meyer. we want to remind our viewers and listeners that, later today on c-span, we will have coverage of michelle bachman's appearance at a church in tuscaloosa, iowa. mitt romney this afternoon eastern time at the family table restaurant in atlanta, iowa. and then it gingrich at 5:30 p.m. eastern time in waterloo, iowa. thank you very much for watching this edition. we will see you again tomorrow morning at 7:00 a.m. eastern time. >> coming up today on c-span,

holly petraeus is the assistant director at the consumer protection bureau and interviewed by bloomberg news and "military times." our events leading up to tuesday's iowa caucus with rick santorum at a campaign rally. and our live coverage of this iowa caucus begins with michele bachmann and mitt romney and newt gingrich. follow the candidates to the iowa caucus here on c spife span. >> "road to the white house" goes to the iowa caucus. live from des moines with "washington journal" talking with political experts and taking your calls. our preview program on the caucus process and the state of the republican presidential

race. live caucus coverage from central iowa and the results and candidates' speeches. we will have live coverage from western iowa on c-span2. it is available on c-span radio and online. >> they are interested in what can be verified and reliable sources. >> as creator of the wicky speed yeah -- wicky speed yeah. >> has it gone through editorial layers. that's a plays that bloggers will laugh at when bloggers have been shown to be right. but on the overall, you are more likely to trust, you know, something from the "washington post" or "new york times" than

something you found on a blog. in order for a blogger on a blog spot site to be proved right, you need the gatekeeper of a media source to say so. >> tonight on c-span. >> our guests on this christmas week edition is holly petraeus. mrs. petraeus as a military spouse of more than 35 years, has spent much of her last several years working on military service member financial issues and financial literacy and education for them. she is doing it from her new post at the consumer protection bureau. thank you for being with us this week. let me introduce our two reporters, "bloomberg news" and

"military times. i'm going to start off and the reason to talk to you is the great number of service members coming back from iraq now at the end of the war and coming back to posts in america and facing a new economy that's going to be tough for them. this year in particular, what are your financial concerns for them as they integrate, re-integrate into society here on the mainland? >> there are different concerns. for those in the guard and reserves, come back to active duty status. employment is a big concern and just finances in general. some of them may choose to use their g.i. benefits and go to school and my concern is they get the most bang for their buck if they do that. for active duty, there are financial pitfalls are waiting. house market is one of them.

>> just to clarify, there are lots of american families facing tough economic times, are times more difficult or more challenging for service members? anything in particular about them as a community? >> they have unique challenges because they do move so often and that can be very difficult for the families especially if if you are relying on a spouse's income as well. >> been traveling around talking to troops and their families, financial counselors and others and you have been slissing comments from folks? war are most you are hearing? >> the number one thing that has come up especially in recent visits is the housing meltdown because military tend to be in states that have real issues with falling home values.

i was recently in florida visiting some navy bases and i did some town halls with 300 people and i asked how many of you own homes and half of them raised their hands and how many of you are under water and 2/3 of those hands went up and they are concerned about what happens when they get orders to move and can't sell their house enough to pay it off. they are worried if they end up with a terrible credit report because they had to get foreclosed on or lose their house, they may use their security clearance and if they do, they lose their employment. >> what is your office doing to help these folks? >> raising awareness is one thing. i can articulate the issues. part of what i'm supposed to be doing is working on consumer protection measures for military personnel with other federal and state agencies. i talk about it a lot. i have seen some movement in the housing programs, the assistance

programs, treasury did change their guidance for the home foreclosure program, a program -- military don't have to show a drop in income in order to be considered for that program. and freddie mac and fannie mae did say a military is a qualifying hardship to be able to access their short sale or loan modification options. so small steps. naturally, i would love to see more done, but i will continue to try to raise awareness about it and help other folks explore options to make it better. >> brend and. >> -- it was said they unlawfully foreclosed on military. and they are looking to see if bank of america and others and see if they complied with the

service members' civil relief anth. has your office received any calls or complaints related to this particular scenario? >> we have gotten some. it's the justice department that does the civil rights division that does enforce the civil service relief act but we were concerned we would get complaints and we are getting those. so what we did is we signed an agreement with the j.a.g.'s, navy, air force, marine and coast guard trying to lay out what we would do to make sure none of the complaints fall through the cracks and we have a system in place to refer those complaints and we are following this with interest. and i did send a letter to the 25 largest bank c.e.o.'s back earlier this year saying it might be a good idea to look at your procedures and be sure you

are complying because obviously it is revealed that some have not. >> let me talk about a few steps and successes. there are a lot of jurisdictional and really oversight battles with the senate vote. there is no leader that has been confirmed yet because of the debates ongoing about the structure of the program. i'm wondering how much work you can do without that being settled? >> a lot. and my office, i can do what i'm supposed to be doing. i'm supposed to be doing three things. the first is to see that military personnel and their families get the financial education they need in order to make wise consumer decisions. i can work on that. the second is to monitor their consumer complaints that come in and the responses to those complaints and we do have mechanisms in place where people

come to file a complaint, we ask if they're military. and i have two people on my staff who are on consumer response to be sure we are addressing those issues. and third is to work on consumer protection measures for the military with other federal and state agencies. i can really do pretty much what they tell me i'm supposed to be doing, but that said, there were definitely people who are very excited who wrote me when i first took the job saying we are very excited to have a federal agency that can supervise some of the non-bank entities that play in this field. and that's the part we can't do yet. and we have to wait for a director in order to do it. >> i have a budget question. how will budget pressures affect some of the financial literacy programs that the pentagon is funding? obviously, there is tremendous pressure in the defense budget.

congress approved a bill that is $27 billion less than the president's request. d.o.d. spending is looking to take a hit of half a trillion. the projection is as much as a trillion. will financial pressures impact these programs in place and any other programs that are planned to provide education to troops? >> it is a possibility. i don't think we are going to know until sort of the cuts are revealed and where they are. we are supposed to be working with d.o.d. on the financial education issues and certainly if they end up cutting in that area, i hope we can work together to make sure we are still providing the right information at the right time for service members to get the knowledge that they need. >> you sponsored a forum last week dealing with issues, financial issues. and one of the issues was financial education for service members throughout their career. what are you doing with the

d.o.d. to look at this issue and improve the financial education? >> well, the first thing that was important was to look at what d.o.d. was doing. the first block of financial education and training and then advanced individual training that service members undergo. and they need financial education and basic training and the question is how well do they absorb it. and what i have seen, not very well. you are getting yelled at and you are running around, tired, stressed and freaked out and i have asked folks if they remember the financial class they did in basic training and they said no. so the first step was to look at that and to think, you know, can we make suggestions how to improve things. and something we have in mind and we are setting into motion

is we would like to do a small education piece that can be done during the delayed entry process. because people sign up for the military but don't report for basic training for a certain amount of time. and we feel that might be a great time to deliver something through smartphone or computer that they can do while they are little less stressed and can think about it a little better. we will start with that. >> just a thought, have you also considered post-service training, making their transition into the world with the rest of the us. when veterans, with the high unemployment rate, seems the lack of the regular military pay check puts pressures on families. is there exit training that would make sense that you have

thought about? >> we can certainly work with that. the military is working very hard on the transition process in the fact that it's not a good idea to start thinking about it the month before you walk out the door. they are encouraging service members to begin that process a long time before that so they are more prepared. and certainly something we can look at with them. and once people are out possibly with the v.a. as well. >> and just before we leave this topic, a related one, something you know well is military families, because it's often the spouses who are home, sometimes with children trying -- and you talked about the fact that jobs are harder to find because of frequent moves. is there a program for training spouses of military service members on financial literacy? >> there are programs out there and connected with resiliencey programs at installations.

it's more on a local basis than d.o.d.-wide. one issue with spouses is they are not in the military. they live with the military and we cannot order them to go to a class. and it does have to be voluntary. and there is a challenge on financial education with getting people to come. you may get -- my experience was that you got people who knew almost everything you were teaching or people in desperate straits and grasping at any straw. you didn't get people in the middle who could use that information to avoid difficulties down the road. the challenge will be how to reach them in a way that interests them and get them to participate. >> what about higher education? much has been written about the aggressive targeting of some of the for-profit and college onkline courses toward the military community.

you have spoken about this in public comments. do you think your office might someday endorse certain programs or schools to help troops better identify the good and the bad? >> i don't know if we can endorse the good list from the bad last. i don't think we will go that route. we don't want to tell people where they can and can't go, but we want them to compare colleges and be informed about their choice, not just fall for the best marketing. and we want them to be able to compare apples to apples and have a shopping sheet where they can see if this college can give me the most value for the money i'm spending. if it costs more than my g.i. benefits, will it be helpful. we want them to be informed but

we won't insert ourselves. >> do you have concerns about just the increase i guess in attendance of the military community in programs like this in for-profit? >> i do. the amount of money being spent has exploded i think in the last six years is it? $50 million -- $66 million to over $500 million. and i do have concerns about it. i think if costs continue to go up the way they're going and grow disproportionately to one part of the education sector which is for-profits there may be an inclination for those benefits not continue to pay them if it becomes impossible to sustain it. i think it's in our interests to be sure that tuition assistance and g.i. dollars are being well

spent. >> since the military lending act was passed in 2007, have you seen other threats emerge to the financial well-being of service members, limited interest rates that can be charged in some loans, have you seen things that come up that are of concern? >> what i have seen is companies that offer a product that is outside the definition of the military lending act. there is one web site that we were looking at that specifically and proudly said on their site we aren't subject to the military lending act because we are offering open-ended credit. people have gotten wise the lending act was tightly drawn and they have found a way to offer products that's outside that. >> should d.o.d. broaden that

role that they have drawn up to implement the act? >> there is interest in talking to them about that. senator reed was suggesting some changes to it. >> it's a challenge when you draw a rule, people will outcry. if you draw it too narrowly it's too easy for people to go outside. it is very challenging to write one that works that remains effective and does the job that it's supposed to do. but i know there is interest in looking at it. products do more. they change. >> in terms of interest rates, what have you seen the products morping to? >> i think as i call one web site, the interest rate could be as high as 500 some percent. so they present it in such a

way, you don't see it. there are talks of fees and products are tasked on and what sounds like you pay $1,500. and that's the math that a lot of people do in their heads. i would say that would be me, too. because i didn't enjoy math in school. you aren't paying 15% and people aren't aware how expensive the credit is they are getting. >> industries involved in these often will justify their services saying they are providing services that couldn't be gotten. what do you want to say back to them? >> that's the argument that is always trotted out. we are providing valuable service. and people will just be denied the help they need and i remember when the military

lending act was written and the industry predicted a great outcry from the military service when this was denied and it did not happen. >> sort of following on your question, you're dealing with issues, financial education, but at the forum last week, there was discussion of lenders coming up with products that would be, quote, safe for the military community, that would be endorsed by your bureau and by d.o.d. is that a possibility that you would work with lenders on that? >> you know, it doesn't seem likely to me because you have to remember that we are a regulator, a financial institution. it would be unlikely that we would endorse certain institutions as providers of financial products because it is

our job to go in and supervise and examine them. >> if they came up with a product that several or dozens of financial institutions offered under the same terms, could that possibly be -- >> we would be interested to see that and that's why we had the forum. we wanted to know what's out there that is being done for the military, what are some unique products and said we could provide a forum without endorsing to raise awareness. possibly other financial institutions could say gee, why can't we do that for our military customers. we can raise awareness. >> would the products ever expand to include something like life insurance. bloomberg in the past -- we wrote a story about how insurance companies profited by withholding death benefits, lump sums, and placing them in interest-bearing accounts so as

to earn higher profit. do you see insurance an area in which you might extend scrutiny? >> probably not. life insurance is an issue for the military. as a spouse, i saw a lot of expensive life insurance and sometimes sold it as an investment. but is the insurance commissioners that would oversee that. >> you mentioned earlier your reference to the better business bureau and you worked there on these same sorts of issues. what can you do in your agency that you couldn't do in the private sector? what do you see is the advantage of this new position? >> when i came to the agency, i was excited to work for an agency that had the power to enforce the law and write rules as needed as well. i mean that's something the

better business bureau and i enjoyed my time there, but it is a reporting agency. it reports behavior. it gives grades to businesses, but it cannot enforce and that's something we can do and that to me was very exciting to have sort of the three legs of the stool, enforcement, examination and education. >> so you are the bully pulpit that might have teeth? >> i testified on capitol hill four times. i have had the opportunity to work with states, with the attorneys general and to really talk in public about the issues with them. so i still have that opportunity to speak in public, but i do work now for an agency that reports bad practices. >> three minutes left. >> i did want to ask you about because of your role as a proponent for troops, you have worked with the j.a.g.'s and

department of veterans affairs. do you support this growing movement of treatment -- not only do they have financial problems but struggle with drug and alcohol abuse dealing with mental issues, including post-traumatic stress disorder, not a financial question, but do you support veterans' treatment courts as an opportunity to partner with a group to provide a financial piece to that program or that effort? >> i hadn't thought about providing a financial piece. i'm aware of the veterans' courts and a number of states have them and some don't. you may have veterans who come back with issues that would be great if they could be addressed before they got put in the regular judicial pipeline. so i think it's an issue that really interested me.

and i think there is a lot of desire out there to do the right thing by the military and this is one example of that. i have to say for our veterans and of the military family members, i do also want to not also say they are amazing individuals who served our country with honor, great skills and tremendous leaders and as the generations before them, the engine that drives our economy when they come back. >> final question. >> you worked on a lot of issues relating to military families and improving their financial well-being. can some of this effort being of benefit to the larger civilian community? >> there are projects that have larger applicability. i would love some of our education products be disseminated wider.

a lot of consumer finance issues are universal. the military has unique challenges. but what works with them, it can be applied more broadly. and we have offices that can do that. >> as we close here, we are interested in one very high profile example of post-military life transition. how is it going? >> very well. he went straight from the uniform to a new job. reorganized the kitchen. but you know, the military is a wonderful community and we both are missing part of that active duty world. >> what's the biggest change in the post-active duty world? >> home on the weekends, which

hasn't been the case in a long time. we are enjoying the fact we can be together. >> we appreciate your time. >> thank you. >> we are back. we have just finished a conversation with holly petraeus, who is the spouse of david petraeus and spent much of her time as a military spouse and working on financial literacy and other policy issues. she's now at the consumer financial protection bureau. from your point of view because you raised the question of funding for the military, which is a big issue in washington now, where will the intersection with concern over the kinds of issues we talked about and the concern over spending intersect? >> i think the first place they will look to are sort of the size of the military and weapons

programs. as far as trying to draw actual savings out of the kinds of numbers they are talking about, they will be looking -- big programs. but i think their concern is real from many folks that that will very much, the pressure will trickle down to any number of programs that could be there for the troops in terms of financial literacy funding for those types of programs. i have not seen any particular cuts related to those types of programs. i haven't reported any of that. but the concern is real, that the budget pressures could take away some of the funding for programs like that. >> with regard to capitol hill and this is for both of you, what is the sentiment among members of the house and senate over programs that help the military? where do they fall in the budget wars? >> i think there has been a lot of support for the military in programs likese