economy. and then in the final hour, james cosgrove from the government accountability office will discuss an experiment the program that allows some medicare recipients to get benefits from private care plans. all of that, plus your calls, tweets e-mails. "washington ♪ ♪ \ host: good morning. it is monday, june 4, 2012. democrats and republicans will be keeping a close eye on tomorrow's gubernatorial recall vote in wisconsin for clues about the presidential and congressional elections. the syrian government is denying it played a role in the recent massacre, raising tensions in international community. tonight in new york, president obama will join former president clinton for a campaign fund-

raiser. but to all that. first, we want to get your thoughts on new taxes states are considering. do you agree with the plan to tax drivers for miles driven? should state and federal governments stick to collecting taxes on gasoline used? we want your thoughts. you can also catch up with us on all the social media web sites, on twitter, facebook, an e-mail. a very good monday morning to you. write to the lead story in today's "usa today" talking about these motorists taxes. the story is by larry copeland and paul overberg in usa today."

is says -- host: the "usa today" story goes

on -- host: give us a call. we want to know what you think of these plans to possibly tax motorists for miles driven. a few comments already on our facebook page of this morning. in.bara rights writes

"this will just turn the working poor." kenan farrell writes in on facebook. like i said, give us a call. a few other stories on this issue. the ongoing fight on capitol hill continues on the highway bill. i want to redo this from "the washington times" this morning. the end of june date is looming for the highway transportation bill. the article is by sean lengell

today in "the washington times."

host: let's go to the phones and get some thoughts. jennifer is up on the democratic line from louisville, ky. jennifer, your thoughts on highway and road transportation issues. caller: i do not agree with it. first of all, this is one thing that i believe that they cannot blame on the president, and another thing -- if congress would go ahead and approve some of these things, our situation in our country -- if they would approve things, it would be so much better. i think we would have already accomplished so much. host: jennifer, what is the

solution? where should the money come from, if not a tax on miles driven? do you think we should stick with the gasoline tax? should we raise the gasoline tax? it has obviously fallen short. caller: that would hurt us if we raise the gasoline tax. i am sure they could make cuts in other things or work together. they do not want to work together. everything is "no." they have never worked to r since our president has come in. i do not expect for them to do anything. i am talking about mainly the republicans. everything is "no host:: jennifer, thank you verfor the call. this morning in "usa today," the three highest states.

washington being the highest. that was effective in 2008. should know that the lowest three states include georgia, new jersey, and alaska. alaska with just an eight cents per gallon gasoline tax. that was effective in 2009. back to the phones on the republican line. -- i am sorry, independent line. louisville, ky, good morning. caller: thank you for taking my call. i think taxing motorists for every mile, i think it is very outrageous. what is going to be taxed next? walking or the air that we breeze? instead of continuing to punish

hard-working americans -- instead of punishing many hard- working americans with these taxes on them, let's tax the 1%. let's tax of these wealthy people and the rich people. they keep getting away with these tax breaks. i just find it does not make any sense that we are continuing to do this whole idea and ideal with thrdr taxes -- with these taxes on hard-working americans. some states cannot still be afloat because of their economic issues -- the ignorance of this wasteful spending, for example, with the war in iraq, which is ending, and

afghanistan, which is about to be ending. also, with the wasteful spending on earmarks. lobbyists, wrongfully imprisoned people, let's attack that. the reason we are in $16 trillion and counting as we speak. host: thansk for the call. one other transportation story of one to point you to today. this is also from "usa today" this morning. buses,umping on cities' rails" is the headline.

host: also, another handy chart in increases. indianapolis, an increase of 20% from 2011. fort myers, florida, the second- highest in terms of increased percentage, and on down the line. give us a call. we want to know your thoughts on how we should pay for bridge and road improvements and what do

you think of this plan that "usa today" cited this morning on taxing motorists? sandra, you are up on the independent line from massachusetts. good morning. caller: good morning. one, we have projects that have never been found out where the money has gone that was set aside and never used for all the things they were supposed to have done in the beginning. the government took it away from us and shoved it somewhere. and give it to us.cke that was supposed to go for roads and everything else. two, they need to go after the lottery. tax them and tax charges instead of other people. they need to go after the

churches that are tax free, and lottery. think about it. host: sandra, you want to use that money to pay for bridges and roads? caller: absolutely. bridges, roads. it will put people to work. it will get us going. our economy stinks. we need the help and that's how we get it. host: sandra on the independent line. another independent calling it in this morning from georgia, the state one of the lowest gas taxes. matt on the independent line. good morning. as an: i identify independent conservative. in gasoline taxes and the proposed miles driven taxes -- the government does not have a revenue problem. it has a spending problem.

if you want to pay for roads and bridges, let the state authorities find it more efficient way to do their job. top-down planning -- is these left-wing lawmakers have to spend five minutes on a public bus or train, they would probably reach a decision on it. it is a miserable experience. i occasionally use the public transportation system. not enjoyable. i am just going to move further out so i do not have to be near it. again, leave the motorists alone. stop demonizing people for driving. get your spending under control. i also encourage a georgia residents to vote no on the proposed transportation tax coming up in july i. host: if you were comments on facebook. thomas lang writes --

host: that is from facebook this morning. also want to point out shecherry fisher's comments. a few comments on facebook. one from twitter this morning. --rles rights writes in we will continue this conversation on the proposal to tax drivers on miles driven. we will go to the mark this morning on the democratic line.

good morning, mark. caller: with everything they're doing with our tax dollars on the highway funds -- they are using the gas tax to work on the highways, which they're not doing. the roadways are falling apart. the mass transit system they have in louisville, they are discontinuing it in parts of the county that we live in, which is making it more difficult. to tax individual car drivers for the miles they drive is totally out of the realm of the way we should think about it. host: what is the answer? how do you raise this money that everybody says is falling short from the taxes that are already out there? caller: the proposed new bridges -- the tolls. the tolls they are wanting to introduce our very high and very outrageous. semire talking $10 for a

to cross the river. i think that is outrageous in. if it comes down to raising the gas tax again, so be it. use the money to repair the roads. do not use the money to send the three state employees to sit on the side of the road and watch traffic go by and take a nap. host: mark from louisville kentucky. i just want to note again the states that are trying to incorporate this technology or at least testing this technology to find out how many miles people drive and then tax accordingly. minnesota and oregon are already testing the technology. other states include washington and nevada. they are preparing some more projects. that is from "usa today" today. as we continue to take your calls on this proposal, i want to point out a few other

headlines from over the weekend. a lot of talk about the jobs report from last friday and the fallout continues. this is from "the wall street journal" this morning. "obama seeks a way out of jobs."

host: want to take you to these sunday shows yesterday's. on "face the nation" talking about these dismal jobs numbers. [video clip] >> for david axelrod to be holding some sort of public event in massachusetts -- is this president had mitt romney's job record, they would be holding a carnival celebrating their success is. therethey failed so badly. they want us to believe the president is not the president. these things going on and have nothing to do with barack obama. host: that was the rnc chairman

yesterday from the sunday shows. want to continue on this question of a motorist tax on miles driven. carol is waiting from colorado. good morning, carol. caller: thank you. i think it is an absolute outrage. we have oil subsidies. farm subsidies, as well. we could take that money and put it towards our roads and stuff. we can stop the tariffs on some of the goods coming into this country. a small transaction tax on day traders that churn our markets. the states that do not have any state tax, that only helps their big industries and their big business. they do that to help those business people. they don't really do that to help the people that live in the state. they usually suffer from that. host: carol, what do you think about the gasoline tax now?

not just the one proposed, but the current gasoline tax that has not been raised by the federal government and many of the states in a very long time? is that a place to look to boost some of its revenue? caller: i do not think so. i think that only hurts the working people who have to get to work every day. i think we have to look elsewhere. i think there are some top-heavy areas that have not even been touched. in my party, i am a rhino. i am an old moderate. apparently they do not want me in the party anymore. i am going to be thinking about becoming a democrat very soon. they do not ever want to raise taxes on the wealthy. that is where we have to go. those are the people -- best in our society. host: thank you for calling in. i want to take you to an article in "the washington post" today on some of the comments on the sunday shows yesterday.

this was virginia gov. rob mcdonnell -- [video clip] >> the only thing i could say, trillion inly $1 millio spending. does it help us in the long term to really cut the unemployment rate? i would say no. we've done a lot of things. democrats and republicans in virginia are doing some things i requested on economic development, targeted tax cuts, and other things i think a made a difference. host: that was bob mac

cdonnell on ccnn "state of the .nion " yesterday caller: good morning. i do not think it's a fair thing to do to the american people, especially the ones who have to drive, and drive every day to go to their jobs and whatever. when we talk about taxes, we say you cannot tax the millionaire's every time that we need money. but i do not think the working people can really pay taxes right now. as far as taxing the wealthy, nobody really wants to tax the wealthy, but i think we have to. i think they ought to be big enough to stand up and pay their

fair share, too. we, the working people, cannot get loopholes added into the tax code and get all these breaks in their taxes. we have to pay whatever the percentage is. that is an unfair argument to start with. host: thank you for calling in. want to take you to one more clip from yesterday's shows. this is stephen ratner, who oversaw president obama's rescue of the auto bailout. was on "fox news sunday." [video clip] >> we continue to lose jobs for some months as a result of the recession that began before we got here. since early 2010, when the economy job picture began to recover, we batted over 4 million jobs in this country.

no one is happy with the rate of job creation today. i believe that without the policies the president put in place, we would not even have this level of job creation. host: want to show you one more story on this subject of the economy and job creation. zogbys from johns o column in "the washington times" today. zogby writes --

host: that is john zogby, pollster, in "the washington times" this morning. martha, what do you think? caller: i think it would be not fair to the working people who now have to commute a great long distance to go to their jobs. host: martha, what do you think is the right solution to raise revenue to pay for roads and bridges that desperately need funding? caller: if listening to hillary

clinton promising aid to every country she steps in, i would think the money must be there already. our government thinks we have money we cannot spend. i think we need to end aid to all the countries we're giving money to premiere of giving money to pakistan, yemen. we are basically giving money to our enemies that are buying weapons to kill us. host: martha from florida, than ks for calling in. we mentioned it the recall effort vote is tomorrow in wisconsin. what to take you to a headline from "the washington times." "in walker recall, road to the white house runs through wisconsin."

host: you will see lots of stories all over the papers about what this could mean for the 2012 presidential election. one of those columnists is in "the washington post."he is talking about the prudentiapotel breakdown of what will be gained or broken.

host: other people noted that have much to gain or lose in this election -- the democratic national committee, president obama, and of course, tom barrett, who is running against scott walker. you can recall that in "the washington post" today. sarah is on the republican line with this question of a low-risk t motorists tax. caller: the only mass transit system we have is buses.

they have even cut the bus routes lately. i think that the motorist tax is completely over the top. they already get taxed gas-wise. everybody is trying to get jobs, it get the economy back to where it needs to be. i think that the large federal government and that is seen to be becoming more and more socialist, trying to tell everybody what to do -- i think the states should have more power than the federal government. each state should be able to figure out what they need to use to fix the roads, bridges, etc. i think that it's too much to put on the people who are already struggling anyway and people who do not have many options. host: we will go right to bob on the independent line from covington, georgia. good morning, bob. caller: good morning. how are you this morning? host: good morning.

caller: first of all, your question about the gasoline tax -- only two states are trying it. we have 48 other states who are not trying it. it is not really a national question. i want to come back to some of the articles you read. the first one is about the tax. look first and see -- all these people calling in, do they even pay any tax? warren buffett, a billionaire, let's think of the tax on the assets. mr. buffett can pay his fair share and then some. they need to fix those things in terms of percentage of gross. we are in the middle of dmit.tion, they will not ami

host: bob, bring it back to fixing our roads and bridges. the two states currently testing miles driven. what do you think is the right idea? caller: that is great. that is just two states. we have 48 states. the reason the president focus teachers, roads, and bridges, that's all union labor. everything he does. coal. yet half of our electricity from coal. host: bob, thanks for the call from covington, georgia this morning. two more things on the recall effort in wisconsin. what to note that tom barrett was on the sunday shows yesterday. tom barrett is running against scott walker in wisconsin in

that recall. he predicts that "i am going to win it" on cnn "state of the union" on sunday. mr. walker leading the challenger by seven points. that's according to "the washington times." one other poll came out last night from a democratic polling firm in north carolina. does a lot of polling a lot of other places. t at 50-47, walker leading. lou on the democratic line from highland park, illinois. good morning. caller: good morning. i am very much against taxing people on the miles that they

drive. i think there are a couple of other places they could tax where it makes more sense. why not tax everybody exceeding the speed limit or running stop signs or red lights in america? i think that's a terrific way to raise money. host: of we already do that in the form of tickets? caller: they could use more electronic coverage. host: catch more people doing it. caller: the average speed around chicago is 75 or 80 miles per hour. i think that is number one, where they could get more revenue. host: what else? caller: look at the high-speed computer trading. millions of shares of stock are traded on wall street and not a penny tax is charged to those computers. why not start charging tax on

those stocks traded? i think you'll see a tremendous amount of revenue raised. host: lou, i appreciate the call in this morning. i want to point out one more comment from facebook this morning. this is from dennis on facebook. he writes -- one of the few this morning pushing for a raise in the gasoline tax on facebook. thanks for the comments. brett is waiting on our independent line. good morning. caller: good morning. to tax people of miles driven would go against the idea of trying to improve efficiency. host: ok. explained a little bit more. caller: you buy a prius and

then you get 45 miles to a gallon and then taxed on miles driven. host: one of the points from a story this morning is that people are not using as much gasoline so we are not using as much from the gasoline tax on people filling up their tanks. what is a solution? caller: like most people, i am not a terrific fan of taxes or high gas prices. to tax people on what they use -- if it is necessary to raise additional money, raise the gas tax. obviously, i am not in favor of that. i am in favor of trying to find any efficiencies that they can find. in the event that the additional money is absolutely needed, yes. the gas tax is the most fair way. host: thank you for the call this morning. want to point out the story from "the wall street journal" today. iess., vietnam militar

esge closer." host: there's a picture in "the wall street journal" of defence secretary leon panetta leading with officials in vietnam. one other story this morning i want to point out from around the world that we mentioned is of the assad regime denying the

government's role in a massacre in syria. this is from "the new york times" this morning. host: you can read "the new york times" today for a little bit more about that. want to go back to the phones in new castle, delaware. patrick is on the republican

line. good morning, patrick. caller: good morning yourself. i am very much opposed to this tax on miles driven. the problem is inflation. we have got to get inflation under control. this is why it costs so much to fix these highways and every other thing that needs to be fixed in this country. look at some of the sweetheart contracts. i bet some of these politically connected highway contractors have in working on these highways. if you want to do something about the highways, let's get some of these unemployed people. put them to work at a reasonable wage, not the amount of money some of them are making today, so we can get the price down to do these repairs. we need these repairs. there's no question about that. host: where is the money going to come from to put these people back to work? more stimulus money? caller: any way you try to fix

the highways. the same place. that's not always a bad thing. we do need to have good highways. you cannot have a good economy without good highways. obama, i do not understand that man. he should be attacking the gas prices in getting them down under $3 at least per gallon and put some pressure on the oil companies and on the countries from which we import are loyal. mexico and canada. our troops are used to protect those countries and save them tons and tons of money. we put all types of money out. john kennedy knew how bad inflation was. he put pressure on the steel companies to reduce their prices. the steel unions went along with them, but the management said know. he threatened them with

antitrust laws and they came into line. we've got to do something. obama should stop trying to talk to the republicans like they're going to go along with it. he is a fool in my opinion. thank you. host: chris has his own proposal on twitter. he advocates a partial tax on miles driven. he says -- back to the phones. beverly is from detroit, michigan on the democratic polling. thanks for calling in this morning. caller: i do not agree with the tax on gas. the last time they had a tax on gas, it was supposed to be particularly for the roads.

i'm speaking for only michigan. it never got to the roads. they spend it the way they wanted to. we've got to have something in place to say okay, this money is actually going to go to repairing our bridges and roads. keep taxing the general public of people. that's all they got on your head. you know, stop working with other countries. put our money in our own backyard. each state needs help. the federal government needs to stop digging into all these other countries. we have no business being there.

host: in the time we have left, a few other headlines i want to point out in this morning's papers. this is from "the wall street journal." jerry sandusky criminal trial is this week. that trial will beginninbe gettg underway this week. one other headline that has been in the news a lot -- this is from "the new york times." "zimmerman turns himself in and is back in a florida jail. george zimmerman, who is facing second-degree murder charges, is back behind bars this morning. mr. zimmerman turned himself in to authorities and sanford, florida.

the judge revoked his bond and gave him 48 hours to surrender. that is george zimmerman surrounding himself on screen. the judge found that mr. zimmerman had misled the court about his finances during his april bond hearing." one more call of the subject of the motorists tax of miles driven. preston, connecticut. bill is on independent line. good morning, biill. caller: why don't they put $8 per barrel tax on all the oil coming down the peak keystone -- on the keystone pipeline. the representatives said pipelines were supposed to deliver 700 million barrels per day. regardless of how much it is, it would be quite a lot of money coming in through the keystone pipeline. host: thanks for the call this

morning from the independent line. at the end of this first segment on "washington journal" today, i want to point to this story that is all over all the papers on the queen elizabeth's diamond jubilee. a lot of pictures yesterday from the flotilla on the thames river. the river thames became a real highway sunday as queen elizabeth ii led a motley but majestic flotilla to mark her diamond jubilee with a crowd of spectators estimated to be 1.5 million. on monday, the queen will join thousands at a concert, headlined by pop royalty, including paul mccartney can't elton john.

that's our segment for the first 45 minutes on "washington journal." we will be right back with "usa today" for fact checking in the 2012 campaign. later, daniel rose ann. we will be right back. ♪ ♪ >> the ftc is primarily an enforcement agency and has brought many good cases in the consumer privacy area and has reached settlements with a lot of companies, google, facebook, privacyome of the promise promises they made to consumers. >> it is a tool that can be much

more responsive to changes in the marketplace in a quicker way then regulation or passing laws can be. >> tonight, a look at the federal trade commission's enforcement role in dealing with privacy on the internet. "the communicators" at 8:00 eastern on c-span2. >> david maranis has been writing and researching his 10th book, "barack obama: the story." he also toured the families' homes and sites in kansas to find the origins of his mother's family. "barack obama: the story" comes out in bookstores on june 19. booktv will give you an early look.

join us sunday, june 17 at 6:00 p.m. eastern time, and later at 7:30 that same night, your phone calls, e-mails, and tweets. >> "washington journal" continues. host: we are pleased to have politifact editor bill adair back on the "washington journal" for a discussion on fact checking. for those who are not aware, what is the role of politifact? guest: politifact is a fact checking website. we research claims that are made by candidates, political groups, political parties, and rate their accuracy on a truth-o- meter from true to false. have our lowest rating, pants on fire, for the most ridiculous.

we have a network news organizations that work with us. we have 11 politifact stateside. our newest, new hampshire, just launched over the weekend. we have the 90 states like florida, ohio, and wisconsin -- have them in key states like florida, ohio, and wisconsin. host: before we get to some of the specific claims, the 2012 campaign is pretty much officially under way. now that the primary is over. you were here during the primary to discuss some trends. what are you seeing now? guest: the political groups -- i always have to say that now because we're not just talking about political parties, but also the pacs, superpacs, the 501-c4 groups. they're all laying down the

foundation for their general election campaigns. they are using many of the same talking points. pacs and superpacs that support mitt romney are laying down the same sort of points that romney is making. for instance, president obama has broken his promises on various things, and various claims about the economy about the health care law. likewise, the democrats and the liberal groups are doing the same thing, laying down the points they want to make about obama and also about romney, particularly with regard to bain capital. we used to think the general election campaign did not start until labor day. labor day is the traditional kickoff of the general election campaign. it is under way now. we have a lot to check at politifact. adds seeing new practically every day.

host: if you have a question for bill adair, give us a call in. questions about work that they've done or facts that you would suggest for politifact look into. we will take all of those calls. let's look at an as that recently came out about romney work at bai capitaln. [video clip] >> i was a steelworker for 30 years. we had a reputation for quality products. something that was american made. we were not rich, but i was able to put my daughter through college. >> a good paying job that you can support and raise a family on is hugely important. >> that stopped with bain capital. >> bain capital was the majority

owner. they were responsible. mitt romney was deeply involved in the influence that he exercised over these companies. >> take us through your fact checking for that ad. guest: it was tricky. it was not one single fact stated in that. we took the press release about this ad then we took a statement from it that after they bought sgt, mitt romney loaded it with debt, and walk away with a healthy profit. we took that and broke it into parts. we looked at each part and determined that we did deserve the rating of mostly true. they did heavily loaded with debt. they close the kansas city

plant and did make a profit. we did not rate it true because there are some outside factors. the market for steel had declined tremendously. some other outside factors make us take it down to mostly true. another one being romney had left bain before gst steel closed, i believe. host: of look at an ad that did i get quite as good a rating from ads. [video clip] >> same-sex couples should be able to get married. >> i indicated my view, which is i do not favor marriage between people of the same gender. i do not favor civil unions, if they are identical to marriage, other than by name.

host: take us through the fact checking on that one. guest: the fact we checked is that mitt romney would deny gay people the right to adopt children. we raided that false. we found that there just was nothing in what romney had said --support that claim tha eddie had been consistently opposed to gay marriage, but also said he respected state adoption laws, including laws that allow gay couples to adopt. nothing to support that one. we raided that one false on our truth-o-meter. host: we are going to take some of your calls. we will go up to new york. richard is waiting on the republican line. good morning, richard. caller: good morning. i was wondering -- i've been looking at this website -- the

real delicate town. they have romney at 627 and ron paul at 156. a long way to tampa of. is anybody investigating -- ron paul says he has more donations from the current military and veterans' then all of the other candidates combined, including the president. other than that, of the shenanigans that went on in shreveport where ron paul got 62% of the delegates and then they elected a new chairman. the old chairmen had his man hipt was on a prosthetic t thrown to the ground and arrested. blackboxvoting.com also mentions a lot of the things that go on

behind the scenes. host: do you do much work on ron paul at this point? guest: at this point, but in response to your question about the military donations, we have fact checked that. we have given that a true. members of the military have given him more contributions than barack obama and more than twice what they send other republican candidates. we raided this in july. it earned a true. at this point, we're focus more on romney and all of love. romney is the presumptive nominee. the we are really focus now on covering the general election campaign. we do check other people who speak up in american politics. sometimes we check pundits and talk-show hosts. we will check the leadership in congress. our state sites are checking state leaders.

governors, candidates for governor, candidates for the u.s. senate. host: the economy is pulling a starring role in the campaign. talk about your new economic scorecard. guest: this was a different type of politifact story that we did over the weekend. one of our writers who specializes in economics, we decided that instead of telling the story through fact checks, that we would just laid out the numbers for people. our lead story on politifact.com right now is the scorecard on the economy. basically just presents the important statistics that show the health of the economy over the past four years breathe we started in 2008. we had sort of a benchmark and then we looked at every january since, as well as the most recent data. it is really fascinating. one of the things that we may not have realized has gotten worse are food prices.

food prices have really increased a lot. other measurements -- some are encouraging and some are not so encouraging. this is just a very neutral look at how we're doing. host: we've got this here on the ipad. it is the yearly food prices you were just talking about, taking a look at a loaf of white bread, a half pound of ground chuck, and the changes over the years from 2008 through today. when you look at parts of the economy, were you looking mostly at the numbers that get most confused or fuzzy, or did you stick to topline numbers? host: we tried to give a good sampling of lots of things. we looked at the budget deficit and debt. we looked at mortgage rates. some things are much better. mortgage rates are down to 3.9%. 10 or 15 years ago, who could have ever imagined mortgage rates that low? other numbers have not gone so

well. unemployment is still high. 8.2% most recently. peaked at 9.7 in january 2010 the way we calculate it it. it is interesting charge. we shaded it different ways so you can see what has improved and what has not. host: let's go to brian on the democratic line. you are on with bill adair. go ahead, bill. caller: good morning, c-span. i recently read in a magazine that politifact and your nearest competitor had listed in general press the of statements and almost seven out of 10 pants on fire were given to republicans as opposed to democrats?

isn't that true? guest: i can honestly say i do not keep score. asking me that question is sort of like asking an umpire who is out at home more, the yankees or the red sox? i do not know. we look at everything independently. our goal is not to sort of pain one party or the other as telling more falsehoods, but people have looked at our data and reached various conclusions and we are happy to have folks do that. i don't spend much time looking at that. it's more portents that we'd spend time doing the best fact checking that we can and doing individual claims. caller: you have the newspaper in st. petersburg. >> it is called the tampa bay

time and we are a business unit of it. these are reporters and we are not affiliated with one side or the other. we are independent. everyday we choose two or three of the most interesting claims that have been made and then research them. caller: how long does that take/ guest: a day to day and a half. some take longer depending on their complexity. it can be difficult work. somebody who has been studying fact checking if said recently, why don't more news organizations do this? because it's hard. it takes a real commitment of resources and the tampa bay times has been willing to make that commitment now for five years, which is extraordinary and speaks to the tremendous commitment to public service. likewise, we have 13 news organizations around the country that have also dedicated reporters and editors to check

facts. total of 25 journalists, editors, and reporters that do politifact work full time. it's the most extensive fact checking effort ever in american politics. host: is that expanding into a battleground states in 2012 for the election? guest: absolutely. as far as the presidential campaign, we are in very important states such as florida, ohio, wisconsin, virginia. as i mentioned earlier, we just opened in new hampshire over the weekend. so there is a state that is not always predictable in terms of how with those in the general election. we are still looking to add some more state partners this year. what it takes is a news organization that wants to do fact checking and is willing to. make a to -- and is willing to make a commitment. host: how many are you taking

per week? guest: ten to 15. we have checked more than 5000 political claims over the years. host: gary is on the line from lancaster, pennsylvania. you are on the line with bill adair. caller: 2 that obama is not up to the challenge in the country, but the thing is every time he tries to pass something for the middle class, the gop and john boehner always have to bring up we cannot pass it if you are going to increase the taxes on the rich. the college students will have to pay double on the loan interest. the gop says we don't care, if you are going to increase the taxes on the rich, it does not matter.

host: gary, is there a fact out there that concerns you mostly that you have questions about? caller: yes, it if people vote in romney, this country will be in bad shape. i obama did not break any promises. he just cannot get anything passed with the gop. host: you have been tracking the president those promises since the 2008 campaign. guest: after the election in 2008 we decided that we would create a new device, a meter that would track the campaign promises that barack obama made in the 2008 campaign. he has made more than 500 promises from very specific promises to individual constituencies. everything from children with autism to fighting western while light -- western wildfires.

we pile into the database and periodically looked at them and rate them either as a promise kept, a compromise, a promise broken, stalled, and the largest category is promises kept. host: that'promises broken, 14%. this allows you to look at his promises in different ways, if you want to see all of his promises kept, you can see that and you can see the promises that he has broken. we saw our gop pledge-ometer. politifact is all about holding elected officials accountable for their word. promises are as important as factual statements.

and so, we felt that we could do a new form of journalism by researching them and rating them. this is a really valuable source for people. obama has been attacked for breaking his promises. many of those broken promises are because of difficulty in passing things through congress, as the caller mentioned. we lay out the facts for you. by ridding them like this, it gives them helpful guidance and an overview of what has passed and was not. -- by rating them. caller: and let's go to one of those facts that you checked. this ad talks about obama failing to stem the foreclosure prices. >> president obama's agenda promised so much. >> we must tell millions of homeowners facing foreclosure. >>

a promise broken. one in five mortgages are still under water. >> if you are a family making less than $250,000 a year, you will not see your taxes go up. >> broken. obamacare raises 18 different taxes. caller: what is your rating on that ad? guest: we looked at the foreclosure crisis claim, specifically that he broke his promise to help homeowners facing foreclosure. we rated that mostly true. did a lot of research on this. one of our riders spent about a week studying what he had done, talking to experts. we concluded when we looked at not just what obama had said but the benchmarks that he had set for himself, became a short. at one end a mostly true. there were other claims in their perry became sort of rapid fire. the one that obamacare raises 18

different taxes, we raided that mostly false. found that to be an exaggeration, because it is not like it is 18 taxes on you as an individual. many of those taxes are in the health insurance to redeem the notes insurance companies or the wealthy. the claim that millions could lose their health care coverage and be forced into a government pull, we raided that false. -- rated. republicans are really misstating what the congressional budget office said in a report. government pool gives a very dire account of what would happen, so we raided that falls. then there was another that obama promised to cut the deficit by half and does not even come close. true.deted that host: crawl is waiting on the

republican line in west virginia. caller you'r-- carl. caller: you're talking about newspeople not doing any fast checking -- fact checking. nbc does it every day. the only see things with their left eye. a person like yourself, if you're not truly independent or bipartisan, you can get on a program like this and verify things that are not true. and you can influence a lot of people. you know the first thing you talked about was the steel company. you know for fact that mitt romney was not involved with bain capital in that plant closed. there were a lot of factors that cause that plant to close other than bain capital. guest: to answer your

calledn, that's why we that claim mostly true, there were some factors that were beyond what bain capital and romney were responsible for. but overall the facts as they were contained in that sentence were accurate. i speak to the question about liberal conservative -- liberal/conservative and who voted for in the last election. this speaks to the tremendous passion recapitalized years -- passion that we have in the last few years. in years people say that you ruled against my guy, so therefore you are biased. i hope that instead they will read our work and consider it. even if you don't agree with our ruling, consider what we said.

what it speaks to is you may not always agree with us, but i think we will make you smarter. host: chattanooga, tennessee, dave is next on the democratic line. good morning. caller: good morning. thanks for c-span. the articles that you brought about gay marriage, the main focus of that article is gay marriage and romney is against gay marriage, but you chose -- i'm really curious about the mormon religion. is it true that the mormons used to believe that blacks could not get into heaven, that they were cursed? also that romney's grandfather was married seven times to seven wives and that his great- grandfather had 12 wives? host: do you go much into a candidate's personal lives or to use it to their statements on the campaign trail? guest: if it is a claim that's out there, we try to fact

checked it. we do a lot of fact checking of change e-mails, which often pass along these kind of claims about religion and more personal things. we spent a lot of energy in the 2008 campaign. we checked some of the claims that were made against john mccain and about this service as a prisoner of war. we take a lot of claims about obama, the claims that he was a muslim. there was one change e-mail that said the book of revelation portrayed the antichrist in a description that sounded remarkably like barack obama. it turns out the book of revelation did not say that. we do check a lot of those things. we have not made specific facts about the mormon faith. to the extent that the bubble up, and not just from the candidates, but even in things like jean e-mails, we will fact check those. host: davis calling from the

independent-minded florida. caller: good morning. i hate to get off topic, but i just want -- i'm from the tampa bay area, but i would like him to check a couple. of couple the preamble of the constitution says to secure the blessings of liberty. the definition of liberty is to do what one chooses. on this thing of marriage, that is a religious aspect, if you go back in history. the government is not supposed to be making any religious contributions to our country. so i don't think they should even issue a marriage licenses. i think that should be totally up to the church and the individual. i think they ought to issue civil unions. it does not matter if you want to marry a cow. that should be your own decision. host: asking you to be a

constitutional scholar at times. guest: those questions are tough. occasionally we will get one and try to fact check it. these things are often matters of opinion. where we can bring some value is if somebody characterized as a court opinion or a judge's -- and says a judge says this, then we will fact check it. a lot of these we have started and found this is really just a matter of opinion and often a matter of debate for constitutional scholars. some very interesting discussions going on about gay marriage. we have fact check a lot of them, but it has to be really within the realm of facts for us to do so. host: marcus writes -- is coming from mitt romney's visit to the closed solyndra plant last week and it being in the headlines. guest: we have done haveor

three or four on this. one of them said that solyndra paid for robots that whistled disney tunes. i think the robots were able to whistle disney songs. host: you send your fact checkers into the factories? guest: you make a good point, which is the importance of trying to your original research. we do try to your original research where possible. we don't typically have to leave the office to verify a lot of these things. we can look at government reports and other news reports. rely on the original sources, though. host: lafayette, louisiana, bob on our republican line. caller: good morning.

i see all these people saying all kinds of things on c-span that are questionable. the only news source that you can get the truth is fox news. a lot of people come on here and say things that are not true. i wonder if maybe for one we c- span could have the the fact checking meter on the show. brian lamb.ill ask to as host: now doug is on the line. caller: i would like to speak to the dysfunctionality of the congress. they try to have good intentions, but the postal bill where they tried to fix the problem of the retirees health benefits and the result has been that it is bankrupting the post office. on the other side -- that was

passed by interpublic tons in 2006 -- the dodd-frank bill has only made the problem worse. there were trying to fix the problem and they made the problem worse. my real problem about the fact check is how many filibusters as the senate put forth since obama took office compared to the bu'. that one sounds familiar. you might look on our website to see if we have fact check that. go to the search box and tiepins filibuster. i don't recall specifically that we have done it, but that is an interesting one. host: have you done work on the dodd-frank bill? guest: we have done some. our challenge is the scope of facts out there. on any given day is there are a thousand things we could check.

if we were to say, take a day of c-span, you would be looking at hundreds of claims that could be checked over the course of a day. we tried to pick the ones that are most interesting, most provocative, that are being heard by the most people. the ones where you hear them and you wonder, is that true? that is our goal, to satisfy your curiosity when you hear a political claim and wonder if it's true. host: we have about 10 minutes left with bill adair of politifact. it runs through the tampa bay time. the mystery of flight 427, crash investigation from 2000 to. that's when it was public spirit and he's the winner of an award for coverage of congress. john is waiting on the independent line. caller: yes, how are you? a quick question. in the last week or so, the

obama administration had talked about the fact they are the most conservative spending presidents in years. the thing that stuck in my brain is this, how can that be true when they have added $5 trillion in deficit in four years and the previous administration had less than that in eight years? how can you honestly look to a lot of predict how can we allow those folks to get away with something like that when the president said before he was elected that it was unpatriotic to be able to and spend money on the chinese credit card? that is an outright lie. for that to have been checked, please tell me. guest: to answer your question about the spending, this has really dominated a lot of debate particularly among budget

analysts over the past week or two. this originated with a commentary on a financial web site called market watch. it claimed that obama's rate of spending increase was some of the lowest since eisenhower. we actually fact checked the facebook post on this. it said that romney is wrong to claim that spending under obama has accelerated at a pace without president -- without precedence in recent history because it has risen slower than any time in nearly 60 years. so the part about romney we called false. the second part about the spending increase under obama we raided that have true. we gave that post a mostly true overall. i think you touched on this in

the question, the reason has to do with how you allocates spending from president bush to president obama. he allocated some two obama and many conservative analysts felt that he should have allocated more. we looked at all different ways. we posted an update to this on thursday or friday. just to clarify for people that we called that portion after. that's why we have the truth meter that there can be truth to things but not full truth. people can disagree on how to allocate the money from the 2009 budget year. depending on how to allocate, it can look worse or better. for better what we tried to do is give you the tools to understand what is happening and then do the best we can to make a call. but this one has prompted a lot of debate, not just our rating,

a poll commentary that the writer made. i think we will hear that claim more during the presidential campaign. host: i want to take you an american future fund ad on claims that all street supports president obama and then get your thoughts afterwards. >> i did not run for office to be helping out a bunch of fat cat bankers on wall street. >> gas who gave $42 million to obama's last campaign for president? wall street bankers and financial insiders, more than any other candidate in history. >> helping out a bunch of fat cat bankers on wall street. >> but obama voted for the wall street bailout. >> fact that bankers on wall street. >> his white house is full wall street fat cats. his foreign intelligence officer, ambassador to germany, treasury

secretary. jon corzine, lost $1.2 billion of investors' money on wall street, was obama's advisor on the stimulus. host: why was this mostly false? guest: we were factored in the underlying point, which is obama is the preferred candidate of wall street. if you look at the center for responsive politics, which is a great web site that keeps this data and really arranges it in ways that you can make sense of it, it is not the case that obama is the preferred wall street candidate. mitt romney is. and so, although we found some truth to this, but obama has gotten considerable money from wall street, is not the case that is the preferred candidate. they used the data in a misleading way. so that got mostly false. our definition of mostly false

is the statement has an element of truth but leave out important information. host: let's go back to the phones. clinton, tennessee, dana is waiting on the republican line. caller: i find it incredulous that the first ad that obama tried to blame romney for access bain capital when he had not even been there for two and a half years and you said that was mostly true. and the latest thing you said about wall street, wall street did give obama all the money in the last election. i am sure they would prefe hasnning since obama called up this economy. but in the last election they gave the money to obama. that's why none of these people have been prosecuted. eric holder is not going to do anything to prosecute these people because they are all his friends. let like a liar, pants on fire. guest: i would encourage you to

read our articles and i think you'll find there's tremendous step and research that go beyond these decisions. as i said a moment ago, i don't expect you agree with every rating that we make. in the same way that if you are yankees fan or red sox fan, you'll not agree with every call the empire makes on the plays and home plate. what is interesting to us is that both sides to love us except when they don't love us. that's the nature of the kind of work we do. we are doing our best to make difficult calls. we are doing independent research and we are looking at these things. but in our very partisan nation, it's natural that people are who are very partisan will look at our work and say you are biased. i think that comes with the territory. host: along with your award for covering congress, you also won an award from the society of professional journalism, the

sigma delta kchi. irving is waiting on the democratic line in detroit, michigan. did we lose you? we will go to michelle on our independent line from new jersey. caller: good morning. i think it should be global lists versus nationalists. both of these candidates are globalists. there was a foreign student who got into ivy league schools. and with romney, nobody is looking at the tax returns and where the money is. there's very little difference between these two?

host: have you looked into romney's tax returns? that was a big issue during the primaries. guest: the only one that i can recall, there was a claim about his refusal for a long time to release his tax return. i know that he has released at least one year. that may be all. i don't know that we have done a lot of fact checks on that. we tend to wait until someone makes a claim about his tax return or about his wealth. and then we wealth. we have to wait until a claim becomes part of the political discourse. in the case of obama's record, we did a lot of checks back when donald trump was thinking about running for president, about some of his claims. one of those that the caller mentioned, his school days. one of the things donald trump said was nobody remembers him, almost like he miraculously appeared. we went back and found and actually spoke to people who had

gone to school with him. i think donald trump earned a pants on fire for that one. host: gwendolyn on our independent line from chicago, illinois. good morning. caller: good morning. in cook county, illinois, they people to bring any independent audio or recording devices divorce court or family court. is this something that could be checked? guest: i don't think i hear a factual claim in that. and as a politician, and alderman or someone made a claim about it, at this time we don't have a partner in illinois. we would love to have one. we don't have anyone who could do that kind of check. we still to get a partner in illinois as well as other states

where we don't have a partner. host: have you found in a material so far for your big lie of the year? guest: it is still pretty early. we were talking about that the other day. i don't think that there's a clear favorite at this time. we are hearing reruns of previous lies of the year. one that we heard in ohio the other day was the claim that the democratic health care law is a government takeover of health care, if which was our 2010 law of the year. this is an award that we give out once a year that gets a lot of attention. we are still looking. host: bill adair of politifact, thanks for joining us. politifact.com is the web site. we will have you back again hopefully later. in later segments guest: thanks for having me. host: a discussion on chinese investment in the u.s. up next with daniel rosen of the peterson institute for international economics.

later, a weekly money segment with a look at an experimental medicare program that costs a billion dollars over 10 years. first, a news update from c-span radio. >> it's 8:29 eastern. secretary of defense leon panetta is in vietnam today where he exchanged long-held artifacts collected during the war with his vietnamese counterpart. the vietnamese government agreed to open three new sites in the country for excavation by the united states to search for truth remains from the war. there are nearly 1300 cases of u.s. soldiers still unaccounted for. in china, rights campaigners say that authorities have rounded up hundreds of activists in the capital beijing as the mark the 23rd anniversary of the crackdown. tension comes as the u.s. state the province calls for the release of those still jailed in a demonstration on june 4, 1989 when hundreds if not thousands of protesters were

shot and killed by soldiers. another anniversary being marked today, the u.s. navy is observing the 70th anniversary of the battle that changed the course of world war ii in the pacific. topped illicitly officials are flying to midway at tulsa, where japan's and four aircraft carriers on june 4, 1942. navy intelligence cracked japan pose a military radio code, giving the u.s. advance notice of the planned japanese ambush. the u.s. sank all four japanese aircraft carriers on the first day of the three-day battle. those are some of the latest headlines on c-span radio. >> the president has a hard time selling an argument on economic optimism when at the same time people are not feeling it it. >> what the american people know and the way they approach this election and now is they understand that we did not get into this crisis overnight and will not get out of it overnight. >> the question is what the

people in ohio and florida and virginia, what they think about their lives, is it getting better or is it getting worse, who is responsible? that is not as quantifiable as saying the unemployment rate is down. >> focusing on the 2012 presidential elections. what's the discussions online at the c-span video library. >> "washington journal" continues. host: an international economics expert joins us for discussion on chinese investment in the u.s.. daniel rosen. we will be talking a lot about the idea of foreign direct investments. first, what that is and how that is different from what we hear a lot about china buying u.s. bonds and u.s. debt. guest: sure. thanks for having me on the

show, john. we talk about the daguerreotypes of international investment flows. the one we will talk about today's direct investment, which means either building from scratch, what we call greenfield building plants or offices from scratch garrett orr mergers and acquisitions where foreign company takes over a business in another country. second is portfolio investment flows, which is a government investor or asset management management from one country buying securities that are traded in other countries. portfolio flows are gargantuan, but they don't require very much skill. all you need to do is call your chinese government foreign- exchange managers and tell them buy. opera in a plant on the ground in california or new jersey is a very different thing. -- operating a plant.

china is getting to a new scoreboard. host: you talk about this being a turning point in the economic relationship when it comes to foreign direct investment between the u.s. and china. take as to why you are. saying it's a turning are guest: just in terms of the numbers, we should start by establishing that until a few years ago there was almost no chinese direct investment in the united states. despite how powerful we thought china was, how strong its firms seemed to be, they were incapable of operating in an economy like the united states. there were doing big resource deals, iron ore, oil, things like that. mostly in the developing countries where those activities take place. but there were not yet able to manage a basic tax filing in a

place like the u.s. or europe. in 2008 or 2009 up to date we have see upper inflection in that trend. we saw one or two deals per year at the beginning of the 2000's. now it's typical to c $5 billion or $6 billion of deals happening in the u.s. europe last year saw over $10 billion of influx from china. the same kind of incredible take off in trade flows with sauna past, we are now starting to see in terms of direct investment flows. we still have a long way to go before china is caught up to belgium or britain in terms of investing here. from the history of inflections in china been seen before, we know how this movie probably unfolds. host: if you want to talk to daniel rosen about chinese investment in the united states and american policy towards this, give us a call.

i saw that 2009 was the first time that china cracked the top 10 in terms of foreign direct investment. where are they today? have they continue to stay in the top-10? guest: certainly in the top 10. two reasons for that. china is getting their. after 30 years of making socks and underwear, pretty much, if they are emerging into the that do global operations in service and manufacturing. the rest of the world went through the crisis. outbound direct investment flows from the big heavy hitters from the japanese, europeans, americans took a breather for while as we dealt with our own

economic stress. so we had an uptick in china's readiness to be present around the world and a downshifting of foreign activity. host: we have a chart from your report that shows the blue line on top, the u.s. foreign direct investment, much higher than the chinese. the chinese are the red line down here. they have only just in the past few years picked up. what does this equates to in terms of jobs in the u.s. that chinese companies are directly responsible for? guest: it's a good start. a notablehere's quite up or change in the pattern. given how large china is and how much momentum it has, we know where that line is going to go in five or 10 years ahead. on the other hand, it's clear on the chart just how far ahead the

advanced economies are relative to where china is in terms of these kind of global activities. china posesse all economic strength relies on home court advantage. china's model has not traveled very well today it. when we look at chinese firms going abroad, the same terms that they enjoy and home. coming back to your question, what are the impact thus far in terms of american jobs or things like this, first, let's bear in mind in the very early days the bulk of the 350 or so deals that we track in our china investment monitor, it is done by rhodium group, done in partnership with the peterson institute, has only been two or three years. the official u.s. numbers say there's only about 5000 american jobs associated with chinese. chinese. when we do the count our way, we

can easily find 15,000 to 20,000 american jobs today. that really is not very much at all. let's keep in mind that the japanese affiliate firms operating in america employ about 700,000 americans. so we have some very big potential numbers to come down the road. we're at a very early point in the story. host: we have that china investment monitor it up and it's also available on your web site where folks can go and see the investments by state. there's obviously more concern about chinese investment in the united states than japanese investment in the united states. good to talk a little about the controversy surrounding folks who are afraid of chinese buying up u.s. businesses and other companies? guest: yes, store context is very useful. in the 1980's you could have

said the exact same thing, switch out japan for europe, and note there's much more concern about japanese investments in tennessee then there would be about british investment in the u.s. if we went back to pre-world war ii, you it's a much more concern about german investment in the chemical sector than half from the british. in 1776 there was great concern about british investment in american steel mills. making cannonballs. this is a perennial investment concern that generation after generation we have settled on the side of openness and decided whatever the concerns are about having foreign firms bring their cash, their money from other technology to invest in the u.s., we can probably manage those concerns, get the best out of this without being in of this ostentatious position should be have a bad relationship down the road --

disostentatious. host: half of the industrials in china are state-owned. should we be a little suspicious about their motives and where they are picking and choosing to invest in the u.s.? guest: you want your national security staff in washington to have the dirty as mine possible and to have a terrible imagination that you would not want them at this thanksgiving table talking about what they do. so absolutely, let's be suspicious. in pursuit of american interest, that does not require us to exclude the chinese firms from bringing their money over to put to work in the american economy. we can manage the security concerns. we have pretty well with the existing regime that has been developed well over 100 years to manage this set of issues. interestingly, about three- quarters of the number of

chinese firms that have invested in the u.s. are not the government-related firms prepare privately controlled firms. we define those as having more than 80% on government ownership and control over those businesses. there's quite a bit more diversity in terms of what kind of firms we are dealing with than i the most people probably appreciate. host: let's take some calls. gregory is on the republican line for its report, new york. good morning. caller: i just have to appear questions for the guest. the first question is, do you think that it would be better if we had free trade to allow us to go there and get some goods and bring them back and sell them wholesale? the second question is, do you think maybe it is because they allow free trade in china, that might be the reason why they have so many investments in the

united states? guest: thank you. one of the things that distinguishes china posted development and explains it's amazing performance over the past three decades is that compared to most of the development models used in latin america during their takeoff, really did commit pretty seriously to free trade. china join the world trade organization in 2000 or really officially got in in 2001 and nailed the doors open. as the caller suggests, a lot of the investments we have now would not be happening if china had not achieved tremendous restructuring of its economy and trade over the past decade. as it turns out, once you get past just making underwear and socks and start making a brand of goods, so the difference between knitting the stockings and being victoria's secrets's requires you not just to

manufacture competitively, but to maintain a presence in other people's markets, in their backyards, so you have your own customer relationship and experience with the people buying the product rather than depending on somebody else to market your goods for you. indeed, it is precisely that trade confidence that many chinese firms have developed that is now leading to their firms wanting to have their own marquee shops on madison avenue where i'm sitting today. host: one of the big stories we have heard about in terms of chinese investment is the chinese purchase of amc movie theaters, this is the christian science monitor today. it says --

can you talk a little about that specific purchase? guest: you know, it is a fascinating reminder of some of the signature japanese deals of the 1980's. we had the japanese buy into big california production studios for movie making. people had some of the same concerns and misgivings about what this could mean about american culture in the future. i think what it means is chinese firms have a lot of cash presently, they are running out of easy ways to put it at work in the home economy in china. we will increasingly see them going abroad looking for their assets connected to the american consumer. we have more consumption,

spending activity, in america by a considerable margin that china would have over the next decade or so. so there are assets here that will be a strong interest to chinese firms. there's a fairly progressive company known to be on the lookout for profitable or commercial opportunities. it's a good deal to be in the headlines right now, because it demonstrates that most chinese interests in america will have practically no national security significance. this is about making money 99 times out of 100. the 100th time is probably a mix of money and more strategic things as well, probably manageable in a commercial way as well. the commercial orientation of this amc deal is a useful wake- up call to what america has to sell.

caller: the chart from your report talks about for investment investment coming into the u.s. in 2009. europe made up 63% in 2009. the asian-pacific region made of just 16.4%. of that, 16.4% --- of the 16.4%, japan made up 11%. let's go to jacksonville, florida. anthony is waiting on the democratic line. good morning. caller: hello. yes, china, they are communists. why do we let them invest in our country and we invest in their country when really they are our enemy? communism, their main goal --

they don't believe in what we believe in. why do you think we do that? is it just because? is it just because of money? guest: that's what people have misgivings, because china is a communist country. if you are looking at capitalism versus communism, you will have a terrific day because the battle has been one. china's communist in name only. overwhelmingly, the chinese economy today is organized around market principles. that is what drives how things work. however, we do have some real problems with china and there are some good reasons to think about whether we want to treat chinese investment the same as we do from every other economy. not because of communism. it's about industrial policy

interventions in the economy, such as state-control and state ownership over certain sectors like automotive, for example. there's a heavy state involvement in many industries in china. we're asking ourselves now, even though in the past we did not use that as a grounds to say no to other people's money coming into our community -- and i think we still should not -- nonetheless, maybe regarding china we should think about whether we should allow this in. it is sold harder to argue this today than it was five years ago, because the federal government of the u.s. stepped into the mix of the crisis and took temporary ownership position in a handful of companies to make sure that there were not entirely out of business from the recovery. host: you are a visiting fellow at the peterson institute for international economics. the report that you did for the

rhodium group, explain what that is, why you did this report, and a lot of folks will want to know where the road and group gets its funding from. guest: rhodium group is a new york based advisory partnership. about half of our time is spent doing pink tank research projects. several books under way on the topic from peterson. i've been part of the peterson institute since 1993. an american open door study was done with the asia society based in new york. we are releasing a new study on chinese direct investment in europe through a european think- tank. european council on foreign relations this week in london in conjunction with that. we collaborate with a whole bunch of different think tanks based out of rhodium. we also do work with private- sector clients interested in what the public sector economic trends might mean for strategic planning in the business sector. so we have a mix of think tank

and private sector and academic work, and that's what i teach at columbia university. the interesting thing about china at this moment is to fully understand and appreciate where these trends are taking us, you really do have to go beyond just looking at the official data and the washington side of the story and then spend a huge amount of time talking to firms. we have 350 deals in our data base of chinese investment in u.s. our new data base on a chinese investment in europe has 573 deals. my colleagues and i are constantly trying to balance our time between talking to a ceo's and chief investment officers and u.s. senators and executive- branch folks to try to get the whole story but together. host: ann in bronx, new york, on the independent line. good morning. ionne.: it's actually dei

it appears from the chart that america's dollar is prepared to inflate at what i perceive is a record-breaking rate, what is your projection with respect to the american dollar value and gdp? in the context of the united states being the best example of sovereign political kind of geopolitical form, your opinion? guest: what causes foreign direct investment to happen from one country to another? there is literature that tries to make sense out of that and then we have to figure out whether that thinking still flies in the face of china. china was born out of foreign direct investment in the 1980's. the chinese economy was. if it were not for japanese and taiwanese and hong kong and singapore and the american and

european firms taking their low value-added manufacturing business to china from 1980 through 1985, china would not be where it is today. a big part of the reason why that happened was the currencies of many of those other countries like japan and taiwan started to go up against the u.s. dollar significantly. that was an object of american policy. we forced the yen to get stronger against the dollar if, because we thought that would be good for us. with japanese firms became less competitive in japan and they went to china to do it. today we have been for some years now pressuring beijing to allow the value of the venthe ce currency to go against the u.s. dollar. they have done so and their trade surpluses are starting to go down. we are starting to see them move some of their manufacturing activities around to take advantage of new operating economics. much of that activity will

go to low-income asian countries. but some of it has the potential to go back to the u.s. as well. the value of the exchange rate does play a part in this story. it is a complicated one, but it is noticeable. in fact, china does seem to be behaving in the same way you expect other countries to behave based on historical. historical host: let's go to fill on the democratic line from south carolina. good morning. caller: good morning, c-span. listen, because it's going to be funny. when was the last thing you bought that was made in america? guest: last night on my way home. host: i think we lost phil. guest: that does take us in a

useful direction. toyotas are some of the best made in america vehicles on the market today. they're made in tennessee for the most part. i think we will see in the years ahead that some of this chinese investment in the u.s., much of it, is because it's more attractive for these firms to operate and manufacture things here. i've been talking to a construction equipment company based in peachtree, georgia. many of the things they were originally bringing over from china are more affordable source right here in the u.s.. there would not have discovered that until they started operating construction cranes. by putting their money to work, they discovered there's a lot more upside opportunity here than we thought it.

host: what is the government pose a mechanism for screening these foreign direct investments to make sure there's not some sort of underlying motivation involved? guest: there's a process called the committee on foreign investment in the united states. it's chaired by the treasury department, but it include participation from the department of defense, the cia, commerce department, and every other interested agency of the u.s. government you can imagine. it is a voluntary process. if you are a chinese firm looking to an investment in the u.s., you volunteer listen to the terms of the deal to the committee to get a clean bill of health. if you don't, then if some part of u.s. government looks at your dilator and decides there's something about that which we think has national-security problems attached to it, the whole deal could be unwound, taken apart and be very costly. firms are encouraged to submit

ahead of time the terms of the deal for assessments, to make sure there's nothing that is considered to be a national security threat to the united states. very few deals need to go through that process it. the vast majority of investments in america don't have national security implications for the u.s.. it has taken a long time for chinese investors to appreciate this. unfortunately, most think the u.s. attitude is we don't feel good about having you invest here. -- most of the chinese companies, that is. we are pleased in most cases to see the tax dollars and investment being put to work in american communities. it's only a tiny amount of deals that need to be reviewed for national security risk. host: this question on twitter -- guest: well, indirectly, i

suppose you could say that it does. part of the logic of the keystone pipeline, which will ultimately bring natural resources, fossil fuels, down from canada into the united from-- host: something that members of congress have pointed out is important for our national energy security. guest: this gets complicated. what is the real american interest? it's a complicated matter. the narrow answer to the question is that if keystone does not happen and canada has a surplus available of gas and oil, is likely to be shipped across the pacific in the other direction. there is some chinese shadow in how we are thinking about the prospect of keystone. that comes from having china as a giant marginal buyer of whatever is otherwise available in terms of world energy markets. so there's not a major deal in coal, gas, solar, or nuke where

china is not a significant part of the deal perspective that people are trying to think through how china being interested or not interested in this affect my ability to get this deal done. host: you have a china investment monitor where folks can go and look at investments in different states. that's part of this american open door report that you put out. let's go to massachusetts. angela is waiting on the independent line. good morning. caller: thanks for taking my call. it's very interesting segment. a large portion of the texas town was purchased by the chinese and i think they're going to make some kind of wind turbine or solar energy products. the people there are questioning that, because solyndra went

belly up in california and wondered why those people all lost their jobs and here we are going to be buying products from the chinese. they are really apprehensive about the whole deal. i don't know if you know about this. was that not a slap in the face to our people who live lost jobs and the chinese will be reaping the benefits? there are really helping us out. host: in of commons for you to choose from. guest: i am a longhorn. i was in texas for college. all economics is local. they're concerned about the job impact and how competitors from

across the planet are showing up in our prospects to get a paycheck, wherever we live in the united states. however, if every time we looked at an industry, one plant closing in wisconsin, one opening in georgia, and we tried to give government or someone the right to intercede or decide if the conditions do not match up between these two things, we cannot interfere in the american economy based upon two things happening across the nation in the same time. chinese firms are coming here, investing putting $5 billion or $7 billion to work this year and the caller was referring, in part, to one of the big deals that has happened in 2012 already, $2.50 billion in she'll

gas operations in -- shale gas in texas managed by devon. you cannot just put that money to work and pull it out tomorrow. these are going to be long-term operations, the same way that japanese firms have long-term operations dating back from when we had conversations about whether japanese money was good or not that in the 1980's. they are a geostrategic rival for the u.s. we in north korea, the philippines and what is going on in the south china sea. that will always be a part of the back story. at the same time, do you want this money or not? these chinese firms are coming over here and because politically they're being told to establish a beachhead in the

united states. they think their dollars are being put to work better here than at home. host: the texas deal, according to your chart, it is $1.40 billion in fossil fuel and chemical investment just there. 25 deals in texas. guest: this one is an even in the chart yet. that is only good until the end of 2012. it will be another month or so until we get the full first quarter story on the chart. host: on the independent line, david. caller: good morning. thank you for having me on c- span. we have had 54,000 factories closing here and moving their operations to china, mexico, and what have you. most of them are moving to

china because of the low rate of wages. we take the number of industrialists that have moved to china and have their goods manufactured there and are not paying the tariff that they used to pay, 22%, to get their goods in and it has been reduced down to 2% by the wto and has helped collapse our economy. we keep forgetting that you're dealing with communist red china. thank you. host: mr. rosen. guest: no doubt about it. look at the last 30 years. china started 30 years ago as a post-apocalyptic impoverished economy with nothing going on. 30 years ago, american manufacturing was in a different

place. how many of the jobs in textiles and apparel, is that really the reason the u.s. is having the challenges they have had? certainly, in some parts of the country like in north carolina, the loss of textiles and apparel there has been pretty severe and we have had to figure out what comes next, but this is an inevitable process. as part of the american rise from 1875-1940 doing with european manufacturing coming to the united states because we were a regulated market place and a more predictable place for them to be. more aware than anything, we were aware of where the market growth was and where it was stable. when we look ahead to china, take a look at flat panel and solar power in the years ahead. on the one hand, we are

threatening to put a tariff on chinese goods coming in the u.s., but the american market for solar power equipment will be tiny compared to the chinese demand. we have to keep our eye on the prize of were the marginal growth and world economic activity will be in the decades ahead. we have to be very mindful of were the top spots and instructions are in the u.s. economy and where that can be directly associated with the chinese behavior. that does not mean we should not have chinese firms bringing over billions of dollars to put to work. so far, we have 38 of the fifth u.s. state on our map. host: the jobs issue in the amc deal, "the washington times" quoted the president of the chinese chamber of commerce talking about this fear of job

loss. he of knowledge to, according to the story -- new york to come in new york to come on the democratic line. -- new york, new york. caller: it is misleading to call it "free trade" because when we have minimum-wage laws, child labor laws, hazardous condition laws in our country. the other country bands unionization and it is unfair trade. -- bans unionization. what made the middle class in

our country was the unions. many of these countries ban the unionization of labor. host: mr. rosen. guest: china is going through a lot of changes and some of these are going through a process of unionization and foreign firms ate on the front line of th allowing to happen. it is an urgent priority that many of the regional government stories are trying to do a better job on is because they are choking on their own pollution. these are not things that someone in beijing is trying to avoid to see progress and change on. let's go back to chinese direct investment in the united states. instead of doing everything back in china, these firms are choosing, because america is

competitive, in many parts of industry, services, and manufacturing to put their money to work in bad environmental conditions and bad working conditions but to build that plant in america where we are in ill lookhat the laws wer like. you can feel like you the man be a staunch supporter of getting more of this chinese investment flow in the u.s. where we can regulate it. host: barbara in fort myers, florida, good morning. caller: i have three short questions. what other businesses are they in? two, how are their employees treated? are the wages depressed?

and third, are they allowed to toitically contribute campaigns? host: as you answer that, i will show a chart from your report about chinese direct investment by industry so people can look at that what you were talking. -- while you are talking. guest: until we got this study out, there really was no answer. they assumed chinese investment was only in one or two strategic industries. what our research shows is that it is happening very broadly across the board. over 16 american industries have had over $100 million in chinese investment, still very small numbers, but very broad based. most of it is not particularly high tech, but things like amc. it is really anything you can

think of that we still do. the reason why we still do it is there is profit to be made in that will be attractive to foreign investors, china included. secondly, in terms of u.s. wages that these firms pay, this automotive company has been closely looked at from illinois or this national oil company doing deals with the chesapeake shale gas. they pay wages in america that are significantly above the u.s. average. the kind of low wage activity that we think of as minimum wage in america, that is not the kind of work that you want to have travel you're going to that far from home. you want to learn their regulatory code in set up shop that far from home.

you're going to need highly skilled people. you can do the low end of that in china. to your final question, can they contribute politically? they can contribute in indirect ways than they can contribute to non-profit institutes that advocate for protection or what have you. we have thrown away the steering wheel in terms of pac's. they will find ways to make their opinions known but they do not contribute correctly the way that you're suggesting. host: let's get in one more call from the independent line in jackson, tenn. good morning. caller: he has pointed out that the united states does have the largest consumer market and

china has cheap labor, like many of these foreign countries, how would a market access the work? i do not want to call it a terrorist but a market access -- market access a fee. it looks like we could have a balancing act here. also, is there any guarantee that once the oil reaches the gulf in the pipeline that it will not be shipped to china anyway? a privateyou're american citizen and you have a barrel of oil in shreveport, it is your right under the constitution to sell it to whoever wants to pay you the best price for it. i'm not sure i'm ready to go away from that american tradition, so that is another topic for another day. to your first question, what was

it again? host: i'm sorry. i am not sure at the moment. guest: i think a lost track of the first one there. host: before we let you go, you said that the u.s. needs to send a message to china that thes best month is welcome in the united states -- that investment is welcome. do you see china and the president getting together to send this message anytime soon? guest: that reminds me, the question of reciprocity or imposing a new fee to change the terms of whether they can come and invest here. at the moment, we have $17 billion of chinese direct investment in the united states. on the other hand, there are $50 billion of direct investment in china. we need to be careful what we are asking for. if we are talking about new terms on investment specific to

china, we can find ourselves being faced with the same new regime, new costs in order to be present in the chinese marketplace and have a shot at serving their consumer market in the years ahead as they become not so much in manufacturing growth but a consumer growth market for years to come. we have lots of messages for the chinese. we want them to continue to do things our way in terms of being open and trade-oriented. we want to show that we have options if they go in the wrong direction. by and large, the new flows in our economy are good for us and good for the chinese both, but we should be careful not to slow them down for an agenda that really would not be served by doing so. host: mr. rosen, thank you so much for joining us today. we appreciate you coming in.

up next, the weekly "your money" segment with james cosgrove from the government accountability office looking at the medicaid program. but first, a news update from c- span radio. >> polls open tomorrow in the wisconsin recall vote where two public opinion polls show scott walker with a lead of 3% and 6% over the mayor of milwaukee. this comes in part because of a new law reducing the power of public-sector unions. they're calling this the second most important u.s. election of the year because it could indicate which way the political wind is blowing in a key battleground state. meanwhile, president obama campaigning in new york city tonight with former president bill clinton. this includes a gala at the waldorf-astoria hotel. they will end the night at an

event called "barack on broadway." you can listen live it 8:25 p.m. eastern. the head of the iaea says they're not making progress on investigating nuclear progress in a run. they will meet with the senior iranian envoy this week. they insist the programs are peaceful. those are some of the latest headlines on c-span radio. [video clip] >> they have fought many good cases in consumer privacy area in the air reached settlements with google and facebook about some of the privacy promises they make to consumers. i think said regulation -- self regulation as a tool that can be much more responsive to changes in the marketplace, in a

quicker way than regulation or passing laws can be. >> a look at the federal trade commission's enforcement role on privacy on the internet with two of the commissioners. one communicator's" tonight 8:00 p.m. on c-span2. host: in our third segment, your at thelooking government. we're joined by james cosgrove from the government accountability opposite talk about an experimental program that will cost $8 billion over the next 10 years. before we get to your report and recommendations, first explain what the quality bonus program was designed to do. guest: i'm happy to. i'm not sure everyone understands what the medicare

advantage program is. private health-care plans have for dissipated in health care since the beginning of the program. currently, about 25% of all beneficiaries have chosen to receive benefits from private health plans instead of the original plans. in around 2008, the agency that runs medicare into pleaded -- bonus program, sort of like a hotel rating cut to help the beneficiaries identify the higher quality plans. the affordable care act puts financial incentives in place for plans that achieved the highest star ratings, but this demonstration, this experiment, it was a three-year test designed for even greater

financial incentives for the plans to achieve higher marks on quality rating. host: let's talk about the quality bonus demonstration payment plan and what it does. this is from your report and we will put it up for the viewers. it gives bonuses to the plans with 3-3.5 stars and accelerate bonuses for plans with four or more stars and increases the bonuses for 2012 and 2013. can you explain that more for us? guest: it is with the affordable health care act would have done. it would have given bonuses to plans that received a four or five-star rating. they currently enroll about 30% of all the beneficiaries that are enrolled in these private health-care plans. what the centers for medicare

and medicaid services did is they expanded did so that plans that only have a three-star rating, average, could qualify for bonuses as well. by doing so, over 90% of plans enrolled in by beneficiaries would qualify for a bonus, so essentially everyone. the other thing that it did is that it greatly increased the size of the bonus. in 2012, under the original legislation, the very large plans may have qualified for a bonus that would range from $2- $30 million in 2012. under the demonstration program, the largest plans would qualify for bonuses totaling $200-$500 million. host: your report recommended cutting this demonstration

completely. i will read the language. "the secretary should cancel the quality bonus demonstration and allow the medicare advantage quality bonus payment system established by the 2010 patient protection and affordable care act to take effect." a drastic step. how did you come to that conclusion? guest: the facts presented themselves. canceling the demonstration, obviously 2012 is over in terms of the demonstration. you cannot stop that. you could stop 2013 and 2014. this demonstration is estimated to have cost $8.35 billion over 10 years. the demonstration is supposed to be able to test something. hhs has the authority to put in place new payment innovations to test them to see if they could

increase the efficiency in the economy of the program without it adversely affecting quality. it is a test that can be evaluated. what we concluded after the get the evidence was that not only was this very expensive, but it was poorly designed. there was no way it could be evaluated in the end. at the end of the day, we would not know if it worked or not we would have spent over $8 billion. host: if you have thoughts and comments for mr. cosgrove, the call in numbers are on your screen. let me read you some of the republican criticism of this program and what they read into why this is done. this is from cnn money.

they see this as a political move aimed at keeping seniors happy. senator orrin hatch, the person who asked for this report, says the calls into question whether health and human services even has the authority to launch this program. the white house does not have the authority to greenlight spending on whatever programs they want. that was up to this report was issued on april 23rd or thereabouts. this is also from "the washington examiner," an editorial criticizing this effort calling it the "$8 billion medicare vantage slush

fund." we want to give you the hhs secretary comments defending this. you can listen to that now. [video clip] >> we have no intention of cancelling the project. medicare advantage programs are stronger than ever and actually cheaper than ever. we have more seniors enrolling in medicare advantage than ever before. we have more programs in the marketplace than ever before. when the affordable health care act was passed, they were paid at 118% fee-for-service, so the affordable health care act over time reduces the over-payment. we are down to 107% so the rates

have come down in medicare advantage programs that not only benefits to seniors who choose those options because they pay a lower copay, but they have more options. for the first time ever, since these programs were created, we have instituted a demonstration to inform seniors about quality. host: james cosgrove, of the gao health-care team director, i did he disagree with the statement that she will continue the program. -- i take it you disagree. guest: we think it is a lot of money and the purpose of the demonstration is to test something and we do not think this can test anything. host: let's take some calls. from phoenix, ariz., on the independent line. caller: why are we paying any

money to these other companies? they are providing a subservient service. why are we spending the money to offer the incentive to increase care from other companies? host: was the justification when they put this program together? guest: the quality bonus demonstration? back in 2008, the quality stars from 1-5 presented to help the beneficiaries with many, many choices. in one market, you may have one dozen plans to choose from. if you are in a large urban area like miami or new york, you might have 50. there was always an effort to give beneficiaries more information about what the best plan is. they came up with a ranking system based on certain data and

quality measures. they define them from one to five stars. they would have an incentive to use that in marketing. plans that spent money to offer a high-quality prior not to make it four or five stars to attract market share. it put more money on the table. host: greenberg, pa., on the democratic line. caller: i do not know why we do not make the companies pay to get their star? why does the government have to pay? they should earn that. the elderly are in poor shape paying out of their pockets. to go to a pharmacy, you will see the elderly paying hundreds

and hundreds of dollars for their medications. i have witnessed it and it is a shame. host: when i was reading for your report, you seemed to indicate that the star rating system was not taken too seriously before this was put in place. can you take us through that? guest: that's true. it's difficult to know exactly how the beneficiaries make decisions in terms of when they are picking a plan. frequently, they may rely on the advice of one of their primary health care providers or maybe one of their neighbors or health plan marketing sales representatives. it did not look like the stars were driving people to the highest quality plan. i think that is why there was more interest in trying to put some money on the table to encourage plans to increase

their quality. host: on the independent line, mike. caller: let me explain what these medicare advantage programs do. they can pick and choose any county, any area of any state that they do not want to do business in. you enroll, it costs this much, but you can't have it any longer. if i remember correctly, the obama administration wanted to do away with medicare advantage completely so that it was fair for all. i think medicare advantage should be offered to everyone or no one. i was on it last year and for one reason, or no reason, it

was is canceled and i had to go straight back to medicare. my brother in the county north of me is still in the same program paying absolutely nothing for his medicare is advantage program. i cannot get it at all. i think it should be for everyone or no one. host: you are not making a judgment on medicare advantage, to be clear, but just the demonstration program? guest: that's right. medicare advantage is a very important part and one out of four are involved. the caller, though, is absolutely right. it is unevenly available across the country. virtually everyone has the opportunity to join a plan, but not everyone does. some people have many more choices than others and that reflects the fact that this is the private sector at work.

private health plans contract to serve the various areas and they can pick the areas that they service. then they do not have to serve other parts of the state, the county, and for whatever reason they cannot establish a provider network easily in that county. you can have one beneficiary living in one county away from where there is a lot of choices and that person may have fewer choices. host: talking about medicare advantage plan penetration by state. the dark blue has the most penetration and the red has the least. is there a reason, regionally, that a lot of the midwest states do not see a lot of penetration? guest: there is a variety of reasons. some of it is historical reasons. the west coast, for example, has

a longer history using managed care plans. it also has to do with what payment levels are. they find it easier to do business where the potential payment levels are the highest. that is what you will see the greatest concentration of plans in places like los angeles, miami, new york city, where payments tend to be higher. host: barbara on the republican one from crockett, texas. caller: good morning. i sure do like your show. are they going to have these bonus points for these private companies? my mother and father, their insurance combines the whole thing up the one time. will this make insurance costs go up? guest: the bonus payments? caller: it the private company comes in and they take over,

they are now paying the medicare part also so that the doctors do not have to file two different things and they combine their medicare? you're talking at the first of the program about the private entities coming in to get bonus points. guest: it raises an interesting question. the $8.35 billion does come from somewhere. it is coming from the medicare trust fund which means for the three of four individuals who are in traditional medicare, or not getting any of the medic -- benefits of being in this private plan, 43 of four does in original medicare, they're going to pay a slight increase because they're helping to fund the $8.35 billion. part d is financed by

beneficiary premiums. anything that raises or increases that will increase other beneficiary premiums. host: what about senator hatch's concern about being able to run these demonstrations in that they're operating outside of the limits, that should be congress appropriating money for certain projects to go forward? guest: his concern is, i think, largely based in looking at when the demonstration does that the affordable care act would have slowly ratcheted down some of the payments to plans, as the secretary noted earlier. we pay plans more than fee-for- service providers in the original program. this would on do that. in the first year, in 2012, it

undoes 71% of the cuts that would have taken place. we did not address whether hhs had the authority, and we have our legal staff looking into what authority they do have to conduct these types of demonstrations. host: tina from florida on the democratic line. good morning. you are on with james cosgrove. caller: i maecenases listen -- i am a senior citizen. i am 70. i ran a small business. the one thing that sticks out in my head, coming from that perspective, is why can the

government not addressed the waste and fraud in medicare? i do not understand. when you hire someone to do a job and give them a bonus for them to do the job, my head cannot just wraparound this. i would like you to answer that. guest: certainly. at the gao, we are concerned, as are the inspector general and others, about waste, fraud, and abuse in the entire medicare program. it is a huge program that involves many, many people billing the program. there are about 1 billion claims each year for payment. it is a challenge. since 1990, the gao has listed medicare on what we call the

high-risk series, a high risk area in the government, simply because of the sheer size, scope, and susceptibility to waste, fraud, and abuse. there are a number of different efforts, partially in the affordable care act, to increase to crack down. if anyone has this of acknowledges something you're concerned about in terms of waste, fraud, or abuse, there are places you can report it if you go to medicare.gov, or if you suspect fraud, the gao has a form on our web site, gao.gov, as well. host: independent line from stafford, va. caller: i have a few major concerns. wecording to the u.s. omb, o

spend money on women who have no intention of getting married but feel free to bring in one child after another in the world. this tax as medicare and medicaid to know and depriving people who have worked all their lives of the funds that are needed to take care of them. i am so sick of it this spineless congress trying to patch up a program that is so abused by people like of this instead of having the integrity to put a clause in to put an end to this type of behavior. what are we subsidizing this? host: that was mike from stafford, va., and now to mississippi talking about the medicare advantage program and the demonstration project costing the government about $8.50 billion over the next 10 years. pam on the republican line. good morning.

caller: good morning. i have blue cross blue shield and so does my husband. we have a high deductible, $7,500. he goes on to a medicare supplement fee in august. we have noticed that here in mississippi, for the same blue cross blue shield plan that is a supplement, it is three times higher and they charge him three times more than if he was over 65 to underwrite him for everything that is high risk. i am curious as to why this is. why is it that it seems there is such an extreme difference between someone over 65 and under the age of 65?

comments go to the same question we have off of twitter talking but the variation of medicare advantage payments per beneficiary between different areas? not just the age, but. . guest:-- not just the age, but area. guest: many beneficiaries live in areas where they can join the medicare advantage planned come even with the drug coverage, and an additional premium other than the part d premium. even though the payment 2 plans vary by age, for the beneficiaries themselves, once they join the advantage plan, their payment does not change regardless of their health status, age. it is frequently much cheaper than some of the supplemental

medi-gap policies. is a way of saving money. there is less cost sharing, so they get additional coverage like vision, dental. they also have some protection against catastrophic costs in out of pocket costs being limited. host: we are talking with james cosgrove, the health-care team director of the government accountability office. we will go to mike on the democratic line from seattle, washington, this morning. caller: good morning, mr. cosgrove. how are you? let me see if i understand this correctly. there are 300 million americans in the united states which would include senior citizens. is that correct? guest: yes. caller: the proposed bonus over a 10-year period is $8.50

billion. is that correct? guest: $8.35 billion. caller: if we were to take $1 million for every citizen of the united states, put it in a fund and multiplies it by 10, it would come out to $3.20 billion. if we were to do $1 million for every citizen in the united states times ten, it would be about $3.20 billion. host: what is the point? caller: i'm not quite sure if this is the best use of money, giving it to the insurance companies. perhaps mr. cosgrove can talk to a little bit more about this. what are we getting from the

companies? what are the american people getting for this $8.50 billion? when we say quality, that is the ambiguous. it just does not make sense to me. i'm a democrat. i will vote for barack obama. i think what c-span is doing -- host: he does not think the government is getting a return on investment. guest: let me clarify. we do not think this was a well set up demonstration. the plans are getting these bonuses based on how they achieve certain level of quality on things like patient satisfaction, clinical measures. the money in itself, likely, is being used by the plans to finance additional benefits. the money is not being, in a

sense, wasted but it is being directed. the beneficiaries of these plans may be getting extra benefits because of the bonus demonstration. the caller is right. this is a lot of money. as i said earlier on the affordable care act, which also had a quality incentive program in place, the larger plants would have received something between $2-$30 billion in 2012. instead, some of the larger programs can receive $200 million up to $500 million. host: robert on the independent line. thanks for calling this morning. caller: i have a simple question. it seems to me that almost all programs that the federal government institutes, we have

terrible cost overrides. is an inflation factor included in the expenditures of the federal government program? guest: an inflation factor? yes. the payments are adjusted each year. they are largely benchmarked against the fee-for-service medicare program. traditionally, we have paid these private plans more than providers were paid in the original program, so over time there has been efforts to ratchet that down. earlier on, we heard the secretary talking about $107 for every $100 spent in the original program and that is an improvement. she is absolutely correct. we are getting the spending back

in line with the traditional program. host: on the republican line, good morning. caller: i would just like to mention the waste of money that is spent on the drug wars. every police force in the united states spends half their money or more on the drug war. host: of do you have any thoughts on medicare advantage? caller: $400 billion per year wasted. my father was a state parole officer -- host: thanks for the call. we're going to keep it to the quality bonus demonstration this morning. democratic line from richmond, va. good morning, deborah. you are wrong with james cosgrove with the goao.

caller: my name is connie. hello? my name is connie. i pay for mine. i pay $74 a month. i was on medicare for quite a while before i got it. the extra cost was so much coming out of my pocket that my son went and found kaiser. i did not know about this managed plan. then it, i was paying $64 but now i pay $74. i asked them when they were talking about cutting it out if mine would be cut out and they told me know because i was on

advantage care, but i paid for mine. does that have anything to do with what you were talking about on this program? guest: old medicare in vintage programs, all of the plans qualify for the bonus and that is what we're talking about today. virtually all of the plans will receive a bonus. in terms of the variation in cost plans, open enrollment in the time when beneficiaries can switch plans happened at the end of the year which is a great year to see what your options are. if you go on the medicare website, medicare.gov, you can look at a personal plan finder or have someone help you do that. there's a great resource to show

you what is available to you, what they cost, and what they cover. there are other resources available to help you make decisions. there is the state health insurance plan. there are phone numbers for those in the contact number is all available on medicare's web site. host: you can also see this report on the gao website, gao.ogv. kingston, new hampshire. good morning. caller: i have a comment to make here. i believe what we need is universal health care. good morning. host: turn down your tv. we can hear you. caller: i believe what we need is universal health care. everyone should be made to pay a

little. the insurance companies, i believe the work with a 10%-12% of profit. i think the government should run it. that way all of the money would go toward health care. host: thank you for your call from new hampshire. brady on the republican line from columbus, ohio. caller: it is kind of rude to cut off the person talking about the abuse of the health care system since it was a legitimate question. why is it when the americans pay for these multibillion-dollar medicare programs that dickies going up when it should be going back down -- that keeps going back up? these pharmaceutical companies

are manufacturing this themselves and they are so high. also, dealing with the are to hospitals, if you did not delve coverage, you pay $30,000, but if you pay an insurance through an actual workplace, they pay 90% and then, from what i understand, the actual insurance program pays a percentage of that in the hospital takes a loss on like 50%, so where is all that money going to it is not going to the hospital when they charge you $30,000 in the insurance company is not paying it? guest: there is a large difference between what many hospitals and providers charge and what they are ultimately paid by the insurance. that is one advantage that individuals have in having

insurance coverage. if you pay out of pocket, you could pay much, much more than a few were covered. the insurer hat is large and has market power. they can negotiate much better rates. host: explain a little bit about the demonstration and why this is such a big demonstration project. it is by far the biggest demonstration that has been conducted on the health-care system. guest: we look at all of the medicare demonstrations that have taken place since 1995. we have identified 85 of them. if you total all the money that was spent on those 85 demonstrations you come up to a little bit more than $5 billion. that is adjusted for inflation, so we are talking apples to apples here. host: and this one alone is $8.35 billion.

guest: it is seven times larger than the next largest one. host: why were they allowed to do such a large demonstration? why does it have to be a national demonstration instead of regional or on a smaller scale? guest: that is one thing we are concerned about and pointed out in the report. by doing nationally, there is no comparison group. when you do a test, you have an experiment group and a control group and you look for differences. we raised that with health and human services in their response was that they do have a comparison group. they offered that they could look at the changes that would take place in the medicare cost plan. these plans are very limited in scope and located only in a few states in the country. they enroll only a few hundred thousand beneficiaries and they are paid differently.

it is really not a comparable group. they said we could also look at medicaid plans and commercial plans. we just did not think that was a comparison that will allow hhs to be able to determine at the end of the day whether these enhanced payments for quality actually accomplished anything. host: 70 on the democratic line from kentucky. good morning to read -- cynthia. caller: i had 5.5 years where i really struggled for the system to get disability, and i would rather be capable than like i am now, but during that time i was receiving medicare -- or medicaid. i'm sorry. i had no out-of-pocket costs whatsoever any time i got a prescription or went to the doctor. now that i have medicare, it is

costing me $9 something per month plus the percentage that you have to pay out. why is that not reversed? medicaid is too easy for people to care. thank you. guest: medicaid is a distinct program from medicare. medicare is a fully federal program. the government determines the benefits and it pays the bills. medicaid is a state and federal partnership and states of flexibility in how they put up the benefits, who is covered, and how much they pay. in return, the federal government does support the program by payments to states, but you will see a wide variation from state to state in the cost. host: james cosgrove, before we

let you go, one more call off of the independent line from madison, wisconsin. caller: thank you for having me on. when you look at the scope of funding being directed towards medicare advantage plans, i am a licensed health-care insurance agents in the state of wisconsin and it looked -- i work with supplements and advantage plans and there is such a tremendous lack on education about how they work among beneficiaries. i asked myself why the federal government has not really made a commitment to educate people on the advantage plans? i run across some a beneficiaries that do not understand the amount of risk they're taking on in these advantage plans because they are not guaranteed renewable. out of pocket costs and premiums can change at the end of any contract year. on the beeper service end of it,

providers can stop accepting them at any time in the consumer is taking on such a tremendous amount of rest, granted for a lower premium, but the government has not made an effort to indicate on these additional risks they're taking within the program. why is that? host: james cosgrove in the two minutes we have left. guest: i think the government has made serious efforts to try to get permission out there. we did try to get information out there. there are comparison charts available on the medicare.gov website. they help fund the state insurance counseling program which can offer advice and often make recommendations on which plan to choose. they can talk about the options and the trade-offs.

i will admit that medicare advantage is a complicated program. it is made more complicated that the fact that many beneficiaries have lots and lots of choices that appear to be very similar, but maybe they differ in cost sharing of benefits. it's hard. i think many individuals need a place to reach out and that may be to a sibling, a son or daughter, or to look for the official sources of information like the state health insurance counseling program. all of that information is available in the handbook beneficiaries get or on the website. host: james cosgrove, government accountability office, thank you so much. your report is available on gao.gov. that is our show for today. thank you for joining us. we will see you back here