ty patriots." also will talk about this week's visit by the chinese vice president. ♪ host: the deal has been reached on the payroll tax issue by the leaders of the conference committee and a vote may occur this week in congress. in other news, china's vice president, xi jinping continues his u.s. tour. he is on his way to california after meeting with members of congress yesterday. a new gallup poll is out on americans' views on china. we want to hear from you this morning on "washington journal." your views on china -- friend or

foe? you can also contact us electronically via e-mail or twitter. finally, you can continue the conversation on china on our facebook page, facebook.com /cspan. no hyphen in c-span in that case. this is "politico's" article.

host: it also goes on to say "the three u.s. senators, the gop senators, have not signed off on this bill." the have not signed off yet on the payroll tax cut issue. that is from "politico." also from "politico," is this

story from tuesday. host: those are the headlines out of this new poll. we want to hear your view, whether or not you think china is a friend or foe. we begin with a democrat in texas. brenda you are on the air. caller: good morning peter.

thank you so much for taking my call. china, because it is a communist nation and i could never be friends with someone who treats their people the way that they do. the problem with china -- is not a problem with china -- my problem with china, i should say, it's the corporate greed of america that created china. i want people to keep that in mind. they are not a friend or foe. greed of corporate america created china. host: susan is a republican in fort myers, florida. good morning. caller: good morning. my comment is, it is doing more good than harm. if it actually understood what benefits we have to draw from china -- i am just taken aback

that people call in here and have no understanding of economics, micro, macro, and they do not understand that we get more goods. they were trying to say the ipad -- basically a 90% of that money comes back here. 10% stays in china. they do not want you to quit buying ipads. the american people are absolutely ridiculous when it comes to understanding anything about economics. we are getting more than what we are giving in the chinese relationship. just a few percentage points, but those are a big few percentage points. host: here is a little bit more from the gallup poll, you can see on your screen. overall, 13% of u.s. adults see china as an ally. 63% of opinion leaders see china

as a friendly, but not an ally. by the way, gallup survey 250 opinion leaders. that is how the group was assembled. bonn to joe -- on to joe. friend or foe? caller: china is a foe of the united states. look at their economy compared to our economy. we build china. the u.s. corporations built china, at the same time selling out the united states of america. we need to rectify this

situation. there is no advantage to try not over the united states as far as beneficial to us. host: thank you for calling in this morning. american and opinion leaders divide on views of china. favorable, u.s. adults, 42%. u.s. opinion leaders, 49%. cal is a republican in tennessee. caller: good morning. china reminds me of a so-called friend who is lacking on the back of one hand and taking your pocket with the other. the problem i have with china right now is our trade deficits are huge. right now, like in the american goods that are sent to china china automatically charges us 22% to import that. we only charge 2% or 3%. we need to raise our taxes on chinese goods that come in here.

we need to make it easier for companies to come back here and build stuff in the united states. china is not a friend. i do not see it. i really do not. host: "cq" is reporting that the "house delays plans to vote on a highway bill." host: that is from "cq" today. vice-president biden has been playing host to vice-president

xi jinping china and he spoke about u.s. competition economically. [video clip] >> the united states and china will continue to compete and as americans, we welcome competition. it is part of our dna. it propels our citizens to rise to the challenge. cooperation, as you and i have spoken about, can only be mutually beneficial if the game is fair. that is why in the meetings we've had this morning, essentially a continuation of the multiple meetings we had in your country in august. we spent a great deal of time discussing the areas of our greatest concern, including the need to re was the response the global economy, to protect intellectual property rights and trade secrets, to address china's undervalued exchange

rate, to level the competitive playing field, to prevent the forced transfer of technology, and to continue a constructive dialogue on policies that would benefit our citizens and the world. host: we're getting several facebook comments on this question this morning. here are a couple very quickly. bill says foe. mark says benefactor. omara says china is a friend because it keeps us on our toes . host: peg, democrat phoenix. good morning. caller: good morning c-span.

i thought it was interesting about one year ago, china put together a super committee of intellectuals, economists, and so long to come up with what kind of future problems china is facing. the number one priority they were going to face was the growing income disparity between their lowest peasant class, who are pre rarely their manufacture -- who are primarily their manufacturing workers and the middle and upper classes. other priorities they had was corruption. they were going to have to address corruption and the growing lack of social trust that chinese people had. in the way they were going to deal with their number one priority of the income disparity -- they were going to raise chinese people's sense of

nationalism. they were going to begin talking about their founding fathers and they're proud history. they were going to get people to rally around the flag. they felt that this would help all press the peasant class -- help supproppress the peasant class. host: draw this to a conclusion. caller: it certainly sounds familiar to me. i see chinese people dealing with many of the same issues that are frustrating us today. in a sense, we have a lot of similarities that we are facing today, as well. it will be interesting to see how both countries deal with that. host: thank you for calling in this morning. mitt romney has an op-ed in "the

wall street journal."

host: he concludes his op ed with this.

host: again, mitt romney this morning writing in "the wall street journal" about china. betty is an independent from wisconsin. friend or foe? caller: i am from california. i am here going to school. the friendliness is part of business for china. i do not think they really care about doing business with us. they do business with us with a smile. the thing is like, i really believe they are not an ally.

we really need to watch our backs. we really need to pay them back their money so we can get them out of our kitchen. [laughter] host: betty, given what you have said, are your concerns human rights concerns, economic concerns, or both? caller: yes. i have a really bad feeling about the china country. collet a woman's intuition -- call it a women's intuition. america needs to watch your backs and keep our guard up at all times because of the fact that they sell us a lot of their products and a lot of them are not in good, perfect shape. it really, really bugs me.

host: what are you studying? caller: i am studying business. i know that when you want to sell something, if you want to sell in lemon car, which sometimes we do in our own countries to other people -- you really have to put on a big show in order to get rid of that limits of a car. once that person purchases that lemon car you got rid of it. it is their problem and you can put them in court forever and ever. host: there. we will. back to the gallup call. please tell me if you have a favorable or unfavorable view of china. the younger americans are more

favorable to china. 54% favorable. 36% for those who are 59-plus. xi jinping talked about trade with the u.s. [video clip] >> including removing various restrictions on exports to china. in particular, easing controls on civilian high-tech exports to china as soon as possible. this will help bonds china-u.s. trade, stimulate economic growth, and job creation in the united states, and improve the balance of u.s. international payments. host: according to the senses, total trade between the u.s. and china -- according to the census total trade between the

u.s. and china was $503 billion. you can see that the trade deficit for us is about $295 billion. bob is a republican in florida. caller: hi. i watched yesterday when you had a couple of republicans and democrats on your show talking about china and said that china is having a lot of problems and we should relax and the companies will be coming home soon here. in the future, things will get better. as americans we do not sit on our hands waiting for someone else to fall on their face. that is not what we do. do i think we can compete with china? yes, i do. can we become a major manufacturer like we used to be?

yes, we can. the way we do that is simple. zero capital gains tax. 13% corporate tax. 13% would be the lowest tax rate, lower than canada, which is 16%, i believe. that would cost billions of dollars in investment money from around the world. we have 100% expense in on new equipment. that will cause us to become the most modern, most technically advanced well equipped manufacturer. this also goes for farming. if you are going to draw unemployment, you have to go into a trade program with a business. when you come out, you now have a skill. you can work. we will no longer pay someone 99

weeks to do nothing. host: thank you for calling in this morning. again, from the census bureau. u.s. trade with china. china is number one for imports. we get 18% of our imports from china. china is no. 3 for exports. 7% of all u.s. exports go to china. washington, d.c. anthony on the line for democrats. good morning. caller: good morning. yes, i would like to say i have a favorable opinion of china. as a black man, i look through history and we see how discrimination -- even if you could afford a cadillac back in the days, you were guided towards the chevrolet dealer. they did not want you to buy their product.

china has made products affordable for everyone. we have to look at -- may be the human rights is not right over there. we have discrimination over here. why is unemployment so high in the black community? there used to be help-wanted signs in the window. people used to say, we need help, but we do not want to hire you. china is friendly to everybody. i have a favorable opinion of china. host: this is from the "detroit free press" this morning.

host: next call is dana from michigan on the line for independents. caller: iowa like to make your viewers aware of a book written in 2002. written by edward term like. it talks about china selling silkworm missiles to iran, which are probably the same ones they are threatening us with in the streets of -- the strait of hormuz. in the book, they quote some military leaders that left the country and made a statement that china has every intention of rolling over the united states in the next decade. anyway that's my comment.

i think everybody should read the book and get a feel for china. we created a symbiotic relationship that will be awfully hard to get away from now. host: from "unthe hill" newspaper, "actress apologizes for controversial hoekstra super bowl ad." host: that is from "the hill"

newspaper and this is also from "the hill." host: this is from "politico" this morning. "gop eases its culture of 'no.'"

host: back to your calls on whether china is a friend or foe. the next call comes from stafford, new jersey. martin, republican line. caller: good morning peter. i have watched your career since you began with c-span. i've admired your growth as an interviewer and a moderator. that florida lady is still alive and well. you were the only moderator that ever picked up on her. she called in at least four or five times a month. with regard to china, we have americans manufacturing entrepreneurs, like ralph lauren or calvin klein.

china sends us millions of apparel goods every year. with friends like that, china does not need enemies. thank you very much. host: take care. thank you for calling in. the top u.s. exports to china in 2010. here they are. from the u.s. to china. power generation equipment agricultural products, aircraft and spacecraft and an optics and medical equipment at about $5 billion. back to the gallup poll. how old do you view u.s.-china relations? u.s. adults over all 71% say they are very important somewhat important. opinion leaders, very important , somewhat important, 85%. craig, springfield missouri

independent mind. caller: their cultural history is very china centric. they are very pragmatic. as long as we are good business partners meaning they can make a profit from us, they will be good business partners. when we fail to be good business partners, they will say so long america. that's how they have survived. host: this is from matthew, who tweets in this comment. this comment -- north carolina joyce on the line for democrats. are you with us? last chance for joyce. we're going to move on to new

orleans. frank, a republican line. caller: how are you doing? host: i am good. how are you? caller: china is not our friend. to many americans are being fooled. we should not even be borrowing money from foreign countries. no money that is tax money or money spent by the government should ever be used to buy things from overseas. it should be stuff manufactured in america. we are selling ourselves down the river. we are losing the skills. if you look at the list of stuff china is buying from us, it is all the machinery and space technology. host: the next call comes from liz in plano, texas on the line for independents.

liz, you are on the "washington journal." friend or foe? caller: yes, i would say friend or foe depending on what is in china's best interest, in the same way the united states should beat circling our best interests. somewhere in between, there will be a balanced. it just needs to be bounced a little more in our direction say a few billion dollars more in our direction. i have a problem with the intellectual property. i have a problem with the trade imbalance in its entirety and i believe the president is on the right track with china. keep your friends' clothes and your enemies closer. there is that. why does someone because they are looking not for their national interest, have to be our enemy? we can be our own worst enemy. i cannot wait to hear barney

frank's opinion. host: we'll ask him. we invited him on to talk about the budget, but we'll ask him this, as well. this is from the u.s.-china business council. top u.s. imports from china in 2010. one, electrical machinery and equipment. d.w. in seattle e-mails in.

this is how "usa today" played xi jinping's visit yesterday with members of congress. of course, he met with the president yesterday and he met with the old family he stayed with in iowa in 1985. "the wall street journal"." in "financial times" this morning, here is their lead editorial. world xi jinping's -- "xi jinping's u.s. coming out party. " it saysit says --

"he also complained about growing instances of intellectual property theft."

host: that is "the financial times" this morning. brian is in raleigh n.c., a democrat. caller: i thought it was not a fair choice, friend or foe. they are a competitive nation. we are going to be competing with them. they have not been on our radar for the last couple decades. it will be direct competition on many levels. economically, i think, as americans, we have a choice as to who is the winners and losers as far as our consumption goes. we can choose to look at labels, which are provided freely on almost all the goods that are sold in our country. we can say "do i really need this right now? am i willing to spend a little more money on a better made good

or on a good that was made in our country?" i think we have given away a lot of our choice, even though it's right in front of us. we have information on all of our goods. i do not think all of us use that information. many complain when most of our money is flowing in that direction. on one other note on china on our foreign policy, we tend to be more interested in our military engagements. that's what we hear about the most in the news. these other efforts in places we do not talk about very much like in africa, where there are lots of natural resources. there's an opportunity to build up those nations and build a good relationships with them and encourage raw material trade. i guess, in the future, labor trade.

i know we have tried. i know china is trying more. they are getting to more of these locations in these areas where we have been kind of neglectful as far as our relationships with those nations. it host: thank you for calling in. we will have to leave it there. "the washington post" this morning. you probably have her that robert zoelick is stepping down in june. "the washington post" says either hillary clinton or lawrence summers are being considered for that position. this is also from "the washington post." if you want to read more of that, that is in "the washington

post" this morning. this is in "the new york times ." "the new york times" lead editorial this morning is on the congressional payroll tax to deal. "a rare deal," they say.

host: that is the lead editorial this morning in "the new york times." also in "the new york times" is this article, lead political article. host: fulton, mississippi. james on the line for republicans. caller: foe. host: why? caller: because they are working with obama.

[inaudible] he tried to take the united states down. that is what he was raised to do. that is what he is going to do. host: here are some more facebook comments. host: larry is a democrat in georgia. caller: good morning c-span. thank you for taking my call. i just wanted to make a comment -- china, we appreciate them moaning us money but they are not the largest lender of money to us. the social security trust fund is considerably more than china.

i just wanted to make that comment. also about the payroll tax, i think it's good that it is being lowered some. the balance sheet is so great in the social security trust fund. i do not think there's any need to build it up anymore. there are other issues that are more important. i appreciate you taking my call this morning. host: "the washington post" -- host: that is in "the washington post" this morning.

time for a film were calls before representative barney frank comes out to join us. this comes from jonathan in vermont. go ahead. caller: my point is -- you know i do not feel that china is a people foe. they may be military-wise. china is just doing for their people what we should be doing in this country. of course, the corporate -- the corporations of the country are taking our jobs there. they're putting the chinese people to work so they can get it done real cheap and sell it back to us. when i am talking to a lot of friends and stuff, we get talking about the way our country is headed. i always say we finally come full circle.

what i mean by that, when we first started our country we left the role of the british to get away from the cost of living here in america and became a free country. what has happened is, now we've gone full circle, where the corporations are the kings now. the people in congress are the nobles. the nobles especially the republican party side of it, are really trying to chop down the people so they can pay the nobles to get everything they want. at the same time, force us to appoint where we can no longer make a good living. the biggest part is -- if they can bring all the unions and force us to have to work for minimum wage then the

corporations will continue to make lots of money on the backs of the american people. then they will be happy. everybody has to remember it was ronald reagan, the first president that signed the favored nation with china. and then said that the american people have to wait for the rich to let their money trickle-down. host: all right, that was jonathan from vermont. finally, marcus is a democrat in charlotte, n.c. caller: how are you doing? i would like to comment on some of your past comments from your callers. one of them -- we have the choice to buy exactly what we want. you know, it is a problem with the imports -- you know, just

not buying this stuff from china. another person made a comment about the zeroing out in the corporate tax and lowering of taxes to 13%. that would probably lose 15 million jobs, at least at the state and local government. that is not a good thing. for us, no matter how low we go we would probably be at 13% for a year. a lot of these nations can lower there's much lower because they do not have unions and things like that, or they do not have standards of living like we do. host: will have to leave your comment there. very quickly, have you seen any activity in charlotte getting ready for the democratic convention there? caller: i have seen a lot of stuff on the news and

everything. we are ready. host: thank you for calling in this morning. representative barney frank is next and he will be taking your calls, as well, about the budget and financial legislation, etc. we will also have the founders of the tea party on after him. they have a new book out. we will be right back with congressman frank. ♪ >> booktv i slive saturday from the savannah book festival at 9:30 eastern with tom clavin and then followed by karl marlantes.

add 1:30 p.m. eastern the changing israeli-palestinian conflict. a look at "who is afraid of post-blackness." part of a three-day president's day weekend. >> hi. i am head of c-span lcv. the purpose is to collect programming from outside of washington, d.c. how do we do it? we staff each of these with one person with a small video camera and a laptop video editor. that is what we're doing with the lcv's. why we want to do this? to get outside of washington, d.c. and collect programming.

we will descend on each city with all three vehicles. one will do history programming. the other one will do bo oktv programs. the other does community relations events. the last thing that is important to know is all this not only goes on the air, but a get archived on our website the c- span video library. we are also doing extensive social media in these cities. you will see us on facebook. you will see our cable partners on facebook. you will see foursquare which is really location-based. you will see us on twitter, as well. it's a chance to get out our message on air and on line and threw social media, as well. we want to get outside of washington, d.c. we really want to make a commitment to getting inside the beltway to produce programming for all the c-span networks. >> what are local content vehicles next up in shreveport

louisiana of the first weekend in march on c-span2. >> in 1966, julian bond was prevented from taking his seat due to his stance against the vietnam war. his appeal went to the supreme court. >> i was sitting in the court just behind the bar where the lawyers in front of me. i was sitting next to my lawyers partner. the attorney general of georgia was making an argument that georgia had a right to throw me out because i said things that were treasonous and judicious. i think it was judge white who said to him, "is this all you have?" you can all the way up here and

this is all you have. i said to him, "we are winning aren't we?" discover more online at the c- span video library. search and share from over 25 years of c-span programming at c-span.org/videolibrary. >> "washington journal" continues. host: we are pleased to welcome back to the "washington journal" representative barney frank, ranking member on the financial services committee and currently in his 16th term. congressman, you have been through 32 years of budget presentations. what is wrong with the system or what is right with the system? guest: what is wrong, fundamentally, frankly is an in decision on the part of the voters. a lot of people make the mistake that washington encumbers

operates on its own. public opinion has a major impact on what we do. in this case, i think the public has a question it has to resolve. if you look at public opinion polls, if you listen to what we are told as members of congress in a variety of ways -- the public wants a certain level of government activity, but it wants to provide a level of revenue that's not enough for that activity. the main reason we have a budget deficit is that there's a greater public demand for services than there is a willingness to pay the taxes. part of that is people thinking that there is waste and inefficiency that is more easily resolved. yes, there's waste in any complicated human activity. it's not easy to get it all out. i go back to david stockman. he wrote a book. here is the problem. when i was campaigning for congress, i thought all these liberal programs, medicare,

housing for the elderly etc., that they were just things that the washington politicians were forcing on people. i found out that they are popular. that is the dilemma. what i hope we will see in the 2012 election is a resolution on the part of the public. i do think the public is beginning to understand that. there's one very important thing in the president's budget that's contentious. for the first time in a long time, president obama is trying to reduce military spending. not enough, by my goal. he is challenging this notion that america has to spend more and more every year on the military even when the threats may have diminished. the republicans are against that. that's the great paradox. if you decide you cannot raise any more taxes and you want to get the deficit down -- both of which the one publicans feel strongly about and one of which that i agree with -- and you want to decrease military

spending, there's no way you can't avoid making cuts in medicare, social security, and a whole lot of other things of the public does not want. that's an issue the public has to resolve. host: is it possible to get beyond this annual budgeting? guest: you're asking me questions that assume this is a mechanical or procedural problem. it is a problem with democracy. i understand -- the poor voters. look how badly served they are. they always were. if you walk into a hotel and you approach the hotel and the guy to park your car banged it up and the guy who took your backs dragged it along the sidewalk and they cannot find your resolutionreservation. you would say, who hired these people? the voters hired us. i understand there were difficulties. there were other things to do. the media does not always help

with that. this is not a procedural problem. there was a fundamental mismatch between what the public says it wants to pay for and what the public demands of government. i do think the public is seeing that. you want to make substantial cuts in medicare or raise taxes on wealthy people. they say raise taxes. i believe that the very conservative republican faction that now has control of that party in the congress is out of sync with people. people were angry at us, but they were not enamored of this very, very conservative dismantle the government agenda. we will not know that for sure until the next congressional faughelection. host: "politico" this morning.

it goes on to say that this congress is now a lame duck. guest: that is discouraging. i hope he is not correct. we do have two things that will have been if nothing happens. that is, if there's no legislation, there will be the sequestration. defense will be cut, along with other factors. all of the bush tax cuts will expire. the position i support and others is, in the first place most of the bush tax cuts should be continued. tax cuts for the people making $250,000 should not be. i hope the democrats will put that forward. mainly, the senator is saying he represented republican the party is you either continue the tax cuts for the richest in the country, the lower rates or you let taxes go up for everybody.

i do not think that for the public is. similarly, he is one of the once -- there is a wing of the republican party that says there's two things we have to do. we have to cut spending, but we have to spend more on afghanistan. we have to spend more on nuclear weapons to prepare for a war with the soviet union we started 22 years ago. then we will be voting on that. by the way when unemployment benefits run out -- we are about to pass a bill, the republicans recognize the political reality and will help us pass a bill that will continue unemployment benefits for a while. i think that's much too bleak a prediction. it also has to get back to the voters. there is this myth that the only listen to big money. look what happened with the question of intellectual property. i was more supportive of legislation to go after privacy than many others.

that was defeated, that legislation, by the voters. by the people who were told by internet providers, i think somewhat, that this legislation was going to threaten the ability of the internet. they wrote to members of congress and the killed it. i think the senator is much too pessimistic. the other thing is this. another possibility is, because some of these decisions could be tough -- we will see what happens in the november elections. congress does important things in lame duck sessions often. the republicans voted in the house to impeach president clinton in a lame duck session in 1998. the republican leadership still had to vote for it under newt gingrich. if nothing happens until the election, there's a very good chance that in the post-election period, you will see some resolution on some of these issues. host: representative frank

what's working in terms of the dodd-frank legislation. what would you change about it? guest: i would have merged the securities and exchange commission and the commodities futures exchange commission. they are very similar -- overlapping duties. the sec was set up to monitor the stock market. the commodities futures trading commission deals with futures, which used to be primarily for agriculture. not so much anymore. people -- in the people distrust over the sec. that one cannot have been done. i would have weakened of those provisions that said -- i would have changed the world but said the consumer bureau could not take over its new powers and other unregulated entities, most of which do a good job, but some of which abuse. i would have given the power to deal with those abuses, whether or not there was a confirmed

appointee. i think, at the time, the senate put that language in there and had not anticipated republicans would shut down confirmation. i think the regulation of derivatives is working well. there is a very interesting article in "the new york times" speculated about how protected new york insist -- how american institutions are well protected. on paper they are well protected because they have derivative instruments that protect them in case of default, but they noted unfortunately some of those protections come from same institutions that might be in trouble. then they said in a phrase that made me feel very proud, if the financial reform legislation had been fully implemented, we would not have that problem because the derivative instruments that were being used to protect them in case of default would have

come with capital requirements and margins and would have worked well. i think the defense department just put out a very good statement about the role the consumer bureau is playing to protect members of the military. we a 18-year-old 20people away from home for the first time, and they are being preyed upon by people who want them to do things and financial service. then we have elizabeth warren that said the bureau for the protection of active-duty service people come in the head of that, holly pretoria'etreus is doing very well in that. host: what will you miss the most when you retire at the end of this session? guest: the chance to affect public policy and change the ways of the world. that is the reason i am in this in the first place. host: party frank is our guest.

16th term. -- barney frank. guest: i have met with joe. he is not by any means assuming that becomes -- that becomes hethe cubs the cubs from a family of service that he will be an issue and for the job. he comes from massachusetts. he has very good marks. i am very enthused about him and i think he will win. host: this is your chance to talk to congressman frank. we will begin with a calller in florida. you are on the air. caller: representative frank it is good to speak with you. in terms of the budget, i feel many members of congress may be compromised or black mailable

because they are in their closet about the sexual orientation like senator lindsey gramm. i am wondering how many people in congress are compromise that way come and have you ever been invited to go to the bohemian grove? guest: i have never been invited to the bohemian grove. as i understand, it is a group of wealthy, powerful people in california, and i don't knopw w more than that. i have no comment to make about any individual and have no knowledge of any individual. there are obviously some gay men and lesbians in the congress that had not made that public. i would say this, when you look at those in politics that have responded come increasingly if you are a democrat, and i think this is pretty much the case, if

you are a democrat is have in politics the past couple of decades, you pay no penalty for being honest about your sexuality. there were four o are four of us serving right now. the problem is on the republican side. the republican party iss the problem. the gay and lesbian population is under represented there. the way it works out is there are republicans who people generally assumed to be gay. the republican party will tolerate them as long as you do not appear to be happy about it. that is if you are a democrat in say i am gay and having a good time, you get support. i am going to be very to my partner jim in july in massachusetts, and i have gotten a lot of very positive comments. on the republican side, there are great pressures if you are

gay. essentially the attitude is we understand you cannot help it but did not look like you are happy and pleased tied it. if you are gay republican and act ashamed about it, you can survive. i do not see the black male. i have never seen a case in the 32 years i have been in congress in which the fact that they were gay and lesbian was used to make them vote differently than the other way, with one exception. there have been a number of people, mostly republicans who people assumed were gay or lesbian were not voting supportive for gay and lesbian people come and i think some of them were told it is inappropriate for you to do one thing and vote another way. that gap has basically narrowed. host: why are you retiring? guest: i will be 72-years-old next month. there are things i would like to

do what my life like write. senator moynihan was a great legislature. i easily distracted. i do not have one of the world long for attention spans so i get distracted easily. i want to be able to just write. i am also tired. i first started getting active in politics in 1967. i went to the funeral of the former mayor of boston. i would have gone up one more term. i was determined to make this -- actually, two years ago i decided this would be my last term. when republicans took over the house i felt some determination to stay. then massachusetts did a redistricting and they created a district that was very substantially change. i think it is likely of would have won -- i would have won,

but it was about 45% to people. it would have meant campaigning to people i have never met come and go into the 325,000 new people and saying i would like to be your congressman for two years. i could not honestly say to them that in two years i could learn enough about the issues and begin to work on it and deliver it. i just decided -- yes, i will miss public policy, but i think as an individual private citizen i will still have some role there. ironically i understand people do not like politicians these days. everything i say is screen through a cynicism that says he is just saying that to help his party or get reelected. i will say very much the same things i am now saying but i will not to deal with people discounting it because they

think i have an ulterior motive. i expect to be very active in debating public policy. host: next call comes from madison, wisconsin. been on the republican line. -- ben. caller: how are you doing this morning? guest: well. thanks for asking. caller: i am going to speak for all early 20's people in general. i do not care what your sexual orientation is. that is your personal business. i do not think -- i have been going back and forth with this two-party system. it is getting pretty old to me in general. i know we spend 700 billion per year, somewhere around that, on the military. guest: it is a bigger number. caller: i understand that. it is a lot. i am speaking for myself, so i can say that we should put some

money obviously into domestic programs, but from what i have seen, it is just being abused beyond what you can even imagine. i will give you an example of a friend of mine who can milk the system and found a way to milk the system where they do not want to ever try to better themselves because if they do that, they have to pay their baby mama's for some way they will not be able to continue their quality of life. host: what is your point or question for the congressman? caller: i think it is a careful balance, and i am wondering what you think should be done? guest: i do not understand the baby mama and i think that is unfairly derogatory to the women involved. it is really denigrating women.

some of them are responsible some of them are not. i would certainly like to see a devolution of the women who are having children who are not prepared for it. that is one of the reasons i have seen -- been disappointed in an effort to curtail the amount of contraception being available. people that do not want to see abortion and irresponsible parenting should be supportive of widespread use of contraception. some of the young women having children who should not have them are doing it because contraception was not available and explain to them. secondly, as far as the programs are concerned, we try very hard to crack down on abuses. when i was in the state legislature, sponsoring legislation in the 1970's to use computers to catch people who were abusing various programs. the problem is this, when you talk about the various programs that benefit low-income people,

a very large percentage of the people that get them are children. there are irresponsible adults and children, but they bring three-year-old and four-year old children in, and i want to be careful not to punish children because of their parents. if you look at these programs, they are very small percentage of the budget. below -- we will be close to spending 700 billion on the military. that is coming down substantially. the president wants to reduce it to 615. i think we can go lower. i am aligned with ron paul in terms of reducing the military. the republicans are trying to push it further. to answer your question, we need a balance. i want to add as much as we can to addcatch fraud. i want to make sure we do not do that in a way that hurts children. if you look at homelessness, you are talking about five-year- olds.

i want to avoid inflicting more pain on those poor kids, even though i might be angry with their parents. host: maybe you can help us understand this. this is from "the wall street journal" from the source of office management and budget. 1.4 trillion for medicare and medicaid. 820 billion for social security. 6934 defense. 247 billion for net interest. -- 693 for defense. this chart says 524 billion is how much the president is proposing for defense. guest: first of all, some of what goes in is is spent and energy. -- spent on energyl;

my conservative friends have come up with a very odd way of budgeting for defense. -- spent on energy. they have a separate budget when we go to war. then we have the base budget. that may seem odd to some people who think that this the basic budget for the defense department. in some ways it is like a lawyer on retainer. when people go to war, they're risking their lives and health of their country. the way this works the 693 was about 500 something billion in the base budget, and the overseas contingency account which was the were iraq and afghanistan. sithat is one reason why things are going down. we are diminishing in iraq, and

i would hope we would do a quicker job of withdrawing from afghanistan. host: this e-mail from fs iinj n north carolina. guest: that is wrong. i understand the fear. there was nothing in legislation that adds to the work of small banks. newt gingrich said the kind of reform bill was crushing small banks. politico went through that and said that is false. the head of the independent community bankers, which is the smaller bank group, said that wherever there is a difference in the legislation between the way big banks are treated and small banks, small banks are better off. what the legislation does in some cases is help small banks. people say i do not want to put

too much money in small banks. the limit had been $100,000. at the request of the community banks, we raise the amount of deposits to $250,000. married couples can put up to $500,000 and be totally protected. banks pay a fee to the fdic to protect those. it used to pay a dollar amount. big banks pay more than small banks by putting in a risk factor. the consumer bureau, which i think is one of the best things we have done, it does not create new rules for the small banks. it takes over from the control of the currency and other bank regulators the job of enforcing those roules. we did say four things that have more than 10 million in assets, the consumer bureau will be the

review work. the consumer bureau is not the reviewer by those that have less than 10 million. the revision of thei believe we were very careful about the small banks. some of them may not like the idea we will have tougher enforcement of existing consumer laws. one other thing we did that is very helpful to can -- community banks. things got a bad rap and the venue to crisis. -- banks got a bad rap during the financial crisis. bad mortgages, mortgages granted to people that should not have gone them because they cannot afford them, primarily or disproportionately they were granted not by tehhe banks but by the non-banks, various mortgage lenders. they were not covered by regulation. one of the consumer bureau things it will regulate payday

lenders and check catchers and people who do remittances for people sending money overseas, which used to be unregulated. i think any of the community bankers are very happy about that because they will no longer be subjected to the unregulated competition that gave them a bad name. host: next call comes from covington, georgia. and become a democrat. -- andy deomocrat. caller: i want to thank you for your service. i do not know if you had a chance to review president obama speech yesterday, but i think the speech he made about the middle class and what i have seen you fight for since you came to middle-class that speech should be given to congress. you will cannot let the republicans get ahead of you. that speech he made in wisconsin was just the speech that all of you democrats need to make going

into the election, because the talks to the common people and common sense. all we see with the craziness that is going on, you are not part of the 10%, you are part of the people that worked hard to get things done. i want to thank you for that. i wish that you would get with them and get them to understand the speech the president obama made yesterday was the speech for american people. it was not about class, one group against the other, it is about going back to the thing that made as a great country. thank you for your service. host: we have a point. guest: i have not had a chance to read that speech. -- thank you for your point. i will go back and read that. i will agree with you the president has been hitting exactly the right tone about trying to help lower-income and middle class people.

i have to add that david scott who you mentioned, you live in the congressional district he represents, is an excellent member of congress. he is on the financial services committee with me, and has a lot of business experience. he made an enormous contribution to be able to regulate the financial sector that were very respectful particularly to small business. host: what you think about leadership of the republican and democrat side of the house? guest: i watched john boehner who is a responsible conservative. he was a major author of the bill known as "no child left behind." host: laura bush, ted kennedy? guest: john painter was the senior republican that the that together. -- john boehner was the senior republican on the coalition that

put that together. he has been a responsible conservative. his problem now his party is dominated by a group of very conservative republicans. i think it is the most extreme group that has ever been in control of a party in history. he has repeatedly been rebuffed when he has tried to do these things. there were a couple of times last year when i actually felt sympathy for him. i think he is the first speaker in the long time, as he front -- confronts this rebellion after rebellion. he is now trying to get this highway bill passed. i said he is the first speaker to have a theme song "it is my party and i will cry if i want to." host: would you consider him a friend of yours? guest: i would see him at work.

occasionally i see him at a breakfast place. i have gone on a diet and sworn off pancakes so i do not see him as much. we are friendly when we see each other. i think the word friend gets over used in the word today. i think the title friend has gone debased a little bit. host: who are some of your friends on the hill? guest: i have relations with -- relationships with the number of my massachusetts colleagues. my partner jim lives in southern maine, and we have gone very friendly with his congress woman and her husband donald. you also get to work closely with people on your committee. i was on the same two committees with maxine waters and mel watt, and i have had a great deal of interaction and socializing. i have been very busy with work.

you have your fellow members of the massachusetts delegation, and you have your committee people, and then -- host: any republicans on your list? guest: yes at the risk of -- peter king from new york. he is a very conservative guy. i disagree frankly i think he is a little excessive in his focus on the muslims and does not differentiate enough, but he is also a republican that does not buy into this all government is terrible. he is a good representative of the metropolitan district. we of work together on a number of things. ron paul and i have worked closely together on some things. he is a little bit isolationist about it, but very courageous about it. he is a libertarian.

some of my conservative friends are letting you exploit child labor, but then they want to tell you what to read. he is a genuine libertarian. we have sponsored legislation to remove limits on online gambling. we have legalize people smokinsponsored bills on people legally smoking marijuana. gary miller from california. again, those are the people i have worked with. finally, a man of conscience from n.c.. a very conservative on a lot of things. voted for the war in iraq, and said i was wrong. he is been a model on how you deal with that. walter represents fishing interests. i represent the city of new

bedford, the ports that brings in the most money in america. i made a suit made in new bedford. i am very proud of new bedford. we work together on fishing. host: next call comes from philadelphia. joe of the republican line. caller: good morning, and thank you for taking my call. my question has to do with social security and medicare. i no money has been taken out of social security by various presidents in the past and leaving iou's and never replacing it. my parents came into this country as immigrants, and they have to be sponsored by their family or someone here. people today coming to this country, and they received at social security without putting a dime in the system. i would like to know why. guest: that is not true, and if it is true, they're breaking the law. you are not eligible for any payment from so-so security

until you have paid in. -- social security until you've paid in. if you know someone who was doing this please report them to the u.s. attorney or someone else. that is a crime. illegal immigrants, and that is not a good thing indeed to find better ways to deal with it but they actually help social security because what you have is people that go to work with fake social security accounts, and they pay in because money is deducted from the paychecks come and they do not collect. as for the money not being put in, there was a problem in that money paid in for social security was being spent by the but the government with no interest. beginning in 1983, a deal made by tip o'neill and ronald reagan, a deal that has become harder to make because reagan was more willing to work together and some of his current right-winger to claim

his mantle, social security has been getting interest. the social security trust fund is a concept in the budget. i guarantee you it is there. there is no way 20 years from now congress will continue to claim social security. to go back to your specific question, there is no legal right for someone who just comes into the country to get social security. if you know someone who is getting social security and never worked, whether they are an immigrant or not unless they already 15-year-old child of someone who died on social security, they are not eligible. host: next call is robert from maryland. caller: good morning. i do not have anything against your sexual orientation. guest: that is very reassuring. i was nervous about that. i appreciate that. caller: what i wanted to say is

i am a vietnam veteran. in the springtime of my life i went off to vietnam to represent my country's democracy principles, but what i am appalled at is how my country has transitioned from a democratic reality to the reality of plutocracy and fascism. plutocracy is where the rich rolfe. fascism is where they collaborate with the government to rule. plutocracy is where the ric-- plutocracy is where the rich rule. i want to say that until we can get the paris sites of the financial institutions, and the parasites of the politics that is supposed to represent the people out of our government, i

do not see the government getting better. guest: i agree with some of what you say, but i want to be very clear that i disagree when you were talking about fascism. that is almost the equivalent of some of the right-wingers. that system, socialism -- those are clearly defined things. -- fascism, socialism, those are clearly defined as things. fascism is not simply corporate influence. it was a brutal regime in the early middle part of the 20th century where democracy was shut down and people were be done. when you talk about hitler, we do not have anything like that. i do not like with the " brothers hat the coeke brothers do, but it is nowhere close to fascism. there was always the danger of people envisioning a golden age

that never was. you talk about richard nixon and lyndon johnson. i think lyndon johnson did great things domestically, but by the end of his term i do not think the people thought the market was working as well as it should up. -- as it should have. i do not regard richard nixon's regime come in did useful things that would not be repudiated by the right wing, but he was hardly the examplar of an open, free the bar proceed without any kind of corporate influence. as to today, i do agree we have excessive influence. the notion that the public does not have access is wrong. i will tell you time and again i have seen the public, when it makes its foists known, have an impact. one of the problems i have with my friends on the left is that there is a self-fifth billing prophecy. they tell the voters the politicians will not listen to you. i will guarantee we will not

listen to people who do not say anything. special interests can can dominatedominate more. the financial reform bill we passed last year was not one that major financial institutions like. i saw the complaints because it was passed over the objection of the large institutions. there is one point i completely agree with you, the u.s. supreme court erotically, conservatives talk about social activism. they're the ones try to get the supreme court to overturn the democratically-elected congress and health care. they want the unelected judges to throw it out. beyond that, the five-year --e state laws that restricted how much money people can spend on campaigns. it is true, the supreme court decision overturning legislative

laws and state and the federal government has empowered corporations to spend money it unanimously -- anonymously, and that does demote democracy, and i very much hope we get that turned around. host: maverick tweets into you -- guest: i want to write three books right now, if i hold out long enough. the first one will be what we should do? how do we present this? i go back to the call from georgia about the president's speech yesterday. i think the program we have about how to affect public policy to make this, i think we can increase fairness in this society without increasing -- with a decrease in growth. inequality is a good thing to make the capitalists system work. inequality can get out of hand. you can have more inequality that is morally or economically

useful. too much is economically bad because you depressed the level at which the average person can do consumption. i want to read about the resumptwrite about liberalism. i think to many of my friends are into demonstrative politics, which makes people feel good but does not affect anything. the tea party has been much more affected than occupy. they do a much better job of organizing to get their policy views part of the progress, than occupy. the second one, i want to write history of gay rights. i was elected to the legislature in 1972, just after the gay rights movement began. part of what is just it is is what i

just said. two, we did it through the political process, by getting our right to vote. i want to talk about that. third, i want to write about or teach about legislating. being in the legislative body is a very peculiar business. i have been lucky. i have particular combination of talents and weaknesses. i got into the profession without having planned it. where my talents help and weaknesses are in port. i have a very short attention span. that is not easy when your try to phd thesis, which is why i never wrote one. how many different topics have we hit in the show? if you are not able to move from one thing to another, you get frustrated. i want to read about legislature. those are the three books i want to write. host: pittsburgh, herman, a democrat. caller: good morning.

i want to thank you for your service. if they are worried about spending, why don't they close guantanamo? this is my question. when i was in high school i took a course of politics and government, and someone asked the instructor why is the two- party system you can only vote yay and nay? no matter how many bills there are coming in all comes down to voting yay and nay. he said a third party or fourth group can only influence who is over on the usa or naysay. -- yaysay or naysay. guest: i think that does not fully explain why we have two parties. yay or nay is when you have to

vote when it comes down to it. what parties do is to shape what you're voting about. parties can decide which issues come up and which did not. there are lots of important questions we never get to vote all. -- never get to vote on. we have a two-party system not because any organization said we should. the people who formed the tea party did not want to have any parties. at the same time there were four main parties. you cannot have come in my judgment intelligent self- government without some sort of organization. over time there tends to be in democratic private-sector societies like we have, two general tendencies. private sector and public sector to make rules and to deal with the things we cannot do individually. no matter how rich you are come

you cannot clean up the air. there has been a tension between how much government and how much private sector. we are out of whack today in my judgment. the republican party has been taken over unlike ronald reagan who understand we need friendly competition between the public and private sectors come into want to disband the whole public sector beyond what is functional. -- and want to disband the whole public sector beyond what is functional. now, that has been the two-party system in america, and much of the time in england they diverted to three. it does tend to be two tendencies. as to the yes or no, it is true we vote yes or no, but the parties play an important role on what you vote yes or no on and in what form. host: very quickly some tweets

-- thanks barney, for being one of the smartest guys in congress. cannot count the times your comments made me laugh. nrmr. frank do you believe the electorate voice can be heard over the noise in the upcoming election? guest: money will have a major influence. votes beat money on the question of intellectual privacy. votes beat money on much of what we did in the financial reform bill. let me give you an example. on immigration, big money is on the favor of increased regulation, because the business community wants cheaper labor. there is a public resistance to that. money is disproportionate to

influential. a political system is supposed to be one man, one. vote. to the extent you have unlimited campaign spending, the inequality in the private sector financial system dilutes the democracy of one man one vote. i resent that. i'm more often have politicians tell me when i am lobbying on a financial reform bill or something else, i cannot tell them it is unpopular in my district. the answer is the public voice can break through. the problem is there are too many people telling them not to try. it is too hard to do. the more the public speaks out the more impact it will have. host: i apologize, we are way over time. i promise to ask you about china. guest: i am very much in favor of a tougher attitude towards china. on monday i was touring the city

of new bedford with my colleague who will be replacing me as the man who represents new bedford after the redistricting. we went to a couple of companies. there were two companies where we say we need to go ahead with alternative energy and how you use it. both of them independently volunteered to ask that one of the major problems is unfair competition from china. one of them i am very critical of the repression of in china. one said people had predicted that as the chinese economy opens up in the internet got there it would mean more democracy. sadly it is showing a repressive government can unfortunately contain that. i am sorry the chinese continue to be so disrespectful of the fundamental human rights. there is a racist notes were they say free speech in the right to vote for people are western values. those are human values. secondly, we have to say china

need us more than we need them. we're too often acting as if these major foreign countries are doing us a favor by letting us by all their goods -- buy all their goods. china needs as more than we need them. i think we need to be much more tougher and assertive on the chinese saying we need to stop the subsidy stealing people's intellectual property. they are no longer this poor waif that needs all the support. i do not think we a been tough enough with china. i think we of sacrificed legitimate issues, which does not work anyway. they have been blocking efforts to get syria to stop killing people. i think we're trying to block political support by sacrificing aggressive economic activity for no gain. host: please come back before you end your term in congress in november.

representative barney frank has been our guest. "tea party patriots" is the name of the book. mark meckler and jenny beth martin will be our guest coming up after this news update from c-span radio. >> with robert zoellick stepping down as president of the world bank, national security adviser and chief of staff will lead the search for his replacement. he meanwhile declined -- declined to discuss his future with reporters, but some suggest he will sign up as an adviser to mitt romney's campaign. moody's investors service says it may downgrade some of the world's biggest banks, as well as some securities firms because the long-term prospects for profitability and growth are shrinking. the companies include city group come up bank of america, goldman sachs, j.p. morgan chase, and morgan stanley. -- the companies include citigroup, think of america

goldman sachs, j.p. morgan chase, and morgan stanley. reports that general motors had its highest profit ever last quarter. full-year revenue rose 11%. the company says union workers will get $7,000 profit sharing checks. those are some of the latest headlines on c-span radio. [video clip] >> we have a country where millions of innocent people of had to go to prison. they have put bars on their own windows and doors because we have abandoned their neighborhood's decline. i cannot live with that. our neighborhoods should be safe. the children should be able to play in the streets, and you and i can fix that together. >> as candidates campaign for president this year, we look back of 14 men who ran for the office and lost. watch the videos at c- span.org/thecontendors.

>> i believe the destiny of america is always safer in the hands of people than in the conference rooms of any elite. let us get our country the chance to elect a government that will see and speak the truth, for this is a time for the truth in the life of this country. >> c-span.org/thecontendors. >> "booktv" is live saturday from the savannah book festival. ti -- coverage starts at 5:30 eastern. followed at 10:45 by carlo markarl marlantes. terhe looks at who was afraid of post blackness.

at 5:15, the rise and fall of the comanches, part of a three- day presidents' day weekend on c-span2's "booktv." host: here is the front of the book, "tea party patriots." mark meckler and jenny beth martin are the authors. jenny beth martin, when did the tea party and how did the tea party movement start? guest: we started back in 2009 when the stimulus bill was passed. there was a huge rijeka on cnbc complaining about the stimulus package -- huge rent complaining about the stimulus package. people reacted to it. host: you personally how did you get started with this? guest: we started treating about it -- tweeting about it.

the next day we had a conference call. the next day we had a conference with 45,000 people in attendance. i was in atlanta, georgia. at that point my husband and i were coming out of bankruptcy. we had just lost our home and car, and we were cleaning house is to be able to make ends meet. host: mark meckler were relocated when you started? guest: i still live in a small town in north dakota. i was frustrated, probably like most people in america. when i heard of the rant, it really resonated with me. 150 people showed up on february 11, 2009. i saw people from a very broad cross spectrum that retired. host: when people hear about the

two-party movement, are you the leaders? -- tea party movement, argue the leaders? e you tehhe leaders? guest: definitely not. there are thousands of leaders all across the country. host: in the book, jenny beth martin you talk about a five pathways to liberty. what are they? guest: our goal is to work to sway americans to the core values of fiscal responsibility, a constitutional-limited government, and free market. we want to have over 60 percent of americans have this in their hearts and minds. if that happens, we think they were will vote for the constitution and the ideas that made america great. there are five pathways to get there. the economic, political

judicial, education, and culture. host: mark meckler expand on those. caller: theseguest: these are things we felt were key to getting our nation back to its founding. for example, there are reforms that are necessary in order to get the economy going again, in order to free people to produce wealth and prosperity that only they can and government cannot. in education there is wide agreement that the education system is broken. there are fundamental reforms. one of them is to free parents. then we have politics, a judiciary, and the broader culture at large. host: we want to encourage members of the tea party callto call in this morning. mark meckler and jenny beth martin are our guests.

why is it you wrote this book? guest: we got together after communicating on the conference calls and twitter, and started to parttea party patriot. we wanted to make sure there was a way to convey to americans what the party is really about other than 30-second sound bites. host: jenny beth martin, you think it has been fairly portrayed in the media? -- do you think it has been fairly portrayed in the media? guest: it is about making sure what our fellow americans know what it is truly about who are sometimes favorable and sometimes not. it is not about the media, but about as making sure we get our message out there. host: is the influence gaining or waxing? guest: i think it is increasing. the major movement is less about

legislation and elections, and more about the dialogue. the dialogue of the country is all tea party dialogue. frankly, almost every election in the country revolves around fiscal responsibility, debt, deficit, the constitution. these are the things that the tea party movement brought to the floor. host: there was an announcement in the papers that they have reached an agreement on the payroll tax and will not be paid for necessarily. there are reports the transportation bill is being pulled. two pieces of legislation you probably have an opinion on. what does that say about the republicans in congress right now to do? guest: first of all, on the extension of the payroll tax holiday, i think it says republican still do not get through -- the american people want to know how they're or to

pay for things. across the american public people understand and are concerned about the issue along with the economy. the idea that the republicans think they can spend, and maybe spend more slowly than democrats are spending, are all the same thing. they are spending our children and grandchildren into deficit history. on the transportation bill, i think that is hopeful. it has a lot of spending in it. they do not have a way to pay for it. i think that shows some of the new folks elected to congress get why they were sent there. host: jenny beth martin, mike tweets in -- guest: i think we are all concerned about big business, big government, and big labor working together to benefit each other and not consider what benefits america in the everyday americans. i think after that we go

separate ways. we believe it independence and self-reliance and we believe competition is good for america. we do not think government solves the problems. i think occupiy wall street prefers government solutions. host: larry tweets -- guest: i do not think it is that simple. we look at the constitution on individual programs come in you make that decision on an individual basis. i have talked to thousands of people in the movement and listen to them. i do not hear anybody say we want people in the streets and in should be no safety net. it is really about the appropriate size and scope of government. host: when does the book come out? guest: it came out on valentine's day. host: what is the 40-year plan?

guest: we want to make sure americans understand that as americans we vote and that is the first up in the right direction. it is not the only responsibility we have as citizens, and we have to make sure we're holding our elected officials accountable. the payroll tax extension, they will do this and extend it until the end of the year. after the election they will have to figure out what they do going forward once they hit december 31. it is during that time when it is the lame duck congress that people go back to their lives and do not pay attention to what is going on, and that is when things are happening. it is our job to hold people accountable who we elect. host: host:ann hon the independent line in colorado. mark meckler and jenny beth

martin. caller: good morning. i work for one of the financial institutions and saw firsthand what the industry did in a matter of a few months because their responsibility cost millions of jobs being lost. it is decimating the communities, states. i am just appalled at the ignorance of the tea party at what happened with the private sector. this is one illustration that we can even see currently in europe. the broad spectrum that believes banks have to be processed and mailed out in order to protect bond investments in countries that they deliberately invested in that they knew were hugely bad investments. guest: you say that ignorance of

the tea party but we are in 100 percent agreement. the idea that banks should be propped up by the government is simply wrong. what they have done, and it is actually what government has done come the government has allowed private industry to maintain the profit but at a socialized risk. it has made all of us through the bailouts and propping up of the banks, made all of us pay for the failures of institutional investors. we do not believe in too big to fail, and we believe government has greeted the situation. it is the intersection of big companies, big government, and that has allowed this to happen. we agree 100% with what you are singing. host: in your book, jenny beth martin you write many agree with abolishing all levels of the u.s. government.

such a record is a positioreorganization would take several years, but would dramatically change government. guest: i think abolishing departments and sending them back to the state level is much easier for citizens to hold elected officials accountable. there are people, especially in the west coast, that cannot get to washington and make sure their congressman understands how they want them to vote on a particular bill. often times you see your legislatures from your state government at your grocery store and gas station. host: next call on the republican line. caller: good morning. i will try to be brief. what i think we need to do as conservatives is arm ourselves with the deep knowledge of history.

for instance, when it comes to spending, i do not know what the general public knows this, but i have 50-years-old. almost every decade the size of the federal government has doubled. barney frank has gone too far to the right of politics. local government spending is more than half of the nation's individual income. given that fact, i think that is a really hard argument to make, but when it comes to tax reform and the history of significant tax reform, i do not know if the american people know that every time going back to coolidge in tehhe 20's after kennedy cut taxes, we had significant growth and increase in revenues and job creation. in 1983-1984 nearly 7 million jobs were created at an average

of 6% quarterly growth figures. even after bush's tax cuts -- guest: i think what you're talking about specifically is the size and scope of government. and really the way we define that is a single question, and the question is always, who decides? what we believe is in the devolution of power from centralize power in the federal government down to the local level, and when you do that you will end up with different solutions. san francisco will operate differently than dallas, texas. those solutions will be more creative than at the federal level. it is impossible to have a one- size fits all government. it is literally an impossibility. we're talking about scope of government. we believe the cover of it should be smaller. i think most americans believe the same thing. host: mark meckler what is

your background? guest: my background is in law. i am really just a country guy. what i like to do is hang out with my kids and coached soccer and ride horses. that is what our life was like before this. host: maverick tweets in -- guest: definitely do not run tea party patriots. host: do you get funding from any of those groups? guest: nno. i am going back to the summit where we may have had a sponsorship to pay for an event in arizona. our donations come in from hundreds of thousands of americans around the country and the average donation size is about $60. host: is this a full-time job

for you now? guest: it is a full-time job. i am around the country speaking to local groups in promoting our message at every chance i have. host: cindy tweets in -- guest: the social security trust fund we are having issues with. we have to face the fact that we have to cut government spending. if we do not cut government spending, there will not be social security money. there will not be money left. every dollar we spend it in the federal government right now, 40 cents of that money is borrowed money. you cannot continue to borrow like that. host: president obama has proposed a 1 percent cut in defense spending. do you agree with cutting defense as well as everything else? guest: i think everything should be on the table.

right now the federal government is out of control. i think we need a strong defense. i think most people in the movement are very strong on defense, but i think everything has to be on the table. host: you wanted to add something? guest: i think we need to pay attention if it is a real cut or a spending cut. the budget that the president has suggested and quite frankly what congress has done as well, has continued to increase spending. they have not cut real $1 debt. -- yet. host: democrats line, you are on the air. caller: thank you so much for c- span. it is an excellent program. i hope to see it on forever.

my question to your panelists had the civil rights activists been called the tea party knowing the in justice in an equity. but jim crow-ism. what you think the nation's reaction would have been in simple terms, the tea party, as the nation's reaction is today. talking about the tea party. host: could do very quickly explain what you mean by that question? we are all a little confused. caller: all right. the tea party today -- i am a

liberal. host: what do you mean by your question? caller: it is a right policy -- a right party that is inhibiting the banner to negotiate. as in before, if the civil rights movement had been called the tea party movement. host: i am not sure any of us understand your question. i apologize if this is not what you're asking, but bill tweets in -- guest: you can talk to the rev. peter cynne in south-central los angeles who runs the tea party there which is not 99% white

clearly, this and the demographics of the area. talk to the national director. this idea that it has anything to do with race is just ridiculous. frankly, the tea party movement is not interested in race. they really do not think about the issue of race. it is a post-racial movement. host: florida gordon, tweets in -- guest: i was active in the republican party prior to the to party movement. we were very upset and frustrated. on a personal level, i can tell you that when the tarp bill

passed, my husband and i had huge problems with it. we did not feel like the government needed to bail us out. we were very concerned by this too big to fail nonsense. we complained about it. after we filed a currency, we lost our house in january 2009. we're offered fannie mae and freddie mac money to stay current in our house. we decline did because we thought that the tarp bailout was wrong. where was i? i was opposing it and i probably did something that i never thought would be known on c-span and national tv. we stood by our personals. that is why we stand now. we're holding our parties accountable today. the last real spending cuts. host: the name of the book, "tea

party patriots -- the second american revolution." joseph schatz and jenny beth martin are the authors. angelica is on our line. caller: when i look at the situation, i see two problems. we have the welfare state that is promoted by both parties. the only reason they continue paying for things they cannot pay for is by printing money. we do not have sound money anymore. that would be my first point. my second point has to do with the constitution. great document. you know but do we really do have a government by the people, for the people? i do not think so. i think that whole phrase we the people should be replaced with we the global banking interests. those people, those institutions

control, on, and tell our politicians what to do, how to do it, and when to do it. i take my comments off the air. host: first -- guest: your comment about printing money is correct. everytime the print money the money in our pockets is worth less. it is a tax, essentially. we have been printing money at a record pace. that is something i think everyone in the country needs to understand. we need to get a handle on as a country that we are going down the muddy hole. in regards to the constitution, you talk about we the people, and do we have the constitution. again, unfortunately, i think you are correct. we have allowed our constitutional liberties to be chipped away, one by one. we as americans, have to defend that document. the founders said we are the last line of defense against

incursion on the constitution. if we continue to fail, it becomes a meaningless document. host: democrat, arlington virginia, go ahead. caller: this is a question to jenny. she talks about fiscal responsibility for the government but she was against the tarp bailout but she did not mind so filing bankruptcy witchy overspent on her personal finances for or on her head -- when she overspent on her personal finances or for her house. i what her reaction to that. guest: it certainly was not easy to lose everything we had worked for. it was my husband's business that failed. we did not take the easy way out. the only government help that we had was from unemployment. it was only for a short while. after that, beyond that, we

realized we had to except that personal responsibility. we cannot wait for the government to take care of us. we rolled up our sleeves, look at what we could do, and started cleaning houses and repairing computers to make ends meet. it was not easy, but we did accept responsibility. the great thing about america is you can risk it all. sometimes you are successful and succeed. we had that for a while. and then sometimes you risk it all, and you lose it. when you do lose it, you cannot look to other people to take care of you. you have to accept responsibility. that is what we did. host: jenny beth martin is your personal story written in the book? guest: it is in the introduction. host: is yours as well? guest: yes but it is not very important. host: do you support ron paul?

guest: i think he is very good on the constitution. we appreciate everything he is doing fighting on capitol hill for our core values. as far as the presidential race goes, the tea party does not endorse. guest: -- host: who are you supporting? guest: nobody. i have not chosen a candidate yet. i think they're all getting better. it is interesting to watch them go to the debates and public scrutiny. nobody, yet. bids guest: we do not -- guest: we do not endorse a we cannot support a candidate on here. the process we are going through is getting these candidates and the specific about how it will solve the problem.

it will be our job, as americans, to hold them to their promises. host: new york, independent line. caller: first, i would like to think c-span for opening up this discussion. one thing i would like to bring up, i believe this is in response to the tough bailout by the bush should ministration. it was a money bomb, a tea party money bomb it that created backers of ron paul in 2008. he has been declared by many people as the godfather of the tea party. i noticed lately that the tea party, a lot of the tea party organizations have disassociated themselves with ron paul and his policies. in reality the tea party was established as a response to -- the name t. party was in

response to the tarp bailout to the bush administration. they're totally against any timekind of government spending. again, ron paul was the godfather. i hope the tea party people are waking up to this and to the founder really was. guest: again, we appreciate everything ron paul is doing. he has been fighting for fiscal responsibility for years. he has gotten teenagers and college students excited about monetary policy. we appreciate that. with knowledge that ron paul is a large part of this movement. host: new york, republican line. you are on with the authors of "tea party patriots -- the second american revolution." caller: i want to thank c-span. the last caller said of my

question because i want to talk about ron paul and how he started the t party. my question, directly, is about foreign policy. it seems like the tea party started by ron paul, but now that it has become mainstream, it has really turned into more of a militaristic type organization. i wonder your comments. guest: i want to set the record straight. ron paul has talked about many of the issues that are tea party issues for decades. that foundation that he laid is invaluable. as far as starting the modern- day tea party movement, i take issue with that. i understand there are ron paul supporters a couple of years before the tea party became official. they did not take off until that rents. every movement has a moment. that was the moment for that modern american t party.

i would not say he actually started the modern day tea party movement. i would say they do have a difference of opinion -- of opinion with ron paul. there are a lot of distinctions. there are a segment of ron paul supporters, but the majority of tea partyers do not. host: were you approached about writing this book? guest: we had an agent approaches. they said, you have something to say everything publishes would be interested in it. host: what was the process like? guest: lots of phone calls and the mouse.

host: a democrat. caller: i am interested in that city bank memo that described america as not a democracy but a -- i do not see this as a government that is too big. i see a government that is not big enough to overstep large private and corporations that have really taken over everything in america. since when does somebody have to pay the mortgagor to make a payment to them? when did that come about in america? guest: well, the government is spending more money than it takes in. we have to stop doing this. if we continue down this road we will go the way of greece.

as for what citibank is doing and other businesses, i think we can find agreement that we do not think the government should be giving special bailouts, special tax breaks to certain businesses and not to all businesses. it is not fair. we cannot continue to do that. guest: i am not familiar with the citibank memo, but the idea that government is too small is not economic reality. we can talk philosophically about the appropriate size of government, but the bottom line is that $0.40 on every $1 is being borrowed. we're putting that debt on our children and grandchildren. do you consider that moral? can you look in your grandchildren and say i am spending money on things that i want right now because i like having them and later on i am not going to worry about paying for them, you are. host: this week has come in.

guest: of course we support a balanced federal budget. the question is, how you get there? i do not think there's necessarily anything wrong with that. number 2 more portly, congress is not following the constitution right now. i'm not sure what the magic pixie pixie dust is that would make them follow it. we definitely support a balanced budget. host: bill, a republican in new york you are the last call for these tests. caller: good morning. i have been listening. you filed bankruptcy, which you had to do. that clown that called and probably would've took money from freddie and fannie and owed the taxpayers more money. i support you.

i send money to you. i would never vote for ron paul. people tell me, you are a ron paul guy. i am not. i am a vietnam vet who fought against communism. i hate communism. you know where our president is coming from. you have a great day. guest: thank you. thank you for your support. together, we're going to restore our constitution. host: what point in the book heavily not discuss the you would like to get out? guest: i think the most important thing is who the key party is. 40% of tea partiers are democrats or independents. it is not a republican movement. it is not a right or left wing movement. it is not democrat versus republican paradigm. if you believe that we cannot continually spend more money than you take in, you are a key

part -- a tea partier. if you believe that capitalism has listed more people out of poverty than any system, then you are a tea partier. host: jenny beth martin guest: this is a book we wrote and it is our ideas. it is the ideas for everyone across the country to get everyone thinking. maybe these of the best ideas maybe not. we encourage people to go to teapartypatriots.org to tell us what you think a good plan for achievement is. host: do they take positions on social issues? guest: absolutely not. there was a wide range of debate about this when we founded. if you look to our mission statement, you will see that we specifically say we did not take positions on social issues.

we encourage people who are passionate about those issues to be engaged on them and to be engaged and organizations involved. but as an organization, and generally as a movement, spokesman's do not take issues. host: "tea party patriots -- the second american revolution" is the name of the book. jenny beth martin and joseph schatz are the authors. thank you. we're going to return to our opening topic. too big to bash. that is the topic will be discussing after this news update from c-span radio. >> is 9:18 eastern. jobs show that first-time claims for unemployment benefits dropping for the first time in years. that is the fourth drop in five

weeks. the consistent decline indicates that companies are laying off your workers and hiring is picking up. as for wholesale prices, the labor department says the move up slightly last month but were held back by cheaper energy and food costs. gas prices didn't rise but were offset by a steep drops in home heating oil, natural gas, and electricity which fell by the most in seven years. construction of single-family homes was off slightly in january after rising in the final month of last year. a rebound in apartment construction kept workers working. the commerce department says that workers broke ground on annual rate of homes in january. that is the latest headline from c-span radio. >> hi, there. i head up the lcv program.

the purpose of these vehicles is to collect programming from outside of washington, d.c. how do we do it? we staff these with one person a small video camera and a lap top editors of a control, record produce, and added things from around the road. that is what we're doing. why? to get out of washington, d.c. and cut programming for our networks. we are doing and lcv cities to work. one will do history programming. the other will do booktv programming catching up with offers -- with authors. the third one does community relationships. that is important is the worst of their cable partners. the last thing that is important to know, all this not only goes on the air but it's archived on te. what we're also doing is doing extensive social media. you'll see is on facebook and our cable partners on facebook. you'll see foursquare to tell

people where we're going. twitter as well. a chance to get out our message not only on their bottom line through social media as well. that is why we want to get out of washington, d.c. get at of -- get out and go to places we do not normally go. >> watch our local content vehicles next up in shreveport louisiana, the first weekend in march on c-span's booktv. >> washington journal continues. host: here is the cover. "too big to bash." why is china too big to bash in your view? guest: thank you for having me on. we try to take a look at this piece in how china has emerged

as a real issue on this campaign trail. you hear mitt romney and members of the business committee taking a swipe at china's economic policies. even as that happens, you have a split in the business community about what to do about china. there's a lot of banks about currency about privacy technology transfer, things like that. yet a lot of people are making a lot of money in china. as a result, there is a split in the business community. they do not quite know what to do. as a result, you do not see a lot of action. host: you write in your piece that congress's policy approach toward beijing is relaxed compared with that of the 1970's and the 1980's when lawmakers weigh in heavily on issues surrounding taiwan rights. japanese officials -- officials have manage the relationship for more than three decades.

beijing has made significant progress in establishing bureaucratic structures. guest: right. the u.s. government and the chinese cover as all these different dialects that try to work out foreign policy issues. make sure that if one issue flares up that the rest of the relationship keeps going. as i mentioned, early in the relationship after the u.s. and china in the 1970's, there was a lot of action from congress on taiwan on human rights that way in pretty heavily. these days, a currency bill for example, try to target china's manipulation. the house did not pass it. there is a lot of shouting not too much action coming from congress. because of that figure relationship now. host: you " a republican from south carolina. and, as you say, someone who is

not known for taking a middling stands. why do talk to him? guest: because in south carolina, you have a state where there have been quite a few factories, a lot of manufacturing has been dismantled the last several years. there's also a big relationship between china and south carolina. he would say it depends on who you talk to in the business community whether or not it is going well or poorly. manufacturers say that china does not play by the rules and is taking a hit. as a result, american manufacturers take a hit. but, you have a lot of tech companies doing very well in china he does not want to upset the apple-verse, so to speak. host: xi jinping is in town. the headlines this morning or that he met with his critics in congress. always warnings whenever we talk

to our chinese counterparts. what is the approach right now the current congress and the current administration? and just -- does the approach change with each administration? guest: i think the approach stays fairly constant. president obama came in particularly with the economic circumstances with a big stimulus package. there's a lot of borrowing that had to be done. there is a perception that he was being sought when it came to economic matters in china, particularly among his critics. that has shifted in the last year or two. he has taken, at least publicly, a much more aggressive tack on china. in the state of the union, he said he would get tough on trade cases and trade enforcement. things like that. as well on foreign policy issues, for he saw the president go to asia last year and announced a pivot towards asia.

a lot of folks think that is designed to contain china's ambition. host: although, criticism of china, you write, often sells the national political level many state and local officials are unabashed in their efforts to lure chinese investment and increase exports to china. guest: you have governors and mayors always going on trade delegations to china. while in congress at the national level there's a lot of criticism of chinese investment in the u.s., again at the state and local level, you have quite a bit going on. for instance, in ohio, a lot democratic organizations are very critical of china and its practices. in her hometown of toledo, you have the mayor actively trying to get chinese investors in to

help rebuild the waterfront and two other investment activities there. there's a bit of a disconnect between the rhetoric at the national level and what actually goes on in states and cities. host: joseph schatz is a staff writer. why are you writing about china? guest: because it is huge -- i cover economic policy, generally. you see china come up and all these different issues, whether it is trade, taxes, technology, all these issues across the board. you really cannot get away with it. as a result, it just keeps coming up. you hear a lot of members of congress talking about it. particularly, since the financial crisis. with the global balance of power shifting a bit and china becoming much more important on a range of issues. the result is a lot of reporting on it. guest: what was your impression

when you were there? host: i was there for two weeks on a reporting trip. we met with officials. what was interesting to me is how focus they were on what was happening here. this was right after the whole debt ceiling debate in congress. everyone was asking what was going on in washington and why were things so swimmingly in disarray back here in washington. also, they pay attention to the debates here in washington. everybody knows chuck schumer's name in beijing. he was the senator from new york who took an aggressive stance we came to china currency. a big china critic. they pay attention to all that. host: were you able to travel around on your own at all? were you able to see factories were stuff is made, such as these coffee cups, the ipad? guest: right. we saw an auto factory. when did not see much of what you're talking about. it was a fairly scripted visit.

we were in beijing, hong kong. to answer your question, no. we cannot go out on our own. journalists are monitored. you have to of a plan to run by the government in order to get your ability to go up there. host: fact your cover story. china's status is one elephant in the room. another is for all the complex many u.s. corporations, big and small, make real money in china -- more than $150 billion a year. where is that money? where does it come from? guest: some of the money is from u.s. companies that are doing business in china selling to chinese consumers. they are undergoing a huge boom and has been for several years. there is a lot of money to be made for u.s. companies selling to chinese.

there are also companies like apple the to the manufacturing in china. not just low-and manufacturing but a lot more high-tech stuff that was not done before. it is a real mix. you have apple, gm. gm is doing big business in china and selling a lot. china has become its biggest market now, far bigger than the u.s. host: the u.s. is the largest economy still. china number 2 japan. how much bigger is the u.s. economy compared to the chinese economy? guest: it is still -- it is quite a bit bigger. i just have the number. bedaubed host: is it -- host: is it double? guest: i do not want to say.

it is bigger. the talk of the decline of the u.s. economy is in relation to the chinese economy. it is a bit exaggerated but has become a big issue on the campaign trail particularly in an economy or job creation is still pretty slow. again, there's a lot of debate. host: we're going to run to some numbers and then take your calls. when it comes to total trade with china and the u.s., we exported about $104 billion to china and imported about $400 billion worth of goods. when it comes to world trade the u.s. and china alone -- and our chinese trading partner is 14% of all the trading that the u.s. does. world wide. in china, we import 80% of all

our imports come from china. china, then, is number 3 for our exports. that is from the u.s. to china. top exports to china include electrical machinery and equipment, power generation equipment, agriculture price aircraft and spacecraft, optic and medical equipment, and there are imports from china. electrical machinery and equipment. apparel. $29 -- $29 billion worth of apparel. $29 billion worth of toys, games, and sports equipment. furniture, $20 billion. those are facts and figures by the u.s.-china business council. first caller comes from philip. caller: i have a question. about a mother so ago there was an article about the apple plant that makes the ipod -- the ipad

that had the explosion that killed several workers. it talks but how they work with these chemicals that there's just no regulation at all. the aluminum does build up. it had an explosion that killed several people. they talked about how they make them live maybe 10 people in a two-bedroom apartment, factory owned campus that they have to live on site. they said the guy they did the piece on, the main guy was a college graduate and made $2,500 a year in american money. now how can the u.s. continue to compete when the people over there are only making $2,000, $3,000 a year. that is a lot of money in china. i don't understand how we could ever compete with that. guest: that is an interesting question and it comes up a lot now in congressional debates particularly as to talk about competitiveness.

i think just the last two days, apple announced it had an outside group take a look at all these abuses that we talked about in the store that you mentioned. the one interesting part of that is while labor is a lot cheaper there, it is not as cheap commander in man -- to manufacture in china as it once was. a lot of these -- it costs more to do business in china than it used to. labor costs for all rising. it is a big question -- how to compete? a lot of republicans say you need to reform our tax code and make a text of more competitive to reduce regulation. democrats say you need to do more investment in the types of advanced manufacturing they're doing in china, like you mentioned. no one has found an answer yet for how that can happen. a lot of members on both sides say more quietly that some of those jobs are not coming back.

the president has tried to make this a big part of his election debate, how do bring that back to the u.s.? host: our republican line, good morning. caller: i have been listening to your conversation. i'm a simple fellow without a college degree. i ask myself, what is going on? after listening to c-span, a fellow mention the chinese war doctrine. q. does know that the chinese understand that they cannot win with guns and bombs to us? in their doctor, they said it will take us over economically. now you are trying to do business with them. when i was a young kid in the 1970's growing up, they had a fallout shelters in every part of my camp. when i was raised, i was told

the russians and chinese are the evil empire -- our arch enemies. at the same time, we are borrowing millions of dollars from them. this is america. i cannot even drive my damn dump truck around my house without fear of being pulled over and harassed. it is a nightmare trying to run a small construction company. guest: i think an interesting point there is that this relationship between the u.s. and china economically, what does that mean in terms of national security, in terms of the military? one thing i've found is that back in the cold war, it was a different scenario. the u.s. and soviet union did not do a lot of business together. where now, the u.s. and china they're viewed as the biggest rival militarily to the u.s.. as a result, some folks think that is a dangerous thing.

some folks think that is something that might keep the relationship stable and avoid military conflict going fourth. i think a big test that will be with the president is talking about in asia right now. putting more military emphasis on asia. host: joseph schatz this morning, we're looking at the gallup poll. u.s. views towards china. one of the stand out figures is that younger people have a much more favorable view of china then the older generations do. 18 to 34, it was like 54% were positive about china. what does that tell us going forward? guest: that is a good question. you see a lot more chinese students here. they're probably a lot more cross-cultural communication then there may have once been. particularly in states like california. they're trying to get more chinese students to come to boost business.

i think it says something about the level of internet connection between the economy. the relationship may be a little more stable than it seems because of all the economic independency. host: joe tweets in with a tough stance against china -- what is china doing wrong? guest: depends who you talk to. they say china is artificially manipulating its currency to keep the value down in order to help its exporters at the expense of exporters everywhere else primarily the u.s. that is the number one concern for a lot of folks. a lot of people in congress want to do something about that. a lot of folks in the business community are were address starting a trade war. beyond that, a lot of u.s.

businesses are worried about piracy. the theft of u.s. intellectual property. chinese policies that make it harder for u.s. firms to compete in china. a but it is a much difference in their than you saw 10 years ago when businesses are trying to get open trade with china. host: next call comes from charlotte, north carolina. jessica, go ahead. caller: i have a comment and question. i find it interesting. what do bushed, sr. bush, jr. and obama all have a common, off secretaries from goldman sachs. with that, i am just wondering with the financial services in china, are they able to contribute to our politicians? like on the super pacs? but able to contribute to them

in any way? like the business is over in china? guest: no. under law, they are not able to contribute. foreigners are not allowed to contribute to a super pac. i have seen the concern raised because of a late campaign finance laws are structure that foreign money could make its way into the system. i'm not a campaign finance expert, so i could not dealt too deeply into that. by and large, the answer is no. host: this e-mail -- do we still give aid to china and if so, what? guest: there is very little bilateral aid. host: for specific purposes? guest: yes exactly. i could not pinpoint the purposes but there has been discussion in congress about the need.

it is silly at this point that china is so huge, any money that should be going to china through any these organizations or any of these bilateral activities. there has been discussion particularly among house republicans about getting rid of that aid once and for all. host: cincinnati, a democrat. good morning. caller: i have a, and a question. my -- is gone on the net exchange program to china. other than the typical historical things, what are some other things you would recommend? she is 17. she will be 18. what would you recommend that these kids see in terms of maybe the economics and such. you mentioned some auto companies.

what would you recommend that they see that might be interesting? >> within beijing, go to the markets. the silk market we went to was a really interesting thing to look at. it is an interesting business in china. manufacturing plants, auto plants as possible. just try to get to talk to folks, particularly in the markets. it is an interesting window on how business is done there. in all the cities, the areas of commerce. host: while he was here in washington, xi jinping re the -- rates the issue of intellectual property -- raised the issue of intellectual property. what are the laws involving intellectual property? guest: technology firms here continue to put a lot of pressure on the u.s. government to crack down or get tougher with the chinese government in demanding that they not allow

their firms to steal technology u.s. patents without their permission. it has been a constant source of tension for the last several years. there is not been a whole lot of new privacy. there are things signed every day every time one of these business happens. -- visits happen. i think a lot of businesses are not happy with where things are. there are signs of progress each time you have one of these big high level meetings. still a force that -- a source of frustration. host: tweets in -- guest: i do not have an easy answer to that. thank you for that good question. have not thought about that in a while. host: columbus, ohio. a republican.

caller: i hope -- is not listening to us talking about this. the whole monica lewinsky scandal was basically brought up by the media to ignore chinagate where china -- where clinton basically sold china military secrets and such. and i wanted to make a quick plug to david wilcox and divinecosmos.com where he writes say blog about financial tierney. is sort of like a new world order, i guess you'd call it. i don't know if you ever studied that. i listened to the alex jones show too. if you're a conspiracy theorist, you're put on a terrorist watch list. stuff like that.

why cannot it -- why can't we question the stories of 9/11? host: i think we got your point on china. guest: one point, i do not know about the lewinsky scandal. i would say that the issue of sensitive u.s. technology falling into u.s. hands -- into chinese hands continues to be an issue. congress has tried to reform laws so that it would make it easier to sell technology. that has run into problems, particularly among conservative hawks in congress. because of the china issue. that is a big point of contention. host: 10903 tweets in -- this is a chart that originally appeared in the wall street journal. soybeans alone, in 2011, at

$10.5 billion. $6.4 billion worth of civilian aircraft. that is what the u.s. exported to china in 2011. new and used car $5.3 billion. semiconductors $4.6 billion. and copper, $4.3 billion. any thoughts about these products we see on the screen? guest: its fees to the question of whether china can feed itself. it is importing a lot of food now. you mentioned copper. china has been going brought the world trend get access to natural resources because its economy is so huge. everything that happens in china is huge from an economic perspective. they're going to africa, latin america, to get these resources. that has become a source of concern for the u.s. government. china is setting up favorable arrangements all over the world. they have access to these

resources that other countries want as well. host: next call comes from lafayette, georgia. gigi, a democrat. caller: good morning, thank you for c-span. do you know that those children which worked in cooped up factories that their only get paid $0.25. but the same time, when they come to the united states, items, clothing, shoes, we pay an enormous price down here. is there not a we can reduce those prices? an item for $0.25 is made. why do we pay more to buy it here? is there where we can come down with the prices in the future? thank you. have a nice day. guest: i think one of the bitter complaints is that products in china are too cheap. as a result, that hurts u.s. firms.

the labor question is a big one that continues to be an issue. there were about conditions in china and elsewhere in asia. the conditions in china are probably getting a little bit better now with more -- with a lot more focus. host: this twitter -- tweet there is a new middle class in china that would love to buy american. did you see this middle-class tax guest: -- middle-class? guest: absolutely. the middle-class is growing out there. things have grown exponentially. some of the things they are buying are american. there was starbucks everywhere in beijing and other chinese cities. one of the issues that the u.s. government is focusing on is rebalancing with china and trying to get the chinese people

to buy more american goods and services. two rebounds that enormous trade deficit you're talking about before. that will happen over the long term. if that happens, it will be over the long term. host: i want to go back to your tour of china. did you got the evening and walk around? were you followed are monitored at all if you wanted to talk to people? guest: we could walk around freely. the language barrier was more an issue in talking to people. from what i was told, with people i talked to there, about 10 or 20 years ago there was a lot more monitoring about what a foreigner could do or say with a chinese person. you would be followed. you might get in trouble but the chinese person you spoke with my kid in a lot of trouble if there were speaking to an american. i think that has changed quite a bit.

there was a big debate while we were there about the government's clamping down on social media. on the chinese version of twitter. there's a lot tension there right now. there is a high-speed train crash in china. social media and their version of twitter was a big factor in revealing a lot of the news about that event. some of the news was immediately taken off line by the government. there was a big debate over there about, again, the role of censorship. whether that is going to change with increasing technology like twitter, facebook, things like that. host: to to have from using your electronic devices? accessing web sites? guest: facebook did not work. host: not at all? guest: sometimes but usually

not. other than that, internet was really good. i think cnn did not work. from what we're told, the government is very open about the way it does it. they're very targeted. you go to a set and certain things will be blocked and certain things will not be. host: ramona, california, sandy you are on our republican line. caller: i this want to know when we buy price setter manufactured in china [inaudible] the fire marshal studied the motor. there was recycled copper wire. we're getting inferior products. [inaudible] she had gotten hurt.

get caught on fire. that was made with recycled copper wire from china. i think we need to get the quality of the products at least have here in the united states. also, the motors in the car door and stuff. we lost our quality-control as far as time goes. i do not think we should -- we should bring them back to the united states. we need quality control. guest: quality control and product quality has become a much bigger issue. again, between the u.s. and china. the u.s. government is putting pressure on the chinese government to increase the quality of their products. it is also coming from within china. a formula that few years back

things like that. the chinese people are the first ones complaining. that may be the thing -- a factor that actually pushes chinese companies to increase their quality. pressure from a growing middle class of people talk about. host: joseph schatz writes in his article, china has largely shed its reputation. host: how so? guest: one example is apple. it is not just keep manufacturing. a lot companies are trying to go there to take advantage.

the chinese are building manufacturing facilities that are more state-of-the-art than they used to be. republicans a party that is not just cheaper labor. it is also lack of regulation lower taxes. the u.s. commitment our fiscal situation more certain. try to get some of those companies to relocate. come back to the u.s.. more broadly, the chinese are trying to shed the reputation as a low wage manufacturer and get into the business that makes more money. get into the high-tech business. that is what it won access to our more sensitive technology. host: michigan, please go ahead with your question. caller: i do not have a question but i have a comment. i would like an answer. i hear the constant complaint

that -- well, let's see. i hear the constant complaint that china makes things and they know the answer. you know the answer. why in the world does the -- well, why in the world does the chinese -- why can't we just ignore china? host: there we go. we got a question out of there? why can't we just ignore china? guest: it is so big and influential. anything that happens there affects everybody in the world there. when the chinese government tries to expand access to health care, that is huge business for companies all over the world

because there are some people there. as a result, it is hard for anybody, any business or lawmaker. host: this tweet, is what is going on in tibet generally known there? guest: the attitude is much more in line with what the government says. that outsiders sourcing that tibet should be given more freedom and independence, there is a difference. within china, there is a different view than generally is seen from outside of china. it is viewed in a way that looks down on foreign intervention. they fill tibet should be more -- they feel that that should be freed, they do not know what they're talking to his starkly. host: we had about a minute and a half left. caller: i think everyone is to

wake up that china has us by the u-know-what. they also, when businesses go over there they have to give up their rights. china is never going to let that stuff come back to the united states. i don't care what the politicians say. they're just going around trying to make their putting pressure on china. so they can get elected back into office and all that crap. all that stuff is coming from the corporate sector going over there. not long ago there probably still doing it, the united states was encouraging and paying for american companies to go over there. to increase china's economy. like we're trying to run the whole world economy and we cannot do that. guest: one point there, the

message comes from mitt romney in the republican side that is interesting. he had an op ed in "the wall street journal" today. he said the obama administration has been soft on china and he will get tough the moment he comes in and label them a currency manipulative. that would lead to tariffs on chinese goods. mitt romney is not an elected official right now. once president obama also talked about time on the campaign trail. often, members of congress do until they're actually in office. and then have to take care of the more diplomatic task of maintaining relations with china. inevitably the rhetoric softens a bit as they do actual diplomatic relations. host: what is japan's attitude towards our burgeoning relationship with china? guest: i think it is mixed. like a lot