and producer/director carl colby. >> zandy discusses the super committee. the executive director of the congressional coalition on adoption as a to discuss is programs that offer financial assistance for adoption and foster care programs. "washington journal" is next. ♪ host: good morning, vulcan to "washington journal." the senate reduction panel, or

super committee, is unlikely to reach a deal and is likely to announce a stalemate today. what you think about this? we would like to hear from you. for democrats, 202-737-0001. for republicans, 202-737-0002. for independents, 202-628-0205. you can also e-mail us your comments, journal@c-span.org is the e-mail address. or on twitter, twitter.com/c- spanwj. find us on facebook. you can weigh in there with your comments and we will bring them to you on the air. " wall street journal," has this headline -- "the wall street journal," has this headline.

how: let's go on to look at "the washington post," is following this story today. host: let's hear what you have to say. jim, independent line.

buffalo, good morning. caller: good morning. i think that if they do not reach the agreement, congress cannot do their job. what gets cut? defense, medicare, medicaid. how about they do not reached their agreement and we cut their salary and benefits. you never see the royalty get any pain from all of this. host: what do you want to see happen now? is it possible that ideas like that could surface? caller: i think the thing need to take the super committee, lock them in a room with a guard outside of the room, and no one leaves until they figure it out. host: let's hear what sandy has to say, democratic caller in washington. caller: thank you for letting me get my comments on c-span. the super committee, as i was telling the people that the

answer the phones, they are doing many things that i could make a point about the went wrong. first of all, some of the people on the committee are too partisan. against raising taxes. host: you are talking about john kyl, senator from arizona? he is the problem, in your opinion? caller: he is part of the problem. he is too partisan on the issue of raising revenue in this country. i am a democrat. but i understand the issue of medicaid. if you take a program like with warren buffett, his one social security check is part of a year's salary on main street. because of his income in the

years that he has contributed. cut those people a check. whenever they paid to social security and medicaid off of the top, the people that struggle alone year after year, they should be the qualifiers, not me. raise the taxes on the 1%, the wealthiest americans. over $1 million is reasonable for the average man on the street. listen to a comment that jon kyl made yesterday on "meet the press." >> there will be $1.20 trillion in savings, whether or not the committee agrees. this should not force a run on the market or anything like that. the savings occur, one where the other. host: that was senator john kyl

on nbc's "meet the press," yesterday. talking about what he sees as the problem with negotiations. let's go now to lori montgomery , with "the washington post." financial supporter, talking this morning about what is going on. caller: good morning. host: many of the newspapers showed a relatively quiet yesterday. what was it like there? caller: my colleague put it in the paper, "if they met yesterday, it was only on the sunday talk shows." it was pretty quiet. they give up the ghost on friday. host: the big message that we heard was what? caller: that the other guy was to blame. that this failed because republicans were not willing to

consider tax increases as part of the solution and republicans are continuing to say that it failed because democrats want tax increases before they will cut spending. this will throw us into chaos in august and is perpetuated. host: what do you expect to happen? oare we looking at the timing to acknowledge the financial markets are not affected? caller: one congressman was arguing that it should be low key, a joint statement, 5:00, after the markets have closed. the democratic co-chair said that we had to answer questions. at this moment, i am not sure what the decision has been. host: as of a couple of days ago, where was that bright spot? in the past week it looked like

a compromise could be reached. how did it fall apart? caller: a good question. it was approximately two weeks ago when max baucus and david can work through the weekend to try to figure out -- worked through the weekend to try to figure out what they could do. this was a few days after senator to mean laid out a proposal that increased taxes. after the weekend, there were acknowledgments that republicans had gone as high as $50 million in new taxes. for close to the bottom-line goal that democrats have had -- taxes. close to the bottom-line goal the democrats had. over the weekend, republicans approached that number.

somehow, it fell apart. both sides have blamed the other. republicans said no, max baucus was yanked back towards. -- backwards. host: we will be talking with mark zandi, from moody's, later on in the show, talking about the financial implications. lori montgomery, what are you hearing from staffers about how dire this situation is? caller: it should not be a particularly dire situation. the dire situation is whether or not we extend the payroll tax holiday and unemployment insurance. two things that the super committee was supposed to deal with. now that they have failed, congress needs to figure out how

to extend them. host: thank you so much. we are looking at a story this morning, the super committee is appearing to make an announcement that they have failed to reach a deal. looking at the near collapse, what do you think about this? jackie? good morning. caller: thank you for c-span. i had a couple of comments, real quick. everyone that listens to this program, i want them to understand where this country is that. -- is at. the democrats will consistently not admit that we are at the press of this of not being able to pay what was promised. we could pay everyone's money, tax them 100%, but you could not solve this problem. they have to admit that

something -- they are going to raise taxes and if you do not want taxes, people will be hurt, but that is not true. it is a special interest group out there that has that program, reining in the street. we are not telling the truth. we know the truth. this super committee was stupid. they have become so corrupt by the special interest money and tried to tell people that you can raise taxes on this one group of people. i will tell you what, one more thing -- the media, all of the wall, you need to educate people instead of looking at how it can -- how it came to be. we have got to get a handle on

this. thank you on this. thank you very much. host: "the washington post," has a series of articles on this. "a committee that is unwilling to commit." host: there is another piece, looking at the fallout. "bush tax cuts take center stage in 2012." host: talking about how they have figured into the debate.

senator pat murray talked about her take on what has been going on. >> the truth is, at this point today, democrats have made some tough decisions and come to some tough choices that we're willing to put on the line. only if the republicans are willing to cross the line on the bush tax cuts and be willing to said that revenues or a part of the solution. >> how does this end? midnight? do you put out a press release of? is there a final meeting? how are you going to end this? >> i cannot let the country see a failure of this committee. if the republicans come to us with revenue on the table, i will work all night long to put it together and we can have a committee vote.

host: that was senator patty murray, on cnn's "state of the union." she is one of the leaders of the group expected to announce today that they could not compete with a compromise. this e-mail comes to us from george -- coast of this e-mail comes from steven -- -- host: this e-mail comes from steven -- host: columbia, south carolina. pat, democratic line. are you with us? caller: i have two comments. the first is that there's never should have been a super committee. -- the first is that there never should have been a super committee. they spent a lot of time on this

solar system thing. they waste money on all of these wars and stuff. you should hear about this solar system process from them. and the only reason that they will not tax them is because they are millionaires to do not want to be taxed. host: another e-mail, this one from bill, california. host: jacob, independent line, jersey city, new jersey. caller: one of the effects that is not known is that the social security cap is capped at $1

trillion, approximately. meaning that all of the millionaires that pay social security pay about $108,000, the rest of it is not taxed. they will have to pay their fair share. if they did, we would be indefinitely solvent. once they get this money, the congressman will get their figure -- fingers into it. remove the cap, everyone pays their fair share. thank you. host: john, democratic line, new york. hello. caller: i agree with many of the callers who have called in an already. the first thing that you need to do, people want to see the ones that caused this mess, this

financial mess, that have got away with it so far. no one has been brought to justice on this. they want to see some payback. you have got to get these people, find out who they are, crawl back -- called back the money that the misappropriated -- claw back the money that they misappropriated. give them a little tough love. they will need some taxes raised. remember, the rich make all of the transactions in this country. they do not pay their fair share. they would rather pay a lawyer to dollars to save a dollar. -- $2 to save a dollar. host: one of our callers mentioned grover norquist. this is from "the financial times."

host: boston, massachusetts. independent line. how're you doing? caller: good, how are you? host: well, thank you. caller: this is a dog and pony show on capitol hill. congress borrows money, then gives it to israel, egypt. $4 billion that they do not have. there is nothing in the treasury right now. these people, the federal reserve, they are robbing the country and taking this country down.

if you do not vote democrat, to not vote republican. vote for ron paul. the nation will be saved. that is all i have to say. host: peter, republican. tampa, florida. caller: i do not think that the super committee had any intention, at any time, to reach an agreement. if they do not take a vote or come to an agreement, no one has to take responsibility for taking any concessions. by the way, these cuts every year for 10 years, we could do that and still have a deficit. host: a comment coming to us from facebook. daniel rights -- -- writes --

host: linda, democratic caller, apache junction, good morning. caller: i was involved in the first internet voting done in arizona, back in 2000. nothing came of it, obviously. but in this day and age, because they are not accomplishing a thing, i have seen my children lose their jobs. we have lost our own trucking company. i think it would be a good idea to turn major things, like the president's jobs bill, things like that discussed in super committee, may be using biometrics and turning the votes back to that -- may be using biometrics and turning the boats

back to the super -- maybe using biometrics and turning the votes back to the super committee. something has got to be done. maybe internet voting in this day and age would be the answer. host: let's hear from another member of the committee. co-chairman doug penciling. speaking on fox, yesterday. >> i would say that 12 good people have invested a lot in this, trying to achieve common ground in this committee. the reality is that we need to come to an agreement. we have to get it drafted. it has to be estimated by the congressional budget office by the end of monday. it is a daunting challenge. host: he is the co-chairman of

the deficit reduction committee. speaking on fox news yesterday on the timeline and what is unfolding on their negotiations. cincinnati, ohio. ronald, it looks like the news reports will announce that they have not come up with a deal. what do you think about that? caller: you have got to realize [unintelligible] social security is privatized. turn it over to a private company. they will keep it and it will go bankrupt. it goes to the judge? 10 cents on the dollar. retirement and social security taken in. thrown under the bus. thank you. host: richard, republican -- rather mark, republican, calling us from north carolina. good morning. caller: good morning. thank you for pike -- thank you for taking my call.

i have not watched c-span for years. this is unbelievable, the people -- this committee was designed to fail so that the democrats could complain up until the election. obviously, they cannot run on anything they have done. people still have no jobs. people are still wondering what is going to become a health care. -- what is going to become of health care. everyone paying their fair share? a 51% of americans do not pay any federal income tax at all. democrats have a quality of -- give me, give me, give me. it will never change. listen to the lady that loss for trucking company. a democrat. the democrats allowed the mexicans to come in and drive on your roads for nothing. they do not play by any of our

rules. they do not have to be inspected. wakeup, people. host: looking at a twitter message, dr. don kraits -- writes -- host: good morning, go ahead. caller: we have the technology these days where everyone can vote in some other form. on the committee, $1.20 trillion was never enough. it probably would have been downgraded, even if we have reached that point where we could make real cuts. $15 trillion, that number from a few days ago, if not a week ago, is different from the division of the committee between

republicans, democrats, and that the tea party on wall street. at this rate, it will lead to more civil unrest deadline. with politicians and people in the media coming deadline -- -- coming down the line, going overseas, these things -- if people do not see how there is a structure in the society, like obama said at the beginning of his term, will be downgraded and level evenly -- leveled evenly. one lady talked about the bush tax cuts. obama had his chance to repeal them. he put them through again.

they are the now abolished tax cuts. obama, in the beginning of his term, had the ability to make a right face, but he did not. now he wants to focus on the jobs, but he has let a lot of people down. if he did not have the right people around him. i remember the people said he had a choice to veto a bill. one of his advisers said that he could not do that. so, he did not veto it, he put it through. that is one example of how one

man cannot change a system. host: texas, chris, could morning. caller: a couple of people mentioned grover norquist feet to theublicans' fire, which is true. it is awful that you have republicans signing pledges that say that they will never raise taxes under any circumstances. i also believe that george bush signed that pledge and he was able to pay for the wars, pay for prescription drug part d. the current republicans running for president, most of them have signed the pledge except for the guy from new hampshire. i cannot even think of his name off of the top of my head.

not romney, but the other guy. host: someone running for president? caller: huntsman is the only one who has not signed the pledge. how can you be running for president and signing pledges like that? you cannot govern that way. host: the numbers in the future can be changed, according to this twitter. let's look at the ap this morning. "failure to recommend $1.30 trillion in savings by winds they will cover spending cuts." -- savings by wednesday will cause spending cuts." host: from looking at the cuts that will go into place, there

are certain items that are exempt and that would not actually come under the cuts. let's take a look at those. social security. veterans' benefits. these are items that would not be cut under the triggers of medicaid. host: health insurance, as well as unemployment insurance. food stamps. temporary assistance for needy families. other low-income programs. these are items that are exempt from the automatic cuts if they do not come up with a commitment. defense is one of the ones that is not left out. there was a lot of discussion yesterday about whether or not defense cuts would indeed go into place if the committee does not come up with a plan.

we have a look at how cnn is talking about what happened here. host: bill, atlanta, georgia, republican line, hello. caller: the reason why the democrats conducted anything out of this is that they think the taxes will go up automatically in january by not doing anything. the other thing i would like to say to the democrats who say that the rich do not pay their fair share.

i paid 10% in taxes for the fed. my rich neighbor, a few miles down the road, he does not pay $2,000 in school taxes per year, he pays $80,000 per year because he lives could house. federal taxes, i paid 10%. my rich neighbor pays 34%. quit saying that the rich do not pay their fair share. they pay more than i do. host: james, from facebook -- "they will wait until 2012 to get a deal done to change the cutts." s."cut michael, independent line. caller: i have a couple of comments to make.

between your show yesterday morning and this morning, i am just absolutely flabbergasted by the minutia that the citizenry as they hold hands to focus on. first of all, paying your fair share is moot. if it is moved, the spending is beyond control. -- moot, the spending is beyond control. how can we put up with at this, as a citizenry? how can we? -- how can we put up with this, as a citizenry? how can we? yesterday became flat out and said that the election is the big thing -- yesterday, they came out and said that the election is the big thing. and that it would be business as usual until then. how can we put out -- how can we

put up with that? otherlet's look at some news stories. "terror suspects arrested in new york city." host: other stories in the news. "usa today," saying that some stocks saw big gains.

they did an analysis showing that a series of public companies that were soundly beat in the stock market, as we see here an image of the ceo of tesla motors, there is information on the effect of the stimulus program. this is international news. spain alexei conservative but in the debt crisis. "-- spain elects a conservative in the debt crisis. open quote boaters a clear no margin for a mediocre government." -- "voters declare it no margin for a mediocre government." host: also, this bit of

international news, looking at what is happening in egypt today, many news outlets are reporting this on their old wall street journal," "the new york times -- on their front page. "the wall street journal," "the new york times." "demonstrators want accelerated and the two military government in egypt -- end to military government in egypt." our question for you this morning, what do you think about the news coming out of the super committee, which is poised to announce that they have not reached a deal? what do you think about that? what does it mean? youngstown, new york. caller: everyone can agree that the super committee was a fraud.

a huge fraud, bigger than people realize. these cuts are not cuts. if we just froze spending at the level that we spend today, the fault -- default, the office of budget of the management would score that as a $9 trillion cut. all programs grow by 3% to 7%, automatically. the enemy is baseline budgeting. we will gain control of the spending. as for the people that are pointing to grover norquist as some sort of straw man, it is the tea party that is holding the feet to the fire of the republicans, not grover

norquist. do not forget, we are sick of all this spending. host: all right, let's move on to our next caller. cheryl, democratic line. good morning. caller: i would like to make a couple of personal points. with campaign funds from wal- mart and j.b. hunt, as long as our congress people receive money from wall street, the bankers, and the big corporations, how can we depend upon them to go for their constituencies?

after japan was devastated, one man went over and taught them how to do manufacturing and a superior way. then their products started coming out. i do not understand why the house and the senate do not ask their constituents for ideas. i have some simple ideas. put them together with other money-making ideas. then, we would not have to talk about deficits. for instance, in social security, everyone is entitled to a $255 death benefit. that does not cover much of anything. that is something that we could do away with without a great deal of her. -- hurt. i have been watching many televangelists on television. they raise tons of money.

one of them, from new orleans, is going to get a 757, in addition to his other jets. they bring in money all year that is not taxed. they are building financial empires. it is time in telling -- it is time in politics to start charging. host: this message from facebook -- "id was set up to fail. you can blame congress for all the political stalemates." walter, good morning. caller: the country needs to realize that we are in an ideological struggle for the nation. the decision is going to be made with this committee. i want the democrats to know that every time i go to vote, as

a middle class working americans, i have the rich in mind. the same goes for the last election. all of the republicans that swept out the democrats did so at the mandate of the rich. host: cooks ago, tennessee. don, independent line. -- cook's bill, tennessee. don, independent line -- cooksville, tennessee. don, independent line. caller: they should have had all get-togethernor's with able list of every single government expenditure. just vote on it, item by item, yes or no. did it done that way. the first and probably should

have been the paychecks of these legislators. that should have been first to go. host: what do you want to see happen now? could that still happen? caller: i do not see why not. host: who is one to make that happen, do you think? caller: governor christie, could he not get it to happen? host: steve, republican, phoenix, arizona. hello, steve. caller: hi. maybe a telethon? the other woman alluded to that. wall street, the united states, they have helped a lot of other countries. we are still giving money to china, for example.

perhaps wall street could give some money to the fund. and all of the other billionaires' and millionaires could kick in with a start on the deficit that way. host: are you willing to pay higher taxes yourself? caller: anything will be better than going bankrupt. everyone is going to have to kick in a little bit. host: this message from twitter from chris -- host: here is another story in the news today. this is from "the boston globe." you can see an image from friday at the university of california

davis. the police used pepper spray to move occupy wall street protesters from the quality of the school on friday. -- quad of the school on friday. the president of the university said that he was appalled. host: let's go to this call. patty, dallas, texas, weighing in on the deficit reduction committee. good morning. caller: good morning. my name is pat, from dallas, texas. i have listened to the democrats on your show this morning. many of them are not paying attention. truly, they are not. they are just talking to hear

each other. the experience is set up by lobbyists, to have a squabble amongst each other. we need a balanced approach. the country is a mess. $5 trillion is a balance with taxes. all the domestic expenses. please, people, listen to each other. listen to republicans. listen to what they say. someone said to pay $2,000 for their house. if you have a small house, you pay less. please, people.

republicans, democrat, pay attention to the true information. think through your talk. they are just talking to each other. the country is in trouble. we need a balanced approach. that is all i have to say. thank you. host: coming to us from facebook, joining the conversation on the c-span page, this is from debra -- host: dennis writes -- host: taking a look at a couple of final images for right now, from "the new york times," you can see the whole of congress and have deserted they work over the weekend.

host: also, a photograph of rev. adams and joining other spiritual leaders in a rally around washington to urge members of the deficit reduction committee to not cut programs aimed at feeding the poor. what are the implications for the economy? we will talk about that with mark zandi, from moody's, when we come back. ♪ >> seem more videos of the candidates at the c-span website. read the latest comments from

candidates and political reporters, from social media site and links to the early primary and caucus states. iowa, new hampshire, and south carolina. c-span.org/campaign2012. >> tonight, "the communicators," with the president of the middle east broadcasting network. >> our preference, our mission, is to describe, journalistically, the events of today. there's nothing that says we have to cover foreign policy. but that is a huge reason why we exist. we want to know, what is the american position? they want it explained. they want to know all of those answers that they are not getting from other media. host: tonight, it -- >> tonight, it o'clock eastern, c-span 2.

-- tonight, at 8:00 eastern, c- span 2. >> "washington journal" continues. host: thank you for being with us, mark zandi. what is your take on all of this, this morning? do you agree with the pundits? are the chances over? guest: 2-year, it sounds like we are listening to the commit -- 2-year, it sounds like they will not come -- to my ear, it sounds like they will not come to a deal. host: what are you watching in the markets? guest: asian markets, european markets, obviously a lot is going on in europe. we are concerned about that. the markets are down. i think they are concerned that the super committee could not come up with anything. i do not think that the fallout will be significant in the

immediate future, but for the moment the markets are disappointed. host: is this the big day? the mall -- the moment when the markets could react? or is this precedent message from yesterday giving us a message of its own? -- prescient message from yesterday giving us a message of its own? guest: investors are not expecting a lot from this process. some of the investors hoped that the committee would come up with something. what they were charged with was a stretch, but they were hoping for something. at the end of the day, expectations were pretty low, and the committee met them. i do not expect the markets to react in any significant way, one where the other. -- one way or the other.

host: our guest is mark zandi, chief economist at moody's. if you would like to join the conversation, here are the numbers to call. for democrats, 202-737-0001. for republicans, 202-737-0002. for independents, 202-628-0205. we heard a mixed message yesterday on the sunday talk shows about the implications of the committee failing. and what they might need for the economy. did you have a particular take away from what you heard from members of congress? guest: most immediately, there are a number of provisions in the tax code, spending that expires this year unless congress acts. i had hoped that the super committee process would have been a way for them to extend some of these. for example, the payroll tax holiday this year.

emergency insurance benefits. these things inspired congress to act. the super committee has a window to do that. the committee has not got it done. a problem, moving into next year. it does create problems for us in 2012, in congress, if they decide that they do not want to go through the automatic spending cuts, it will kick in in 2013. it will be a problem if they fail to follow through on that part of the deal. host: senator john kyl said yesterday that he did not think that this would have an impact on the economy. senator john kerry had this to say. >> the united states of america is a in a position right now, with the european financial stability crumbling -- you asked

about a downgrade? they may look at this $1.20 trillion being sequestered, but there is a real threat that not only will there be a downgrade of the market, they will look at washington again and say that you cannot get the job done. the political confusion in gridlock is enough to say to the world -- host: that is senator kerry, and "meet the press." mark zandi, what do you think about that? guest: it will be a bad day in the markets, i think, but i do not think that this is the day that markets respond negatively to all of this. it is really down the road, as the senator intimated, into next year, if congress decides they do not want to go further with automatic spending cuts. right now, under the current

law, there will be $1.20 trillion in spending cuts the cake in beginning in 2013. of course, congress can take that back between now and then. if they do, that would be the signal that we do not have the political will to do the things that are necessary to achieve political sustainability. in that case, it is possible to construct a scenario where other ratings agencies decide they're going to downgrade. moody's and -- standard and poor's already did that around the debt ceiling debacle. the other major ratings agencies could change their mind. that would be counterproductive. congress needs to follow through engage in the automatic spending cuts. to demonstrate to investors in the world that we have the political will to do what is necessary to get us on solid

footing. host: one of the followers on twitter makes note -- host: what do you think about that? guest: i am not so sure. i worry about it. clearly, there is a lot of concern in congress over the defense cuts. $1.20 trillion in spending cuts beginning and in 2013, clearly half of those will be defense. when you think about the magnitude, there is appropriate concern. congress may decide that they do not want to do that. it is possible. of course, we will have to watch out. it is not a done deal. host: let's go to the phones and hear from bill in kentucky. good morning. caller: good morning. host: go right ahead. caller: ok.

you may be too young to remember -- guest: i am older than i look. caller: the enactment of the balance of trade act. it was repealed during truman's time. it created a hole in the deficit for 60 years. it does not matter who you put in there. guest: you are right, my historical knowledge only extends back to the new deal and the great depression. let me point out, more recent history suggests that we cannot do it. go back as recently as the year 2000. we were running a surplus. and it was a fairly sizable surplus. but concern -- it is hard to remember back, but the concern back then was that there would

not be enough treasury bond debt outstanding. that this would be a problem. economists were worried about that in trying to figure out a way around that. of course, fortunes have changed for a lot of different reasons since then. it was not long ago when our fiscal situation looks much brighter. i do not know that this is a heavy lift. in a reasonably good economy, we will be able to get this together. i am not as pessimistic as others are. host: making book on the super committee, looking at what possibilities might be for a partial deal or no deal, and what the implications might be, you end up on a relatively optimistic note. let me just read a section.

host: talk was more about that. guest: -- talk to us more about that. guest: we have gone through the process of writing the wrongs. households took on a lot of debt. businesses, during the boom and the bubble, took on a lot of debt. since the recession, we have made a lot of progress getting that down. fundamentally, our economy is in a much better place. it does not feel that way right now and it has not really shone through, but i think that it will. i do think that we have a good, fighting chance of getting our fiscal situation in order. if under the current all they do nothing, we will change what

they need to change. they have to follow through on the automatic spending cut in 2013. of course, the bush tax cut expire in 2012, by law. i do not think anyone wants to see that happen. we do not need that much revenue. but that is a point in time where it is very likely that we will address the tax revenue issue. early 2013, there is a reasonable probability that we will have achieved what you might call fiscal sustainability. that we have put ourselves on track with smaller deficits and disabled that loads. there is reason to be optimistic. we have to follow through on the political process. there are a number of things coming together. it is hard to see this, when you have a 90% unemployment rate, -- 9% unemployment rate, but i

think we will be able to shine through, down the road. host: arkansas, independent line, good morning. caller: common sense will tell the american people that the folks we are sending to washington are not there to represent the masses of the people. just like you saw the repeal in ohio, we have got to come out as massive. sending people to washington to represent the people. we are concerned with gerrymandering, redistricting, they are attempting to maintain their power in these districts. so, they say there -- stay there and sign tax pledges and do not work for the people. we need to get rid of them. guest: by here and can understand your frustration. -- i hear and understand your

frustration. let me point out a different perspective. i think that our congressmen and senators are there with good intentions. they reflect us. the electorate, the population. there really is a fracturing and in the thinking amongst citizens with regards to the appropriate way of addressing our economic and fiscal problems. we need to address that. i do not think that it is right to blame them for the fact that we cannot get this together in as great " -- graceful a way as we would like. the other thing that i would point out, the political environment is more fractured than any time people can remembered. if you look historically, our country has had these political

battles, alexander hamilton and thomas jefferson, hamilton being our first secretary, sfk jefferson, they would have knockdown, dragout fights in the newspapers and the words they used is much more congenial than the ones being used today. this is part of the process, part of what makes our democracy really work so it is -- i think we need to be concerned about the political acura moany and i think we need -- acramony and i think it's part of american democracy. host: wall street reported this in the story today. moody's said on november 1 said that the outcome is informative but not decisive in concerned to any potential change of the a.a.a. rating. our guest is mark zandi, author of the book "financial shock: a

360 look of the stock exchange implotion." let's hear from ed, republican, massachusetts. caller: thanks for c-span. seems to me that the whole budget deficit reduction committee, the supercommittee focuses really much to do about little. we are talking about $1.2 trillion in spending cuts that go into effect 2013 and spread out over 10 years. mark zandi, wouldn't you agree with me that the best way to reduce the deficit is with economic growth? if you look in fiscal year 2010 the deficit was reduced by 10% just through economic growth and increased tax receipts and that was with very tepid growth. host: no, i would agree with you.

the best way, the way that is least painful to address our fiscal problem is to get growth. the question becomes how to do that and what kind of fiscal polls cisdo we need to achieve the -- policies do we need to achieve the strong rate of growth. why i think the $1.2 trillion is a meaningful one, if you do the math under economic assumptions we need roughly $4 trillion in 10-year deficit reduction over the next 10 years to achieve small enough deficits that are debt-to-g.d.p. ratio, that's our debt load, stabilizes and that is our goal and that's an appropriate goal. in fact, that's a goal that republicans and democrats in congress have -- and the president have roughly agreed to. as part of the deal to raise the debt ceiling back in

august, policymakers agreed to almost $1 trillion in spending cuts. to achieve that $4 trillion, 10-year deficit reduction goal. we got $4 -- $1 trillion out of the $4 trillion. we will gret $2 trillion in automatic spending cuts in the next 10 years. so if congress follows through on that that's $4.2 trillion -- $2.2 trillion out of $4 trillion. that means we got another $1.8 trillion to go. i think we will get there when we discuss the bush tax cuts. $1.8 trillion is significant. it is an appropriate genald will put our economy on a soundtrack and generate the kind of growth we need. hoip mark zandy the piece i mentioned in "politico." you wrote this piece last week.

we are hearing news reports that a deal has not been struck. but back when you were looking at what could happen, you talked about what the financial markets would do if there was a deal and then what we could do if there was ar big deal. you put it a 5% probably rate. you said the economic payoff would be huge. why would it have been so huge and how could that have held a lot of promise? guest: well, i think the probability is quite right, i was more hopeful than it turns out actually is going to be the case. but the big deal, you know, that's the $4 trillion. that would be achieving that goal that i just articulated. if we did that then that would put our fiscal situation on solid ground. we would be moving in the right

direction, global investors would recognize that. that would be good for the stock market, for the bond market, for confidence more broadly. i think we'd all be cheered by that. and i think confidence is key. one missing ingredient in this economic recovery is a lack of confidence in our economy. and i think this would go a long way to supporting that, lifting it. i think given that there would be good odds that our economy would really get moving here. you know, the thing that disappoints me the most about what has happened with the supercommittee is that we lost an opportunity. this was a golden opportunity. we're not going to have too many more fuents to solve our problem, to get to that $4 trillion goal under our own terms. we still have time. we need to do it between now and the end of next year. but we're running out of time. to me the failure of the supercommittee is just a

failure of opportunity. we missed a golden chance. host: so a missed opportunity because it could have changed the financial markets in a way that you see as being very positive? guest: that's right. and if we had gotten that big deal they were able to come to terms. and by the way, that's where we're headed, that's where we're going. you know, i think at the end of the someday we're going to get the $4 trillion. it's going to be something like $2.5 trillion, $3 trillion in government spending cuts. $1 trillion, $1.5 trillion in tax revenue. that's where we would be headed. it's too bad we wouldn't get through the supercommittee because we would have saved ourselves a year. we would have got the economy moving much more quickly. unemployment would be headed lower. because of the failure of the committee, we lost that opportunity. it's not the end of the world. markets won't react too negatively. it cost us a year unfortunately. a lot more people will be unemployed a lot longer as a

result. host: horace, democrats line. welcome. caller: yes, good morning. host: good morning. caller: first of all, i want to talk about a temporary step. if everyone that makes $61,000 would contribute a one-time contribution of $1,000, $122,000 would contribute $2,000 for a one-time contribution and keep going like that going right up to millionaires and billionaires, that would be our first step that would help everything and if you calculate every social security number that pays $61,000 and the ones that anything above that. second of all, i look at things

and they talk about the bush cuts. if you -- first of all, president clinton had a surplus. the bush cuts, if they had stayed into effect, would we be into -- would we have a deficit now or not? and that's what we got to look at. so it was doomed to fail eventually. when you start taking away from our surplus and start deducting from it, eventually it's going to go into a deficit. i don't know why we couldn't see that. everything -- you can't find -- get them out of washington. start with a new breed. and i think we come up with a new plan. one other comment and then i am going to leave it alone. all these manufacturers, if we bring them back to work, they talk about the price of our

manufacturing in america. but who benefits from the money that's excess from manufacturing from overseas? who benefits from that? thank you. guest: well, all good points. let me kind of work backwards. in terms of manufacturing, i am going to sound very optimistic this morning, but i think our manufacturers are in pretty good shape to compete going forward. if you're a company, u.s. company, a manufacture that survived what we went through, the great recession, you got to be doing something right. you have to have a very competitive cost structure. you have to have a market. with a slowly depreciating dollar against the currencies of china and other emerging economies, that's a pretty significant tail wind for manufacturers who want to export. so my sense is that manufacturing is going to be a

growth industry going forward. it's not going to create a whole lot of jobs because manufacturing is very productive, but the jobs that are created are very high-paying jobs and very good jobs. i'm actually quite optimistic there. it will be up and down and all around, the line, but when you look back over time i think manufacturing will do quite well. with regard to the bush tax cuts, i do believe those tax cuts did contribute to the fiscal problems that we're struggling with today. there are many other reasons for our fiscal problems. perhaps the most important is 9/11 and the war on terror. you know, if you add up all of the costs of the iraq, afghan war, all the resources we devoted to protecting homeland, homeland security, that was just a tremendous weight on our

economy. and even if we had not the bush tax cuts i think we'd be struggling with some pretty significant fiscal problems now. the other thing to point out, even without the bush tax cuts, without 9/11, we knew we were going to have a fiscal problem down the road because of demographics, because of the aging of the population and continued health care costs. those are problems that have been with us for decades. we knew about them. we knew they were going to hit about now and now they're hitting. finally, your first point with respect to asking people, i think you mentioned $61,000 in income to pay another $1,000. effectively what you're saying, i think, is a tax increase for people who make more than the median income. median meaning half make more than that $60,000 and half being less. we're debating how to get that

$4 trillion and 10-year deficit reduction. there are many democrats saying we need revenue increases and that's a tax on upper household incomes. most discussion is around taking to down to $250,000 in income. but your solution to the problem is in the same spirit as proposed by many democrats with respect to how to address the current problems. and by the way, you know, i said $4 trillion and 10-year deficit reduction, i think most of that should come through spending cuts and also tax revenue. it does in fact need to be balanced. i don't see any way around that. i think that's where we're headed and that's ultimately where we're going to end up. host: this ties directly to what you are talking about, mr. zandi. maverick asks, give your prospect on people making below $250,000 and stimulus spending on infrastructure, what you think that would do. guest: yeah, i think i would --

i'm very nervous about the near term, about really next year, 2012, because under current law the payroll fax holiday which is a benefit to all americans but obviously because of the limits on taxable income accrues most significantly to lower and middle-income households, that expires and that's a problem i think in this economy. so i think it's very important that the congress and administration needs to extend that tax cut for one more year. put another way, if congress and the administration don't act, then on january 1 everyone's taxes are going up. and i think just feel very uncomfortable with that in the context of the current scomme. you know, we're grappling with what's going on in europe. the foreclosure crisis is ongoing. confidence is very weak. i think congress and the administration needs to come together and extend that for

one more year. i think that's key to keeping it all together in the very near term. you know, i do think that ultimately we're going to have to generate more tax revenue to meet our $4 trillion goal. if i could do that i would do in a entirely through reducing the deductions and credits in the tax code. this is so-called tax reform. you know, broadening the tax base. if you did that you could raise a lot of revenue, make the tax code simpler, make it fairer and you don't have to raise marginal rates on anybody. if fact, you could lower them if you raise enough revenue, if you flatten the -- if you did enough tax reform. that would be the best way to do it. you know, it's going to be hard to get done politically. but i'm hopeful that least we can get some tax reform in this process. i'm not sure i answered the fellow's questions, but i answered -- hopefully i made an

important point. host: it looks like one email that came in -- americans are just as divided as congress. we pretend we have a choice between tax increases and entitlement reforms. americans don't have a choice. we have to do both. that's one of our viewers. guest: i concur with in a exactly. i think that's entirely correct. we got an entitlement problem. i think everyone agrees with that or most reasonable people agree with that. we got to ave dress medicare, medicaid and social security, the entitlement programs. but we also -- to make this work out reasonably well, we need to generate more fax revenue so we need to do both. it has to be a balanced approach. otherwise this just isn't going to get done. the logic of that is pretty compelling i think. again, ultimately at the end of the day i think that logic will prevail. host: bush tax cuts is meaningless for extra income for median income families. that's his opinion.

watson, independent pipeline in bishopsville, texas. good morning. caller: good morning from bishopville, texas. population 22. i am a retired millionaire. i hear so much on your program about. first of all, i like to say that most taxes i ever paid was a little over $800,000 one year but that was about 17% of the income. there's no corporations, very few corporations, i might say, that pay that 35%. there is only one way we can solve that problem but it's the holy grail. we talk of entitlements, speaking only of those things of social security, medicare, etc. we don't talk about the entitlement of the military industrial complex. our total budget for that is a little over $1 trillion a year

. and we don't even talk about it at all because you can't talk about defense. until we address that problem -- and, of course, the committee supposedly will address that but they'll leave that out. until we address that -- in fact, it was addressed in 1961 by president dwight d. eisenhower. he said, beware of the military industrial complex and if you read that whole speech you'll understand why we are in such a mess. thank you for your time. guest: thank you. well, just a couple points that i'd make. under -- if the supercommittee fails and it appears that it will, under current law -- again, if policymakers do nothing, then we're going to have $1.2 trillion in spending cuts over a 10-year period beginning in 2013. of that $1.2 trillion, roughly $500 billion will be cuts to

the defense budget. so under current law, if policymakers follow through, then the defense budget will be put by this effort to get our deficits under crofmente the roar point i'd make is it is right. we do spend an awful lot on defensive and homeland security, but if you look at defense spending as -- compared to the size of our economy, the share of g.d.p., it has more or less fallen over time. it's up from where it was back in the 1990's, but it's low by historical standards. so at least compared to when dwight eisenhower make that speech back in the 1950's i think we made a lot of progress and reducing the importance of the drove establishment to our economy the so-called industrial complex. i'm not dismissing it as an issue. if is a concern, but it's much

less i think of an issue than it was back in the 1950's when president eisenhower made that very impressionist speech. host: now that the deadline has areared and no deal for the $1.2 trillion in savings, automatic cuts -- host: that's john mccain and lindsey graham doing that. what do you think, mark zandi, does that change the playing field because they are talking about not letting the cuts go into place? talk about john kerry said on "meet the press," the economy could be affected by it. if we're not serious about cuts, we're not serious about cuts. guest: so this is not

unexpected. this is what you'd expect. now that the committee has broken down and the automatic spending cuts will be coming, there will be efforts by congress to scale that back or at least reshuffle the spending cuts that are coming. this is -- so this is not unexpected. i do think it's important that if congress decides to scale back the cuts to defense spending that they figure out how to pay for it. so if we're not going to marek the cuts that we agreed to on defense, then we're going to have to come up with those cuts somewhere else. i think it's reasonable to say, you know, listen, these cuts to defense are too significant. we need a strong military. this is going to degrade the military. i don't know how to judge that. that's certainly senator mccain and kyl and secretary panetta are good at that. if we go down that path it's

also very, very important to figure out how to pay for it, that we stick to the plan and that we get those -- that deficit reduction because without that, global investors -- rating agencies will respond. global investors will lose faith, will lose control of the process and our economy will be much diminished and at the end of the day with a much diminished economy we are not going to be able to maintain our defense. so we need to figure that out. host: mark zandi with mood's economy.com, chief economist. you talked about the lessening of the credit rating. how is this a different situation? is it the expectations that were different? is it entirely an apples and oranges moment? guest: well, at the end of the day the rating agencies are looking out for people who own our debt, the treasury debt, and moody's are saying under current law if we stick to the script, if we don't change it

we should be ok. we're going to get the $4 trillion and 10-year deficit reduction that we need to get our deficits down and get a stable debt-to-g.d.p. ratio. s&p is of a different mind. they're saying, well, we really don't trust the political process and they may have a different way of expressing this but this is my interpretation of what they said -- that we don't think the political process is working and that it will break down and in a we won't get that $4 trillion. or at least better way to put it, there is a probability that the political process will break down and it's not zero probability. there's if i probability at all that the political process will break down to the degree that bondholders aren't going to get paid, then the u.s. doesn't deserve its triple-a credit rating. the economists at s&p has a different opinion of how this will work out than do the other

rating agencies, mood's and fitch. host: karen, republican in norman, oklahoma. welcome. caller: good morning, america. i'm out here in the real world. you know, i don't wait on tables when people come in, i don't get paid. if i'm a car mechanic and cars come in and i don't work on cars, i don't get made. why are politicians out there doing nothing and they still expect that they're going to get paid? i've been a republican for 40 years and actually i'm getting pretty tired of all of them. they can do several things that would give people the choice. if kids choose to do drugs, they won't get pell grants. on food stamps, people are already getting free breakfast and lunch and now they want

them to get free dinner. why do people need $800 a month in food stamps? guest: let me begin where you started and that is your fruss freighted with our policymakers which is un-- frustrated with our policymakers which is understandable. policymakers have actually done a lot. they have under current law, under the current process, established a mechanism for getting us back on track. yes, we can get derailed if politics take over, if the economy don't cooperate, if we get hit with unexpected event. they've made significant process here. it's hard to see it and they have to follow through on it, but i think there are reasonable odds that they will and this will become more obvious as we make our way into next year and into 2013. the other thing i'd say with

regard to your last point with regard to food stamps and i assume also unemployment insurance and you're referring to other income support programs, you know, there isst there's two broad reasonsie think it's important for people to receive these benefits. the first is, you know, some people lose their jobs through no fault of their own and they can't find another job. at least one quickly. particularly in the current environment. just to give you a statistic. for every job opening there are roughly four to five unemployed. so in that environment in many communities it's very difficult to find a job. so i think it is appropriate to provide some support to these households. the other thing i'd point out, from a broader economic perspective, this is important to helping the economy during difficult times. we didn't have these so-called social safety nets during the

great depression. that's why we had the great depression, when people lost their jobs they didn't get any help from government. their friends were already tapped out and their family so they had no choice but to significantly cut and pull back . they lost confidence and faith in people around them as well. we suffered a depression. we put these safety nets in place. i do sympathize with the argument that at some point the social safety net gets so strong that people don't have the incentive to get back and look for a job. there are some evidence that may be an issue. in the grand scheme of things that's a relatively small issue compared to the things that it provides to the people and to the economy. host: democrats line, good morning, ann. caller: good morning. i noticed so far a lot of republicans have called in

saying that the committee was a sham, that it was really set up to fail. of course it was that the republicans came to the table having signed that norquist pledge and they knew they couldn't give any on the taxes. there was a program last night on "60 minutes" on grover norquist and talking about the republicans who signed that pledge and how they are afraid to go against norquist. so there was no way to negotiate when you come to the table saying there's one thing that you absolutely cannot do so they were not open before anyway. also i was just listening and it seemed that the moody's economist indicated that he was optimistic in 2013 when the bush tax cuts expire. again, it goes back to the

republicans not being able to say that the tax cuts can expire now. why do they have to wait until 2013? why couldn't that this been part of it? i also want to say, if a republican wins in 2012, they still can't raise the taxes because all of the candidates have signed that same pledge. and that's what's happening here. that's why we can't get the revenue. as some other people said, you have to have both, you have to have the tax increases and the democrats have said that they are willing to cut some of their entitlements. so without a balanced approach it's just not going to work. host: let's get a response. guest: well, thank you for your comments. i don't think the supercommittee was a sham. i any that they went into this with -- well-intentioned. these are very difficult problems, particularly in the context of our very fractured political environment. people have different perspectives on this.

very strongly held as we can hear from the conversation this morning. and our policymakers just reflect that. as a result it's very difficult for them to, you know, come to terms. but i don't think it was a sham. i think it was well-intentioned. i think the process has many benefits. the group sat down and thought through a number of different policy options and got estimated of its cost and benefit from the congressional -- nonpartisan congressional budget office. so i think we learned a lot from the process and i think that will be helpful in coming together and solving this problem in a definitive way going forward. i think sham is much too strong a word. let me just clarify with my position on faxes. you know, again, i don't think anyone's taxes should go up in 2012. in fact, you know, i would strongly argue that we need to extend the payroll tax holiday for another year. i would also argue that we don't need to let the bush tax cuts expire for everybody. that's not necessary.

we don't need that to get to that $4 trillion and 10-year deficit reduction goal that gets us to where we need to be. so i don't think that that's what we need to do or should co. finally, let me say, there is a lot of way to raise tax revenue. i would much rather not raise marginal rates on anybody. i'd much not allow the bush fax cuts expire. i'd like to keep them exactly wherer in. we need more tax revenue. if we do that we need to have fax reform. we need to scale back the deductions and credits and other loopholes in the fax code which we can do. there are reasonable ways of doing it. good ideas and approaches to do it. we just have to find the political mr. to execute on that. host: mark zandi, chief economist at moody's, thanks so much for being here. coming up next, we'll talk to "roll call's" investigative

reporter paul singer. first a news update from c-span radio. >> "politico" has more on the debt committee this morning from grover norquist, head of americans for fax reform. mr. morequist reacting to comments made yesterday by john kerry. the democratic senator speaking on nbc's "meet the press" said that, "the most significant block to lawmakers preaching a deficit deal is the insistence, insistence on the grover norquist no faxes pledge and extending the bushel tax cuts." mr. morequist said today that it's democrats, not republicans, standing in the way of a supercommittee deal and the g.o.p. isn't the only party that has a pledge. he added that he's concerned about the secret pledges that democrats make to the labor unions and the trial unions and that those pledges, in his words, but they are secret, knows pledges and they don't tell you about them. bloomberg, meanwhile, is reporting that the supercommittee is expecting to

announce today that it failed to reach its goal and concern about the u.s. deficit and the continuing european debt are pushing global markets into negative territory. japan's nikkei closed down .3%. its lowest since march of 2009. and european shares also down. on wall street, ahead of the opening bell, dow futures down about 150 points. and those are some of the latest headlines on c-span radio. >> see more videos of the candidates at compreep's website for campaign 2012. from recent events to the earliest parts of nair campaigns. reading the latest comments from social media sites and link to c-span's media partners in the early primary and caucus states -- iowa, new hampshire and south carolina. all at c-span.org/campaign2012. >> tonight, "the communicators" looks at u.s. sponsored broadcast to other countries

with the president of the middle east broadcasting networks. >> our purpose, our mission is to describe journalistically the events of the day. there's nothing that says we have to present the american foreign policy. but that's a huge reason why we exist because people want to know what is the american people. they want it explained and they want to know how it came about. they want to know is it unified. they want to know all those answers that they're not getting from local media. >> "the communicators" tonight at 8:00 eastern tonight on c-span2. >> "washington journal" continues. host: paul singer "roll call". let's jump in the story by one of your colleagues. group asks congress to disclose

airline perks. why airline perks? guest: folks are asking members of congress if they're taking some sort of benefits from companies that they shouldn't be getting. in this case i believe they are asking, well, heck, you guys get special treatment at the airports that the rest of us don't get. you get special treatment at the airlines. you can double book flights and the rest of us can't. aren't those the perks and benefits you should be reporting as some sort of compensation? members of congress love to fly. and you could argue that we want them to fly because we'd like them to go see things. we like them to talk to important people overseas. the question is who should pay for it and is it worthwhile? host: delta has a congressional call desk and allows members to double book flights. it's one of serve service oriented companies that operates in the washington area that provides preferential treatment to members of congress and administration

officials. guest: this story drove people crazy. you could call the airline and say i need to book three or four flights and they say ok. you don't have to pay for them all. the rest of us don't get that benefit. host: to play devil's advocate, why not let congress do that? they have to go between their district and washington. they might need to go out on congressional field hearings. their schedule changes. there was' these variables. guest: the point is this. if we allow them to do that we have to recognize they get a different benefit. they are not experiencing the airport the way you and i are. and then the question is, who is going to pay for the travel they're going to make? should it be the taxpayer, a private group, should they pay for it themselves? there are some interesting philosophical questions, where the funding does this come from and the pros and cons.

host: what are the rules? guest: the rules change of who can pay for travel after jake abramoff. there is debate, should we let crps pay to take members overseas to go play golf in ireland? plobbyists can pay for only very limited travel. but nonprofit groups can pay for travel overseas. can pay for fairly lavish trips. so what's happening is you're seeing none profit groups pop up that are funded by companies that do lobby and by people who would not be able to pay for travel otherwise. so it's this neat little trick. my company can't pay for travel but i can fund a nonprofit and the nonprofit can pay for the travel. while we're overseas having a good time my officials will sit down with them and have a nice conversation. host: where do you find out this information? how does "roll call" do the research to get this?

guest: we're sneaky people in general. host: how much of this is public? if an american citizen wants to find out what their member congress is getting paid to go do or what the member of congress is getting peark on, how do they find out? guest: chunks of it is public. can you go to the clerk of the house of representatives. you can do it in the senate as well. you go to the clerk of the house of representatives and there's a little spot where it says disclosure and click on travel disclosure, click in your member's name. the forms are all there. both members and staff. it takes a little while to read them rand where they are buried. you can go to the nonprofit organizations like opensecrets.org that track these things. legistorm is another one of them. they compile this information. host: and you can look at "roll call." guest: we have a subscription

service that allows to you do this. host: let's see c.q. money line. the top that paid for travel. the american israel committee paid $1.6 million. another two is the aspen institute. guest: the public affairs committee is probably not the funder of the travel. it's the nonprofit group that's affiliated with apac that funds the travel. apac had lobbyists. they can't be paying $1 million in travel. well, they are not. they have a nonprofit that pays for all the trouble. we couldn't find a distinct between apac and the other. it's a loophole that the lobbying group can't pay for the travel but the nonprofit can. the other thing about the apac trips, the israel trips, you

then have members of congress going to israel to meet with officials in the israeli government and they get listed as official congressional delegations. member of congress meets with x prime minister of israel but it's all paid for by a private entity. it's not paid for by the government. is it appropriate or not appropriate? it looks a little weird because you have -- whose agenda are you carrying? the government or apac's? host: let's look at nonprofit groups in a are on this list. we can show this up on the screen here. guest: aspen is another big one. they like to talk about important issues. usually in very sunny places in the winter and very cool places in the summer. interestingly enough. the german marshal fund. these are u.s.-europe cooperation sort of

organizations. the heritage foundation is a conservative think tank. this one, international conservation caucus foundation, that one was weird. we never heard of it before. that appears to be a real conservation organization but they're funded by a bunch of companies and they fly members of congress to africa to go on safaris essentially and while they are there they talk about conservation but meet with all of these lobbyists for these big companies and fly back. again, you ask this question -- well, what's the difference between that and having a company just pay you to fly you out to south africa? host: also, care, incorporated, u.s. association of former members of congress. guest: yeah, sure, it's a nonprofit of its own. some of these are sort of random. it makes sense for the former members of congress association to fly a current member out to talk about whatever it is, retirement benefits.

some of it makes sense. host: the national committee on u.s.-china relations. guest: you see interesting there are interest groups that have a particular focus that takes members of congress. heck, it makes sense members of congress should go to turkey. they are an important ally. it's a difficult region. let's send them over there and take a look around and then you get to the fill softcal -- philosophical question, who should pay for it? host: let's hear from a democratic caller from jacksonville, florida. you are talking to paul singer of "roll call." hi, clifford. caller: how you doing? . host: go ahead. caller: my statement is this -- i have a question and a statement. the question is, number one, don't -- when people of congress get elected office, don't they get a salary? guest: yes. caller: they do. ok. so why should they have to have somebody to give them outside money to determine how they

vote on things? second, ok, anybody that does that -- say, for instance, that's like bribery. that's underthe fable bribery. we are never going to get no straight and honest people in there that's going to work for the people as long as you have money involved. anybody that takes any money from anybody once they are in office they should be tried for treason because they took responsibility. they knew how much they were going to make. that's all they need. that's all they should get. they need to be got. they need to be got. they are talking about the president about this and that. each one in congress i feel should be investigated, know how much money they are making, where their money is coming from, who are giving them their money and if they are getting money from people they shouldn't be coming from your ass should go to jail. guest: that's my job.

members of congress makes about $174,000 in the house. they have rules on what they can accept, what gifts they can accept and what they can't accept and if they are getting paid to make a decision in congress, that's illegal. and they should go to jail. the issue is there is a bunch of fuzzy areas but you have this conversation. what if i make a donation to a member of congress' election and by the way, that member of congress happens to be voting in favor of things that benefit me, did i just pay them to take legislative action or am i just supporting a member of congress who is taking actions that i support? it's a very tough call. and where we particularly leap into action is when we see lots and lots of money appearing on the same day from a group of people who all have the same interests and all of a sudden there is a vote in congress about the same time. then it begins to look like the

money is tied to the activity but if is much harder than it seems and much harder than it sounds to say, ok, clearly this money gave money and bought the vote of this member of congress. host: another jacksonville, florida, phone call. johnny, independent line. caller: thank you very much. i prishte you taking my -- i appreciate you taking my phone call there. paul singer, i did truly appreciate you standing up and at least bringing some light to a little dark areas when it comes to the government. and being in investigative journalism, you do, which is fantastic. i want to thank you very much for what you do. guest: thank you. caller: my concern and my question, congress gets involved. my concern is basically the judges they appoint. the reason i bring this up, if you want to see the largest fraud that exists in the world food, look at the taylor bean and whitaker case. it is $1 trillion ongoing

fraudulent transaction. take a look at in a one. it's in jacksonville, florida. i've actually paper trailed this and you talking about trillions of dollars still going out in the bankruptcy. so if you want to see a case that is nominal, that right there makes enron look like a child's play. guest: i think the caller has a point here. you never know exactly what the outcome of these decisions are. they are not necessarily the intended outcomes. so members of congress go to say approve a judge, as the call remember says. all right. well, what happens after they approve the judge? well, at that point in washington we don't care anymore. the judge has been voted on. it's done. the judge is now going to serve for 20 years or life or however

long it is they serve on the bench. there are tons of cases that come out of this we don't pay attention to. we are glad to hear about them and we'll dig them up. singer@rollcall.com. i'll check anything. i have time. host: of money -- finance travel. this is coming to us from c.q. money line. jim cooper, george miller, democrat of california. guest: this is the aspen institute. it's really interesting. i don't like to admit this normally in the air. i am still digging into this one. they provide travel to members of congress to talk about important issues. for instance, they had an energy summit. ok. energy san important issue. talk about coal and clean coal. it took like a dozen members of congress in february to puerto rico to talk about energy. well, why there? largely because that's where

members would like to go in february. the schedule is morning meetings and then in the afternoon not much. so what are they doing, hanging out on the beach? again, it is one thing to say, we are going to bring members to a meeting to talk about an important topic or issue of focus but, you know, nobody ever goes to detroit. nobody ever goes to pittsburgh. they go to vienna or they go to san juan. how come? well, largely because that's where members want to go. host: let's talk about the numbers. congressman cooper, $47,000. congress plan miller, $46,000. also above -- congressman miller, $46,000. congressman donald payne of new jersey, phil gingrey, republican of georgia. guest: that's just this year so far. the messenger: 2011 up to now. guest: -- host: 2011 up to now. guest: and one trip to

barcelona to talk about muslims in the world and u.s. policy towards muslim. so, again, barcelona seems like a pricey and out-of-the-way place but they got a lot of experts together to talk about how to deal with the interaction between the west and the muslims in the world and so the number looks high. oh, by the way, they took their wives, spouses on these trips as well. so again the number looks high because you see they're going to fun places. host: kay writes on twitter -- congress, ever hear of skype? guest: again, i can make the argument because i have been on trips to poll significances. you go, you -- politicians. you go, you see something, you talk about policy. you see how the place functions. you can understand how that will be valuable from a policy standpoint. but your twitter follower is exactly right. couldn't skype save us a bunch

of money here? seems like a reasonable suggestion. host: dover, pennsylvania. shirley, republican. good morning. caller: hi. host: hi. guest: hi. host: you are on the air. go ahead and turn down your tv and go ahead. caller: ok. my name is cheryl and i just want to make a comment. the people in the congress, in political places, how they spend their money. why is it when people are caught scamming us and taking our money and going on these frips, why can't they be made to pay this back? even if they want to put it on the deficit. i don't understand it fully myself. but they are just doing it and keeping it depog over and over again. guest: last year we did a story that we enjoyed a lot. the question was basic leeling -- when members of congress travel overseas paid for bit

taxpayer, we couldn't figure out where that money was coming from. there didn't seem to be an account that would pay for members to travel abroad so we couldn't figure out, if there was count in the budget then members of congress would say, is there money left for to us go to italy for the conference? congress doesn't have a travel budget. there is a magic account at the treasury department that reloads automatically. the taxpayers are footing the bill for this. it's $10 million $15 million a year in many cases. for members of congress and their staff to travel overseas, not paid for by private entity, paid for by the government, but there's no bottom line, there's no budget for it. congress never has to ask, is there enough money to take this trip? they just call up the state department and say, we'd like to go to italy for this event. and the state department makes it happen. the defense department generally provides the airplane for free and tens to hundreds

of millions of dollars can be spent ferrying members of congress around the globe and nobody keeps track of the cost. it's weird. host: recent story in "roll call" by paul singer's colleague, janey. we were talking about this earlier. it looks at how the public campaign action fund, a washington, d.c.-based organize, that has public financing of election sent letters to 20 lawmakers including three most senior republicans in congress demanding they receive corporate benefits, including access to delta airlines, v.i.p. hot lines. this comes at a time when the federal aviation administration funding, re-authorization of the f.a.a. was on the line. so did you find a connection between an airline like delta and the perks they're getting, giving members of congress or

is it more of the appearance of things? guest: it's more the appearance. what we found in that particular story is a follow-up story we had written a month earlier. we found comcast, we believe, had a v.i.p. line where if you had difficulty in your cable service at home they send a cable technician. you and i sit around and wait for a couple hours for the technician to show up. members of congress can get on a v.i.p. line and get customer service first. all the airlines we believe do the same thing. delta went on the record an confirmed they had this sort of enhanced customer service for members of congress, their v.i.p.'s. that's what this organization was responding to. well, heck, how can you be getting this favorable service at the same time you are making decisions that affect this company's business? host: congress' travel bill sky high. more than $1.5 million paid in privately paid trips.

fayetteville, arkansas, kenny, democrats line. hi in. caller: hi. host: go right ahead. host: yeah, i just, again, i just want to reiterate in a -- caller: yeah, i just, again, i just want to reiterate that the lobbyists are turning the white house upside down. if we didn't have the lobbyists in there putting in money and influence our congress and our senate, the people who are supposed to work for the people of the united states instead of the rich corporations and that's pretty much what i got to say. guest: the problem that you come up against is basically the first amendment which is the first amendment says that you and i have a right to petition our government for a redress of grievances. that is lobbying basically. i understand where you're going here that because, believe me,

i cover the stuff and spend an awful lot of time in this sort of buying influence by lobbyists and large corporations. the problem -- the base problem is that lobbying itself is a protected first amendment right. so then the question is, where do we -- how do we corral that right in such a way that it is not corrupting our government? and that's where i think people get into this whole conversation about, well, i want to be able to call my member of congress and say, hey, vote against this bill or i want the red scout -- red cross or boy scouts and girl scrouts and say, hey, there's a bill i want you to fund. it may be different if b.p. or exxonmobil goes to capitol hill and say, hey, we need you to approve our oil drilling. by the way, we are going to spend a lot of money to have

you go to a resort. the figure out a way to separate the money so that there is not a corrupt activity going on. host: let's go to wendall, massachusetts. caller: hi. thank you for taking my call. i am sure i am going to get a full tank of cynicism in these last few days. my thoughts, paul, let's see, you got to humor me pour for a minute here. guest: ok. caller: what if a term in congress meant you spent the entire time as the same building as your seat with the exception that your staff, which they have hundreds of, each member could come and go 24 hours a day, day or night, pizzas, call girls, whatever they wanted, but they condensed everything, the rayburn building where their offices are spread about, what this would take care of would be access, accountability and, of course, no one would want to do

this for more than one term. so term limits. the beauty of it would be in their office, which is down the hall from the gym and the cafeteria and their seat, which they're never in. when i watch c-span for the rest of the day, i have been unemployed since 2008, they are -- guest: you're saying if we required them to actually be in their seat in the well of the house, that's what you're saying, right? caller: for eight hours a day. let's face it, 10 -- when they go to work from 10:00, ok. i watch c-span after "washington journal," and they make a two-minute speech. guest: right. caller: so let's say they get up at 8:00 in the morning and they shower at the gym and they go to the cafeteria and they have their food and they go back to their office and a whole line of lobbyists and snodgrasses and myself included could line up outside their office before 10:00, before

they have to go to their seat and they can take their seat and sit in it because -- if it isn't pro forma session, if it isn't recess, what are they doing? they are a wednesday club. host: he wants them to see it go to work every day and that means sitting in their seat in the house. guest: i am afraid to reflect poorly on c-span but the fact of the matter is what goes on the floor of the house of representatives most of the time all day long is almost nothing. there is very little actual work being done in the chamber of congress at any given time. i am not saying it's irrelevant to watch. i'm saying most of the work doesn't happen there. it's an interesting idea that claude raises. heck, why don't we move this process back on the floor? why don't they move their activity back on the floor? it's an interesting question. would you get more done? would you get more members of congress not wanting to be in

congress because they can't travel, because they can't do fun things, because they can't go to san juan for an energy conference? host: comment coming to us from frank by emafmente how much money do members of congress and high-ranking officials get per diem, per day? how much do they get to sustain and survive? do the members of congress turn back in the money? do people check up on this? guest: our friends at "the wall street journal "did a story about this a year and a half ago that shook the rafters a bit. there is a per diem for members of congress to travel and staff. i don't know what the number is. depends on where you're traveling to. what they were -- what "are the wall street journal" found is basically nobody ever paid back the excess. members of congress were using that money largely to buy

drinkettes for their spouses, to -- trinketts for their spouses. they would land in a foreign location, pocket the foreign currency and go about their day. they never paid for their meals. so what are they using all the money for? the house ethics committee did an investigation and concluded that nobody had, of course, violated the rules because congress hates to conclude that anybody violated the rules but they instituted new policies requiring members of congress to make a better accounting for that per diem and to give the money back and there now are clearer requirements that when there ever is a per diem members have to write a check to the treasury to return it. those it is hard to figure out exactly how we would enforce this as outsiders. host: this seems like the nature of the per diem, there is a

difference than turning in your receipt at the end of the trip. why not turn it in like that? is it too complicated? guest: kenya anticipate going to remember wrote congress and saying, "hamad like your tax receipts from venezuela?" host: i cannot vote in 49 states, so that sounds like taxation without representation. he/she would like to just paper there are representative to have more accountability. guest: i did not know how you would do that that -- do that. host: kansas, good morning. caller: i am a retired accountant and i have been retired for, i do not know, 30 years. i listen to c-span every day. my thinking on this trouble for

the congress, too many people out here do not realize that they do not live in a bubble out there anymore. they have to operate just like the corporations to be able to understand what is going on. as far as going to aspen and things, it is a luxury, but they are learning about different areas of civilization. guest: i think it is a fair point. members of congress could criticized all the time for being inside the bubble gum and not being connected to regular people -- in the bubble and not being connected. he did not know how a scanner worked in kirsch restores. do you want members of congress to be out in -- scanner worked

in grocery stores. you want members out with the people. would it be worth it for the members of congress to go check out these solar panels? it makes some sort of sense. the issue becomes where you draw the line between the worth while congressional fact-finding trip and a beachfront junket? we are not sure how to draw that line, we just know it when we see it, i guess. host: listing the top 10 trip destination for members of congress. the u.s. is listed in first, then israel, austria, germany, and turkey. guest: and that includes places

like vegas, a popular place to have meetings. they go to the consumer electronics association events in vegas every year. again, it is not pittsburgh. i am from pittsburgh and a love pittsburgh, but there are other places with more tourist attractions. israel ties in because of the other things we showed you, the american israel foundation that is spending more than $1 million in august the loans and in dozens of members of congress to israel. -- in august alone to send dozens. they get sent by these think tanks or pacs. host: democratic caller in wisconsin. caller: i was wondering in these expense accounts, have they

never heard of subway sandwiches, motel 6, or pizza hut? guest: you'll never find one of them in a motel 6. corporate executives get raked over coals for flying in private jets and staying in these swanky hotels. members of congress do not stay in motels 6. you are exactly right. you can ask the question whether they should or should not. whether we believe that as important people they should be getting better treatment than that. it cannot make that argument, but if you go and take a look, one of these trips to india, they stayed in a hotel called the hotel taj mahal. that should tell you what they are paying per night. this gets back to the whole question about the appropriate

line for a member of congress to travel, whether they are on the taxpayers' dime or on the dime of a private company. host: james writes on twitter, bring on at jack abramoff and let's talk about the real corruption and in congress. let's talk about jack abramoff. he is making the rounds talking publicly, in interviews, about how things have changed since that era. what are you learning about now? guest: i'm not learning much from what he is saying now from the sense that much of the abramoff discussion is stuff that we have previously heard or read. he has a more forceful view. he believes that was the rig business was being done in washington everywhere. -- that was the way business was being done.

since the beginning of the come i believe, 110th congress, they have had a bunch of new rules that basically abramoff puled. it was limiting travel but lobbying firms could pay for, cutting back on gifts provided. currently, the obama administration is working on a rule that would almost completely eliminate gifts given to executive branch employees. this is very controversial. should someone who worked at the energy department be able to take a trip to a conference, wherever it is, on energy topics? do we want that person to be educated on energy topics and learning at this conference? on the other hand, should they be taking a free flight to someplace nifty like loss vegas? -- las vegas?

they are trying to write their rule to prevent gifts while not making the government blind from things they want to learn about. host: going to the phones. independent caller from tennessee. hello there, ben. caller: yes. we have a lot of elderly people in our neighborhood. they draw about $600 per month in social security. they can take the money that it costs from that michigan-north carolina ballgame on that ship? spend that on the people. guest: there is a bunch of stuff i wonder about, and i'm not sure how to classify it. using the aircraft carrier for a basketball game. who paid for that?

you ask the same question when overfly f-15's or bombers a superbowl or any game in a packed stadium. the military is paying for that. is that a good use of military funding? they say that as a recruiting event. it makes people excited about the air force. fair enough. every one of those expenditures it raises the question. is this more worthwhile than whatever else we could use that money for? the super committee has been up here for three or four months unable to make those types of decisions about where would a more worthwhile place to spend that money be? a good, specific example. is that a worthwhile place to spend money? host: off of twitter, matthew wants to make a distinction between taxpayers and the

lobbyists. that is an important distinction in his mind as for who is paying for what. guest: taxpayers to pay for a lot of the travel. there is private travel and taxpayer funded travel. you can have a whole dispute about whether a trip as a junket are not as members of congress go to someplace in eastern europe around easter and there are no officials they can meet with because they are all celebrating easter. they are all out shopping and bringing home gifts for their family paid for by the taxpayer. is that a junket? if they fly to iraq or afghanistan to visit the troops and they are staying in a lousy dorm, maybe that is a worthwhile and expenditure. some of them are paid for by private companies, some by taxpayers. host: paul singer, exec he they

do -- investigative reporter at "roll-call," booking remembers getting a free trips from lobbyists, private corporations, and which are paid for by taxpayers. frank, republican from pennsylvania. hello. caller: paul, we finally perfected lobbying. now they are all scapegoats. the corporations run the show. americans would have to find out that their company cannot pay their health care. if apple goes to china, and they do not pay health care, they sure as hell will not come here and pay the thousands of dollars per year. healthcare, the biggest lobbyist

there is. nobody realizes. we could not do this in the united states. we have taken jobs to canada o, 200 employees. that is what lobbying is. they are all scapegoats. i am old enough to remember world war ii and a 30% tax was a dream we paid 80% to balance the budget. guest: lobbying is a process of asking for stopped from congress. over the years, people have asked stuff, and at the moment it looks like we are having a very hard time affording. they have agreed to pay for these things, and now we are having trouble having the bills add up to the revenue. what do we do about that? there is a flock of lobbyists

are doing what to do next now that the super committee has apparently failed. there will be a whole flock of lobbyists arguing about what our next steps should be to prevent automatic spending cuts from going into effect in 15 months. it is simply a reality that when congress faces important decisions that there will be companies, individuals, and groups lobbying to congress to get them to sign it this way or that way. that is a struggle of democracy. host: paul singer, your team at "roll call" has been following the super committee. what is the next step in what your team will be watching today? you say you are expecting the heads of the committee to come out saying the have not reached

an agreement. what happens next? guest: thanksgiving is the first thing i would like to do. we will have to tee up what the super committee did not get done. there are a bunch of taxes that will go back into effect in january unless the tax cuts are expended. -- are extended, like the payroll tax from a couple of years ago. those big tax increases that take place in january, i do not think congress wants to do that. i expect they have to figure out how to do that. there are appropriations bills that needs to be passed. another continuing resolution after we run a lot of money in december. from waiting to the super committee to hopefully solve a bunch of these problems and wrap the solutions up into one package to now going back and saying we have to take care of this, this, and this. there is a medicare docket where

we have to figure out what payments doctors will get for medicare services. something that congress will probably want to do something about before the end of the year. to some degree, the critical year-and legislative activity has been put off while we have waited for the super committee to finish its work and hopefully address a lot of these issues. since they have not done that now, it appears they have not come and now we have to go back to regular legislative work. that is what might even -- my team will be chasing today. can get the votes for these little pieces that looked very difficult before the super committee? will it be any easier now that it has failed? host: the headline on "roll

call," "a dec. scramble awaits." the final question. you have been reporting for a long time and you have seen a lot of these down to the wire add lines. do you would like to have thanksgiving on personal time, but that has happened where reporters, staffers, and everyone waits around while washington works through this try to hammer something out. do you think this will be one of those moments where it comes down to the wire and they pull something out in a clenched? does it say something about the congress that this group of 12 says they cannot come up with something? guest: win this super committee plan came out, that they will make a decision or come up with a program by thanksgiving and congress has to pass it for christmas, we all canceled our vacations because we assumed that there would be two mad rush to these deadlines.

what we understood, and what i think is now becoming clear, is that these deadlines were never all that real. since none of these cuts go into effect until january 2013, congress did not feel all that compelled to get moving. they were just as happy to let it go by the wayside. i do believe there will be some last minute deadlines for things like government spending by the end of the year, tax breaks. those are the real deadlines because no one wants to see a january 1st happy new year tax. they will get a deadline done on that. it will come down to the last minute because no one wants to give up until the half demand it will be christmas eve. my poor capitol hill staff will be, once again, spending their weekend in the empty corridors of congress to come out and say, "yes, we have done this." there's not much we can do other than saying, "we would like to

go home, too. can you please finish up?" host: paul singer, "roll call," thank you for being here. up next, adoption and foster care federal grants. first, a news update. >> 9:17 a.m. eastern. the associated press is reporting operations in lebanon have been damaged after they have captured a number of u.s. spies. in june it television appearance, hezbollah's head said he recovered at least two spies that had infiltrated the terrorist group closely allied with iran. they are officially denying the report in lebanon, but current and former officials says the damage has spread further. turning to the situation in iraq, general austin says al

qaeda and other groups may work to strengthen after american forces leave at the end of the year, but do not expect a security situation to completely disintegrate. there are just under 20,000 troops and eight american bases left. as the troops returning begin looking for jobs, there is some help coming. president obama will sign lender -- sign legislation for tax credits to help the veterans going back to work. you can hear the remarks later today. those are some of the latest headlines on c-span radio. >> see more videos of the candidates on the website for campaign 2012 from recent events to the earliest parts of their campaigns. read the latest comments from candidates and political reporters and links to media partners. i you look, new hampshire, and south carolina all available on

c-span.org/campaign2012. >> broadcasting to other countries with brian conniff. >> our purpose is to describe, journalistically, the events of the day. there's nothing that says we have to present american foreign policy, but that is a huge reason why we exist. people want to know what the american position is, they wanted explained, and want to know why it came about. they want those answers they are not getting from local media. >> "the communicator's" tonight at 8:00 p.m. eastern on c-span2. guest: --host: we look at your money. today, its focus on its mission,

participants come and how much it costs. today, we look at adoption and foster grant programs. our guest is kathleen strottman, the executive director of congressional coalition on adoption institute. guest: the most significant investment started over the last 20 years but it began in 1965 making small investments in child welfare. adoption and foster care in the mid 1980's, the government began to believe that children were spending a lot of time in foster care without good outcomes, said it put a lot more in the programs that serve them and got them in families. the last decade there has been a real investment. host: we have a phone line set up if you are an adoptive or foster care family. here are the rest of the numbers.

202-628-0184 for adoptive and foster care families. let's talk about how this money works. the federal grants go to states and then what happens? guest: $25 billion is spent in the west on child welfare services and half comes from the federal government. there are two huge strains of the funding, the first as foster care maintenance. -- two streams of money. that provides shelter, food, education programs for those actually in the foster care system, payments to the foster families. the other amount of money is adoption assistance. when a child is able to find a family through the efforts of

the state, they will also try to help provide assistance such as, maybe if they adopt a sibling group come make their house ready for a big move with the three or four kids, or if there is a kid with special needs adjusting their home for a wheelchair. host: here are some of the numbers coming to rest from health and human services. the foster care budget request. $4.50 billion. adoption assistance, $2.50 billion. and then the chafee independence program. guardianship assistance, $80 million. what is the independent program? guest: in 1999, the government but that having an effort in trying to find children and families for adoption that we were not making it great for all kids. about 30,000 kids age out, they

leave either not being returned to their biological families or are not adopted by new families. congress thought we needed to dissent about it because these and people are going out into the world on their own and we need to make sure that they have services. we make sure they learn about financial literacy, having an apartment, applying for college. what the states can use this money for are two things, to do those types of class's come mentoring, -- classes, mentoring, becoming an adult, and provide tuition assistance. they can apply for education and training doctors. host: $4.50 billion for foster care, larger than adoption assistance. why is there a gap? guest: the way both the demarcus

based on the number in those settings. one of those debates right now for advocates is if we are doing enough to match our policies? in the 1990's, they said the kids were languishing in foster care spending too much time in the system so they put together a lot of really great policies. while the policies have been working really well, the concerns have been funding, as you just pointed out, more invested in the maintenance of children in foster care. if i am a state administrator, i am going to want to do the right thing and put children in permanent families. but the government dollars are aligned in a different direction that makes that path very different. host: mike, from illinois, a

member of a foster family. caller: good morning. thank you to c-span for the reading of the constitution. my comment is i was in 5 foster homes. the best part of it was the independent living program which was geared toward the teenage kids that were harder to place. they provided them with apartments, living expenses, and they would check up on them. i thought that was a big part of getting a kid out on their own. the independent living program in illinois was ran by the methodist youth service, and i thought that was a big part of foster care. host: what age were you might you went into foster care?

-- what age where you when you went in? caller: 8. they had 6 of their own kids, and 6 foster kids. i saw them treat the foster kids the way they treated their own kids, and that was a really big plus. guest: this is a success story like the government is trying to put into place. he felt like the independent living program allowed him to learn the critical skills he would need as an adult, but he said something that i think congress is really looking at, that he had a really good foster family that was able to provide him with the love and support that he needed to use those skills and become the person he was today. host: it did say he went through four or five foster families. guest: by many accounts, the foster care system is broken.

one thing that we find is, particularly children who come in holder -- older, get bounced around. every 6 months, they move from one home to another. if you think about it, they have trouble in schools. can you think about going through five different high schools? it is hard to keep your grades up. host: he said he was 7 when he went into foster care. the statistics of the average age of a child in foster care is 9 and the average stay is 14 months. the number of children in foster care, 408,000. guest: one of the things we have seen over the last decade, which is very encouraging, is that there has been more investment in helping states to use the funding for preventing the need for foster care, so really

working with families and getting of the reasons that they have to put their children up in foster care. 408,000 is down. equally exciting, we have seen the number of children adopted out of foster care going up. those are the trends they would like to see continued. host: 107,000 and the average age of a child going into adoption is 8 years old. the average wait before being adopted is 28 months. guest: we like to see the funding align itself for that to happen. host: independent line from washington. caller: my son was adopted from foster care and i was able to because of the funding that i got from the state and government. we did not know who his parents were and he needed medical

assistance, so we still get from help from the state so we are still discovering some issues. i really love him and i was able to get him. guest: a wonderful morning because we are hearing all the success stories. would you point out is important for the viewers to hear. once the adoption becomes final, people think it no longer exists. as you know, sometimes they not only exist but things can be greater as the younger person gets older and the needs increase. it is great to hear that you were able to use that funding to continue to love and support your son. host: from kansas city, missouri, from an adoptive family. caller: i just wanted to call and come and -- commend the ccai. we were honored as one of your angels of adoption and we were able to travel to washington,

d.c., to come out and have our voice be heard on capitol hill about adoption issues. host: why were you chosen? caller: we have three adopted children, one from foster care. he was born addicted to cocaine and had several health issues. we were able to adopt him through foster care. the main thing i would like to get out is that adoption does not have to be as expensive as it is. adoption through the u.s. foster care is a fabulous tool and i do not think people realize that you can adopt a child and it does not have to be a life expense, so expensive. the way the system is set up for foster care and adoption, we make it easily accessible to adopt children and i do not think people are aware of that. guest: the great point.

she is one of the 1800 people we have honored through the angels in adoption program. it is one of the ways we try to educate members of congress about the need to do more policies, as may was suggesting, to raise awareness to the community about how there are 180,000 kids waiting for someone to step up and adopt them. fact.w know that we invite people like amy and her family to come in october and they'll look in their districts and find someone making a difference on behalf of the child. we bring them here and they participate in all different types of activities and get to work on the issues. host: what are the requirements for families receiving funds when they decide to be a foster or adoptive family? guest: they go through a criminal background check and

homesteaded. those efforts are not meant to discourage, although sometimes they do. it is really to make sure that not only are they able to provide a safe, good placement for the child, but more importantly that they are prepared and they understand that adopting a child out of foster care, particularly maybe one that has had a history of abuse or neglect, that there are things they may encounter as parents if they have parented before and it really walk through ways the foster care system is assigned -- designed to assist those families. we want to make sure they know that those sources exist. another resource the government has put in place is a web site, adopt u.s. kids. many families have said they have got on line, able to find a

child they sought in need, and were quickly able to find out information to adopt that particular child. host: todd, democratic line in south carolina. caller: you are doing a really good job on c-span. i watch you every chance i get. i was in the foster care system 30 years ago. when i was in there, the foster parents did not get paid like they do now. they drew a stipend for child which was like $200 per month. i was only in four 2.5 y -- in there for 2.5 years and i was only supposed to go two weeks. you only have to go for training one day to be a foster parents

in georgia. i applaud the newly updated training which is now apparent with all of the illegalities and the bad parents. each state is trying to weed out the bad parents, and i applaud the foster care system for what they did for me. i had 4 good families and i was lucky. there are people today that have gone all their lives, 20-30 families. i applaud what you are doing. you are doing a really good job with the foster care system. i look forward to hearing your comments. guest: we want to create more success stories like the ones we have heard this morning. it is so encouraging to hear about your experience. one thing you said is that they

go in expecting their time will be very brief. sometimes they can be corrected quickly, and that does not always occur. host: they come in foster care with the expectation the family can provide in the near term and they may only be needed to secure for a couple of weeks and go back to their family? guest: exactly. maybe they are suffering from drug abuse, alcohol abuse issues. the state will try to provide services immediately to that family. what is somewhat unpredictable as how well the parent responds and how quickly they moved into recovery. that can be an unpredictable part of it. one thing that i really wanted to address is that a continuing challenge for 400,000 children, we have 100,000 foster parents.

if you have more people looking for foster parents than a need, then you can do better screening. they take anybody who gets in line, people think that, but it is not the way at all. you want to make sure each time can be in a family as opposed to a large group home or institution. if we can record the type of people we want to be parents to take that step, it makes it easier. the: let's talk more about finding. this is the "your money" segment, but how does it break down between the state and federal government. guest: it is about 50/50. there is $25 billion being spent. on child welfare services, that will not only include foster care, adoption assistance, as we talked about before, but the

types of services that states provide to the family so that they do not need to put their child and to foster care. it may cover some of the things that we know cause children to be put into foster care, like substance abuse. maybe child care when a child is at risk. what we know is really interesting. the state portion changes over time and it differs from state to state. in some states, the federal share is less than 50%. in sum, they only provide 20% and the government federally provides more. host: edgewater, new jersey. caller: i just wanted to hear aboutrottman's thoughts an npr investigation into the

south dakota foster system with the native americans in south dakota who, it has been found, has taken a disproportionate amount of native american children from their homes. they seem to beginning grants -- be getting grants to put kids in foster care. it seems to be an unfair situation. i'm not sure if you are familiar with it. guest: i am familiar with the. it is one that many members of congress are are actually looking into. the child welfare system, when they get a report of abuse or neglect, when they send out a social worker, they send out some one, first of all, who is trained and able to make a

good assessment about whether a child is actually at risk. as you just pointed out, the standards by which those social workers are using our fair and appropriate. there have been suggestions, not only for it americans, but also hispanic and black children, that the standards being used by some systems may not actually understand some of the differences between cultures. for instance, as you pointed out, sometimes certain cultures having an extended family live in the same house is very common. you have a grandparent or cousins living in the same house. is it appropriate to have a standard where we basically say x people living in a house verses "y" is abuse or not. these are things that congress and the states are looking into. host: more numbers from the

department of health and human services, the rate and ethnicity. asian, 1%. african-american 29%, hispanic 21%, white 41%. guest: that is something we want to look at. not only do we want to make sure the standards make sense, but what can we be doing to make sure that families are stronger in general in every community? we want to make sure some of those reasons are eliminated. are they struggling to find work so they are putting their children in a compromising situations? so many kids come into foster care, 60%, because of neglect. what neglect means is that maybe his mom has been out of a job for six months so they are forced to sleep in a car.

everyone would say that not -- that is not necessarily a good thing, especially with athe col. the mother wants to make sure she can do the best thing. host: not to build, tenn., from an adoptive family. good morning. -- knoxville, tennessee. caller: we received a child when it was 14 months old and we have now adopted her. no money followed the child from florida. she got four-year college tuition, but there was no money for the daily needs. she came from another foster parent before we got her. that mother was collecting money, but when she came to us,

there was no money. guest: there are two federal programs that you may be eligible for. someone told your mother about what is called the adoption tax credit. one of the things you can do if you adopt a child out of foster care or internationally is that you can apply for a credit issued by the irs. out of foster care, it is a flat credit, so you do not have to show the certain expenses you incur, just that you adopt a child. the really good news is that most recently, congress made this refundable. your tax liability is less than you would have received, and you would get a check back for the remainder of what the credit would have been. when the terms of the adoption systems program that i was describing earlier, it is available to the children that

the state deems to be a special needs, not available across the board. that is something of a like to see changed, but i am not sure that can happen right now. you'd have to go back to your case worker and figure out if there's something about the little girl that you adopted that would qualify them for special needs. that does not just mean that the child may have a special medical need. it may mean that she was of a certain group of they felt would need a financial incentive in order to place for adoption. it may mean she was part of a sibling group, but it does not sound like in your group -- your situation. go back to your case worker. host: kathleen strottman is the executive director at congressional coalition on adoption institute. foster family from minnesota on the democrat line. hello. caller: good morning.

thank you for c-span. thank you for taking my call. host: go ahead. caller: a member of my family, a cousin, and we found that their kids were going into foster care. my wife and i scrambled quickly in minnesota and went through all of the class's and became certified. everything was good, income, plenty of room, and the parents of the children wanted them to come to us because we wanted to maintain the same family. when we went to iowa, we did everything that they're required, all of the interstate contact information and we went to court and were denied and it went to another family. we were denied any visitation to this kid's whatsoever. my heart was broken.

host: what was the reason you're given? ason.r: no reson period. the entire family supported us saying we should keep the family together. i do not know. i just do not even know they did not do the due diligence in the beginning that the work family members there wanting to help. guest: that is one of the things we are growing in our concern about, the fact that it is not as likely that they are finding family members. we are finding a lot of them had family members that would step up and would have been happy to foster or adopt them. unfortunately, the states are not doing as good a job that we would like to see in the federal level in looking at these persons. like you said, is the best thing

for the child to stay in their family and be able to have all the relationships that have known their whole life. that stability is the best outcome. miley do not know the particulars of your case, one thing that maybe the problem is talking about the financing structures. we did do -- we do give the states the funding and they are very reluctant to do placements across state lines. icpc is the format or paperwork they are supposed to mention in doing that. what we're finding is that the disincentives are funding to train and recruit their own foster parents. if they then across the state line, they might not get some of the federal incentive money. these are things we're looking long and hard that because we do not want situations like yours unless it is in the best

interests of children. host: kathleen strottman, let's talk and what the future of foster grant funding. they come from entitlements. are there concerns about them being cut? guest: the money that i was talking about, 50% of what states are spending our the actually spending for the dedicated money from foster care and adoption. there is a risk, as you can imagine, when they are looking at social security block grants, medicaid, or tanf money to support this very vulnerable population. they're making those cuts and may not be aware of the impact. that is one thing we're trying to make sure in addressing these issues. the other thing we really want to stress when these conversations are happening is

that a lot of people working in this area would like to do more. are we spending our money in the best possible? we have a lot of really good laws on the books, laws that are very clear about how much china -- time a child should spend outside a family, but the funding is inverted. we think it is an opportune time to say if we are spending $25 billion, are responding it in the right places? we want to make sure that the outcome is what we want to see. host: from oklahoma city from an adoptive family. hello. caller: hi. i adopted my son from dhs custody in foster care from birth. he was born drug-addicted to cocaine and marijuana.

the process was very easy. we just had to take a few class's and a background check. we got him when he was 22 months old. are not any problems with that at all. we think everyone should do it. the report said he had neurological problems, but he is perfect. he is four years old, very smart, learns easily. every child deserves a good home. host: if that had not been in the case, and your adopted child had developmental disabilities are difficulties because of the circumstances and richie was born, would you have had the resources to deal with that? caller: i think so. we have an older son with some developmental issues. i am also a nurse.

he is a blessing. he is a perfect, one for child, and we love him. -- a wonderful child and we love him. guest: i hope the listeners are paying attention. windigo for the training and the doctors are trying to prepare you, it can get scary. -- when you go through the training, it can get scary. yes, it is good to know that there are things there when you need them, but their experience has been the opposite. i want to encourage people to take the steps that they did because some of the people are waiting for homes. host: how does the funding plan out when it comes to family? when it goes into foster care verses adoption, and how does the payment cycle go? guest: it is still a concern. it was made better by the creation of the adoption assistance program, but the reason they do not take a step to formally adopt a child is because they are concerned they

will lose that safety net. each foster parent receives a monthly stipend supposed to cover the cost of raising the child, clothing, and other things. they have a social worker hopefully visiting them on a regular basis. if they find an issue in raising the child, hopefully they will be there to hopefully work it out with them and that is a realistic feeling, as you can imagine. -- a really secure feeling. if the child or family is doing well, the state can step back. then they allow the natural parents in process to begin. the thought of that happening, when they are untethered to the support network is not something that they want to do. it is particularly troubling when you're talking about older youth. children who come into the foster care system are now

coming in older. the thing that is sad is they would say they would be so afraid that if they adopted jeremy that they would lose the chance for him to get tuition assistance. i did not have 18 years to plan for his college. these of the things we are asking members of congress. make sure that when they are adopted they get the support service. host: how much does a family get? guest: it can be anything between $200 and $700 per month. it is right to worry that people are doing that people -- are doing this to get the money. the costs that they incur are more than what is covered by funding. we do a foster youth internship

program and we bring a children that were formally fostered and explain things that if they were to change the way the government does things what they would do. one thing that really stuck out for me is that a lot of the conversation is what foster parents are doing with the money. when concerns are raised with the welfare program, they put it into a credit card that can be used for any type of legitimate purpose and it allows the states to know what is being spent. instead of spending in a monthly check, if you are worried, what about using that system? that shows you how smart these young people can be. host: kay, democratic caller from indianapolis. caller: how are you? glad to be on c-span. i am a grandmother.

i took it guardianship of my grand kids in 10 years ago. she became cocaine positive and it wanted to take the other one that i had, that was seven. i took custody because it did not want to see them. i have been a nurse 40 years. at any rate, we went to court and i was given first guardianship. i had to go through those preparation programs, has been down by. at that time, i was awarded $2,000 a month for four kids and i was working. my husband is a teamster come a truck driver, and i was in tears. was a to do that -- i nurse. the judge said they wanted

permanency. we are going back and forth to court, taking care of the kids. it was explained to me by my case worker that guardianship was ok. my money went to $2,000 down to $315 with tanf. i got healthwise. i did not think our husband's job would allow it if we adopted. when i tried, they told me it would be $9,000 a child. i do not have $9,000. i could not adopt if i wanted to. i was beat up by that. i tried to contact my case worker. the woman initially said that it

was ok. she no longer works there. host: does it make a difference to the kid how they are defined? whether they are adopted, fostered, guardian? are they aware of the differences? caller: they are. the girls are 10, cousins. the boy is 13. jimmy is 17. then i have another one i took custody, but not through the system. host: we will leave it there and get a response from our guest, kathleen strottman. guest: there are relationships you can have for the system. these are good points that are

are actually on the table for federal policy makers. the first one that i wanted to highlight, there was a bias against the idea of guardianship. there were people who said adoption is the only form of permanency, as the judge was telling them. particularly when you talk about children related to you, you have to terminate parental rights in order to adopt. are there other ways we can encourage a lifelong, permanent relationship between a child and their care giver? guardianship is one of those ways. we have been talking about different ways the federal government can incentivize this, as well. a big change would be to make it so that the government would reimburse states for guardianship placements. before it was only for adoption. we have been seeing a trend to have states do more of that.

one of the other things that i heard you say, kay, is that sometimes there are these disincentives when you say that you will take that step forward and do what they say is in the best interest of your grandkids. yet there are all of these barriers put in your way. there is the cost of the adoption, as you suggested, or you see a significant reduction in the support you are receiving. those are the types of things that we really want to continue to bring to members of congress's attention so that there might fall to address these barriers. host: does it make a difference in the children talked to about being adopted or something else? guest: did feel the permanency in the beginning, but it is surprising how many people who are in stable, long-term foster families to save something about the daily believe