9:15, we will delve into reason unemployment and campaign poll numbers with a presidential historian to see what that means going forward for the president and his republican challenger "washington journal" is next. ♪ >> presidential candidate rick santorum making lots of news this morning following some appearances in ohio yesterday morning. some of the headlines include -- "santorum bashes public schools." it also says the obama agenda not based on the bible. some of the headlines out there following several stops in ohio, a super tuesday primary state. want to get your reaction to what you think so far about the rig santorum, as.

we will take your calls at these lines. republicans -- 202-737-0002. democrats -- 202-737-0001. independence -- 202-625 this is a headline from yesterday.

that is in the ap this morning. we found it posted on the drug report. before we get to calls, want to show you this headline. it is a tribune newspaper story published in the "baltimore sun" this morning. rick santorum raises conservative base saturday with it is not often heard in mainstream american politics. his audiences, christian conservatives, tea party

activists, and other right-wing republicans loved it. centaur referred to public schools as factories and said federal and state support for education is an anachronism. with polls showing him leading in ohio, santorum is trying to lock down support from republicans to find former massachusetts governor mitt romney to moderate and who have given up on former house speaker newt gingrich. we will read more from the story and others, but south carolina, you are up first. robert, republican, what do you make of what you have heard so far? caller: to tell you the truth me being a republican, i love it. i have been a mitt romney supporter, but the more i hear out of santorum -- and i think both are equally honest, good men, but santorum probably does have the best chance because he comes out forcefully against the president and calls them on some things that romney will not do,

you know? just like the comment about his religion is not necessarily based on the bible of, but the black theology thing. that is really all i have to say, except if you let me comment about one other story. the media matters story -- why is it not being covered? you know what i'm talking about. the fact that the white house valerie jared, and all the pundits -- and this is a tax- exempt organization -- they are out to destroy fox news. why is that not being reported on? there is no getting around the fact -- host: thanks for calling. sharon is on the line from minneapolis. caller: good morning.

i'm calling because i do not think it is there, first of all the c-span has not shown any religious -- like anybody else, other than obama when he was running. when he was in rev. wright's church they showed clips about what he was preaching about, but when it comes to ronnie, and sure there are a lot of people who do not know what the mormon faith is all about. host: point by share in their from minneapolis. rick santorum made several appearances in ohio. this is from the huffington boasts. they point guard he is a devout mormon catholic. he said the obama administration

failed to prevent gas prices rising and was using political science in the debate about climate change. obama's agenda is "not about you. it is not about your quality of life. it is not about your jobs. it is the about some phony ideal, some phony theology. not a theology based on the bible, a different theology. this is what he told supporters at the columbus hotel. when asked later, he said the president said he is a christian, he is a christian but he did not back down from the assertion that obama is values run against those of christianity. there is an obama campaign spokesperson quoted in this piece. "this is the latest low in the republican primary campaign field but distortion, ugliness, pessimism and negativity."

that quoted in many places this morning. pat, you are on the air. caller: i feel that obama came out at the beginning of his term saying that we were not a christian nation that he refused to attend the breakfast or even host the prayer breakfast. they did not want to have national per day -- host: he was at the prayer breakfast that have been recently. caller: this year, but previous years, until his election year, it seems to be a non-issue. i'm not judging him and his fate because that is between him and god, but you cannot use religion, on the other hand, to promote yourself in a political way. that is something people see through. host: let's here from michigan now where chris is on the independent line.

caller: good morning. i was calling because i find it very appalling that anyone is even asking the president of our country what religion he is. because i'm pretty sure our bill of rights guarantees of separation of church and state. host: ok, let's hear from danny now in alabama on the democrats' line. if you could turn the sound down on your set, we will hear you better that way. go ahead, sir. caller: i do not the recent form is qualified to judge anybody -- i do not think rick santorum is qualified to judge anybody of christianity or what. obama is a devout christian. rev. wright was saying the same thing that god told israel if

you read the bible, and i think some of these people do not even read the bible. host: appreciate your thoughts, danny, from alabama. al is an independent in new york. what do you make of what you are making from -- hearing from rick santorum out of ohio? caller: i think he is pandering to the crowd. my belief is this -- we are not electing a preacher. we are electing a president. therefore, this is the world of caesar, and the only way we keep cesar honest is through our votes. i believe theat mr. santorum does not raise the right questions. gasoline is now being exported. that is why the prices are staying high. secondly, i also believe that president obama is a christian as much as i am. i'm a christian, but i'm also a free man with three choices --

free choices, and i do not believe the education system is bad. it created bill gates. you could have a litany of inventors that came out of the public school system. i believe our public school system overall is very good compared to the rest of the world. and one question i would like to ask your guest coming up, mr. norquist -- would he be against a temporary tax increase on the wealthy if it helped generate funds to stimulate the economy? i know he would probably say no because he is a republican, and that is what is going to play. host: we will give that question a shot. grover norquist coming up 7:45 eastern time. more headlines coming out of rick santorum's appearances yesterday. "i'm a proud culture warriors"

-- "candidate attacks obama on prenatal testing and other issues while bowling to keep espousing social views." "santorum looks for primary support. sharp criticism of the time the costs and stories of his anti- abortion advocacy. it has a right up on this as well. rick santorum questioning the legitimacy of state-run public education systems suggesting that president obama's agenda sprang from a "phony theology." he said the idea of schools run by the federal government or state government was anachronistic. he did not say public schools were a bad idea, and he said that there was a role for government help in education. that was the latest in a series of commons by the former pennsylvania senator retired in the polls in the critical ohio

and michigan contest, suggesting he faces a dim view of public schooling. he and his wife home school their children. for the first 150 years, most presidents home school their children at the white house. "where did they come up that public education and bigger education bureaucracies was the rule in america? parents educated their children because it's their responsibility to educate their children. yes, the government can help, but the idea that the federal government should be running schools frankly much less than the state should be running schools is anachronistic. it goes back to the time of the best relations in america when people came off the farms where they did home school." this is all from rick santorum. while those factories, as we all know in ohio and pennsylvania have fundamentally changed, the factory school has not. that is from the "new york times

piece. minneapolis, neil, independent. good morning. caller: yes i am disillusioned with the republican candidates who tried to endear themselves to the religious people and their party while they are breaking the ninth commandment. the ninth commandment being [inaudible] the ninth amendment, which is not bearing false witness, and they are doing it constantly. host: thanks for calling. little difficulty hearing you. want to remind viewers to keep the sound down on your set a home. we will be able to hear you much better that way. dead, a democrat, good morning. caller: i just want to say as a christian democrat, i'm highly offended that rick santorum

would criticize obama's faith. rick santorum in a sex is only paid 1.8 towards charity. president obama paid 13-point- something. -- rick santorum in his tax only paid 1.8 toward something. a lot of what is said -- the prayer breakfast stuff, it is totally false. there's a lot of balls about obama's believe. it really offends me that he would attack president obama's christianity. it is not right at all. i'm not looking for my president to be my pastor, nor am i looking for my pastor to be my president. it is just not right. he is being very judgmental, and i think it is totally wrong. host: thanks for calling.

cspanwj is our twitter address as well. another -- rick santorum's far far right's social views may play well in the vatican but will know where i did a general election. michigan primary on the 20th. here is the front page from the sunday free press. both made moves in the past politicalize that could put them at odds with a more conservative republican base in a national campaign. the question is -- which will pay more? that is from the detroit free press this morning. here is a fax this morning. "it is about time someone drew a sharp contrast between the two sides in this national debate we are having about the future of this country. rick santorum's comments are with the silent majority in this

country has been waiting to hear. just look at the state of education culture, the economy, energy policy, and any person with any common sense can see that this country is in decline. gas prices alone will be enough in november to change this country for the better. go, rick santorum. honesty is the best policy. next caller, where are you calling from? caller: calling from philadelphia. i'd just want to see people compare with the democrats have ruled for a long time versus where republicans have ruled for a long time. not talking the senate or the white house or any part of congress, and talking about the cities of america appeared democrats have ruled the majority of american cities for up to two generations. that is 25 to 50 years in most cultures, and look at what has happened under the democrat rule

in that time. they destroyed the cities. anybody who lives near a city, anyone who will look at it objectively realizes that. what has happened is they've ruined the tax base. they ruined the neighborhoods. of the downtown area where they built the big buildings for the cable companies and the ambulance-chasing lawyers said they could be near their victims. they have destroyed the public schools, which is the major problem. that is what rick santorum is alluding to -- not alluding to. he is saying it. what are people doing over the last two generations? they left cities. they fled to the suburbs. they voted with their feet. democrats have controlled and ruined the cities over the last two generations. the people who could leave and wanted to leave and still leave go to the suburbs particularly for the public schools, have

voted with their feet for the republicans. democrats control the city's spirit people have fled to the republican-controlled suburbs. now, obama and company wants to make the rest of the country like the cities of america. think about it, folks. you live near a city, you live in the city, what do you do when you want to send your kids to public school? you leave the city, even if you have to read in the suburbs that is what you do. i'm a real estate agent, and every sunday, i have an open house. people are there for one reason. they want to send their kid to public school not in the city of philadelphia. that is the last thing they want to do. that is going on all over the country in every city -- host: want to get some other viewpoints in. thanks for checking in. we will get to tennessee in the second. here is another female. "every christian has a right to their own theology." -- another e-mail.

"i don't understand what theology would be a political matter." mention of grover norquist coming on the program in about 35 minutes -- 25 minutes or so. we will ask him to respond to this headline in the "washington post," which says the end of the tax holiday sets up an even harder hit. they write that of congress voting last week to extend the payroll tax holiday, 160 million workers will be spent an immediate tax hike, but the move leaves them facing an even bigger hit in january when the holiday inns in the payroll tax joins a long list of levees, all of these will sharply end abruptly go up. we will have a guest this sunday morning at 10:00 a.m. eastern time right after this show, fred upton, chairman of the house energy and commerce committee

10 a.m. and 6 eastern time. here's a short interview where he talks about the passage of the payroll tax cut extension. >> if you let this tax cut expire, it would be a tax increase on every working american, and in the time of a recession, that is not the thing that we ought to do, and that is why it has had bipartisan support as we move it through the house. again, looking back at the house bill passed back in december -- not every republican but a good 95% of republicans voted for it all would pay for it all, but again, we ran into stiff resistance by the other side, so we had to make the decision that at least for new spending the reimbursement rate for the physicians as well as the unemployment sentence -- even though we reduced the number of weeks and allowed states to have

a number of standards like drug screening and a number of things like that, things that our side felt were very important, we were able to include in the package that passed two one this afternoon. host: back to rick santorum -- we say with the "washington post" for just a second. the headline says a race to define vix santorum. he points out that 1144 delegates are needed for the republican nomination. rick santorum so far has 72, and the subhead says the candidate must frame his own image before rivals do if he is to win over the voters. do want to get some other calls in on what rick santorum had to say on several fronts in a higher yesterday. gary tennessee, independent, good morning. c-span2 -- caller: good morning.

rick santorum hit the nail on the head pick with the education system. our education system is messed up. it is sad when you have a fifth grader that cannot read at a third grade level, and he is continually passed on. it makes it more difficult for the next teacher to teach him at a level to prepare him for the next level. he is two or three years behind. santorum has the right idea of reforming our education system appeared with his comment on christianity, hate the sin, not the center -- sinner. that is all i have to say. >> -- host: rick santorum faces a new hurdle -- defining himself positively before others rushed to disqualify him. he presents himself as a committed and consistent conservative with blue-collar roots, just the kind of candidate republicans need to

energize the party space and reach out to reagan democrats in a campaign against president obama that could be decided in the nation's industrial heartland. santorum whose record-writing statements come up to grow the on social issues, will be used to portray him as far too conservative for many voters. his record, they say, could make anathema to suburban swing voters, especially women. sylvia, long island, a democrat, good morning. >> -- caller: good morning to you. i was having a good morning, but as i get ready for church, to have to hear again as i did last night that we have a presidential campaign candidate who would colophony theology

another christian? in just a what old middle class christian, gospel-singing, prayer praying constantly loving it church at tender. i have never heard -- and i belong to riverside church with over 3000 members -- i have never heard of a person who is a christian questioning another person's christianity in that kind of a vulgar, filled the way. that is not just unattractive, to be calling the president or anyone else's christianity a bony theology. i did not even know, and i think he should be asked what he meant. that is not just unattractive. it is repulsive. as i said, boulder. i am so heartsick. my stomach feels sick, but i'm going to church to pray for that boy. i also am concerned, as i have been since iowa. some of his supporters are saying that he does not say he would impose the legality of

contraception, but i have it on tape where he said in iowa as president he would be able to do away with contraception, but he would do everything he could to cooperate with governors so that all of the states would outlaw contraception. i am alive because of the birth control pill. when i was having the most hideous kind of hemorrhaging and i gave birth to a baby girl who died because i was only six months pregnant, and the reason i have a child is because the doctors said, "we know you want to conceive right away, but no, we're going to put you on the birth control pill because we have to find out what happened, that he would go into labor after six months." another time, another pregnancy could end up in bleeding to death, my heart being broken again. i cannot believe that this man would say and television

something that so clearly says -- host: going to move on and get some other voices in here including how we back in philadelphia. caller: good morning. i wanted to wish have a black history month and deep condolences to the family of with the houston. rigs santorum -- i think chris christie might be the best governor of new jersey. democrats said they are fighting for fairness and that is what the constitution is for. it has been exactly 99 years since the national democratic party has addressed the 16th amendment. the national democratic party has been taking credit for the 15th amendment, and for the republicans, if i admire 1930's republicans, why are republicans for almost 29 years trying to transform other republicans into 1930's democrats? both parties support the clinton administration but it

was the gary johnson administration [inaudible] the tea party race was the result of dr. ron paul and the governor's race in florida. host: thanks for weighing in. we will do this for 15 or 20 more minutes. back to the "columbus dispatch" this morning. rick santorum buyers up conservatives and has some things to say about mitt romney as well. he continued his two-one through higher today. two stops in columbus, pitching conservative credentials to tea party members and social conservatives. also fought back criticism of his earmark spending. santorum said romney as leader of the city sought and denmark.

he called a mark of use limited and said overall, they make up less than 1% of the federal budget. "let's talk about the real issues of the day," said santorum, his criticism of entitlement spending and talk about freedom from government that is from the "columbus dispatch" this morning. jack thank you for waiting. caller: i just want to make a comment. i think we are talking too much about religion. we should ask more about politics and see what people's motivations are and why they are doing certain things. if you take the general idea and run it across you will realize who is saying what, when, and how instead of taking things out of context and mixing things

together. that is one. the other thing is the next guest coming up, i have a question for that person. the question is -- republicans always say that government does not create jobs. well, every job is created in this country -- government had something to do with it, so let's stop the b.s. and start working together and solve the problems. thank you. host: thank you peter james, a democrat, good morning. caller: the previous caller had his perception very backward about american cities. american cities used to be just horrible paste -- places with blocks and blocks and blocks of ghettos. he needs to see the video and pictures before the 1960's when johnson got serious about poverty. the cities were not the places to live, but they are now, and people are fleeing to get into

the city's right now. people have always voted democrat when they live in congested areas. they live together and see each other's conditions every day. that is why you have blue foxes all over the united -- blue boxes all over the united states of cities even in places like atlanta or the south toward jacksonville but cities are revitalized. we have spent billions in recent decades revitalizing cities and making them better places than ever before. and, yes democrats run things in cities. that is an excellent example of why people when they are together vote democrat. thank you. host: one of your this morning via twitter says -- -- one viewer. as we followed the campaign in maine, we look at the daily news this morning. ron paul scored big wins in

hancock and washington counties but statewide total does not stop running. they're right that the texas congressman was the top choice but a two to one margin in four polls conducted on saturday. as the state lines of its controversial gop caucuses. attracted 163 votes and in the town of hankou and the county of the same name, he received 41 votes to run a -- romney's 16 and picked up four to ronnie's two peer the numbers were not enough to overcome his deficit statewide but the poll is non- binding, meaning the gop delegates will not necessarily be apportioned based on the results. new york, stan, republican, thank you for waiting. caller: good morning. glad you mentioned ron paul and

what is going on in maine because i think that mr. santorum and the gop is just trying to grab headlines with most of this and distract the voter base from what is really going on. i would hope that c-span, whenever there is a question of voter fraud and evidence like there has been in maine, would have cameras and people reporting on this 24/7 because this is of the utmost importance. when mr. santorum grass these headlines and place the religious card, he is taking valuable time away from the media, which could be spent on the underwear bomber which occurred haskell says he saw happen. i'm really kind of let down on c-span because i really thought that you would do a better job of covering this campaign especially when there is evidence of voter fraud.

host: ok, appreciate your thoughts this morning. greg jacksonville, independent. good morning. caller: good morning. i would like to introduce myself as one of these inaugural 30- year watchers of c-span. i have a lot of exception to what senator santorum was calling the president's religion and his form of christianity a phony sort of religion. i take a lot of exception to that, particularly by a presidential candidate to the president of the united states when he himself hopes to become president. every religion should be respected by others regardless of again what they feel personally. every religion carries its own personal tens of worship and belief in their own deities. i just think it was reprehensible but senator santorum would make that kind of comment. also, the sort of, he made had a tinge of what would be in my opinion they kind of

subordination of one kind of christianity to another. i think it had some racial been to it when he indicated the kind of religion that reverend wright was preaching in his church. for people who may not know, he operated of former president lyndon johnson when he was in the military. he is a man of god and a man who has preached the truth. last i had as for the caller from pennsylvania who talked about again the sort of stewardship and administration of democrats and power in the city appeared most of the people left those cities let to avoid taxes. taxes were up look -- absolutely being implemented at that time, but they also went to the suburbs to again get away from what they felt was the kind of democratic administration. republicans have done pretty much the same thing. they have not put in a lot of rules -- they have put in a lot

of rules that have destroyed the country. people should look at the history where democrats have prepared some of the financial and physical negligence of republicans and have helped this country. host: all right, that was greg from jacksonville. a couple of stories this morning -- in case you have not heard mitt romney has parted ways with his arizona co-chairman. they write about a county sheriff who was running for congress in arizona, resigned from the campaign after the phoenix new times, an alternative weekly magazine, reported that he threatened to deport the man, a mexican immigrants if he revealed the nature of their relationship. he held a press conference saturday and acknowledged he is gay and denied the allegations of misconduct against him. one of the stories this morning focusing on the president's approach to the campaign, long expecting to face mitt romney in

the fall. president obama's campaign team has shifted gears in recent days to consider the possibility his gop opponent will instead be rick santorum. campaign officials confirm obama's chicago-based organization has been combing through the senator was a background looking for possible lines of attack and also e- mailed obama's pennsylvania supporters asking for material that could be used against santorum in upcoming speeches and adds. that was in the ap this morning. atlanta, democratic collar. thank you for calling. caller: i would like to speak to santorum and all this other fake christians that call in and if you do not accept their translations of jesus the way they teach it, then you are wrong. i have two versus of the 14th chapter of john, and i will not give my interpretation. i want them to look it up, and if they call back and speak on it, they won't.

the 19th verse and the 26 the burst. thank you. host: keefe, new york, independent collar. -- keith. caller: i'm from the bronx, new york. the problem that we have with the public school system is not like back in the days, right? when i went to schools politicians have their kids in our schools, right? parents are now working two jobs. we have a lot of children who are home studying and doing what needs to be done. the bottom line is the problem we have is the politicians have their kids in washington, d.c. schools, or they have their skids in the public-school system, it was better.

i would suggest c-span have a roundtable discussion with regular citizens to talk about this issue of religion and school. you have opinions of what the people really feel. the bottom line is this is not just about president obama. this is about people so rick santorum and republicans better get their act together. thank you. host: more about president obama and the economy connected this time to gas prices, which are going up again. lead story of the new york times. says high gas prices gives the gop in issue to attack obama.

here is a quotation from the speaker. "this is a debate -- this debate is a debate we want to have." that is from the "new york times" this morning. back to your calls bridgeport, connecticut, marcia, a democrat. hello, there. caller: rick santorum is totally out of touch with most americans. i was curious, so i read his book, and he criticizes mothers who work outside the home. he calls them greedy and selfish. really? for years now, wages have not

kept up, and in many families, both parents have to work. santorum's wife can afford to stay home and home school their kids. also, he is against contraception? this is the last thing a family wants is another pregnancy, a family that is hurting financially nowadays does not want another pregnancy. santorum and most of these republican candidates with their holier than thou attitude, is totally out of touch with working families. host: mississippi, lewis, a republican, good morning. caller: yes this is vicksburg michigan. host: my fault, and sorry. caller: i was listening to these people making comments about big cities. i sit here in between chicago and detroit. talk about two wasted cities. i really dare to go into them because they are so bad.

as far as the president -- how many times has he taken his family to church since he has been in office compared to most presidents? i do not know. i have listened on the phone to three democrats -- and the first republican for a while. but you have a good day. host: you have a good day as well. talking about the state of michigan here, which has its primary a week from tuesday. a shot of mitt romney and his father -- in an old political closer in the background, very much on the candidate's mind, they're right. as he campaigned in his home state of michigan. that is in the "boston sunday globe." back to the "washington post" today. full coverage of a shot of nuking bridge getting a hug from his granddaughter -- of a

shot of newt gingrich getting a hug from his granddaughter. the headline says "on the trail shoring up key support." the camera pans down we see candidate ron paul in boise idaho. they make a point that the gop candidates are not taking votes for granted. new castle, delaware, patrick, a democrat, good morning. caller: first of all, i want to say i'm a white irish catholic, and i'm very proud of being white. as far as questioning the race, religion or at the city of a candidate -- if you do not question that, you are a fool because we are all the product of those environments. the decisions that a president would make has to do with his religion, with his race, and with his ethnicity. you cannot just exclude that stuff.

you have grown up with it all your life, and it is going to affect your decisions when you do it. as far as people leaving the cities that is another thing you cannot talk about why they are leaving the cities. they are leaving because of black crime. we all know that, but nobody will say that on television. people say they will not worry about a person's religion -- what about these snake handling people? would you vote for one of them? i would not. host: going to let the caller go. boca raton florida, susie, you are on. caller: thank you. first and foremost, i'm a conservative roman catholic, and i'm voting for ron paul. as far as i'm concerned, he is the true conservative. the others are either neocons or, as romney, i cannot believe

the audacity of our president calling the catholic church or any religious entity what they can do with their bodies or what they are supposed to pay for. i truly believe that obama is out to destroy this country. i'm going to be voting for ron paul, the only true conservative. if i have to write him in, i will. if obama gets another four years, oh, well. ron paul would be the only one to make the changes we need. i think he is probably the only true christian out of all of them out there. thank you so much for having me on -- host: you bet. thank you for calling. more from fred upton while we have a couple of minutes. chairman of the house energy and commerce committee. he will be our newsmakers guest today at 10:00 eastern. at 6:00 p.m., he told reporters that the debate about the payroll tax would lead to

broader efforts on tax reform. here is a look. [video clip] >> maybe these provisions that expire will provide the oomph to get to the finish line. yes, they expire december 31, but for most americans, the impact does not hit until april 15 of 2014 because the tax hike kicks in january 13 but you do not pay until the end of the year, so that still allows you time. i would like to see the rates come down. i like them to be simplified and a number of different things. host: fred upton on newsmaker sunday at 10:00. 6:00. top on the last few minutes about rick santorum and many different headlines coming out of a higher yesterday on what he had to say. go ahead.

caller: i think people will doubt of the cities because they have less trouble in the schools. they have in a lot of cases better pay, and there is less crime. as far as santorum goes when a woman approached him and told him that obama was not a christian, was not even a citizen -- in previous elections, mccain had the balls to tell them that she was wrong. santorum would make a joke out of it. that is all. host: long island, new york, on the line, republican. good morning, sir. caller: good morning. although i'm a republican, i feel the santorum is much too far to the right. i think his policies would destroy the social safety nets. if he is so concerned about eliminating medicare and social

security and medicaid, he should start with his family and friends first. he postulated health savings accounts as an alternative. i do not see him espousing that to members of congress so that they would avail themselves of these help savings accounts in lieu of their own health care. he should lead by example. my last comment is that social security was fully funded until in the 1960's, lyndon johnson decided to fund his vietnam war and other programs with social security, which had a surplus. every president since then has been dipping into the account. they want to substitute for a

1's, and this would only benefit the stockbrokers. we all saw what happened with the stock market crash -- investing in for a one -- 41 is a disaster in the making. host: pbs will air a special monday and tuesday on bill clinton and his presidency. andrew ferguson on the attempt to rehabilitate clinton. you go inside "the weekly standard" you will see mr. ferguson's peace. it says an attempt to rehabilitate bill clinton is in full bloom. unsurprisingly they leave a lot out. he writes that many people swept up in the clinton revival are simply forgetful of the clinton reality or too young to remember it. to them, those other signature phrases may be foggy or

unfamiliar. the ignorance is easy to correct. evanston, illinois randy, a democrat, good morning to you. what do you think about what you are hearing regarding rick santorum? caller: 6 santorum is a -- rick santorum reminds me of a description -- it is a proverb.

proverbs 5:12 -- 17:12. it is unfortunate you give him this platform to speak from, but let me just read it to you. let a man read a bear robbed of her cub rather than a fool in his silliness. whenever you run across that, it is best for you to take flight. rick santorum is an absolute fool but somehow, he got on this stage, and rather than people shaming him off the stage, you give him this platform to speak from. whenever you do that, you allow them to walk away thinking they have viability. rick santorum is a catholic. he is a catholic. he believes in catholicism. the bell system is not christianity.

it is no criticism of whatever he believes in, but it is a man- made religion. it is no different than fans of scientology or more monism. the rules that a man makes do not determine whether you go to heaven or hell. it is only got that determines that. not the rules that some man makes. i'm not criticizing his religion but you do not mix the two together. he is a catholic -- host: commons there from randy. new jersey has been waiting. hello, chris. caller: i do not believe that the theology is the problem. i believe the problem is the way the president applies his thinking for the country. he is a progressive. i believe that rick santorum would be better to bring that out that it is not christian to keep people enslaved to the government through programs,

through benefits that do not allow them to achieve on their own. that is the biggest problem in this country. why do we have so many people in this predicament? we do not allow business to grow. we allow the states to keep making bad decisions. the states are bankrupt, and the federal government is bankrupt. i do not see a way out of this until we have someone in there that treats the presidency the way it should be treated. you have to run this country as a business that is best for everyone, not just certain groups, and that includes businesses also. they get away with getting federal money they do not deserve, and other businesses get shut out because they are not favored. everyone in this country needs to be treated equally. there should be no more handouts. we should be helping the older people that worked here their whole lives that are not rich on their own, and the people that

are crippled or blind. everyone else can do it on their own. we did it in this country for a long time. now, we have become the enslaved to entitlements and handouts. it is ridiculous. i do not see this changing until we get someone that is actually willing to work with congress to make actual cuts. host: thanks for all of your calls. almost 30 calls in this first segment on comments from rick santorum in ohio. we will continue to cover the campaign, as the days leading up to the next couple of primaries. arizona and michigan a week from tuesday. we will take a short time out, and then you'll get a chance to ask questions and comments of grover norquist of americans for tax reform. certainly lots to talk about there. in the meantime, a bit of news from c-span radio. >> we will hear about different subjects in the news beginning

at noon today, including the economy, presidential politics, and the situation in syria when c-span bdo be errors 5 network tv talk shows. beginning at noon, "meet the press" rears -- reairs. at 1:00 p.m., it is abc's "this week." guests include senate armed services committee ranking member john mccain and former white house press secretary robert gibbs. he is now an obama for president campaign strategist. fox news sunday rears at 2:00 p.m. eastern. chris wallace welcomes gop presidential candidate and former house speaker newt gingrich and also house majority leader erich cantor. cnn's state of the union" follows. and former cia director retired general michael hayden. also indiana's republican

governor mitch daniels. bob schieffer moderates a roundtable discussion with gop presidential candidate rick santorum. again, the five sunday talk shows at noon eastern time. listen to them all on c-span radio on 90.1 fm in the washington, d.c. area. listen on your iphone or blackberry or nationwide on xm satellite radio on channel 119 or listen online anywhere at cspanradio.org. >> i got a list of all the chemicals in cigarette smoke and had a hunch one might be addictive. i just went right down the road and ask each one a simple question under oath to see what their response was. >> i believe nicotine is not addictive, yes. >> cigarettes and nicotine

clearly do not meet the classic definitions of addiction. there is no intoxication. >> we will take that as a note. just yes or no. >> i do not believe nicotine is addictive. >> not addictive. >> not addictive. >> they had a program in the 1970's where they wanted to remove nicotine from cigarettes and replace it with a drug that was equally addictive but a drug that would cause the heart problems. they had all these molecules that they invented but they had no way to test them, and that was my job. my job was to come in and find the molecules where the rat's brain would like it and the heart would not have any cardiovascular problem with it. >> tonight, a discussion with the subject of "addiction incorporated." 8:00 p.m. eastern and specific -- and pacific on c-span. >> this president's day on c-

span a former navy seal talks about his new book on the mission that resulted in the killing of osama bin laden. >> one of the things that got me off the bench to write this book was by august, the facts had this story that had the seals pressing their helicopter as they arrive like keystone kops, blowing their way into the building, finally shooting their way through the building for the first floor where the wounded man's wife and shot him in cold blood in the bedroom. that did not sound like the mission to me. talking to the guys that were there on the scene, the whole thing basically was over in 120 seconds, quite a different story. >> see his remarks as part of our prime time lineup. it also includes a debate on whether to prosecute wall street

banks for mortgage fraught with former new york governor eliot spitzer an assistant attorney general -- for mortgage fraud. it all begins monday 8:00 p.m. eastern on c-span. >> "washington journal" host: continues another visit from grover norquist, president of americans for tax reform. thanks for being here. your reaction? guest: there are two key questions -- one was whether we would extend the social security tax holiday for one more year. on that one, both republicans and democrats said yes. then the question last december was republicans in the house said they would extend it for a full year, and here's $100 billion in the federal reduction so it does not increase the deficit. it was the democratic senate which turned around and said

"we are not going to do that began to my amazement, some of the establishment press said republicans were posing extending the tax cut. everybody agreed to extend the tax cut. the fight was whether to cut spending or raise taxes to pay for it. democrats propose to put a permanent tax increase. one-year tax cut and a permanent tax increase or a 1- year tax holiday. the agreement was it would pay for it with either of spending cuts or obama's tax increases. first question -- should you extend the holiday? the second question, should we because of our budget problems, spend less or tax more. democrats wanted to tax more. republicans wanted to spend less. i'm reasonably happy with how it turned up. i'm with republicans of wanting to have the spending cuts, but

that is not where obama is and not with the democrats are. host: the phone number is on the bottom of the screen for our guest, grover norquist. we will get to your calls in a couple of minutes for republicans, democrats, and independents. there are the numbers at the bottom of your screen. just a the tax relief would extend through the end of the year and a temporary doc fix would avoid a 20 per 7% -- a 27% drop in medicare fees.

a couple of other provisions to talk about -- new federal workers would contribute more to their pension plans and the government would sell off part of the spectrum to industry. what else is there do want to react to? guest: selling off the spectrum is a good idea. we should have a war of the spectrum. it was held by the government and was not available to the american workers. technology has made it easier to have step closer together and the spectrum. getting that sold bonds should have happened a long time ago. this crisis forced that out the door but it has been a waste of taxpayer money. that is resources the government could have not by raising a once taxes but by selling off and making available to everyone.

there are a number of different ways we can to reforming. we could cut back unemployment insurance. host: this is "the washington post" headline -- guest: that makes the next election all about what the direction of the country is. it is not or somebody gives a speech and a candidate might do this or that. we know that if you reelect

obama, taxes will jump up by $1 trillion overnight and all of the bush tax reductions will disappear. they end automatically. it is a $3 trillion tax hike for the next decade. obama says he wants to restore some of that. he has not made any of the permanent so why do you believe that he would want let anyone keep that? that is a massive tax increase that will hit unless congress asks. it looks like the republicans control the house and will take the senate in 2012. they only need four seats. of all the republicans up, the only ones they might lose is the

one in massachusetts with scott brown. it could easily go republican. you look at a republican house and senate which puts taxmageddon, this massive tax increase if obama is elected on everyone. host: to talk about including the budget released this week including the common said alan simpson made about you on this show. let's get some calls in first new york city, good morning. caller: i want to remind everyone that mr. norquist [inaudible] if he were in venezuela his job would be considered assistant to the direct --

dictator. i heard in the last week or so you saying that you're not concern to the president might be as long as he has an of digits to hold a pen. the laws are coming of the congress and the important thing is the elected congressmen and you can just have the the right president who knows how to sign the legislation. apart from all the other questions i could debate but i agree about the spectrum, if we have togasoline being our biggest export, shouldn't we do something about preventing exports of gasoline so that the price does not go up too much over the short term? are there real americans or is

it just the biggest corporations and the richest people for america tax reform? guest: let's take this backwards -- most of what you said is not true including some of quotations you could be triggered you attribute to made. you did say that i gave a speech asks cpac which pointed out that four republicans the fight for who gets to be repaired the republican nominee is not one of these historic goldwater vs. rockefeller taskeft vs eisenhower, all tcandidates for the republican party are running as reagan republicans. they want more energy and not lessened that is a major imports, not exports. .

all of the republicans are generally moving in the same zone and that is why republicans can have this serial monogamy when they fall of love with one candidate and then another and another because they all want to move in the same direction. republicans are going to become a congress-driven party as the democrats have been for 50 years now. obama has allowed to make two decisions -- he decided to triple the number of troops in afghanistan and he decided to participate in the libyan conflict. other than that, the democratic congress wrote and passed the stimulus bill and handed it to him and he signed it. the road and pass the health care bill and he signed it. the road and past dodd-frank. they've ramped up spending, $1 trillion of discretionary increase that happened in the first months of obama as president say and that was written by congress.

obama signs or rights present on the bills that congress enacts and the republican party will be more like that or congress will come up with ideas and passing legislation and the republican will sign it. that was the point. >> host: grover norquist is our guest. here is a big charge on the president's 2013 budget. guest: the deficit that the obama people think is $1.30 trillion this year and they're hoping in the future that it comes down but this year's budget which the president said he was going to cut in half has doubled since he walked in.

what the president did in his budget is he came back with another stimulus proposal. he spent $800 billion on stimulus the first two years and today, there are 1 million more people not working in the day he took office. you can say unemployment has gone down because more people have quit looking but in terms of total numbers, there are 133.6 million people working the day he took in at 132.4 now. more than 1 million people fewer are working today. the only reason the unemployment number looks better than the last couple of months is that more people have quit being in the work force. they have aged out or quit looking. there is a real challenge. the stimulus spending did not help and he wants to do more spending. he wants more tax credits like

sloyndra was being subsidized with. unlike bill clinton lost an election this year and moves to the center, president obama's budget shows that no learning took place whatsoever. more taxes, more spending, more solyndra special interest in giving. caller: i would like to know how they justify raising taxes or raising spending in a time when we are hurting so much and they think that is okay. that is what we need to do. guest: obama and reid and pelosi have a theory called

keynesianism which means you can take the money and barletta and the government takes that dollar and spends a, they believed that eds $2 to the economy. it is magic, it is nonsense that that is their theory. they really believe this. they believe that when they take money out of the economy from somebody who earned it and give it to somebody who is politically connected in the chicago way of budgeting, they think that is not only chicago politics on taxing people who did not vote to you but they think they have created magically two dollars for every dollar they talk. as we have sadly seen, it does not work well. host: pittsburg, independence -- caller: you keep wanting to

mention solyndra which was a failed business endeavor. i have heard no mention of detroit. we saved the american auto industry. wasn't that might well invested? general motors is number one in the world again. imagine that! the united states be number one in something again. guest: the united states is number one in many places and industries that are not getting tens of millions of dollars of subsidies. the question is whether general motors could have accomplished the same thing by going through reorganization as most airlines have and many companies have or whether tens of billions of dollars of your tax dollars and your children's tax dollars and targeted tax credit giveaways or given. we could have made solyndra successful if we put another $10

billion in and passed a law requiring people to buy their products. you can grow bananas in minnesota if you put tax subsidies into it. the idea that throwing tens of billions of dollars into something -- what about all the small businessman and never got a chance to start a business because the resources they might have used to start their careers and get their first job what you explain to the millions of americans where we have fewer americans were in today that -- then when obama took office because he took jobs and handed off to political friends. $800 billion in the the stimulus package and the unemployment numbers went up. host: this is the front cover of "newsmax."

guest: the taxpayer protection plan is a short statement that they collected official or kennedy prophesies that says i will vote against and opposed all efforts for a net tax increases. that sets tax reforms yes and tax increases no. they have signed a pledge in the senate and harry reid says they made a promise pretty promises to the voters and the american people. all the republicans running for president have made this commitment in writing. if the republicans hold the house as i think they will and take the senate and presidency, there will not be any next tax increase. tax reform will be possible. the american people will trust politicians to reform taxes if they are assured it is not a trojan horse for a tax increase.

you had senator john kerry and the other senators in that gang of 12 super committee last fall -- the obama goal was 1.5 trillion dollars in tax increases and there were going to call a tax reform. . assistance was not to reduce rates, it was to raise taxes $1.50 trillion. when somebody says they are for tax reform but if they have not signed the pledge, ask them if what they're talking about is a tax increase. >>host: let's bring in alan simpson. this is what he had to say. [video clip] >> tell us what you really think when you watch of the sacred role of money to the system which is the payroll tax.

you know that eventually it will have to be put back. you cannot covered with spectrum. you will borrow the money from the feds to do it. i want to know how you will do that and know that when you put it back, it will be called a tax increase and grover norquist running the earth in his white rose will call it a tax increase and 95% of the republicans will be terrified what can grover do to you? he cannot defeat for reelection. -- he can defeat for reelection. if that means more to you and your country and patriotism you should not be in congress. host: a reaction? guest: alan simpson was the obama appointment to run a commission to come up with tax increases and supposed to be

spending reductions. that commission never put anything in legislative writing nothing. paul ryan, the republican congressman from wisconsin, was on that commission and read the outline and said this is a $2 trillion tax increase. the spending cuts are iffy and not written down so he voted against it for the republicans in the house actually passed a budget that paul ryan developed which, over the next decade on like obama's budget, reduces $6 trillion of obama's overspending, does not raise taxes, it reduces through tax reform and taking the corporate rate down to 25% to make is competitive with the rest of the world and that is a budget that all but four other republicans voted for in the past the house of representatives and the democrats in the senate have not passed a budget in three years.

when alan simpson asks what you would do, the republicans have passed a budget that takes spending from 25% of gdp down to 20 and then does the damage -- and undoes the damage of the obama years and puts us on the line for reduction of government and welfare reform. these are very serious reforms. it is not serious of senator simpson former senator simpson and who did not write a budget down and never put it in legislative language and ignored the fact that republicans passed a budget and a house that is very good and does not raise taxes. we don't need to raise taxes to bring spending down.

we need to bring spending down to bring spending down. host: to the line for democrats or from wisconsin -- caller: this man is a polished carpetbagger. he has been doing this for years. guest: i'm from massachusetts but i never got further south than washington, d.c. caller: the bush tax cuts or leveraged toward the wealthiest americans. this has been the policy of your group and you don't represent all republicans but a certain segment. they continue to read themselves of any tax burden and shifted to the middle class and strangle the middle-class with stagnating wages and you continually have a willing work force that is working for less and less all the time. you talk about frustrating

people trying to start small businesses. the middle class cannot handle any more of that. you're nothing but a carpetbagger and you represent a certain -- host: we will let you go and give grover norquist chance to defend himself. guest: +carpetbaggers were involved in the occupation of the south after the civil war and i don't think that is quite what he means. first of all over 95% of republicans have signed the pledge. the pledges to the american people pretty modern republican party is committed to not raising your taxes. because of the tea party movement and the ron paul movement reinvigorating vote republican party in the last three years the republicans swept the house and picked up six senate seats and 711 state legislative seats and another

six governors in 2010. 2010 was as dramatic and perhaps more dramatic for the modern republican party than 1994 or maybe even 1980 because while the republicans have learned not to raise taxes, the democrats just spend money they had not learned under george bush that the target, the goal and the metric you're supposed to measure and pay attention to is to government spending. the tea party and ron paul kamen slap them on the side of the head. the idea that there is some wing of the modern republican party that the democrats think want to spend more money and raise taxes is not true. you have a united republican party that will not raise your taxes and post-bush, thanks to the tea party and ron paul guys the failure of the bush people to rein in spending is committed to reining in spending.

it is a big difference. host: georgia, republican -- caller: is good to see you on this morning. guest: are you going to call me a carpetbagger? caller: the georgia legislature passed a 1% transportation sales tax. that establishes a on the level of government which is original. it eliminates home rule because it is imposed on counties that may not have passed it. there is no representation on the remote -- regional board. maris us to corrupt and dysfunctional augusta down the road. the worst thing is that it actually is extortion because it triples our local fund requirements. how does this 14% tax increase out of georgia the gop

governor fit your pledge? did they take it to the hotel where they keep the boos and the hookers? guest: [laughter] no, they didn't. i assume the caller was getting about the last, the first part of the conversation was very real. there was a measure placed on the ballot for upcoming elections that would dramatically increase taxes in georgia which is not competitive anymore with its neighboring states of tennessee and florida because of its tax policy. it is a sales tax increase supposedly for transportation. we know that when you promise to put something into roads and the government gets more money that money often disappears in other directions. it is an effort to create regional governments that are

less responsive to the people of georgia. the state is trying to avoid its own responsibility for either doing things or not doing things. georgia i think will vote down this tax increase and come back to the table and focus on making transportation a priority in georgia which it is not. politician can say he cares about transportation but i will put in another dollar unless i get a tax increase has just told you that transportation is the least important item in the budget. the politician who says this makes transportation the most important thing he is really saying is the least important thing. i hope that georgia defeats that measure. it is a large tax increase and would be a big mistake.

host: is there any one person the presidential race you can get in -- you get behind? "guest: any republican nominee. they should do tax reform. they are all moving in the direction of bringing rates down and broadening the base and not having a tax increase. the proposal i liked best was rick perry was not running for president but is 20% flat tax for business and individual, no capital gains tax -- that would be a driver for economic growth host: your group spent about $680,000 last year on the congressional races. what are you looking to do this year? will you increase? guest: in 2010, we spent about $8 million and informing voters so we spent a fair amount on

legislative regional races. it would be less in off-year guerr. we are raising $2 million this year to make sure that voters understand where congressmen and senators and state legislators are on the tax issue. host: this is from twitter -- guest:the tax issue is a very important issue. it has been since the tea party in this country. what americans for tax reform has been able to accomplish is to make easy for any voter in america to look at a candidate and say that person is with me by not raising taxes or against me. by whether they signed the pledge.

"newsmax"did that wonderful piece band "60 minutes"did a profile so it is terribly important and alan simpson explains that republicans will not vote for a tax increase because i don't like it. news flash -- the republicans won't vote for a tax increase because republicans got elected promising they would not raise taxes. if i decide to become a trappist monk, it would change nothing. the modern republican party would still be committed to not raising taxes and obama could not force this congress to raise taxes. there is a little bit of trying to personalize the policy issue. this is silly but it does allow us to focus on the real issue the tax issue is a powerful issue. the pledge highlights and makes

it clear trying to spotlight every candidate on taxes. host: peoria ill., independent caller -- caller: i have followed him for years. as smart as he is, it is unfortunate he chooses to put out a persona that he is smarter than this or that and he would do better if the answer questions with people's integrity. guest: if you have a question, i will answer it with integrity. caller: you have not expressed what kind of patriotism you have exhibited in your life and what gives you the right to talk about what other people are doing. taxes are important, we all know that. do you are stating the obvious. when people will recover from this mess that has been created can remind the american public what happened between 2000-2008

and how things will be different when we have the same players like john boehner and all the rest of his group? guest: first of all, we will not have the same players. president bush had many strengths but keeping spending down was not on his to do list. the approach as he talked or driven by some of the interests of no child left behind, not republicans in the house and senate. you have a dramatically different group of people now in the republican party and leadership. you look around the country and chris christie wrestling with decades of overspending and over-pension promises and bankrupt pension systems and a teachers union that is raising union dues and not educating kids. in new jersey, he is wrestling with that. bobby jindal in louisiana breaking through the bureaucracy and taking one of the most

corrupt state in the nation and turning it around in healthful ways. governor rick perry of texas took $15 billion out of overspending over the last two year budget moving forward for. the governor of pennsylvania not raising taxes. governor scott walker and rick scott in wisconsin reforming education in getting rid of the tenure system which says you cannot fire teachers that don't teach and putting students and parents in the center, not the teachers' union. everyone had to pay the teachers union money to buy their insurance. that was a real slush fund in the put an end to it because we should be focusing on the students, not the teachers' union leadership and what they want in terms of cash out of the education system. we of major radically shrink

fend republican party committed not only to bring in taxes down permanently but also spending restraint. the paul ryan budget is a road map to undo the damage of the obama overspending. they drifted during the wrong direction during the bush years and spending moved up. host: our guest has been grover norquist, americans for tax reform. it thank you for joining us this morning. we will take a short time now and then we will look at campaign at 2012.

>> this president's day on c- span, eliot spitzer joining in on the debate on mortgage fraud. >> welle must take to bring up occupy wall street but they have a sign that was very accurate. we say we know when corporations are people when texas is to

execute them. the problem is we have given corporations all the upside but none of the down. when it comes to holding them accountable, because of the diffusion of responsibility, because of the buffers and layers built in of lawyers and investment bankers it's a very hard to describe criminal intent. we keep the upside and we will guarantee you too big to fail on the downside. on the criminal side we say, if you do bad things we have no way of holding a responsible. >> watch the remarks in part of our prime time lineup and the mission of the killing of osama bin laden. and the egyptian revolution on facebook beginning at 8:00 p.m.

eastern on c-span. >> have always believed the internet can help change the world. i know it sounds very cliche or will not make sense to a lot of people but that is just tell i see things. why did i want to go work for google? what i liked about google is that the democracy of offering people in formation, the people living here, they do not understand that we all have equal access to information. in the present regime, most of the people with only get

propaganda. this is how it stays the same besides making everyone scared. >> see his remarks as part of our presidents day lineup. and the mission of killing of some of bin laden. and prosecuting wall street banks for mortgage fraud. "washington journal" continues. caller: -- host: at the table now, neera tanden president of center for american progress. guest: we have always supported a balanced approach to deficit reduction with economic growth.

we have hopeful signs in our economy, but it's important that we continue and that our government policies help support economic growth and not hinder it. we want to make sure the proposals of the president supported economic growth, growing jobs, keep the economy growing. we also look at a balanced approach for deficit reduction. if there is an approach with spending cuts and balanced with tax changes and increases in revenues and that is something we applaud. this is a shared time of sacrifice. host: what are the democrats' grip strength right now in the election? guest: the president has accomplished a lot on behalf of the american people. we look back got a time when we

had a range of policies that helped stave off the great depression. it's time to communicate to the people about the things we avoided. you're seeing now that the economy is coming back and we are sensing some optimism. we cannot beat overly joyous at what is happening because we still have a long way to go, but i think this president is doing well. host: the lead story in "the wall street journal." we're talking about $4 per gallon gas. but that into the equation. guest: there are a lot of headwinds that we are facing. issues in asia, japan.

the challenges of the gas prices is that there's a lot of instability in the middle east and that does have an impact. the president has adopted a strategy on gas prices and the oil prices to ensure the we have positively adopted as well as drilling more and there's a balanced approach on that as well. that is another problem. i do not think we will lose or win an election over gas prices. host: are guest is neera tanden the president of center for american progress. she will be with us for 40 more minutes. the numbers are on your screen. we're talking about the budget released in various related issues. i want to assure you it clip from the hearing this week with

the budget committee chairman of the house, paul ryan questioning timothy geithner during his hearing. >> today, we are facing the most predictable crisis in our nation's history and for the fourth year in a row, you bring us this. this is no plan. this is no plan to restrain spending, grow the economy, and most of all, it's no plan to save us from a debt-fueled crisis which should be an economic disaster for all of us. why does the president wants again decide to dump on the drivers of our debt. why is he giving us more broken promises instead of leadership, excuses instead of accountability. why have we seen the president turn his back on the bipartisan solutions that have been percolating out there? why does he decide debases

reelection strategy on political gain? host: there's a lot better about his statement of broken promises. what do you think the leader said? guest: i find the whole segment complete the remarkable. paul ryan's put forward a budget which essentially entrenched taxes. he had our opportunity to address the real budget, but he took a cut in medicare, cutting programs like medicaid that are there for low-income children and mothers, and he dramatically cut taxes for the very wealthy. but you're talking about a bipartisan approach anything like that, it is an extreme budget. what i think it is interesting is how republicans like mitt romney have tried to run away from that budget. paul ryan's is very disingenuous

on these issues, i'm sad to say, and it is unfortunate. he talks about bipartisan support but he supports a very partisan approach. you know what? i applaud the president for rejecting the idea of cutting taxes of the wealthy. he is asking for a balanced approach. the biggest driver for our deficit and our debt right now is the bush tax cuts. when you look at what is happening with the debt, and every economist says it is the bush tax cuts. but keep the tax cut for middle- income americans and raise them for the top 2% which is what drives grover norquist, paul ryan, and others to viciously oppose this budget deal simply because they refuse to let the top 2% of earners address it. i have some disagreements with congress from ryan.

host: first call from tampa, florida. welcome to the program. caller: i am a born-again christian, a republican that has had to leave the republican party because they tell a lie after lie. none of the immediate checks them on their lives. they insult my intelligence -- none of the media checks on their lies. with the bush, jobs fell off of the cliff. unemployment fell off a cliff under george bush. with the trend of jobs being brought about, the economy turning around, they are telling lie after lie that the economy is better but it is not due to president obama. i do not understand how they

expect me to vote for any of them when none of them have the intelligence to look at the recovery, and they say it's not coming fast enough. host: is there one at gop candidate you worry may be able to beat the president? guest: i think the challenge for mitt romney is that he basically is the poster child for what a lot of people are angry about in this economy. look at what he did in his own career and what his policies are going forward. it really entrenches a lot of the concerns about fairness, concerns that there are one set of rules for some americans and another set of rules for hard- working americans. there's a lot of anger about that. if you look at him firing people terminating workers, it will be a challenge for him going forward.

what i find it fascinating is he is having such a tough time in michigan. let me say one thing about the caller. i share the frustration. if you look at what has happened over the last 10 years we have had a variety of proposals and policies that republicans supported, like the bush tax cuts, deregulating wall street's then we had a gigantic economic crisis, a mass where millions of jobs were lost. the president came in and made a lot of hard decisions from the american reinvestment and recovery act to race series of other proposals. now the economy is coming back and republicans think it did not go fast enough. it's really hard to take this approach. host: from mississippi, an independent. hello. caller: i call and consider

myself an independent, but i think the president should be commended because the first 18 months of his presidency had been spent trying to correct both parties problems. number two one reason we cannot seem to get anything accomplished in congress, or anywhere in government as far as the republican side goes, is if they adhere to any of the president's policies as such they would have to admit to their mistakes in the past and they have never been anywhere near being able to accept that. thank you to the president for what he has been able to do. guest: i think a payroll tax debate is a fascinating one. the payroll tax cut holiday was actually a conservative idea.

the president looked at a variety of proposals and here is one that put forward in the past and he would embrace it. he put that forward and we still had an economic challenge, so we asked for it to be extended. republicans who had supported the idea for years opposed it calling it a tax cut. some can argue it was because of the spending but they did not oppose it because of back but they just flat-out opposed it. there were republicans like john kyl saying we should not. they did not call this the right kind of tax cut. all the house republicans opposed it and the conservatives in the senate came to their senses and basically fought for the president.

that's an example of when republicans supported a particular proposal for years the president embraces it, then all of a sudden it's a bad idea. host: a question for you off of twitter on this sunday morning. guest: a great question. i'd like to spend a minute on this issue. the most important issue for health care and medicare is not that medicare, per se, costs more, but the biggest driver as a medicare cost is simply the fact that in health care itself, costs are going up. per beneficiary, per person medicare is actually significantly cheaper 2.2% inflation and medicare is 5.2%

inflation in the private insurance system. what is happening is we have more seniors and more people who rely on medicare. our view is that we have a big help expenditures challenge. health-care costs are going out of control. we usually have about 6% or 7% which is much higher than regular inflation for anything else. costs in the health-care system are going up. my view of the subject is that we should not make seniors bear the burden of those costs alone. the problem with the orion plan is it just shifts the cost to seniors. -- the problem with tehe ryan plan is it shifts the cost. we need to lower health-care expenditures for everyone, in the public and private, there for lowering health-care costs themselves. then you are not getting to the

real problem just paying a lot more. we pay more than other countries and get less results. there are a lot of ideas on how to change the incentives that actually make the system work. host: on the line for democrats from birmingham, alabama. you are on the line with neera tanden. caller: i would like to thank you for being on there. my comment has to do, first of all, with me being a christian first and then an american second. you all showed a news clipping where the gop will attack obama on high gas prices. the shame in all of this is republicans keep talking about being such questions yet, as christians, the bible tells us we are supposed to be the body jointly fit together which leads

me to being an american in the united states of america and none of that is taking place with the republicans. they really do not want to be united. all they want to do is attack obama on everything. host: bruce on the republican line from chicago. good morning to you. caller: calling from illinois, the land of irresponsible spending by democrats. i hear the young lady talking about the upcoming depression. we were in a depression. there is no evidence we were in a depression or were heading into a depression. we have been in a recession and everything that our leader did it exacerbated the situation. he comes out with all of this stuff about jobs saved and would have been worse. well, you know what? no one knows anything about

this. i wished the lady would explain to me about the people who make money in the top 2%, but they paid the expenses for the bottom of a percent sign. -- bottom 50%. host: let's hear from neera tanden. guest: the recession could have grown into a depression. one thing we should note is that in december, january and february -- well starting in october 2008 into 2009 we had gone from losing 150,000 jobs to 600,000 jobs per month. there were dramatic decreases in jobs. it was spiraling and the rate of job loss was at the highest we have seen in decades. then we instituted the stimulus acts.

then at the job loss number went down and we started picking up jobs and we have had six months of job growth. let me address the issue of taxes for one second. we should be aware that we have a tax code under bill clinton where the well off did very well. then a new tax cut was implemented under george bush and we dramatically decreased taxes on the upper and comes. we have been facing deficits ever since. all they are arguing for is to restore the clinton tax cut for the highest earnings of americans. we had a booming economy and for all of grover norquist's argument for lowering taxes is that we increased taxes for the well-off in the 1990's and we had incredible growth.

the decrease their taxes and we had anemic growth. the arguments about tax policy for the well-off shows it has nothing to do with economic growth. i think that is why we think we should have a balanced approach. host: 20 minutes with our guest neera tanden. st. petersburg, fla., on the independent line. you're on with the president for thte center for american progress. caller: let's give credit where credit is due. let's call the president president obama. he earned that instead of just calling him "obama." i do not know what was going on with the republican caller from illinois. he must be living under a rock. we need tax reform.

you can call it anything you want to. the rich keep getting richer and the poor keep getting poorer. let's just say that. anytime president obama tried to advance something, the republicans would come by to try and slap him on the hand. "no, we won't do that." it is always something. when it comes time for those republicans to get reelected that is what is going to happen. i think you're doing a wonderful job and i am all for president obama. host: neera tanden. guest: i appreciate your comments. i want to say another thing responding to groper. he mentioned a number of the governor's that he considered it innovators.

gov. scott walker, governor scott in florida gov. chris christie. the plans that have taken up to cut back on spending and investments that i would argue help the middle class, but the challenge on these issues is that those republicans are extremely unpopular, even their gov. chris christie is under water in new jersey. gov. walker and governor scott i do not see mitt romney campaigning with these governors. there are progressive governors like o'malley to have taken a much more balanced approach where we have taken that at taxes as well as reforming programs and even cutting them. that's the approach the american people are supporting. host: of of twitter --

the specific entitlement you would endorse? guest: we're talking about medicare social security, medicaid, these programs that people receive support because of the status that they have. after 65, you get funding from social security and medicare. the president has a $300 billion in his budget for cuts in medicare which is on top of cuts from the affordable care act. he put specific cuts in the budget already for medicare. there are savings in medicaid from the past. i think the question really is if we're going to have a deal to address long-term deficit reduction, we need to put those entitlements on the table as well as taxes.

it's unfair to ask only middle- class americans to bear the burden of our deficit. they did not create the deficit. the challenge is that we should have entitlements on the table and the center for american progress has put forward ideas and proposals to change social security and some of our progress of allies are not as excited about that as we are. we think that they are legitimate and ideas that need to be a part of a proposal where everyone is at the table. as middle class americans, we do not ask them to sacrifice alone. it is not unreasonable to ask the wealthiest americans to pay simply what they were paying during the clinton years. host: chapel hill, north carolina. you are on with neera tanden. caller: i have two quick

questions. earlier, you said that our deficit problem was entirely caused by the lower taxes on the top 2% of wage earners except that mr. obama just reinstated those -- host: let me jump in on that first point. guest: i said the bush tax cuts for all americans was the single largest driver meaning the recession was a larger driver. there was an increase in spending as a driver, but it was the largest driver of our current budget challenges are the bush tax cut for all americans, not just the highest income americans. i just want to be clear on that and clarify that president obama and the congress still have the bush tax cuts for the highest earning americans still in operation. caller: can you explain out of

all of the bush tax cuts what percentage of them went to the top 2%? guest: over the next decade it i think it would be $890 billion i believe. the entire number would be about 25%. host: anything else? caller: the 25% of the tax cuts are the cause of our problems? guest: what we're saying is wrong in the current system when you're asking seniors, low- income americans, middle-class americans. republicans are asking all of those americans to sacrifice in paul ryan's budget and dramatically slash as all of those projects, it is wrong to ask people who -- and then say

that it's wrong to ask people to sacrifice to make $250,000. it should be a shared sacrifice. caller: you seem to have a real problem saying what you mean the first time because you just contradicted yourself in the response to that gentleman, and i think i will have the same problem with you here. the last time i looked, the top 5% of americans will pay about 60% of the tax. you know the truth is that if we took every single dollar of every single billionaire and millionaire in america, it would only support the federal government for months -- months needra. guest: neera. caller: months. the other thing i find

interesting is you are talking about all this wonderful economic growth we are having an looking at the department of labor statistics dropping 1.2 million americans of the employment rolls. that was in january. last month, they dropped 100,000 of the unemployed roles. i'm looking in my neighborhood -- same houses still for sale. same guys that were not employed yesterday still not employed today. i'm looking around for this wonderful growth in the economy that you are saying we have got knowing that you have problems saying what you mean the first time. and last question -- who was in control of congress after the 2006 elections, controlled the nation's purse strings started this spending spiral -- what was the percentage? host: that was dave from

nashville. guest: i appreciate the caller even though i may disagree. at believe we should continue have policies that support growth and we have had seven months of our best job growth but many people in this economy have left the work force. we may even see in the summer and fall our job unemployment rate it up even as we see 200,000 or 250,000 jobs because people will be coming back into the work force. i think that is an important issue that we should all recognize. when we have 8.5% unemployment -- 8.3% unemployment that is a rate that is too high, and we should address that, but we should also recognize that we have had higher job growth in

the last several months than we have had in years and for the last several years of the bush administration. in terms of the recession and what caused it, the recession was caused by a giant financial catastrophe on wall street. i do not think that was caused by nancy pelosi's leadership in the congress or harry reid's leadership. we had a housing bubble, the challenges. there was basically a wild, wild west on wall street. host: on health care a little bit more, we know you were active on the health care law that was put into effect. what do you think is going to happen? guest: i have studied this a

fair amount, and i believe the fall the justices held to their own opinions and the language that they themselves have written in previous decisions the decision should be 6-3, possibly 7-2. i think 6-3 is the better answer because you have justice roberts and justice scalia offering opinions that are very deferential to the executive branch specifically arguing that congress and the executive branch have largely way. scalia himself has language in the decision that people using marijuana and not engaging in the marketplace in their home -- marijuana from their backyard and how the federal government can reach into that. if it can reach into that kind of relationship, they should be able to reach into regulating something that is 1/6 of our

economy. i'm actually fairly optimistic. in the appellate courts, we have had very conservative judges come out in favor of it, judges who are very close to the supreme court justices, who have been hallmarks of their work. i'm hopeful, but if they overturn anything, they'll just overturn the mandate. i cannot see them overturning the whole lot. host: thanks for hanging on. hello. caller: i cannot understand how people can blame the president for the price of gas when the oil companies are selling gas overseas and paying more for it to raise the prices here. another thing -- these last two supreme court nominations by obama, the two ladies -- and not prejudiced but they were not qualified.

i think that's going to hurt him worse than anything. thank you and have a good day. guest: thank you. one thing about gas prices, i should say -- the and added states is now exporting more oil than it is taking in, which is a significant fact and shows that we have not had a hindrance to oil exploration for oil use. i think that will be an important issue that the president argues around as republicans used this as a political opportunity to attack him. host: what do you make of what rick santorum had to say about public schools yesterday? guest: i saw that he said something, but i did not see what he actually said. host: the headline that he bashes public schools. his own kids are home school. he referred to public schools as factories and said federal or state support for education is an anachronism. he said the public education system is an artifact of the industrial revolution were people came off the farms where

they came off the -- where they came off the farms and into these factories called public schools. guest: i find it fascinating when conservatives take on something that is such a foundational principles. i would call but santorum's attention to our founding fathers and jefferson's support of public education. the united states has been differentiated the summit countries that have followed us on public education because we recognize that our democracy functions best when we have an educated work force, and we cannot just rely on the vagaries of the market to insure that people are well-educated. i think that is just another way in which vix santorum is out of touch with the american people, but i think we should be clear -- rick santorum is speaking on

behalf of a large segment of the republican party. he is not some crazy person over here. he won three big, important states, beating mitt romney significantly in colorado minnesota -- i mean, states that are going to be critical to the election in november. the challenge, i think, for the republican party is that mitt romney cannot beat rick santorum how will he be president obama? host: kevin is a republican from marshall, texas. caller: you had mentioned about the payroll taxes. i remember in the bush administration when he tried to reform social security, and he was asking that 2% of the payroll tax goes where an individual can invest it in how

they felt was a bit -- was fit for their future, and organizations such as yourselves lambast the idea saying they were stealing from the social security trust fund. yet, now we have president obama taking 2% out a payroll tax and just paying it over. what do i hear from your organization about the social security trust fund being robbed? guest: i think that actually is an incredibly important point, and i'm so glad you asked about it because it gets lost in the debate and dialogue. there's a vast difference between president obama and president bush taking percentages out of the social security system and the payroll tax and privatizing the. the big difference obviously is

that in every proposal we have put forward on this, it was that you would replenish the amount in the payroll tax so that the social security system would maintain its solvency. the reason why there is a cost to the payroll taxes that we want to insure that social security remains solvent. the bush plan was taking money out, but it into the market, etc. the democratic plan is to actually replenish that. in my view, it should be a temporary tax. it should not become a permanent tax reduction. we have economic challenge we need to get out of but we will strongly support its termination at the end of the year. host: south carolina, phil, independent. caller: good morning, how are

you all doing? first, and have to correct your in my mind in that you did not think middle america is responsible for what is going on. we absolutely are because for decades, we have been going home at night, sitting in front of our television set, going to work the next day, not paying a little attention to what is going on in the world of politics, and we allow people like ms. tanden to have influence is that they should not have over our lives. i find it very convenient. i think republicans and democrats are both the blame for the mess we are in. i think it is amazing that whenever you want to talk about they you forget conveniently to remember what happened on september 11, 2011, which resulted in an awful lot of the problems that we are dealing with. guest: ok. i do not want to overstate it as

to how americans are in many ways responsible for the problem that we are having today. all americans are part of that because they are part of our democracy. there is no one group that should be exclusively responsible. my argument, though, is that middle-class americans faced with cuts for eight years, the bush years, the first time we had wage declines for the country. great challenge. and we continue to face those wage declines because of the recession. as we face this, i did not think it is right to have -- middle- class americans or low-income americans the ones to bear the brunt of deficit reductions. we should have everyone involved including the wealthiest who had been doing better in the past several years. they have not faced the same wage declines. their incomes have actually gone

up, and we have seen an increase in inequality. i think it is in a -- irresponsible for paul ryan or raw norquist or mitt romney to say that the wealthiest should be excluded from sacrifice. host: we have time for a couple more calls. mike and the democrats line. good morning. caller: republicans talk about people who pay no federal income tax without acknowledging payroll taxes. guest: exactly. caller: this the payroll tax discourage both working and hiring? why don't we hear more about this? guest: i think this is an important point. the payroll tax is one that is not progressive. it applies to everybody. when republicans wail about 50% of americans not paying, low- income americans are paying heavily. often, the sad part of the cases they are paying more than the wealthiest as a percentage of their income because of the

payroll tax. that is a challenge, and there are problems with the payroll tax being inefficient and also really discouraging employers from hiring. so over the long term, we may consider other ways to address funding programs, but our debate so far this to engaging in that. host: one last call nathan, independent. caller: i just want to comment -- if you look statistically over the history of america when our tax rates were hovering around 50% our country was doing the best ever. when you start cutting tax breaks below the 30% and getting down into those realms, we do not do as good. that is a statistical fact. also you know what i do not understand about people out there is when you ask them if

they want to cut government spending 80% say yes, but when you start getting into a topic "ok, we're going to cut this, this, and this out of your life," then only 20% agree with that. people are just drinking this kool-aid of these ideological slogans throwing out there, and they believe in these things, and they do not have any -- like the guy from nashville, who says he's looking across the street and sees things going bad. in a microcosmic world. does that mean all of america is doing that right now? people just seem to buy into the slogans and things like that, and it does not make any sense. and grover norquist, too. that that is not believe in economic base multipliers? what kind of school of economics did he go to? mickey mouse? host: final thought from our guests. guest: the caller raises an

important question, which is aptly looking at growth rates over the last six years, the 1950's, 1960's, 1970's, 1980's, 1990's through 2000. again, we have had incredible growth when we have had incredibly high taxes. huge growth rates in the 1950's and 1960's. taxes were lower for the wealthiest americans in the 1960's but still much higher than they are today. we had anemic growth in the 1970's. we had actually good growth and anemic growth in the 1980's. huge growth in the 1990's when we raised taxes. i think the real issue is that tax policy has, if anything, an inverse relationship to grow that many conservatives argue, but i would argue it does not have any relationship to growth. mayor bloomberg will argue that the creative impact on growth

and business decisions for people is what is actually productive for them, not tax rates, and marginal tax rates at that. i think it is an important take away, and i think the challenge we have is that we should not have a tax code that does not work for all americans. we should simplify the tax code and take a number of other steps. we cannot have a tax code that we cannot afford. the biggest issue we have right now as we have a deficit created by the fact that our spending has grown, but our tax base has declined dramatically, and that is driving our deficit, and you cannot have sustainable growth going forward over the long term with that kind of gap. we just have to move up our tax base and lower our spending to have a balanced approach. host: our guest is the center for american progress. americanprogress.org is their website you want to read more. thanks for joining us. we will take a short time out and round out this sunday

edition of the "washington journal" with the look of presidential politics, folks running for reelection in particular, and what history tells us. here is some news from c-span radio first. >> we will hear more about the economy, president of politics, and the situation in syria beginning at noon eastern and c- span review the heiress bought network talk shows. at noon, hear nbc's meet the press." david gregory welcomes congressman paul ryan and covers mcchrystal and hall of maryland. at 1:00 p.m., here at abc's "this week." the guest is john mccain, senate armed services ranking member. then, robert gates now an obama campaign strategist. fox news sunday rears at 2:00 p.m. host chris wallace looked as gop presidential candidate and former house speaker newt gingrich, and house majority leader, representative erick

kanter. cnn does a state of the union back 3:00 p.m.. -- eric cantor. at 4:00 p.m., at his face the nation from cbs. the house moderates a roundtable discussion with republican presidential candidate rick santorum. again, rears of the sunday talk shows begin at noon eastern -- reairs of the sunday talk shows begin at noon eastern. listen to them all on c-span radio are 90.1 fm in the washington, d.c. area here and listen on your iphone or blackberry, nationwide on xm satellite radio channel 119, or go online anywhere at cspanradio.org. >> done american history tv on

monday for 24 hours of america's first ladies including eleanor roosevelt. >> i think, like everything else, that we started out expecting the united nations would solve every difficulty just by being the united nations. >> laura bush at 5:00 and lady bird johnson at 8:00. nancy reagan reminisces about her husband at 8:30, and 11:30 the only first lady to run for president, now secretary of state hillary clinton, at her final campaign rally in 2008. american history tv monday, president's day, on c-span3. >> hello, there. i had a c-span local content vehicle project. the purpose of these vehicles 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 editors said they

are able to roll, record, produce, and added things from the road. why i want to do this is to get outside of washington, d.c., and collect program and for all of our networks. we are doing a city store where we descend on each city with all three vehicles. one will do his reprogramming and historic sites. the other one would do "booktv" programming catching up an office, and the third as community relations events. community events are important because it works with our table partners in each of these cities. all of this not only goes on the air, but it gets archived on our website. what we are also doing is extensive social media. you will see us on facebook. you will see our cable partners on facebook. you will see a four-- you will see us on foursquare. it is a chance to see us on

there, online, and the social media as well. that is why it is important. we want to get outside of washington, d.c. do the deal is in places where we do not normally do programming. >> watch our local content vehicle's next up in shreveport the first stop in march. >> "washington journal" continues. >> -- host: our guest now is leo ribuffo, a presidential historian. specifically, professor, we wanted to get first and to challenges that a president has when running for reelection, beginning with the economy. what does history tell us? guest: it is better have a good economy than a bad economy but a lot of it that has been floating around you have to be wary of. the notion that a president cannot win with a bad economy.

in 1936, roosevelt won overwhelmingly though there was a 15% unemployment. what counted was that the economy had been growing by 10% for three years, that it was down from 25% unemployment. nixon thought he lost in 1960 because of 10% unemployment which now sounds like a dream but there were many other factors. a different running mate might have gotten him elected. ford came very close despite unemployment over 7% and a different running mate and a more fluid debate style might have gotten for reelected. when you hear that obama is going to face necessarily desperate trouble if unemployment does not fall below 7% -- i would be skeptical of that. host: our guest will take your questions and comments about president running for reelection and history. we will also touch on the republican party situation as well. lines for republicans and

democrats and independents. our guest is a presidential historian at gw. educated at rutgers and yale. he mentioned the history of unemployment. here is a chart from gallup. the least -- lists all the fairly recent presidents. unemployment rate of 8.5% in the december before his election year. george w. bush, 5.7%. bill clinton 5.6%. ronald reagan, 1984 -- 8.3% unemployment rate headed into reelection. guest: but going down. host: trends matter more than the numbers themselves? guest: so it seems. plus, there is a lot of stuff that happens apple said it has not happened in a long time and never will again. the president being reelected with high unemployment may be one of those things.

host: could there be one other issue that steers it? for example, the "new york times" says high gas prices are what republicans will go after this fall, that they should top $4 a gallon. guest: if republicans made use of that, that would make some sense, but i do not think voters are that narrow. depending on who is nominated some of the cultural issues might be a big deal. sad to say, if romney is nominated, for some swing voters in some states, his religion might be an issue. that is not a good thing, but it is possible. host: before we take calls speak to us about job approval ratings and that particular number that gets bandied about. how important is the approval rating at the beginning of the election year? what can history teach us? guest: like most historians, i would say all of this journalistic data does not go back far enough, and we do not have linkedin's approval rating

in 1864, but a few victories in the civil war turned him around. carter was ahead of reagan, and then his approval collapse due to the lingering hostage crisis. i would not predict this early. i know it is your job, but it is not mine. host: let's see what viewers have to say. november approval averages. you can see president eisenhower -- 70% approval rating in 1955 as he was going into reelection. president nixon 49. jimmy carter, 40%. barack obama was up 43% in november. that is from dallas. our first call john, a democrat, good morning. caller: good morning. i would like to ask you a rhetorical question, actually.

what do you think being a presidential historian, now that the second article of the constitution has been repealed due to mr. bernanke taking over the united states? i wonder what you would say about that? also article one, of course, which is congress and the house of representatives, which originates read the bills. i feel mr. bernanke has confiscated all this country's wealth and is now printing paper money. just what do you think the future of the presidency and the congress are? thank you very much. guest: i think that is a rhetorical question. i would say that the federal reserve board is perfectly constitutional and doing its job, much better than during the great depression when it raised interest rates. host: omaha nebraska, gary,

independent. good morning. caller: i have a question that is in a way a historical question. i will be 64 this year, and i have noticed that one party gets in, raises taxes a little, the other party gets in lowest taxes a little, but the idea that a tax cut -- there is such a thing as a tax cut to me is a bunch of baloney. if you look back at history whenever federal government cuts taxes, immediately the cities, the states, counties -- a jump in and immediately start raising taxes to pick up whatever slack that the federal government was covering for them. another thing, to -- and a lot of times you end up paying more taxes because of that. i remember when bob kerrey was governor of nebraska, lower taxes. immediately, he raised the state income tax, which was based upon a percentage -- it was 17% of

the federal liability. immediately, he raised it to 19%. the city's started raising property taxes. they went and got a sales tax. we ended up actually having smaller paychecks and paying more taxes than we did before the federal government lower taxes. the states have to pick up the slack one way or the other with the federal government cuts taxes. in reality, there is no such thing as a true tax cut. guest: there are tax cuts in federal income taxes, and some would argue that helped to spur the boom of the '60s -- the 1960's, but i think the caller has a point. many states have to balance their budget, and it is a longstanding fact that americans want the governments at all levels to do more than they are happy paying, and that has gone back to the battle between andrew jackson who wanted to spend a lot of money

on these canals and then railroads. americans loved their canals and railroads, but they did not like the notion of paying for it. that is an american constant. in essence we are quite different from europeans. host: so much made over tax policy currently. speak to us in terms of tax policy legislation, the approach by presidents in times like these as they are running for reelection. guest: i think we need to recognize that americans pay income tax until world war ii and that is when deductions began and income taxes were fairly low in the 1950's, and there has been a bipartisan sense that one way to spur the economy in sluggish times is to cut taxes. john kennedy pushed back, saying he was a keynesian era ronald

reagan with supply-side economics look back on kennedy as an example. plus, there is a limit to how much cutting taxes will spur the economy and more importantly get jobs directly. so if our main goal is jobs, tax cuts alone, no matter how direct and to what social class, tax cuts will be with us. host: our guest is a professor at george washington university talking about his journey in presidential politics. by the way, the "washington post" today has a question by a political scientist who asked the question -- "what was the most important election ever?" how about we ask you that question, professor? guest: i love what if questions. i remember the classic "saturday

night live" -- what of eleanor roosevelt could fly? i think some of the questions are of that order. eleanor roosevelt could not fly. but some of the questions are pretty good. i think when he points to george washington being very, very important, getting the first republic started without chaos was a lot harder than americans remember in retrospect. washington had died 10 years earlier, the country might not have held to get there. on the other hand, even the election of lincoln if the democrats had stay together and beaten him sooner or later do population trends, a northern republican opposing the extension of slavery would have been elected 1864, 1868. the south would have succeeded and there would have been a civil war appeared not to denigrate link at all, but that was one thing the republican party was the party of principle

about. host: interesting reading by david mayhew here, who is a professor at yale. when you turn to the jump on the peace, he writes "decision 1860 -- now that was an election." a piece reflects a fractured presidential field as the nation headed toward civil war and 1860. philip, republican you are on the air. good morning. caller: i'm not really a true presidential historian, but it has been my understanding that over the years our government has over a period of time, often on again, turn of the century 1800's, 1900's, government of the money, by the money, for the money. even in the 1800-1900 year, the

government that was owned by the rich sent troops to a little mining camp out in the west and shot men women, and children to force them to go back to work for a minor that would not pay them anything. finally, americans voted these people out. i'm just wondering how long we have to take this. we really do not. all we have to do is get off our butts and vote and not accept this kind of behavior. right now, our government is owned by the severely rich of this country. if you want a tax policy, here is one for you -- taxing the 40% until they bring in our jobs back. then they can tax the rest of us because then we will have jobs. guest: the united states has had a small, radical tradition of a

tiny socialist party. the last time there was a real challenge to the notion of class inequality by a presidential candidate was the populist party and then the populist democratic candidate william jennings bryan. i think there is a general american since that we are all in this together. we hear this over and over from presidential candidates. and that the wealthy if responsible have a valuable role to play and prosperity will trickle down. as far back as brian, that was criticized, but in general americans only very rarely rally to a tax on the rich. presidents make them only in very hedge fashion. even president roosevelt, we sometimes hear about his attack on economic royalists, and he said that, but he also said a lot more -- all in in -- all in

it together, all glasses, with franklin roosevelt's cousin. is that we are all in this together, regardless of class ethnicity, religion. those are, i think prevailing american values. we might be better off in some ways if we were more amenable to a national health insurance added to or higher taxes more equality, but this is the long, historical pattern. caller: next caller on the line for republicans from california. good morning. host: good morning -- caller: good morning, professor. i have a two-part question. since barack obama is african- american, now that that feeling -- ceiling has broken and now

that we have a record of his policies and african-american being most effective in these economic times, how could his policies helped -- i'm kind of nervous, so excuse me. i want to ask how you think that would affect future legislation. can he address the african- american issue? and second, if it is found out that he is not barack obama, but barry sitora, would that be constitutional? guest: barack obama is barack obama. since his mother's american, he would be an american if he was born on the moon. he is a moderate democrat, and he is doing about as well as a moderate democrat could do. my own personal view is that the stimulus should have been

larger but under the circumstances, from his point of view, he was doing as well as he could, and i think the fact that there is an african-american president will -- in a few years with the partisanship tends, be seen as everyone as a very, very good thing. one of the things that i like to see is given the stereotypes about african-americans over the years, so negative, is that one of the criticisms of obama is that he is too intelligent. he certainly is intelligent. host: let's ask about the republican vision -- convention, the republican party the shortage of stories that say this is dragging on a ways, and there might even be a brokered convention. give us the history of either party of how long these primary challenges go on and what they all mean and how they wind up.

guest: i would bury the term brokered convention in a deep hole. it involves corrupt bosses. i prefer contested convention. from the 1840's were around 1960's, it was a perfectly legitimate way to run for president as not the first choice. go down to the convention, be nominated on a later ballot. the system gave us abraham lincoln and woodrow wilson. it gave us ad lib stevenson and william jennings bryan -- badly stephenson and william jennings bryan -- adlai stephenson william jennings bryan. reagan came within 100 votes of toppling the sitting president so that could happen again, and if i were a republican

presidential candidate, unlikely as that is, i certainly would not say the pundits have said we've got to get this over by super tuesday so we can move on to baseball season -- they have nothing to lose by fighting as long as they can, if only to affirm what principles they have. host: wisconsin gregory independent collar, good morning. caller: yes on that note, as far as he's saying principles, that is a good comment. as a historian, presley, i would like you to -- personally, i would like you to answer -- we have had rush limbaugh and norquist as comedians directing the republican party, and they have these candidates now on the

republican party running, and i look at them as comedians, and i'm wondering, as an historian personally have you ever seen a bunch of people that have been running that act like a bunch of comedians and want to go with austerity, like you said before -- the europeans are not quite the way we are in our country -- guest: some europeans. caller: they realize that services are needed.

we want to get everything cheap in this country, but we are not willing to pay for it. all we are asking for -- well, all i'm asking for is fairness. if the rich will the roads and all that, they should pay for them just like everybody else. guest: i take it you do not use comedian as a complement acompliment. politics has gotten a lot less normal. i shut my since the kennedy- nixon debates. they talked for 12 minutes, complete paragraph spirit for lots of reasons, changes in american life, greater informality, you have got to be more of -- let's put it this way -- glib person rather than comedian. as to the substantive free- market view of republican candidates that has been that

party's mainstream view at least since the 1930's, though it is striking to me that if the republican nominee in 1936 were running now, he would be considered quite moderate. or the 1940 nominee, who called himself a liberal, actually. i think of a line from bob dole, who said that he thought of himself as a conservative, but he became a moderate just by standing still because his party has changed. and parties change. democrats change, too. host: one viewer goes back to 1912, via twitter. they say 1912 was the most important election. progress of teddy roosevelt pushed for the income tax on the people. he calls it one of the 10 planks of communism. guest: there is a line of the slippery slope. it is useless called the

progressive era. those who take that line sort of flipped a coin as to whether it is theodore roosevelt or woodrow wilson who is the initial double. they actually were pretty close in views. in 1912, their major difference was the degree of control in big business and women's suffrage. host: here is another of those galet charts. the percentage of people with the direction of the u.s. these are in presidential reelection years. they talk about president obama. last month, 18% of folks satisfied with the direction of the u.s. george de b. bush, 55% at the time of his reelection. bill clinton 24%. george herbert or coverage, 24%. anything in those statistics you want to read into? >> is it -- i would say we should keep this in mind? presidents are elected by the electoral college. i suspect this is going to be a

close election despite my claim before that i did not want to be a bookie about this. i think it may be another of those instances where we come very close to the person who gets the larger host: let's go to virginia with bobby, a democrat. good morning. caller: here is my question. i am working on my right now. -- masters right now. i am going to write my thesis on hannibal hamlin. why is lincoln thought of as the great it as a better, but that is far from the truth. he attempted twice to colonize

african-americans outside of this country in haiti and sierra leone. i want you to explain to the people who are listening why you have not given credit to hannibal hamlin, who was really trying to it emancipate be slave? guest: the republicans brought in a lot of democrats. lincoln was a moderate on slavery. in a lot of ways, he moved much too slow. he wanted to resettle african americans. he was not someone who was for helping the pre-slaves as much as others. we do not know what he would have done had he lived. he would have been a much better president than andrew

johnson, who was his second vice president and became president. his one regret was that every white southerner did not have at least one slave. we cut lincoln some slack by labeling him the great demands better. you may not want to use that phrase. you might want to look closely. president are caught in circumstances. host: our guest has authored several books. the protestant far right from the great depression to the cold war. our guest is leo ribuffo, a presidential historian. we are talking about presidential politics. you said you need to be a little bit to glib to run for president. social media does not have much

of a history yet. what is your sense of social media and its impact on this process? guest: let me give you my glib answer. world war ii was fought by radio and magazines. we have not had a mobilization as strong since then. magazines had more mobilization power than television. i am joking a little. there is a tendency to over emphasize what the new medium is going to be in terms of its consequences. we tend to forget how extraordinary the telegraph was. radio change campaigning, not only for franklin roosevelt. television changed campaigning notably with john kennedy, who was emulated by many others. this directs twitter contact is

going to have some impact. - direct -- direct twitter contact is going to have some impact. i would see all media have some impact. the basic issue we talked about is that it is still constant. host: tallahassee, florida. democrat, good morning. caller: good morning, professor. i have really enjoyed your comments. my question is a spinoff on the c-span series, "the contenders," which i found absolutely fascinating. there is an entertainment value to winning and losing. of the contenders, which one of them had may be the most lasting effect upon the things that were most important at the time that they lost?

if i were to do my own thinking, it would take me 10 years to get that answer. i am not sure i will be around in 10 years. that is my spin-off. in a related kind of thing i remember somebody was asked who won the cold war. the answer was, germany and japan. that was relevant at the time. guest: that was glib. caller: i was just wondering. who among the contenders really did not end up losing because they had such an impact on whatever was important at that time? it did not make any difference if they won or lost. guest: the media candidate that lost and affected the country a lot.

the-you mean the candidate who lost and affected the candidate -- you mean the candidate who lost and affected the country of lots. i would say henry clay. william jennings bryan pushed the democrats in a more liberal direction. he had enormous impact. in a different way, at least even sen, the democratic nominee twice in the 1950's. he pushed in a direction of what we might call it gentrification of the democratic party. i am not sure it helps the democrats a lot. gentility and abandoned is nice. it does not have the punchy campaign that truman was capable of. we have lots of references to a true man now.

finding the real truth is hard under the mythology. if you were a democrat in the senate now he would be considered a left winger. host: the caller mentioned our "the contenders" series. go to the website and scroll down to the bottom. the contenders is there for you to take a look at. there is lots of stuff to take a look at on this president's weekend or any time. c-span.org. we have a weeks -- a tweet. as the professor to briefly explain what the 17th a manicure, such as states with no senators. guest: are you say that because

there is a direct election of senators, the states do not have senators? host: he does not flesh it out. speak to us in general on the 17th amendment. guest: it is part of the progressive era reforms. there are figures who say we should go back to the in direct election of senators. even as early as the mid- 1800's, there were ways to have a direct election for senators. when lincoln ran again stephen douglas, it was made clear who was running. all the candidates for the legislature took the pledge of which candidate they would voted for. i like explaining democracy. i think direct elected senators are a good idea. if you are going to have a senate which itself may not be

democratic in modern times. maybe it does not make much sense any more. host: another viewer wants your opinion of how well political history has been reported in the past. we are talking about the internet and various other recordkeeping devices. what are your thoughts? guest: we may have a problem in terms of what is available. the presidential libraries -- 26 million items in the jimmy carter library. now it is unclear whether all of these e-mails will be saved. in the distant future, as before mass change, as the five years 15 years, 20 years,, who knows if we can get the messages from the obama white house.

we can now get the messages from the william howard taft white house. it may not be all positive in terms of getting data in the future. anyone who studied the president can tell you there is so much data there. we will muddle through now and we will muddle -- muddle through in 100 years. host: our guest is leo ribuffo presidential historian. anything you want to add about presidential -- about unemployment numbers? it will be important in the coming days. guest: if the european crisis is dramatically worse and unemployment rose above the level it was when it came into office -- if it is substantially below, he can

continue to make his case that he did not drive the bus into the ditch to use his phrase. and he is improving things as fast as he politically can. but if unemployment really spikes up, he will have a long struggle. one of the analogies you always see is the roosevelt administration. franklin roosevelt. the 1938 midterm elections. there was a move for the balanced budget, cutting in spending. unemployment went up to 40% to 18 -- 14% to 18%. it would be bad for obama if unemployment spiked up. host: i want to get your perspective on monday. so many headlines are about who

raised how much this past quarter or this past evening or weekend. give us an historical perspective. guest: i think it was the singer bessie smith who said, i have been rich and i have been poor. which is better? we would be talking about the administration of president john connally, who was not nominated or president rick perry, who is not going to be nominated. for the general election, both candidates have so much money it will factor out. money will get from the nominated -- romney nominated against santorum, who represents a grass-roots movement. it will be interesting to watch.

host: we have a caller from pennsylvania. what do you have to say? caller: i think this gentleman is accurate in everything he says. my question is, are you familiar with the situation with ronald reagan's affiliation with the drug cartels? is there a correlation between that and the situation with china and the opium dens. when people talk about going back to the reagan era nobody mentions the fact that under his regime there was a serious drug situation going on under his watch even though his wife's motto was "just say no."

guest: the idea about reagan that it fosters drug use, i do not think it is sound. -- that he fostered drug use, i do not think it is sound. anyone would be implicated if they wanted to get into the central american wars. i would have preferred america did not get involved in the salvador civil war. -- el salvador's civil war. it was not part of -- host: quick look at tomorrow's lineup. "washington journal"starts at 7:00 a.m. eastern. we will talk about the