also, a look at the history of the internet and how it was created and how it is regulated. our guest is from "vanity fair." >> tonight we tell wisconsin and our country and people across the globe that voters really do want leaders who stand up and make tough decisions. host: wisconsin governor scott walker wins the vote and keeps his seat, becoming the first governor in u.s. history to defeat a recall attempt. good morning and welcome on this wednesday, june 6, 2012. republican governor walker defeated a challenge by democratic milwaukee mayor tom

barrett. we would like to get your thoughts on this and what it might mean for campaign 2012. if if you think it has implications for president obama and mitt romney and how about congressional seseats around the country? here are the numbers -- you can also find us online. we can share that on the air. you can also join the conversation on facebook. or email us. let's look at the headline in "usa today." republican governor scott walker survived a bitterly contested recall election --

what do you think? does this applications? and we will look at which organizations had ads and how did the numbers pan out? who spend more money? to give us perspective, we go to sean sullivan of national journal, he is editor of

national journal's hotline on call. when did things change? guest: it was the last month or so. going into the race it was a very divided election in wisconsin. nobody knew how this would shake out. recall elections are not, and events, so it's hard to gauge who will show up in an early summer election. every poll showed walker leading by a few points here and there. so this was not something that was in the bag for the republican. he was the beneficiary of a lot of money spent on his behalf on television ads and radio and other paid media. a total of $60 million went into the race, much of it from pro- republican groups and from walker. even going into election day, both sides were nervous for. but i knew what was gone to happen.

the race was a tossup when voters headed to the polls yesterday morning. >> there was a big turnout. who turnout? sean sullivan is joining us from national journal, a correction from my earlier statement. >> walker got more votes than he did in 2010. when you look at the exit polls, union voters turned out in pretty high numbers, which was somewhat of a surprise. if you look at 2008 and 2010, there turnout levels were pretty constant. we saw an uptick in the number of voters who have a union member in their household, but republicans really turned out all across the board. that was the big story of last night. when you look at the places where walker and other republicans in wisconsin made gains in 2010, walker

solidified those gains last night if. if you go down the list, county by county, he did not lose much ground. if you look at the northern part of the state, this is a county president obama won in 2008. walker won there in 2010. republican staff to be happy about their turnout numbers. union turned out, labor turned out their hard-core supporters, but it was not enough to stem the gop tide. >host: kevin brennan writes this -- guest: yes, that's exactly right. republican governors will be pointing to this in the coming

days and weeks as an example of why the kind of dramatic reforms that he implemented last year really do work. democrats for over here have wanted to remove walker from office and make him an example of the type of republican power they stand against. whether it's chris christie or governors like nikki haley coming in on behalf of walker, bobby jindal from louisiana, if you see reform-minded republican governors point to wisconsin and say that scott walker took the stand early, made some tough decisions that were unpopular initially, but in the long run the public came around, the voters spoke, and in the end most people approved of what he did. host: let's look at a statement by the afl-cio president richard trumka after the results last night. he said --

sean sullivan, we have heard this message for a couple weeks now from richard trumka, saying just the fact that the recall afford with a victory it sound like they were already bracing for what did indeed happen yesterday. how do unions go forth from here and now has their power been tested? guest: it's a very disappointing day for unions, the second time they try to force a recall effort in the last year in wisconsin. in the summer of 2011 there was a recall effort against six republican state senators. democrats came very close to taking back control of the state senate but they came up a little short of. organized labor spent a lot of money on that race. there were disappointed.

-- on those races, i should say. this time around they also spent a lot of money and time organizing. it was not as much as republicans spent on this race, but it was still a lot. labor has to look at this and be a little discouraged about the outcome. this is money that could have been spent on other things like presidential election and other congressional races. so they will decide how to better use their resources moving fort. host: looking at the front page of the milwaukee journal sentinel on line -- he was not the only one on the recall ballett. we saw the lieutenant governor able to retain her seat. there were some senate seats that were in the mix. how did? those did guest: rebecca kleefisch survived a second

recall effort. the voters went to the polls and decided the lieutenant governor separately. and there were four state senate seats up for recall parody's or all republican seats. republican fold a one-seat advantage, a fair majority in the upper chamber. they won three of those. in one race, it looked like the democrats had the lead and democrats might have a victory last night in the form of one 1 seed in the state senate. they still have not counted all the absentee ballots. democrats might have picked up a seat in the state senate last night, of which gives them something to point to and say at least there was a partial victory on the night that otherwise was pretty disappointing. host: sean sullivan will stick with us to answer your questions this morning. let's get to the phones and tweets.

here's one from fred -- don joins us from lancaster, pennsylvania, independent caller. good morning. caller: good morning, libby. this is a victory for citizens united. this is a victory for the oligarchs who have bankrolled this guy. they outspent combat 10-1. and divide and conquer. that's what walker wanted to do to make it a redstate. --red sta - -- red stare. -- red state. when people talk about unions, they ignore all the associations

on k street whether it's the rest of people or the broadcasters or the manufacturers, they're basically unions. now they are going to have a majority of the power. they have had the power. this is a black day for democrats. host: you think the citizens united decision prevailed, by allowing more money in ? what will this mean for the campaign season? about they're talking raising $300 million. that will probably pop up to hundred million dollars. it exemplifies how much money has corrupted the system. it is a corrupt system because of the ability to by politicians. that's what it is. host: let's hear from a republican in alpine, alabama. caller: good morning.

i was glad to hear the results last night that the governor kept his job. and i think that people vote and not money. hello, i cannot hear you. host: we are listening to you. caller: people vote and not money. i think this is a message to the obama administration for all the division that is causing and the race war that he has going on between the black and white and the hispanics. now he has included the homosexuals. host: do you think wisconsin made a difference? caller: i believe it made of difference. i believe he might have won if he had not disrespect of the sanctity of marriage between one man and one woman. host: we will look and how the

voters in wisconsin feel about president obama and mitt romney, but first, let's look at this in the washington post -- philadelphia, pennsylvania, barbour on the democratic line. welcome. caller: i just want to say, many republicans are feeling pretty proud of themselves because of last night's win.

they should not, because it was won with big money from citizens united. , unionsht's decision were blasted away. it should also be pointed out that more than two thirds of the money amassed on walker's side amounts to more than $30 million was from donors outside the state. more than three-quarters of the money, $4.2 million, came from donors with in the state. furthermore, there were robocalls days before the election telling voters they did not have to vote if they put their names on the recall ballot. democratic lines or blocked at one time. and i received an e-mail with the wrong number to get out the

vote. the real numbers will come out in the future. the woman who just said it was the vote of the people, she is wrong. it was not. it was the votes of the people who have their interests in big money. host: before we let you go, i want to read something to you, barbara. the washington times says -- do you think president obama and national democrats should have gotten more involved earlier on? caller: yes, the national democrats should have. obama was right to stay out of this, because it would have made it look too partisan had become me in.he coe

the democrats are constantly being outdone by the republicans. it is almost as if the republicans are more vicious. i'm sorry to say. the democrats better get. get host: let's look at a statement that president obama's reelection campaign put out after last night's victory by governor walker. here's the way president obama did get involved. he tweeted support for tom

barrett on monday. you can see what president obama wrote -- the front page in wisconsin this morning -- let's go to waterbury, connecticut, lou, independent caller. caller: wisconsin was the start of public unions. the wisconsin public union members, their retirement benefits are 4.5 times as large as wisconsin residents that work in the private sector. guess who is paying for that? private-sector employees. enough is enough. 90% of these government workers should have to get a job like everybody else in the real world. this is out of control. i live in connecticut and we're

being bankrupted by public unions. they ought to be smashed and let them get a job in the real world. as far as richard trumka, hard worker? no. there are the most worthless people on the planet. host: we're talking about the implications of what this means and where things go from here? caller: i think this is going to spread to other states, because these politicians, particularly the democrats with these public unions. these states are in a bind. host: senator richard blumenthal, of connecticut, will be our guest at 8:30 eastern time later this morning. let's check in with sean sullivan. we are hearing a lot of passion about unions on both sides of this issue. what does all this mean for the presidential race? felt talk about how voters

at the exit polls about whether they support president obama or mitt romney. guest: what you will continue to hear over the next week or so is this is a good sign for romney in the state of wisconsin, which is a state the democrats have carried at the presidential level during the last few elections. if you look at the exit poll numbers, even though walker won by seven points overall against tom barrett last night, voters polled said they largely favored president obama. his support will not be as high in wisconsin as it was in 2008 when he won 57%. if he can stay at 52%, he is still the favorite to win in wisconsin. so democrats are pushing back this morning and caution not to read too much into the recall election, saying this was an isolated circumstance, this was a race between scott walker and tom barrett, involving labor

issues. and issues. the presidential election is separate. there is some truth to that if you look at exit polls. republicans are more bullish about the chance they have to win in wisconsin, as they should be. obama is still favored to win, if you look at the numbers, for the fall. host: let's go to scott, a republican in texas. caller: i would like to take both of you to task on your mischaracterization of this situation. it's not anti-union. it's anti-employee public union. you continue to state it like it is just a labor versus the rest of us and it is not. it simply is not. fdr was absolutely against any public employee unions. they should be abolished across

the nation. another thing that has been misstated, he said that the race was close down to the last few days and the exit polls show that to be false. all the people had made up their mind months ago. so the myth that this would be closed down to the end was false. host: what are the implications, scott? you made a distinction between unions. how do we look at campaign 2012 in light of your opinion? are you there? caller: people are fed up. just as your previous caller said, fed up with public union employees and other benefits making a lot more than a private-sector. i hate to have to say this, that

your average school teacher comes from the bottom third of the s.a.t. scores and college entrance exams. these are not the smartest, best, and brightest people to get paid like they are. the same thing with government workers. they are usually at the bottom. if the only jobs they can find. host: do you know any government workers or teachers? caller: yes, i do. host: let's get a response from sean sullivan. our caller made a difference between public unions in the public sector versus union's overall. what do you think? guest: scott walker was very specific when he decided to unveil his budget measure. he was targeting public unions.

he has taken a hands-off approach when it comes other unions. mitch daniels of indiana tackled the issue on his first day in office, curbing collective bargaining for public employees, back in 2005. this is something republicans are looking at, specifically public-sector union benefits and collective bargaining abilities as something they can tackle as a way to address budget shortfalls. what we saw in wisconsin and what we have seen in some other states including ohio and is focused on the public unions, not necessarily on private- sector unions. host: what do you make of his statement that it was a media- generated contest, that in the end it really was not nearly as close as it looked going in? about the factht that voters on both sides made up their mind months ago. exit polls said both candidates were close to 50%, but there was

an undecided middle of 3% or 4% that had not made up their mind until the end of the race. both sides and their allies went really hard after these voters, identify their interests, what they were concerned about, what moved them as voters. i think that is what kept this race in doubt heading down the stretch. it is a polarized electorate in wisconsin and even more polarized than it was last year. many voters are either hard-core walker supporters or hardcore tom barrett supporters and made up their minds long ago. but there was an undecided element that kept this in jeopardy and in doubt even going into yesterday morning. host: let's listen to comments by mayor tom barrett last night after he lost. [video clip] >> good evening. [applause] thank you all for joining us on a historic night. i'm honored that you all are here. i am honored that you have all

fought for this democracy that is so important to each and everyone of us. [applause] i want to begin by introducing my wife chris, who has stood by my side many, many years. [applause] our children, who have been out there working for their dad and i cannot be prouder of them. give them a round of applause. [applause] i just got off the phone with governor walker and congratulated him on his victory tonight. [boos] we agreed that it is important for us to work together. and i want to thank all of you for the work that you have done. this has been the most amazing experience of our lives.

and what we have seen over the last 16 months is we have seen alive.mocracy, li come to those of you who fought, obtained signatures, stood out in the cold, you did what you thought was right. never stop doing what you think is right. that is what makes this such a great country. [applause] to those of you who care about this city which i love, to those of you who care about the state which i love, please, please, please remain engaged, remain involved, because we will continue to fight for justice and fairness in this city and this state.

[[cheers and applause] as i travelled this stage the last several months i was simply amazed at the energy, the excitement that i saw in people throughout this state. if you had been with me you would feel as honored as i do to have gotten that opportunity to meet so many wonderful people, people who care about their family, people who care about their community, people who care about the future of this state. the energy that i received the last two and a half months has come from you. host: that was tom barrett when he conceded last night after losing the wisconsin recall election. let's hear what kathleen has to say, a democratic caller in hammond, indiana. caller: good morning. first, there's a couple things that need to be made clear.

first of all, i would like to tell mr. sullivan that mitch daniels is not loved here. we cannot wait until he is gone. he made our state a right to work state. we cannot wait for him to be gone. so that as a correction that needs to be made publicly. we cannot stand mitch daniels. number two, ever since the 2010 elections and this new congress that came in with john boehner and the rest of those fools, when did it change that a union became a dirty word? my husband is a 36-year united steelworker. we belong to local 1010, proud of it. we have contracts coming up and

it is discussing how they started off thinking how they're going to treat us. i don't think so. when has it become a dirty word? i don't know where people get this notion because of karl rove and big money -- when is it a crime that you have to penalize a teacher, a police officer, a fireman, people that are scraping by but they actually get up and go out there and protect the people? mitt wants to be president of the united states, but he lies to the people when he has offshore money and offshore tax haven accounts that he will not adeven admit to and he will not even protect the taxpayers of this country. host: let's look at what mitt romney's campaign said after walker won --

looking at our facebook page, here is how some folks are weighing in -- and on twitter -- wilmington, delaware, brian is a libertarian. hi, are you with us? caller: this is joanne from

connecticut. host: what is your comments? caller: i'm really happy that governor walker onwon. it's time the government unions got rained in because they're causing a lot of problems with the budget. host: let's go on to craig, republican caller in georgia. caller: hi, thanks for taking my call. 27 state legislatures have turned republican. there is the trend happening. this is private union greed that people are turning against, not all unions. my union is pretty good, but we have been in bankruptcy three times, so we took a no pay raise two contracts in a row to keep our jobs. it already proves that those

people make over $80,000 a year where the private sector were making $60,000 a year. that is what people are upset about, that the taxpayers are paying that big a difference. jerry brown in california is a democratic governor. he seeks to furlough state union workers because he is $16 billion in debt. this speaks to how this is affecting every state. that have union people have a surplus. like montana and texas, drilling. drilling will do it. host: let's check in with sean sullivan of national journal to hear about the other races in the country. there were a primary contest in california, new jersey, new mexico. sean sullivan, the big take away from california? there's the story where your

colleague righwrites --\ tell us about california opposing the primary system and what this means for members of congress going forward? guest: both of those members of congress advance to the general election. california is putting into place a new all-primary system. you have all candidates regardless of party affiliation compete in a primary and then the top two finishers move on to the general election regardless of party affiliation. you have two democrats running against each other with sherman and berman, in a democratic district. in washington state and louisiana, these are all-party primary systems, but this is new for california. we will see what happens in the fall. there was another member race between richardson and hahn. this is a function of states losing districts and members

being forced into campaigns against each other. we saw that in new jersey as well last night with rothman being defeated. clinton was backing his opponent. there was a referendum in california for $1 to back a tax that produced a pretty divided outcome. the busiest day we have seen in a while certainly and one of the busier days we will see until the conventions later this summer. host: a store from hot line on call says -- what is the take away from his win? guest: that he was able to better organize and turn out his supporters. but i was a lot written about

bill clinton coming out on his behalf as well as president obama coming out on the other side of this race. when you look at this district, it looked like a tough call initially because not a lot of constituents third thewere ther. but he turned out his constituents in high numbers. turning out your base supporters, making sure those people get to the polls, making sure you can count on a base of support in a close race. we saw that last night with scott walker in wisconsin as well and you'll see that across the map for the rest of the cycle. host: now we have jordan and the democratic line from avon, ohio. caller: i would like to make a couple points. first, what happens in wisconsin is very scary. this proves that money can buy an election. walker and his friends outspent the opposition 7-1. tons of money coming in from big

business and the wealthy to support his union-busting agenda. the second point i would like to make is the republicans keep saying this is about public unions. don't fall for that. this is about lowering the wages and benefits of all average working americans. they are starting with the unions. if they can break the unions, then they can go after everyone else. america better wake up. host: what do you think about the general election, what it means for the votes and for the presidential contest? caller: i think it's all about money. it is getting down -- ever since the supreme court ruling, it's all about money. the more money you have -- mitt romney used that same strategy to defeat his republican opponents. he carpet bomb them with negative ads, with millions of dollars, and that's how he beat

his republican opponents. host: what do you think the democrats should do? caller: they will have to start outspending the republicans. they will have to run -- the democrats will have to go-just like the republicans have. -- go negative. they will have to attack. host: let's look at the chicago sun-times -- washingtonhow the post writes about that -- our next caller is from milwaukee, wisconsin. mary is a democrat. caller: hello. host: did you vote yesterday?

caller: i did. i worked in scott walker's hometown. i know that for the first time in 27 years we don't have a union where we work. we had layoffs in the health- care industry. i am a nurse. i can tell you that the impact of the campaign, all the people that i work with, we are making ends meet just like everybody else. we cannot identify with mitt romney, somebody who has come from money and never really had to work from the bottom up and work like a nursing assistant and go to winners. i've taken a. $3,000 that has impacted a lot of the nurses in this facility and a

lot of how we have to tighten our budgets. we were tightening our budgets anyways. -- if i have taken a $3,000 [ay pay -- pay cut. scott walker made a mistake by not telling the people what he wanted to do about unions. said that people talk on campaigns and then don't do anything. he did not talking and then just did something. he realizes that now on he must talk to voters before rushing in and causing the chaos that he did in our capital. host: were you surprised by the results of the election? caller: a little, but i also think scott walker has to look at the numbers and say, how many more people voted for his

opponent and those are people that disagree with him. also, interesting was if you look at the numbers for the lieutenant governor, not everyone voted for the lieutenant governor. the numbers are not the same. i'm just weighing in on what it's like to be in wisconsin and all the turmoil we have had in the last couple months. thank you. host: here's a tweet from bill. and the facebook conversation includes this comment --

raleigh, north carolina, wayne is an independent scholar. welcome. caller: this morning, glad to be able to share my thoughts about this election. the eyes of america were really on this election. i'm actually a registered democrat who has turned independent. i'm very concerned about the fiscal situation in the united states. and i watched every channel that i could last night, so i wanted to make a few quick comments. one thing is about the exit polls. in the beginning of the evening, leading up to the polls closing, you kept hearing about the exit polls, how close it was going to be. it was going to be a long, long night, maybe going until this morning before we even knew. well, america found out that was not really true. so i just a little duped when i keep hearing about the polls,

about romney still losing to president obama by seven points, they say, which is cut in half, even if it is that spirit that is arguable whether it's true or not. he won by 15 points. plus, i am a health-care provider in raleigh, north carolina. i have worked and hospitals. as most people know, it is a right to work state. i'm from new york originally and worked in unions in western new york, in union hospitals. i will be honest, i made a whole lot more money in raleigh, north carolina, and even one hospital in raleigh would give a percentage of what they may it in a check at the end of the

year. i also want to say that scott walker, we are all watching and someone can turn a state around, because we are in fiscal trouble. we really are. families all across this country are having problems and we have to tighten our belt. i have to tighten my belt to make it paycheck to paycheck. it is promising. i hope we can all work together. i just want to hear your guest comment about the exit polls and about what this really does do for the election coming up in november. thank you so much. host: sean sullivan. guest: if you looked at the exit polls, it is an interesting story. the biggest take away is voters see the presidential election with a very different lens than they do the recall election. that is encouraging, generally, for democrats. but the worry for democrats is that this recall election allow republicans and allowed walker

to activate the republican base that is going to remain active in politics in wisconsin, that is going to take an interest in november. one of the toughest things about polling in general is trying to figure out who it is that will actually turn out in these elections. that is even tougher in a recall election, which does not happen all the time. and so, some of the uncertainty we saw with some of the polling coming out of wisconsin was largely due. to due -- due to that. voters look at the presidential election as a separate entity. that is something that's encouraging for democrats as they look for a ray of sunshine, a silver lining for what happened on tuesday night in wisconsin. host: we look at this graphic from the washington post --

sean sullivan, how important are these numbers? a lot of our callers think money played a big role in this, for better or for worse. what do we make of these numbers? how do the democrats see what happened yesterday? guest: the callers are correct. money played an enormous role in this. walker raised over $30 million, himself. $60 million was poured into the contest. it was a clear disparity between the amount of money that walker and his allies spend versus the amount of money that tom barrett and his democratic allies spent. that is a cause for concern for democrats. that is not just something you are seeing in wisconsin. you are seeing that nationally. if you looked at some of the most influential groups, is republican groups like american crossroads that are raising heaps of money right now. democratic donors are kind of sitting on the sidelines and they're not giving a whole lot

of money to the democratic outside groups. that has democratic strategists worried, and as obama's campaign worried. democrats are going to have to give more money. these democratic outside groups will have to be more active in raising money. what is saw in wisconsin is a microcosm of the campaign finance situation nationwide. publican outside groups are raising money and spending more money than their democratic counterparts. that is absolutely a concern for the white house and a concern for congressional democrats running down the ballot hoping to get support from outside groups as the republican outside groups hit them. it is something that was true in wisconsin and has been very true nationwide so far this cycle. host: right-wing radical says -- sean sullivan, editor of

national journal's hotline on call, thanks for answering our questions this morning. coming up, members of congress joined us. first we will hear from congressman mick mulvaney , from south carolina. then democratic senator richard blumenthal from connecticut. we will be right back. >> over the past a full your years, a pulitzer prize-winning author has been researching and writing his 10th book on barack obama. the research included traveling the globe and speaking with the president's relatives in kenya and discovering his african ancestry on the shores of lake victoria. he also toward the family homes

and sites in kansas to find the origins of his mother's family. this comes out in bookstores on june 19. "book tv will give you an early look with exclusive pictures and video, including our trip to kenya as we traveled with the author in january of 2010. so join us on 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 for david on c-span 2. >[video clip] >> mr. gorbachev, tear down this wall. >> sunday night at 9:00 eastern and pacific on american history tv, mark the 20th anniversary of ronald reagan goes 1911 speech from west germany. also this weekend on c-span3, our series, the contenders, 14 key political figures who ran for president and lost but changed political history, this

sunday and 7:30, james blaine. this weekend on c-span 3. >> "washington journal" continues. host: representative mick mulvaney, republican of south carolina, a freshman representing the fifth district. guest: thanks for having me. host: let's get your impression on governor walker's victory in wisconsin. here is the headline -- ? what you make ? guest: it's hard to look at it any other way but a big victory for not only governor walker but for republicans in wisconsin and state why. it was a large margin that surprised people. then he won by six points or seven points. the narrative is sort of changing for democrats. they said the real story is the amount of money. i think that is not the issue. it's a fairly dry cut and dry

race. did you want to take on the public-sector unions or not? to have him come out by that margin is very telling. as much as the democrats are trying to downplay the results last night and try to put up the exit polls that showed president obama if it's still very popular there, i think the fact of governor walker becomes the first governor ever to survive for recall and does it by a substantial margin certainly sends a warning over to the democrats and to president obama's campaign. host: moving on to the federal reserve, chairman ben bernanke testifies before congress tomorrow. what do you plan to ask him? guest: what is next? clearly there's going to be a lot of pressure to do something. it seems there's always pressure in this town to do something, especially when things are not going as well as everybody likes. we have asked him in the past what tools he has available to him and he goes down a list of things he can do. quantitative easing from asset purchase, operation twist. then we will press him again on whether or not he's concerned

about inflation. we do this dance every single quarter on the joint economic and budget committee. i don't expect to hear anything new, but sometimes he will surprise us. i think he will be under a lot of pressure. under pressure to talk about a new round of quantitative easing, given the fact we are seeing disappointing job numbers last week, given the fact of what has been happening in europe. the pressure from that wing of his board will intensify. host: we have mark zandi from moody's analytics on our program from yesterday morning. let's listen to what he said about the reserve chairman's options. [video clip] >> i think he's willing to use more monetary easing if conditions warrant and if the committee goes a long and i think they will. the other thing that he probably will reiterate is that fiscal policy makers, congress and the

administration, really do need to start thinking about the fiscal cliff and what to do about it. if they do nothing and go over the cliff, the economy is going to be in big trouble and it is going to be very difficult for the federal reserve to get us out. i think he's going to make a really strong point to folks in congress. he is testifying that they need to act. i'm sure he understands they cannot act before the election, but they need to be thinking about this so after the election if they can act quite aggressively and quite quickly. host: mark zandi speaking yesterday. congressman mick mulvaney, the fiscal cliff that he's talking about includes a lot of changes to the tax policy, a bunch of other things that will happen at the end of the year, sequestration and the likes. what is congress' responsibility to stabilize things right now? guest: much more than the fed's responsibility. we have had and is discussions -- we have had candid

discussions with his privately and publicly. every time i pressed him on my concerns about inflation and possible negative implications of what the fed is doing, if he will say the real problem is congress is the real problem. the deficits that you are running up, the fiscal mess, the policies you are putting into place is the real long-term risk, because in his mind --and he's right -- he can turn off the spigot, because he can raise interest rates, tighten monetary policy, react quickly. but congress who has not shown the ability to have discipline when it comes to spending. we run up deficits in debts and spend money in the bad times. i think mr. mark zandi is absolutely right. we are approaching the limit of what the fed can do to save the

country from congress. when we look to what's going to happen between now and the end of the year, you have tax increases to deal with and the debt ceiling. we probably have the health care decision coming out of the supreme court in the next couple weeks. there are some bigger fiscal issues to deal with between now and the end of the year. to think the fed will save us from all our bad decision making is shortsighted. host: the represented sits on the budget committee and small business and joint economic committee. he's a member of the tea party caucus, serving as pressman term -- freshman term. caller: i just wanted to make my comments that we did not want to recall in wisconsin, but it could turn the country around. we want balanced budget. we never wanted to be pitted against neighbors. now we really need to pay attention. we need to listen to paul ryan.

congress really needs to work with him. thanks so much. host: did you vote yesterday it? caller: of course. host: did you feel a lot of your neighbors and friends and family also voted? caller: yes. it was a high turnout because the tea party in 2010 set the motion. they want balanced budgets. host: let's get a response from the congressman. guest: paula, my family is originally from hudson, wisconsin. he worked for the huts and manufacturing company for decades, grandfather. nice to hear from somebody from where my family came from. what you said is right. it's the sentiment that drove the election yesterday, someone has to stand up and the first. if they did it last night in wisconsin and delivered a common-sense message, then so be it. the message is as common sense as she said.

you have to balance the budget. you cannot continue to spend money you don't have. it becomes trite after a while to hear the message over and over. the value of the statement is not diminished. you cannot spend money you don't have. that's one of the things we will talk to mr. bernanke about tomorrow. as he goes into the quantitative easing, part of that involves printing money. he will say that it's not printing. but it is creating money that we don't have so that we continue to spend at these heightened level. i hope that if any message comes out of wisconsin, it is that we need to step back and look at this from a fairly rational standpoint. everybody inside washington knows you cannot do this for every. sooner or later that message might make it inside the beltway. maybe a stray in wisconsin was the first up. host: let's hear from democratic

caller in chicago. welcome, carl. caller: i get tired of you people talking about we are spending money. this economic crisis, we probably lost more than two years of gop, they said. then they said for least two years we did not create any money in our economy. so we did not have money to pay the bills because we were not making any money. so it's not like we are just going out spending money. if you lose your job and you don't have any money for two years, you're going to be in a whole. if it's not you are spending money, you still have to survive. you act as if the president is going out and spending and spending. basically, he has not spent a whole lot of money. any president that would have

come in when the economy was like that was going to have to do something to stimulate the economy. he has tried to do other things. basically, the republicans said no on everything. if you look at what he is done, despite the republicans saying no and doing everything they can to kill public optimism, he has done a pretty good job. host: let's get a response. guest: thanks, carl. you could say for the last 18 months every time the president has wanted to do something, congress says no. that's fine. that's why folks like myself were elected in 2010, because enough folks back home did not want to continue to say yes to the present. every time the president asked for something, congress not only said yes prior to that, but they said, take more. we got an expense of basic economics lesson in american history. we spent $800 billion on the

stimulus and it would create millions and millions of jobs. now we're learning that this push in washington to just do something -- if there's a recession, we need to do something, if there is inflation, we need to do something. maybe we don't know what to do. maybe spending our own money privately knows better what to do than 535 people across the street. we're not that smart. we're not smart enough to be able to dictate a $16 trillion economy. hopefully, one of the messages that comes out of the first two years of the president's administration is that this push to just do something might not always be the best prescription for the country. you made a point about it is just the president's spending and spending. i have to tell you, i was just as critical of my own party for the spending as i am of the present. he has taken it to new heights. if you look back at what happened during the first years in the 2000's under the bush and

administration, he spent a lot of money as well. he did it with the republican congress. both parties want to spend our money. that is a state that democrats have won in the last six elections. and it's a mess is the goes out to both parties -- that is a message that goes out to both parties. stop spending the money. host: representative mick mulvaney voted against the budget control act which allow the debt ceiling limit to rise. here's a story from "the atlantic."

host: respond to that for us. guest: that is the mantra you're hearing more and more. it is worrisome to me. interest rates are low. we should be spending on things like infrastructure. in an interview last year, i said that one of the unintended consequences of these low interest rates is that it is practically free for the government to borrow money. as a result, there is no cost. it is practically free. i got last that -- i got laughed at a year ago for making that comment.

people will try to use is to avoid our issues. we are $16 trillion in debt. we have paid less than 2% in interest. if interest rates would go to the risk the wew -- expose ourselves as a nation are real. to have folks like lawrence is devoid of common sense. host: frank from florida, good morning. welcome to the program. caller: i want to know why you want the bush tax cuts to be extended. we're running a surplus when they were instituted.

how much money has the american taxpayer lost -- a one-year task ben bernanke -- i want you to asked ben bernanke. guest: i think he would ask me about the loss we might have incurred because of a devalued euro. i believe the international currency swaps that the fed undertook -- we're not exposed -- i misspoke -- the exchange rate protection. we're not exposed. i think i'm have asked him that last year. why can we have higher tax rates will have predella chilean surplus -- $3 trillion surplus

back in the 1990's? that was a projection over 10 years. projections from this town are never as accurate as there probably should be. we did have operational surpluses at the end of the 1990's with higher tax rates. did we have a vibrant economy at because ofthe 99's the tax cuts? tax rates were high. we had a good economy. so let's raise taxes. that is absurd. if we could raise taxes, we would have tax our way to prosperity. we could have a larger conversation about what history is. you make a good point about what

republicans do not like tax increases. we do not think we are very efficient in how we spend money. host: we have a tweet from bill . host: the rest an interview with cnbc -- there was an interview with cnbc. guest: he now thinks they should go on upper income folks because that is more consistent with what the party's leader is saying out of the white house. president clinton probably had a moment of truth honesty.

why would you ever raise taxes in a recession? what would you ever do this in a recession, even if you think the government is a better spender? host: heather from colorado, good morning. caller: i have been an accountant for 25 years. i am a fiscal conservative. we have to be careful about how we make our cuts and what we cut. we have to balance this with revenues. you have to have the revenues. the job creators are becoming wealth extractors. guest: you made good points faster than i could write them down.

revenues are down because the economy is not doing particularly well. we have these tax rates since the first-round of the bush- obama tax cuts. they have been around for about a decade. revenues were not the problem back in 2002, 2003, 2004. the current level of tax rates can generate enough money to run a government reasonably. we're down now because the economy is slow. don't think we have to raise taxes to get the government to receive more money. history proves that is not the case. big oil subsidies. i have an amendment on the floor today.

a spending bill that cuts the subsidies for big oil and four green energy. -- and for green energy. we will see how that goes. i fear most of my republican friends will vote against that. this is an amendment to get rid of some of the subsidies for big oil. we're good at talking a good talk while on television. folks sometimes have a change of heart in the chamber. when the amendment comes up to you start looking at the details. there is always excuses in this town not to do something. sooner or later we'll have to do something. we have not talked about the cbo

report that cannot yesterday. if we do not do anything, then we're heading for disaster. washington is much better at doing nothing then doing something. host: we will talk more about the cbo report. the projected fiscal scenario looking at what is to come. we could be looking at some numbers that surprised a lot of people. they included 70% federal death rate of gdp by the end of this year. guest: the yellow part of the craft is the more likely scenario -- the yellow part of the graph. they assume we continue to rob

money out of the medicare program. that has never happened. the yellow part is the much more likely outcome. host: democratic caller from south carolina. guest: good morning. caller: i have been reading about this fair value tax. i would like to know how you feel about that, if that would help us as a nation. the fair value tax. guest: is that the same thing as the fair tax? caller: i just read something that the senator -- i forget his name -- he wrote on the huffington post. this is something that would

help us in our exporting and importing. guest: i am not familiar with the fair value tax. there is one way to raise additional revenue the would have the impact on imports and exports. most countries in europe have them. it is a tax on each layer of value added. the product is finally produced and finally sold. i'm not a big fan of additional taxes. consumption taxes generally is something i think we should look at as a replacement for the income-tax and not the supplement for the income-tax. the fair tax is a consumption tax. herman cain -- his 9-9-9 plan

would eventually be 30-30-30. i would be more than happy to talk about consumption taxes. i think they probably encourage savings, which i think is a good thing for the country. i did not like it as supplementary to the existing taxes. host: a spokesman from president clinton made a statement clarifying the comments. two questions have been raised.

host: here is a question from joseph on twitter. he is looking into the history books here and bringing that up. guest: two tax cuts -- host: medicare, medicaid, financial collapse. guest: i will not sit here and defend what is happening in afghanistan. i think it is disingenuous of us as a party to look at everything in the budget for possible savings but the defense department. i don't think that is right or fair. it is not real. you cannot tell me there's not savings there. that is absurd.

if you look at the debt that we .1ll run up this year -- $31 trillion. the military operations is a drop in the bucket from that money. medicaid, medicare, and social security is dropping that. we have programs that are up 80% in the last four years. i hear what folks are saying about the two wars not being paid for. when we offered the amendment last year to freeze military spending, i had 75 republicans to vote with that. only 65 democrats.

only 65, a minority of democrats voted to do that. they are as afraid to cut defense spending as some republicans. defense deserves just as much scrutiny as food stamps and the farm subsidies. host: congressmen mulvaney from south carolina. we have a statement from "the new york times." jonathan weisman reporting.

host: of course we call that sequestration here in washington. how do you deal with what that mean for your own communities? there will be fiscal consequences for south carolina. guest: i was on that trip. it is real. it is a terrible way to run a government. i think we should look at the defense department for possible savings. $55 billion across-the-board cut without any consideration is just absurd. why are we doing this? this gets lost. we're having a sequestered debate.

the sequester was part of the budget control act which raised the debt ceiling. the intermediate step was the super committee, which failed. we had the automatic sequester because the super committee failed. the budget control act was a compromise. it was probably one of the worst pieces of legislation that we passed since we have been here. $55 billion aat year in automatic cuts at the defense department's which is simply not reasonable. talk to secretary panetta. he says the military cannot do woulit. you cannot plan for it. and he's probably right.

the republicans have come forward and say, we did like that. instead of saying let's get rid of it, we said to save the money over here instead. you may disagree about were the other cuts are, but at least we put a program on the table. that's what we're supposed to do. the senate should take it up and look at. or they can start from scratch and come up with their own plan. the white house can do that also. no one has done that. everybody says it is bad. everybody else says it is bad and doesn't offer a plan.

caller: good morning. comments below but around to reflect what i've listened to. he said the economy is doing so bad and it is. the big corporations are raking in left and right. they do not mind losing $3 billion or $4 billion. my advice to people, democrats is don't buy wisconsin cheese. get your guns. have a good day. host: are you advocating to shooting people? caller: we should go back to assassinating people.

host: big difference between not buying wisconsin cheese and shooting people. guest: i think that is a bad idea. i think you should buy it wisconsin cheese. host: david from jacksonville. caller: i'm from wisconsin. do buy wisconsin cheese. concerning budgeting and stuff -- can you hear me now? host: keep going. caller: we take the hit and nobody stands up and says no. the minute we say that, the democrats say, you don't want education. the education is done by the state. i looked up the north carolina

budget. lus of the budget is from the state, not the federal. guest: we have had this exact discussion on the budget committee. we did not carry of the department of education in the budgets. we did cut spending significantly -- we did not get rid of the department of education in the budget. one place we look that was education, energy, and commerce. we do not think the federal government should be doing it. it doesn't make the evening news. we do talk about it every single day.

there is a group that says the only you will fix this long term is by having the federal government do less. the government is too big. we cannot manage it. -- if youthe ceo, were the ceo, you would spin off into 50 pieces. caller: thank you. i called urgently regarding to introduce a bill about cutting subsidies for big oil and new energy. we have been subsidizing oil for years. i did not understand that. my other comment is regarding the sequester.

you made the deal and now you do not want to go to you word. i have listened to speaker boehner. it is more on the backs of people who do not want to defend it. people are starving, losing their houses. how can you sleep at night? if you hate government so much, please do not do that. guest: regarding energy -- folks in congress fall into the exact same trap. green energy will create jobs. that is how we end up spending a lot of money. it is hard to look at whether or not it works. slender has opened people's eyes to the fact that we do not know how to do this -- solyndra.

the more money we give to people, but it seems the more often they fail. we gave half a billion $2 e gave half ahich gave have to e billion dollar to solyndra. i keep coming back to the most expensive lesson. i hope that we learned that it does not work. if you want things to be fixed, you should ask the government to do less. i did not make the deal. i thought it was a bad deal. i voted against it. we told you so. this was a bad deal.

he said you made your bed and you might as well sleep in it. there tends to be agreement here. it is the president's administration that is saying this will gut the military. we do have some consensus about this. what are going to do about it? that is where we have the breakdown. host: ben bernanke testifies tomorrow. "thes a story from washington post." how does europe figure into the picture? what should congress be doing? guest: we have asked the

question before about these currency swaps that the fed has been undertaking which is a way to supply additional liquidity. that is one tool available to the fed. can it changed the outcome? they are dealing with the symptoms but not the cause. they talk about fixing that instead of fixing the underlying difficulty. all these countries spend too much money. they went heavily into debt. you fix that by figure out how to balance their budgets. they are dealing with a short- term emergency as opposed to the long term difficulties. they come up with a deal to bailout the spanish banks. they may catch up with eurobonds

in the next couple of months -- they may come up with your bonds in the next couple of months. it is a message that i hope everybody pays attention to. if you want to know where will be in three or four years -- we will talk to dr. bernanke about it at length tomorrow. it is probably the biggest thing to affect our economy and we have no control over it. there is a huge mountain of debt. we have turned over a huge part of our destiny over to somebody else. what is happening in china would not have as big impact on us as it does. we have exposed ourselves to risk over which we have little control and that is truly

unfortunate. host: david from virginia. caller: hi. i woke up and i'm listening to you and i have tremendous respect for what you're saying. voice of reason. i've been in the army for about 20 years. i am concerned about education in the u.s. there is this structural systemic voice that we're not facing and the effects of automation and the paradox of productivity. i do think there is a magic bullet about getting millions back to work. there is a magic bullet.com to get a preview. we have great ideas and are communicating the right things to america.

just stay the course. i appreciate your hard work. guest: i am not familiar with the website. if there is a magic bullet, i think therit is education. we have difficulty managing the government because it is is so large. it will be difficult to run this country. go back to when the constitution was drafted. a woman said to ben franklin, " what kind of republican have given us?" "it is net easy to keep it that way -- it is not easy to keep it that way. you have to be educated."

host: congressman mick mulvaney from south carolina, thank you for coming in. up next we will talk with richard blumenthal senator of connecticut. later we have our spotlight on magazines and we look at "vanity fair" world war iii.o. but first a news update from c- span radio. >> and update on primaries yesterday. mitt romney won the california presidential primary. governor romney now has 3098 delegates, exceeding the number needed to win the republican nomination. more reaction to yesterday's recall election in wisconsin.

mitt romney now plans to compete aggressively in the state. his team considers wisconsin a top target and more attractive than his home state of michigan. terri nelson says the close vote on tuesday confirms that wisconsin will be a swing state. president obama travels to california. he will be making remarks at a dinner and fund-raiser to a group. those are some of the latest headlines on c-span radio. [video clip] >> finally on a personal note, michelle and i are grateful to the entire bush family for their guidance and their example during our own transition. george, i will always remember the gathering you hosted for all the living former presidents before i took office, your kind words of encouragement. plus, you also left me a really good tv sports package. [laughter]

i use it. [laughter] >> last week, portraits of former president george w. bush and first lady laura bush were unveiled at the white house. it was their first visit since leaving office. >> as fred mentioned, in 1814, dolly madison famously saved this portrait of the first george w. [laughter] now, michelle -- [laughter] if anything happens -- [laughter] there's your man. [laughter] >> watch the entire event online at the c-span video library. "washington journal" continues. host: senator richard blumenthal of connected -- of of conn.onn

guest: there is good news for both sides. president obama was ahead in the exit polls. this'll be a setback for mitt romney. all politics is local. voters want the two sides to come together and work for their interest. that is what i'm hearing in connecticut. washington has been gridlocked and perhaps wisconsin as well. host: we saw a high numbers of voters go out to the polls. did that encourage you? guest: the state senate may shift to the democrats.

high turnout is a good thing in my view. the presidential election is light years away and i think we will have to wait and see. host: the cbo, with members of the long-term budget outlook. here is a story from "the washington post." for somed we've known time that we need to lower spending and has to be a balanced approach which includes closing some of the tax loopholes, perhaps tax in the well-off at higher rates.

the rest to be balanced approach -- there has to be a balanced approach. host: you can see the federal debt and how it has gone up and down about a decade now. then we're looking at the extent of the scenario of what the alternative could be. this is a dramatic increase. how do you deal with entitlements spending? guest: there are ways to cut the cost of health care delivery. hospitals are doing the right thing. ending premature discharges. there are steps in reducing cost in accountability care organizations that are popular with providers as well as patients and insurers.

that kind of a very strong discipline in cutting across health care delivery, which is also a means to improve the quality of health care. nobody wants to go to the hospital and acquire an infection. i think americans can lead the way in reducing the cost of health care and thereby cutting the cost of medicare and medicaid. host: will take overall reform -- will it take overall reform, tightening regulation, finding ways to save money? are we looking at a big picture overhaul? guest: i prosecuted medicare fraud and wrongdoing, prosecuted it civilly. we need to do more criminally. right now we're scratching the surface of the big picture.

host: our guest sir summit health, education, and pensions committee. he served as the eternal general for the state of connecticut's -- as the attorney general for the state of connecticut's a was a law clerk for harry blackmun. tell us your impressions about your time that the supreme court as we await for them to decide the health-care law. guest: i was privileged to attend part of the argument. i served as a law clerk for justice blackmun and also argued for cases before the united states supreme court as the attorney general. the questions that are asked may or may not serve as an indication of what the justices are really thinking.

all the speculation is simply guess work based on the tone of the questions. i think the court will be reluctant to overreach, which is what it would have to do if the strike down all of the affordable care act. it would have to overreach in terms of and estelle was president on the commerce clause -- it would have to overreach in terms of establishing the on the commerce clause. the first argument in defending a law passed by a state or federal legislature is there is a presumption of constitutionality, a strong presumption of constitutionally when elected representatives adopt a law.

i think overreaching would be a mistake for the court. it has been somewhat undermined by the citizens united case that we think is another political branch of government. the credibility of the court depends on it being above politics and not over reaching. host: christopher joins us from washington, d.c. good morning. caller: good morning. i blame the oil companies and night blame the out source of jobs. corporations started laying off by the thousands immediately. you have 20 million americans out of work and you have a corporation that has outsourced

over 50,000 jobs to the philippines. americans are not the ones that take not $100 a month on sprint on limited service and sprint is paying a filipino $2 an hour to do the work. that's not fair when you have all these americans out of work. guest: on the issue of the oil companies, their profits are the highest in the history of the world for any corporations. they have had record profits. why allow them to have subsidies at taxpayer expense? we should do away with those special breaks. there have been -- the defenders of the industry which prevented us to get to the 60-vote

threshold has opposed those efforts to constrain or eliminate the subsidies to oil companies, which is also a subsidy to the fiscal reform. we reward companies for sending jobs overseas with tax breaks. that's a big part of a larger tax reform efforts. host: wanda is a democratic caller in michigan. caller: good morning. i wanted to make a statement about the united states supreme court. it is turned the progress into a money-buying situation. the more money out there for the gop is ruining our constitutional rights and what the people what. can the citizens united thing be

repealed? byest: it can't be repealed the legislature. there is a very elaborate and ciampi process to amend the constitution. it is an interpretation of the constitution and simply cannot be changed by statutes. more disclosure should be required. i have advocated that the greater disclosure so that we know more about who is 50c-4 andng to the50c-4 the super pacs. there is a separation of powers that would prevent barriers to that investigation. new: we're talking about a

cbo report. the federal debt will reach 70% of gdp. here are more details on that. debt held would reach 109% of the economy. the number is called skecary on the post parisan blog. host: how'd you come to a meeting of the mines and find bipartisan compromise -- meeting of the minds? guest: we have tried to find a way forward. more discussion is given to --

"scary" maybe the right word. host: a republican call from appleton, wisconsin. hi, peter. caller: thank you for serving our country. host: did you get out to vote? caller: i did, but that's between me and my vote. the role in this country -- being concerned about constitutionality and the question of civil liberties and civil rights in this country. fiscal responsibility when it comes to bigger is not always better. i am an educator and a disabled veteran. i am on both sides of the sword.

i get entitlements as a disabled veteran. i have worked for the public sector and know what it's like to get a good benefit package from the government. i would have to if i was still working. here's the thing. what you define as the federal government versus state and local control when it comes to areas of education and spending on social programs verses the defense budget and international trade purses' states being able to negotiate state contracts with foreign countries and drawing trade to their local economies. line do you draw tahat

where bigger is not always better? we have more control than we do at the federal level. guest: you have asked a lot of big questions. the meat thank you for your service in the united states military -- that me thank you -- let me thank you. i would never cut any benefits for veterans. my first bill is called honoring all veterans to make sure that we keep faith with our veterans and would leave no veteran behind and that we make sure that veterans are provided with the jobs, counseling, education, health care that all too often in nation has failed to provide for them. . in cuts innst social security benefits.

we have made promises and that is part of our contract. the government has a role to play to provide needs that people cannot meet themselves. i am on the armed services committee. we're facing continuing threats around the world. we to stay strong. -- we need to stay strong. ultimately, those freedoms are won by our strength abroad as well as at home. i believe that citizens united is a flawed interpretation of the first amendment i think it will undermine individual free expression as a matter of policy. i would favor the supreme court revisiting that decision. i am a staunch defender of

first amendment rights and you have identified that as a key part of our civil liberties. one area you have not identified with the government has to play a greater role is in protecting privacy. when employers are demanding facebook passwords and other social media log-in information, i think the government should bar that invasive conduct by employers to protect individual privacy from that kind of overreaching. i think the government has a role to play in protecting individual liberties. i am and attorney-general for 20 years. i believe strongly in the states in administering social service programs. they are closer to people. they understand what their

individual constituents want. wisconsin may differ from connecticut, but maybe not. a very strong role to play in administering those programs. host: our guest was a sponsor of the password protection act of 2012. tell us more about why this is important. asking people for their password. guest: i heard from my constituents about employers demanding passwords to facebook accounts as a condition of applying for employment or staying employed. i believe that practice is wrong. i lead the effort, co-effort, a bipartisan bill to protect

individual privacy because when you communicate with somebody who is applying for a job and that person is required to reveal password-protected information, it is your privacy not just the individual that is at risk. you're communicating with that individual without any knowledge that information may be disclosed. discrimination is encouraged by that kind of -- it is information about race and gender that can lead to discrimination. i believe privacy needs to be protected because people have an expectation and there are other means of verifying relevant facts about the perspective or just being employed, whether

through references or questions that are directed to that person or others are public documents or information can be verified. it is necessary as well as in shares of and potentially a conduit to illegality. host: we will talk more on our spotlight on magazine section here "washington journal" in just a little bit with michael joseph gross, contributing editor of "vanity fair." you can find that online if you like to check it out before we talk to him in about 20 minutes. charlotte, north carolina on are independent line. caller: how are you doing? thank you for taking my call. i hope everybody who's been watching for the past hour -- i was the republican that was on earlier.

talking points pre much down the democrats. he was pure facts about any issue. that is beside my point. we have to be real. the health-care plan -- the health care bill that was passed by the president and congress in 2009, or 2010, i think. we have to be honest to say that was just a compromise from the president -- the president wanted to compromise even though the republicans did not. that's not what he wanted uppermost democrats, most of the american people wanted. now the democrats are pretty much just stuck with it.

that is just one thing. host: there is a latest poll out two daysttwcame ago. host: what do you make of this poll? the democrats did not get what they want. guest: he has used a key word -- "compromise." compromise is the way to get things done. right now washington is paralyzed by gridlock that comes

from extremists and willing to compromise. the point about compromise -- he thinks the health care law is not as good as it should be because of compromise. there would be no health care law and all but for the compromise. i think we need to learn to work together on a bipartisan basis. i work with attorneys general across the country to protect consumer rights, to defend civil liberties. we never ask each other, are you a democrat or republican? to this day i don't know if lot of them are a democrat or republican. that is the experience of many governors and attorneys general who are now in the legislature. i think we need to go back to that tradition. i do think that we need to rise

above those polls, which are just snapshots of what people feel right now based on the kind of questions and how they are asked. anybody who lives or dies by the polls are more likely to die by them than live by them. host: does this give you any thoughts about the messaging campaigns and who is winning the war of words in the sense that who is getting the american public on their side better? 74% believe the individual mandate should be struck down by the supreme court. guest: i think people want better health care and need to be convinced that the affordable care act is a way to achieve better health care. they need to be convinced it is

a way to control health-care costs, which are spiraling out of control and inhibiting business people. i hear from a business people in my state of connecticut. the cost of health care is a major obstacle in creating jobs and doing more hiring. if people were convinced that any part of the healthcare law are a means of creating jobs and promoting economic growth, there would favor it. it is in not a matter of messaging or words. we need to help those small business people who are the source of most jobs in the country. they have openings now but they need people with the skills to fill them. they need capital. they need to be able to borrow to expand. host: lauren choices for new

jersey -- lawrence. caller: thank you. thank you for taking my call. it is amazing when you seen the changes over the past few years. i think the number-one priority should be health care and education. i think outsourcing is a terrible thing. wall street is getting better. oil companies are making tremendous amounts of money. republicans throw money away to certain individuals. yesterday was $34 million to $4 million? when do we start caring about our own?

thank you. guest: let's talk about education. i think td central to job creation and economic growth -- i think it is central. i go around connecticut. i hear that there are jobs. business people and manufacturers say there are openings but they cannot find people with skills to fill those jobs. the challenge is to provide opportunities for skilled training. in our technical high schools which teach welding and advanced computer manufacturing, we can provide the skills if we expand those opportunities. 400 now, the are40 applications for each 200- person class.

the associate's degrees are two- year degrees provide those hands-on, real-world skills that are key to good-paying jobs on factory floors, assembly lines, where manufacturing is no longer a matter of a big muscle. it is intelligence and computer savvy and sophisticated skills that people need to learn. measure thated a would promote these kinds of skills. i have added an supported measures to add internships and apprenticeships to our elementary and secondary education act so as to expand

the kind of training. the other part of education that i view is a thread is a student culturally, in student debt. -- economically and culturally, it is student debt. how can a young person coming out of college with tens of thousands of dollars in debt take the risk to become an entrepreneur, to do a start up? i talked to young people in connecticut and around the country. they say to me, i have a great idea for a new business, a startup, but i have to pay off my debt. they go to work in jobs that might be a lot less productive. a lot fewer jobs created as a result because of that student debt problem. we need to find a way to address existing debt and also to prevent the cost of student

loans from rising. right now, both houses are rankled about how to pay for the measure that would prevent interest rates from going to 6 0-- goingthe pri'present to 6.8% form the -- from the present 3.4%. there are solutions. there are means of reaching a solution that is well within grasp if we put aside our partisan differences. host: "the washington times" has a story -- "mcconnell hit president obama on student loan debate." at the white house, education

secretary arne duncan issued another plea to keep rates from doubling. let's listen to what mcconnell had to say yesterday. [video clip] >> we're ready to resolve the issue to give students the certainty may need about student loan payments. we do not think that they should have to wait another day on this. and it is inexcusable for the president to allow this impasse to persist. that is why we have bent over backwards to find a solution. it is disingenuous for the president to claim otherwise. that brings me to a larger point. we all realize the president is concerned about his reelection. i understand he is placing a higher priority on fundraising and trying to make republicans look bad as he ramps up to november. i guess his rationale for running an negative campaign -- if i were him, i would not want

to brag about my record either. i would remind him that he is still president, even though the campaign is going on, that americans are looking for leadership, and that the economic problems we face will only get worse if he avoids them for six more months. so, whether it is the student loan issue or the prospect of the massive tax hike at the end of the year, republicans are ready to work with the president to provide the kind of certainty that the american people need right now. host: senator mitch mcconnell on the senate floor. senator bingaman faul -- senator bingaman ball -- senator slumenthal -- senator blumenthal, is it election-year politics? guest: i think, if a resolution is achieved, it will be because

both sides come together and recognize that education and student needs have to come first. host: the deadline is looming. guest: to that is why we really need to focus on this issue, put aside partisan attacks, come together, so as not to impact health care. the republicans have made a number of other proposals. certainly, the white house is considering them. i'm hoping there will be agreement. host: a republican dollar in west virginia -- caller in west virginia. caller: this health care bill is definitely on constitutional. if the government tells you you have to buy a product or we will punish you, that is dictatorship. that is not democracy. i would like to know what is going on in new england. massachusetts, we have this lady claiming she is a charity.

he claims he is a combat arena. -- combat marine. that is a disgrace. host: is this the equivalent of dictating? guest: there are limiting principles that can be placed on what the government does, even under the current system. thank you for your service to our nation. i think that there are ways for the government to require certain conduct when somebody has -- certain conduct. when somebody has a car, they are required to buy insurance for it. the question is whether the commerce clause is affected by the mandate. in my experience, jurisprudence justifies this kind of requirement. it is necessary because we all

require health care. we all need health care. if there is someone who does not, over the course of a lifetime, have to go to a hospital, have to see a doctor, have to buy pharmaceutical drugs, i have not met him or her. host: from huffington post will -- from the "huffington post" -- what do you make of this? guest: the controversy of our heritage does not seem to be affecting this. it will be a tight race, a close one. i think it will be decided on issues relating to the economy. i think we have been talking about a lot of issues, libby, but the driving force in this election will be jobs and the economy.

the president clearly is doing everything he can, given the challenges in europe, the downturn in china. i would like to see much more aggressive crackdown on chinese currency manipulation and the unfair trade practices in china. overall, their president is trying to move toward more economic growth and job creation. i think the judgment at the end of the day will be on his record compared to the challenger's, which i think will be fair game for the president to attack. host: tom in ohio. good morning. caller: mandates are ok when it works for you, but not when it is against you. just like the mandate of the governor of west virginia against women.

if we take companies and make them to pay minimum wage, we see how much regulation means to these people. i see people calling about outsourcing. i do not even know what to say about it. when you can pay somebody $1 per hour -- we have legalized slave labor in foreign countries. pay them $7.65 in china. that will be great. pay them a wage. god help this country. thank you. caller: you make an excellent point about the need for fair trade, not just free trade. that is why i have been very critical of some of the pacts but we have reached with other countries and why i have been critical of the practices that have been tolerated, environmental abuses as well as labor abuses, that we would never tolerate in this country. we need to stand up for american

products and american manufacturing. property theft by other countries must cyber warfare, that of intellectual property is rampant. we need -- property that by other countries, cyber warfare, theft of intellectual property is rampant. we need to take our intellectual property and make the moves there that we should be making in america. i am a strong proponent of making in america. make it in america. make it in connecticut. require the department of defense to give some preference to american manufacturers when it buys hundreds of millions, billions of dollars of products that it does. there are other ways we can assist. made in america should mean something.

host: north carolina, the democrats' line, go ahead. caller: i want to make a couple of points. please do not come me off. -- cut me off. i think the senate democrats need to be much more aggressive. let's face it, nasty in their responses. i notice you are trying to have a very civil conversation in discussing compromise, but the republicans see compromise as weakness. to hear mitch mcconnell make that comment about the president when mitch mcconnell was the one who said from the beginning of the president's term that his main goal is to see that the president is a one- term president. that is what he has done. there is no compromise with the republicans. also, they are refusing to pass a jobs bill. they fear that it will help

president. again, they want to do nothing to help the president. on the night of the president's inauguration, 15 top republicans met to determine how they would plot to undermine him. guest: you know, you make a very good point about the need for the president to be aggressive in explaining and justifying his agenda and the senate democrats doing the same, articulating forcefully the priorities of any party is any necessity -- is a necessity. it needs the more bipartisanship, more cooperation. let's take the transportation bill that you mentioned. that bill was approved by an overwhelming majority, 3/4 of the united states senate, republicans and democrats

approved that bill. it is a jobs bill. it is an investment in our roads and bridges and our harbors, ports as well as other kinds of surface transportation. it isn't absolutely necessary investments -- it is an absolutely necessary investment. the leaders were senator barbara boxer of california, senator inhofe. two members who would be diametrically opposed on a lot of issues, but they came together on this. i think that the house of representatives now needs to do its job. the reports are that the republicans in the house are themselves divided. i do not know whether those reports are true, but they need to come together. we cannot permit the extreme right-wing in the country from forestalling and blocking

progress towards jobs, economic growth, an amendment in the future. people in america wants -- and investment in the future. people in america want it. host: senator richard blumenthal, thank you or coming in. coming up next, our spotlight on magazines segment. "world war 3.0" with michael joseph gross. first this news update with c- span radio. >> the labor department says u.s. worker productivity fell by the largest amount in a year from january through march. that is faster than the 0.5% annual decline first estimated last month. this steeper drop in production suggests companies could hire more in the coming months. yes a's notes in san diego and san jose to cut retirement benefits -- yesterday's votes

in san diego and san as it to cut retirement of its -- and san jose to cut retirement benefits -- they are looking at the retirement package given to the outgoing chief investment officer to see if her pay should be "clawed back." the testimony goes on to say the agency is conducting extensive analysis of the j.p. morgan lost to focus on where "breakdowns or failures occurred." you can hear the testimony on c- span radio or watch on c-span3. those are some of the latest headlines on c-span radio. [video clip] >> over the past four years, this pulitzer prize-winning author has been writing his 10th book, "barack obama, the story,."

he toured the family homes and sites in kansas to find the origins of his mother's family. the book comes out on june 19. "booktv" will give you an early look with exclusive pictures and video, including our trip to kenya as we traveled with the author in january, 2010. join us on sunday, june 17, 6:00 p.m. eastern time. later, at 7:30 p.m., your phone calls, e-mails, and tweets for david maraniss. >> "washington journal" continues. host: every wednesday, we have our spotlight on magazines segment. we are looking at a "vanity fair" piece, "world war 3.0. michael joseph gross, thanks for being here. guest: thanks for having me.

host: this is about the internet, regulation of the internet, some of the wild west ways that it functions. who regulates the internet? guest: it is run by a small group of nonprofits, mostly american-based. what is coming is we are building up to a meeting in dubai of the international telecommunications union, a body of the un that oversees the united nations treaty called the international telecommunications regulation, the itr for short. covers telephone, television, and radio networks. there is a big question as to whether it will be expanded to cover the internet as well. what would happen then is governments would get more involved directly in running the internet. a lot of governments that like to monitor and control the way their citizens use the net, governments like russia, iran, china are pushing hard for that

to happen. host: michael, you wrote a bout -- about countries that have an interest in monitoring the internet. iranian officials have diagrammed social networks and they have kept watch on almost anything else they wanted to observe. this was back in the 2009 green revolution protest. you called this a major turning public. it has a bald -- has evolved from a place to put pictures of your cats to where your freedom is threatened. guest: after the mid-1990's when the clinton administration decided to commercialize the internet, open it up as a place to do business, people around the world gradually began to change their relationship with

intellectual property, with culture, in a way that is unprecedented in the history of the world. people started to take and use music, snatches of books, movies, to post them to various social media websites to express themselves. gradually, they began to feel a sense of entitlement to this information. once that movement took on momentum, it created a trove of data that reveals more about citizens than any census ever could. that is very tempting to governments, especially governments that are more on the -- especially governments that like to monitor what their citizens are doing very closely. in 2009, when the green revolution occurred and iran went to look at facebook and

twitter accounts of people who were protesting, they very easily got access to the information, it was a wake-up call to a lot of people that this integration of the citizen and the consumer of information had created a very vulnerable, new species a person -- of person. host: our guest has written extensively for publications and is a contributing editor to "vanity fair." columbus,o thomas in ohio, on our independent line. caller: i would just like to say that i feel the censorship issue is well taken care of by the people. i feel that the things that the ande doesn't take care of that also the people explains why we ourselves are censoring

it. it is ok to monitor. they just cannot come and touch. if you want to take something to a classroom and teach something, that is what we have freedom of printing anything that is copyrighted, to be able to view it in any environment, just to be seen. the censorship is taking care of by the people. that is my feeling. thank you. host: any comments, michael gross? who is the "they"? are we talking about governments, companies? who is the "they," the other? guest: i cannot speak to what the caller had in mind specifically. there are "they" issues with both corporations and

governments. i spoke a minute ago about the trove of information that we have all built up about ourselves through our activity online. i talked about the risk of government access to that information. there are, as you point out, equally strong risks regarding the fact that this tiny number of corporations has so much data and, therefore, so much power over us in their possession. we all check boxes in terms of service on e-mail, facebook, twitter without reading them. we are giving it access to a group of companies whose first allegiance is to their stockholders, to their own goal of creating revenue, which is, in its way, as much cause for concern as anything the

government may want to do with the information. host: wisconsin, dave, a republican caller joining us now. caller: i read something about an agreement from the united nations on privacy and stuff like that. as long as i have been around, which is 66 years, the united nations has never really accomplish much of anything. they are an incompetent, mismanaged organization. they never get anything done. if we want to do deficit reduction, we should stop funding the united nations. i resent the fact we are signing agreements -- host: do you think anyone should, essentially, control the internet? should there be international agreements about it? caller: i do not know anything about that. i just heard about the agreement with the united nations.

host: tell us more about what is on the docket. who are the international bodies in the discussion? guest: the international bodies in the international telecommunications gathering in dubai will mostly be nations representative of corporations. this is a treaty among nations. the man presiding is a wily, charming -- a satellite engineer trained in the soviet union, who comes from mali. he has spoken quite clearly intention to s democratize, as he puts it, control over the net. he points out that the united states may have invented the and annette, but the united states only has -- the internet, but

the united states only has 1/10 of the users of the internet now. people were concerned when he. with -- he appeared with vladimir putin at a photograph opportunity. putin thanked him for his ideas on how to increase control over the next. host: you entitled your piece "world war 3.0." why? guest: editors title stories. writers write them. there is a political statement. it is a fair statement that the complex over the net are intensifying to such a point -- the conflicts over the net are intensifying to such a point that they are like wars. you can simplify it to privacy,

piracy, intellectual property, security and sovereignty. in each area, there are challenges arising that need to be addressed quite urgently. governments, unfortunately, are not full of people who are qualified to address them. one of the interesting things about reporting this piece was getting to know a lot of the top cyber security experts in the country and in the world. many of them are offering their services in congress and in washington. i spoke with one new sometimes walks into meetings with congressmen and senators and says, i am from the internet, i am here to help. or he begins by saying there are bad guys on the net. unfortunately, you are helping them.

even though cyber security is as important to our common life as to economics or public health, it is still ok in washington, it is still ok in congress for members to not know about these things in the same way they know about economics and public health. the handful of congressmen who do know about this are pushing for their peers to let hackers in. so far, it has not really happen. if there is one line that i wish people could remember from this interview, it is for washington's to let the hackers in -- wahsington to -- washington to let the hackers in. host: if you'd like to talk with the author, the numbers are on the screen. let the hackers in.

what would that mean? is that this very concept for that to be allowed to happen? guest: it is. the net is something that, on a technical level, most of washington does not know anything about. they do not want to limit that they do not know very much about it. i break down, in the article, the debates in two debates between forces of order and forces of disorder. forces of order are people who want to import pre-digital, intellectual, and legal structures on to the net. forces of disorder are hacktivists who want to let it all burned down, let it create a new culture. there is a smaller group in the middle who have the most pragmatic ideas about how to address our problems.

i call them the forces of organized chaos. there are a number of them. some of the most talented hackers in the world , people like peter, who now works for darpa -- the defense advanced research project association. people like that have moved to washington, often at considerable -- they are giving up huge opportunities to make terrific piles of money so that they can be part of the conversation about policy at the highest level. this is an opportunity for congress. this is an opportunity for us to get out ahead of a set of problems that threaten to be just as destabilizing as the economic woes that we have gone

through in the last few years. so, i think i have said my piece. i don't know how to wrap that up. host: you do not have to. we will get back to the phones and keep it rolling. washington, d.c. caller: i want to give a small background. then a quick follow-up. i am 29 years old, born and raised in the district of columbia, and a small business owner. my question is, do you think that we should have a more fbi, doj, more combined effort, where they have small task forces to handle this problem?

guest: certainly, the security is an important goal. mellisa -- melissa hathaway, who ran cyber strategy for both president bush and obama, has done a lot of really interesting research on this. she is another expert identified in the story as one of the leaders of the portions of -- forces of organized chaos. if you were to google her name, melissa hathaway, you would find a great paper that she has just written. it deserves a lot more attention from a general public about some of her ideas about how to move forward in this regard. host: you talk about how you -- about the number of leaders, people who are crossing over and lending their support.

he founded defcon. he is willing to go to washington and talk to people. tell us to some of these experts are and why their voices are being heard or are not being heard in places like washington. guest: another is dan kaminsky. the fifth issue that runs through all of this is the basis without which none of the others can be discussed is reliability. only thing everybody agrees on, he said to me, is that the internet is now making a lot of money and it has to work. he is one of the top experts on the domain name system, the dns.

it is the web's one central feature. a lot of people described as the address book, the corner post office -- described it as the address book, the corner post office. when the type -- you type "google.com," the dns server begins the process that takes you to google. dan has given a lot of his time over the last few years to folks in washington. he is the one who says, i am from the internet, i am here to help. one of his main goals is to try to come up with new ways of of an evocation -- of authentication, new ways that we can prove we are who we said we are when we are on the net that are more robust than passwords. trouble with passwords, as we all know, it is that they are

difficult to crack and that makes them difficult to remember. dan is one of the people who will probably help come up with a solution to that that will come at the same time preserve the anonymity -- that will at the same time preserve the anonymity that allows freedom and creativity on line. host: we're talking with michael gross. jim writes -- "the second thing i learned to do with my first computer was turn it off." caller: i want to thank this guy for scaring the living daylights out of me. for people that do not have the internet, what about these satellite boxes and a land mine that is connected into a wall? -- and the landline that is connected into a wall? can they hack into those

things? host: why are you scared? what makes you nervous? caller: my children and grandchildren in the school system do not know how to use the books. they use the ipad. they flip this little doohick ey. they get lost. they don't let me take a book home. now their personal information is logged in through the school system in all of this stuff. the child does not know how to protect those things. if it is taken, it is gone. host: let's get a response to those concerned about privacy and the prevalence of computers. also a question about what is connected to the grid.

entirely cleart on what kind of machine she was asking about in the first part of her question. i think it is safe to say that almost any new technology that creates considerable new convenience is also collecting a great deal of information about whatever habits are associated with the convenience that it is increasing. so, smart grids are one of the -- and smart meters on our energy system are beginning to be integrated here and there. california is moving quite fast on this. there is also a lot of resistance to it out there, precisely because the smart meters are collecting much more detailed information and utilities have ever had before about when you are home, what you do -- information than

utilities have ever had before about when you are home, what you do when you are at home. that information could be used by hackers to figure out when to rob your home, for instance. the second remark about tablet readers was interesting to me to. we have not given enough thought or attention to the kind of impersonation -- information that is being collected through those machines. social reading -- amazon is trying to encourage this. the kindle and similar tablets are now or will soon be offering the opportunity for readers to place their remarks in the margins of a book, just the way you used to scribble in the margins, .

if you choose to share that information, other people reading the book can see what you have written. reading is a private acts, not, in most cases, a public one. when we get over access to our private thoughts and detailed, compiled information about our private habits, lists of the books we have read in the last week, the last month, it could be a lot of fun. it could create opportunities for us to connect with other people in new and unexpected and productive ways. but it could also make us vulnerable to people making inferences about what we are thinking, what we are doing that might -- well, you know, might not serve us so well in the long run.

host: here is a tweet. that is his perspective and concerns about computers. tony in wisconsin -- colleen in wisconsin. caller: with the use of computers so much, how can we track the numbers? how do we even know who the real winners of elections are? how can we have any confidence that the person that won in the primary really was the person with the most votes? host: colleen call from wisconsin, which had a contentious vote yesterday in

the recall of governor walker. guest: i hope that people like her will continue to ask that in a more systematic and persistent way. the truth is we do not know much about the security of our voting machines. that is one of the concerns that a lot of cyber security experts have been raising with me lately. they have been urging me to look more deeply into that as november approaches. unfortunately, it is something that i do not know a tremendous lot about right now. the fact that we do not know much about it is -- that is an important fact itself to note. host: im, -- tim, independent caller, conn., welcome. caller: i think the internet should be free and open, just like every other form in the free capitalist society. i believe that in every country,

a free internet is the most important tool that we can have to keep us free. host: michael gross. guest: i think those are good thoughts. i think also that freedom and human society by definition has some sense of boundaries -- freedom in human society by definition has some sense of boundaries. on the internet so far there have been -- so far, there have been few to no boundaries on what we do, what we can do, where we can go. the truth is that we may all end up being a lot freer if we can put our minds together and have a conversation about things like authentication issues that i mentioned a few minutes ago, the problem of passwords. the internet was billed to be -- built to be used by a small group of american soldiers and

scientists who knew each other off line. it was meant to be a supplement to their analog interactions. it was not built to be the world's primary vehicle for communication and commerce. in the beginning, people on the internet all trusted that anybody else there was who they said they were. they trusted that information would be treated according to social norms about -- concerning intellectual property and security. unfortunately, it just was not built to hold the amount of traffic that it carries now or the kind of traffic it carries now. the problem that is creating, the problem of security, privacy -- and they are problems that cannot be addressed if we just stick with the status quo. we are going to need some limits on what people call internet

freedom. i think that the best way to think about those limits is to think about them as themselves expressions of freedom, even if that may sound paradoxical at first. host: melissa holloway, who you mentioned, said this -- melissa hathaway, who you mentioned, said this -- let's take a look at laws before congress regarding internet privacy. pipa and sopa -- the stop online privacy act, the protect ip act in the senate. weigh in for us on how significant these are. they would grant the justice department authority to prevent pirate sites from getting u.s.

visitors and funding. guest: the original version of those bills, in addition, would have mandated dns blocking. the internet's address book. dns blocking or hijacking happens when a third-party intervenes to send you to different place than what you're trying to go -- where you are trying to go. it is what the iranian government was doing to prevent people from facebook and twitter from connecting with one another and organizing protests. the reason that sopa and pipa were most fatally flawed was that, in their original versions, they would have required companies to practice this type of dns hacking, so that when internet users were trying to look a pirated, copyrighted material, they would

not be able to get a -- look at pirated, copyrighted material, they would not be able to get where they were going. it was a terrible provision. in one case, it was gone. in the other, it was on its way out. the protests really took off when the specter of censorship was invoked, the idea that google might be responsible for taking down copyrighted material on youtube. there is nuance missing from the example that i just gave, and i will acknowledge that and move on. censorship was actually -- well, both of those bills, as i understand it, are pretty much dead now. their main effect, the main effect of the protest against them on the hill was to make

members and their staffs absolutely terrified of saying anything about in a policy -- internet policy, because their e-mail inboxes, their switchboards were just blown up by protesters. if those protests did one really constructive thing, i think it was to show members they cannot make policy about that the way they long have, by backroom conversations -- about the net the way they love have, -- long have, by backroom conversations with corporations. they have to let the hackers in. we have not seen the same kind of interest in the equally important bills before congress at present about privacy and

cyber security. if we could cultivate the same kind of robust participation in those two debate as we did over sopa and pipa, we would be in a really good place. but, unfortunately, right now, there is no boogeyman like censorship that has caused those debates to blow up. host: dave in nashville. independent caller. go ahead. caller: i'm calling to talk about privacy, property -- intellectual property, sovereignty, and how these issues mirror societal issues, the constitution and all those things with the elections coming up. do you think placing limits on the internet freedom will mirror

the infringement of our individual privacy, the piracy, the intellectual property, the sovereignty? do you think by allowing the forces of order and the forces of disorder and the forces of organized chaos to allow us to have some type of blueprint to fix a lot of the societal issues that we have occurring worldwide today? guest: i'm sorry. i didn't follow the precise trajectory of that question. host: i think what our caller -- what i took away from that was looking at how the internet could mimic or mirror what is happening offline and vice versa. could there be some inspiration or take away from trying to unite the forces -- the phrases you used?

can we take something away from that in the solid world? guest: well, you know, it is not as if there are -- it is not as if the cybver -- cyber world and solid worlds are two separate worlds. the big -- one of the big anti virus companies, they have analyzed the glame virus -- flame virus, the cyber-espionage operation. some have wondered what it is connected to. davide center 0-- david sanger has been telling us about this.

eugene makes the point we all live in the cyberworld now. from the time you wake up and brush your teeth, you are relying on the networks. i might prefer to say the so- called cyberworld is now the nervous system for the planet. you can no more separate the cyberworld from the real world than you can separate the brain and nerves from the rest of the body. host: we will have david sanger on on friday, talking about his new book "confront and conceal." here is an internet -- a tweet -- let's here from june, a republican caller. caller: thank you for c-span. thank you, mr. gross.

i would like to know, in your opinion, how dthe u.n. should have anything to do with the internet. host: ok. the u.n.from juene -- and the internet. guest: certain nations in the un would like for the un to have more control over the internet, because that would give them more control over the internet. they are arrayed against a group of nations led by the united states and some of its allies, who advocate for what they call, using a phrase from the previous caller, "internet freedom." that is -- as used by secretary

of state clinton and others, it means the right to free access to information, the right to peacefully assemble. but the trouble with these debates so often is that terms like "internet freedom," used by people on both sides -- not only is secretary clinton out advocating for it, but that is also the banner that wikileaks was using for its choice to leak 250,000 state department cables. it makes these debates very difficult to follow and very difficult to engage in. host: touching on that, this tweet asks -- guest: one reason is that it is a very complicated issue that is really hard to fit in sound bites.

when you talk about the limits, you very often end up using technical jargon that causes everybody's eyes to glaze over. one thing that the end of the article i wrote for "vanity fair" tries to do is to set out the few things that the forces of organized chaos agree on. these include to make it as simple as possible, from agreement on a breach reporting standard -- breach meaning when a company is hacked, when a company is a victim of cyber espionage. there needs to be a standard, some threshold for when the company has to let the government no, -- know, when the

company has to let the public know. right now, there are no such standards. we also need to come up with metrics for exactly what those are. one problem with the conversation is, when we talk about privacy, we seem to be referring to some big idea of other people not getting in our stuff. but the privacy experts need to step up and try to write something for the general public that lays out in just a couple of pages what the meaningful aspects of privacy are. what exactly are the bulwarks that we need to defend? that would organize the conversation a lot better. a third thing that needs to happen -- software-coding languages need to be made more secure, to make it more difficult for hackers to get in and change things and siphon off data.

there are a couple more laid out in the article. there are yet more in that half the way piece i mentioned earlier -- that hathaway piece i mentioned earlier. host: you can read it in the "vanity fair" may issue, "world war 3.0." caller: it is really not that complicated. you are making it more complicated than it is. this is not about stealing information -- intellectual information at all. the reason we want control is, alas things people want in power is for the globe -- the last thing that people in power want is for the globe to organize against them. we're going under the guise of, oh, they are stealing my information. the problem is in the future with the way everything is going with those in charge controlling those who are not in charge. what happens if we all get

together and communicate on the internet to turn around and say no? that is more of the problem. they're not just looking at today. they are looking into the future. you are looking at just today. guest: you are touching on one of the most fascinating things about the times we are living through right now. i cannot think of a technology that has given more individuals more power in such a short time than the net. because of that, the net has also, on balance, been destructive of institutional authority, especially of the nation state. one of the things that used to define the nation state was that it had a monopoly on of -- on overwhelming force. now that hackers can get into any process, the lesson is "any factory anytime."

that means it is possible for hackers to change the machinery of any installation at any time. now that they can get access, theoretically -- not theoretically. we have seen it happen in iran. to military installations. that monopoly is off. but what has happened, at the same time that the net has given individuals all of this power, it has not provided a clear mechanism for inculcating the wisdom, compassion, and humility to wield that power justly and effectively. borrowing language from another of the experts, another leading figure in the forces of organized chaos described in article. he keeps a terrific blog with another man, called "cognitive

dissiddence," about the activities of anonymous. this impact, combined with the compromise of institutional authority, is creating some problems. as exciting as it is that the will of the people maybe more purely expressed, that democracy may be empowered in a way that debbie thinks it is being empowered, the truth is, democracy at least in the american tradition has always had two mitigating forces. in addition to the democrats in the beginning, there were the federalist. one was more federally oriented,

one was more individually oriented. the web has been in power in the individual at the expense of the institution. before we get too excited about that, we need to think real carefully about whether the tour will of the people is always -- the pure will of the people has always produced the best effect for the most people. host: a tweet -- with the perspective on hackers of a different sort -- a republican caller. let's get you in before we wrap up. caller: i appreciate you being on. it is interesting stuff.

i feel like the only people that can be in trouble with hackers are the individual people, the middle-class. to me, it seems like the governments are under threat for all these hackers. there are so many secret, behind-door meetings. they can have closed-door meetings and keep their information off the internet if they do not want hacker's going in and seeing what their secret plans are or whatever. it seem slike, -- seems like, if anyone needs protection, it is the people, not the government. they will get protection by having an internet free to everybody on the same plane ground, not having an overseeing government deciding what to do. host: let's get a quick response. guest: everybody is vulnerable. guest: everybody is vulnerable.