the battle for the american idea in the age of discontent. also, the chairman of the commodities futures train -- trading commission gary gensler will take your questions about the role of his agency. host: the morning and welcome on this tuesday, june 12, 2012 of. republicans move forward on an effort to hold attorney general eric holder in contempt. we will hear more about that later in the program. voters go to the polls and arizona to fill the seat of congresswoman gabrielle giffords. and virginia is holding an election as well for the senate. dove, according o

to a new study. call us. you can also find us online. sent a tweet and we will share that on the air. you can also join the conversation on facebook or e- mail us. "usa today start past their story like this --

you can see here, a decline in the median value is of primary residence is owned by u.s. households. in households it went down to about $170,000. other papers are going with similar headlines -- how have you been affected? do you feel you are worth more or less than you were a few years ago? what about theto 1992? -- what about the relationship to 1992?

let's look at the report from the federal reserve, what it shows and what we can learn from it. you can see the change in media and mean in comes from 2001 to 2010. dark green is the media. mike green is the mean -- light green is the mean. steve joel osteen is the washington bureau chief of market watch. guest: good morning. -- steve goldstein. >> the federal reserve conducts a study every three years and they poll 6500 families to do so. that's why it is not like most

of the economic reports that we see released within a month or two. this is the type of study that just take a long time to do. host: when we talk about family wealth falling back to what it was in 1992, what does that mean? >guest: basically, it means the value of family homes have dropped dramatically. at is what it really reflects. most families, their top asset is their home. after the housing bubble burst, the main assets declined by roughly 40%. so the net worth of individual families, particularly middle- class, was hit extremely hard. host: talking about other assets that affect americans bottom line. what else figures into this? are we talking about

investments, actual income? guest: yes, we are talking about everything. when you talk about net worth, but also includes things like stocks and bonds. but on the other side, it also includes your debts. about credit card debt or student loans. net worth is the simple calculation of assets minus liabilities. so you have to take it at the whole. really, the change in net worth was almost exclusively focused on that one asset, real estate. host: your report says well construction was concentrated in the middle class and that makes sense. gwhy? guest: for the poor people, they are less likely to be homeowners. so the big housing bubble affected them in terms of

employment, but in terms of their net wealth, if you don't own a home, you will not be affected. for the people who are most affluent, the top 10%, the changes in real estate, that's not the only type of asset they hold. they overwhelmingly are more likely to hold stocks, for example. therefore, it was not the only asset for them. that's what it's all much smaller decline. host: how does this affect american families in a day to day since? a house can be different from the income you receive. how does this affect people's pocketbooks? guest: it affects people's alternatives. they don't really have the choice to sell their home and

move to another one. labor mobility is a big issue right now. that is something policy makers are discussing. if you are under water on your home, if you owe more than your mortgage is worth, you are kind of stuck there, stuck in the location. it also means from a home equity sense, you cannot really use that to get immediate funds, as people were doing over the last decade before the housing bubble burst. so those are some of the main ways in which it is not just an item on paper, but it really has practical implications for family finance. host: thanks for joining us. guest: thank you. host: we're talking about a federal reserve study that shows american families' welfare as declined by 39%. let's hear from one of our callers in the under $50,000 of

income category from columbus, ohio. hi, steve. caller: how are you? the big problem is the price of gasoline, over the last two years since we invaded iraq and afghanistan -- in 2001 the economy was not even that bad, even when president bush was in office, not blaming him or anything, but those wars in iraq and afghanistan, we don't invest in our country any more. we are -- the value of the dollar has dropped. gas prices are down. we have sanctions against iran. host: do you feel less wealthy than five years ago? caller: i feel well because i

have my health. host: jack in manhattan, earning $15,000. good morning. caller: how are you? the reason why i called, i will never forget a few years ago when this happened. ben stein made a comment. he said it was an insider financial rape. if you look at the late-1980s when we have the savings and loan crisis, there were some people that were prosecuted. this was much larger, much larger. except for bernard madoff, you've not seen any prosecutions at all, because these are the people, the very wealthy, who took even more, they control the process. they are the international financial elite.

they are on wall street and in london. this is what happened. money was illegally confiscated by this international financial elite. take a look at lehman brothers, for example. they went under but the chairman walked away with $400 million. i would like to -- to know why. host: looking at a story in the wall street journal that relates to what jack was talking about, warning flags raised two years ago about the trading loss --

let's go to schenectady, new york, pamela making under $50,000. we're talking about american wealth and how it has declined. you feel less or more wealthy than a few years ago? caller: definitely less. a family of four making $20,000 a year. it is hard to live day-by-day. i have multiple sclerosis and i take medication. when i go to market, we don't get enough food for the week, so we buy the cheapest cuts of meat and it's hard to even at chew it. it has been really tough. i am proud ron paul supporter. people tried to push me to go on medicaid and i refuse to burn the taxpayers. with the gas price, my husband is still working, he will be 70 years old, when he retires this

year, our income will be $10,000 a year periodi am hoping gas prices go down, because food prices are terrible. we could hardly eat during the day for this past week. we have to live within our budget. thanks for doing the show. host: thanks for sharing your story. the wall street journal reports families grew less confident about how much income they could expect in the future. in 2010, over 35% of families said they did not have a good idea of what their income would be for the next year, up from a 31.4% in 2007. norfolk, virginia, michael joins us, making under $50,000. caller: good morning. i just wanted to state that i have been in poverty all my life. i was born into poverty, born into debt. i just don't understand how this

political system and the people that have so much pride in america can just sit around and let these things happen which have been happening for centuries now, yet it is now hitting more suburban neighborhoods. it is now becoming an issue. erie,let's go to neil in michigan. caller:h hi. i would like to comment on your figure of 39%. i moved back from north las vegas after living there for five years. we bought a home over there and was $235,000. it sold at $99,000. a 65% decrease in value. host: 1 has that meant for your family?

caller: it was a big cut out of our wealth. we had to move back here to michigan. host: did you have to leave? caller: no, but my wife had some health problems and wanted to move back to a near the family. host: so what has the house met for your family? caller: we might buy another house someday here. we just moved into a double wide trailer. it's not bad. it's not like having your own home. host: do you feel optimistic or pessimistic about what is in your future? caller: i think somewhat optimistic, yes. i went back to work and i work full time, but it is a little slow now so i'm working two or three days a week. i did make more than $50,000, but less now.

host: thanks for sharing. t.j. writes -- and here are some more details about what the federal reserve study shows. now from indiana char, the mor -- char is calling from iowa. caller: hi. my husband was a grocery store manager. we are basically on our own now. my health insurance has gone

sky high. he had to quit in 1995. so that means our income has not changed at all, but my insurance is sky-high. taxes are going up. medicare -- social security has not gone up in three years, now that it's an election year it has gone up. we got a pay raise. my husband was making $100,000. you never know when a medical situation will come out. i hope they get the health insurance mandated so that everybody pools in. i am doing $540 a month and i'm only 62 years old. he will be 62 in august.

we're living on the same income for 1995. host: did you expect to have this situation? caller: no, never. this is very depressing, very depressing life. medicare is cutting back on everything. host: what do you think the rest of us can learn from what you went through? caller: what we could learn from it? to never over -- well, don't buy a big house or an expensive house and don't live over your means, because you never know what will fall in your lap. host: we're talking about the federal reserve study showing family wealth has fallen 39%,

back to levels of 1992. our last caller talked about health insurance. let's look at a piece in the new york times -- tucson, arizona, william, making between $50,000.100000 dollars. good morning. caller: i am retired navy from tucson, hi. my income has stayed steady, the

same rate as 1997. that's about it. my wages have not gone up much. it's a good thing i am retired navy, otherwise i would've lost my house. my taxes have gone up dramatically, even though the value of my house has gone down. very strange in this county. host: has everything remained steady for you? caller: for me, steady, but my income has not gone up. so i am in a quandary. i would tell everybody, stick with your dreams, but live within your means and stay away from credit cards, because they kill me. host: are you voting today? arizona voters are choosing who will serve the rest of gabrielle giffords' term.

as a special election today. caller: that's not my district. mine is district 5. i voted against our congressman last time. host: let's look at this story briefly, ron barber with his former boss earlier this year, both were injured in the 2011 shooting in tucson. he is going up against a republican contender. we will hear more about the race between ron barber and jesse kelly with a local reporter in a little while. for now we're talking about american wealth. long island, new york, joseph, under $50,000. good morning. caller: good morning. i want to talk about the entitlements that are given out. the right does not want the

entitlement, yet they make money off the entitlements. have a party. i'm independent. i believe in some republican ideals and some democratic ideals. when you have an entitlement, takes to malone's, when they were given out from the government, private sector colleges raise tuition. people like myself, i am lucky, i was a marine and uncovered by the va and i have felt insurance. i also have medicare and medicaid. i also collect a nominal amount of food stamps. however, every time they want to

cut these things, it not only hurts people like myself, it hurts the people making money on that. if we did away with entitlements, i believe it would help a lot more and would lower taxes for people. a safety net -- it would be a better safety net. i pay $134 a month out of my for myat i gues , fet, medicaid. my medicare is taking care of. i have to find a way to live. i have twin boys, also. ,f you look at my grandparents' theiroy cannot pay for

medication. my parents pay for it for them. host: some comments are coming to us on facebook. and you can join the conversation. michael writes that -- modesto, california, niki, over $100,000. good morning. caller: good morning. our family was making $125,000 a few years ago. my husband worked for a government job where he was a security clearance and was a reservist. we ended up having a home that

was worth $400,000, fell to about $130,000. we had to foreclose on our home. my husband's job with security clearance, they don't like you to have any marks on your credit, so we had an investigation. now maybe he could lose his job and we had to file bankruptcy. everything is spiraling out of control. we are making 40% less, because of what happened with our house. it's not all great theater with the people making over $100,000. we're lucky to live in the family home right now. host: where do you go from here? caller: i don't know, because we cannot buy a home. i don't know. i am on disability. it is scary, very scary. i am hoping the election thing changes. all you can do is hope.

host: now some comments on twitter, talking about having a hard time -- sugarland, texas, tracy, over $100,000. good morning. caller: we did make over $100,000, but we used to make a lot more. our income has gone down by 25% since 1990. what i really want to comment on are the people that are having trouble and are making $50,000 or less. one of the problems is the government is spending a lot of money on social programs, but they are not spending any money on trying to give people funds so they can go to school and educate themselves. part of the problem is that virginia college system and the

college system really is not offering programs that allow people to go out and find a good job with the onset of the computers and all that. it really has taken a way a lot of jobs. people that did not have a college education, that is. we need to have more on hands training programs. that's what i think. i know a person that is single, raising two children, and i'm so proud of her because she got funding from the government and went to school to be an x-ray technician. she has just really found a good job and is supporting the family now. she has moved out of subsidized housing. it can be done, but we need more programs like that, more opportunities for people. reno,now let's go to

nevada, sarah, under $150,000. caller: i finished my mba. i was making $128,000 a year. we are now back in the financial position that we were in our 20s. my good friend, she and her husband are living hand to mouth and there's a running discussion between many of us, what do we do now? we're not going to see any of our social security. it will go to our parents. -- dove six the country we leave the country? the days of working 35 years or 40 years at the same company or same industry are over. americans have changed.

we have devalued our dollar so much. i went to buy groceries yesterday. i used to be able to get for $25 is $43. i am appalled at what is going on in this country. switching back and forth this morning, doing a little trading between you and cnbc. i cannot believe it that more people -- it is encouraging when people call into your show, but it's not hitting the news. president obama is not getting my vote in nevada. host: we're looking at americans's wealth, which has dipped back to levels that it was at in 1992, it is fallen 39%. bill tweets --

that poll was conducted late last month. let's hear from mississippi. rose, under $50,000, joining us from meridian. good morning. caller: good morning. thank you for c-span at. me and my husband in the last three years several struggled. we went from $60,000 down to $25,000. he was diagnosed with liver cancer and thrown out of his job after a major liver surgery. seven weeks later he was fired. we had to go on cobra. i do pray that this health-care bill is passed by the supreme

court, if they let it go through, because we so badly need it. we have been living off of savings. it has been a terrible struggle. right now he is trying to get himself an advocate to been to keep going. so it has been a disaster for us. host: do you feel you are in the same boat as other americans? we're looking and our american wealth overall has changed and how they feel about the future. do you think you are in the same boat as other people? caller: we are, except people than have a condition, there's nowhere to go with that. this is the only industrialized country that does not have proper health care system for its people. host: let's look at the federal reserve bulletin that came out

this week. a change in the median and mean that words of americans. it's going up in 2004. dipping back down in 2007-2010. annapolis, north carolina, just and, under $50,000. welcome. caller: how are you? i'm hearing a lot of people complain this morning about the cost of living and how it is the president's fault. and the fault. at the end of the day, we have to be responsible. i am 24. i have three babies. we are under 25 and we are making it. our cars are paid for. we will not go out and sign a loan for $90,000 car when we don't make $90,000 a year. a lot of people don't understand you have to adjust to the times.

gas prices going up, i am not going to cry about it. i get in my car and go to work. i don't understand what the problem is. everybody over 50 years old, my gosh, i've spent all my savings. when you were young, you should've made wiser decisions. we have food stamps and we get medicaid. it's out here. you have to get it. my grandmother paid for it. she worked hard. my mother was a hard worker. they paid for it. for people to sit around and cry about food stamps, you paid for this. that's why we are using food stamps.

the taxes you pay on your house, they help me feed my family. host: let's go to nashville, tennessee, kevin, over $50,000. caller: good morning. i agree with almost everything the last caller said until the got on the food stamps. that is my gripe. there is too much entitlement. people get on food stamps and it is their way of life. any other public assistance including free health care as well. i work hard every day. health care is expensive, and i put it in my budget. i have two kids in college. i put that in my budget. i'm not asking the government to do anything for me. too many people are asking the government to do things for them and people like me have to pay for at. host: how do you feel compared with 20 years ago as far as your own personal wealth? caller: i was working really hard 20 years ago and i still am. i try to live within my means,

save money. i don't have a $90,000 car either. i could probably afford one real easy, go to the bank and borrow the money, but i always lived within my means. my expenses have gone up over the last 20 years. i have two children in college. but i am paying for it. host: the washington post says -- plantation, florida, is joining us on over $100,000 line.

>caller: good morning. there's been a lot of good, simple advice i've heard on the program this morning. that is, simply live within your means. i think the basis for our economic problems today as far as personal finance is concerned is that we got talked out of or gave up on the values recruit up with -- the news that we grew up with. i never in my entire life had a mortgage. the reason for that is i feared that if i had a second mortgage, that would increase the chances that i would lose my house. guess what, it is simple. you know, if you live within your means, you don't care if

your house value is up or down. if you can afford it, it just flows by you. somehow along the way i look back at glass-steagall being repealed, that is a financial marker for me. we changed our values. the banking system changed its values. people's personal values changed. they felt like they could get easy money with the equity of their home and financial institutions were talking them into it. it was really a very bad thing. so i hope going forward people will adopt a simple financial -- a simple financial values that everybody knows works. thank you. host: let's go to the arizona house race. rebekah sanders is joining us. she is a congressional reporter with the arizona republic. good morning. guest: thanks for having me.

host: we're looking at the house race to replace the seat held by congresswoman gabrielle giffords. jesse kelly is a republican and ron barber. is a barber how much support is ron barber getting from his former boss gabrielle giffords? guest: she stayed largely out of the limelight at the beginning and most of the campaign in the primary and general election in tucson, in southern arizona. but in the past three days she has really come out. she attended a voter rally on saturday night and then went around visiting stations where volunteers were calling voters in support of ron barber. then this morning she will be showing up at a polling place with the candidate ron barber and her husband mark kelly to cast her ballot. host: there's a story in arizona

republic by you. how successful is ron barber looking at connecting with voters? guest: up until just yesterday, it really looked like it was going to be a nail biter. it is a tossup district foreshore with slightly higher republican registration than democratic presiregistration. that can help both parties, depending on who is running. yesterday a prominent polling firm came out with a poll saying that ron barber was a huge margin over his opponents jesse kelly. those camps-- both camps were quick to say they were not

seeing the same. it does appear ron barber is pulling ahead in these final days. host: jesse kelly has tea party support and a military background. he lost the raised a couple years ago. guest: jesse kelly has benefited from name recognition in the district. he just narrowly lost in 2010 with the republican tea party wave. he has experience and that has benefited him. he has taken a slightly different approach this time around to present a slightly softer image and has tried to tone down his rhetoric to some extent, which is especially important in this race with all the motions that could still be

wrought after the shooting last year. host: rebekah sanders, thanks for talking with us this morning. we will be watching what happens. virginians are going to the polls today. here is a story from the washington times -- a couple other stories in the news this morning. the commerce secretary is going on leave after he reportedly had seizures, which are said to of caused the car accident that happened over the weekend in california. here's the "washington times report --

there is a contempt vote looming for the attorney general eric holder. here's the story from the new york post -- today the senate judiciary committee looks at the justice department oversight. we will bring that to you here on c-span starting around 10:00. you can see that hearing that involves attorney general eric holder. we will also talk more about this issue in a few moments with our guest ramesh ponnuru. for now let's continue our

conversation about american wealth and whether or not you are feeling the pinch. and if you are having sympathy. wealth has shrunk back to what it was in the early 1990's. janice calling from austin, texas. caller: i am retired now. i'm 65. i have a ph.d., which i earned the last 10 years i have worked. i had a very, very good job when i was 25 and could afford a house at that time. we got a pay raise. it was with the public school district. then i left for my dream of doing medical research. i'm a registered dietitian. so i went to one of our texas medical school's. when i got there, the salary was 15th thousand dollars less than what they had promised me. during the 1990's, six out of the 10 years i was there, which

were the last 10 that i worked, we did not get a raises, six out of the 10 years, which is your retirement. the positions received their 6% like they did every year, but we did not even get our 3%. that was considered cost of living. to make a long story short, there is a program where if you obtained a higher degree, your salary would increase. two years before i finished the ph.d., they ended that. it's been a disaster. host: i hope not. how has this affected you now? caller: i live in the same house i lived in when i was 25. i drive a toyota corolla and am living just like i did when i was 25. i cannot even afford the utility's. we used to be able to keep them

at a reasonable temperature where you could be one in the winter. and it does get cold here. and : the summer -- well, you cannot do that anymore. either you walk around like an eskimo or like you live in hawaii because you cannot afford the utility's. host: sounds like you are back to where you started decades ago. here are some comments on facebook -- charlotte, north carolina, eric, under $50,000, hi. caller: how are you? host: what do you think about this news that american wealth has declined? caller: it's true, but we have

done it to ourselves. i support the man from tennessee. we should not have food stamps and welfare. i was a single father of three girls. i did not have a check coming in because the baby's mother was not there. i did it on my own. i am getting accused now by the state of asking for help for my girls, but i have done it on my own. you are letting the rich people -- i don't understand, we are sitting around talking about it. we're letting a few rich people take over the world. what are? we going to do about sit around and keep talking? talking at host: we will leave it there and go to one last tweet --

coming up next, we will talk with ramesh ponnuru of national review. one of the things we will talk about is the attorney general eric holder and calls by some republicans to hold him in contempt. later, e.j. dionne joins us to talk about the political divide in america. we will be right back. >> nancy pelosi began her career in the u.s. house in 1987. >> mr. speaker, eight years ago this month, the soviets invaded

afghanistan. to no one's surprise, the occupation of a tennis and has turned into a bloody war with no vectors. a group of human rights lawyers from the u.s., britain, sweden, and malta document countless acts of terror perpetrated against the afghan people. >> 25 years later, the current house minority leader and former speaker was honored on the house floor by republican and democratic leaders. once the tributes or for any part of her career in the house on line at the c-span video library. >> pulitzer prize-winning author traveled the globe to research his new book on barack obama, visiting places like kenya and kansas to examine the president's family tree. we will give you a preview with exclusive pictures and videos, including our trip to kenya with the author in january 2010. join us on sunday it 6:00 p.m. easter and later at 7:30. your phone calls, e-mails, and tweets on c-span 2.

>> "washington journal" continues. host: ramesh ponnuru, senior editor at national review, thanks for joining us this morning. guest: glad to be here. host: attorney general eric holder is going before many committees now. darrell issa has said with republican support he would like to move forward on holding eric holder in contempt. is this politically motivated? guest: there's always a political motivation, almost always, behind everything that happens in washington at an official level. i think there's also a real dispute and a real frustration on the part of republicans. there was a subpoena issued in october for the justice department to turn over documents. what darrell issa's staff will tell you -- there are 22 categories of documents they asked for and 13 of those categories to the dust is

department, nothing was provided -- to the justice department. and then partially provided other documents. what is fascinating, when i read these stories, and mr. stories about congressional versus executive wrangling over documents being turned over. you expect at some point they are not releasing the documents because there's a claim of executive privilege, but you never get to that because the justice department has not asserted any legal privilege, it is simply refuse to comply. you can understand why congressman have a certain prerogatives as an equal branch of the federal government and people get frustrated when they are not being complied with for no given recent. host: let's look at a store from fox news --

let's listen to an extent that happened between congressman darrell issa and the attorney general last week. this is a judiciary house hearing. >> have you and your attorneys produced, internally, the materials responsive to the subpoenas? >> we believe we have responded to the subpoenas. >> mr. attorney general, you're not a good witness. a good witness answer the question. let's go back again. have you and your attorneys produced, internally, the materials? have you taken the time to look up are subpoenas and find out whether you have responded or have you simply invented a privileged that does not exist? >> you say internally? >> have you pulled all the information it? >> we have processed millions of

electronic records and reviewed 140,000 documents an. >> how many are new withholding at this time? >> we have produced 7600. but i don't want to hear about 7600. >> i would beg -- >> delays out of order. >> i would beg to allow the attorney general to be able to finish his answer. host: that was the house judiciary committee meeting last week. what do you make of the tone? guest: i think the darrell issa was very testy. i don't think he comes across all that well in that snippet. keep in mind, what is happening is he is asking about all the documents that he has not turned over, like the inspector general who reportedly has 80,000 pages of documents. eric holder is talking about the 7600 that he has produced

instead of answering the question. keep in mind, within the last week, eric holder has testified before congress that e-mails that referred to operation fast and furious were not actually referring to the operation fast. and fast so there's a lot of history going on behind this exchange. host: fast and furious, the program over saw sales of 2000 firearms to support mexican drug cartels in an attempt to curb gun trafficking. we are talking about this story and other news stories with ramesh ponnuru who is a senior

editor at national review. if you would like to join the conversation, call your line. let's go to georgia. and the democrats decline. caller: good morning. when did the program's start and under whom? the next thing i would like to ask your guest, about darrell about a he found out warehouse that could catch on fire that he owns and has no electricity? electricity? first, will you please tell the audience when the program started and what the administration -- and what administration it started under? guest: i cannot answer the warehouse question. i imagine that is a shot at darrell issa, the point man for

the house investigation, and chairman of the oversight committee. on the question of when the operation started, i think what he is getting at is if there was a similar operation under the bush administration called operation wide receiver. fast and furious seems to have been more extensive, but the whole point of having an investigation is we don't know the full extent of who knew what. a good part of this dispute is what did the justice department know and what did it not know and what did the top-ranking people know, including eric holder? that's why we have this, in dispute. it would be, if there were not dead atf agents, where eric holder says that e-mail did not relate to a fast and furious, because the e-mail predates when

anyone in the justice department knew about the operation. host: next caller. caller: i would like to know why they don't get eric holder out of their. he is not very honest anyway. i would like to know where the money comes from to buy those guns that they gave to mexico or sold to mexico and how much money they made off the deal when they sold them back to mexico. guest: is no question that eric holder has been one of the more controversial members of the obama administration. it often seems as though the most controversial, problematic aspects of this administration, seven times out of 10, they come back to eric holder. there have been questions about sugar household a no-confidence vote on the eternal general --

on the attorney general. host: a train generals often come under fire. we saw that with the last administration and the clinton administration. what would it mean to hold? him in hold why is that significant? -- what would it mean to hold him in contempt? guest: it means you have a criminal referral over to the u.s. attorney in d.c., who would then be charged with investigating and trying that case. there are criminal penalties. that is the potential for fines and jail time a tattoo that. it does not happen all that often. it has happened to four time in the last few decades. host: most recently? guest: during the bush justice department attorney firings, where harriet myers and just bolton got contempt citations. host: let's listen to more of

attorney general eric holder testifying before the house traditionally committee last week in response to questions and arizona congressman. >> i've looked at these affidavits. is nothing in those affidavits that indicate gun walking was allowed. so i did not see anything in there that was put on their of a person reviewing either at the line level or the deputy assistant attorney general level, you have knowledge of the fact that inappropriate tactics were being used. host: attorney general eric holder. guest: that's more of the wrangling over what did they know. the question is the justice department had to sign off on these wiretap applications. the question is how extensively worthies reviewed. eric holder says, not very. host: now to the democratic line,. call. caller: good morning.

i have one question. how can congress talk about anyone else when they have their own problems? they can raise their hands to go to war and say who they will protect. the second question is how they can protect the president and then they talk about this man? host: how can congress centerpoint, she's asking. and the grover norquist pledge is something we want to talk about. guest: congress has a constitutional role to have oversight over the executive branch. and part of that is politics and there will always be disagreement over the exercise of those powers.

that goes with the territory. host: and the grover norquist pledge? she was asking about congress making that pledge and what you thought about it. you are a conservative writer at times there there's a story in the new york times, jarrett bush -- on jeb bush. guest: governor bush, before the comments he made yesterday, suggested that it is a mistake for politicians to sign pledges that preclude them from taking a hypothetical positions. for example, during the primary , the republican candidates were asked if they would take a deal

for tax credits, but governor bush said that he would take the deal and that is one of the reasons he is against the pledge. i wonder what the point of this exercise really is. there is no deal on the table with 10 to one spending cuts and tax increases. i did not see the democrats musing about under which circumstances they would change social security benefits formula. i wonder whether this makes sense as a negotiating strategy. host: tough talk about the state of the party by jeb bush from florida who said that ronald reagan and his father would have had a hard time fitting in during the tea party era.

host: is there a division between bush family values and the tea party? guest: unquestionable. the consensus is that the george w. bush administration went astray by being too free with spending. i do not think the contemporary republican party looks fondly the medication prescription drug benefit that was enacted in 2003. host: scott on are independent line, good morning. caller: thank you for taking my call.

everything the government gets the hands-on goes out of control. look at the education costs and the health-care costs and with housing. there is a conspiracy. there is something hidden here. what would they have done to them? what would have happened to the private citizen who sold the these guns to somebody illegal? guest: i'm not inclined to believe the conspiracies of luster is a great deal of evidence supporting it. -- unless there is a great deal of evidence supporting it. a pattern of evidence that would

support gun control. it was not well thought through at all. now there is covering up ineptitude and incompetents. host: we have two different tweets. then we hear from physguy. austin, d.c. -- washington, d.c., george, welcome. caller: congress has a legitimate oversight role to play regardless of the administration in power. i wanted to ask if he was familiar with a writer at the

american spectator and if you the person was. guest: i don't know who that person is. i have seen that column from time to time. i used to see it in the magazine. i read him at the website. host: why is that significant? guest: i have no idea. says he is a libertarian. caller: your first caller may point to say -- that brings up the good points. the republicans and democrats are basically the same. they violate the constitution and over spend like crazy. the operation went bad.

they blamed the stores and the gun owners at the border states to make them look like racists. they got the gun from arizona and texas. it doesn't really matter what party it is. they torched george w. bush. obama is doing the same. host: how do republicans win over the libertarian vote? guest: most libertarians are going to be appalled by the obama administration's record on expanding the size of the government's. . some libertarians have high hopes that it would overturn some of the bush administration

and wind down wars in afghanistan and iraq. those hopes have been dashed. guantanamo bay is still open, all the drone strikes. libertarians are going to probably side with mitt romney over obama in this election. host: how do you motivate them to vote? guest: i think this'll be an interesting election. there's a kind of lack of enthusiasm for romney on the part of the libertarians and there is less enthusiasm for obama among left-winners. -- wingers.

host: we're talking with e.j. dionne who wrote a book about the political divide. you reviewed his book. guest: i looked over and provided a blurb. there's a lot i disagree with the thought it was an interesting and thought- provoking book. host: what do you think of the political divide? guest: i think when people talk about increased polarization in american politics, they are referring to ideological sorting out of the parties. democrats joined republicans. liberal republicans became a liberal democrats. these parties have now become more ideologically based. this is what political

scientists of the 1950's and 1960's said we should have this choice. it is not that conservatives are more conservative and that liberals are more liberal. this is an inevitable development once race and the civil war stop becoming the dividing line. you end up looking at some issues that should not be ideological through an belen ideological lens. host: we will be speaking with e.j. dionne later in the show. let's hear what judy has to say. caller: thank you for c-span and your wonderful guest. i would like to ask him -- there

what did he have to say about the bush administration refusal to answer subpoenas from the 9/11 commission, their refusal to take the oath of office before any testing, their refusal to investigate and hold accountable those responsible for the world's record in gun-, and anfraud and running in iraq. even turkey complained. what action was taken? guest: great question. the caller should be on the judiciary committee and would be a very effective spokesman for the democratic party.

i'm not sure that everyone of the several controversies that were just mentioned there were subpoenas that were not complied with. in general, i think the republican party -- i am not familiar with his record specifically. i think it was much too acquiescent to the bush administration staunch rule of running interference as opposed to providing oversight. this is a problem when we have a unified government and an argument for divided government because he did not see much oversight of the obama administration during the first twotiontw's years.

host: ramesh ponnuru is the senior editor at "national review." let's take a look at the peace that cannot last night about the wisconsin election. host: you are talking about the recall event. what to you think the big myths are that democrats are perpetrating about the election? guest: the democrats have control right now. it is sort of a -- i think a lot of the mythology about this

race goes under the heading of excuses for why the left lost, why walker was retained. i think the principle excuse that people are making -- walker outspent the democratic candidate by a huge margin. people are deciding how much they each spent and they are not counting all the outside groups and all the union spending. you are reversing cause and effect. if the democrats thought they had public opinion on their side, they would have spent more. the parallel i draw is to the 2008 race. the republicans lost it so badly.

very few republican said, "obama outspent mccain." the fact that obama had more money to spend was a reflection of his greater political strength and not because of it. host: the supreme court is deciding which cases to take for next year. they probably will revisit citizens united. it is working its way through the court. do you think that could be a game changer? guest: i do not think citizens united -- with his narrative about campaign spending changing election. one said this campaign was just

about money. the citizens united decision of the supreme court supposedly on unleashed all of this campaign spending. very rarely are they saying, " here's specific spending that is now legal." it is a dangerous argument. i have not seen the argument made in any detailed way. things were legal before, during, and after citizens united. host: good morning. caller: at what point does a conspiracy theory become a fact?

this gun-running thing began in the bush administration. the government -- we can follow 8 connect the dots about how many airplanes crash with cocaine in them. try to shred as much evidence as you can. banks being caught laundering $36 million and paid $8 million fine. this goes on year after year. i hear this stuff all the time. where does the heroine go? it just disappears? how often does is have to happen before the theory becomes reality? that is something that nobody wants to discuss. host: ramesh ponnuru.

guest: i think the federal war on drugs has been a long running mistake. the vast majority of the public in both parties have supported it. it is being rethought in latin america. there's been a rethinking he read home about the war on drugs as it pertains to marijuana. the fundamental reason for it perverse policy that has sometimes been corrupting has been not a conspiracy but a consensus on the part of the public. host: connie joins us from bowie, maryland. good morning. caller: another innovation is going on is the reason that eric holder could turn over some of the documents.

and another thing is it was out all and tobacco and firearms agency that was over the gun- running in arizona. alcohol and tobacco found out firearms -- it comes under the department of justice. the gun-running started under bush. alcohol and tobacco and firearms were there. that is why it took a long time to get to eric holder. eric holder has worked under the justice department between republicans and democrats. he worked under reagan and then he worked under clinton as assistant attorney general, and now under clinton as attorney general. guest: one thing we've seen is

that there is now this talking point that nothing has changed and all this started under the bush administration, so what's the big deal? look, if there is evidence that members of the bush justice department knew that the same operation was going on, let's hold them accountable. we don't have all the evidence about what eric holder knew. that is what this is about. we cannot evaluate these charges without having all the information. we cannot do that unless the justice department turns over all the documents. eric holder is not get to decide which documents are convenient to turn over. host: here's what the justice

department spokesperson said -- guest: that sounds like the talks are going well. it is not as though the subpoenas were issued two weeks ago. the administration has had plenty of time to comply. caller: good morning. thank you for taking my call. my 30 years of military service tells me he is probably going to lie about this question the same as he lied about when it

started. host: which "he" are you talking about? caller: i'm talking about your guest. he was first asked and did not tell the truth. it was the same operation and he knows that. he also mentioned about the closing of guantanamo bay. is gitmo still open because the president wants it open or congress refused to close it? host: what do think about guantanamo bay? guest: it wasn't just republicans in congress. the administration was not able to come up with a workable

alternative. the campaign rhetoric did not make sense. host: do you want to respond to the allegations that he said you were lying? guest: i think he is under the grip of a strong partisan emotion. i honor his service as a veteran. host: kim from houston, texas. caller: he was called a liar. he was not a liar. the sidewinder operation started and ended during the bush era because it did not work. fast and furious is completely different. that was stateside polite because i just heard that caller -- that was a side point.

does anybody really think that eric holder was even competent for that job? when he was asked about the marc at h pardon he said that th it was given to him by somebody else. the fact that he is in, but it should not surprise anyone. guest: thank you for the call and support. let's say that there was the exact same operation that happened. we did not have an atf agent killed and it is still a question of what did the top officials know. if they decided to continue this operation, then the members of

this administration are still culpable. we still need the information to answer these questions. host: we talked about the supreme court. the health-care decision is expected this week. there was a tweet yesterday -- how do you read the tea leaves and get a sense of what is happening behind closed doors at the supreme court? guest: there is always a lot of buzz around high-profile cases at the supreme court. mill.re's a rumor i talked to people near the supreme court.

we all watched or listened to the oral arguments. my impression from the oral arguments is that you did have the 5-4 majority that was leaning towards in validating the mandate. and i have heard the happen second thoughts on the part of chief justice roberts, a certain amount of caution in wanting to think this through. he is been under pressure from the left saying there will be political consequences, that the court and roberts would be attacked if he went through with that decision. i think there have been some second thoughts but in the end, i suspect roberts will stick with the conclusion that the

individual mandate is unconstitutional and that this will then be struck down. host: do you think that kennedy and roberts are likely to side the same way? guest: i was responding to speculation that kennedy was going to vote to strike the mandate down but that roberts would be on the other side. it seemed highly unlikely that roberts would allow a 5-4 split to uphold the mandate. host: barber on the democrat's line -- barbara. good morning. caller: i would like him to explain why they did not go back and find out why bush wanted to go to war in iraq. that was a family disputes. they had done nothing to us.

bush knew they did not have weapons of mass destruction. i do feel sorry for that guy that was killed on the border. we lost 4000 over there for nothing. body-- if they would go back, our country would care if bush got in. he was wanting for grover norquist. our country went down hill and it ain't going to come back as long as grover norquist is running the country. guest: i think all that is ridiculous. there is no evidence that bush knew that there were weapons of mass destruction. they decided to go to war in iraq has been extensively

litigated and nobody has turned up that kind of evidence. as for grover norquist, let's step back here. it is not like he is a puppet master. they signed the pledge because they thought it would be politically advantageous for them to do so because most people do not like tax increases. that's the fundamental reason for the power that is attributed to grover norquist. host: mike from seattle, washington. caller: good morning. the guest sounds intelligent. eric holder was involved. -- or somehow knew about this.

do you believe that the intention for fast and furious was to identify how guns were being smuggled or routed through mexico, or do you believe that the intention was for the atf agent to die? that is a loaded question. do you believe this is based on the health-care bill that is coming up-- do you believe there is anything in the health care bill that is positive for the american people? one deals with eric holder -- host: we heard your question.

he thought he looked intelligent and smiled. guest: thank you for the complement. i have a pretty low opinion eric holder at the justice department. i do not want to believe that they wanted what happened to brian terry to happen. it was kind of take hairbrained schemes that went bad, as hairbrained schemes are wont to do. they're not being as forthcoming as they should. it would be surprising if legislation that long did not have something positive in a it. on balance, it is quite bad. the right thing to do is to

scrap it and start over. there are a number of ideas for other things that can be done. i have written a lot about health care policies over the years. a poor as it is to repeal obamacare -- they are talking about the letting people under age 26 stay on their parents' health insurance. i'm not by any means suggesting that the problems it has meant to address are not real problems. i think the solutions are a mistake. we have had federal policy that has encouraged people to get your health insurance to their employers and has had a lot of perverse consequences.

when you lose your job, you lose your health insurance. it is a problem that should be addressed by going to the new federal policy that has incurs that unfortunate arrangements. host: ramesh ponnuru, a senior editor at "national review." up next, we'll talk with e.j. dionne. he has a new book out, "our divided political heart." then we'll look at the commodity futures trading commission with chairman gary gensler. first a news update. >> 8:31. isrida's standard ground law getting in other look. the governorng by

task force on citizens' safety and protection will take place a few miles from where trayvon martin was killed. this is the first of several meetings in florida to examine the law. the proposal to ban large sugary drinks would apply only to a sweetened drinks that contain more than 25 calories per eight ounces. this is the first time a city has proposed such a ban. new yorkers are divided on the ban. half say near bloomberg has gone too far. john bryson is taking a medical leave to resolve the health issues that arose over the weekend. there -- he apparently

suffered a seizure before a pair of traffic accidents. tens of thousands of russians have gathered for the first massive protests against president flutter putin -- vladimir putin. some key opposition figures are being called in for questioning today. and those of some headlines. [video clip] >> nancy pelosi began her career in the u.s. house in 1987. >> mr. speaker, as you know, eight years ago this month, the soviet union invaded afghanistan. to no one's surprise, the

occupation of afghanistan has turned into a bloody war with no victors. a group of human rights lawyers from the united states, britain, sweden, and malta documents countless acts of terror perpetrated against the afghan people. >> 25 years later, the current house minority leader and former speaker was honored on the house floor by republican and democratic leaders. watch those tributes or any part of her career in the house online at the c-span video library. >> "washington journal" continues. host: e.j. dionne is our guest. thank you for coming in this morning. guest: i begin the book talking about decline. i think we have a lot less in us as a country. we have gone through these bouts of decline suggest we have a pretty high opinion about ourselves.

fears of decline had been the underlying theme for the last 56 years. -- five or six years. ou think back to obama's slogans. one was the famous poster with "hope" underneath. when we go through the declining periods, we go to a spiritual crisis. that is why the obama campaign had a religious quality. i think we're still going through that. unemployment is still over 8%. one thing that happens is that

we think a lot about the question, who are we? what does it mean to be american? we try to figure out who we are. i argue we do not know who your because we can figure out who we have been. this takes issue with the tea are.'s analysis of who we it makes sense to go back to the beginning. host: e.j. dionne writes in his book -- host: of the optimists or are we pessimists -- are we optimist's

or we pessimists? guest: i favor line is from winston churchill where is that americans always to the right thing after first exhausting all the other possibilities. we have a great capacity for self-correction. tocqueville was struck by this capacity for self correction. from the beginning we have been torn by a deep but healthy tension of our love of community and our sense that liberty requires a concern for the common good if we're going to state a free people. we tilt one way or another in the balance. we work best when we are in balance. it is a balance between private

market and government, and between private and public. i go back and look at lincoln and hamilton and clay. it goes all the way back to hamilton, clay, and lincoln, who thought government could do a lot of things to build the country. clay talks about investing in its internal improvements. that is a nicer term for " infrastructure." we act as if government is a new force in american life. we should look for a continuation of this balance, which is i think what makes us a great nation. host: e.j. dionne writes --

if you would like to talk, here are the numbers to call -- republicans, 202-737-0001. democrats, 202-737-0002. independents, 202-628-0205. caller: good morning. i heard mr. dionone make the statement, who are we? like the we acknowledge the fact that the country was stolen, people were killed, robbed. you always talk about your ancestry. black folks cannot talk about how their ancestors came over here.

we want to talk about who were w were. that's who we were. we were thieves and robbers. guest: thank you for that. i talk about waste and slavery and their struggles to make ourselves a fair country. i want to engage because i think people on the progressive side of politics have not battled or have not embraced our history. we began as a country that had slavery written into the constitution. the founders made a series of compromises. one of them was to continue to permit slavery. as americans reflected on that

history, they came to see that the promises of the declaration of independence and the promises of the constitution were opposed to slavery and for the way we treated african-americans. i talked in the book a lot about lincoln and martin luther king. they went back to the founding documents. i have a commentary of martin luther king's "i have a dream" speech. he talks about the promise of america that was not ckept. he said there was a promissory note that came back stamped " insufficient funds."

you see the steady advance of a more democratic view and the advance of the quality. those are inherent in the american promise. that did not come without a lot of struggle. african americans played a huge role in demanding their rights that they got after reconstruction. so, african-americans are very much a part of the story that i have to tell. i think it is could the united states is promising equal for everybody. host: the new book is "our divided political heart." e.j. dionne teaches at georgetown university and writes for "the washington post."

guest: i struggle with that in the book. alatas tea party members -- a lot of tea party members belong to pta's. i have some political questions. i do think what the tea party has embraced is a radical individualism which i think is different from the traditional american individualism. own and were on our make ourselves. government is suspicious when people like me talk about the common good. there wonder if that is a term used by socialists.

the real battle is between a radical individual that the seats only liberty as the american promise verses a more tempered american individualism which sees liberty as the american promise. host: steve in arizona, welcome. caller: hi. it seems like the morale is low. people turn on the tv and the see the national debt and everything, but the local communities and not being able to cover the costs. it is this thing where there is never enough funding for anything. people get tired of that. they do not see why they cannot

balance the books better. --y think people's morality every time the turnaround, it is about the debt. i think they should be a little more creative, like sell off some land or some assets. do whatever it takes to get it right. host: you talk about that negative mode. od. do you see that when you look at individual american experience? we have a headline in "usa today." is it personal? caller: you see a general sadness. it seems like they are not

trying hard enough to balance. even the local governments, there is never enough. "we are $1 million behind, we are $1 million in the red." guest: thank you for your comment. i think there's a lot of unhappiness in the country. we took a big wallop in this financial mess. at the local level, you are seeing a contraction of revenue, even with tax rates. you're taking in less money because the value of people's houses have gone down. i think when you talk about the debt question, a big piece is

the economic downturn. we would feel better if unemployment was unemploymentwas 4%. some created rainy-day funds, but some of those rainy-day funds got exhausted. how many jobs we have lost at the local level? that famous gaffe by president obama when he said the private sector was doing fine. we at least had some job growth in the private sector. we have lost a lot of jobs in the public sector, jobs we did not lose under ronald reagan.

government grew more in the reagan recovery that did it during the obama recovery. we need a conversation about the deficit. i did not see how we will achieve balance unless we have some combination of cuts and tax increases. we need some tax increases. we are an aging population. health care costs have risen. we have to figure out how to contain a that. i wish we could repeal the aging of the baby boomers. how are we going to pay when all these people retire and still approach a balanced budget?

we've been kind of stymied because people have not been willing to say, "we need to raise some taxes." host: you said government is the solution in your "the washington post" column yesterday. guest: i get frustrated with my side of the argument. conservatives have been waging a focus campaign for over 30 years in government. ronald reagan said government is the problem. often they do not directly defend government. they say, "i'm really for the private sector." liberals become out and say we can solve the problems.

liberals should say, "we believe government so much as a useful tool and we wanted to work better than it does." look at the economy. there is a consensus that the stimulus greeted around 3 million jobs and probably kept the economy from going back into recession. sluggish growth suggested we needed a bigger one. i think that they should say that it creates jobs directly by supported local governments but it puts money in the pockets of people who can then suspended. then private sector jobs are created. liberals should stop being so

fearful of polls. there have been real discontent with government going back to vietnam and watergate. that is a long time ago. you have to deal with the dissatisfaction with government. throughout our history, we have used government to make us a stronger and better country. host: caller from buffalo, new york. caller: how would you explain the war on poverty and the ruloe of big government? things have gotten worse. there has been trillions of dollars invested in this.

and your bigotry against the catholic church. buddy.e your hair,cut, guest: i am a catholic and i love the church. beyond that, i think that a lot of what i believe comes from me being a catholic. the church has taught us about our obligations to each other and to the least among us. on the healthcare law, i thought they had a right. i don't think the health-care lot included coverage for abortion. i had a lot of conversations with people in the church about

that. i worry that the signals of some of the bishops are signals that are pushing the church well to the right of were used to be 20 years ago. or more than 20 years ago -- they were putting out statements about nuclear war and the economy. i did not say my conservative friends or any less catholic than i was because they disagreed with the direction that the bishops were taking. i hope my friends did not tell me that i am anti-catholic. on the war of poverty, we should sit down at a tavern in buffalo and have a long argument. i did not agree that the war on poverty did not work. food stamps have put food on the

table for many poor people, particularly poor people that work for a living. headstart has given opportunities to kids who might not have had those opportunities. i could go on. senator morning on -- moynihan once said of that period, "there were more successes then we wanted to know." the economy has turned down. i reject the premise of the question that the war on poverty failed. i think there were a lot of programs that make the country lot better. almost all the citizen -- senior

citizens think they're better off because medicare became the law of the land. host: we talk about community and individualism, those values. in and asks -- guest: that is a great question. i tried to be careful about that. there are times when -- there twice different. community committee neighborhood you live-in and all those organizations that are not exactly part of the government or part of the private economy like little league and elk's club and veterans administrations. i get very troubled when we see

government as only the round of them. government is the realm of us. it is something we have under our own control and we have a right to exercise that control. there are times when : government when there is too much concentrated power in certain private hands. woodrow wilson talked a lot about in the progressive era. this system of countervailing power. we do not want to much power in government. we do not like it when monopolies exercise too much power over us even though they do not have government authority behind them. i like to think of this book as a call to balance in a lot of spheres and that is one of them. i appreciate the question.

take a look in the book because i go into more detail. that is one thing my editor pushed me on. host: christopher in new york state. hi, christopher. caller: i'm 54 years old and have worked 35 years of life and never collected a check of unemployment in my life. now i'm on disability. i'm afraid if the republicans get into office that might disabilities will probably becom cut. i am wondering how soon or how far from the election obama could have a state of the union address -- or president obama, i should say. a state of the union address to

make his side of the argument saying the republicans are the obstruction to the government? i'll take my answer off the air. guest: thank you. president obama was giving speeches like that for a while. a free speech was the one he gave in kansas. i like that speech better than anybody except the president of the chamber of commerce biggest that was the place where teddy roosevelt gave a famous speech on the new nationalism. he talked a lot about our obligations to each other and he did mention that the jobs bill that he proposed, most has

been bottled up in the congress. right tok that you're raise this as a broader question in the campaign. that question is a cent - question- what doo-doo we do whn some of us fall onto a hard times? it troubles me that people who get government benefits are always seen as leading on the community because they do not want to work. we invest in people in this country. we invest in people on the front end. i got government student loans

and scholarships to go to college as well as social security survivors' benefits. i havei think we also ought to e this as investing in our fellow human beings. i do not think we should be, at all, unhappy about the fact that we help people in that situation. again, i think we ought to speak out forcefully on that. we ought to speak out more about the support of people in our country. i think that is something in an election that people are reluctant to say. i appreciate your call. good luck to you. host: obama to revisit economic debate. with ideas proposed by his republican opponent, mitt romne.

we will see more of that. and meanwhile, mitt romney is going on a bus tour. do you think the president is playing defense right now, rather than the offensive drive of progressives that you are talking about? in "the washington post" it was said that it has been a rough week. guest: i think the last week to 10 days he has been on defense. when the good jobs numbers were coming out and looked like we might crete to order thousand jobs a month between now and election day, if those numbers had held, the president would be a much better shape now. they did not talk as much in that. -- in that period.

in retrospect, they should have stayed on the offensive on that jobs bill and said, wait a minute, we have not done our job yet. congress is blocking it. back in the fall, when they were getting away on this, they got parts on the payroll tax cuts. i think they are now returning to where they should have been. i think i agree with the underlying premise. i think the president going forward is going to run a tactical campaign. president bush ran a pretty effective campaign against john kerry in 2004. i think he does have to give, in order to make that argument with romney about the future of government, between now and the election, he will have to lay

out, here is what i am going to do. here is what i will continue doing in here is what i'm going to get done for middle-class people. and did what i will get done for the budget problem. there is a piece in "the new yorker" about what obama would look like if he got reelected. i think they need to lay that out with more specificity. i have a hunch that the logic of the campaign will get to that. host: e.j. dionne, we are joined and the republicans line. caller: my question was to stay on topic, about your political view. i think it is a part of our lives. but the fact that technology makes sure that the normal person doesn't know how it works.

host: are you still with us? caller: i am still with us. they do not know how it gets -- how it works. the earlier caller was talking about taxes and debts. loans is very skewed how it works. it's divided because we do have a power. politics can become superpowers, almost in a way. like how the gods in rome were compared to normal people. guest: it is an interesting thing you said at the end of the romans. we forget how radical what the founders did it was at that moment, that a large part of the world, most of the world, was covered at that time through monarchies.

and these guys were republicans. they believe that people could govern themselves. i think the notion of looking at our government as if this is simply a continuation of low monarchal rule, this is not the system that we have. the founders are people who would want to put chains around this about how we might innovate in order to spawn -- in order to solve problems that they did not conceive of does no one could have. the founders were very, very brave and adventurous people who were -- who had remarkably radical ideas for the time. ideas that worked out quite well for the country. a lot of them are business people. a lot of them were planters. they broke with a very long tradition that some people cannot govern themselves.

they said, yes, people can govern themselves. glad you made that analogy to rome. i think our system is quite at the medical to the republic. host: keep the town civil. this is an average difference on 48 value questions broken up by key demographics. piquancy party or political affiliation has the biggest jump -- you can see party or political affiliation has the biggest jump where does that get us? guest: it is a real proble your guest before i was here is a friend of mine. we like to talk politics. we disagree on some things.

we agree on some things. he was kind enough to say something nice about my book on the back. i like to argue in a civil war with conservatives. i grew up -- and i think it is true of a lot of people -- in a very diverse family. our things giving and christmases were always characterized by these political arguments. one of my greatest uncles was somebody i spent 35 years are doing politics with. i learned a very young that you could like someone and even love someone and have political differences with them. i confess like to be a sinner on this front myself. i agree with that. i wish we could find ways -- also, this agreement will try to make progress. there are some arguments for you can exchange ideas to get to the solution to a problem. some of that is a fun.

in terms of that ping-pong ball , you should really take a look at that. i think no matter what your point of view is, you'll find it and lightning. what struck me about it was, and obviously, if you wrote a book, everything becomes harder if you're making an argument for the book, what particular struck me was the shift to the white republicans on core questions having to do with government. the question was, and i am paraphrasing here, should government help people who cannot help themselves? republicans as dropped about 20 points and that question. democrats hardly changed at all. you have seen the conservative movement shipped to the right of where it used to be.

in my book, i talked a lot about the kinds of conservatives i really admire. historically, it has a strong devotion to community. in one of his last books, it was called "gratitude" where he talked about how we all owe something back to a society that protected us and nurtured us. i think conservatives need to rediscover this side of their own creed. i thought quite a bit about compassionate conservatism. i don't think it is a terrible idea. at a lot of conservatives are walking away from it because they see some failures in the bush presidency. i did dig bush put an of resources behind it, but i was sympathetic to it as the idea. -- put enough resources behind

it, but i was sympathetic to it as the idea. it created a very positive picture of the united states. host: here is more from that pew research center. it has grown, looking at 1987 and the difference in values vs. 2012. you can find out more about that at the pew website. let's get a few more calls in. william, independent scholar, tennessee. caller: good morning, c-span. i appreciate the open window that c-span provides for the american people. all the advances of our government are giving us what is going on and the government today. guest: i agree very much. i think all this of a debt to this institution.

thank you for that. thank you for c-span. caller: i want to tell you, also, this is an exception. the gentleman you have on today, i admire his stance -- you know, he does not show any fear or shame about his faith toward a living god, which is so important in this generation of hours. what i want to talk a lot as we set about when obama came into office. he did have the christian nation coming to him when he promised accountability and transparency. it is unfortunate. i think your title should have been corruption in the u.s. is is divided. that is something you do not want in charge. host: how do you think that

relates to politics today? you mentioned that he did have the religious community. where does that leave us now? caller: where we are at right now is that we have three branches of government. all three branches have promised three major reforms for our people. all three have failed. the reason why is, number one, there is some much hypocrisy in our political leaders. number 2, there is not any accountability which means they are not worried about repentance. number 3, there is going to be accountability and there will be punishment provided. host: let's get a response from e.j. dionne on accountability. guest: thank you. i could not tell if he was talking about altman political -- altman accountability or political accountability --

accountability or political accountability. our system does provide for it in a lot of ways. the results of the last election and the several elections before suggested that the american people were unhappy with the way things were going. in 2006 and 2008 they expressed unhappiness. in 2010 day expressed unhappiness with the direction that president obama and the democrats were taking. in the biggest sense, i think we do have victims of accountability. i think that through the media, and i am worried about the prices, you have a forms of accountability where wrongdoing can be expos. you have congressional hearings which can be abused and have been abused in our history. you have places where

accountability takes place. we might just disagree in terms of the administration. i don't see the administration as i usually lacking in transparency. i am a journalist. i probably think all administrations are not as open as they should be and do not answer as many questions as they should. i'm not sure i see the obama administration against this anymore than any other administration. in certain respects, i think the internet has put a lot of information out there. anyway, i appreciate the call. host: two tweets. he said some the are like you to get a response to appear in who we were is irrelevant. the world values who we are now. your book talks about looking at

in the past so we could better understand our future. guest: first of all, on divided government i think it can work and has worked. but it does not work when people are so far apart. again, in the book i argue that we govern ourselves under a long consensus from teddy roosevelt right there reagan and bush where we acknowledge there was a significant role a government template in the context of the country where the economy was largely private. we work these things out so that president reagan could achieve some compromise on social security and balancing the budget. president bush used the federal government through the and no child left behind act to try to reform schools. obviously, some of the peat -- some of the tea party did not

like. we are not operating within a broad consensus. i think that is what this election is about. we refresh the broad consensus or do we go overboard? they have decided that they want to move on to something else. we will have that argument for the next several months. the second question was? host: why is it important to look to the past? guest: this may go back to a much earlier caller. the fact that i'm catholic, i think the traditions in which we operate have a real affect on us. there is a great line from a religious scholar at yale who said that traditionalism is the dead tradition of the living. tradition is the living of the dead. we sometimes look back at our

own lives and teachers taught us that they shaped who we are. but you are quite right that we are in a very different world than the founders were in. but when we look back at the traditions from which we come, i think we see that we have a set of promises to keep and commitments that i think are still valuable to us in this present day. host: e.j. dionne, author of "our political -- our divided political heart." thank you for being here. coming up next, we will continue our look at u.s. financial agencies with gary gensler. a first, this news update from c-span radio. >> at 9:18 here are some of the

headlines. states expect to add -- to collect higher revenues. this is according to a new survey out today by the national governors' association and the national association of state budget officers. the increase could increase pressure on states to lay off workers. modest growth have boosted sales and income taxes which provide nearly 3/4 of state revenue. many states are still continuing to struggle with budget shortfalls and some, not just california, are saying that a greater revenues only after raising taxes. the church of england is objecting to the government's proposal to allow gay marriage. in a document released today, it says that its historic understanding of marriage is that it is the union of a man and woman. the church of england says that case can already in germany the

illegal benefits of marriage through several partnerships. -- that gays can already enjoyed many of the legal benefits of marriage through civil partnerships. the justice department and the drug enforcement administration says that he manufactured drugs in afghanistan's border with pakistan and a sense heroin to more than 20 countries, including the u.s.. the profits were used to support a high-level members of the caliban and their insurgency in afghanistan. he faces a maximum of life in prison. an iranian news agency has reported that they have started their first nuclear submarine. this said that i ran has developed what they call "peaceful" nuclear technology. they have been at odds over the

nuclear program. pakistan's former ambassador to the u.s. could face charges of treason for asking america for help. an investigation has concluded that they did write a letter to officials last year. it is following the u.s. raid that killed osama bin lawtoden. finally, residence and middlebrow massachusetts have voted to make the foul mouth among them face fines for swearing in public. they approved a proposal from the police chief to impose a $20 fine on public profanity. those are some of the latest headlines on c-span radio. >> its has been 40 years since the watergate scandal began. this weekend, but c-span radio

will play recorded conversations with president nixon guarding -- regarding the break-in. >> is is growing at daily. it is compounding to magically daily now. i explained some of the details of why it is. basically, people are going to start perjuring themselves very quickly. >> hear more of the nixon tapes of this saturday. nationwide we are on xm channel 119. and streaming on c-span.org. "washington journal" continues. host: we have been focusing on

federal agencies. we began with the chairman of the securities and exchange commission. today, we focus on the commodity futures trading commission. the chairman of that commission joins us right now. he is gary gensler. it chairman, thank you for joining us. how to explain about your organization and what it does? guest: we have two market regulators. you may be more familiar with the securities and exchange commission. president roosevelt requested another to see the commodities market. it is a department of agriculture. we overseas markets for contract that help people locked in a price. originally it was for corn and wheat. a farmer and wanted to lock in a

price of their corn or wheat at harvest time. later, complex products. it is today known as a swaps which is part of the problem in the 2008. it is a bright light shining in the market. just as there are in a securities market. host: can you explain the role of derivatives and its role in the market? guest: derivatives include both the historic product called futures and the more recent product called swaps. it is a vast market. it is measured in size over $300 trillion. there is over a $15 of trevelyan's for for every quarter in the economy. that is just the swaps.

why does it matter to the american public? it matters if you buy gas at the pump, how the price of oil is a set. because somebody in our economy is using a derivative to lock in the rate of interest, the currency, or a commodity price somewhere in the economy. host: according to figures that come from the ctfc, you're dealing with stuff that was formed in 2011. the bite of the swaps market are about $300 trillion. guest: that is correct. what does that mean? $37 trillion of futures and $300 trillion of swaps. that means, somewhere in the economy, if you fill up a tank of gas, or in these days, sometimes $70, you can think summer and the economy there is between $1,000.1500 dollars

behind the pack of gas. -- $1,500 and dollars behind the pack of gas. they want to make sure the price goes up and down and somebody else there's that to rest. usually, a speculator on the other side of the market. host: if the average person wants to see who goes on with the swaps, is there transparency? guest: wall street understands the markets, but as we found in 2008, the american public had a risk on the other side. there is currently not the new york stock exchange listing all those prices every day. even the chicago mercantile exchange lists the prices. the agricultural products like

corn, wheat, and oil, most people remember on the bottom of the screen this s&p 500 future. that is a derivative on the stock market. host: these things were brought to light? guest: very much so. a product called credit default swaps, a fancy word for sank by some insurance on credit. if homeowners were not default on their mortgages, credit defaults loss or at the heart of the crisis. there were not transparent. it is only with dodd frank we will get much that needed -- much-needed transparency. host: here are the numbers to call. the number to call for our democrat line is 202-737-0001. the number to call for our republican line is 202-737-0002. the number to call for our independent line is 202-628- 0205. if you want to send a say tweet

-- send us a tweet. the commission was created in 1974. what role do you play now under dodd frank? how have you changed as an agency? host: under this new law, some agencies to oversee this market. now, we often oversee these contracts called interest-rate swaps. we will bring some common sense rules. yes, they have to tread on transparent exchanges. yes, the public has to see the pricing. yes, we have to lower the risk of these contracts. host: as an example, jamie dimon jpmorgan is set to testify

this week. what happened with him, could that have been prevented? making it more transparent? guest: we have been investigation in the matter, i will not dive into the specifics to compromise that, let me talk more generally. credit driven products, those that were trade by j.p. morgan's london office, they come under the new financial reforms. we are mid stream. we're standing up to their regime. a lot of wall street are pushing back and asking that we slow down. but after four years from the crisis and two years after the law, i believe it is time we have to get this done. would they cover these products? yes. what we have more transparency in these products? absolutely, yes. should our rules cover the trading in london of a u.s. bank? i would say, absolutely.

yes. if we do not, it would be a retreat from reform. person on wall street, a banker, what is my perception of what your agency does? guest: some have respect for what we are doing. we have a job to look out for the american public. the system fundamentally a failed in 2008. wall street and washington regulatory systems failed. i think we have to address that and make it better. there is a lot of push back and debate. i hope they also respect that we have a bit of a different role. host: our guest, gary gensler. washington, d.c., your up first on our democrats' line. caller: my question has

basically, i think, been answered, in part, by gary gensler. i would like clarification. has the dodd frank bill corrected all the abuses of the financial sector? and if not, would reinstating glass-steagall solve that problem? guest: thank you for the problem. -- thank you for that question. my mentor, the problem in dodd frank. i think, yes, i have stayed in touch with her. she is one of our advisers on the joint advisory panel of the fcc. she has been a wonderful advocate for reform. there is still a lot of push back from wall street, of course. but i think that the dodd frank

financial reform and bodies overseeing the swaps that she had pushed for. host: and she asked what the impact of glass-steagall over which you do. guest: these banks have grown ever larger since the 1990's. when there is risk in one part, whether it is in london or the cayman islands or anywhere overseas, even though the jobs in the markets might be overseas, the risks come right back here. i think it is why we have to make sure we do not retreat from reform and cover these complex institutions, wherever they happen to risk. and ensure that international regulation protect the american public. host: kentucky, your next for our guest. this is the republican line. caller: good morning. i wanted to see which are comment was on commodities,

especially with these compared secret transactions concerning like gold and silver. how people are able to hide their treasuries without paying taxes. -and a commodity to trade for a domestic product. also, how marijuana at would be included as a secret transaction to gain revenue, possibly to distinguish our lower taxes. host: i am sorry. i did not mean to cut to off. guest: futures products for silver and gold and other commodities, some of the things you mentioned, and nothing there are futures at or swaps on. some of those are illegal substances.

what we ensure is that the markets are transparent. that is important with silver and gold and speculators in the market not have an outside position. one of the things we're putting in place, it is still a work in progress, our position limits on speculators and the energy markets and in the silver and gold markets, which had not existed prior to dodd frank but had existed in the 1980's end- 1990's. host: and a speculator is? guest: hedgers and speculators meet in the marketplace. we go back to a farmer. they are naturally hedging their harvest. but what at harvest time someone on the other end of that transaction. on the other side, it could be

you. it could be my mom. it could be a large pension fund who says, i think the price of corn will go up or down. i will take the other side of that transaction. that is traditionally called a speculator. our markets today, producers and merchants on the make of a minority. for corn and wheat it is only 30% to 40%. for oil and natural gas it is only 15% of the market. hedge funds, swap dealers, other financial parties. usually called a speculator. host: that is when mortgages came back into play in the 2008? there pakistan to some kind of device to head back? guest: -- they were being packaged into some kind of device to hedges that?

guest: investors around the globe, whether they be pension funds investing you are my pension money, or hedge funds which are usually investing institutions money often come into these markets. sometimes for mortgages, which that is another regulator. that is not our regulatory system. but those would be overseen in these contracts that transfer of risk. host: new york, go ahead, independent line. caller: i would just like to make a couple of comments. first of all, in terms of credit default swaps, they're not a certain kind of insurance. they are, in fact, insurance. the reason they cannot be called insurance is if they were, they would have to go and see that if aig had any funds to back up

those insurance policies. i also think the worst of the trading is especially staples like rice. five men consider around -- it might be a woman, nowadays, consider around the table, play poker, and when they walked out, someone is $0.50 billion up. the price of rice as of 20% and millions of people on the edge of starvation at stars. from the 16th century to not to do recently, it was a capital crime. the penalty was hanging. there are good reasons for that. maybe we should go back to the old days. your question, -- host: your question, sir? caller: my question -- i do not think transparency is

necessarily what we need. it is transferring dollars of wealth from masses of people to the very few on the top. guest: thank you. i share your view that markets work better when there are limits. back when president roosevelt asked for our agency to first be created in food products, which you rightly said was our origin, congress granted authority to set limits on speculators. not to panic, but to set limits. we did that in food products, agricultural products, all the way until today. what we are doing now is to try to bring those similar limits to the oil markets, to the other energy markets, to the rest of the silver and gold markets as well. a lot of push back from wall street. we finish these rules last october. they promptly took us into

court. we are vigorously defending this new rule in court. but we also have to finalize some of the rules, believe it or not, with the securities and exchange commission. if you want to call them and encourage them to help us finalize the jointer roles so that these positions can go into place. i believe they held markets work better. we agree that transparency is critical. you have to have an affective, well-funded cop on the beat. also, it is appropriate to have some limit that any one speculator not have too large of an outside position in the market. host: michael is on our democrats' line. caller: my question is, and i know you cannot talk about details, when did your most

recent investigations into the silver and manipulation, when did the investigations start? and the second question is, can you compare how long it has taken to come to some resolution on that investigation compared to historical of other investigations? you or other regulatory agencies you have conducted? guest: thank you for your question. you are correct that i cannot speak of any specific investigation in any particular year. last year we brought just under 100 actions. we may in a particular year bring hundreds under investigation. i believe for the first part of your question, which i can answer, there is the form that i was actually at at the agency. the agency decided to publicly

announce that investigation. we normally do not do that. we chose just recently because of the nature of the situation to do so, again, with regards to these derivative products of jpmorgan chase. we bring hundreds of investigations and normally we do not say anything publicly about them. we do not wish to compromise those investigations. host: with the budget request for 2012, $205 million. what is your budget? guest: we are a small agency. we are only about 10% larger than we were in the 1990's. with the agency is, about one- quarter of the people are enforcement lawyers. cops on the beat during the investigation i just talked about. the big slice of the other folks are on market oversight and now

overseeing the swap dealers. what does it mean to overseas markets? we do not have enough people to go in and examine any of these parties directly on a regular basis. we do get to the chicago mercantile exchange. that is how thinly staffed we are. we rely on other parties of self-regulatory organizations. we are sort of the second wave of defense. we need a lot more people. we're taking on the market eight times that market we currently oversee. it is far more complex and at the heart of the crisis in 2008. the president and ask for about 40% to 50% more money to overseas markets. think about the national football league. there were eight times the number of games and every sunday, you want more referees. i think. without more referees, what

would happen on the field? there would be mayhem and fans would lose confidence in the game. this past week the house appropriations subcommittee actually voted to cut our budget. host: what justification do they make? guest: i think the justifications are that in an overall budget situation the u.s. economy needs to have -- meese to balance our books. in many ways, you'll find that i would agree that we need to balance our books. on the other hand, this small, underfunded agency i do not think is the place to do it. i think this agency is a good investment for the american public and the affect of cutting our budget is basically siding with wall street instead of with the american public because of the core of the two dozen a crisis was credit default

swaps, credit derivatives, interest-rate swaps played their role as well. i think we need to bring that reform forward, finished the job at hand, and have a well-funded agency. host: if you're asking for $300 million, or to they want to give you? guest: $108 million. they're faced with a challenging job. we have debates on that. that is a small cost, compared to the $180 billion that went to a lightly regulated insurance company called aig. what happened with them? why did some of the americans have to put in money through our government? why did 8 million americans lose their jobs and millions of other americans have houses? because of credit default swaps. it is time for us to fund the agency well enough to oversee

this market. host: next, we have bob on our republican line. caller: i just wanted to ask you if you think the requirements for companies, if the requirements to have more capital would have helped. i looked at the debt. i don't remember seeing the asset ratios, if i'm using the right terms. basically, they were pretty highly leveraged. you think of their regulated more closely that would of had a significant effect on perhaps keeping bear and a lehman brothers in business? guest: i do think that is part of the story. i do think both bear and lehman brothers had a lot of capital.

even the of a homeowner who puts very little into their house and has a huge mortgage. troubles come, as troubles came in 2006, 2007, 2008, there was not enough to stand behind it. one of the trouble at both bear stearns and lehman brothers were risks that were offshore. they looked at the public has trouble in 2007 when the had to back two of their hedge funds that were incorporated in the cayman islands. all of a sudden because of reputation, they back to them. lehman brothers had significance what businesses. i think it is a multi factor problem. capital is one of the problems. i agree with you. i also think swaps and derivatives trading or not transparent. host: on twitter, he asked if

the average retailer can invest any swaps market. guest: it can be traded by the regular public, or as you call it the retail public. that is because it has all of the transparency. it is on the regulated exchange. swaps can be traded, not by everybody, but by people that have a certain net worth. with the passage of dodd of frank -- dodd frank, if someone were to trade these, you could trade on that fully regulated exchange. similar to the chicago mercantile exchange. host: next is john on our independent line from pennsylvania. caller: how are you doing there? guest: i am surviving the show. caller: good. i'm glad to hear your on here

and a c-span is covering this. my question, regarding the budget cuts the house wanted to do, i think have lost their minds. the question is, i guess you were with goldman sachs the back with the -- when the modernization act was enacted. what were your thoughts and you think that the ramifications and independent consequences would have come down so hard on us? guest: thank you for your comments. on the first, i think it would be unwise to cut the budget of this agency. i think it is critical that we have well-funded oversight. my example, the expansion of the national football league, that we not leave may have on the fields because these are complex products. i would say that looking back to the 1990's, when these products for not regulated in asia or the

u.s., and knowing what we know now, all of us should have done more back to them. markets had the ball from that time. i think it is fortunate that we now have this worldwide consensus. we need to use that consensus and bring these markets under reform. what were some of the assumptions that meant that proved wrong? these were done by banks and there were kind of regulated anyway. somebody is overseeing them. but think that assumption -- exhibit a was this company called aig who was so lightly regulated. we had to use the best, frankly, all the way back to the 1930's reforms of president roosevelt and the securities market and bring that transparency.

bring that anti-fraud to the markets as well. host: our guest is the chairman of the commodity futures and trading committee. how long have asserted the commission now? guest: just a little over three years? guest: their -- host: when does your term and? guest: we have a fixed term. my term ended in april. i can continue to serve unless the president and everyone else decides otherwise. i am doing everything i can in this job. it is fantastic. we are going to, of course, see this out this year. i think we have to get these reforms in place this year and complete the job at hand. under the statute, i am on the job.

host: there was a store that sutter sanders and some others ask that you not be appointed to another term. did you explain that? guest: the oil and gas market is critical to the american public. the markets have, as i said earlier, hedgers meeting in the marketplace. we at the cftc initiated a process to bring back a place that causes limits on speculators. we had successfully worked with congress to get those new reforms in place in congress. we completed those rules last october. subsequently, we have been working with the securities and exchange commission at congress 's mandate. we had to further define the word swap.

senator sanders and i both believe we should have these limits. he has been a frustrated that they have not manfully and place earlier. and yet we have the cftc doing everything to get them in place. and we have the fcc that i would suggest, if you want to get in touch with them, ask them to help us finish in this role on further defining swaps. that would be helpful. host: when the statements he says, in blatant disregard to the law, is that it could be dictated by wall street speculators instead of supply and demand. what do you make of his characterization? guest: he and i have had some lively discussions. i think we've completely complied with the loss. as a very underfunded agency. we are not a price-setting agency.

we are to ensure that markets are free of fraud and manipulation. and that there are limits on any one speculator. we are doing just that. we will complete the rules and get this implies. host: new jersey, our democrat'' line. good morning. caller: good morning. i spent a lot of time as a purchasing manager. one of the things i bought was silver. i always had the feeling, even though i fought well, i always had the feeling that the market was somewhat incestuous. car precious-metals go back farther than anybody really thinks. i think it goes back to in the hunt brothers tried to corner the silver market. comment of? guest: i think this is similar

to a comment earlier who talked about the rights market. some markets are quite diverse and have hundreds of actors on the stage. and some, rice, as was said earlier, and the silver markets, are more concentrated. i think that is why it is critical that we complete the task at hand on these limits to speculators. some would think the press should be higher, some lower. a diverse group of actors on the stage. host: cleveland, ohio. john on the independent line. caller: by any stretch of logic, they are all synthetic. not involved with the

homeowner. i want to know why you allow synthetic [unintelligible] to exist and planet earth? how can you have a new balance sheet in any institution? guest: john raises a very good question, if i could just brought net a little, as to why can't parties be in these markets who never are going to hold of the product or create something called a synthetic derivative, which is maybe a derivative of a derivative. it gets removed from the market. it is true, these markets, when they add extra complexity. as a regulator, we're supposed to comply with the loss.

rather than banning some products, please bring transparency. s make sure that people know the pricing and the volumes in these marketplaces in a real-time basis. make sure you have manipulation of authority for the first time ever. clear authority to be a cop on the beat. make sure we limit the concentration or speculation in any one of these markets by any one actor. that is what we are moving forward to do. to oversee the market, to police the market. i think, john, you raise something, and many people have debated this. there will still be these products. in the general sense, they help some of producer, merchant, in our economy, locked in the price, locked in their risk, and focus on what they do well.

whether that is a former rancher or producer, somebody providing you your mortgage from the bank. host: what is your role in the creation of the volcker rule? guest: paul volcker was advising president obama. the tip of reform in his name, the volcker rule. it said these large financial institutions would be prohibited from proprietary trading. what is proprietary trading? a betting on the markets will go up or go down so quickly. that will lower the risk of the taxpayers. the cftc has a role of one of five agencies -- i think you have them all on your tv show. you can chat with mary tomorrow

because she is helping corral all of us together from the treasury department. to prohibit proprietary trading so that taxpayers are protected from some of the bets that we as taxpayers a bore in 2008. it is one of the most challenging roles the congress gave us. they gave us as 60 different rules to implement. we propose all of them under federal laws. we take them under, and then finalize based on public comment. i think that is a good process, even though it is very along and sometimes appears bureaucratic. host: how much of that is influenced by the industry? guest: a tremendous amount of it. the more we hear from investors, academics, it helps a balance the debate. we welcome all sides of the

debate. the volcker rule, i would think we will get the job done this year. it is one of the more challenging. how to prohibit proprietary trading but at the same time allow banks to lower their risk through hedging. permit banks to do something. these things sometimes overlap. host: a few more calls. misery -- missouri, the republican line. caller: i would like to speak about your budget. you people do not realize how much of $308 million is. the rise that would keep our war effort in afghanistan going for almost eight hours? it costs every man woman and

child $0.20 a week, almost $1 a year. i think he did with that in perspective when you talk about your budget. guest: all right. i think you're of captured well that $1 a year for the american public. that compares is something which is a much different figure, which is a $180 billion which went into the saving of aig, which i think is $600 per american. so, a family of 4, that is $2,400. 8 million americans lost their jobs. homeowners have homes that are worth less than their mortgages. the markets are far outweighed these costs. you're absolutely right. we have to respect every dollar and use it prudently. guest