it is a lot of pressure to do it again as mr. upton said. if you allow a tax cut to expire, a tax hike in suits. that is what they have said during the bush tax cuts debates. in december, there is when to be a lot of pressure on people to do the same. >> you are from a german that perhaps nothing happens before -- you heard from the chairman that perhaps nothing happens before the election. lame duck session could be very busy. is it politically feasible realistic, to think they could do overhaul to cut the tax code in a lame duck? >> no. [laughter] there might be some pressure to extend this. once they have extended it twice now, at three times -- three times, really. once they achieve a 2% reduction, there is one to the appetite to keep that.

i think that unless the unemployment rate relief drops a couple of points between now and november, we might see this whole thing play out in lame duck. >> what about social security trust funds? where is that opera? >> this debate -- we have republicans attending social security. it has been crazy. you heard mr. upton tying himself and not because the republicans initially opposed the tarell -- payroll tax holiday. mr. ryan called it sugar high economics. a lot of people were opposed to it. they had a result, how do you pay for it but not those for the wealthy? they dropped it. the whole thing has been crazy. >> the damage is to the debt

because the trust fund will be paid. that will be fine. it is going to be taken out of the general fund, which will raise the dead. that is the real issue. the republicans want to go on record to contribute to grow the debt? >> we will have this conversation again. thank you both for being part of sean lengell." -- thank you both for being part of "newsmakers." >> i have a list of all the chemicals in cigarette smoke. i'm going to ask each one a simple question. you are under oath. we will see what the response is. >> i believe nicotine is not addictive. >> cigarettes and nicotine do not meet the classic definitions of addiction. there is no toxin.

>> i do not believe that nicotine is addictive. >> not addictive. >> not addictive. >> they had a program in the 1970's were the wanted to remove nicotine from cigarettes and replaced with a drug that was equally addictive, but would not cause heart problems. they had all these molecules they invented, but they have no way to test them. that was my job. my job was to find a molecule that iraq's brin would say, i like it and his heart would not have -- a rat s brian would say, i like it and his heart would not have a problem with it. we have our guests tonight at 8:00 p.m. eastern and pacific on c-span. >> join american history tv on monday for 24 hours of america's first ladies. including an interview with eleanor roosevelt at 4:45 eastern.

>> we started out expecting that the united nations would solve every difficulty just by being the united nations. >> toward the white house private quarters with laura bush at 5:00. nancy reagan reminisces about her husband at 8:30. at 11:30, the only first lady to run with -- to run for president -- hillary clinton. american history tv, monday. on c-span3. >> now, a discussion about the tax proposals in president obama's budget request. from today is -- today's "washington journal." >> grover norquist, thank you for being here. your reaction to the increase? but there are two key questions.

guest: their two key questions. the question last december was the republicans said, we are extending it and here is a hundred billion dollars in spending reductions. we pass it. it was the senate which said, we are not going to do that. to my amazement, some of the establishment press said that the republicans oppose it. everybody agreed to extend it. the fight was to be cut it or raise taxes to pay for it? democrats wanted to raise taxes. a permanent tax increase was their proposal. we have a one-year tax cut and a permanent increase. the agreement was, they do not pay for it largely with either spending cuts or obama's casta

-- tax increases. the first question, should you extend it? should we, because of our budget problems, spend less or tax more? the democrats wanted to tax more. the republicans wanted to spend less. i am happy with how it turned out. i am with republicans in wanting to have the spending cuts. that is not where obama is and the democrats are. host: the phone number is on the bottom of the screen. we get to your calls in a couple of minutes. there are the numbers on the bottom of the screen. republicans -- democrats -- independents -- just a reminder about the details in its payroll tax-cut deal. it is a 10-month extension. it would extend unemployment benefits through the year 2012.

the temporary fix would avoid a 27% drop in medicare fees according to the "washington post." $50 billion in offsets to pay for unemployment benefits. there is the reduction in the unemployment coverage. it would go from 99 to 63 weeks in states moderately impacted by recession. from 99 to 73 in states with the high jobless rates. a couple of other provisions to talk about. federal workers contribute more to their pension plan. government would sell off part of the spectrum to industry. what else do you want to react to? what selling off the spectrum is a good idea -- guest: selling of the spectrum is a good idea. telecommunications use a lot of its. it is not made available to the american people.

also, technology has made it easier for us to have stuff closer together in the spectrum. getting that sold off should have happened a long time ago. this crisis, at least forces that out the door. it has been a waste of money. that is resources the government could have. by making it available to everybody. that is an important one. there are a number of different ways to we ought to be reforming unemployment insurance. cutting it back, is a step in the right direction. host:"the tax holiday's and set up a harder hit. " with congress voting last week to extend the holiday, 160 million workers will be spirit in the media's tax hike.

there is a bigger hit in january when the payroll tax to end a long list of levees already set to sharply and abruptly go up. taxmageddon. >> that makes the election -- guest: that makes the election different. we know that if you re-elect obama, taxes are going to jump up by a trillion dollars, overnight. the bush 2001 and 2003 tax reductions disappear. it is a three trillion dollar tax hike over the next direction. obama claims he wants to restore some of that. he has not made any of that permanent in the three years he has been president. why do you believe that he will want to let anybody keep that? that is a massive tax increase

that he is -- hits. right now, it looks like they will take the senate in 2012. they only need four seats. the only one the democrats might be able to defeat is scott brown and he is running ahead in massachusetts. of the 23 states for democrats to defend the senate's -- senate seat, half of them could easily go. you're looking at a republican house and senate, which puts this massive tax increase if obama is elected. on everyone. host: lots to talk about including the budget. and some comments that alan simpson made about you on this show. we will get to all of that.

i want to get to some calls. good morning. caller: thank you. a need a minute. i want to remind everyone on c- span that mr. norquist said that people can deduct charities but they do not have to give money away. i want to point out that if he were in venezuela his job would be considered assistance to the dictator. if he were the mafia he would be the chief. i heard just the last week or so you said you are not concerned to the president might be as long as he has enough guts to hold a pen. policy what is coming out of the congress. if you elect a congressman, you can have the president who knows how to sign the legislation. my question, apart from all the other questions i could ask --

if we have gasoline exports being our biggest export, should we do something about preventing exports of gasoline so the price does not go up too much over the short term? is it just the biggest corporations and the richest people on the host: tax reformtax reform? guest: most of what you said it is not true. you quoted me as having given a speech at cpac. i pointed out that the fight for who gets to be the republican nominee is not one of the goldwater versus rockefeller, a

task forces eisenhower, reagan versus bush arguments about the direction of the party. all of the republicans are running as reagan republicans. they want everyone to pay less in taxes. they want spending to be reformed so it is less expensive. they want to reduce the regulatory burden. they want more energy, not less. energy is a major imports. i do not know where that came from. it is not an export. all of the republicans are generally moving in the same zone. that is why republicans can have this seral monogamy where they fall in love with one candidate and then another. they all want to move in the same direction. the point i made is that republicans are going to become a congress-driven party. the democrats have been that way for 50 years. obama has been allowed to make the decisions. he decided to triple the number of troops in afghanistan. he decided to produce a bit in

the libyan conflict. other than that, the congress passed the stimulus bill and handed it to him. they passed a health care bill. they passed dodd-frank. it is not called geithner. they're ramped up spending the trillion dollars of domestic discretionary increase that happened in the first months of obamacare presidency. that was written by congress. obama signs or rights - -writes on the bills. the republican party will be more like that where congress will be coming up with ideas and a republican will sign it. that was the point. host: grover norquist is our guest. the president to attack budget came out this week. here is a chart put out by mcclatchy. they point out is 3.8 trillion dollars. what is your reaction to the

president's proposal? >> -- guest: the obama copiapo -- the obama people think they're going to have $1.3 trillion. they're hoping it goes down. this year's budget, is -- the deficit is double. it continues as far as the eye can see. most of this is rather interesting. but the president did do in his budget, he came back with another stimulus proposal. today, there are more than a million more people not working then on the day he took office. more people have left the work force. have quit looking. in terms of total numbers, there are a hundred and 33 million people working the day he walked in. 132.4 right now.

fewer people working today than when he came in. the only reason the unemployment number looks better in the last couple of months is that more people have quit being in the workforce. they have quit looking. there is a real challenge in the stimulus spending. it did not help. he wants more tax credits like solyndra. was being subsidized with. unlike bill clinton who lost an election and then move to the center, president obama's budget shows no learning whatsoever. more taxes, more spending, more solyndra special interest giveaways. host: we have a republican on the line. caller: good morning. guest: hi, wade. 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 ok. that is what we need to do. guest: the democrats have a theory called -- ag. if you go in the economy and take a dollar either by force or borrow it and then you give it to the government and the government takes that dollar and spends it, they believed they have to dollars in the economy. they call it the multiplier effect. it is magic. it is nonsense. they believe this. they really believe this. they believe that when they take money out of the economy from somebody who earned it and then give it to somebody who is politically connected is the chicago and of budgeting, they think it is not only chicago politics -- handing out money to

people who did not work for you they think they created magically $$2 for every dollar they took. it does not work very well. host: we have dave, independent. caller: good morning. i wanted to comment. you keep mentioning solyndra. it was a failed business endeavor, but i have heard no mention of detroit. we saved the american auto industry. is that money will invest it? general motors is number one in the world. imagine that. u.s. be number one in something again. guest: the u.s.'s number 1 in many places and industries that are not giving subsidies. the question is whether general motors could have accomplished

the same thing by going through reorganization, as most airlines have, and it -- as many companies have, or whether your tax dollars and your children to a text -- your children's tax dollars were needed. we could have made solyndra the successful if we require people to buy their products and given tax credit for it. you can grow bananas in minnesota if you put the net tax subsidies in it. -- if you put enough tax subsidies in it. you can make people do things. throwing tens of billions of dollars into something, what about all the small businessmen who never got a chance to start a business because the resources they might have used to start their career to get their first job -- there are fewer million americans working today than when obama took office because he took money that could have

created jobs and handed it off to political friends. dollars to 800 billion in stimulus packages and unemployment -- $800 billion in stimulus packages. host: "how grover conquered washington." they talked about the pledge. what is that about? guest: it is a short statement that an elected official signs that says, i will but against net tax increases. what that does is, it says tax reform, yes. tax increases, no. to leonard and 38 members of the house, 20 more -- 248 members of the house have signed. the promise is to the voters and

the american people. all of the republicans running for president have made this commitment in writing, as well. the republicans told the house, as i think they will, if they take the senate and the presidency, there will not be any net tax increase. tax reform will be possible because the american people will only trust politicians to reform taxes if they are sure -- they are a short there will not be tax increases. remember when you had senator kerrey and the other senators -- kerry and the other senators las falt fall? they were going to call it tax reform, but the assistance was to raise taxes one and a half trillion dollars. if somebody says they are for tax reform but they have not signed not to have a net tax increase, ask them if they are

talking about a tax increase? host: let us bring in alan simpson who was on the show last week. he criticized members of congress who follow you. here is what he had to say. >> if you are out there and the aarp -- tell us what you really think when you watch money flow to the system, which is the payroll tax, get knocked down and you know that eventually it will have to be put back. you cannot cover it with spectrum licensing. you are going to borrow the money from the fed to do it. how are you going to do that and know that when you put it back it will be called a tax increase? grover norquist will call it a tax increase. 95 percent and other republicans will be terrified. what can grover do to you ?

the only thing he can do is defeat you for reelection or put a primary opponent against you. if that means more to you than your country and patriotism, you should not even be in congress. host: reaction to alan simpson? guest: he was appointed to come up with tax increases and spending reductions. that commission never put anything in legislative writing. it is in outline form. paul ryan was on that commission. he read the outline and said, this is a true trillion dollar tax increase. -- 82 trillion dollar tax increase. -- a 4$2 trillion dollarn tax increase.

this takes the corporate rate down to 25% to make us more competitive with the rest of the world. that is a budget that all but four of the republicans voted for. the democrats have not passed a budget in three years. when alan simpson says, what would you do? the republicans in congress have passed a budget that reduces spending from 25% down to 20. it and does the damage of the obama early years and a larger restraint to reforming the budget. it does that for housing subsidies. 77 different means tested welfare programs.

what was done for welfare was done by the republicans. these are serious reforms. former senator simpson, who did not write a budget down, never put it in legislative language, ignores the fact that the republicans actually passed a budget that is very good -- we do not need to raise taxes, we need to bring spending down. host: jarret from wisconsin. good morning. caller: this man is a polished carpetbagger. he has been doing this for years. the bush tax cuts were leveraged towards the wealthiest americans. this has been the policy of your group. if you do not represent all

republicans, but a certain segment. continue to rid themselves of any tax burden. strangle the middle class with stagnating wages. 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 businesses. the middle class cannot handle any more of this. you are nothing but a carpetbagger. you represent a certain percentage -- guest: this is like somebody learning a big word in junior high school. carpetbaggers' worker dissipating in the south after the civil war. -- carpetbaggers participated in the south after the civil war.

over 95% of republicans signed the pledge. the modern republican party is committed to not raising taxes. because of the tea party movement and the ron paul movement both reinvigorating the republican party in the last three years the republicans swept the house, picked up six senate seats. they picked up another six governors in 2010. 2010 was as dramatic, and perhaps more for the remote in party then 1994 or even 1980. while the republicans have learned never raise taxes, the democrats to spend the money they had not learned under bush that the target you are supposed to measure and pay attention to is government spending. the tea party and the ron paul people slap them on the side of the head and collected over 80 republicans to the house.

this idea there is a wing of the modern republican party that the democrats things want to spend more money and raise taxes is not true. you have a united republican party that will not raise your taxes. post-bush, thanks to the two- party and a failure -- the tea party and the bush people to rein in spending, they are committed to reining in spending. host: republican for grover norquist. caller: it is good to see you on this morning. how are you doing? guest: you are not want to call me a carpet bagger, are you? caller: i have a couple of questions for you. the georgia transportation tax is imposed -- and gives our

county no representation on the regional board. the worst thing about it, is it is extortion because it triples are fund requirement where it does not pass. how does this 14% tax increase to fit your no-tax increase pledge? what you are down there in the hotel where they keep all the blues and the hookers -- guest: the caller, i assume is kidding about the last comment. the first part was very real. there was a measure placed on the ballot for upcoming election that would dramatically increase taxes in georgia.

which, is not competitive anymore with this neighboring states to -- its neighboring states. the sales tax increase supposedly for transportation but we know that when you promise to put you are right, it is an effort to create regional governments that are less responsive to the people of georgia, to the county and the state is trying to avoid its own responsibility for either doing things or not doing things. it is my understanding that georgia will vote down this tax increase and then come back to the table and focus on making transportation a priority in georgia, which it is not, and the president says "i support transportation, but i will not put another dollar there until i get a tax increase."

there is no other program that you can get money to put into roads. this makes transportation the most important thing but what he has tortoises as it is the least important thing for that politician. i hope that georgia defeat that. it is a large tax increase, and it would be a big mistake. host: is there anyone you can get behind? guest: someone committed to not raise taxes and to support the reform, such as the great paul ryan reform, but also to do tax reform. they are all moving in the direction of bringing rates down broadening the rates not having it be a tax increase. i think the proposal i like best is the one from rick perry who is not running. no death tax no capital gains

tax. that would really be a driver for this. host: 680,000 last year. what are you looking to do this? guest: there have been a fair amount of resources spent on a state legislator. -- state legislature. it will be less. we have a goal of trying to raise and spend $10 million this year to make sure that voters understand where congressmen and senators and state legislators are on this tax issue. c-span.org -- host: on twitter why is this man allowed so much sway over elected officials? guest: the interesting thing is

that the tax issue is a very important issue. what americans for tax reform did, what we were able to accomplish, is to be able to make it easy for any voter in america to look at a candidate and say that person is with me. i am not raising my taxes. whether they sign the pledge. the pledge does not move around. i know there was that wonderful piece that was done. the piece on cnn, not cnn "60 minutes," doing a profile. then alan simpson goes around as my pr agent to say that republicans to vote for a tax increase because i do not like it. the republicans will not vote for a tax increase because republicans got elected promising reporters various things and because they do not want to raise taxes. if i decided to become a jon it will change nothing.

the committee will be -- the party will be committed. there is something about doing this policy issue which is silly, but it does allow us to focus on the real issue, the tax issue. it is a powerful issue. it shines a spotlight. tell the truth. host: peoria illinois. an independent caller. go ahead. caller: he puts out the image that he is smug, but he would do a lot better if he just answered the question with integrity. guest: put out a question, and i

will answer it with integrity. caller: you have not expressed what type of patriotism you have exhibited in your life. what gives you a right to talk about what other people should be doing? taxes are an important thing. we are stating the obvious. we all know that. but you are stressing that people will recover from this. can you remind people about what happened between the years 2000 and 2008 and how things will be different when we have the same players, like mr. john boehner and the rest of this group? host: grover norquist. guest: keeping spending down was not on his to do list. the no child left behind, not those of the republicans of the house and senate. there is a dramatically different group of people in the republican party in leadership,

house senate and the governorship. if you look around the country, chris christie, decades of overspending and over pension promises and bankrupt pension systems, not educating kids in new jersey. he is wrestling with that. bobby jindal in the louisiana taking one of the most corrupt states in the nation and turning it around in very helpful ways. governor rick perry of texas took $15 billion out of overspending in the last two- year budget moving forward. the governor of pennsylvania reducing spending, not raising taxes in the last budget. scott walker and rick scott for that reform, reforming education, getting rid of the tenure system, which says you cannot fire teachers to do not teach and putting students and parents in the center, not the

teachers' union in the center. everyone had to pay the teachers insurance. that was in contracts and so forth. 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 -- we have eight matter -- major radically -- we have 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 host: our guest has been grover norquist, americans for tax reform. atr.org, if you want to take a

look. it thank you for joining us this morning. >> now, a conversation with "barney frank. host: we are pleased to welcome back barney frank, currently in a 16th term. congressman, you have been through 32 years of budget presentations. what is wrong with the system, or what is right with this system? what is wrong, fundamentally, in decision on the part of the voters. a lot of people say that it is somehow an autonomous instrument that operates on its own. public opinion as a major impact on what we do.

if you look at the public opinion polls and listen to what we are told, the public once a certain level of government activity but it wants to provide an level of revenue that is not enough for that activity. the main reason we have a budget deficit is because there is a greater public demand for services than there is a willing to spend the taxes. it is not easy to get it all out. the budget director redbook. the -- the budget director wrote a book. what they found that is that they are popular.

what i hope we will say is a resolution on the part of the public. for the first time in a long time president obama is trying to reduce military spending. even when the threats have diminished and that is the great paradox. if you decide that you cannot raise any more taxes and you want to get the deficit down, and there is a steady one of which i agree with, then there is no way you can avoid making cuts in medicare and social security and environmental protection and law enforcement and a lot of other things that the public does not want. that is an issue that the public

has to resolve. host: is it possible to get beyond this budgeting? is it something that should be a goal? guest: it is a problem of democracy. again, a lot of people say -- the poor voters. if you walk into a hotel the guy in a parked the car banged it up, and took your bags dragging them along the sidewalk, and you could not find your reservation, and when you got up in your room you would not say, "what a coincidence that all of these employees are incompetent? " you would say "? lawyered these people?" -- you would say, "who hired these people?"

there is what the public is demanding of it. i think there are signs. would you raise taxes on the people? raise taxes. i believe that the very conservative faction that has control and the congress is out of sync with people. there was is very very conservative agenda, but we will not know that for sure until the next congressional record. >> -- host: americans will face the prospect of seeing benefits expiring. hitting communities from coast to coast so what are the changes congress will deal with the profound consequences? 0 says senator lindsey graham. if you are looking for a positive spin on this i do not have one to give the. it goes on to say that this

congress is now a lame duck. guest: that is discouraging and i hope he is not correct. there will be sequestration, and all of the bush tax cuts will expire. the position i support and others is that most of the bush tax cuts should be continued, but tax cuts for people making more than $250,000 a year should not be and i hope the democrats would put that forward. maybe what senator gramm is saying is he represents a party that says even the you continue the tax cuts the taxes go up. i do not think that is where the public is. if that is the issue then we will vote on it. we as the republican party say

there are two things we have to do. we have to cut spending or spend more on afghanistan. we have to do more to prepare for a war with the soviet union. again, we are going to be voting on that. we are about to pass a bill and they are going to help us pass a bill that will continue the and the plymouth benefits for a while, so i think that is much too bleak a prediction but also, it depends on a few things. there is a myth that the voters -- it is just big money. look what happened. i am more supportive. that was defeated by the voters, by people who were told, i think someone in an exaggerated way

that this legislature was going to threaten them. and they killed it. so i think senator lindsey graham is much too pessimistic. the other thing it may not go until january. we will see what happens in the november elections. the republicans voted to impeach clinton. after some of the people ended up being defeated on that, but the leadership still had to vote for it under newt gingrich. i think there is a very real issue that you'll see some resolution on some of these issues. aquasco representative frank what is working about the dodd- frank legislation in your view, and if you could what would you change about it? >> i would have merged the

securities exchange commission and the commodities futures trading commission. they have very similar duties, overlapping duties. the problem is that the sec was set up to monitor the stock market. the commodity futures trading commission which used to be primarily for agriculture not so much anymore, but a cultural split. they are distrustful of the sec said that one could not have been done. i would have weakened those provisions that said -- i would at changed the rules to say they could not take this on over payday vendors and other unregulated entities. i would have given them the power to deal with those abuses, whether or not there was a confirmed appointee. i think at the time the senate put that in there, they would just shut down confirmation.

i think the regulation of derivatives has started to work well. there was a very interesting article a few weeks ago speculating about how productive they are from problems in europe. on paper, they are well protected because they have these derivative instruments that protect them, but they noticed that unfortunately some of those protections come from some of the same institutions that may be in trouble. a at they would have worked well. the defense department just put out a very good statement about

the role of the consumer bureau was playing to protect members of the military. we have 18-year-old, 19-year- old, and 20-year-old people who are away from home for the first time, and they are preyed upon. when we set up the bureau, which created a special bureau for the protection of active-to the service people and head of that there is the wife of general petraeus, who has done a great job with that. aquasco what are you going to miss most when you retire at the end of this session? guest: a chance to affect policy. aquasco barney frank is our guest, democrat of massachusetts, 16 term. joseph kennedy iii is set to announce for his seat -- our

guest is barney frank. guest: not by any means assuming that he comes from this family of people of distinguished public service he has an openness that i find very refreshing. he worked in massachusetts, at some of which was in one county and i am very pleased and think he is going to win. >> -- posed a we will begin with a call from largo, florida. caller: blackmailable because they are in the closet about their sexual orientation like senator lindsey graham, and i want to know how many do you think are compromising, and have

a'never been invited to go -- and have you ever gone to the bohemian grove? guest: i have not been there. i believe it is a group of wealthy people in california, and i do not know more than that. i have no comment to make about any individual and no knowledge of any individual. there are obviously some gay men, lesbians in the congress who have not made that public. i would say this. if you look at the way in which those of us who are gay and lesbian in politics have responded, increasingly, if you are a democrat, and i think this is pretty much the case if you were a democrat, and you entered politics in the last decade you paid no penalty for being honest about your sexuality. there are those of us serving

openly. on the republican side, the republican party has become increasingly less known for equality for those you are gay lesbian, bisexual, where transgendered. republicans are very underrepresented there. there are republicans to people generally assumed to be day. the republican party will continue to be ok with that until they say they are happy about that. you get support. i am going to be married to my partner jim in july in massachusetts, and frankly i have gotten a lot of very, very positive comments from my democratic colleagues, but on the republican side essentially, their attitude is that they understand that you cannot help it but please do not act like you are happy about it and hide it, so if you are a

republican and act ashamed about it, you can survive. i never seen a case in my 32 years in congress in which the fact that someone was gay or lesbian was used to make them vote in a way differently with one exception, as there have been a number of people, most republicans but a couple of democrats, who assumed they were gay or lesbian who were not voting supportive of equal rights for gay and lesbian people and i think some of them were frankly told it is just inappropriate for you to do one thing and vote another way so that gap has basically narrowed. host: what are you retiring? guest: a lot will be 72 years old next month and there are things i want to do in my life. i have always wanted to write. there was one great man you can legislate with one hand and right with the other. not i. i am easily distracted.

i get distracted easily. i am also tired. i first started getting active in politics in october of 1967. i went to the funeral of a very great man. amanda got me started when i was 27 in 1967. i took this to stay and fight and not look like i was running off of the field and then massachusetts did a redistricting. there was one that is very substantially changed. it would have meant campaigning among thousands of people while continuing to represent another

650,000, and going to new people and saying, "i would like to be a congressman for two years because i would not be there when i was 75." i just decided yes when you ask me i will miss effect on policy, but i think as an individual private citizen no longer holding elective office and veronica, i understand people do not like politicians these days. -- and ironically, i understand people do not like politicians these days. host: the next call for barney frank comes from wisconsin. go ahead. caller: are you with me?

host: please go ahead, sir. caller: let me just eight say that i do not care which or sexual orientation is -- let me just say that. that is your personal business. i have been going back and forth with this two-party system, and a lot of it is getting pretty old in general. i know we spend $700 per year on the military. i think we should put some money into domestic programs. this is beyond what you could

imagine. because of their baby, -- baby mamas -- post a what is your question? caller: i am wondering what you think should be done. guest: i do understand the baby mama and i think that is very derogatory to the women. it is denigrating the women. some of them are responsible some of them are not. i would like to see a diminution of the younger women who are having children who are really not prepared for it.

this is one of the reasons why i am a bit disappointed to see the efforts to curtail contraception being made available. people we do not want to see abortion and do not want to see irresponsible parenting should be supportive of contraception. we should not forced on people, but some of the young women are doing it because contraception was not available and explained to them. secondly as far as these programs are concerned, yes, we tried very hard to crack down on the abusive. -- abuses. catching people who were abusing various things. a very large percentage of the people will get them are children. there are a lot of irresponsible people. i do not want to punish

children. i would also add that if you look of these programs, we will be spending close to $700 billion. that is coming down substantially. the president wants to bring it down to about $615 billion. i think it can go down lower. i am along with ron paul on this in that we can reduce the military. but answering your questions, yes, we need a balance. i want to do as much as we can to catch frogs the people who are getting the money who should not be getting it, but there is a problem. i do not want to see that we do this and a way where innocent children you are talking about five-year-olds that did not ask to be born, even though i may be angry at their parents. host: congressman this is from

"the wall street journal." here is broken down into spending for the proposed budget. vioxx $1.40 trillion for medicare and medicaid, $693 billion for defense, $668 for non-defense -- 568 for nondefense. then we come over here to this charge and it says $524 billion is how much the president is proposing. guest: i am not sure if that is true. some of it is spent on the nuclear weapons in the energy department. a certain percentage of the energy department budget. we have what is called the base budget. that is that some 500 something dollars billion.

when they went to war they got paid extra. i do not want to denigrate that, because when people go to war, they are risking their lives and their health for the country and they deserve every protection we can give them. the overseas contingency account, with the wars with iraq and afghanistan, so the $693 billion is part, plus a separate out for the wars in afghanistan and iraq. that is one of the reasons things are going down. i would hope we would do it quicker job. host: this email from north carolina. what does mr. fragged think

about complaints from small banks that say his legislation is crippling them with unnecessary paperwork and regulations? guest: that is wrong. i understand the fear. there was nothing in our legislation that adds to the workload of small banks. newt gingrich said the financial reform bill was crushing community banks. a very independent and respected entity that examines things went through that and said it is false. the head of the independent community bankers, which is the smaller bank board, said that wherever there is a difference in the legislation between the way big banks are treated and small banks, small banks are better off. what the legislation does in many ways is help the small banks. some people think that a small banks can fail and that a big bank is safer. we raised the amount of deposits.

you have a married couple, they can put up to $500,000 at a small bank in be totally protected, not have to pay a nickel. banks pay a fee to insure those deposits. it used to be they would pay dollar amount. there is the risk factor. the consumer bureau, which is very popular does not create new rules for the small banks. it takes over from the other bank regulators the job of enforcing those rules. we did say that for banks that have more than $10 billion in assets the consumer bureau would be the bank examiner but for banks under $10 billion in assets they continue to be examined by the banks. i would say to people to point to a provision in the bill, and

they cannot. we have been very careful about the smaller banks. some of them may not like the idea that we will get tougher enforcement of existing consumer laws and there is one thing that was very helpful. banks got a bad rap in the crisis. much of the bad financial practice came from the nonbanks, which were not as regulated. bad mortgages mortgages granted to people should not have gotten them because they cannot afford them primarily or disproportionately they were granted not by the banks the technically we will be defined banks, but by the nonbanks. various mortgage lenders. people sending money overseas, which used to be unregulated, and i think many of the

community bankers are happy about that this gave them a bad name. aquasco the next call for barney frank comes from covington, georgia. caller: good morning mr. frank. how are you doing? guest: thank you. caller: president obama was speaking in wisconsin yesterday. when you came to congress the best speech you gave you walked and to let the republicans get ahead of year but that speech he made in wisconsin congressman frank, was just a speech that all of you democrats need to make going into the election.

working hard to get things done. the speech obama made, it was not about classes or about one group against another. guest: i came to c-span. i like to read all speech, so i will come back and do that. the president has exactly the right tone of try to up the middle-income. there are a lot of things that we do. the congressional district mentioned, an excellent member

of congress. he was on the committee with me. he had business experience, and he made an enormous contribution about being able to regulate the financial system in ways that were very respectful, to commit to small business. host: what do you think about the leadership from the democrat and republican sides of the house? guest: john boehner was a major author of the bill of no child left behind. that was one of the greatest expansions of federal power into the realm of state and local education that we have ever seen. host: george bush. guest: if you look at his record, he has been somewhat, yes, we have had objections about where you draw the line between the republic -- public and private sectors. his problem now is that his party is dominated by a very conservative group. i think it is the most extreme

group that has been in control in history and john boehner has repeatedly been rebuffed when he has tried to do these things. rebellion after rebellion when he tried to get a deficit- reduction plan. i said john boehner is the first speaker to have a song "it is my party and i will cry if i want to." host: is he a friend? guest: occasionally we run into breakfast, when we are early breakfasting, but now on my diet, i have sworn off pancakes.

fans on facebook, none of whom they have ever seen. i think the title "friends" has been debased a bit. host: who are some of your friends? guest: some of my massachusetts colleagues, and my partner jim lives in southern maine and we have gotten very friendly with his congresswoman. we also get to work closely with people on a committee. there are the two committees with maxine waters and another people with whom i have had a great deal of socializing with. i have been busy with work.

host: any republicans on your list? guest: yes at the risk of -- and again, it tends to be -- peter from new york. he was a very conservative guy, and i disagree. i think he is excessive in his focus on muslims to and does not differentiate enough -- his focus on moslems and does not differentiate enough. ron paul and i have worked closely together. ron paul wants to cut the military though he is a bit more isolationist about it. ron and i have co-sponsored things. some of my conservative friends are for letting you exploit labor, but then they want to tell you what to read. ron is an honest libertarian. he and i have been co-sponsors

to remove the internet gambling restrictions. if you want to play poker on the internet, i do not have any idea why people believe the government should stop you. and legalize the smoking of marijuana. and then the committees on which i serve, john campbell, a conservative businessman from california with a thoughtful, independent guy. governor miller from california. a man of conscience from north carolina a very conservative on many things voted for the war in iraq and said "i was wrong," and has been a model with how you deal with that. another represents the outer banks area of north carolina. and new bedford, wearing a seat made by a company from there. i am very proud of new bedford, and walter and i worked together

on fishing. as go the next call from a republican line. please go ahead. caller: thank you for taking my call. my question has to deal with social security and medicare. i know that moneys have been taken out of social security by various presidents in the past and leaving iou's and never replacing it. my parents came into this country as immigrants and had to be sponsored by their family or someone year. people to they come into this country, and they receive social security without putting a dime in the system, and i would like to know what. guest: that is not true. if it is true, they are breaking the law. you are not eligible for any payment from social security unless you pay in, so you have to pay in 40 quarters, so if you know someone on social security who has never worked, please

report them to the u.s. attorney or someone else. that is a crime. in fact, illegal immigrants, and illegal is not a good thing and we have to find a way to deal with it, but they held social security, because what you get is people who go to work in some cases with fake social security gets and they pay in because money is deducted from their paychecks, and it is not paid out. money paid in for social security was being spent by the federal government with no interest. beginning in 1983 the deal that was made with tip o'neill and ronald reagan and deals have become harder to make, there are some hard wing people to claim his mantle. the social security trust fund is a line in the budget, but there was no way they could

continue to fund social security. going back to your question, there is no legal right for people to come into the country to get social security, and if you know someone who is getting social security who has never worked immigrants or not, whether a 15-year-old children who died on social security, they are not eligible. host: our next call for congressman frank, frostburg virginia. caller: how are you doing? guest: good morning. caller: i have no problem with your sexual orientation. guest: i am glad about that. i was getting worried about it. caller: i am a veteran.

what i am appalled that is how my country has transitions from a democratic reality to a reality of plutocracy and fascism. plutocracy it is where the rich rule. fascism is where they work with the government to take away rule. they are supposed to represent democracy, and i just want to say, until we get the financial institutions and corporate influence on our politicians who are supposed to represent the people out of our government, i do not see our government getting better but worse. guest: well, first, i agree with some of what you say, but i

disagree with what you are saying about fascism. this is like some in the right wing denouncing the president. fascism, socialism those are fairly defined things. there are no active communists and maybe one or two socialists. fascism is circuit -- solely not corporate influence. fascism was a brutal regime in the early part of the 20th century where democracy was shut down and people were beaten. it is not even close to fascism. as to things haven't gotten worse since 1968, i think there was always a dangerous people envisioning a golden age that never was. the vietnam war the presidencies of lyndon johnson and nixon, i think johnson did great things domestically but by the last year of his term i do not think people thought --

for example, there was a strong anti-war movement, people getting frustrated. i do not regard richard nixon's regime and there were some things that would not be repudiated but richard nixon was hardly the exemplar of no corporate influence. i do agree we have excess of influence. the notion that the public does not have access is wrong. i will tell you, and again items in the public when it makes its voice notes have an impact and one conversation i have particularly with the left is that it is a self-fulfilling prophecy. they tell the voters, "you know what? the politicians will not listen to you." they tell people the politicians will not listen, people do not speak out and special interests can dominate. i guarantee you that the fancy

reform bill we passed last year was not one that the major financial institutions like. i saw complaints from jpmorgan chase and goldman sachs and others about legislation because it was over the objection. conservatives talk about judicial activism. they are the ones trying now to the supreme court to overturn the democratically elected congress and president. they want to affect the judge's and throw them out but the five-member supreme court majority canceled federal laws. they tried to restrict how much money people could spend in campaigns, and it is true that the five-member supreme court very conservative overturning laws in the federal government has the power corporations to spend money anonymously and that does dilute democracy, and

a very much of that we did that turned around. -- we get that turned around. host: someone has tweeted. s go the first would be about what liberals should do. i go back to that call from georgia about the president's speech yesterday. i think we can increase fairness in the society. i am not against equality. if people are not unequal you do not get world production. but you can have inequality that is economically bad because you suppress the level at which people can do consumption. but i want to argue the about how it should be presented.

my friends on the liberal side are in too demonstrative politics but are in -- are in the -- are in a demonstrative politics. the people in the tea party to a much better job of organizing to get their policy groups a big part of this process than the occupy. date politics. i was elected in massachusetts in 1972 just after the gay movement began. we have won the gay rights movement forced a lot of people being honest about who we are. it is harder to be prejudiced against real people man against summit or stereotyped, but we did it through the political process by getting our rights. and i want to talk about that.

in third i want to write about legislating. where my talents help and my weaknesses are. by have a short attention span. that is not easy when you're trying to write a phd thesis, which is why i never wrote one. q -- if you have a short attention span and you get kind of frustrated, so i want to write about legislating. those are the three books i want to write. host: pittsburgh. caller: i want to thank you for your service mr. frank and i want to thank c-span's for the call -- c-span for the call. this is my question.

when i was in high school, i took a course on government. and it was asked about why there is a two-party system, and he said it was because you can only vote yea or nay. it comes down to voting yea or nay. guest: that does not fully explain why we have two parties. yea or nay is when you have to vote. what parties do is to shape what you are voting yea or nay about. parties can decide which issues, and which issues do not . there are a lot of important

things that we do not get to do a yea or nay on. they are reforming parties but you cannot have intelligent self-governing groups. overtimes, there tends to be private sector society is mixed economies like we have some general tendencies. rational people understand we need a public sector to make rules for the wealth creation into deal with things we cannot do it. no tax cut in my memory has put out a fire. how much government and how much private sector? we are out of whack in my judgment because unlike ronald

reagan or the john boehner that i served with years ago who do not understand that we need a friendly competition between the public and private sectors and to instead want to kind of disband all public sector beyond what is functional. the two parties attended to be in democratic societies that tendencies, so there is one that wants more government than another. some have reverted to 3, but when you have two parties, there do tend to be tendencies. it is true you can only vote yes or no, but they have an important role in shaping the conversation. host: ok congressman frank, a couple of tweets. congressman frank, please remember to mention the suppression of marriage quality. thanks marty, for being one of

the smartest in congress. -- thanks barney. we will be hearing a lot from him after retirement. his voice will never be silent. mr. frank, do you believe that your voice can be heard over the noise created by citizens united? has -- guest: votes beat money in terms of much what we did in the financial reform bill. another example where people do not like it. emigration the big money is in favor of increased immigration because people want cheaper labor, and there is a resistance to that. i go back to the menu called about the corporations. the political system is supposed to be one-man, one-vote, and our private sector system is about

many people many dollars, many votes. it dilutes the democracy of one- man, one-vote. i often have politicians tell me when i am a lobbying to get a vote on something that i cannot do that, it is unpopular in my district or they are telling me in private that i cannot do it because of contributors. there are too many people telling them to not even try. it is hard to do, so the answer again is the more the public speaks out the more impact they will have. host: i am sorry. we are way over time but i promised aid your this morning to ask about china and the visit of xi jinping. guest: i was eight -- going on a tour with a colleague, and we went to a couple of companies in new bedford.

they were two companies that are in the area where we say we need to go ahead, alternative energy solar energy and how to use it, and both of them volunteered that one of the problems was on subsidized competition from china. the oppression in china is very sad. people have predicted that if the economy opened up and the internet got there, it would be more democracy. sadly, what the chinese are showing is that they can contain that and i am sorry that the chinese continue to be some disrespectful -- so disrespectful. human values, not western values. i guess we have to say this. i think china does need us more than we need them. too often, we're acting like these countries are doing as a favor by letting us to buy all of their goods.

china needs us more than we need them and i think we need to be much more tougher with the chinese, saying you have got to stop the subsidy stealing other people's intellectual property. they are no longer this poor waif that needs to have all of this support. i think we have not been tough enough with china. i think we have been suffering. if they are going to help us curtail nuclear weapons in korea and iran and try to get syria to stop killing people, so i believe we are trying to get political support from china with our economic activity for no gain. aquasco please come back to us after you and your term in november. congressman barney frank. [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2012] >> tomorrow, robert shapiro of

the u.s. economy and tony perkins talks about a role of social conservatives in the 2012 campaign. making the carter, a senior washington correspondent looks at the cuts for the federal air marshal's service -- mickey mccarter a senior washington correspondent. that is monday beginning at 7:00 a.m. on c-span. >> this president's day on c- span former new york governor eliot spitzer joins a debate about whether to prosecute banks for wall street fraud. >> i almost hate to bring up occupy wall street but they had a sign down there that was actually very accurate. it said we will know corporations who are different from people when texas executes one. the problem we have right now is that we have given corporations

all of the upside but none of the down side. we have given them all of the rights and privileges that we extend to individuals, and yet when it comes to holding them accountable, because of the diffusion of responsibility, because of the layers and buffers build and by lawyers and investment bankers all doing their job in good faith it is very typical to ascribe criminal intent so just as on the financial side we say "you guarantee us the up side, and we will guarantee you are not too >> see his remarks as part of our lineup. it includes former navy seal chuck fairer on the mission there resulted in the killing of osama bin laden. it all begins monday at 8:00 p.m. eastern on c-span. next on