a sense that they have been very good on keeping a lid on what they have been talking about. host: how have these proposals been leaked? guest: they were strategically bleak through aides. these were plans that they wanted to have leaked. host: to see what the reaction would be? guest: right. so, even the leaks were intentinoal. host: here is another tweet --

juanita, a democratic caller from illinois. good morning. caller: i would like to know that you could cut congress' pay. host: i do not know how much that would help our nation's deficit. it is an issue that comes up. guest: it would be a symbolic issue but it would be a tiny fraction of what they need to cut. ., a scranton, pa republican. caller: let them take the hit instead of us. thank you. host: san diego, calif., bryant is an independent.

caller: we are looking at the federal government, state government, and local. take, for instance -- call upon all of the churches. we would be able to support the storehouses of government, the federal government as a whole. working with the federal government'. host: what does that have to do with the deficit reduction in committee? guest: it would certainly help with the deficit. my opinion on no child left behind is the republicans are into the medical. it would certainly help our deficit in a sense. host: michigan.

caller: am i on? host: you are on. caller: i was trying to get on for 8:30. my question is regarding social security. i am not sure if people are aware of the fact that social security is a tax. 85% of my social security is taxed even though i already paid taxes on that. number two, if a person passes and they are not able to collect social security, i am told that that money goes into the general fund. meanwhile, you cannot find what the general fund pays. the super committee needs to look at the fact that if you have to cut something, it should not be the people who have paid into this on willingly for their entire career. why not cut some of these

other free programs? guest: well again, social security reform is one issue that both sides have suggested, and there seems to be at least a base of may be some agreement. both of the democratic plan and republican plan had some form of not so much cutting social security but changing the formula that it has used to show cost of living increases so this would basically sow your payments. depending on how you look at it, that could be a cut. but yeah, certainly, social

security could be it the major component of whatever plan they come up with. host: we are going to be delving into social security, possibly on the table for this deficit reduction committee and the current status of the program. how is leadership preparing its rank on file for a possible vote? how does it get to the floor? what is the process getting it to congress? guest: the committee has to come up with a plan before or by november 23, the day before thanksgiving, and congress -- both chambers of congress must approve -- must vote on a plan by the end of december. and if either chamber fails to approve the plan or both

chambers failed to approve the plan, these automatic spending cuts at a lower level will kick in in january. as far as house leadership is preparing ranking file, i think everyone is taking a wait-and- see approach. even leadership is not sure how this is going to play out. it is hard to prepare for something when you do not have a plan to prepare for. host: wilmington, n.c. two comments.have i think for the next 10 years until we get the deficit down, i think congress should not be traveling out of the country for their breaks. i think it is a waste of money. we have other departments that go overseas that check on things.

these are people selected in congress for two years and they may not be there next year. they should concentrate on what is going on here. i think it is terrible that lobbyists are able to know what is going on in the committee and arabamericans are not. host: that is the topic of our last hour of the "washington journal" this morning. we are going to be talking about how all the super committee has been operating in private. guest: of the cutting back on congressional travel is something i have not heard of. i do not think we will see that happen. as a whole, it would not do much to reduce the deficit. i think a lot of congressmen and

senators would say that is an important part of their job visiting troops overseas, seeing how military operations go overseas. that is the majority of travel that goes on overseas or a book of. i do not think we are going to see that cut off. host: this thought on twitter -- an independent from massachusetts. caller: i have a funny question for you. i heard a person call about we should cut congress' pay and all this stuff. i understand that would not do anything, but i believe congress has voted themself up into a world where they do not really understand what is happening in

america. they live in this of the world. if you put them on social security, how would they be thinking that they have to cut social security because to me congress has become so self- servant and not a servant of the nation. what do you think? disco this committee is a byproduct -- guest: this committee is a by product. it is a new and temporary committee that goes away in january. it was born out of the debt ceiling debate this past summer. usually there is no debt ceiling debate. usually, congress will raise the debt limit every few years. they have done so many times over the last few decades.

those sides dug in their heels, particularly the republicans who fought that raising the debt ceiling without some sort of conditions was wrong. we had this huge fight this past summer. this was a compromise, a deal that came out of that fight. we usually don't have special deficit committees looking at flooring the debt. i think the caller is absolutely right when he says that both sides right now r -- it is a different climate than what we are used to on the hill. it certainly -- compromises have been much harder to come by this congress than the past. host: "the hill" newspaper

reporting this morning -- patrick, a democratic caller from pittsburgh. you are next. caller: when you look at the framework, my friend who is a concert wrote general had to go to the state department because she had not been there for a long time. she went from office to office to office and rarely has seen an entirely occupied state department. when you extend this out to wall street, our country is now occupied and we are no longer in control. host: wanda, a republican.

twitter your thoughts? caller: i feel like it is unconstitutional and not representative of the majority of people. i do not knounderstand how 12 people can make the decisions of the whole country and if they do nothing drastic things are going to happen. i am upset over obama for not doing anything about this. i am just really disappointed with all the politicians in washington, d.c. their actions to me seemed unamerican. host: a similar tweet -- is it constitutional? guest: yeah, i am not a constitutional lawyer so i am not going to tackle the.

host: have you heard that come up from rank and file questioning? guest: maybe the morality of it. even some lawmakers on the hill are not happy about this super committee. the fact that there are 12 members making some pretty significant decisions behind closed doors. congress will get a vote on whichever comes out of that, but at that point, it is take it or leave it. the other lawmakers want to have a chance to have their say while this is being developed. so, yeah, there is certainly public frustration, the fact that you have 12 members making secret decisions behind closed doors. host: one last phone call here for you from meridian,

mississippi. caller: i think there are several areas in our government that actually need to be cut, but we have to have revenue. if they attack me at the 33% or 35%, how do you justify that you do not tax the higher bracket at a higher rate also? also, we have all of these conservative people in the church. they double-dip. we can write off all of those ties on our income tax. host: let's just stick to tax revenues. guest: that is right back to the main sticking point -- tax increases. that is the main roadblock here. entitled reforms are also an

issue, but even democrats have been willing to cut medicare and medicaid much more so than i think a lot of democrats would prefer. but both sides are digging their heels in. host: 1:30 p.m. eastern time, live coverage on c-span3 and c- span radio. a review of previous debt proposals is the topic. sean lengell of the "washington times," thank you for joining us. we are going to keep talking about this super committee and how they have been operating in private. up next, a closer look at social security. >> here are some of the headlines. thousands of protesters are

gathering in the french riviera ahead of the g-20 summit with president obama will attend. demonstrators are planning a big march today in nice. more than 12,000 police and other security officers have been deployed. meanwhile, occupy wall street activists plan to gather in iowa. this is according to cnn, which reports that the plan has been dubbed first in the nation occupying occupation. experts are expecting the federal reserve to take a wait- and-see attitude when their two- day policy meeting ends tomorrow. fed policymakers a likely one to gauge the impact of the action they have taken recently to keep

interest rates low. new test scores show the nation's fourth and eighth graders are doing their best ever in math, but schools have a long way to go to get everyone performing at grade level. analysts say the results from the national assessment of educational progress are a reminder of how america's schoolchildren are achieving the notes how left behind -- "no child left behind" law's goal. those are some of the latest headlines from c-span radio. >> i am prepared to wait for my answer until hell freezes over. >> he was a un ambassador for president kennedy. before governor of illinois and twice ran as the democratic nominee as president but lost. he will be featured this week on

"the contenders." livae friday at 8:00 p.m. eastern. go to our special website for the series. >> every person i worked with i had a rejection letter from which was kind of cool. he would go to a meeting and they would say we like your stuff, but what about this? [laughter] >> his account of mark zuckerberg and the creation of facebook was adapted for the screen as "the social networking." -- network." now, it is your chance to ask the questions. live, sunday at noon eastern on

"book tv." >> "washington journal" continues. host: the future of social security is our topic, and our guest is joseph minarik who remains active as a member of the bipartisan policy center debt reduction task force. so, let's just began by walking through social security. what is the social security trust fund? guest: social security was set up as a pay-as-you-go system. in other words, the taxes and benefits were supposed to be equal but there was always an understanding that social security would need to have air reserve. the trust fund is the home for the reserve. what do you do with the excess funds in the reserve? the decision that was made was the safe thing to do was to put

the research into u.s. treasury securities. these are not marketable securities. you cannot buy them and the trust fund cannot sell them, but they do aren't a rate of return that is equal to the average of the spectrum of an existing marketable social security's. host: how did the excess get into the trust fund in the first place? there were more taxes than beneficiaries? guest: there was always a plan to have a reserve. what do you set the taxes to be relative to the benefit people would get? eschew if the economy weakens, you could be in a situation where you would need to make a modest draw.

in the early 1980's, the trust fund was so depleted that there -- the calculations at the time -- the program at one point was in a month of not being able to pay benefits because it was so low. so there was then a reform of the system which involved a big increase in the social security program's operating surplus. we are now at the point where that is beginning to run down and that is why we are having this conversation. host: many people probably saw this headline -- now, is that social security or the trust fund? guest: here, we are talking

about the operation of the social security program. the characterization is a comparison between the revenues coming in and the benefit payments that are going out. what is happening at this point is because the benefits are no greater than the tax revenues coming in, and that is projected to go on forever at this point unless there is a change in the system, we are now at this stage where the trust fund, to make up the difference, has got to take its treasury securities, give them to the treasury itself and tell the treasury, please in exchange for this give me cash. for the treasury to be able to do that, the treasury has to go out and sell securities on the open market. we are now at this stage where for social security to pay its benefits, the treasury must

borrow from the public to get some of the cash. that is the cash-situation described in the paper. host: borrow from the public out of the trust fund. guest: at the end of the day, some of the trust fund securities are redeemed to get the cash to redeem those securities the treasury itself, not social security or the trust fund, but the treasury must sell plain marketable treasury securities to the public to raise cash to give to the trust fund to pay the trust fund for those securities. at the end of the day, the treasury is borrowing from the public to pay benefits. host: if the social security trust fund is solvent -- and guest: the trust fund has a

fairly significant balance. the current estimates have the balanced lasting until something like 2035. however, you cannot wait that long because of course when you get to the end of that process, you are in the kind of situation we were a couple of months ago when we had a debt and a crisis. this is not a situation that you want to allow to come to a dramatic conclusion. it would be better off if we made adjustments so we would not come to that moment. host: what recent policies have led to this situation that social security is now cash negative? guest: the biggest change has been the financial crisis, which of course is not a policy. but there was a significant difference in the situation for

social security. if you go back to years, and this was after the crisis was actually a noun, the understanding was that this cash negative point would not come for another seven or eight years. said the downturn in the economy resulted in a shift of a lot of things dramatically, one of them social security but. host: what happens? people are in new employed so you do not have taxes coming into -- people are unemployed and you do not have taxes coming into the coffers. guest: people are not paying social security taxes. people that lose their jobs in their early 60's take care of unemployment benefits, get to the point where the unemployment benefits are essentially gone,

and they are not terribly generous to start with. we have extended benefits for a while, but there are folks who get to this stage who believe that the best choice they have is to retire early and began to collect social security benefits. so we have an increase in the number of retirees as a result of an economic slowdown. host: so they are retiring at 62. guest: and these are folks that may very well planned to work longer but they find that they do not have that option. folks in their early 50's are often not those that leap to the top of the jobs that are available because employers figure -- somebody who is 62, i.e. invest in this person to

get them up to speed in this job, three years from now they are going to retire any waste. -- retire anyway. you might come to the conclusion that i am wasting my time. social security is the best option i got. i am going to retire early. host: let's look at some facts of social security. beneficiaries in 2011 -- about 59 million people. by 2035, that number is likely to go to 91 million. $46 billion projected deficit in 2011. tax is imposed on income up to $106,800.

guest: after that, no social security taxes. host: then there is a one-year tax holiday cost of $105 billion. guest: the general fund makes the trust fund whole for that loss. however, that is a shortfall that in the longer-term -- it weighs on the overall budget. host: let's get to the democratic caller from san diego. you are first. caller: i noticed you mentioned $106,000 income. how many years would social security be insolvent if congress started taxing everyone on all their income? guest: you have two basic choices of how you do that. one way isn't it you tax the additional earnings -- one way

is you tax the additional earnings. that would not solve the problem. the other option is you tax people on those additional earnings and you do not pay benefits on those additional earnings. that would solve the problem for a nanosecond. social security would be in balance this year. next year, he would again that you would not have 75-year solvency. this is an issue that has been argued back and forth for a long time. the icons of supporters of social security, one who passed away two or three years ago who was one of the negotiators in the 1983 settlement, was adamantly opposed to increasing the payroll tax ceiling without pay and benefits on the

additional contributions that people would make. his argument was -- personally, i think it was a sound argument. when you get to the point where you are not providing individuals with a return on the contributions that they make, you do not get something for paying additional contribution into the system, you get into the zone of where people start talking about whether this is a retirement program or a welfare program. at that point, the consensus in the public and one of the most important things the federal government does because it is absolutely essential and the financial crisis i think makes that very obvious right now. this is a program that the american people need. if we get to the point where we do not have that strong consensus, we run the risk that at some juncture in the future,

we start making changes that take the program apart. in the interest of fairness, i think we want to look at this in the sense that when people make a contribution to social security, they do get a return on that money. host: currently, what is the return on that money? how much on average are people paying in versus how much they will get out if they are retiring at 60 years old and living 30 more years? guest: the average retiree is getting a small inflation adjusted positive return on contributions. upper-income retirees get somewhat less. i am not absolutely up-to-the- minute on these calculations, but when you get to very high income earners, it may very well be that the return on the contribution is getting down to

zero or even negative. the retirement system is only a part of what social security does. we also have this protection which can be very important for people, particularly people who do physically demanding work. at the current time, i believe about 20% of beneficiaries are disability beneficiaries and their families as opposed to retirees and their families. there is also the survival program for family breadwinners who died before reaching the age of retirement who have children below a certain age. so there is a kind of insurance benefit for that. we speak of social security as a social insurance program. gueshost: what was the original

intent? guest: it is not clear from the history just how far people were able to project what was going to happen with the social security. whatever plans were made in 1935, world war ii through all that stuff for a loop. at the beginning of the program, you had an image or program which is to say that you had an entire working age population. the population of retirees at that time was relatively small. if you were 66 years old when social security was created, you got benefits and never made a contribution. so your rate of return was pretty high. overtime, we have gone to the stage now where we refer to this as a mature system where the people who retired today -- you can do the math.

they have had a full working career paying into the system. overtime, their rates of return have gone down. there was a little bit of surprise on a couple of things. one was post-world war ii when we had a baby boomer. between 1946 and 1964 when the baby boom was going on, but the perception really was that those were what birth rates were and the assumption rate was we were going to go on forever. it was close to a decade after that that people began to figure out that birth rates dropped substantially which made a difference. families are having fewer children which was not always fully anticipated. and also, people are living longer, which in the long run is a very important factor for

social security. the baby boom will be gone, lower mortality rates, greater longevity are pretty much looking like they are going to be the rule forever. " this tweet -- host: this tweet from one of our viewers -- guest: the first bend point is that the system in terms of cash flow not including interest has gone negative. the second bend point will be where the interest alone in the trust fund is not enough to enable the trust fund to pay its benefits. at that point, we start eating into the principle of the trust fund. did you get to the final point where we have eaten up all of

the principal. host: what happens then? guest: by law, the benefits must be constrained to the amount of tax revenue coming in. it is projected that, at that point, there will have to be an across the board benefit cut for all beneficiaries. they will have to take an across-the-board 25% benefit cut. that is the kind of legislative threshold, like hitting the debt limit, that you do not want to flirt with. host: a republican from florida. caller: with all of the iou's that were put into the trust, how can you say that it is going to stay solvent until 2035 if they were never put back?

guest: the statement of solvency with respect to the trust fund is an argument about the accumulated balance that is in the trust fund. that amount is of course subject to the variation in the performance of the economy, the changes in size of the population which relates to longevity of the elderly, the birthrates of the young. when we are looking out 20 years, we are pretty certain about what of the native population is going to be. it also relates to rates of immigration. so 2035 in terms of the balance that is in the trust fund now is somewhat sensitive to developments, but it is relatively predictable. i think the thrust of request and has more to do with the meaning of the trust fund given

that the rest of the budget has not been kept in balance or in surplus. that is an economic question in the financial question that is very much at the heart of this debate in washington right now. we want to be sure that the finances of the united states are sound so that obligations can be met. host: and independent from illinois. caller: good morning, people. i have a couple of comments and then a question. first of all, social security as of 2009 our congress has barred 13 -- more than $13 trillion out of social security. had never been done -- since reagan, that is when it started. we probably would have over 400 trillion dollars more.

if the president and the war and bring home all the troops, that would be $2.10 trillion. could that be put back into the social security fund? if the president would use the power of tariffs and sanctions and put a tax on all imports, maybe the jobs would come back and we would have people working to supply the fund again. guest: ok. with respect to the amount and the trust fund, even though the federal government has run budget deficits, that does not affect the accounting for the trust fund itself. in effect, what we have to have to back up the trust fund is financial strength in the rest of the budget. the amount of money that you quoted is not the amount of

money that has been deducted from the social security trust fund. what has been deducted from the fund is only the benefits that have been paid and the social security trust fund has been credited for the payroll taxes that have been paid. with respect to the other numbers that you quoted, on the war -- war spending is not $2 trillion of year. is more like $100 billion a year or maybe even less than that. host: the $2 trillion figure comes from -- guest: that would be 10 years worth, assuming that we are not going to draw down the current level of activity that has been anticipated. the the budgetary cost of the

war is, i believe, only about $100 billion a year. the total defense budget is about $600 billion. most of that is the standing force. on the question of tariffs, this again is getting into the more sensitive parts of u.s. economic policy. the way the united states cemented the great depression was through enactment of protective tariffs. the sense, at that time, was if we could keep imports out, there would be more opportunities for americans to produce. the problem that you have there is we also have americans who are working to export. if you do not import, you are not going to be allowed to export. what happened in the late 1920's, early 1930's was a war

of trade barriers with the united states was a very early actor and trade shutdown. what we found happened was not only that we were not able to produce for exports but also much of the export production is based on imported raw materials and other components. so it wound up shutting down the economy rather than strengthening it. the so-called holly tariffs are one of the hallmarks of mistaken economic policy. you will find a lot of people who will -- a lot of economists, almost all of them, will believe that is not a road that we want to take right now. host: this is who gets social security.

the maximum social security benefit, about $2,666 monthly -- $2,366 monthly for workers retiring after retirement in 200011. joseph minarik is our guest, an tweet from jim -- guest: a growing workforce is a very important component of a solvent social insurance, social retirement program. one of the problems that we have in putting that in perspective is that you have

people like me that don't seem to want to pass on. as a result of that, if the relationship between the number of people who work and the number of people collecting social security benefits is changing in an adverse direction. right now we have approximately three workers for every retiree. as we go into the future that ratio will shift. by the time and of pretty much the pick of the impact of the baby boom on that relationship we will be more like two workers for every beneficiary. growth in the retired population is even faster. democratic caller host:, john, arkansas. caller: hello. what do you think about taking

from social security to pay ssi? guest: right now social security and has its own problems. ssi is a program that is paid for out of the general fund. as such, it has a blank check. it is an entitlement. everybody who is eligible for ssi gets paid. one of the things that has been under discussion in policy recommendations for changes in social security, if we try to shore up this program's finances, is to increase the minimum benefit in social security. that would displaced and actually make a better off these ssi benefits to many of the folks on that program right now.

a lot of people would argue that is a better way to go to make sure that as many people as possible who work for low wages might have interrupted work histories because of job loss, childbearing, whatever, could still get a social security benefits. host: what prompted this discussion today, the headline in the washington post on sunday. can you explain that? guest: when we got into the stage where the reality of the 1983 social security reform began to get a clearer. it was clear that at some point we would start pulling on the trust fund, using the trust fund to pay benefits, one of the calculations that was made was, at what point do we in fact at the start of using the interest

on the trust fund to pay benefits? so we have been looking at the calculation of when that day would come for some time. as i mentioned a little earlier, before the onset of the financial crisis, that was a decade away now or 59 years away, the financial hit and that clearly affected the numbers, but still people are looking at the end of the decade for the crossover poin,t benefits exceed the tax revenues coming into the trust fund. all of a sudden now after it has happened, people discovered we already have reached the point where social security tax revenue is not sufficient to cover benefits. host: dean baker wrote a piece about the article. he takes issue, saying b--

host: guest: this is a question of whether you are concerned about law or concern about reality, if you will. the losses that social security is off budget. as a matter of fact, two changes in the law have made social security off budget. having social security off budget equivalent of a plane being off-off broadway. the effect that has unreality in the federal government finances is approximately the same as if all the adults out there, when they are scarfing down their

leftover halloween candy at lunch and dinner today declared that the candy was off-diet. you're still eating the candy and it does affect you and you cannot get out of it that way. social security may be off the budget, but the problem with this cash flow issue is we are now what the point where to be able to pay social security benefits, the treasury must sell security to the public. host: is the treasury able to sell securities to the public? are there people buying dumping? ./est: that's the point under normal circumstances, back in the day when the boer talking about saving social security first, the point of that argument was, let's make sure that the financial standings of the united states government

banned the u.s. treasury is so strong that there is no risk that the treasury department will not be able to go into the market and sell securities and raise cash to finance social security. so that was the point, we were making the trust fund sound by making the overall federal government's finances sound. we are now a point where because of the financial crisis, because of the near collision that we had with the debt limits, people are beginning to wonder whether at some point the financial markets are going to look at the finances of the federal government and say, holy cow, i don't want to own their paper. the u.s. is still viewed by many people as the safe haven -- a safe haven. one economist interpreted that as being equivalent to saying the u.s. is the best looking

horse in the glue factory. there are nothe other nations that are trying to sell paper and they look worse than we do. we could get to where investors are looking at treasury paper and saying i don't care if this is the best looking horse in the olfactory. i don't want to take the risk that at some point they are not going to bill to pay interest, as in the near miss with the debt limit. host: the issue with social security drive that discussion? guest: social security is a relatively minor part of that problem. if we want to solve the overall budget problem, particularly looking at the long term, the biggest problem is the growth of health care costs. however, even in the near term we have a very large budget deficit. the debt is rising much faster than anybody anticipated, particularly if you go back just a beginning of the financial crisis.

people thought that we were looking at having the debt equal to 60% of the size of our economy in 2022. it happened last year. so the today to move forward by 12 years. a tremendous deterioration in the budget. if we get to the point where the treasury department goes with its securities, holds an auction, and tries to sell them in the open market and we don't have sufficient buyers, social security will be unable to pay the benefits just as other federal agencies and other federal programs will not able to pay their bills. we should never have gotten here. we should maintain a sound overall government finances. -- should have maintained. right now we are where we are and we have to be concerned about the consequences. host: pat in dallas, tx. caller: it's my understanding, i don't know if it's 2035 or 2037

or 2041, a trust suncor at 3.6 trillion dollars and it is solvent until one of those years. after that it will pay 75% of the benefits. in what has happened over the last 25 or 30 years and during the bush years as an example they took 150 to 250 billion of payroll taxes and use that for other programs and put the treasury bills in there just like we bought from china. they're not calling default on what we borrowed from china, but they want to default on what they borrowed from we the people. we will get better. our economy will get better. when our economy gets better, the year of the trust fund -- the solvency of the trust fund will go up. host: let's get a response.

guest: thank you. the solvency of the trust fund in an accounting sense, that's absolutely true. there's a balance in the trust fund. the estimate is that in the middle 2030's, that balance will be exhausted. right now we are at the stage where we have to take some of the interest that weeks owe to the trust fund to pay benefits -- that we owe. that means the u.s. treasury must borrow from the public in order to pay. we are as sound as the ability of the treasury to borrow from public. the economy will get better.; i certainly hope so. i have a great deal of trust in the united -- a great deal of confidence in the united states of america. i am not going anywhere. we are in a stage where if we want to make sure that happens, we are going to have to get a budget of the united states in order.

we are going to have to take control of our financial situation. and that means stopping the growth of our debt, which right now this faster than the size of our economy. that cannot go on forever. we have a lot of different kinds of obligations. we have an obligation to provide for the national defence. we have an obligation to pay benefits to social security contributors. and we have an obligation to make good on borrowings to people all over the world, including in the united states and including the government of china, which owns a lot of our paper. if we do not take care -- if we do not meet our obligations to people who have lent to us in the past, we had better be prepared that people will not lend to us in the future. if they do not lend to us in the future, then we will not be able to raise the cash necessary to provide for the common defense,

to pay social security benefits, and to keep the national parks open, to inspect our food, and a list of other things. they're all in that basket together. so right now our priority ought to be making sure that the nation's overall finances are sound so that we can meet all those obligations. host: social security appears on deck as a panel addenda, this report from "politico >" that social security could be part of some plan that they come up with. what are some of the proposals out there to help with this situation with social security? how do you get more money coming in? guest: there are right now several packages of ideas. going back historically we know what the cookbook is.

the ingredients are listed. the question is how to proceed together. ideas is to increase the amount to become against which the payroll tax is levied. host: your tax up to that amount and no more after that. guest: the usual benchmark was that we wanted to have about 90% of total earnings subject to tax. every time that has been -- there's been an attempt at hitting that number, the estimates have been wrong. a large part of that has been that more of an employee's compensation it has been coming in fringe benefits, which are not taxed, rather than cash wages. almost every plan that is out there -- as you mentioned, i was involved in a bipartisan policy center debt reduction tax source. it was part of our plan and it was part of the oil simpson

plan, was to increase over a period of time the amount of wages that is subject to the payroll tax -- boles-simpson plan. you want to get back to that gradually. people say let's get bill gates, raised the ceiling so it covers all earnings. bill gates will not feel that. the people who will know it and will be affected most by it are the people who have earnings that are just above the current threshold. for those folks, that tax increase will be the most plausible and the most painful. host: what is the percentage of tax for social security? guest: 6.2% for social security itself. you also have the medicare tax. a medicare tax is not capped. that's another 1.45%. but the social security tax is capped. the usual proposal that folks make who have spent their lives

working in this stuff is to increase that amount gradually, more than is determined by the current formula, so we get back up to the 90% level. right now if you did that instantaneously you would be near $200,000 worth of income subject to tax. host: who runs the bipartisan task force? guest: pete and alice. host: the two of them will testify today before the super committee. 1:30 p.m. eastern time, live coverage on c-span3 and c-span radio. daniel, republican, defiance, ohio. last phone call on the future of social security.

caller: let's bust this bubble right here, right now. in 1944 the united states supreme court ruled in "davis" the social security is not and never has been a trust fund. it is not and never has been a retirement format. it is called nothing more and nothing less than an income tax which is paid in to the u.s. treasury and to be spent by the congress on whatever they desire after it is stated to the treasury. you can shake your head, but it's right there on the supreme court will page. if it's right there on the socialist purity web page. for you to sit there and call it a trust fund is a miis and airline -- a miss. guest: i like you, too.

in one sense we are saying the same thing. the trust fund was set up so that social security could keep track of the pay-as-you-go system. it was a means of discipline in the way it was set up. if you are going to increase benefits, you have to increase revenues. it was designed to make sure that you kept track of that and that he made sure the system pay for itself. that trust fund is out there. it is used for that purpose. it can be overstated in terms of its economic importance. the most important thing that we have to recognize right now is that all of our finances really rests on one thing. that is the financial soundness of the united states of america. if the treasury department cannot with a straight face going to the financial markets and borrow the money for the united states government as a whole to operate, then

everything the u.s. government is trying to do is in trouble. so what we have to do is a country is to make sure that our finances are sound. if we do that, we will be protecting social security. we will be protecting the national defense. we will be protecting everything but the federal government does. and we will have a happy ending to this story. i hope that's where we wind up. host: thanks very much for talking to our viewers. in our last hour we will keep our attention on the super committee and to talk about transparency. first, a news update from c-span radio. >> its about 9:20 in washington. on the house agenda today, a resolution that "reaffirms in god we trust official motto of united states and supports and encourages public display of that model in all public buildings, public schools, and other government institutions." the sponsor is a virginia

republican, randy corpse. it's one of three measures being considered by the house on tuesday and is non-binding. the -- randy forbes. the house is in at 12:00 for general speeches. to look like it begins legislative work. the house is always live on c- span television and if on c-span radio. conservatives rallying around herman cain as he continues to battle sexual harassment allegations. conservatives are preparing the attacks on the republican presidential candidate to what they describe as a high-tech lynching of clarence thomas. the forceful early reaction suggests the georgia businessman's attempt to cast himself as the victim of the media, is paying dividends among his base. it could give more moderate gop voters pause. that would cause would be donors to shy away from the former godfather's pizza ceo.

israel has decided to briefly delay expanding on the gaza strip. they are going to tried to get palestinian military to stop halting rockets. amtrak is extending free wireless internet to about a dozen east coast routes including the northeast regional trains running from boston to virginia beach. the wi-fi service has already been available some express trains in the northeast. amtrak says that nearly 50 or rather 60% of the train system's passengers will now have access to free wi-fi. these are some of the latest headlines. >> when i allow started selling my books, every person i worked with i had a rejection letter from. which was kind cool. i would say we love your book. and i would be like, what about? in his nonfiction the questions

the motivations, ethics, and morality of a billion people. his account ups the creation facebook was adapted for the big screen. his latest tracks a possible astronauts candidates as he steals a nasa safe that is filled with moon rocks. sunday on "book tv on c-span 2. >> washington journal continues. host: the son of its foundation along with 30 other groups are calling on the deficit-reduction committed to conduct their work publicly rather than hold closed-door meetings -- the sun might foundation. john wonderlich is the policy director for the sunlight foundation, here to talk about transparency. they are born to have another hearing today. why is that not enough? guest: it is not enough for

number of reasons. the kind of power and importance of the decisions that the super committee is making means they should be considering in ways that are accountable. also because of the rules required that whenever they have meetings, they be public. 15 or so other meetings the super committee has had when all members are in attendance, they basically claim those are not even meeting spirits of their regular own rules. host: senator chuck grassley, iowa republican, recently spoke about his recommendations to the super committee. he also said -- made an argument for why they need to work privately. >> that they are not say too much of what goes on in there because they don't want to be negotiating in the press and they don't want all the lobbyists in town coming down on them or summer gets out of that this program might be effective for that program effective.

even in our republican caucuses, and the steering committees, it is difficult to get our remembers that are on the committed to say exactly what is going on. host: john wonderlich. guest: it is difficult to get them to see what's going on unless like last tuesday they decided that it was in their interest to start leaking details of their plans to the press. on one hand, they are demanding secrecy about what they talk about. on the other hand, they're leading the outlines of what they're claiming are there plans, but without actual standing by it. the idea that no one has access to its feet -- and we have seen a lot of reports about lobbyists that know what is going on in their meetings and are helping them outline their plans. so billy is the public's at large that does not have access and the press. it's in the super committee's interests, they're willing to give specialized access. -- so really it is the public at

large that does not have access. host: if they announce something and lobbyists come down on them, then that's stopped their prosperous. guest: the super committee process we are dealing with right -- right now grew out of the debt limit fight between house republicans and the white house. because they were not able to agree to any sort of reasonable deal to raise the debt limit in the beginning of august, they decided to kick the can down the road and say let's create a super committee. that was really congress hanging over the keys of the car and saying if we cannot solve it, we will put of individuals in charge. that puts us in a difficult position, but that does not mean we need to have all negotiations completely secret. we have been calling for their meetings to be public, for them to follow the rules about having public meetings, and to have real-time disclosures about all the meetings they have with

lobbyists, and all disclose about their fund-raising. if we will have to wait until january to find out who has been donating to the campaigns of all these members. host: you have been tracking how much cash was contributed to these members and how many lobbyists have filed the stakes are working on issues related to the super committee. -- that they are working on issues. $83,000 to a super committee member in this report. guest: what we found out by scanning all the lobbyists' disclosure reports from the thatd quarter, we dissaw lobbyists or pointed directly at the super committee. defense, medicaid, funding for government agencies, and the farm bill, all these things are on the table for the super committee to do whatever they want to. all those interests were going to be pointed directly at it. host: how many different groups are you talking? guest: well over 200 we found

just by searching for the words super committee in a lobbying disclosure reports. it is difficult because a lot of people do not report what they are lobbying on. it's difficult to track all the areas that might be covered by the super committee. but by using those greg terms we were able to find hundreds of groups directly lobbying. host: what types of groups? guest: the one that showed an obvious presence was the health- care sector. hospitals, doctors, and anyone to do with medicare or medicaid showed enormous increase in spending. i think that's because they see pretty clearly that they are potentially on the chopping capote. host: what types of organizations, what are some names people would recognize? guest: i don't know all the names of individual groups that lobbied. but especially in hospitals and pharma and doctors'

associations. host: npr had a headline on october 28. phil is a democrat in florida. go ahead. caller: good morning. i called about seven months ago to c-span, talking about envisioning a transition from a two-parent representative democracy with a capitalist economy to an oligarchy of the rich and an economy based on finance. i mentioned that this would probably result in the shrinking of the middle class. i also said that at that time

when congress was gridlock that the president would begin writing executive orders. all this seems to have come about. my question to you is about the super committee. it involves my next prediction during the super committee will become equally gridlock. when it does, don't we expect the president then to write out an executive order to bypass this? that would involve an infrastructure bank, orders to the part of labor to begin hiring people all over the country to renovate all federal properties? something on a grander scale. guest: i don't know whether we can expect a president to ride an executive order in the way you described, but i think we can say for certain that this kind of gridlock that we are seeing, they're trying to resolve it by removing policy from politics. the problem with moving policy away from the political process

is that it moves its farther from voters and makes it easier for lobbyists to influence the process. that is what we saw when peter wrote in article recently saying that we need more secrecy and not less. that we would be better off if there were more super committee's for everything. that is a little too much power for 12 people to have host. host: mike is antonio, texas, independent. caller: you guys store wonderful job. iit seems the super committee's are afraid of lobbyists coming down on them. why don't they just tell the lobbyist to go away? guest: they certainly can tell them to go away. some staffers are fed up with dealing with requests from lobbyists. it is an unusual situation because the work is all about the members, themselves.

usually legislation is written by staffers. so this is an unusual process. when they have their meetings several times a week it is often one member and one staffer allowed in the room. the congressional budget office director of the expressed frustration recently that when they tried to call back with responsive member's inquiries, they cannot read the member because the member is often extremely busy. it is unusual how focused this is on the members themselves rather than the staffers. host: how many staffers are there? guest: that are working directly on it, if you remember. so 30 or 40 day today. when you add in the relevant committee chairs and leadership staffers, there may be 100 staffers doing this as a full- time work. host: a republican in north carolina. caller: i have a comment. i don't understand why we would expect this committee to be any more transparent than what the

congress has been. i mean, there is always committee is going on behind closed doors. it is just a fact of washington. i don't believe this committee will get anything accomplished at all. i believe the gentleman that said there would be an executive order is on the money. i blinked it was set up to go that way to begin with. -- i think. guest: the reason we expect this to committing more or would like as secretive as other committees is because they have been given extraordinary powers. they're not limited to one specific topic area in their jurisdictions. if whatever they decide on its reported directly to the high for the house or senate and cannot be amended. if it gets voted up or down. if the vote fails, the trigger goes off for unpopular cuts. it is an extraordinary amount of

power to give cuba just 12 people. comparing it to other committees, they are far more secretive than almost any other committee. intelligence committee, the ethics committee, appropriations committees of the, they are all notoriously secretive, but none of them with the exception of the ethics committee can meet for eight hours in the day with all the members present. that is extraordinary and probably contrary to the super committee rules. host: what is the distance between negotiations, which some might say they're doing during that eight hours, versus an actual meeting where they are maybe just hearing witness testimony? and things testimony? guest: the interpretation that we understand they are relying on cow is they're saying unless we vote on something, but it's not a meeting. unless we take some formal action. , it's not a action by any normal of understanding of what a meeting is or any state level open government or open meetings locker, more than half the people are present and they're tearing out the business of the committee, then it should count

as a meeting. so it is a stretch for the joint committee to say what they're doing is not a meeting. the members of the committee, when they talk about their work, they always refer to the meetings that they had our productive. -- are productive. host: is the word "meeting" used? guest: they have to give public notice beforehand if they have a meeting. they are doing that. they are doing this for their public meetings. when they have a public meeting, they give advance notice. the place that the board meeting comes up is the bulls the super committee adopted during their first meeting. it said any time they have a meeting, that has to be public. just like how the rules operate in the house and senate, longstanding requirements that

the meetings have to be public. if they are private, they have to have a public vote saying we have to have a private reason meeting for one of a few reasons like national security or something like that host: florida, lee, democratic caller. caller: i have to request an. would you please write down each one. number one, this committee is nothing but a big cover-up. they are not for the people of united states. they are for themselves and their lobbyists. second, why is it that c-span and this gentleman can get with a republican and democrat or independent and find out why

george w. bush is not up on trial for covering up the biggest iraq war program? no. 3, social security, pay back he money from all bthe wars to the social security people. host: let's take the first issue that this is really for lobbyists. guest: the concern here is that when you have just of people deciding the future of social security and medicare and medicaid and now looks like a farm bill will end up in something the super committee will do, if they reach an agreement, that it will not reflect what congress would do as a whole and will not reflect meritorious public policy. it will reflect whatever the 12 people decide, based on whatever criteria they have, and the interests of lobbyists and campaign contributors. if there's some concern the

super committee does not reflect the public interest as a whole. we share that concern. host: john, independence, greenville, ohio. caller: good morning. i agree with what john said, that this really -- the committee should never have happened. really, the lobbyists and corporations are pumping so much money into these committee another thing, the only way to straighten this out is to have a third-party called we the people of united states. guest: it is not just in paying contributions. we are seeing the rise of third- party groups like priorities usa or crossroads gps, new

organizations that are built to accept unlimited donations. not only do we have to worry about a to thousand dollars check or people laugh that bundle text together and hand over $100,000 to the campaigns, but organizations that are willing to accept a $5 million check. if you have to wonder what all that money is buying host: would your group be ok if the deficit reduction committee comes up with a plan to cut spending, but then instruct the committees that are in charge of certain areas like taxes, medicare, medicaid, social security, etc., to give those committees specific directions, you handle these areas, would that be a better solution pure brute? guest: great question. everyone says the super committee's, are they designed to fail? in addition to outright failure or passing out something with specific spending or cuts, they

could also kick the can down the road in a number of ways to give directions on how senate committees should come up with specific cuts, that's another way they could do that. basically replacing the budget process with a far more secretive process where the conference committee tappan's first before there's even a bill. that is absolutely possible. if that happens, it would probably mean we would have called super committee's as a result of the super committee, where does one debt limit site gets one small group of people after another with a spending goal with no substance in mind. all the policy end up happening in secret and spending goals will be the first thing decided. that could be a risk. host: greg, democrat, florida. caller: spicy the super committee as being another way for our gregg mccrart to take entitlements away from people. i just got off the phone with social security administration this morning. i have been declared disabled 10

years, but i want to work. the insurance codes and all that stuff, now the insurance companies that handle workmans', and liability insurance for businesses have refused me -- refused to cover me on the job site, denying the employment. i had a heart attack in september if an attack and try to get my disability started. i have been paying into social security 45 years my life. i served this country in the u.s. army during the cold war and special forces if and i have been denied every entitlement i paid into. what am i supposed to do? i have a 13-year-old daughter and wife i'm trying to take care of. guest: thank you. the things that congress is considering are incredibly important and complex issues. these are not the sort of issues that should be decided in secret, in meetings with lobbyists, without ever airing

what the actual policy decisions and options are. that is what was so frustrating last week when republicans and democrats -- their plans. it was done anonymously to the press when democrats said would they were proposing $3 trillion in cuts. we did not know exactly what they were proposing. it is a shame when what we are talking about are really essential public programs and really the shape of government. --t: aaron has this wetweet the constitutionality question is one that has,. i am not a constitutional lawyer. but my suspicion if it is that it is constitutional because the house or the senate on john onrone an --

thier own can bind themselves. if the constitution gives the house the power to change its goals however it wants. if john boehner does not like what comes out of the super committee, it contains the house rules and not vote on it. it would be controversial, but it is within the power of the house to ignore whatever comes out of the super committee and change the rules by a simple majority. that is the way the house is structured. i think it is constitutional because they can tie their hands as long as they in and tie their hands. host: so you does not change challenging the constitutionality of eit. correct. host: leonard, you are on a line. caller: i'm calling about the rules and regulations. are they not -- is fema going to

be under this program, too? host: under what program? caller: under the committee? host: cuts to fema -- spending cuts? caller: i am more worried about sounds getting money and not passing it on to the people. host: i am not sure what exactly is on the chopping block from these two democratic and republican proposals. if you are interested, go back to the ""washington journal" from 7:453 8:30 when we outlined the democratic and the republican proposals. mark in michigan. caller: please don't cut me off

this time. i want to salute the earlier caller, the veteran. the veterans are really getting messed over in this country. and also the seniors are about to get on the chopping block with this super committee. yesterday i heard there was 180,000 -- $180 billion worth of cuts coming out of this committee. is it a fact that if you went to a doctor he would ask when this problem starts and what seems to be bothering you and this and that? if i was a doctor and saw what happened, i would look backward at tax cuts, and billions of dollars or lost in revenue with tax cuts from bush. all we're looking at here is the gop wanted to cut people's social security and medicare and privatize everything.

this is what the battleground is. the super committee has been taken off the floor so they can cover this stuff up. guest: what you are describing is one of the reasons minority leader nancy pelosi in the house has gotten so frustrated about the super committee's work, because house democrats are the least powerful of the four party set the table. so secrecy operates against their interests the most directly. it is hard to see how they will come to a compromise when the dynamic is one you are describing. host: jack, independent, florida. caller: they let wall street's dip their hands on the sole security fund. i am 73. i'm watching this close. the only power the voters have is to vote out of the people

that have more than two terms in office. host: clifton, new jersey, mike, independent caller. caller: good morning. this lobbying issue is the tip of the iceberg. what separates middle-class america from the aristocracy that runs this country is simply the amount of donations that they can provide to the local officials, millions and billions of dollars to local officials and for their elections, so who do you think they will represent? the interest of the aristocracy. you have a worldwide budget, military budget which represents the economic and political issues overseas to the multimillionaires. they are spending all this amount of money in occupations, wars, investments, you name it, they have been overseas. that is to protect their interests. if all the money that could be coming back to the american

people to take care of social security and take care of this to salons that we are facing, but these children are facing, and middle-class americans should be down at wall street joining those people, because they are presenting your interests really. guest: we have seen on ultimatums, out of -- center mccain and john kyl both said entitlements would not be cut. -- senator john mccain. it is pretty difficult to see how they arrive at any sort of compromise. host: what is your group doing along with 30 other groups to put pressure on the super committee to be more public? guest: we have tried to define what an accountable super committee process would look like. so we have a series of demands. one of them is that their meetings be public and streamed on the internet.

that is not happening. we ask for all their meetings with lobbyists to be disclosed on line within a day or two after they happen. and for all the campaign contributions for their campaigns received to be posted online. none of the members are doing that. closest we have had to that is a few members of that said they would not schedule a new fund- raiser. there was still holding fund- raisers. so that does not have much mileage. the last thing we are demanding is that whatever the super committee decides to vote on, they should post on line for three days before they vote on it. after their proof it, there's no changing what they decided. -- after they approve it. we are building a large coalition that will outside d.c. yesterday we had an event where

constituents across the country showed up at super committee members' district offices sometimes dressed in outfits with signs that grasping for more accountable process. we are doing everything we can to say that this is not an acceptable way of doing business. host: what was the attendance like echoes district offices? guest: it varies from district to district. safe to say it was hundreds at district offices across the country. host: you are on the line with john wonderlich. caller: until we get to where we can trust our government, there will be no entitlements. they keep saying we have not voted ourselves a raise. they fixed it so they don't after vote. it's automatic. obama says everybody has to make sacrifices. he and his wife are flying around on air force one every day.

they have no connection with the american people. congress has given up nothing. hog.re living high on the let's see if they can do without their salary. guest: congress did cut its own budget. when you see members of congress relying on lobbyists more than you would like, you have to wonder if they cut the budget of the stabber that are doing legislative work every day a, does that make an even greater reliance on lobbyists? it is difficult to say what kind of government cuts make things better and which ones make it worse. host: florida, democratic caller, andy. caller: thanks for taking my call. i was arrested worker at the world trade center. a volunteer rescue worker.

i have cancer and many different illnesses. they're trying to mess with my social security and medicare. they must be crazy. those characters over there making deals behind our backs, that is what is going on. all of them making deals. host: there are 12 members of the deposit protection committee. how were they appointed? guest: by the majority leader, a bipartisan leadership. they each got to pick three of the members for the deficit- reduction conn. harry reid, nancy pelosi, and leaders on the republican side as well. i think they were fairly representative of congress as a whole. 11 men and one woman appointed.

patty murray is the share of the senate campaign committee responsible for fund-raising, getting democrats elected, so there was some controversy there. if it is often difficult to separate the political goal from the policy role. we have to assume all the congressional leadership are day facto members of the committee as well, because they will control ultimately whether or not the house and senate and a approving whatever the super committee reports. host: john, democratic caller in ohio. caller: yes. comment, i don't even know why we need these representatives, because they will show up nine days next year. nine days in session. you have any idea what the hourly rate that we are going to pay these people for those nine

days? host: where did you get that figure? caller: from right over the television. host: that does not sound likely. what about the amount that they work? guest: i think is stanberry than as a very limited number of days in session. that may be the confusion there. it is interesting, the distance between what their real work is and what their schedule says that it is. -- i think it is january when they have a very limited number of days in session. they have some breakfast clubs that last all day and sometimes. host: indiana on the line. caller: my question is i am an insulin-dependent diabetic. yesterday i went to get my insulin and it was $500. i'm on a fixed income, so i

could not get my insolent. insulin. i am 53 years old and don't qualify for social security. what will happen to people like me that cannot afford their medicine to keep them alive? is this committee going to address any of that stuff? or will they let me fall off a cliff? guest: we have no idea, unfortunately. we have seen general outlines of plans. if the super committee or the members on the super committee's proposed changes to medicare and medicaid or any of these programs, at a minimum we should understand who proposed it so they can be held accountable. otherwise, why should we have a vote if we are just voting on an outline of a plan that we don't know where it came from? if the proposed changes to that, i think members should have the

courage to stand by whatever cuts proposed. host: a tweet -- guest: that is basically the design of the entire super committee, but congress did not want to have to deal with proposing any cuts. so they said let's just a point of view scapegoats and centralize control with them. there's a long history of this year the democrats when they controlled house of battle where the debt limit to be raised, the house would raises itself. no individual member had to be on the bill. it was a bill that had no sponsor. because they never dealt with that, if they were happy to remove it from politics. so there is a long history of dealing with complex budget issues by trying to hide it from our political process. i think that will just make it worse. host: seattle, washington, chris, independent caller. caller: what exactly is our

debt? where is all the excess money going? i am under the impression that every person who ever served in congress or the senate goes away from theire with a lifelong pension. what are we paying all this excess money for? why are we in debt as rich as we are? how much are we spending on retirement salaries for former congressman, former teachers, and former all of these other people? host: is that something the sun might foundation tracks? guest: yes. if you google terms like explaining the deck or the deficit, they will break down to what degree it part of the deficit is a result upper war,

tax cuts, a faltering economy, many issues. host: john, republican. caller: i am a retired marine. six months ago there was a report for congress "an introductory overview of u.s. programs and policies." this was about all the foreign aid that americans have put into through the year 2007 from the 1940's. it took me four days to add a total amount. $16 trillion is what it comes to. my question is why has the super committee not reviewed this report? 1960, the u.s.

congress appropriated $33 billion from the social security trust fund. host: we have to leave it there. guest: don kelly i'm not sure what the $16 trillion is, but the 1.2 trillion that the super committee's task with receiving is over 10-year time frame. it may be a difference in scales as to what we are. talking are host: paul. caller: last night i happened to listen to c-span. the chair of a committee group discussing this committee, this super committee, was a gentleman from boston, and senator simpson and others. all of them predicted the

success of this particular committee, super committee, would be anywhere from 10% to less than 50%. if i was a betting man in this race, i would not bet on anything like that. guest: conventional wisdom right now is pretty split on whether or not the super committee is able to get a majority and votes anything out that goes to congress. so then we have to start thinking about what the deadlines are and what happens if, because that leaves unpopular cuts as the next. as soon as the super committee process fails, anything that is more popular than those cuts becomes a viable option compared to a cutting defense and cutting medicare benefits. if the super committee process fails, all eyes will turn to changing the trigger and other statutory fixes so the automatic cuts don't actually happen. host: thank you for yourim