he will take your questions about federal spending and regulations at 8:30 eastern. we will talk about the 90th anniversary of "foreign affairs magazine with the editor >> thank you to the people in this room and to the people all -- allorida thank you over florida. thank you tonight for this great victory. there are fewer candidates tonight than won the race began. three gentlemen are serious and able competitors. i want to congratulate them on another hard-fought contest in this campaign. ♪ host: former massachusetts governor wins the florida primary by double digits over

former speaker of newt gingrich. 5-to-1 spending advantage over newt gingrich, according to "the wall street journal" this morning. here are the final numbers. here are in the numbers. if you are supporting the former massachusetts governor, dial -- newt gingrich supporters. rick santorum supporters, and those supporting ron paul. we will get to your phone calls in just a minute. also, you can send us your comments on facebook boards winter -- facebook or twitter.

let me show you the papers this morning. "romney takes florida." then, here is "the orange county register." some other papers courtesy of the newseum this morning. "the houston chronicle" headline. here is "the los angeles times." we want to get your thoughts on last night's florida primary, talking to gop callers this

morning. call on the lines that reflect your support for which candidate. "the new york times" says this. host: thomas, you are a newt gingrich supporter in kentucky. what do you think? caller: good morning. host: good morning. caller: i just want to say that i think this thing is far from over. we saw in man in newt last night that's committed to carrying on. it's not a process that's detrimental to the republican nominee in the fall. usually when you have a bag and you shake it up, you have more cats. this thing will be going on for a while. host: what do you think about mitt romney's strategy, going after newt gingrich with the negative ads?

caller: well, you know, what is good for the goose is usually good for the gander. newt gingrich has come back more times in this campaign than the proverbial phoenix. it seems like he has more fight in him. this thing is not going to be over any time soon. romney, at his peril, i think, goes over the top in some of the attacks. he has a real problem with the heart and soul of the republican party. that is the evangelical christian voters. that is the republican counter to a lot of the organized labour and union support. unless mitt romney can find a way to appeal to the core of the republican party, it will be hard for him to defeat president obama in november. host: thomas, would you call

yourself an evangelical christian conservative? caller: i would. i would. i think, for whatever reason, governor romney has a tough time speaking our language. host: thomas, let me show you this. this is from "the new york times." this is about the exit polls. 37% of voters voted for speaker gingrich. 5% voted for ron paul. 18% for rick santorum. caller: i do not think that is surprising. i think a lot of the same problems governor romney had in 2000 eight continue to haunt him. it will be tough to come up with ways. the authenticity factor is the problem with newt gingrich, in

my opinion. i think that's the hard sell with a loss of the core of republican voters. host: let's hear from rondeau, a ron paul supporter in riverside, california. caller: good morning. being a christian myself, i cannot see why evangelicals are considering romney. his religion was started from this angel who claimed he was from this planet, and joseph smith was reading of a magic stone he found in a well. host: it is not christian as well. -- caller: it is not christian, as well. host: where did you see this about the mormon religion? caller: the history channel.

each believe they will dominate a planet after death, if they make it to the top level. in christianity, you are saved by jesus. host: can i ask you how come you are a ron paul supporter? ron paul does not talk about his religion. that is not the central focus of his campaign. caller: mitt romney does not talk about it either that much. ron paul, at least of all of them, he's trying to go more on the peaceful sight than the confrontational side. with iran, everyone's after their oil. he sees may be a better way. out of the four of them, i think a would have to go with him, if not president obama. host: stephen, mitt romney supporter in alexandria, virginia. what do you think of the win last night? caller: i think it really shows the larger piece where you have

a state like florida that is very diverse, much like the u.s., and mitt romney did very well across the board. it just shows he is the most electable candidate we have and would pose the biggest challenge to president obama across the entire country. host: let me go to the exit polls again and show our viewers some of the data. issues that matter most to those who voted in the florida primary -- remember, only registered republicans can vote in the florida primary. when it comes to abortion, 43% of those said newt gingrich was their candidates. 3%, ron paul. 25%, mitt romney. 28%, rick santorum. the economy, 62% of voters said that was the most important issue to them.

mitt romney again, wins with 52% of the vote. newt gingrich, 30%. candidates quality that matters most to these voters. one of them is -- can they defeat president obama? who is the true conservative? that's where newt gingrich came out on top last night. as strong moral character. again, mitt romney topped the four candidates. political philosophy. newt gingrich wins with 41% to mitt romney's 30%.

"the new york times" with the exit polls also florida. "the wall street journal" also has some of that information today. tyler, texas. bob, you are supporting rick santorum, who was not in florida yesterday. he and ron paul went on to nevada. what do you think? caller: he is the only one who is not a flip-flop for. once people realize that, he has a chance to surge. romney and gingrich will just tell you which way the wind is blowing. whatever topic since today, they will repeat that. santorum is standing firm on his beliefs. host: do you think that's enough to beat president obama in a general election? caller: it is only thing we need. we need to leverage to like our family -- like our family in fodders -- like our founding fathers. host: what do you think about

rick santorum's appealed to independents? caller: we really have to get our country back to where our founders wanted us to have it. host: ok. want to show you a little bit from each of the candidates last night. we will begin with mitt romney, the victor in florida. [video clip] >> primary contests are not easy and they are not supposed to be. our opponents have been watching and they like to cover themselves with the thought that a competitive campaign will lead us divided and weak. a competitive primary does not divide us. it prepares us. we will win. when we gather back here in tampa seven months from now for our convention -- [applause] ours be a united party with a

winning ticket for america. host: mitt romney last night in florida. also want to show you what newt gingrich had to say yesterday after he came in second place in that state. the former speaker talking at an event last night in front of his supporters. here is newt gingrich. [video clip] >> you will notice that a number of folks are holding up a sign about 46 states to go. [applause] in part for the elite media, the same people who said i was dead in june and july, who seemed totally quiet the night of the south carolina victory. i just want to reassure them tonight. we are going to contest every place and we are going to win. we will be in tampa as the nominee in august. host: former speaker newt gingrich from last night.

let's look ahead from "the wall street journal" and who votes next. host: that is the super tuesday march 6 election. the start of five days of caucuses in wyoming. as we told you, primary's in oklahoma, tennessee, georgia, ohio, virginia, vermont, and massachusetts. show you the map. can put up the map for super tuesday, as well. those are the states we will be watching on super tuesday. let me go to nevada and show you the headlines in "the washington times" on that state.

"there are 26 delegates at stake here " and then "the washington post."

host: that is the lowdown on the candidates before the nevada caucuses. taking your phone calls about romney's win last night. we're hearing from gop supporters. andy. hi. good morning. caller: i support newt gingrich because i think he supports the constitution and follows it more than mitt romney. i do not like mitt romney. he is like a piece of chrome that is nice and polished. underneath, it's a piece of metal. isust feel that if obama's

reelected, then the country, there will be more turmoil, mort division, and more people feeling like the economy will go back down again. host: ok. geraldine, what do you think? caller: thank you for taking my call. host: good morning. caller: i am very happy about the results yesterday. there's too much focus on everyone's religion. we have superstores -- we have superstars that are more men and everyone accepts what they are, who they are. i do think it is important that we have people of more will c- span.org -- people of moral fiber who do not have our tax dollars going to kill anybody. had thewe've centiliters in that regard. i think mitt will do even better

than they did, if that's possible. host: having supported mitt romney all along? did you support him in 2008? caller: no, i did not. host: you were for john mccain? caller: at the time, yes. i thought that was a very difficult election. you did not really have your heard 100% on anything. i think people will be more passionate this time around because a lot of issues that have upset the american public, and i think the funding of planned parenthood, especially. for people who are not terribly conservative, it's just wrong. i think abortion and killing is murder. i do not support murder. host: that is geraldine, a mitt

romney supporter in pennsylvania. next is a santorum supporter. caller: good morning. host: good morning. caller: i am up early and enjoying your show very much. listen. none of the candidates are addressing the issues that are really important to me. i am tea party all the way. i am tea party all the way. what we need to do is cut all government agencies by 10% per month before -- per month until the balance the budget. declare martial law on our southern border and stop the gun trade. take the irs and replace it with a user fee. then assessed to see if they are worth it or not. host: you brought up one issue

that's important to our guests coming up on the "washington journal." that is senator jim demint. he is out with a new book, "now or never." we will also talk with the ohio democrat tim ryan about manufacturing and president obama's manufacturing agenda from 7:45 this morning to 8:30. that to your phone calls. kevin, you are supporting newt gingrich. what do you think about last night's win for mitt romney? caller: just by watching newt, he is the one who has come with plans, with actions, with what he is going to do. he is the one candidate that showed me a clear plan on what we need to do. i do not know. i do not trust mitt.

i do see him as a moderate. i see newt with big, bold ideas. i do not see newt as polished and phony as i see romney. host: let's go to the trust issue on policy. why don't you trust mitt romney? what policy decisions has he made you do not trust? caller: he wants to talk about making government smaller, but he is the one who really [inaudible] with the health care, you know. host: the health-care decision that he made in massachusetts as the governor there. caller: right. it is basically the same thing as obamacare. host: 60 percent of the voters in florida said the economy was the top issue for them. let me show you of the headlines. here is "the washington times"

with the news from the congressional budget office yesterday. host: here is the take of "the washington post" on the same story this morning.

host: those are some of the debates happening in congress this year. one of them is the payroll tax

extension -- whether to bid for a full year. conferees our meeting again today on that issue. we will be covering it on c- span. were more information, go to our website, c-span.org. by the way, president obama is expected to unveil his budget request on february 13. lawmakers in both party want to extend the tax breaks through the end of 2012. unless they come up with a plan to replace the lost revenue, the new extension would add an additional $75 billion to this year's budget gap. that is in "the washington post." the cbo director, mr. elmendorf , will be on capitol hill today testifying before the house budget committee. we will have live coverage of that at 10:00 a.m. eastern time on c-span3. as i told you, the conferees meet again on the payroll tax cuts. that will be both house and senate conferees.

go to our website, c-span.org. we will play it live at 10:00 a.m. on our website. that's all the news this morning on the economy coming out of these congressional budget office yesterday. atlanta, georgia. david is a ron paul supporter. we're talking about romney's win in florida and what it means going forward. caller: ron paul is the only candidate up on the stage that has a different position than any of the others, including president obama. he is the only anti-war candidate. he's the only candidate who wants to restore our civil liberties. host: ok. what do you make of his 7% last night in florida? caller: florida is a new winner- take-all state. he did not even with the effort force. i'm not sure he will get the nomination, but i sure will support him all the way. i think he is the only one who

has a different position than obama. a contrast, so to say. there's no contrast with any of the other candidates. host: here is a tweet. we will go to new jersey. don, santorum supporter. go ahead. caller: good morning. host: good morning. caller: i am listening to the candidates and no one there, with the exception of mr santorum, described what america -- what made it great. his story of his grandfather tells a story of the people that pulled together that have high moral standing spurious he has told the story. he told al america became the greatest nation on the face of the earth. he talked about self responsibility. everyone is responsible for

their own actions. people should listen to what they are saying. he is giving a description of where he wants to bring the country to. no other candidate has said that. that's what got me interested in him. host: the former pennsylvania senator was in nevada last night as the florida results came in. he also released an ad looking forward to the other caucuses coming up, indicating that he race.s to stay at thin the take a look at this ad. [video clip] >> on the other side of the cars are the three other politicians. all three supported radical cap and trade legislation and would destroy american jobs and drive up energy costs. all three supported giving illegal aliens some form of amnesty. all three supported the government helps mandates, which take away our freedom, and is

the core of obamacare. all three of these politicians supported the the wall street bailouts. that was a slap in the face to the tea party. who are these 3 cap and trade loving, bail out supporting, soft on immigration, the government mandating politicians? now you know. rick santorum for presidents. he does not just talk a conservative game. he lives it. >> i am rick santorum and i approve this message. host: in addition to rick santorum in the state of nevada yesterday, so was ron paul. he said the race continues on for him, as well. here he is in front of his supporters. [video clip] >> a few months ago, there were nine candidates. we are down to four. tonight i saw a statistic we are in third place when it comes to delegates. that is what really counts. [applause]

we've only gotten started. [applause] host: ron paul from last night in nevada, saying he will continue on. the fund-raising numbers came out yesterday, as well, for the fourth quarter. we want to show you what the total fund-raising totals are for all of the candidates for 2012. president obama bringing in the most, according to opensecrets.org and cnn. president obama at $68 million. mitt romney, $24 million. then ron paul, $13.3 million. newt gingrich, $9.8 million. santorum, $920,000. also, the names of the superpac donors. "the washington post" obama's

fund-raising continues to outpace. host: inside the papers this morning, "the new york times" has the breakdown of who has given to all the different superpacs. we can show you more of that, if you are interested. "usa today" also has the story -- "superpacs are naming names." pac has brought in some money. he has raised $1 million as of monday. mary is supporting rick santorum. what are your thoughts on the gop primaries? go ahead.

caller: i hope and i pray that rick santorum stays in this race and stays strong on what he is telling us. he does not compromise his values. he shares a lot of the values of the people of this country. he does not settle. you know, he stands up for what he believes in. for once and for all, hopefully do not let the media tried to collect the candidate -- to elect the candidate that we do not want. they want their interests represented. rick santorum is bold. he is the contrast to obama. i hope and pray that people will look into the hearts and souls and see that rick santorum is the one who is telling us that he will get our country back. host: scott, ron paul supporter in wilmington, n.c., you are

next. caller: i just want to say that i believe ron paul is what we need because we are trillions in dollars -- trillions of dollars in debt. that's really the issue, the loss of lives. i think that money managers -- that money matters and is a big issue. when you have all these soldiers dying for reasons i do not understand -- i think we are provoking iran. i think newt gingrich's comments the other day were very negative towards iran. we've backed them up in a corner. we've got to get out of the wars. we owe trillions of dollars. people want health care, medicare, medicaid, and those programs. there's no way we will be able to afford them unless we stop spending these awful amounts of money overseas. host: ok. this is the headline on iran from the papers this morning in

"of baltimore -- in "the baltimore sun." we cover that hearing. we want to show you a back and force between senator snowe and clever. [video clip] >> iran has not made a decision to weapon as of this point. director clapper, do you agree with that? >> yes, but we certainly believe they are moving on that path. we do not believe they've made the decision to go ahead with a nuclear weapon. >> how will we decipher offs that they have integrated all of these components in a decision to web denies -- at which point? what will be our redline? >> a key indicator will be --

without going into sensitive areas here. a clear indicator would be in richmond of uranium to a 90% level -- be uranium enrichment to a 90% level. host: in other foreign affairs news, the u.n. urging to condemn the violence in syria and to endorse a plan for the president to step aside. we cover that, as well, with secretary of state hillary clinton. if you are interested, go to our website c-span.org. . you can watch it there. here is the politics page of "the washington times" this morning. below that is a story about president obama's small business

aid, proposing a multitude of tax cuts for small businesses to help spur the economy in that area. that is open " the washington times -- is "the washington times" this morning. president obama is headed to falls church, virginia today. we will have live coverage of that at 11:00 a.m., talking about jobs and the economy this morning. in other news, one caller brought up the financing of planned parenthood. "the new york times" is the only one that has this story this morning. it says --

host: that is "the new york times" with that story this morning. joe is a supporter of newt gingrich in sarasota, florida. we have about 10 minutes to get your thoughts. caller: yes, good morning. host: good morning.

you have got to turn the television down. i will come back to you. let's go to kevin, a ron paul supporter in new jersey. go ahead. caller: i just want to say to everybody out there, i love you. i love ron paul. he is a great person. he has a beautiful message. it is great being a ron paul supporter. ron paul is the voice of sanity crying in the wilderness, crying out to america. host: kevin, do you think he should run as a third-party candidate? caller: yes, i guess that's the only choice he has. nobody can hear him. i do not know why. we need to wake up. host: ok. those supporting newt gingrich -- mary in st. petersburg, florida. what do you think about his second place finish last night behind mitt romney? m not surell, i a

what to think of it. i want people realizing how much property and farming that the mormon church does in florida. they own all the sugar beet farmers. that was my comment. host: ok. dallas, texas. richard, supporting rick santorum. go ahead. caller: yes, i really believe that santorum is the best candidate. as we all know, money is the real issue. it is really who has the most money for the campaign. of course, obama has a treasure chest of money. i think romney, the way he is going right now, it looks like he is well on his way to the nomination. host: ok. a couple of dates for you on some congressional seats.

out of oregon, the special election to replace congressman david wu. democrats continued the party's nearly four-decade longer hold on the seat. the victor, seen here in this story. yesterday, we heard that congressman burton will not seek reelection in 2012. this is a story written in "the washington post" this morning. if you are interested in reading that, "the washington post" this morning on dan burton's decision not to run again. sarasota, florida. go ahead.

caller: i want to encourage fellow republicans out there to get behind newt gingrich. [inaudible] right now, a vote for santorum is a vote for romney. [inaudible] florida has broken all the rules. host: joe, i've got to apologize. you are breaking up there. it's difficult to hear you. maybe you can call back on a clearer line. an exclusive story from abc. mitt romney will begin receiving secret service protection. his campaign has been informed that it will start receiving secret service protection this week, campaign sources said. secret service protection has been given to the campaign not because of a specific threat, but because of an increase in a

crowd sizes, according to sources who refuse to be identified. abc with that story tomorrow. also, want to let you know what we plan to be covering later on this week on thursday. president obama will be at the national prayer breakfast at 8:00 eastern time on c-span2. fed chairman ben bernanke will be giving a state of the economy address before the house budget committee. we will have live coverage on c- span3 at 10:00 a.m. that's also on thursday. mitt romney supporter. good morning to you. caller: i love newt gingrich's ideas, but i think he needs to be in the background. i truly believe he is the face of the republican party. he would be such a drag on the entire ticket. we will lose the house and lose any popular -- any possibility

of taking the senate. i truly want him involved in any type of ideas or plans. mitt romney, you know, i love the guy. he is successful. everything he has done, he has succeeded. they say he is moderate, but he will have a very conservative legislator that will push them in the right direction. fortunately, we live in this very "american idol" type of society where you need someone good-looking and all to stand next to obama. that's why i'm supporting mitt romney. host: let me throw this tweet at you, caller. here it is. caller: no. the whole crash is about mortgage and lending standards.

the community reinvestment act, trying to blow in, and people who cannot afford housing -- trying to put low-income people and people who cannot afford housing -- host: in a general election match up, are you concerned at all that mitt romney's wealth becomes an issue? caller: in this country, why are we against somebody being successful? do you really think we'll ever vote for someone who has never succeeded at anything and is not a wealthy? obama is a millionaire. i do not get the whole argument. what is his name? warren buffett. i guarantee you his secretary is making six figures. the only way you're going to be paying more than 15% effective tax rate is if you are making six figures. host: here's an e-mail from a

viewer. host: gainesville, florida. judy, ron paul supporter. go ahead. caller: thank you for the opportunity. good morning. host: good morning. caller: to america, happy new year. i hope will be a happy new year to all. the only way to start this new year out with success is to put our votes for ron paul. i believe it's not about who is right and who is wrong in society, but it's about what is right in what is wrong. the issues and not the person.

i am not attacking the other candidates. i know they'll have their beliefs and values and we can appreciate it. that's what makes america great. however, they are lacking common-sense. common sense, for instance -- i know it has nothing to do with the topic, but on the hair dryer, it says do not use while sleeping. on, and says do not use on the body. host: ok, judy. we are learning some news from an e-mail from one of our viewers. this is also in the papers this morning, that the head of the iowa republican party has resigned his post there. a lot of iowa republicans blamed strawn.

this is an e-mail from an iowan. anthony, supporting gingrich. caller: good morning. please allow me to make my points. i think newt is very likable. that's very important in this election. newt is also a great debater. the differences between them -- mitt is trying to buy this election, not win it. mitt lost [inaudible] because he did not relate to people. mccain, who won, lost to obama because he did not perform well in debates. he could never overcome the george bush era. he could never debate to tell the american people -- to tell obama that he wanted to make changes, he should have run against george bush, not against mccain.

the attackers [inaudible] newt is attacking with the fact s. romney is attacking with rumors. that's a very big difference. also, it appears the mormon religion has paid a major role in the past. -- has played a major role in the past. i do not understand in florida, a mostly christian state, can vote for mostly romney. that is kind of weird. i do like ron paul. unfortunately, he is behind in votes. i do not think he will get enough in time. host: there is some discussion this morning about newt gingrich. in his speech that he made to supporters last night, he did not congratulate mitt romney on his win. there is this tweet going around this morning.

gingrich not calling the winner after the primaries in florida yesterday. more on the florida primary in "the new york times" this morning. it says negative ads -- this is according to "the new york times." host: "the new york times" also notes this. "there is an approaching lull in the campaign." host: supporting ron paul in

miami, florida. go ahead with your comments. caller: i am a college student. i really support ron paul. he sees the big picture more than anyone else. no one is questioning the federal reserve. when the cycle goes up and down -- no one really his attention to the issues. i feel like everyone just washes -- just to watch as for the post candidate who can debate well. the public needs to get educated on these issues. host: gainesville, florida. mitt romney supporter. why do you think he was able to win? caller: i think he has a much more cohesive campaign organization. his policies and how he puts everything together is much more distinct and -- more succint a much better for the

country. i do have a couple of things to say. between the four of them, i really -- gingrich is about the only one i could not support. romney, paul, and santorum all have a place in what needs to be brought back out in the united states. gingrich, he just makes up things as he goes along. a space colony? with the $1 trillion that we're spending too much right now, it's impossible. i would like to have ron paul the president for two years. we could really straighten things out. mitt romney, who is 8 senate and possibly house -- i think with mitt romney doing what he did with the u.s. in olympics -- i

think those three organizations could really turn things around for the good of the country. host: we will leave its there. mitt romney supporter in gainesville, florida. coming up, we will turn our attention to congress. in 45 minutes, senator jim demint will be joining us. next, we'll talk to ohio democrat tim ryan. we will be right back. ♪ ♪ >> half by 2016, according to the imf, the world's leading economy will be a communist

dictatorship. that is in five years. think about that. if the imf is right, the guy you let the next november will be the last president of the united states to preside over the world's leading economy. >> columnist and author mark steyn and he is a frequent guest host on rush limbaugh's radio show. next sunday, your chance to call, e-mail, and tweet with your questions on c-span2. >> as readers of literature, we have a responsibility. for those of you discover in the creation of literature, you have a responsibility. do you not? can you create anything that you want reflecting history or not and feel comfortable and the creation? or, must you pre-censor

yourself? >> this weekend, professor william foster on the n-word's place in american literature and culture. also, he changed the reading habits of americans but a look at the influence of time inc. founder henry luce. sunday, texas quickly becomes a leading oil town. american history tv, this weekend on c-span3. >> "washington journal" continues. host: congressman tim ryan, a member of the house budget committee and also the co-chair of the congressional manufacturing caucus. thank you for being here. we will get to manufacturing and the economy but i want to begin with the overall look of the economy released yesterday by

the congressional budget office on deficits. this is "the wall street journal" editorial page this morning. $5 trillion and change is what they say. host: what is your reaction? guest: these numbers are the result of economic policies and deregulation policies of wall street that allow the housing market to get out of control. we all know how the story ended in 2008. the stimulus bill and other things that have been done -- the reduction in revenue when you have to & and 15%

unemployment in major cities in the united states, the bad economy, a stimulus bill needed to plug that whole -- that hole -- add that up and that's where we are. to blame obama for all of this, it's just politics coming out of "the wall street journal" editorial. host: not surprisingly, they disagree with what you have to say. they say -- that's ayou know, complete distortion. i cannot believe a newspaper

like "the wall street journal" can credibly say things like that. to credibly say that the stimulus bill and the reduction in payroll taxes -- has it had as much of an effect as we wanted to have? of course not. i represent youngstown, ohio, one of the poorest cities in the entire country. it has plugged the hole. my opinion from day one is that the stimulus package was not enough. to get one republican vote, we had to do $360 million and tax cuts to get one republican vote in the senate. there was not enough money pumped into the economy. i know that's not a popular thing to say in some quarters, but it is economics. it's based on what happened in world war ii and what we needed to do. the fact that these numbers are parallel to what happened after the great depression, and you're talking about truman, it took a while for us for to get out of that. we have to continue these

policies. we have to continue to cut the payroll taxes for next year and allow the money to get back into the economy. we also need long-term systemic changes for the economy. i think president obama hit the nail on the head at the state of the union. community college. get kids back to work. more engineers. more investment in research and development. the sciences. nih, the national science foundation, a jump starting the economy with the new green revolution. this is the way out. we have start investing -- we have stopped investing in the united states in research, development, and education. host: we'll talk more about that. let me go back to "the wall street journal" because they talk about keynesian theory. they say --

host: in other words, would you be in favor of continuing the tax cuts that are in place in order to not damage the economy? guest: well, not for the high- end folks. the buffet rule and what the president's promoting with that should happen. folks are doing well. though with the current system is set up is inhumane. it is time we stop and just say it. it is inhumane was some families have to go through in the united states of america. to think somehow that warren buffett or some of these others cannot contribute a little bit more in order to help us pay down the deficit -- i have

republicans in my district who do not pay that close attention to the daily workings of congress who say, "why don't you just raise taxes on those who made more than $1 million per year?" i say, that's exactly what we're trying to do, but you have "the wall street journal" editorial page and the right wing caucus of the tea party caucus in the house. they're not even asking millionaires to pay more. when you have that big of a chasm between practical, responsible, reasonable approaches versus ideology, it becomes hard. host: that brings us to the manufacturing agenda that president obama laid out in the state of the union address. he talked about a minimum of amount. gluckman's takeerlichma on it.

"firms will find ways around it. the solution is not to create penalties for firms, but to fix the basic law in the first place." host: i do think we need complete tax reform and it needs to be done in a comprehensive way. clearly, there are no partners. president obama wants to sit down and do this, but he does not have any partners in congress. go back to the debt ceiling discussion where him and speaker head deals worked out for the long-term deficit reduction. this hard to say don't do or don't do that. if you only have the president of the united states as the only responsible adult in the room trying to get this stuff done, it becomes very difficult.

you have these folks who will jump then talk about the food stamp president. but, oh, god, we possibly could not do anything to raise revenues from the wealthiest folks in our country, not even the 1%. sometimes it is the .01 guest: it is probably not going to happen politically, but i think it's a good fit for the president to continue to push because it draws the line in the sand in makes republicans continue what they have been doing, and that is the fed wall street of the top 1%. i hate to say that, because we're all in this together. having this chasm between the wealthiest, middle-class, and port is not healthy for the democracy. at the end of the day i think it is important for voters to know who was asking for basic fairness, who was asking for

justice and responsibility and policing wall street and the regulatory market, into is not? host: and there were other items listed in the president's manufacturing agenda. and you listed some of them. and on the reality front, what can get through congress? guest: i would hope some of the manufacturing policies could get past. i think there is a consensus when the cameras are off that these things can get done. we have a china currency bill i have been pushing for a years now. before the democrats left office, speaker policy brought it to the floor. i think we had 370 boats. -- speaker pelosi brought it to the floor. the republicans now will not even bring it up for a vote. we're talking about 370 members

agreeing on something -- that is a good day. now they will not bring it up or vote because they're getting their strings polled by some of the multinationals. my point is, i think there is general concern for manufacturing in the united states and bring it back. i hope we can pick one or two of these things, maybe retrofitting for natural gas because of the shill boom in pennsylvania and ohio and others. that would be a good place to start. host: your on the air with tim ryan of ohio. caller: good morning. and i have more of an example of something i wanted to bring up. and 80-year-old woman on social security has to buy a pair of tweezers. she goes to the store. there is an american a pair for $1.49 that will last 30 years. then there is a cheaper pair

from china, 99 cents. i think most people understand why she buys the 99 cents a pair. suppose that against a hypothetical billionaire from new york who owns hotel around new york city, and he is buying furniture for his hotels. he flies the american flag outside of them. the bid from china comes in 20% lower than the u.s. manufacturer, and he buys the chinese furniture. is everything the bottom line? be an american, be a patriot. well, you know, we have lost of lot of manufacturing. i do not think there are many districts that have lost more than mine. i represent southeast ohio. halfway between cleveland and pittsburgh, the old steel belt. some of these we will not get

back here agai. the focus needs to be how could we make america competitive to make the high-and advanced manufacturing? and the advanced battery manufacturing the president talked about. if we're going to do that, we need a government that is marked. -- that is smart. we need to pump up national science foundation. pump up national institutes of health. make sure everyone gets their community college degree so we have the work force necessary to build these new jobs. how do we grow engineers in the united states and provide scholarships for people to go to the schools? by setting a vision. most of it will be in the field

of energy. if we do not wake up and smell the coffee, and think we will be able to continue doing what we have been doing, we will fall behind. china is pumping billions of dollars into alternative energy, and we're falling behind. host: does that mean you agree with the present on the keystone decision? guest: no, i think what he is doing is fine. but we do have opportunities in the united states. we only have 2 percent of the world oil. let's get off the idea we can still run on oil. we cannot. we keep going down this path further and further while china is investing billions of dollars in clean coil and things like -- clean coal and things like that. we have a generation of young americans who have no idea of what they will do when they get out of college or they're

already out of college and have $100 -- $100,000 in debt and have no clue. that is why i was inspired by the president's state of the union, because of all the candidates in the republican primary in what you hear from the president of the united states and our 20-year-old woman and are in debt, which one of these parties will lay out an agenda i can contribute might skills to? it is the president by far. -- i can contribute my skills to. >host: on that point, here is a headline -- i am not surprised. that is the world i live in every single day. going to these factories, dealing with trade adjustment assistance for the workers.

being with these workers as they go through bankruptcy. i have seen too many steel mills closed down in manufacturing facilities close down. it is not just the ones that close down, it is the entire supply chain. host: ohio home to 22,000 manufacturing companies. cincinnati ranked sixth. columbus 19 and the whole country. and correction of general purpose machinery. 16.74% of gross state product is generated by manufacturing. 80 billion annually. 10th in the nation based on percentage. given what i have just said, paint the picture of youngstown, ohio. what did it look like before, and what does it look like now? guest: you used to have steel mills that would be miles long. there are great old pictures of the town and being out because

there are thousands of workers getting out when the whistle blew. people live all around the steel mill, but in neighborhoods like the briar hill neighborhood were all the italian immigrants settled and walked down to work. it was a bustling place. it was dirty. the wives were sweeping the purchase price, sometimes three times per day because the senate would come out of the steel mill. it was a much different world. today youngstown is a tale of two cities. youngstown has a burgeoning tech community. "on trips and your magazine -- entrepreneur magazine" said it is in the top 10 places to start manufacturing. some of the top places in education software.

the fastest-growing tech companies. we have general motors invested millions of dollars, along with state incentives, into the plant. 4500 workers were selling the chevy cruze. we just have huge investments because of our location with the shale. we is seen huge investments of almost $1 billion for steel companies there. a french company just put $650 million into a steel mill between it youngstown and girard, ohio, and they make steel tubing for the oil and gas industry. so we have thousands of building trades working in youngstown. you go a few miles away and you cannot work. it is really a tale of two cities. my point is not like it so adamant about the investments in

science and help, it is because i am seeing what these investments lead to. they lead to job creation at the end of the day. when we pull back the investments businesses do not thrive, and we have no new economy. we're getting stopped talking about tweezers when we should be talking about high-and battery manufacturing and how that can be done in the united states. the places like youngstown, and the old steel belts, if we have a place that would specialize in converting buses and trucks over to natural gas, we're talking about relying on american energy right under our feet. tax incentives to make those new engines, trucks, and buses here in the united states. in places like jonestown and akron, that is exciting. -- places like youngstown and akron. >> patricia is a republican in minneapolis.

let's look at the unemployment rate nationally compared to ohio, as well as u.s. manufacturing jobs in that state. caller: the only one stop on talking about tweezers is your guest. let me show you what is fair and is not. it is not fair half the citizens in america do not pay any said that -- do not pay any taxes at all. and so do the people who are working and investing their money. he does not explain there is a difference between income tax and capital gains tax. i am so sick of hearing about warren buffett, too. if he wants to give the government money, go right ahead. guest: you know, there is a lot of people in my district who do pay taxes. they would trade places with you in a heartbeat. there are five people looking for everyone job available.

the jobs we have lost in ohio that are now being replaced by jobs, you are lucky if they pay half as much as the job you lost. there are a lot of americans -- i know it is convenient cool to save these people want to live on the dole, i know thousands of people that i have met in my 10- 12 years in congress that want a job. they do not want a handout. they want to go to work. they want a job with health care, benefits, and pensions. i am sick and tired of people trying to paint with a broad brush how the american middle- class or most americans do not want to work. and i cannot remember the last person i met to set i'm really comfortable, i love being on the public dole. are there people that do that? of course there are. there are people in this building right now who companies are not getting it maximize contributions from them as far

as their contribution to the work force, but to say most americans are like that i think is demeaning. we have to stop this. the right wing has been funding these groups trying to divide us. we saw it in ohio with collective bargaining. and who was white, who is black, who is gay, who is street? they found over the last 30 years millions of ways to divide us as americans. hear we are divided, not going anywhere. there are people that want to stop -- start to work and we need to stop demeaning them. host: then in warburg, tennessee. you are on the air. -- ben. caller: the gentleman there, do you all have the house and senate for two years, and all

you did is work on health care, and we had 30 million people out of work. instead of paying unemployment, why didn't we put them to work doing infrastructure? guest: i agree. i was one of the people sang the stimulus bill originally needed a lot more infrastructure spending in it, because the unemployment within the building trades was about 25%. infrastructure spending would have gone a lot of those people back to work. the stimulus bill does not have enough infrastructure spending. i agree with you. i do think we need to look at countries like germany and see what they do with a very active work force on how we can keep people in the work force so they do not lose skills, instead of getting unemployment benefits. keep them at work, maybe have a

government -- government partnership with some of these companies i think would probably be the best way to go. i agree with you. i think infrastructure spending is a great way to get a lot of people back to work. we're talking about government investments in things that need to be done, and roads and bridges all across the united states. hopefully high-speed rail sunday. it is a billion dollar deal to deal with the combined sewer, and akron does not have that kind of money. host: on the spending issue. with the cbo headlines in the paper this morning -- this is a tweet from joseph ramirez -- think at this point politically that's having

investments coming from the federal government would not even have a committee from the house of representatives. and i think the most reasonable economists would say in this kind of liquidity trap we're in, spend now to get us out, and then have long-term deficit spending. i think doing the buffet rule, getting money up front from the top 1%, and investing that money in infrastructure spending right now would be a good thing. the key is we have to deal with the long-term deficit issue. if you do not get revenues up, you will not have the revenues you need to have long-term deficit reduction. host: the cbo director may provide a more clarity. he will be before the house budget committee. live coverage on c-span3 this morning. dorothy is a democrat in kansas

city, missouri. caller: good morning, c-span. thank you, congressman, for trying to do the right thing. i am a democrat, and i am also a christian. and i have been here 66 years, and what i see going on is hurting whole country. most people do want to work. there will always be people who do not want to work. when i got out of high school i went to work and could not find a job. i was a very good student, but what i want to say is keep pressing on. clean energy is the way. oil is just a way of someone's pocket getting fat. >guest: in youngstown there used to be steel mills on each side of the road. you could quit your job and walk across the street or down the

road and get another one immediately. that is the real incentive to work, to know you will go and get a good-paying job. host: let's go to eddie, a republican come in georgia. caller: i was wondering if mr. ryan would please look up in the webster's dictionary the meaning of the word fair. it means that everyone gets treated equal. i wish you would look that up and quit using the word affair, because the rich pay most of the taxes in this country, and you know that. if you do not know it, you should find out about it. overdent obama has bent ovspent a trillion dollars this year. the numbers came out yesterday. the numbers look dismal. it looks like we will be in a slump until 2018.

you want to talk about high- speed rail? i do not want to ride on a train and smell everyone's b.o. i want to have my own car. oil will be around for at least 100 years before you get alternative energies that pay off. and host: oil around for 100 years before alternative energies pay off? guest: it is not our oil. we have 2% of the world's oil. if you want to rely on the saudis and middle eastern people for oil, god bless you. i do not think that a smart when we have the creativity to lead a green revolution. not to mention global warming. many of us think this could be a whole new industry for us. to save your corn to rely on y we are going to rely on

saudi's for royal for the next 100 years i do not think is smart. it is fair that people that have a sick child cannot get adequate health care because of this group of health care system we have? is it fair that someone sitting in youngstown had to feel the ramifications of a deregulated wall street? people who follow their self- interest write off a cliff into the entire economy down with it? that is not fair. fairness is regulating the market and making sure the bounty and blessings of america get spread across for everybody to a least have a little bit of fairness. host: stella wants to know this -- guest: part of it is it is not

geared for inflation. it gets out almost immediately once the gas taxes are put on. at the end of the day gets more and more expensive to pave roads into bridges and everything else because the economy. and i think we do need to figure out a better way to fund our infrastructure and get more money in the pot, because we have a lot of need, but at the end of the day most citizens support taxes on gasoline, because they know they will give it up the tank and go to the roads. you can always see the benefits of it. host: john, an independent. caller: a pleasure to hear you after the last few days of listening to the republican race to the bottom. are you one of the co-sponsors of the new get money out of politics bill that is circulating in congress? i understand there is 35 people

in that. secondly, why don't the democrats get together with the occupy wall street folks more vocally and talk with them and about them? there will be a spring and summer that will rock the united states. it would be who of you guys to get on their boats. they have a lot more voices than anyone has given them credit for. guest: i think that is an important point. yes i am for getting money out of politics. i think that is the number one corrupting factor -- cause of the problems down here. and getting the money out -- running every two years and raising millions and millions of dollars in your eye comes off the ball, which is legislation. occupy movement has been one of the most important movements in my lifetime in politics,

because they are at the right spot. there is a lot of big-money folks that have been spending a lot of money over the past 30 years saying the problems in washington, go to washington. washington is the problem, not the solution. at the end of the day there was a bunch of big money people saying stay away from wall street, take all your anger and frustration and blame washington. and finally the light bulb went off and there is a lot of people on wall street doing the occupied movement. i think that is important. host: tracy is a democrat in washington, d.c. caller: thank you for your efforts. just as the previous callers

said, to keep us from racing to the bottom. people are against their own needs only because of president obama. he has passed the will the ledbetter -- lilly ledbetter that have allowed people to get equal pay. these people against obama will get equal pay to their male counterparts. no one will be denied insurance. i work as a nurse, which is very important. only the very rich in the very poor are able to get adequate health care. these people who are against the president and his own policies are against their own basic health-care. i wish the democrat would go out there and specifically tell people these things, because they are not getting it. thank you very much. guest: great. host: a tweet --

there is plenty of responsibility to go around, but when you look at the fact that president bush was an office, the republicans controlled office for most of that time, and they completely deregulated wall street and anything else they could get their hands on. administrative agencies that were charged with overseeing wall street, and this was a basic strategy of conservative right-wing at think tanks and ideologists who say the regulate, defunded the government, let the private sector work no matter what happens, and that has been their philosophy. -- deregulate, defund the government.

the democrats are saying we do not need to much government, but we need to make smart investments in infrastructure and sciences and education to make sure everyone can afford it. there is plenty of blame to go around, but if you look at who was pushing this philosophy into has been for a long time, we had pretty stable markets until 1980, and we got into the savings and loan problems and the housing problems. we got this volatility in the markets because of this whole deregulation idea. and i think we need to get back to what served the country so well from post world war ii- 1980. making sure income disparity is not so huge that people go on the public dole because it does pay better than an actual job. there is blame to go around, but at the end of the day it is the right wing that has controlled the tax and trade policy in the

united states. host: if randy on the republican line. caller: we do not want to be forendent on the saudi's all of our oil. you do not want the pipeline either. that would be 20,000 immediate jobs, and over 100,000 jobs for truck drivers. and once you get all of these jobs, do you know how much tax all those people pay into the government? president obama and the labor relations board, they did not want going to come in there and the thousands of jobs. i hope the united states people listen to you.

president obama is so far over its head in his job, he has to be gone. i will take anybody. i will take another democrat over president obama. he is way over his head. host: the numbers have fluctuated on different studies i have seen about keystone, but at the end of the day, oil is not the answer. and oil is not the answer. and i am for jobs in the united states. and i do not think that is necessarily a bad thing, but i am talking about long-term. i think a gentleman like that, in many instances we see what we want to see. i saw president obama and senator brown and others say to the american auto industry -- saved the american auto industry. because of that we have plants in toledo in youngstown. auto workers making good money.

he put tariffs on chinese to be coming in, which led to the steel mill i mentioned earlier almost 1000 building trades working out there building the facility. another company located in brookfield, ohio, which is at 120, and i think we will add more. $20 an hour these jobs are. it may be convenient to pick one or two issues, but when you look at the whole of what he has done compared to the circus going on in the republican primaries right now, it is clear this is the man we need to lead us in the next four years. >> matthew is an independent in ohio. we're talking to tim ryan of ohio. go ahead. caller: to tell you the truth, i do not think there is very much to have said that is the truth. and ohio spending is explained.

-- is insane. guest: my talk of regulation was more about wall street offic. i am not sure what goes on from the state side of regulation. my view is wall street has been completely deregulated, and that led to everyone following self interest of the cliff, which affected a lot of places. places like that have been huge because of plots -- it lapse of responsibility on wall street. at the end of the day it has been a real problem. it is important to know we have a republican governor, republican house and senate. you are talking about the business environment in ohio. if you have a complaint, you

should not be levying it upon the democrats, because the democrats do not control anything in ohio right now. host: tim ryan, thank you for talking to our viewers. coming up, we continue our weekly series looking at a weekly magazine article. this week it is the january/february edition of " foreign magazine. " of next, jim demint, joins us talking about his new book. first, a news update. >> republican presidential candidate mitt romney in remarks earlier on nbc's today show said trading attacks with his rival actually helped his campaign, and that the exchange's help voters learned the truth. and after his decisive wins in yesterday's florida primary, the former massachusetts governor said the path ahead is looking very good. turning to the u.s. economy,

chrysler said revenue rose 31% to $55 billion last year, and for the first time since 1997 is reporting the annual net income. the company said it made $183 million last year, marking a huge turnaround in 2010. chrysler lost 652 million as a work to revamp the aging model lineup. president obama talks about the economy today. he is proposing a plan later on to allow eligible homeowners to refinance their homes at lower interest rates. hear the president's remarks after 1:00 eastern here on c- span radio. those are some of your latest headlines on c-span radio. >> with talk of possible legislation to improve the nation's cyber defenses, the former cia director deals with national awareness of cyber threats from aspen homeland security event. >> i have an alarming thought about this, which in some ways

the discussion of cyber mirrors the debate we used to have of terrorism back in the 1980's and 1990's. there was a great deal of difficulty coming to a national consensus about what to do about it, until we have 9/11, which then crystallized everything and we knew what to do. we have not had that kind of the bench in cyber yet. we imagine it. the attack on zappos and others, the only good thing that comes out of those, which is i think a few more and there will be growing public awareness. this is a serious vulnerability that i think will overcome the private sector reservations about working with the government on this. >> watch the rest of the discussion and more about homeland security online at the c-span video library c- span.org/videolibrary. host: we are back with senator jim demint, republican of south

carolina. following south carolina primary, florida boded and picked it from me. want to get your opinion on that. here is a headline this morning -- is mitt romney the tea party can it? -- candidate? guest: he has a lot of tea party support. he is the only candidates that has not spent a lot of his life in washington. and i see the conservatives divided among all of the candidates. whether it be mitt romney or newt gingrich, they need to see what is attractive about ron paul, rick santorum, and make sure we create a platform that will unite the party. host: will you endorse at some

point? guest: i do not have any plans to. it does not matter who was in the white house if we have the same senate we do now, we will not move the country away from this fiscal cliff. conservativethe senate funds, which is your pact. guest: the last cycle we were able to help candidates like thato rubio and iran paran paul some folks did not think should be a part of the senate. they're already making a difference. i think the new blood and fresh ideas is real important to the american party. i do not hesitate to say when we have the majority, we blew it. we have to rears the trust of the american people. of theeh trushe trust american people, we blew it.

host: let me go back to the presidential primary. guest: you find out how little we you have when you throw it behind the candidates. i found that out. the leverage i have is really more with senate candidates, because that is what i am. i found in this election the people who send $10.20 dollars to the senate conservative funds are very divided about who they think the president should be. as soon as i way into that, i will alienate 30% of the people or so that are supporting me, regardless of who i support. i think the best thing i can do for the next president is held eliminate conservative resorting -- conservative majority. >> guest: this idea that there is one t party, it is really crazy.

thousands of citizen groups that are united, mostly around fiscal issues. they are concerned about the spending, the debt, and growth of government that is impeding the growth of our economy. host: do you vote in the south carolina primary? guest: yes, i did. host: let me show you the front page of "politico" this morning -- are you going to support his reelection? guest: i committed to the republican conference last year that i would not get involved in the incumbent races. that is where i have my focus. i am not running candidates against our incumbents or not working for our incumbents in the primaries. the senator lugar represent the tea party? guest: i think that is up to the

people of indiana to decide. i do not think he can pigeonhole a tea party view. i think people will have to decide for themselves, and no one can speak for the tea party. i cannot speak for the tea party. host: let it show the viewers the front page of your book "now or never." just want to read from the first chapter for our viewers -- so let's go to the news yesterday from the congressional budget office about where we are headed with this nation's deficit. here is a column put together by kline.inezrah

guest: i do not know where they get those numbers, because i have watched on what obama care alone will be one trillion dollars. we do not need to put the blame here. the whole point of "now or never" is both parties are to blame. we can point fingers all we want, but the bottom line is not about party or ideology, our country on paper is bankrupt already. the only thing propping us of is the year wrote is in worse shape

and we're able to print money to buy our own debt, which we have been doing the past two years. i think that is really what inspired the tea party movement of the past few years. the fact that we cannot even agree in washington that we need to balance our budget sometime in the next 10 years. we have that vote before christmas, and practically every democrat in the house and senate voted against balancing the budget in the next 10 years. if we cannot have the shared goal, then we cannot have a reasonable debate -- reasonable debate over how to do it. the point of now or never is i am saying the politicians in washington, regardless of which party is in charge, will bankrupt our country if the american people do not getting gauge in the political process this year. if we stay on this track for more years, we will be worse off than greece. on paper we already have more

debt relative to the size of our economy in europe does. europe does not have a federal debt like we do. they have individual state debt. california is running out of money in march. most of the state pension plans are going bankrupt. we are still spending more this year in washington than we did last year. it is like we have a spending addiction here that debt will destroy our country. i am saying throw out the political labels. we're all americans now. it's about simple math. host: let me show you what the cbo director had to say yesterday. if you keep tax cuts in place. here is what he had to say. c-spa. the effects of spending, as well as trying to index the tax completion, as well as extending

the it other expiring tax provisions and other things that have been routinely extended, that set a policy together, extending them into 2013 at about $300 billion to the deficit in 2013. host: can this country afford to continue with tax cuts? guest: we cannot afford to continue with this tax code because it is killing jobs and making it very difficult to manufacture in this country, and we need to increase revenues to the government. we have done a lot of projections on a flat-rate tax code. mike pence and i have one that is about 18%. millions of jobs pull out of that. you can always say someone will pay more or someone will pay less taxes, but if we have a flat rate tax, then people will not be lost in a bad job forever. we can improve our opportunity for everyone. this convoluted tax rate we have

now, if we let it expire, we have been 10% rate. they benefited more relative to income size than those making more money. we need to get rid of the loopholes, subsidies. the crony capitalism where we are throwing money at some companies and not others. we need a flat, simple tax rate. host: let's get to phone calls for you. mitchell is a democrat and tennessee. you're on the air. go ahead. caller: how're you today? i of a couple of questions i would like to ask you. let me make a comment. it seems like the republican party has been infiltrated. you have grover norquist, and tea party and a couple of others i do not want to mention, and that did not understand how you guys can agree on anything we of the different schools coming your way? pool have the different

you have coming your way? guest: i am glad you made that point. hollywood, billionaires', give more democrats than we do. the tea party does not control us. the problem we have in washington now is the democrat party is pretty much controlled by those that are dependent on government and want more government power. that includes labor bosses, trial lawyers from environmentalists, but we do not have a problem in the republican party of being controlled by any particular group. we have had a problem in the past being consistent or foundation of limited government. we increase spending, earmarks. some of those things we have been able to stop, but we have problems now. the problems are not the groups are controlling us. the republican party is

supported by individuals and small businesses, and that is the group i am calling on to get more involved in this year's election. host: a tweet for you -- well, it has been more than 1000 days since we have had a budget in the congress. the senate will not present one. harry reid said it would be foolish to do that. the reason is when you have to lay out a budget, you show your priorities. you show how much money you are going to spend and where you're going to get it. they know that would reveal the intent to raise taxes significantly and raise spending. the necessary spending -- necessary thing to do is reduce spending. a lot of the constituents of the democrat party are government workers, union government workers. if we cut anything, even the waste and duplication that the gao has said we have, it does

not hurt and the american, other than maybe the constituency of the government workers working in the agency. we can reduce a lot of spending and duplication without hurting americans, but the democrats cannot do it. just like they cannot cross the environmental is on the keystone pipeline, which is common sense. wifi tankers coming from the middle east when the allies can send it to us through the pipeline? they seem to be controlled. those groups. host: one thing that is likely to come to the floor, extending the payroll tax holiday for the rest of the year. are you behind that? guest: temporary tax policies did not help our economy. all we're doing is allowing people to have an early withdrawal from our pension plan that is already broke. the irony is a few years ago weaver saying let's take 2

percent signed and save it in an account for workers, and democrats said that was risky. now they say let's take 2% and give it to people. it is hard to say now it is positioned as a tax cut. if we're going to do it, lets just do it permanently. the idea it will create jobs or anchorage and a lawyer to hire someone is really not true. host: so you are a no vote? guest: i have been a no vote. host: republican in florida. mark. caller: congressman, my question for you is on economics, and you have not predicted anything in the past and that is happening today. you were for the bailout is. guest: no, i was not. we're spending

trillions of dollars overseas. my question is, the united states is occupying countries around the world and pointing guns at people around the world. i am wondering, how many people around the world the united states needs to kill before americans will accept their constitution and freedom and enforce the constitution on the government of the united states? guest: sounds like a ron paul supporter, and i certainly appreciate the thinking. we need to rethink what we're doing with the military. as far as i am concerned, i have been voting to cut spending in washington for a long time, and i have not supported a bailout. i lead the effort to get rid of parochial earmarks. i am sure i have had some bad boats, but you cannot and hard on me -- bad votes, b ubut you cannot pin tarp on me.

the purpose of the federal government is to defend our country. spending money on the military and defending our country are not necessarily the same thing. i think the first priority of the government has to be our american forces are second to none. i think we have to look at the plant around the world and make sure all that is necessary, because the fact is we cannot afford it anymore. and hosthost: if we ask you woro give you questions last night. here is one that wants to know when you are going to endorse ron paul? guest: i do not agree with everything he says, but i do not think the republican party can be a majority party unless we increase a lot of libertarian ideas. ron paul is right about and out of control federal reserve and the need to get control over monetary policy. everything americans work for is represented in the dollar. we are about to destroy it, because congress is not doing

their due diligence when it comes to the federal reserve. host: we will go to syracuse, new york next. caller: good morning. i just got back from south carolina. i can be found on bobnash.net. we are in the convenience stores business. we are born to be ready to open. it is very rare. we filed to go public back in 2010 as a self offering. basically that means we took a filing with our own team, our own team, and we really do not need the wall street underwriter until the very end, which is coming up in the next few months. let me give you an example. this is how much america is hurting. we have written 15 million shares of our private company. right now we just passed 200 million shares written. those are a lot of small-

business owners around the country that have found out about our offerings with the convenience store gas station to go to the small-cap exchange. what is exciting is these business owners who can put in $500 for a few thousand dollars to get stock at our private price, which is now 25 cents per private share -- we started at 2 cents per share. here is what i wanted to ask you. you as a republican, because i know you are in american first. every politician should wake up and say i am an american first regardless of the party. we need to make going public for small and medium companies easier, because there is so much growth. millions of dollars of job creation and capital when a company can go from the private sector to public on wall street. in the capital starts to flow. guest: it is a good question that gets at a bigger issue. i talk about it in "now or

never." what we saw, we saw with dodd- frank is making it harder for small and medium-sized companies to go public. that means things are being controlled in washington and on wall street. i do not think it is right. america is exceptional and still is because we are bottom-up country. everything we do, like these bills that concentrate power make it harder for someone like you to work directly with those who want to get a share in your business. the tension here is those that want a centralized power, versus those that want to decentralize it. host: c-span democrat tweets --

guest: any temporary tax cut -- i voted against the two-year tax extension of the bush tax cuts, because our economy is not a temporary economy. i was in business most of my life. i will not hire someone for some incentive you give me for a year. $60,000 per year job -- $30,000 a year cost about $35,000. i will not hire someone for $1,000 incentive that i might keep forever. this idea of temporary gimmicks, and that is really all we of done, we need to have a permanent fix-rate tax code. i voted against the extension of the bush tax cuts. i voted against the temporary extension of the payroll tax cut, because we are not helping the people we're claiming to help. we are throwing money out there, but it is not good economic policy. host: on the air with senator

jim demint of south carolina. caller: think you for taking my call. i am very concerned about government. of course you should consider the budget and deficit, but is how we attack the problem initially. i think the measuring stick of how we attack all these problems should have to do with the original principles of democracy to protect the people. graduated income tax? yes. family of four living on $60,000 with the same tax rate as a family of four with $500,000 annual income? at the same tax rate is not appropriate for our country. they can afford to pay more, that is why it is graduated. the other thing is about the measuring stick of what to do

next based on the principles of democracy, which is to protect the people and their rights. i also believe ceos can make all the money they want. if you are innovative, and we need capitalism. if you are innovative and have good things to build and sell, sell them, but do not be dishonest about your products. it has to be open, honest, advertising and marketing. guest: some very good points. you bring up the tax rate, and obviously people need to pay their fair share. i am not sure americans want to pay their fair share, because we have half of americans who pay no federal income tax, and that is because of deductions we put in place to make it easier when you are at lower-income levels. i have certainly been at those levels in my life, too. we do not want to punish

success. the problem we have with the middle class and the economy in debt are not because of successful people. if we think we can punish them or take more from warren buffett, i do not care if you take all the money from him, it will not solve our problem. what we need is a flat-rate tax code. if we want to protect americans, we can develop those programs. we need safety nets, and a lot of those need to be at the state level. what we're doing now with the convoluted tax code is we're punishing success, pushing capital offshore, in manufacturing is moving away, because we tax capital twice. we are making a big deal of romney only paying 15%, but the fact is he already paid of the corporate level of 35%. we have to be fair at how we look at this. i am not trying to protect the rich, because most of my

friends are not. host: on this issue, the tax issue, an e-mail from claudia -- georgiin georgia guest: well, i cannot tell you the number. there have been dozens. i have been 13 years in the house and senate, i am not aware of any democrat proposal to reform the tax code. there have been dozens of proposals -- that their tax eliminates all income taxes and business taxes and goes to a sales tax of 23%. i get introduced several versions of a flat tax. paul ryan has introduced in his road map to the future a two- level taxes. it is a good idea. keep the same tax code we have now or go to two-level, which is 2 percent signed up to 100,000,

and above that is 25%. -- which is 2% up to 100,000, and above that is 25,005%. i can tell you, despite what the president said at state of the union, they will not sit down and work with us on a flat, a simple tax rate, because thousands of lobbyists are in washington to manipulate the tax code. both parties have been guilty, and the president propose complicating the tax code was special manufacturing tax credits in his speech. we cannot keep doing that. we're trying to buy votes. the tax code should give us revenue to fund the government. if we want to help business, we can send them a check. we do not need a complicated tax code to do it. host: you have a chapter in your book, "now or never", compromise

for the democrats. guest: it is hard to say that, but what i've seen in the past few years is the democrat party has become the party of those that want more from the government and depend on the government. they want the concentration of power. the labor bosses have to have it here. they do not want an education to be handled by the state's, because the teachers' union cannot control it as well. every time we end up compromising, we end up borrowing and spending more. you saw were bush tried to compromise with the child left behind or medicare part b. the democrat party, as far as i am concerned with, if you have to balance the budget and begin to reduce spending and size of the government, we cannot work with them. we have to beat them. an example i give in the book and all over the country, these coaches for the super bowl are not telling their team to go out and work with the other guys and compromise. the reason is the other team is

there to be you and have a goal that is opposite of your spirit of the democrat party wants to concentrate on the capital across the street. the republican party needs to insist on the original model host: it is about party politics. guest: it's not about party at all. it's about, do we want the principles of american exceptionalism, or do we want concentrated power in washington? we are trying to pass a stock act is weak. it's because there's a concentration of power here. we need to move the power out of washington. host: the stock act as police states that members of congress and their staff cannot be part -- act specifically states that members of congress and their staff cannot be part of insider trading. it is already on the books.

guest: if you leave people here for 20 years, they will figure out a way to benefit from being here. host: 11 here for 14. guest: i am limiting my term. i have not benefited from being here financially. i can tell you that. it makes me feel like i'm not very smart when i see people become millionaires. i don't know how they do it. host: are you limiting yourself? guest: yes, i'm limiting myself to six years in the house and 12 years in the senate. host: buddy wants to respond to what you said about democrats not putting a budget on the floor. in other words, there is a majority in the senate. over 50. guest: it takes 51 votes to pass a budget. host: cincinnati, ohio. glenn, a republican. guest: -- caller: i've read a couple

iowsaki books. they say because of the government's need to print money as needed, inflation will hit -- 2016. it will get even worse and we will be forced to go back to gold, silver, and precious metals, because nobody except -- nobody accepts u.s. currency. i think ron paul pushes the gold standard, too. host: senator? guest: i hope we can make it to 2016. the rate we're going, if the euro collapses this year, some domino's might start to fall that we cannot control. the federal reserve has bought the majority of our debt. we have got to stop that. part of that is a congressional

problem. we put an additional mandate on the federal reserve that they have to push full employment. it has given them a conflict of interest, in effect, that makes it harder to maintain good monetary policy. there are some things we can fix. i have looked at ways we can move towards the gold standard. we are looking at a lot of variations of how we can practically get to some standard that backs up our dollar. we need to look at it. the only thing that process up now is trust. we have to borrow about $130 billion every month just to keep the lights on at the capitol. we cannot sustain that very long. i would encourage folks to roll up our sleeves and figure out how we can downsize the federal government and how we can balance the budget. if everyone here is required to

balance the budget, like a lot of states are, then we have to compromise. we can work together. states have to do it. at the end of the year, you have to get a balanced budget. if we cannot agree, then there's no real debate. there's no reason to cut. we have a lot of challenges. we can solve the problem. that's what i've tried to write about. i'm not sure we can make it to 2016. host: let's go to bill, in independent in south carolina of. go ahead. go ahead. caller: mr. demint, it's good to talk to. we are right next to myrtle beach here. they say, in our area, its 10% unemployment. the other night and on the news they had a little spot about bringing in these people to take

away our jobs in the myrtle beach area. i call the chamber of commerce to ask them why. with so many of us laid off, why would you bring in two thousand workers? they come in here and take our jobs. eventually, some of these kids that take a job end up with no jobs themselves at the end of the summer. i called the chamber of commerce and mr. mark lazarus of the city of myrtle beach and red bean of the chamber of commerce said it was your idea -- and brad dean of the chamber of commerce said it was your idea. guest: that was not my idea and i do not know where they got it. i am pro-immigration. we need to focus on the workers that we need. we need to limit those who are coming in here. you are right. some of them, and end up without

jobs. i will have to talk to those folks in myrtle beach. certainly, that's not my idea. host: front page of "role call" newspaper this morning -- of "roll call" this morning. guest: i disagree. the reason we are $16 trillion in debt is because you've had 534 congressmen and senators believing their primary job is to take home the bacon. at the expense of our country, we have the film parochial interests, trying to take money home. people are still trying to do

that. it makes no sense. our oath of office is not to our state. our oath of office is to fill the constitutional role, which is limited government. if all of us are trying to stash the money to help the state near from, you cannot do that when you are this far in debt. we need to keep earmarks of the table. congress is responsible for spending the money, but we can direct how the executive branch does it. it should not be directed back to my home state. if we are going to get money from my home state, like what pass at the end of the year, it passed because it had something in it for the majority of congressmen and senators. this is crazy when we are this much in debt. looking at a parochial interest s makes no sense. our state has as much need as any say in the country, but we have to solve the fiscal problem at the national level. host: the senate could vote this skill andenator mccain sch

toomey to make current moratorium on your marks permanent -- on earmarks permanent. guest: i would be surprised if they allowed it to have a vote. host: if they cannot, what's your role? how do you continue to push for the moratorium? guest: the next cycle, i will be working to defeat anyone asking for earmarks. host: but not your republican colleagues? guest: i'll change my policy next time. we cannot have democrats and republicans who want to direct money to their interests. host: you would change your policy for 2014? guest: i would consider it. host: 1 not 2012? guest: we are not considering earmarks this time.

we have limited it. we are certainly not focusing our spending on how much we can divide up the pot. we have improved things a little bit. pat toomey is right and i would love to see a vote on that. i think it will show you where all the congressmen and senators stand. i think they would be embarrassed to vote against it. it might actually pass. host: you made reference earlier to your pact that you have to raise money to help tea party candidates running against democrats. can you give us a number -- how much you plan to raise and how much you plan to spend? guest: most people are using tea party to try to denigrate what we are doing now, because the name has been vilified. i've been working for conservative candidates for a long time. tea party is one grass-roots network that helps to support that. the last cycle, we raised over

$9 million for senate conservatives.com. the average contribution is $45. this is not a superpac that raises lots of money. rubio, toomey, johnson are now in the senate and i consider them the leaders right now in pushing good policy. if we can elect five or six more like that, we will not only have a majority, but we will have what i consider to be a conservative majority that may help lower our country away from the cliff. host: can you give us a money figure? guest: i would love to do better than that. $10 million or $15 million to and with the presidential race and people giving to some of the different things, we really do not know. we are ahead of last cycle now in our fund-raising. again, small contributors. we have four candidates running for senate. they are great candidates.

cruz, we could really use him here. host: your other targets? guest: mark newman in wisconsin. host: nancy is next. she is a republican in alaska. thank you for waiting. caller: thank you. i am small business owner and i do not know what to do with my business because the way obama is running the country. the other thing is, why is he locking up the keystone pipeline when so many people cannot afford to get to work if they have a job because the oil is fluctuating? alaska in the united states has more oil than saudi arabia. the gentleman on before does not know what he's talking about. we need to develop our resources and quit putting people in a bind. host: senator? guest: i have to agree with what nancy is saying. i was a small businessman most of my life. i do not know that my business could survive this environment. certainly, a big part of the

economy is how much people have to spend now on gasoline. it takes away money that can be spent on other things. the president, despite what he said in the state of the union, appears to of done almost everything he can to stifle energy development here at home. that's why we need a big change in 2012. host: back to our discussions on regulations. he tweets in this. guest: it could be part of it, but i do not think that was the real cause. the real cause, when you concentrate political power, you end up concentrating economic power. we could not have had wall street without the huge debts in the federal reserve and wall street buying and selling that. we could have not had wall street without fannie mae and freddie mac selling trillions in subprime loans, securitized in those, and wall street sold them all over the world. we created the concentration of

economic power. it could not have happened unless we were doing what we did in washington. regulations on wall street are fine, but we have to realize the root cause. some of it goes back to some of the regulatory changes. that just facilitated it. the real cause came back to fannie mae, freddie mac, and the federal reserve. host: charles, a democrat in arkansas. go ahead, charles. caller: first of all, a couple of quick points. first, the bush tax cuts are clearly responsible for our debt, which we have been bringing down. another point i would like to make, as percentage of income, before paid quite a bit in taxes. they spend 100% of their income. more often than not, the rich clearly do not. any economist will tell you the money exchanging hands for

goods, services, etc. -- that's the mark of a strong economy, not being sheltered into bank accounts in the cayman islands. host: i will have the senator response. we are running out of time. guest: he makes some good points. we do have too many loopholes. we just built on that over the years. it takes a whole slew of accountants to figure that out. with local and state taxes, the poor and up spending most of their money -- poor end up spending most of their money. we do need to improve the tax code. we do need to go back to the beginning of the bush administration. when he pushed his tax cuts, revenue to the federal government increase. we also increased spending exponentially. we have not chipped away at our national debt at all. the yearly deficit has decreased slightly. when obama came in, it was about half of $1 trillion and he said

he would cut that in half. instead, we traveled it. we are not making any progress. i'm not blaming democrats or just obama. everybody is to blame. everybody should agree that our deficit problem, if we do not balance our budget, we will bankrupt our country. klein has this toa said. -- this to say. "then they continue to estimate changes to those bills."

guest: absolutely false. it will not take long to refute that. obamacare will be over $1 trillion when it is over. dodd-frank is costing our country billions. it mounts up. to suggest that he is not adding to the deficit at record levels is just plain false. host: one last phone call for you here. potomac, maryland. go ahead >> caller: yes, i'm calling to say -- isn't it true our jobs have gone overseas because congress authorized giving tax breaks to people to take the jobs overseas?

our policies are causing billionaires in china and our people here are going into debt and poverty. host: senator? guest: our policies in washington are causing companies to go overseas. our tax code makes it difficult to manufacture in this country, because there's a built-in cost of taxes when we export, but not when we import. our regulations are onerous and expensive. our litigation system makes it a high-risk country to do business in. there are a lot of reasons companies are going overseas to produce. it's not cheap labor. manufacturing now, labor costs, are small. we can fix that. it is that politics. you make a good point. congress is much more to blame

than successful people. successful people are not sending jobs overseas. it is that political policies. host: the book is "now or never: saving america from economic collapse." senator jim demint,. next, we look at recent magazine articles. this is the 90th anniversary of "foreign affairs" magazine. "clash of ideas" is their story here. we will be right back after this news update from c-span radio. >> more from republican presidential candidate mitt romney in remarks earlier on cnn. he said his campaign is about what he calls the 90% to 95% of americans who are struggling, and is not concerned about the very poor and there is a safety net there. he added, "i'm not concerned about the very rich. they are doing just fine."

stock futures are up on the news that private-sector employment rose by 170,000 in january, but that's less than the forecast of 185,000. dow futures are up. nasdaq is up 100. more on the economy this morning when doug elmendorf, the director of the congressional budget office, testified before a house budget committee. yesterday, he said the federal budget deficit will exceed $1 trillion in 2012 for the fourth consecutive year. hear his testimony live at 10:00 a.m. eastern time on c-span radio and watch on c-span3. those are some of the latest headlines on c-span radio. >> by 2016, according to the imf, the world's leading economy will be a communist dictatorship. that's in five years. think about that. if the imf is right, the guy you elect next november will be the last president of the united

states to reside over the world's leading economy. >> his latest is a "the new york times" best seller. he also writes "the happy warrior" column. he is also a frequent guest on the rush limbaugh show. live at noon eastern on booktv. >> "washington journal" continues. >> we are back this morning with gideon rose, "foreign affairs" editor. we are talking about the magazine celebrating its 90th anniversary. on the cover, "the clash of ideas." you went through your archives to trace the evolution of the modern order. what did you find out? guest: when we were trying to figure out how to celebrate our birthday, we have all this material in our archives that deserved a new hearing.

more importantly doing -- been doing a greatest hits issue, we decided that a lot of the material was directly relevant to the kinds of discussion people are having today. can capitalism succeed in a globalized world? is it possible to spread the benefits of cabalism to everybody? is it possible for democratic systems to compete against authoritative systems? we traced the debate of these questions. what we realized, somewhat to our surprise, not only were these questions debated in the past, but they were largely answered. essentially, and the first half of the 20th century -- some of the glory days of our magazine went ever started -- a lot of the ideological debates we're having today were had and full- blown form. democracy, capitalism, the -- capitalism and the

teller his own. what we realized was that in the 1930's, 1940's, and 1950's, a new model emerged that has been constant ever since. we decided that the current debates are a little silly. although there are real problems today, they are not what people think. the problems are not agree about what to do. we know, actually, what to do. you need to combine an open political system, democratic political system, with some kind of mixed economy that has capitalist economic drivers, but some kind of economic regulation and modulation in order to decrease volatility. as someone recently said, spread the wealth. that's the basic model that we can up with after the turmoil of the interwar years.

after various kinds of communist systems or planned economies crashed and burned and after various times of authoritarian systems crashed and burned. the question now is how you make that model work in the 21st century. we put together a bunch of historical pieces showing where this model came from, along with some new pieces, talking about where we go forward. we are pleased with it. we're delighted it has had a lot of impact so far. host: let me go back to what you wrote at the beginning. "today's troubles are real enough, but they relate more to policies then to principles." host: let's just talk about today's headlines. let me just show you "the wall street journal." "germany insist on greek budget

controls." then you have the situation in syria with the un debate. the debate over afghanistan and staying there. why are these policy discussions? guest: the ones in greece our policy -- greece are policy discussions. in syria, their major political discussions. we know the answer. if you try to do unfree political systems of any kind, it does not work in the long run. it can work for a little bit. it can work in the short term, because command systems can get things done. they can make the trains run on time. over any substantial period of time, command economies do not work and, and political systems evolve into tyranny. we've also seen the pure laissez-faire capitalism not work. we saw this in the great depression. that's why you have the emergence of the welfare state.

that's why you had the emergence of government controls on the economy. you have the emergence of things like social security and central bank intervention. people who want to go back to pure free-market capitalism are kind of silly. we can debate how much government should intervene. we can debate the degree to which this particular regulation or this particular central intervention is worthwhile or necessary, but the idea -- the general concept that you should have a free market system with private economic actors as a driving force with some kind of government control or modulation, tempering of that system, that's pretty much agreed upon. in greece, what you are really talking about is -- can you actually manage to balance the budget? can you figure out a way to pay and tax with some sort of balance question of how do you relate the greek economy to the larger european economy? that's something the technocrats could actually do.

the problem is selling it politically. in syria and eventually in china, you'll have something different. the debates really are -- what is the right way to organize your politics in your economy? i think we already know which way those things are going to go, as we saw with the arab spring. what we saw with the arabs bring was, and political systems, sclerotic, authoritarian -- they do not have a future in the 21st century. you will see down the road, that's true in the economic sphere as well. the question is, how do you make off the liberal democratic basically capitalist but somewhat government-modulated economic model that we've had in the west ever since the 1950's- on, work to benefit everybody overall? that is the challenge right now. host: "foreign affairs" celebrating 90 years with their cover story, "about the modern

world." eric is a democrat in atlanta, georgia. you are first with gideon rose, "foreign affairs" editor. go ahead. caller: thank you for c-span. i want to make two points and get you to respond. the reason why the united states manipulates the dollar is because china has preset prices that they buy gas from other countries. it fluctuates. china probably pays $20 per gallon for gas. in the world market is paying $100 per barrel. the bush tax cuts -- medicare part d, no child left behind, the solyndra loan program, these two wars -- these are causing these deficits every year. tell me, how can you pay your

bills when you still have the same bills coming in and no more revenues? host: i will leave it there. gideon rose, his comments about china and the currency situation there. where is china and our modern world? guest: the rise of china is an absolutely fascinating thing. it is probably the single biggest part of our time, if you add to that the rise of india and the emerging powers were generally. why is it the biggest story of our time? because it means that growth and development is occurring around the world in places where it sort of has not happened before and on a scale that it had not happened before. you had more people, hundreds of millions of people, raised out of poverty in china. you've had 100-plus million people raise out of poverty in india thanks to economic reforms and liberalization there. what will happen eventually, you will see political liberalization down the road as

the society opens up and as they get to hire developmental levels. this is basically a very good thing. we tend to essentially be worried about it. while there is cause for worry, if you are human being and you want to have more happiness around the world, less poverty, less tyranny, this is a good thing. as an american, however, it does represent a challenge. it means that we have economic competitors. the way capitalism works -- everybody trades with everybody else and contracts with everybody else. in the long run, that produces benefits that can be spread by everybody. it's not a zero sum game. it's a positive sum gain. you have economic growth. the question will be, and that competition, are we going to do relatively well? can we do better than we have been? the fact is, the rise of china, india, and brazil is forcing us to essentially get our game back

and to perform much better than we have been. i think what the caller said is somewhat true. that is, the chinese have done well partly through incredible amounts of work and partly through very wise policies and partly through quick short-term policies that are not particularly fair. our problem is we are faced with dealing with that challenge. we need to reduce our stupid policies and adopt smart ones. we do not have the freedom of action to make mistakes anymore. because we're now in global competition with others, we do not have the luxury of doing stupid things. we do not have the luxury of being lazy. we do not have the luxury of having stupid washington policies of various kinds that put unnecessary restrictions on the economy or unnecessary costs on our taxation system.

essentially, the rise of china and other powers in asia and elsewhere, i think it's a good thing for the world. i think it can be a good thing for the united states, too. we benefit from it in a lot of ways. it does mean that we have to up our game. unfortunately, in washington these days, there's a lot of blame and finger-pointing and not a lot of constructive action. host: here is american hero on twitter. guest: yes, but one might think about what capitalism is, -- but when we think about what capitalism is, we used to have something closer to a relatively pure capitalist system. that is, markets with a very limited government, and very non intrusive stake. what you found was that was a very dynamic system, but it also

caused a lot of volatility, and because a lot of inequality. what you saw in the great depression was that in a mass democracy in which everybody has 1/3vote, you cannot accept of the country unemployed. the public cannot accept that. what was developed was a kind of moderated capitalism. what emerged from the depression in the west was not the same as what had been there before. you will recall the new deal in the u.s. in europe, they call it something else. there's no specific name for the model. some people call it social democracy. some people call it kristin democracy. some people call it the end of ideology. we decided we needed some kind of government intervention to keep the goose laying the golden eggs and distribute the gold to everybody on the farm. that essentially is the world we

are living in now. i think the debates over whether capitalism can survive are kind of silly. there's no question it's the most successful, the most productive, the most dynamic system that the world has ever seen for producing wealth and prosperity. the challenge is how to read the upsides of capitalism while keeping the cost to society and to people who do not fare very well as low as possible. host: frank, a republican in virginia beach. you are next. caller: you keep going back to the great depression and saying that was a fair cost of the depression. that could not be further from the truth. the lack of transparency has been around for a long time. incredible corruption -- nothing has changed. new world order. there is no new world order.

its old world corruption. many of these banks and been around for 150 years. they are allowed to do things that real businesses cannot. if we just enforce the laws to protect the economy and business, then we would not have the big upswings and downswings in the volatility. the problem is, there's nobody with decency and ability that will enforce the laws to make sure the system is not being r obbed. host: ok, frank. gideon rose? guest: i do not disagree all that much. after every crisis and after every major crisis, you usually have some sort of set of reforms for that follow, because there's a sense that during the boom

years, during the bubble, things got out of hand. we let stuff so that should not have been let go and we need to crack down to at least prevent the last set of mistakes from going forward. that was true after the depression. it is certainly true now in the sense that we have seen that the unregulated are very lightly regulated activity in the financial sector -- unregulated or very lightly regulated activity in the financial sector played into the stability and readgreed of many of us. the combination was -- a house of cards came crashing down and screwed everybody. one thing we should be figuring out now is figuring out what sorts of regulations would have prevented that, could have prevented that, without crushing the possibility of future growth. unfortunately, the attitudes on some parts of the aisle these days that all regulation is terrible is making that

impossible. even something as mild as dodd- frank gets attacked viciously when, in fact, it's probably just a sensible way of trying to figure out how not to have the access -- the excess. there are consequences of their actions that can be very negative to the economy overall. host: larry, a democrat in fort worth, texas. caller: you talked about the budget and everything. the legalization of marijuana would cut down our budget because all the money that the government spends on drug prevention could go to drug treatment. it would empty both the prisons. it would give people hope for the drug use is that they do have free if they would legalize marijuana for medical use,

because it has been proven that marijuana does help people. host: larry, we will leave it there. let me throw in this tweet. guest: this is absolutely the central question of contemporary politics, i think. i am very grateful for the tweet. we put the ideas of the magazine into an e-book, which has the full length of the articles. one of the things we have in the issue is by frank, whose famous book sketched out some of the positive elements of the model that i was talking about. he has a new article in this issue called "the future of history." his concern is that the current system is working to erode the middle class, rather than to revitalize the middle class, and

that will actually pose political problems down the road, because help the successful economies depend on a vibrant middle class. the question of how you actually help the middle class and revived it is absolutely crucial. there are two kinds of problems. one is, the middle class in america and europe is being attacked by or undercut by rising middle-classes elsewhere. there are a lot of middle-class people now, 700 million people in the developing world who used to be poor, are now in the middle class and they are competing with our middle-class. that's a real challenge. it's also true that we have a set of policies in the government and the last 30 years or so that has essentially worked to skew the system towards the rich and undercut the middle class. we talked about romney's taxes a

lot in the last couple of weeks. you could make a case for pro- growth taxation policies. you could make a case for why you want to have a tax code that benefits certain types of income more than others. the fact is, romney, who is making more than the vast majority of americans, they date tax rate that is vastly lower than a lot of other americans -- americans, paid a tax rate that is vastly lower than a lot of other americans. the question is, how do we restructure our economy and our political system and educational system in order to increase opportunity, social mobility, and broad middle class revival? that is a big challenge. it will require more education. it will require better budgetary policies. it will require, frankly, entitlement reform, which the democrats do not want to talk about. we need to figure out how to

spur innovation, better health care at cheaper cost, better education, and a greater labor market flexibility. all that together. that will be, frankly, the biggest challenge that the nation has in the next several years, i think. host: victor on the line for democrats in michigan. good morning. caller: good morning. i think mr. rose is right on. everything he said i think is right on. you talk about laissez-faire capitalism with no regulation leading to the depression. we enacted the glass-steagall act was separated the investment banks from the commercial banks. when phil gramm took that firewall down, that's when we began to have our problems with the banking system. if we enacted glass-steagall again, that would at least help solve some of the banking problems. it is not all just corruption. these are deliberate attempts by

certain individuals to make the rich richer and the poor poorer. that is not class warfare. that's an actual fact. host: go ahead, gideon rose. guest: there's a certain amount of truth to that. i'm not the world's greatest expert on financial reforms and which should be done and how much glass-steagall's loss contributed to the policies. i am not entirely sure. it is certainly true that we need policies directed towards the overall economy. let's just say that the democrats bear their share of the blame, as well. there are very kind -- there are various entitlements that are very costly. long-term debt is an issue for economic competitiveness, as well to and what we really need is to make sure or finding a way of making sure that government policy is not captured by various types of special interests, or really

sub-national interest. it's not just the 1% and the lead, but there are broad middle class entitlements that cost a lot and do not benefit the population as a whole. the challenge is finding a way for washington to serve the nation and the economy overall, rather than parts of that in giving special benefits to other groups. unfortunately, our political system is geared towards rewarding that. with superpacs, people can contribute lots of money candidates and money spend money. how we get around that, i do not know. host: bob, a republican in south carolina. go ahead, bob. caller: good morning. i have a few points. i hope i can make them without getting cut off. first of all, the depression. everyone knows the stock market crashed and fdr save the country -- fdr saved the

country. this guy kind of alluded to that fact. actually, if world war ii would not have come along, i do not think we would have ever gotten out of the depression. we were in just as bad a shape in the late 1930's until world war ii got started. host: let me have gideon rose, and on that. certainlyis true that the major pool -- -- major pull out of the depression was world war ii and the kinsey and push. more importantly, they say the the system over all because they showed the government was trying to help. one of the problems with hoover was not that his policies did not work, but the public felt the government was doing nothing. in the long run, that is politically unsustainable. gan.: portland, ore

caller: good morning. i would like to know what you think about all these businesses being run democratically and how much of an answer could that be to all the problems that we are facing? with that level the playing field? guest: you know, it's an interesting question. thanks to various types of technology and information systems, we are having much flatter organizations of all kinds these days. there are many businesses that are run in a more cooperative way. there are also more economic democracies in certain respects. at the end of the day, i do not think that will necessarily generate a lot more profit. it may spread the province of an individual company more broadly than a hierarchical system. at the end of the day, the company has to make money.

i've been more successful businesses and more more success businesses is the answer. then we can figure out how to distribute the proceeds from the kind of positive economic activity. host: back to where twitter -- to our twitter page here. what is the most productive system? guest: state run capitalism. first of all, china is doing that now by embracing certain capitalist elements in its policies. it tried command economies. it tried communism. it did not work. you saw tyranny and poverty. after mao, chinese leaders have

realized they had gone down this horrible group. they switched course and started to embrace aspects of private sector activity. now they are in a hybrid form it is not communists. it's not purely capitalist. it has worked well. they've had some wise policies to make their economy grow. the real challenge for the chinese is -- it is relatively easy to start off a race, like the first stage of a rocket. to get to higher levels of development, to keep that going over time, you need to have a much freer, more open system that cannot be controlled from the top. i think the chinese model is going to run into problems in years to come. we have already seen it starts to slow down just a little bit. also, they have demographic issues. the problem with our model, we are competing with them, among other reasons. also, we are not making our models as efficient as possible.

i do not mean to be pollyannas and say everything is fine. it is not. governments around the world need to be wiser. publics need to be more understanding about the real cost. we cannot afford the ideological salilliness. host: gideon rose, "foreign affairs" editor, talking about their cover story for the 90th anniversary of the magazine, "the clash of ideas." what is the modern order and where is it headed? guest: the modern order is a combination of liberal democratic politics -- that is absolutely critical. liberal democratic politics. capitalist, economics, and an

economy. we know that non-capitalist systems, attempts to plan an economy, attempts to direct them from the top-down, do not work. all the things that e entrepreneurs say is basically correct. adam smith was right about that. that is the basic driver. you need to have liberal democratic politics, capitalist economics, and the third element is some kind of government modulation and regulation. that keeps the volatility in check and spreads the benefits. capitalist economic drivers with a government modulation. essentially, it makes sure the private sector economic activity

benefits not just a few rich people, but the society as a whole. that is what makes it democratically acceptable. this kind of system of liberal democratic politics with a mixed economy. that, combining with and cooperating with lots of other things like that abroad. mutually supporting liberal democracies. europe is not in competition with us. europe and we are basically part of the same system. china is partly in competition and partly in cooperation. a place like india, essentially, could be brought into this system. mutually-supporting liberal democratic capitalist systems with. mixed. that is the modern order. that's what we discovered after the depression and after the interwar years and after the world wars. that is what we put in place in the west in the 1950's and waiters and it is spreading to the rest of the world now. the challenge is, can we make that work and incorporate others

successfully? i am optimistic. the greatest generation stuff is a bit overblown. the fact is, if you look back at the challenges that our society, our country, our grandparents and great grandparents faced in the first half of the 20th century, they make what we have now pale in comparison. we've done this before. host: where is this modern order spreading to? what countries? guest: it is spreading to india. it is spreading to brazil. it is spreading around the world. for example, the arab spring is getting some of the political component. in china, some of the economic components. in some of the rising countries -- south africa, brazil, india -- you see the whole package. that is why you are seeing growth. that is why you are seeing prosperity. that's what a lot of people

around the globe are much more hopeful than we are. we tend to be focused on the downside. there are a lot more downside right now. a lot of the world is doing pretty well. it has never been freer, richer, and more peaceful. host: chuck, an independent in st. augustine, florida. good morning, chuck. caller: good morning. we talk about capitalism and taking risks. what it comes down to -- we have socializedye have. -- socialized banks. we take away social security. i do not get it. what's going on? guest: perhaps the most successful model in the world today is the scandinavian or nordic model in which there is a

combination of a lot of entrepreneurialism and a lot of capitalistic activities, but a lot of government control and security, as well. they have a combination of flexibility and security. the idea is that you try to make people as secure as possible by giving them health care, education, and so force. -- and so forth. you try to make the economy as flexible as possible entrepreneur so you can possibles and -- as flexible as possible. the challenge for the united states is how to protect certain types of things so you do not worry about losing your pension. you do not worry about losing your health care. you do not have those things depending on your job. at the same time, businesses do not have to worry about a massive set of bureaucratic regulations that prevent them from operating.

they can hire and lay off people as necessary. if we can somehow manage to have a flexible economy with security for the individuals in the economy, that is the key. they have managed to do a little bit in northern europe. the challenge of how you bring that to a place like the united states is a much tougher challenge. it is an interesting one and one we will be trying to cover a little bit in "foreign affairs" down the road. host: kevin, a republican in philadelphia. go. caller: i want to comment on your characterization of laissez-faire economics during the great depression. we see the creation of the federal reserve. the huge credit boom, similar to 2008 -- some of the government protections you are referring

to -- actually, the federal reserve system -- your characterization is not entirely accurate. host: gideon rose? guest: before we had a federal reserve, we have some private- sector economic factors playing that role, because they felt it was necessary to stave off crises. before that, you did not it. . 19th century cabalism was very dynamic, but very volatile -- 19th century capitalism was very dynamic, very volatile. i think that most people today would not want to live in a 19th century liberal system. i personally have a lot of sympathy for what's called classical liberalism. i think its emphasis on individual liberty is a good

thing. i think liberalism is the core of the modern problem in a lot of respects. what we learned in the first half of the 20th century, is that liberalism by itself is not enough. it is not enough to give ordinary people, the mass of the public, the protection they feel they need in order to deal with the challenges of modern life. some kind of government role, helping to protect individuals in the economy from the ravages of unregulated market activity, some type of collective action to provide for public good -- these are necessary things. the story that we tell in our book is the rise of a moderated form of liberalism.

no longer a libertarianism, but has elements of other things, as well. i encourage people to take a look at that and let me know what you think. host: on our democratic line, dave in alexandria. guest: -- caller: i think it was lenin or marks that once said -- or marx that said the last stage of capitalism would be imperialism. i think that's where we are now. throughout history, the roman empire could not rule the world. other nations have failed because they spend all their wealth on trying to rule the world. i believe what ron paul says about having the strong military here and guarding us and getting out of policing the world -- when you start adding up what has been the net gain on all the money we spend on wars?

guest: i disagree with the extreme version of that case, but i think there are legitimate issues to be discussed here. certainly, having some kind of prudent and cost-effective foreign and national security policy is absolutely necessary. paul has raised a lot of interesting and legitimate issues that too often get sort of swept under the rug because they are unconventional. i have a little more sympathy for his foreign policy than his monetary policy suggestions. i think they at least deserve to be discussed. they deserve discussion. the republican establishment, and try to keep his foreign- policy views far away and tar them as a wacky extremism -- is unfortunate. the real issue is not so much should we be an empire or not. i really do not think the united states is an empire or is seen

as an empire these days. we are spending a lot of money on our foreign policy and national security policy. the question of where that fits into not just our global role, but also our economic challenges at home and our budgetary challenges -- we're obviously in a restricted budgetary environment -- is a real issue. i personally think that we have gotten a lot out the fire world role. the development i talked about before, what others have called the rise of the rest -- one of the key reasons that has happened is because we have provided security for the world. if we had been an entire, we've been a pretty benign one and others have basically accepted it. thing.been a good i think that a growing and very sophisticated military establishment and a broad, active foreign policy is a good thing. i personally believe that.

on the other hand, any individual war or set of policies or defense budget can and should be questioned. rabin a lot of problems in the last decade in terms of -- there have been a lot of unwise choices in the last decade. how to run our benevolent global situation in as prudent and cost-effective way. i think that can do that. i think the obama administration is starting to try to do that a little bit. it will be interesting to see what happens with the next administration, whoever may be running it. host: gideon rose, the house is about to come in any moment. i will try to get in this tweet. "what happens in other countries where the few rich have all the money?" guest: wt