in 35 minutes, congressman jim himes of connecticut, a member of the financial services committee. and david johnson talks -- host: good morning. we have a two our program. we will fill that with lots of discussion about what is going on in washington and the world. we decided to make this an open phone said friday. you can comment on anything from the campaign trail to the ambassador's death in the middle east to quantitative easing.

here are the phone lines. if you would like to send a message by twitter, the addresses cspanwj. we will start with a story in the middle east with the unrest with a number of countries. we will begin by looking at the front page of the new york times. david kirkpatrick, we learned this during a late-night phone call.

let's look at hillary clinton and some comments she had to make yesterday. >> this video is disgusting and reprehensible. it appears to have a deeply cynical purpose to denigrate a great religion and to provoke rage. as i said yesterday, there is no justification the, none at all before responding to this video with a violence. we condemn the violence that has resulted in the strongest terms. we greatly appreciate that many muslims in the united states and

around the world have spoken out on this issue. violence, we believe, has no place a in religion and is no way to honor religion. islam, like other religions, respects the fundamental dignities of human beings. it is a violation of the fundamental dignity to wage attacks on innocents. as long as there are those who are willing to shed blood and take innocent life in the name of religion, the name of god, the world will never know a true and lasting peace. it is especially wrong for violence to be directed against diplomatic missions. these are places whose very purpose is peaceful. to promote better understanding

across countries and cultures. all governments have a responsibility to protect those spaces and people. to attack an embassy is to attack the idea that we can work together to build understanding the and a better future. host: she made reference in the opening of the clip to a film trailers some are suggesting is the root of the violence happening across places in the middle east. once again, "the new york times" says --

also related to bad in the new york post. their reporting is from jim macintosh.

that sets the stage for discussion. ipod it is an open funds. if you would like to comment on events in the middle east -- i told you it is open funds. we will begin with steve, a republican. caller: from 2008 until today, 50% of the value of the american dollar has been stolen directly because of tim geithner and a barack obama. the a immediate result of that is china will no longer -- we will have to go back into afghanistan with armed consultants to mine lithium from afghanistan. the good news is for liberals, it has also destroyed 50% of the wealth of mitt romney. it has destroyed 50% of the

wealth for george bush. now they have decided to continue this destruction of american wealth on a month by month basis. it is like pulling a pint of blood out every month. sooner or later you will run out of wealth and the blood. host: thank you. a comment related to wealth of households. our final hour this morning we will be looking at the new annual survey from the census department looking at the net wealth of american households, tracing it over time to see how american families are fearing in these post recessionary days. next is debbiek, a democrat. caller: the previous caller is exactly right. our wealth has dropped 50%. the valley of my house has

dropped 75%. my eye are a dropped 50%. it was not barack obama that put these horrible tax cuts in place, it was george bush. republicans are still pushing for this. to hear that mitt romney's wealth has dropped 50%, i guess he can still pay his mortgage. i guess he can still pay to put his kids through college. many middle-class americans cannot. that is unacceptable. i get tired of everybody talking about how obama put us on this path. obama did not put us on this path. george bush and his cronies put us on this path and barack obama has done nothing but try to backpedal from the cliff they took us to. the republicans because our credit rating to be downgraded. people have to wake up and see what is going on. this obstructionism, i kind of

blame the people in wisconsin and other places. these republicans siding with this grover norquist. host: thank you very much. next up is at fayetteville, north carolina. caller: good morning. what is on my mind is, this is not political. this is just reality. we need to stop sending foreign aid overseas to the middle east. we need to stop funding afghanistan, pakistan, egypt, and all of them over there. senator rand paul had it right. we need to stop funding to the middle east and wasting tax dollars going down a rabbit hole. it was not so long ago when mr. roy barker went overseas with

the secretary of state clinton. he wanted to go over there and check on the trips. he was not allowed to go and check on the troops. the secretary of state left him behind it. we can no longer be 911 for the world. this is not political. this is common sense. if we had a woman in the white house, i think things would be a lot different. host: thank you. charlie is a republican from new york. caller: good morning. i would like to point out that democrat presidents seldom get reelected. can you hear me? host: yes, i can. caller: let's keep in mind of bill clinton in 1996 was the first democrat to win a second term since fdr in 1936.

i think there are several reasons for that. number one, the democrats direct their campaigns towards the most stupid people in in america. a democrat convention said if mitt romney is elected, he will stop women from voting. a supporter for john kerry in 2004 said that if president bush is reelected, rape will be legalized. these are more on >> statements. -- moronic statements. they put as their priorities issues that are not important to the american people. every year the environment always comes in somewhere. eight or nine on a priority list. did you have people like susan fluke, a law school graduate

from georgetown who wants people to pay for her birth control pills. people look at the democrats and figure it is a party of morons. host: we are going to stop the right there. the events of the middle east quickly made their way to the campaign trail. reactiontt romney's and the analysis of making statements about the embassy attacks. we are going to look at mitt romney on the campaign trail yesterday. this was after an additional 24 hours and when he had to say about the events in the middle east. >> as we watch the world today, sometimes it seemed like we are at the mercy of events instead of shaping events. a strong america depends on a strong military. we have to have a military -- [cheers and applause] we have to have a military second to strong that is so

strong nobody would think of testing it. host: mitt romney yesterday. the suggested is neo

conservatives influencing mr. romney on the campaign trail. on the news related to the middle east, this one -- let's go back to calls on open funds friday. john is a democrat. caller: 21 for your excellent coverage here. i have a few things to say. -- thank you for your excellent

coverage here. mitt romney's bank accounts have more foreign policy experience than mitt romney does. i have spent quite a bit of overtime in the middle east, israel, lebanon, and jordan. i was there for the democratic elections which mubarak got 99% of the vote. it was kind of like a fraudulent election. it seems to me like we as a country kind of use the middle east as a gas station. the people of in that region know it. they resent it. it is kind of tragic. we go into iraq. it is like, democracy by gunpoint. then when hamas gets elected in a democratic election monitored by jimmy carter, we have all

kinds of opposition to hamas being illegally elected and do not recognize them. and then we have this guy releasing this movie, whoever he is, and it is causing all kinds of unrest. i really think it is disgraceful. i think somebody should really stop him from further doing these kinds of things. i am sure there will be investigations. yes or really upset about the whole thing. i have a lot of friends in egypt and cairo and they are scared. it is not the entire country that is up and arms right now. thank you for my comment. host: catherine up next, an independent. caller: good morning. this is something i do not understand are blaming romney saying something about the middle east.

president obama already 24 hours before that happened in cairo, to do anything. we can all see the peace happen. that is not romney's fall, that is his fault. people have to wake up. they complained about prices now, look what it did yesterday to mr. ben bernanke. he got more money. we are going to be worse than the middle east soon if we do not do anything sen. ok? enough money the banks have. enough money the wall street has. that is all he does, keep printing got -- key printed moneys. it is enough.

call ben bernanke and tell him to quit to printing money. we will not be able to survive any more. host: let's listen to the fed chief and announcing quantitative easing 3. caller: our assessment is that the policies we have undertaken have had a real benefits to the economy. they have provided some support. they have eased financial conditions and help reduce unemployment. with all that being said, a monetary policy is not by itself able to solve these problems. we are looking for policymakers in other areas to do their part. we will do our part and try to make sure unemployment moves in the right direction. we cannot solve this by ourselves. host: once again, asking congress to assist with the economy. let's look at some of the news stories related to qe3.

other stories related to this.

that is open " the washington post." here is a comment from twitter. next is a call from wichita. a bill is a republican. caller: good morning. i have watched the movie. personally, i thought it was kind of stupid. i think even it could be compared to a saturday night live skit. i find it hard to believe these people who attacked our embassy and killed those people were sitting around in their house, they watched this movie, and then they said, let's all get ourselves some rocket and grenade launchers and whatever they used to burn the place. i just find that hard to believe. this had to be a planned attack. i personally believe they have been planning this attack for

some time. i think the movie is a scapegoat. host: thank you for your call. next up is richard, a democrat from louisville. caller: good morning. the administration and the state department and all of the liberal news media as, msnbc, they all keep throwing this video out there. there are thousands of videos on youtube, and they all go after somebody or something. this has nothing to do with what is going on in the middle east. we have a president and a state department that actually believes that the people in the muslim and arab world like america. they do not like us. all our president had to do on the anniversary of september 11 is to beef up security to make sure our people were protected.

error on the side of caution. they had nothing there. they murdered that man and his people. for the life of me, when i saw barack obama come into the rose garden the other day and speak about how he was in a somber mood and everything, he was more in shock to believe this could happen to him in the arab world. that shows the arrogance of this man. i am a firm believer in trying to shore up and try to protect all of our people and diplomats at any cost. if these people in the arab world and egypt and libya -- off the route the middle east. if they want to deal with us, we have to be strong enough to say, hey, we will not put up with this and be prepared next time, especially on 911. it is mind-boggling to think he would not be prepared for this.

it is in my opinion, there needs to be an apology. he spoke to the diplomats the day before. he went over to the state department. what is it he would say to them? it's a sorry i did not protect your people over there? it should have already been done. host: thank you. next is a call from new jersey. hello to raul. caller: hello. i would like to know, what is obama apologizing for? it came across to me as looking as week. furthermore, because there was -- it was the right thing for

obama -- for romney to step in. the second thing i would like to know, does obama have an understanding of the magnitude of what he has gotten himself into? he has no sense of purpose, no sense of direction. it is time for obama to go. thank you. host: thank you, raul. next is a call from fort worth, texas. this is fell, a republican. caller: i have heard the obamacare campaign and surrogates saying his attack was out of bounds. i found it ironic that a

campaign has accused mitt romney is a felon, responsible for a woman's death, and said he would not have killed osama if he had the chance to, i am surprised there are calling our attack out of bounds. what about host: their:thank you, phil. -- what about their attack? host: thank you, phil. the counter in the financial times this morning. they. ---- they said -- next is a call from dale city, oklahoma. caller: good morning. my thought is this.

i do not think christians would have reacted in such a violent matter if the radical muslims had put out a video as such. however, i think this video undermines what we are trying to do in this country towards peace. i think the timing of this was provoked by somebody in in america. somebody is trying to undermine the elections coming up to show president obama week. i do not know if the republicans remember, one of the things they were saying about mitt romney is that they were weak in foreign matters. i think it was an attempt to undermine the election and to show president obama to be weak. host: thank you. related to that on twitter --

another story as we get close to the last few minutes of open phones. yesterday on capitol hill, the house passed what is called a continuing resolution that meaning the federal government will go on for six months. there are some politics and explaining to do a run that. let me show you

let me show you politico today.

that is david rogers. open funds, we will be here until 7:35. -- open phones. next up is joe. caller: what i would like to know is, the republican administration has been saying what ron reagan said to jimmy carter. ronald reagan also believed his philosophy was -- could mitt romney or paul ryan pass this test? they could not pass either part of this test. they do not turn over information that the people need to know. i would also like to know, the republicans are always talking

about they believe in the rule of law. why is george bush and dick cheney not in prison right now? also, in 2010, the republicans ran on the economy and jobs. we all know that they have blocked the jobs bill that obama has tried to pass. we all know the state of the economy. for us once, shame on us. full of its twice, shame on them. host: this is bob from the republican line. caller: i want to comment on this guy from iowa. it is about telling the truth. host: go ahead. we are listening. caller: he was saying about the republicans not ever telling the

truth and all of this and all of that. what about the democrats? what about c-span? how come nobody is ever telling the truth about obama? i never hear anything about obama. believe me, if you ever get on the internet, you will see a lot about obamacare read i have even sent e-mails to c-span. -- you will read a lot about obama. not one word about obama. he has a lot behind him. nobody ever says anything. we are tired of it. i will tell you that. the public is tired of it. there is going to be a reckoning that very soon. all you people that are hiding

obama and telling all of these tales that he is eligible to be president are going to have egg all over your face. caller: i would like to talk about something a little closer to home. i live in pennsylvania and i know people have been talking about what is going on with this voting. what upsets me is, our house and our senate and our governor are all republicans. instead of working on things that need done mike repaving our roads, fixing bridges and fixing water lines, instead of that they work on a problem that does not exist. in pennsylvania, it is a privilege to drive a car on the road. it is a right to vote. why do i need to present a

privilege card to perform host: a:thank you for your telephone call. you can see in the headline -- "close to the finish line?

the last call is from florida. this is phil, an independent. caller: what i am tired of is us being forced to look at all of these events from the context of one political party or another or one president or somebody running for president. i have written about getting rid of the choices of republican, democrat, or independent to make a call. the american people are limited as far as how they look at the events in the context. you have to pick one view or another instead of using our own minds. i hope c-span will do a show about false flog attacks. i would love to see you have

some kind of show on that. i would encourage the listeners to look up false flag attacks and do a little digging on that. host: thank you. a couple of things as we close of open funds. -- open phones. american history tv will be at antietam all day sunday. you can be part of the action as the nation honors the bloodiest day and then show a american history. 21,000 americans killed or wounded in maryland. over the course of 12 grisly hours. you will see that again live and also some events at 10:00 a.m. eastern time on "american history tv" on c-span 3. the front page of the new york

times tells us that usa today has on its 30th anniversary modernized its look with its new design. i will put the new paper on the camera here. this is what the brand new design looks like. you can see their modeling of the internet in their redesign of "usa today." we will take a break. what is coming up in just a couple of minutes, jim hines of connecticut. we will start within talking about the move on qe3 at what he thinks it will do for the economy. later, david johnson will be here to talk about the census bureau's new report on a america's household incomes and how people's economies are doing in the recession. [captions copyright national

cable satellite corp. 2012] [captioning performed by national captioning institute] >> this sunday, american history tv will be live from antietam national battlefield marking the 150th anniversary of antietam. our cameras will capture the activities at the park, covered speeches from historians, and we will have guessed to take questions and comments from our viewers. we are on twitter @cspanhistory. use #cspanantietam. this sunday, the battle of

antietam live from 12 noon until 8:30 eastern on american history tv on c-span 3. >> i have been astounded that for a piece of history we know so much about, columbus kept numerous journals, wrote lots of letters, took four trips to the americas. starting with the second trip there were lots of official scribes and army officials and people doing lots of writing. we know what happened. 30,000 people had their hands chopped off. within 30 years two million inhabitants had been killed. this is part of human nature. no human being wants to be judged by their darkest days. no nation wants to be judged by their darkest days. when nations have dark days, we have to acknowledge that. >> anton treuer speaks with

jacqueline pata. this saturday 10:00 eastern and sunday at 9:00 eastern and midnight. host: on your screen is jim himes of connecticut. before i ask him a question about qe3, i want to tell you a little bit about him. he is finishing his second term and up for reelection. he came to congress from goldman sachs. a harvard graduate. he brings all the to his financial services committee where he serves on the capital markets.

the fed announcing a very specific change in its direction with qe3. it has no end it. it is also focused on mortgage- backed securities. how do you believe this will help the jobs market, which is what the chairman said his purpose was guest: what you see the fed doing is probably being the more aggressive than it would be if the other lover that the government has to improve the economy were being used. -- the other level the government has to fix the economy were being used. financing with a 0% interest rates, that is additional spending. if you have half a semester of college economics you would know you have two levels. the republican majority has said absolutely no fiscal effort on the part of the congress. here you have the fed taking

extraordinary and a new measures to do what they can to restore jobs to the economy. host: i would love for you to give us a brief seminar on how it could work. the fed is injecting $85 billion a month into the economy. let's stay with the announcement yesterday concentrating on mortgage-backed securities. he suggested it will bring mortgage rates down. they are already at historic lows. how does that create jobs? guest: i think you see two of facts here. d.c. a commitment on the part of the federal reserve to doing what they can -- i think you see a commitment from the federal reserve to do what they can to move things along. i think the stock market closed at a record high. investors are saying, we have a player in washington concerned with restoring economic health. they are saying they have to buy mortgage-backed securities.

that does a couple of things. the housing market, despite all the political rhetoric you here, the primary problem we have is consumer demand it. the biggest factor in why they are nervous right now is that tens of millions are worried if they will pay their mortgage or the fact they are under water. the fed says we will buy mortgage based paper. the securities, which are the core of the meltdown, eric -- they are maturing. the fed is buying them. hopefully it will do exactly what they said it would do. host: in order to spend $85 billion a month, does the fed have to print money to do it? guest: they are not spending, they are using their balance sheet. what you see is that the fed the balance sheet gets bigger and smaller. the critics of this approach may

two points. they say it may now have an affect. there is a limit what the fed can do by itself. that is why it is so bad that the institution i serve has failed to do its goal on the fiscal side. the other cryptic -- the other criticism is inflation. have we seen any inflation in the last four years? we have seen no inflation. today we have not seen any issue there. fed: let's listen to the chief. we will listen in. >> if the fiscal cliff is an address, i do not think our tools are strong enough to offset the effects of a major fiscal shock. we would have to think about what to do in that contingency. i think it is important for fiscal policy makers to work together to find a solution to that. host: yesterday house of

representatives with a broad majority passing a continuing resolution that puts off spending decisions until the spring. what does that suggest about the ability to find compromise for the fiscal cliff issues? guest: what you saw yesterday happen was a good thing for the country. if we can actually keep things on the current trajectory and not cause a crisis, we have a little bit of a celebration. what happened yesterday means the government does not shut down. of course, it was politics. the republican majority recognizes they are on their heels and the american public is seeing them as obstructionists. they said we do not need to do another "let's shut down the government." that has never worked out well for them. they beat up their own to get enough votes to pass a continuing resolution. nothing changes. on top of everything else, we

are not dealing with the prospect of a government shutdown. what it says about getting a deal done. i have been supportive of the grand bargain. go big and all of that. what is very important to success there is the horrendous miss of the automatic spending cuts that occur on december 31 and the automatic tax increases that come with the expiration of the bush tax cuts. that is macro economically toxic. it is a doomsday device. the one thing that will get the house of representatives and the congress as a whole to do the deal we know needs to be done should have been done six months ago, but will be done to avoid the catastrophe that would be the automatic spending cuts. host: the house had a second piece of legislation.

that is the sequestered cut legislation. what did you see as the intent of the guest: bill that put:it is congress being a weasel. the one thing that will cause the congress to a rise -- to arrive at the grand bargain is the severity and the awfulness of these hammers. you have the automatic tax increases, which weaseling out from underneath the hammers, the house majority said, we should make them go away. there are really scary. yesterday we saw a defense orienting. there are three hammers over our heads. they are uncomfortable. there are difficult to talk about. it is damaging to the economy. congress is doing what they are tempted to do saying, this is terrible. let's make it go away. yes, let's make it go away.

let's make it go away because we replace them with a fair and balanced big deal to get our country on a sustained a path. the nightmare scenario is congress says, this is really uncomfortable. let's make them all go away. we make them all go away, which we could if we voted to do so. at some point the bond market says, you can no longer govern your country. we see a 200 basis point increase in our treasury rates. we are having a negotiation at the point of a metaphorical gun rather than doing it gracefully as we should be. host: you have been critical of congress in each of these answers here. the institution has historically low public approval ratings. why are you a candidate for reelection and why do you want to serve? guest: although at a moment of great polarization, this

institution has the potential to do great and big things. the first thing we need to do is strike that deal. i was one of the 38 people who voted for the simpson bowles budget. it has been a wrestling match over the past two years. we know we need to strike the deal. first, to do the responsible thing, and, secondly, we get back to the business of investing in our roots, our system of education. that is an exciting prospect. i did not jump into this job for it to be easy. host: we have a shorter show today because congress is in session today. mr. himes.alls from caller: hello. thank you for taking my call.

i am happy to hear and see when the republicans are democrats come to the forefront and talk on c-span. i am so glad you have a live call-in show. i have two questions for you. i am so happy you are with financial services committee as a member. you probably have been doing that for many years. the first question i have for you is about mortgages. i have never owned my own home. i am a military mom. i would love to own my own home. i heard something about the stimulus. how will that help me? will these banks, will you get together and give money to help the lower in come with stability on their first-time home? the second question i have is, what about education?

i know you have all been looking at the chicago location pertaining to over 400,000 teachers that are striking the, which is at their fifth day. what if this strike happen all over the nation? host: let me jump and at that point. first on mortgages and low- income applicants. guest: first, she identified herself as a military mom. thank you for the sacrifices and the fear and anxiety you and/or for being a military family. hard-working families that want to on their own homes should absolutely have the path to do so. in the last couple of years that has been difficult. banks have been reluctant to lend it.

the regulatory structure has been evolving and hopefully improving. we need to be mindful of the fact at the very core the ball down that we had that devastated the economy was over doing the very good instinct. in other words, selling the family's mortgages they could not possibly repay. mortgages that people did not understand. this government has always through fannie mae and freddie mac and particularly on the military side, programs that provide for lower cost mortgages pursue that goal of making sure our families can on their own homes. we do need to be careful not to recreate the mistakes of the past and over do that. economy,ith today's maybe no. one of things that creates uncertainty for people. education is also a great question. you hear people talk about jobs, jobs, jobs as if the government

could wave a magic wand and create jobs. the government can hire firefighters, policeman, and nurses. at the end of the day which should have the right number to keep the community safe. but the government does not create jobs per say. but they can make sure every kid in this country has the qualities to allow them to be a superb company -- to be a superb employee in a company or start their own company. you hear about how we are 17 in math scores and falling behind on graduation. if we were having an honest conversation, we would talk about restoring the public school system and our community colleges and universities to the very best in the world and how we make them affordable. that is a jobs program. host: from twitter --

guest: this has been a particular problem for our senior citizens who rely on dividends and interest and bonds. what you have there is a double- edged sword. on the one hand interest rates are at record lows, so people can get a mortgage at an incredible rate. businesses can borrow at good rates. those who depend on the other side of that, on the interest payments are being badly hurt. the good news at the end of the day is my institution, which, yes, i have been critical of, they do not get to miss around with that. the fed does monetary policy and an independent way. fortunately, the efforts of the republican majority to audit the fed and therefore insert

congress into the role of monetary policy will not succeed. i think interest rates and those decisions will continue to be made of people outside of the political environment. host: on a twitter once again. what do you think led to its lack of consideration guest: first of all, the president did not embrace the samson balls proposal and that disappoints me. saying -- simpson bowles proposad that disappoints me. it was not able then to come to the floor. what was interesting is, all of the house members voted against it. all of the senators voted for it. that tells you something different about running every two years and running every six

years. it did disappoints me that the president did not embrace it. i was one of nine people who voted against every other budget and said this is the answer. my colleagues know that is the answer. the question is, how many will say that publicly in a way that gets the president on board and it's the deal done? host: the next call is from pittsburgh. caller: i wanted to call a bout when obama told us he will create all kinds of green and jobs, making solar power's and things like that. china ended up selling us all of the summer panels because they could make them cheaper. then obama put a tariff on them so that would be made in america. that is the problem we have. this free trade with china is killing this country.

we cannot afford to fix our roads or anything. it is killing us. why do you not talk about that? we need to get together with all the countries that have social security and say we will cut tariffs on the third world countries because we will not be able to keep social security. please do something and say something. china does everything they can to get jobs in their country. guest: you raise an issue that is very important to a lot of people throughout the midwest in the manufacturing states. when the story is told about how countries got themselves out of the great recession, one of the headlines will be that china did an industrial stimulus program on our backs. they kept their currency artificially low. they were able to export and

subsidize the effectively and we were not able to export to them. we do talk about it. there have been votes on the floor of the house to effectively punish china for doing this and for stimulating its economy on the back of our industrial base. i agree with you. we should be more aggressive about avoiding that and about policing our trade agreements so countries are not employing child labor to their advantage. we should not lose sight of the fact that the american worker is the most productive worker in the world. i think we will win a competition with any other worker a run the world so long as they are playing on a level playing field. go to places like california and elsewhere and you know we can win by exporting to china so long as the rules are fair and the playing field is level. host: this is another tweet

guest: look, the consequences of going off the cliff -- it is not a january 2 thing. any economist will say you should have gotten the deal done a year ago. the consequences of going off the cliff are hundreds of thousands of lost jobs. i understand why people are angry and why they use that language. we are talking about the livelihoods of millions of americans. we do not want to play that gamesmanship, certainly with retribution to other people. there are probably people walking out there who bear a lot of blame who have not been prosecuted. to do something that everyone knows needs to be done. when members of congress are behind closed doors, you have a

lot of republicans to say the population is aging, we do need new revenue. a lot of democrats said, i understand if we do not reform medicare it will not be there for 30 years. the question is, how do you get them to say that in public in a way that gets movement going so we strike the fair and balanced. if we can get that deal done whether lame-duck or first quarter of next year, the business community and capital markets will think something they have not thought for several years which is the united states can govern itself in a responsible way. that in and of itself would be a significant stimulus to the economy. i am hopeful about what we can do if we get the deal done. host: next is a call from michigan. james is watching us there. caller: good morning. i am an independent. i look at this as nothing more than a back door bailout for the banks. he has already stated these

loans were made and cannot be paid back. we will buy them from the banks. just to add, i do not understand what the big deal is with china. we owe the federal reserve more money than china. hopefully the senate will vote to audit the fed so we can actually see where our money goes. am i mistaken, or is am i mistaken, or is that what is going to happen? guest: i understand this is the source of all lot of concern. people say it turns out the federal reserve had these powers we were not aware of four years ago when the economy was on the brink of a depression. the federal reserve was aggressive and people did not know they had that power. if we have to look at the results. if the federal reserve did an

internal -- the federal reserve did an internal study, and they said that its activities account for the creation or savings of roughly 2 million jobs. that is not something you ignore. i feel adamantly about this. the fed is audited by the united states congress and is accountable in every way except for in the monetary policy were setting interest rates. the last thing the u.s. economy needs is guys like me and my colleagues messing around with interest rates. guess what will happen? six months before every election, but interest rates will be pushed down how the political instincts, so the fed maintaining stability is one of the cornerstones of our economy. audit every aspect of the fed,

but do not inject politics into the conduct of monetary policy. host: tennessee. tony. republican. caller: good morning. mr. jim himes, if you could answer my question without spinning it, or running my time out, i will ask two questions. the democrats had two complete years without any intrusion of republicans or very little to take a budget and do whatever they wanted to do with it, and they have yet to this day do anything with the budget. can you explain to me why without spinning that question? guest: sure. it has been years since congress has produced a budget. it is not a democrat or republican thing. neither party wants to show real numbers. believe me, that is not pure

democrat or republican. it is a question of congress not being straight with the people. this is why i am the supporter of the no budget, no pay idea. if we cannot pass a budget, we should not get paid. i do not know if that will work, but i think that is not a bad idea. host: from twitter -- why do we not audit the pentagon? they're the biggest black hole in our economy. we can't handle the truth? guest: if you look at one agency where there is staggering waste and a lack of accountability -- this is not me talking. the pentagon was required to undertake a full audit and they have not been able to do so. i want to be clear about what i am saying. our fighting men and women are the best there are, but the

bureaucracy that has grown up around that is staggering. i happened to be at a lunch with general jim jones who said the gsa, which gets so much play because they did a $100,000 retreat here, that is fine, government should not operate that way, but waste in the pentagon relative to the gsa is two or three orders of magnitude. we have huge buckets of money that if we had a good compliance and ability to go after that waste would actually be painless ways to go after spending. the pentagon has to be on the list host: you are the vice chair of the new democrat coalition. the new democrats became well known during the clinton administration. what does it mean today? guest: we are democrats, which

means we will stand up for working families, the middle class and for the people that work on the clock in factories and what not, but we will recognizsomething essential -- if you stand up for working people you are also going to embrace the people that employ them and say not how can we have a fight between labor and business, but how can we structure and economy were businesses do superbly and share the wealth with workers and we all win. that is the core philosophy of new democrats. host: there was criticism of american corporations at the democratic convention. is it appropriate? guest: there is a lot of rhetoric. there are corporations that did staggering, dumb things. aig is at the top of the list.

it is an easy target. when we talk about jobs, we are talking about small business, which generates a lot of jobs. i want this country to win the international competitive olympics, so i am excited about bogle, ibm. corporations need to abide by the law, pay their fair share of taxes, but they are part of winning for this country. host: james, a democrat from birmingham. caller: bipartisanship does not work. we voted two people in, but you cannot govern. you allowed the republicans to hold you hostage. you allowed them to use the playbook to kill these programs

and death by a thousand cuts. i have a question i want you to answer. january 25, 2001, the first week of the bush presidency and half of the year before the attacks of 9/11. host: are you still there, james? caller: if policies remain in place, the surplus would have reached 800 billion. what happened? guest: what happened, along with the economic recession we have been dealing with, is one of the biggest causes of the deficits and debt that we are running up. the republicans pointed this president and say it is his debt. this country under the bush administration did something it has never done. it said we would fight two wars in the middle east and it cost

us millions of dollars now to mention the loss of life, and then we will cut taxes. that means our kids will pay for this because we do not want it. -- we do not want to. we are now collecting taxes at the federal level at the percentage of our overall economy at the same rate that we did in the eisenhower administration. to turn surplus is around -- surpluses around, to run up a deficit, to lower taxes during the war, and then running for reelection, mitch mcconnell said at the single most important objective is to deny the president a second term, then to say he is responsible for this debt. i think the word is chutzpah. host: you are in a competitive

race. is it the right decision to go home? guest: it is disastrous. we know what the budget deal looks like. it looks something like simpson- bowles. almost everybody understands that, yet john boehner is going to tell us to go home to campaign. the farm bill. in connecticut we do not interact with farmers that much, but there are many that depend on the farm bill all over this country. the senate passed a farm bill. the house majority is saying we would rather campaign. it is an outrage. we should stay here and get this stuff done. host: thank you for being here. congressman jim himes of connecticut. we'll be back with a deep dive into the new census report looking at household income and how it has flared over the past couple of years. we will be right back. -- favored over the past couple

of years. we will be right back. >> we could keep investing in the wind, solar, clean coal, and our farmers and scientists can harvest new biofuel. our construction workers can build offices and factories that waste less energy and retrofit old buildings, put them back to work. >> i will take advantage of our oil, our coal, our guest, and north america will be energy independence within eight years. >> watch and engage with c-span as the presidential campaigns move to the october debate. energy policy is one of the first topics in the first debate on october 3. foreign policy is the focus of the final debate, the 22nd.

also watch the vice presidential candidates' debate on thursday, the 11th. follow our coverage on c-span, c-span radio and a mine at -- online at c-span.org. >> i think people like to see where politicians views have shifted over the years. people like to see whether mitt romney was comparing -- campaigning for welfare reform. they want to see where he was doing it. i think people like to see how these politicians have evolved, and there is an element to it that -- that is almost a got you element, but there is an element that this is very interesting. >> i tried to think about why it is that he has changed so often, why he finds it difficult to

come down on one side of an issue and floats between both sides. >> a fellow running for office your name is barack obama. >> i think the best way to describe it is being the viral. more with a reporter andrew kaczynski sunday night at 8:00 on "q&a." "washington journal" continues. host: we want to show you some headlines beginning with this from the new york times -- "the new york times, below that from "the wall street journal."

all of these come from the census report. we have the report here. we also have census bureau chief who will walk us through the report, and susan heavey, who wrote a story office for reuters. welcome to all of you. mr. johnson, what does the census tried to do with this survey? >> we look at income, poverty, health insurance, and this year we found the important headlines. household income fell between 2010 and 2011. poverty remained unchanged 15%. there are still 46 million people in poverty, and health insurance fell. host: people without health insurance? guest: people without health insurance coverage. the other headline you mentioned

was the increase in inequality. host: we will learn more about this. what is the idea of linking health care coverage in to this report on the economy? guest: it is important how it relates to poverty levels and incomes, who along the spectrum is not insured. that is why we put it together. host: susan heavey, when you looked at the report, was your headline clear to you? guest: it is to get -- mixed picture, so it was difficult to cover because there are different pieces of data that seemed to point in different directions. i spoke to economists who were surprised because they were expecting poverty to go up, so when it was flat it changed the picture. then you saw the income gap, and a lot of economists had

expected health insurance to be flat, and that such a drop. it offered a mixed picture, and it highlighted what people were feeling in the wake of the recession. this is 2011 data. it takes a while for the census bureau to gather everything, so it is last year's calendar data. host: will you talk about how you gather the numbers? guest: sure. it comes from a population survey of about 100,000 households. we have thousands of data collectors out there. the most important concept is the people, the respondents. we gather the data. we analyzed it and create these statistics that looked at the poverty and the income. it is collected in the spring, acting on the previous calendar year, " in their tax time helps

the recall. host: since you look at your- over-year numbers, do you go to the same families? guest: snow. we put surveys on the questions to the income data. host: we will be here for another 45 minutes. we have changed the phone lines. it is regional. we will put those numbers on the screen for you as you dial in. you can also tweet. the question we are asking you this morning has been posted on our facebook page we are asking for you to tell us about your income, and do you see signs of change. we posted that on facebook and we have some of those comments

we will share with you. let's start with the first slide. real median household income, 1967, 2011. walks through what we learned. guest: you can see the trend is real, adjusted for inflation, and the blue shaded periods are recessionary periods. median household income is $50,100. if you go back to 2007, before the last recession, there is a fall of about 8%. if you go back to 1999, it is about it 0.9%. it has been falling over the time period, but over the total time it has risen. host: median household income

in 1967, $42,100. what are the components? guest: it is all of the cash that you receive -- from your employer, your investments, dividends, social security, welfare recipients, supplemental security income -- anything that is cash that comes into the household. what it does not include, and this is the criticism we have heard this week, things like food stamps, texas, or earned income tax credit. host: or the value of your home? guest: or things like the value of your home, your possessions, your car, health benefits. host: it is not assets, but income. guest: right. host: you talked to real people out there. what are they telling you about the effects of these numbers? guest: i have heard a couple of

different things. i went to different food banks and charities and talk to people that are still feeling pinched and hurt by the recession. they see demand not flat, but ever-increasing, especially in the food bank. we still see growth in food stamps. people are having trouble making basic ends meet. the health insurance aspect is interesting. i spoke to a man in california who saw his income dropped a lot, and he is a free lancer, so he does not have health insurance and he cannot afford it because he got diabetes at the same time, and what happened was he told me every day he crosses the street looking a couple of extra times because it you do not have health insurance, even if you make do with less income, it could

impact your bottom line and put you in poverty quickly host: let's start with which it quickly. host: let's start with a facebook response. i like the statistics and how many households in poverty have cell phones, internet, and big screen televisions. guest: you see that with social sector, the poverty rate of the elderly false tremendously. -- fall tremendously. we do not include medicare and medicaid contributions. host: i want to look at this year, which looks of the real median household income by age of household, and this is just for 2010 and 2011. would you do with these numbers? guest: you can see a pattern that we expect -- young and the

old, both sides have lower than the middle-aged. the other thing you can see is the change over time. overall, there was a fall with people under the age of 65, but there are only a couple of specific age groups that have had a fall, from 35-to-44-year- olds and 55-to-65-years-olds. host: always consider the peak earning years, and they're not experiencing that much change. let me go to comments about what is happening in all months.

from twitter, our income has held steady but it is not buying as much as it did before. inflation is a real despite what bernanke thinks. i will ask you to talk about the fed and their view on inflation. guest: we saw sweeping measures from the fed to boost the economy, buying billions of dollars of treasury bonds and mortgage bonds, and it shocked the market. stocks went up on that news. they are trying to step in. their job is to keep inflation down and unemployment down. they have not acted very much and we saw them step in. it will take awhile to see what that does and if a defect buying power and if people will feel more confident, or if they will wait until the election and move on from there. host: another report. my 401k bounced up and down during the bush years, mostly

down, and now is on the rise, but still has not gained what i put into it. what has happened to investment income since 2008? guest: regular income has lost ground since the mid-1990's, and investment income would reflect that too. host: washington. henry. caller: i make $1,000 a month, and it is hard to make do these days. gas goes up. i think c-span's posts should -- hosts should moderate the presidential election. i want to see that lady there take her shoes off. host: we will stop right there this is real household income at selected percentiles.

guest: it looks fairly flat because they added the median. 50% of the income have income below it. the lower level was $12,000 in 2011. if you go to the 90th percentile in their bed, you can see that as $143,000. that is above the level. the 95th percentile is even higher. so, the red line and a purple line go up more than the blue line in the current -- orange line. host: everybody has experienced some sort of downturn since the recession. guest: what is interesting is the 90th percentile showed no significant fall between 2010 and 2011, but the 90th

percentile of the chilly fall. host: the highest level. this is essentially flat. guest: it looks flat, but if you go back to 1967, it is $9,600, and now it is $12,000, so it has increased, but to go back to 1999, it is flat. host: talks about the political influence. guest: this reinforces the idea of the increasing wealth gap with top earners earning more, bottom earners not gaining ground, and the middle class is becoming more and more narrow. that is a big issue in a presidential campaign. president obama talks about the middle class and wants policies that reinforce that, and the republican challenger mitt romney says he could use private experience and it is about jobs and he could boost everyone's living that way.

it is become a big issue, this divide, and it could be hard to see, so it is interesting you have regional callers because the issue nation wide in places like nevada might be different than they are here in washington. host: if we look at household assets, with this even be larger because in the upper percentiles one could assume the investment income? guest: there are different things that go into how wealthy you might feel -- if you have a car, a house, if you have equity, health insurance, your job -- they could help you feel wealthier than you are. at the same time, if you pay more to tell the car, or at the grocery store, even if your income is the same, you're not feeling as good as you did a couple of years ago. that is something a lot of people are saying. guest: there is a lot of research on the asset gap, as it

is called. it shows these things and we have reports on our website. that would be interesting to compare. guest: there has been some data where you might have a job than a paycheck, but if you are unemployed for a while you use the savings, and you had to sell your car or your home and you are renting. you are now asset poor, so as soon as you lose your job, you have not -- no cushion underneath you. guest: -- host: the last chart, a question from twitter, this shows income gap, but how much is related to education? do you do educational attainment overlays? guest: we have a number of tables that breaks this out by

different demographic groups, and you can look at the education breakouts. i do not know the results right now, but obviously, the higher- educated have higher incomes. host: we have looked at this in other programs, and i encourage you to look of the census bureau website, and also the c-span video library, if you want to look at any of the discussions of many aspects of american society and america by the numbers. it is all gathered there for you. let me go back to facebook because we are asking people to tell us about what has happened in their own households, and remember, if you call in, we have regional phone lines and we will put the phone numbers on the screen, but here are some comments from facebook. amber harris writes people struggle every day, i'm not

pointing fingers here, but people suffer because of the government or maybe because of health insurance, but some people try their hardest to rise above that, and even though the struggle they can beat through that. valerie says yes, our household income is increasing, thank god. jon rights i was raised by parents that lived through the great depression. that was poverty on a massive scale. do we have definitions -- different definitions of what poverty is today? guest: it is a different society than, 50, 60, 80 years ago, and there are some people that say how can you be for if you have a cell phone or a television? you have a car. are you really court? on the other hand, if you are sleeping in that car, and if you have the television as a basic communication device, it is a

conversation we are having as people try to figure of how to deal with poverty and income inequality. what is the government's role? host: on the campaign trail, the president is arguing that the trend lines are moving in the right direction. from twitter, borane file clerk asks, why is there a disconnect between what the average joe is experiencing and with the government says we should be feeling? guest: that is something you hear a lot from people and we will keep hearing before the election -- the idea of whether elected representatives are really doing enough for the people that make up this country, the average working person. i just do not know. host: this the action from the fed indicate the fed has greater concerns and what we hear from politicians? guest: i did not know if it is

greater concern, but they decided they need to step in and act. unemployment has stayed steady, and they decided to step in and take bold action to address it. host: you are welcome to join us by twitter. you can also go to our facebook page and post your response to how your household is doing in this economy as our guests continue to work through the numbers of the latest annual report from the census report on annual real household income. i need help on this one. i was looking at this. guest: for the average american, you have to focus on distribution. everybody focuses on headline numbers, and not everyone feels that. it is important to get distribution. the other thing about household income is that is not the best measure because a household of one person with $10,000 is

treated the same as a four- person household. we try to adjust to that. we looked at the distribution and ranked everybody by their income, looking at their difference quintile. the lowest quintile would be the bottom 20%. the top would be the top 20%. two things come out of this chart. you see what people have called a staircase pattern. there is a lot of income at that top quintile. the top 20% of the population owns 50% of all income, and that is the highest it has ever been, and the bottom quintile owns much less, about 4%, and the top 5% a little over 40 -- 20%. the other thing you see is a change over time, but between

the two years, the middle quintile falls and the top goes up, suggesting an increase in inequality. its coat and at the very top, it has gone up at a greater -- host: at the very top, it has gone up a greater rate. guest: right. it is the higher-income groups that have experienced an increase in income. guest: i think this chart goes to the question about people on the ground. it shows the disparity that we have in this country and it raises the question, what do you do about that? we are a free society and a catalyst economy. you are allowed to earn as much money as you want or as you can make, but the same time what happens to the people at the bottom of your economy? it has been flat there for a while. how does that all even out in the greater scheme of things?

one of the things that this chart lead to was talk about the idea of taxes and fair taxes. host: here is another question about changing demographics. there are more workers per household than there were in 1967, therefore the real has decreased dramatically. so, in 1967, perhaps one working father, and in the majority of households, the mother and father are both working, etc. how do you account for that? guest: we do not in this number, but we look at leisure. if more people are working, there decrease in leisure. they're not necessarily better off.

there are people out there that are trying to measure the labour participation in those types of issues. host: next as a call from rob watching us in treasure island, florida. caller: there is one other area you did not address, under-in point. we fall in the over-60 category, and we have seen significant drops in our income because of under-employment. i do not think it is because we are doing a bad job in what we do, but there are less than bands and unfunded mandates that are causing a problem. we see a significant drop in our income. i fall in that 1.9%, and i think it is even higher for us the last five years, with an average close to 5% or 10% per year.

host: are you over 60, or over 65? caller: over 60. i plan to work for a couple of more years. host: thank you. his income is down and you see that in the numbers nationally. guest: yes, there was a fall, as did all households under 65. we did find an increase in the number of full-time workers that help people at the lower end. he saw a shift from part-time to full time. i do not think that is what the caller is saying, but this is the problem with looking at national numbers. guest: that is a key demographic, the 50-to-64-year-

olds. like the caller talked about in his situation, this is a group where they have lost their job and it is harder for them to rebound. they are at that age, although age discrimination is not legal, they're having a hard time getting into the workforce, so they take something below their skill level to have a job because they are not old enough for medicare or social security and they have to hang in there. that is what people were doing, trying to cobble together little jobs here and there to hold them over. you hear that a lot. host: the challenges retraining for a new job which puts you at the lower-level. guest: one woman i spoke to in

virginia said she was happy to take a job but the lower end, but she could not get hired and she felt that she was being discriminated against, as why would they want to hire someone that would only be there for a few years? host: on twitter, dana tells us about her household income -- not spending and will not spend as long as obama is in office. we're talking about your household economy as we see trends over the past year and prior decades. the next telephone call is from houston. cathy is on the line with us. caller: thank you, susan. i live in houston, a right-to- work state. they will hire you up to 37 hours a week to not give the benefits or holidays. we have an economy where we did

everything to the rich and keep your fingers crossed that they might trickle-down to you. we have legalized slavery. remember when the u.s. used to fight against child communists and slave labor? we call them our trade partners. why hire an american when you could pay a kid the same thing? my husband is an aircraft inspector. they're going to el salvador for 4000 a year. while tsa flags you down, our planes are fixed by the third world. who knows what they will do by -- for $100,000. i do not know what it takes for the american people to rise up, but it is time to declare economic treason. host: thank you, cathy.

guest: i think we will keep hearing that over and over again for the next couple of weeks. host: from twitter, unemployment hi, gas prices soaring, more people on food stamps, people losing their homes -- thank you, obama, for hope and change. let's go to our next chart, which is about the men and women differential in earnings. guest: this gets back to the idea of earnings with what has happened over time with people working full-time we look at people that are working full time, both men and women. you can see there has been a slackening of earnings with men. there has been an increase earnings for women, but in the past year, both of them fell. a lot of them -- a lot of this is driven by increased at the lower-end.

the other thing you need to look at is the debt. the -- gap. the bottom part shows the ratio of 77%, higher than in 1960, but it has been flat for three years. host: i have a lot of questions related to this chart. susan heavey, the recession hitting than harder -- why is that? guest: at the beginning of the recession, it was fueled by housing and construction, typically jobs you saw men gravitate to. i've seen other data about how women have been able to be more flexible in the economy, and retrain for industries that are growing. initially, it was a housing and construction. host: women make up 67 -- 65% of college graduates. there is an education gap. how was that reflected in job statistics and earnings

statistics? guest: that is a big question. there is a big gap that is still growing and i do not know if it will be reflected in this year's data, one year from now when we see what is happening, when children become adults, you might see an impact there, and this is what people talk about. these numbers show that we have to invest more in education, not just between girls and boys, but for different racial groups host: the woman -- groups. host: the woman-to-mend earnings ratio, 7 cents on the dollar. we hear that -- 70 cents on the dollar. we hear that discussed by both parties. how do you you compare like jobs to like jobs to a ride that these calculations? guest: is difficult to compare those numbers exactly.

as david said, the census numbers give this one piece, but there is no question that women are still falling behind. guest: we have a community survey that has a larger sample that we can break down by over 500 occupations. when you do that, you see some occupations where the ratio is close to 100%, and others where it is much less. you have to look at occupation and education. if you break it down the different categories, you will see a lot of ratios. you cannot take the 70% as an indicator of a lot of things did you have to look at the numbers behind the different breakdowns. host: we have seen a lot of people critical of the obama administration of twitter, so here's a critic of the gop. bush did this outsourcing of our

jobs. we need to talk about your household income with our two guests, david johnson and susan heavey. let's look at this, household income by race and origin, hispanic origin. host: asian households -- guest: asian households have the highest, non-hispanic whites have the second highest, and hispanics and blacks have the lowest. host: if you -- as you travel the country, why are asians doing better, and why are blacks and hispanics behind? the call that is a complex question. a few -- guest: that is a

complex question. a few other groups have come out looking at this, and there are different reasons. a lot of it is education. asians are coming over and getting post-graduate degrees and there is a focus in that culture to focus on education. i will be interested to see next week when the data comes down to see how that breaks out in education, but there has been data that shows that for my very groups, hispanics and blacks, education is not there. guest: over 2010 and 2011, non- hispanic white houses and left houses had a fall, but hispanic causes and asian houses did not. -- houses and asian houses did not. guest: hispanics stood out. guest: right. guest: just to get back to

education, it is not the pay are not educated groups, but the struggle to get educational resources there is where the debate is -- how much money goes to our schools and where. host: i am thinking back to some of the education chart with asians, there are sub-groups, east asians, indians, the have the highest post-doctoral educations. they are getting better educated after college than other parts of the population. next, we'll take a call from san antonio, texas. you are on the air. good morning. caller: good morning, honey. the guy that was talking before this -- you are the most honest people i've seen on c-span.

what makes me so angry, is a obama tries to help everyone. how come the american people are so prejudiced? what is going on? i am turkish. your making your own country look so bad. this is a beautiful country. host: thank you. poverty rate, this made headlines. let's show this one. guest: this shows the number of people in poverty and the bottom shows the poverty rate from 1969 to 2011. as you can see, the poverty rate is higher, but there is no difference between 2010 and 2011. it went to 15.1%, to 15%, which

is not statistically different. the poverty rate had three consecutive years of increases, and it has leveled off. host: historically, an interesting trend to look at, the 1960's was the so-called war on poverty in the united states, and it seems as though the percentage of population, in those terms, the country has made some gains. can you add some historical context to this? guest: if you look the chart, susan, we're almost back at where we were in the 1960's when you look at the poverty rate, 15%. host: i am looking further back. guest: i see, but when you look further all, you see that. what i have heard from a lot of people is there are a lot of

people still in poverty, even though it has gone down from 22% to 50%, 46 million people is a significant number of people -- 15%, 46 million people is a significant number of people. it gets to the question of how you define poverty. there are critics that say if you are a family of four and you have $24,000, you are hurting just as much even though you are not counted as being in poverty, and that is if you are in a major metropolitan area. if you are not making $30,000 with a family of four, you will be hurting. when the official measure really does is look deep poverty, the worst off, but you have a deep segment of people that are not counted who are struggling. host: you hear some critique of the parties, they're not talking about people in poverty.

the only national politician was john edwards to talk about -- we used to talk about americans in poverty. that seems to be a shift. why is the middle class getting the attention and people in poverty not? guest: you do hear a lot of talk about the middle class, and a lot of it goes to who votes in our elections. the middle class votes. older people are a huge voting block. that is where a lot of attention goes to. who will go to the polls. host: can you answer this question, what was the inflation adjustment for the 1960 poverty rate? guest: the threshold we use was developed in the 1960's, and we updated that with changes in inflation.

so, poverty rate will fluctuate depending on how income compares. there are a number of people that criticize this, but maybe you should use a different operating measure for the threshold. host: next, new jersey. good morning. are you there? caller: yes, good morning. it is actually larry. host: no wonder you did not respond. sorry about that. [laughter] is ar: i'm sure this different -- difficult process, putting the numbers together, but i noticed that you have the poverty rate related to different people. in the income percentile, you have the number of people that would be at the bottom as opposed to those that we are at the top. host: real numbers.

guest: the quintiles are 20% of the population, so is -- there is the same number of people. the better way to get a what you are saying is to look at the figure we had at the web seminar and in the report, people below 50% poverty, people below 100%, between 100% in two hundred%, and so on. host: next is a call from fort myers, florida. michael. you are on. caller: how are you this morning? host: great. what is your question or comment? caller: i would like to see a survey done on the upper five percent style of income groups and see if the range of application it was as high as it once was before the recession,

and also, find out, basically, what these individuals are doing for a living that is questionable in the way of monopolistic enterprises such as banking and energy, etc.. do you get where i am going on that? guest: there are surveys that look at higher income. the federal reserve has a survey. it tries to over-sample higher- income people, and they can look at occupations. i do not know the results, but that is a question a number of people are looking at. host: here is a question on facebook, or a comment on facebook about the fed announcement, and its effect on commodities. danny wright's crude oil prices are already climbing after the fed to the announcement, as i guess they think they -- the poor could afford higher prices as long as the stock market bubble can be inflated more.

god help us all on that bubble burst. guest: i cannot talk about the effect on commodities as opposed to other aspects of the economy, as a lot of the needs to see -- needs to wait to see how things shake out, when you talk about gas prices, yet the about the situation in the middle east. -- you have to talk about the situation in the middle east. host: de to take into account the gas prices now compared to the 1960's? guest: it keeps a count of those prices over time. host: so the answer is yes. this chart -- changes in the number of people below the poverty threshold using alternative resource measures. guest: the income measure does not quite capture all the resources. we tried to do estimates of what we -- what would happen if we included or discarded different components. this is a lot of numbers, but

let's focus on the ones that go down the diagonal. if you start at the opera by manville, it is -3.9. -- the diagonal, is three. -- -3.9. go to the next one, we would find that if we included the income -- earned income tax cut, -3.1 million children would be lifted out of poverty. there are sources that we could tax code, and that is a unemployment insurance. -- that we could exclude, and that is unemployment insurance. it has a big effect on reducing the poverty rate that we see, and finally, social security is the big one. if we did not include social security's income, 14.5 million

more people would be in poverty. host: this chart and caps with a lot of political debate going on in this country. guest: it does, and one of the things that it draws attention to is the age difference when you look at children as opposed to adults, and the effects that they have. i do not think it is in this particular chart, but the census bureau has some numbers about the number of children in poverty been almost 20%, and the number of seniors is more like 9%. there is a big age wrapped in how we are doing and there has been concerned about what that -- age gap, in how we are doing, and that has been a concern. in terms of the positives, it draws attention to different government programs, and these are just a couple. these so-called safety net programs put in place to help, there is a lot of debate on

that. is the government doing too much, not enough, and where that all lies -- that is a huge debate and we heard that from the callers -- what about welfare, welfare-to-work requirements, food stamps. we have this american idea that you're supposed to pull yourself up from your bootstraps and make something of yourself. ironically, as these numbers come out, there have been surveys that show people's overall confidence and people still have this optimism, but as we head into the election, the debate on the government programs is a sticking point. host: here is a comment from wendy walker who writes 98% of us would be doing better if we returned to the clinton era tax code raise the social security tax to 3 million.

host: one of these components is a unemployment insurance. the length of these payments was effected in the last cycle. there was a limitation put on the how many weeks could be paid out. is that change reflected in this set of numbers or will that be next year? guest: that is reflected here, and if you look at last year's cable, that number was higher. there has been on their analysis that said had we extended that, it would have been even higher. host: where does the debate and unemployment insurance rest right now? guest: that is a question for congress. we will not see a lot of that happen right now. on employment was extended as part of that stimulus package covers is focused on the farm bill and immediate action they need to take on the fiscal cliff, so it is not clear that

we will see any changes with unemployment benefits. next is a call from -- host: next is a call from iowa. caller: thank you for mentioning john edwards. he was for the rich and poor. he was the only one that mentioned poverty. there is such a thing as a middle class paid anyway, i've not seen a man since robert kennedy who mentioned poverty. my husband is bed-ridden with ms. his income has not changed since 1995. we have to pay for most things ourselves. this is our third mattress that he is laying down. $1,500. it is leaking already. the of the one lasted five