programs, he helped to shape some of our most important economic policy debates. when i asked him to join my team, even though his baby daughter -- you were this big -- had just been born, he agreed to serve once again. over the last five years, i have come to trust not only his head but his heart, because he never forgets who it is we are fighting for -- middle-class families, folks who are working hard to climb their way into the middle class, the next generation. when the stakes are highest, there is no one i would rather ,urn to for straightforward unvarnished advice that tells me to do my job. he understands all sides of an argument, not just one side. he has worked tirelessly on every economic challenge of the past four and a half years from averting a depression to fighting for tax cuts that help working families make ends meet,

to reducing the deficits in a balanced way that benefits the middle class. his wife, who is an accomplished writer herself has put up with a .ot of hours with jason away they have made a lot of sacrifices so their husband and dad could be your working for the american people. i appreciate you guys for sharing daddy just a little bit longer. the reason it is important is because we have cleared away the rubble of crisis and laid a new foundation for growth. our work is nowhere near done, even though the economy is growing. too many families feel like they're working working harder and still can't get ahead. inequality is still growing in our society. too many young people aren't sure whether they will be able

to match the living standards of parents. we have too many kids in poverty in this country still. there are some basic steps we can take to strengthen the position of working people in this country to help our , to make sureter it's more competitive, and some of that requires political will. some of it requires an abiding passion for making sure everyone in this country has a fair shot area but it also requires good economists. i know it is called the dismal science, but i don't find it at dismal. i think it is actually pretty interesting. staffmes the rest of my thinks obamas getting together with his economists and they're

going to have a wonk fest for the next hour, but this stuff matters. in termsa difference of whether or not people get a chance at life and how we optimize this opportunity. everyone gets a caring fornd we are the vulnerable and disabled folks in our society who need help. that createsnomy jobs is our north star. jason shares that focus and alan shares that patch that that he will be working with some of our countries leading economists i'm relying on them to provide analysis and recommendations with just one

thing in mind -- what is going to do the most good for the most people in this country, not as will -- not what is best for a special interest. i don't have another election. it's not what is best for me, it is what is best for middle- class. it's what the american people deserve, so i would urge the sentence to swiftly confirm jason furman and i want to thank alan for his outstanding for -- his outstanding service and for all the economist in the room, for the occasionally underappreciated work you do. [applause] >> new -- the new energy

secretary will address the energy and information conference here in washington on monday. watch our live coverage eastern on c-:45 span2. >> the c-span video library hasn't reached a milestone -- since it's on my launch, there are more than 200 hours of original c-span programming. it is all totally searchable and free. a public service created by private industry. america's cable companies. >> next, the finance committee chair, senator max baucus and ways and means committee chair, dave camp discussed tax policy and irs oversight. this was at the christian science monitor breakfast. >> everybody, please be seated.

ok, thanks for coming, everyone. i'm dave cook from christian science monitor. our guests this morning and nonpartisan alphabetical order are senate finance committee chairman max baucus and house ways and means committee chairman dave camp. representative camp was our guest two months ago. senator baucus'last appearance with the group was 14 years ago. i was not in the moderators chair then, so it cannot he something i said. senator baucus group up on a 125 thousand-acre ranch and heard his law degree at stanford. after working for the securities and exchange commission, he returned to montana and at age 32, won a seat in the u.s. house. four years later, he was elected to the senate and served longer than anyone else in history. he was born in midland, part of

the district he now represents. got elected to the michigan house in 1988, won a seat in congress in 1980 and has been on the ways and means committee since 1993. he became chairman of the panel in 2011. now onto monday and mechanical matters -- first of all, my apologies for the sauna we are running this morning. as always, we are on the record. please, no live logging and tweeting -- in short, no filing of any kind while the breakfast is underway -- under way. there's no embargo when the breakfast is over except that c- span has agreed not to use video

of the session for at least one hour after the breakfast ends to give those of us in the room a chance to file. if you would like to ask a question, send me a subtle, nonthreatening signal, and i'll happily call on one and all in the time we have. our guest decided to skip opening remarks, so we will go right to questions. i'll allow the ceremonial saw all or two, and then we'll move around the table -- softball or two. it seems to be bipartisan week here at the monitor breakfast. earlier this week, we had senators talking about immigration. now, we have the chairman of the two most important financial committees in congress here on a bipartisan basis. do you want to give us a brief explication of how this all happened? >> well, i'll start. i believe that relationships are so important.

and a lot in passing depends on trust, confidence, when you can spend time working with each other. i set up weekly meetings with chuck grassley. i've been doing that for the last 10 years. met him every week. i think we did this together, dave and i -- i felt it a good idea that we meet every week to go over what our committees are doing. the meetings last about an hour. more than that, we are friends. we like each other. you know, it's chemistry. often, two senators from the same state -- doesn't make a difference whether they are the same party or different political parties -- don't get

along with each other. often they do. it just kind of happens that way. personalities and chemistry and so forth. it's a great relationship we have. we are great friends. neither of us want to be president. we are practical, pragmatic. we just work and out really well. >> max is right. we wanted to get this done, and i think he's the one that suggested it. you really find -- often, people visit me. this is still a face-to-face, people to people business in washington. with all the technology, and all the tools that we have, we still have to get to know one another.

actually, i look forward to the meetings. if you have an ongoing dialogue every week, you actually can deal with the issues as they come up. we are trying to find solutions. tax reform is the big issue we are working on, but there are others. there have been some really significant, bipartisan victories on trade that we have been able to work through, and we hope to have more. >> let me ask you -- chairman cap, you said earlier this week "but we have many chapters to go quarter made on passing -- many chapters to go" on passing tax reform. can you sketch out what the next chapter is on tax reform? >> obviously, we are continuing to -- i mean, there's a formal side of it in terms of continued

hearings in the committee. we just had a hearing on tax havens yesterday. i thought what was interesting in that hearing -- obviously, there were three witnesses. all three of them said the same thing on many issues affecting that policy, so we are going to continue that. there have been well over 20 in the house, continuing the work of a bipartisan working group. for example, in the house -- >> is there anything imposing on you as 2014 approaches >> -- as 2014 approaches? >> it looks like we have a little more time. in the house, we had a bipartisan working group with representative diane black and representative danny davis, and they are now working together to to find a way to deal with the tax provisions that deal with saving for college education and trying to find a way to simplify that so that people actually use it. there's 90 pages of instructions for those 15 provisions. those two, as a result of those working groups, are trying to come together on that initiative.

i see us working together in that way. i also expect that we will continue to do some outreach. i don't know if you want to mention -- >> yes, next chapter is -- dave is including his working groups. we have option papers. we meet weekly thursdays. number nine was yesterday, so we have reached a point where we have done a lot of talking and a lot of learning, and the rubber is going to meet the road. we have to start making some proposals here. the next steps are more concrete in nature proposals will be coming out fairly soon. in addition, dave and i are going to travel around the country, and we are going to go to different cities and talk to people, families, consumers,

business groups, just to try to help get a better idea of what people think about tax reform all around the country. we have the website, which is also helpful to reach people. people can reach us more directly. the next steps are basically the end of the working groups and options papers and start coming up with some ideas. as dave said, the pressure point will be increasing the debt limit. at that point, i think we will find other next steps. >> last one for me, and then we will take some questions. chairman baucus, on the subject of the tax-exempt groups that figure into the alleged targeting by the irs, you said there are countless political

organizations at both ends of the spectrum masquerading as social welfare groups in order to skirt the tax code. you continue that once the smoke of the current controversy clears, we need to examine the root of the issue and reform the nation cost a tax laws pertaining to those groups -- the nation's vague tax laws. do you see that as part of the package you are working on with chairman cap or being a standalone piece of legislation? >> i see it as part of a package. the irs regulations are, frankly, helping to spur and help people realize the need for warm -- reform. 1986 brought the code up-to- date, and a lot has happened since 1986. that means the code has to be has to be brought up to date again. tax exemptions are basically

statutes that were passed a long time ago. the major leg was about 50 years ago, and then, a lot has happened. citizens united has unleashed a torrent of dollars seeking a home. the most favorable home is donors do not have to be -- have to disclose about income. tax havens in my opinion should not be by a large spending for political purposes. there are other developing events which show how the code is so dated. once that is better realize, i think that will be more impetus to help us get reform. >> do you think chairman cap will be part of the package --

chairman camp >> i expect that the end of this, we will have legislative proposals. we are still early on in the legislation, and i will say that we are working on this in a bipartisan way both in the house and the senate together, so we have had bicameral and bipartisan meetings on the issue, and we're just going to try to uncover the facts and go where they lead. once we get that concluded, i think there will be legislation that will come with that, and this is one of the issues that has been raised. we still do not know a lot of things about this -- for example, who directed this and the extent of it. >> i might add, too, i think a basic approach that works is that everything is on the table. after a while, we can decide what we take off the table, but at the very beginning, we have

to start out with anything in the general area of tax reform should be on the table and we can see what we will do. the different pieces are somewhat unrelated. but if we start taking items off, other groups use that as justification for taking bears off, and i do not want to make that decision yet -- justification for taking bears off -- justification for taking theirs. >> we've had a lot of time to think since the 1986 tax reform. i wonder what lessons you draw from that. what is different now and what is the same? what lessons do you draw from that? >> basically, what is different what's the same is as then, today, the barnacles have built back up again.

there were 15,000 changes to the code since 1986. 15,000. you have correlations, modifications, so forth. different groups want different things, congress goes along with them, and it has all built up. that is the same. in addition, the public back then was quite upset with sheltering of income, and today, i think the public is quite upset with something else. part of it is sheltering, and another part is lost income from overseas operations. especially low-tax jurisdictions and tax havens. that is a populist concern -- not just populist, but a legitimate, american concern. what is different? back then, president reagan was the primary force pushing tax reform on a very reluctant congress.

today, it is the congress. at least at this point, it is the congress and tax committee starting the ball rolling on tax reform, but the administration is not opposed. it is a willing participant, and i think you will find the president more directly engaged. tax reform is going to help the american economy, help get jobs. in this comparative world of ours, we have to do everything we possibly can legitimately and reasonably to help american people, help american small business, help american multinational corporations, american companies compete better and have less red tape so they can focus more on jobs.

it's a combination of substance and psychology, which i think will help spur the economy. >> i would just say that the tax code was broken and needed to be fixed, and the tax code is broken now. all three of our witnesses said the tax code was broken. the other thing i would add is the world has changed. the ability to invest around the world with the click of a mouse is so much easier, so we have to look at what other countries have done. they have modernized their tax system, and we have not. the other thing, i think, that i think is somewhat similar is you have to be very persistent. that reform would not have happened without continual persistence and effort. the economy is not as strong as

it needs to be. we need to get the kind of growth in job creation and wage increases that we have not been seeing, and i think that is making a case. code has been layered upon layer of change, and it is time to look at it again, and that's what we are trying to do. >> let me do a little bit of timekeeping here and tell you where we are going next. we are going to kim dixon next. a gentleman here whose name i'm blanking on -- having a senior moment, i'm sorry. that should take care of us. >> [inaudible] can you be a little more specific? >> my style -- to work with my

committee. these sessions, these options are bipartisan, members-only, and they are terrific. we are working together. one advantage to know major reform since 1986 is a lot of senators need to learn a lot more about the code, what is in it, and that is an advantage. the senators mutually asked lots of questions of staff at these meetings. it brings us together. we are talking together and a -- and a non-adversarial manner -- in a non-adversarial manner. i have some ideas, and i'm going to speak with mike committee

soon -- with my committee soon and present the ideas to them. i want to get some eyes from a bipartisan committee before i proceed. >> i thought when he said the robber was going to hit the road, we are taking a road trip, going around the country -- when he said the rubber is going to hit the road. trying to get a read around the country. we have adopted a website, and together, we have about 10,000 submissions on the website. we have about 1000 followers on twitter. that is what we are trying to do. the other thing that we are also going to do is we are going to begin a series of bipartisan lunches, together with house and senate members to begin these discussions occurring in both of our committees.

i'm meeting with every member of my committee individually. as i said, we have these working groups, but we will also continue to do some other outreach and continue to move this very important issue forward. >> that all sounds a little vague. [inaudible] >> [inaudible] headlines in the morning is the question. >> stay tuned. it's coming. >> [inaudible] later finishing date for that. [inaudible] do you envision what realistically it would have to be attached to, and do you think

how do you see the relationship between that and [inaudible] >> initially, it looks like we were going to hit the debt limit in august. i think that would have meant congressional action sometime in july. given that revenues to the government are higher than anticipated and other factors, it looks as if we will not hit the debt limit until october -- maybe even mid-october. this is information the treasury has.

>> dave has seen every member of the committee. maybe i'm a masochist, but i have seen every senator privately both sides of the aisle, asking them what they want. in those sessions -- and we will learn a lot more in our joint sessions as well -- you will learn a lot.

you will learn the little scenes that might develop and how to begin to find potential solutions essentially to the question you asked. the big question, which has not yet been asked, is -- what are you going to do with all the revenue generated from the base body? as we address base erosion. many say that is all for rate reduction, and many say that is ok, but we will need some revenue. it gets to the point where we are starting to have to increase the debt limit. first of all, i want to make this clear -- the president wants a clean debt limit increase. i personally think that is good policy. we should have a clean debt limit increase. but i'm also enough of a realist to know that this is a big country. we have 535 members of ingres's. this is a democracy.

different members of the house have different ideas on the subject. -- we have 535 members of congress. "this senator on the other side of the aisle can see a path toward more revenue." i have found that two or three times here. how much is rate reduction? how static is revenue? there is going to have to be some agreement. to answer your question, it is a process answer, not a substance answer, really. you go around to get more clues and ideas and you know where they are on some of the basic tax reform questions. i think when we get close to d-

day, whenever it is -- september, october -- we will be in a pretty good position to know what works and was -- what does not work. >> will there be temporary tax leave for victims of hurricane sandy? if yes, when will it the? if not, why not? >> i don't know. i cannot answer that question, and i'm focused on it. >> is the discussion on the table >> -- on the table? >> not my table. >> is it on your table, chairman camp? >> obviously, i'm aware of the issue. i do not see any immediate plans to move that, but that does not mean it will not continue to be discussed, but there's no immediate plan to move anything on that on the ways and means committee. >> [inaudible] >> i am aware of it. >> [inaudible] new york and new jersey

residents. >> a lot of that was done administratively. what we want to make sure is -- is there really need for legislative action? are the problems going to be able be taken care of administratively, as they were i and other hurricane-type disasters? that is what we are really trying to draw out. >> after what we have been learning about the management failures at the irs with the tea party affair, beyond policy reform, is there need for a new mental restructuring of the internal revenue service? >> i think there may be. -- is there a need for a fundamental restructuring of the internal revenue service? >> i think there may be. this may be at best a fundamental error and at worst intentional. before we conclude, we really need to know all the facts. we are just moving into the interview of witnesses. we have interviewed a few. we will be interviewing many more.

we are at the end of the week i hope getting documents from the irs that we have been seeking, so i hope we will get a clearer picture. clearly, the management was either intentionally not looking or, i would say, so out of touch, almost rising to the level of wrong doing. again, i want to make sure i know exactly what happened, and it take some time to do that. >> i will agree. i would agree. our teams jointly are interviewing irs employees. i got out of court yesterday with my staff, basically concluding that there are real problems. dave touched on it. the office is almost cut off from d.c. -- not entirely, but it seems to me, it's tough to get 90,000 employees -- it's

tough to name the mall, but it is not managed well. there does need to be significant restructuring in the irs. whether that means congress has to do it, i don't not know -- i do not know. but we have to make sure people are held accountable and not just left to go in their own direction. >> we are going to get the truth, and we are going to hold people accountable when we get the truth. >> we do not have all the information yet. >> are you using the power to get information from the irs? have you found out anything yet? >> we are beginning to use that yes -- we are beginning to use that, yes. >> [inaudible]

most of the rest of the oecd countries cut their rates. they seem to be willing to trade more -- foreign investment and job creation for more income and taxation. if we cut, is there a chance that our competitors will take it one step lower again? >>, first i do think our nominal rate, our top rate, from a competitive perspective, is too high compared to other countries. there's no question that it should be lower. and the code does encourage many u.s. companies to invest overseas and build plants overseas. it can cause jobs to move

overseas. i believe there should be very significant race broadening -- base broadening. there is a whole long list, as you know. one of the most expensive is accelerated depreciation. there are a bunch of them. i believe any president has stated several times -- and the president has stated several times that corporate tax reform should be revenue neutral. it is not a race to the bottom because what you might lose with lower rates, you pick up with base prime, but that is by eliminating the tax expenditure. but i do think we need a system that is not a race to the bottom, but is -- but which helps american competitiveness, but also one which addresses based he rose and overseas, and we are not only country

concerned with this -- days erosion -- base erosion overseas. foreign companies are also going to havens, so those countries themselves are losing corporate revenues because their coats -- codes are not sufficiently dated. a month or two ago, the cover story of "the economist" was on this question. a long article on how this happened worldwide. it will be on the list of the g- eight and ireland -- g-8 in ireland. i do believe the issue must be addressed to stop companies from taking advantage of current tax laws. the only way to do that is by adjusting the laws and capturing

current income that is not captured because so many assets art to general -- are digital. that has got to be discussed. >> i agree -- we do need to bring down our rates. i do not think you can sustain being the highest corporate rate in the world. also what we need to address through corporate reform is the transference of intangibles or intellectual property. much of the testimony we have gotten is if we can bring our rate down, the incentive for doing some of that goes a way, but we will need base erosion provisions as well. the other point is there's about $1.7 trillion overseas that we want to try to get invested back. under our current laws, we cannot do that unless it is double taxed, so they do not do that. we are out of step. we are out of step with the world.

it is very easy to find viable investments around the world, and that is occurring. if we want to rebuild our economy and create more jobs and get people back to work and increase their wages, we have to address this issue. again, the president did put it in his budget -- revenue-neutral corporate reform. we look forward to working with him on that. >> at your first irs hearing, you said that the irs scandal was just the latest in a scandal of a culture of coverups and political intimidation in this administration. you said the truth was hidden from the american people just long enough to make it through the next election. do you still believe that? do you tie what happened with the irs to some broader culture of intimidation from the white house? [inaudible]

that you are willing right now to say, "i want a limit." >> first of all, let me say the irs is part of the administration. we had been trying for two years to address this issue, so i was very angry in those comments about the lack of candor from high-ranking officials at the irs when several letters had gone from me and determined at the oversight subcommittee. we had a hearing a couple of days on this issue before the subcommittee. we were trying to get assistance, and let me just say the evidence we have so far is that donors were targeted as "gift taxes" because of their conservative political beliefs. conservative groups have had confidential irs tax information leaked as the targeting of hundreds of groups -- i do not

know if you had a chance to see the witness hearings we have had, but it's pretty compelling what has happened to americans. so i'm pretty angry about this, and i will not stop until i find out what the truth is. we know that two years ago, high-ranking officials at the irs knew about this and did not disclose it to the congress, even though we had been writing letters, and the senate had as well. and we know the treasury knew a year ago and did not let us know. that is not going to happen again. >> [inaudible] >> yes, i do have those, but i'm not going to reveal them today. >> we are going to get the facts here. we are still in the middle of that right now. both of us are. i talked to my office yesterday,

uncovering, and there is a lot yet to go. >> i was going to ask an irs question, following up on tax expenditures. can you say how you feel about mortgage interest reductions -- about the mortgage interest deduction? >> we are seven weeks into this roughly, and we still do not know more than we knew seven weeks ago, which is seen as rather unusual. how would you characterize what you are learning from the irs? [inaudible] have you gone any further on any of that? >> i will answer that one first. as i said, this is actually a

painstaking process. much of this, to prove it, you need the documents, and we are just beginning to get those, i hope that the end of this week. we have just begun the interviews, so this a lot more work to do. yes, it will take time. having been involved in investigations as a lawyer, this is actually more of a white- collar approach where you really need to get the documents and prove things, and that takes a long time. it's painstaking. again, i'm not going to try to jump to conclusions. we often talk in shorthand and say there's a lot of loopholes that we need to close, and i actually consider that not a loophole but policy. again, everything is going to be on the table. we are going to look at all of the items, and again, if there is consensus that an item is going to be performed -- reformed or is going to stay as

is, that will affect where the rate ends up being, and that is the kind of trade-off and discussion that i want to have and i am having with members of my committee and members of the opposite committee. i have been working with kevin mccarthy and meeting with members in general as well, but that's the discussion we will have. i think it is an important discussion to have, knowing that two/three of americans do not itemize -- 2/3 of americans do not itemize. we look at it all. i use the analogy of it is a blank sheet of paper, and we are going to see what goes in, not take the current code and see what comes out. >> i agree. >> [inaudible] any sense of how that policy of

trading -- [inaudible] >> we are in the middle of an investigation. we will see what happens. staff told me yesterday that it will be a few not terribly impressive people, frankly. more questions asked, more people talked to, and we will find out. my style is to get the facts person to publicly state some conclusions. sometimes i do not get there, but that's my goal. >> do you agree with chairman camp that the debt limit is a good forcing mechanism for tax reform? and do you intend to move a debt limit bill either before or

after the august recess? >> yes, well, do not know the date on which we will move the bill. i would like to move the bill in committee. we in the committee have talked about it. we actually brought jack lew up, and it was a very good session about increasing the debt limit and so forth. that is a question that we will have to determine what makes the most sense as we proceed. i'm working in consultation with lots of different people to see what makes the most sense, but i will move at an appropriate time. what is your other question? >> do you agree that the debt limit makes a good -- >> yes, i think it does. you know your business is run by

deadlines. sometimes you need a deadline, as we do in congress, to force ourselves to do something. i'm moving ahead on tax reform independent of everything else. that may get legs ahead of steam on its own -- i don't know -- but it may be part of something else, but i'm still moving ahead with tax reform. this congress is going to have to make some decisions. >> there has been some chatter recently about a carbon tax. can you say whether, how, if, and why that might it into your initial reform? >> my mantra is everything is on the table. we are going to look at that as well as some other alternative

measures, and, frankly, that is going to be what we will be discussing in the committee next tuesday -- thursday. different sources of revenue. i want to take the temperature of the committee. it's interesting -- the more members of the senate now who openly talk about that, it's creeping up a little bit. not going to rise to the level where it is very strong, serious provision -- i don't know, but we are not going to prejudge it. but it's on the table. >> chairman camp? >> i try to make not many declarative statements on tax reform because we are trying to look at the whole thing in its entirety, but i do not support a carbon limit. lex maybe later. laughter -- >> maybe later. [laughter]

>> [inaudible] >> copperheads of tax reform was a three-year process, not something. -- tax reform was a three-year process -- comprehensive tax reform was a three-year process, not something that got done overnight. have you talked about other ways that your process could tie in with deficit reduction bargains? >> first of all, you are right it took a little while, but we have been on this for a while, too. we have had almost 30 hearings on this form, which is not something that has just been hatched in the last several weeks or months. dave and i and others have talked very seriously about reform and what form it should be for a couple of years,

actually. we have had a good number of hearings. second, the assumption is tax reform has to be this session of this congress. it may be this session of this congress. it may not be. 1986 was an election year, so it's possible. in addition, i think it will be difficult to match corporate- only reform for several reasons. one is the majority of business income in america today is generated through pastors -- pass-throughs. if we have significant corporate reform, by definition, that will adversely affect the pass- throughs unless we address those as well to create individual income taxes. small business really cares about pass-through reform because most small businesses

are not see corpse -- c corps. it is premature to know exactly how that will fit together, but what we do with base-broadening revenue is going to be -- it is i probed that question every time i meet with senators, and i find some significant gift with republican senators. it is private right now. it's not public, and it may not ever become public. or it might be -- i don't know. but right now, the administration would like and many democrats would like to repeal the sequester or dramatically modify it. and one significant deficit

reduction -- everybody does. even though the need for deficit reduction is less urgent than it has been in the past. but when the rubber meets the road, then revenue will very much be discussed. there are a lot of ways to skin a cat. i have learned her life, there's almost always a solution. you have to keep looking for it.

it may not be immediately obvious. you keep working and you find a way, and i'm looking for that way to find a compromise between republicans and democrats and how to deal with that. if we can get tax reform because it is so needed and find a compromise so that tax reform is not stalled and bottomed out because we have not else with the revenue question as well. >> i would just say that on sort of the main point of your question, i'm not trying to let that stop our discussions on the policy issues that would make up a tax reform bill. obviously, i'm meeting with every democrat on my committee. many of them say they would like to see more revenue. just say, "let's not just go to our corners. let's move forward on the policy and see what we get." on our side, we think the revenue that was delivered at the end of last year was a significant amount. we are seeing the deficit score reduced. revenue is expected to double over the next decade, but again, i do not think it is productive to focus on where we disagree. there are so many good simplification policies we agree

on. one of the things 80% of americans agree with is the code is to come located. -- it is too complicatedi think the average person should be able to fill out their own taxes. small businesses -- 90% have to hire preparers because they are afraid they will get audited, especially now. i think we need to look at those issues, and clearly, at some point, we will have to address that, but i think it is better to look at that in the context of what are the policies you are getting as opposed to opening that. this is something that, as you mentioned, simpson-bowles has looked at. the first hearing i had as chairman two-and-a-half years ago was on tax reform. we both have been working on this for a lot of years. there has been a lot of work done, and i would say we have had a lot of years where the economy has not come back as

strongly as it should, so i do not think we have a lot of time to waste. i think we need to look at -- a quarter of the kids coming out of college cannot find a job. the fact that there are records -- the highest level of people since the carter administration of people who have just stopped looking for work. even if you have a job, you may not have had a wage increase in a while. that is what is really driving me on this, the jobs and economy issue, and also the complexity of the code, with all the changes max mentioned that have occurred. what really is being called into question as well is not only the integrity of the irs and that whole system, but -- does somebody get a better deal simply because they can figure out through some sharper lawyer or accountant how to lessen the

tax burden but not the average guy and i don't know how to do that and i'm paying at the top? i think there's a fairness issue we need to look at in the tax code as well. that is also driving this because -- and in terms of the business side, we have mentioned that as well. >> there are 42 definitions of small business in the code. 42. i might make another point here -- if we do not form the code in this congress, we won't, in my judgment, until 2015, 2016, and so forth. beyond that, it will be 2017, 2018. if we do not in this congress, soon it will be presidential election season, and i think it will be very difficult to pass tax reform in that context. just think how much we will have lost by then. >> we have about eight minutes left. >> the online sales tax legislation -- i wonder what your view is on that.

and there was an interesting breakdown on the republican side of the senate where the older republicans, for the most part, and younger -- supported it, and younger, for the most part, supported it -- opposed it. have you seen any generational splits in your party? >> that particular issue is one that is not in the ways and means committee. this is where our jurisdiction does not quite line up. we do not have jurisdiction of state tax issues. that would be judiciary. i try not to tell other chairman what to do. i think the legislation has changed, and i think we will have to see what we actually look at in the house. i think a million is a little too low in terms of the threshold for where you have to comply with different tax provisions, but again, i will let the judiciary committee work that issue, and we will see what the committee reports out, and then i will take a position

on it. >> any sign of the generational split on the house side >> do you see younger members looking at this different than older members in any way? >> i have not really analyzed it in that way. i just have not -- i guess i cannot really answer that. >> chairman baucus, would you like to anger your older members and comment? >> i don't see any generational split, frankly. there are fewer of us, and we tend to -- i just not -- i just do not see that. >> earlier this week, senator coburn wrote an op-ed where he talked about, among other things, tax reform.

he said the best thing the president could do to help his administration would be to give the house ways and means committee an offer they cannot ignore. what can the president do to make this happen? is he doing what he needs to do to help move this at this point in time? >> i think he wisely is looking at tax reform the same ways he has approached immigration -- that is, carefully. in this climate, it might not be wise to be too upfront too soon to early. -- too early. it may cause a bit of a storm, but he is very involved. i have met with them on tax reform.

i meet frequently with his chief of staff, who, by the way, i find is very good. he is going out of his way coming up to the hill talking to members in the house and senate and engaging congress on lots of different issues. the president clearly cares about a fiscal solution, clearly cares -- does care about tax reform. in the context of tax reform. generated in the context of tax reform. there will have to be some revenue somewhere, and they know that at the white house and a trying to figure out someway to deal with it it.

they have different personalities, different tiles. president reagan had his own approach to the presidency, and president obama has his. but i think he has wisely been careful. the degree to which he is raising his profile on the forum. >> i will say that the president put in his budget revenue- neutral corporate reform, which is quite a change from where he was two years ago, and with just sort of a working paper, and i think that as a result of the discussion that has occurred. and when he came and spoke to the republican conference, he said basically, "i may not be where you are on the individual side, but i will work with you peaked -- i will work with you. i'm paraphrasing there. if you look at the testimony, they have not slammed the door on this.

at this particular stage, it may be appropriate to see what can the committees do. is this real or not? obviously, we are both committed to working very hard to make this reality because i do not think we can afford to wait. i think the time is now. >> briefly, we still would like to see a budget conference so- called regular order. they do not want to get ahead of themselves on reform. they are hoping maybe there will be a budget conference. i do not know if there will be. i admire those who are trying so hard to get a conference agreement, but they are still not there yet. >> we have about three minutes. last question. >> you mentioned e.g.-8 at the beginning -- you mentioned the g-8 at the beginning. there are two big corporate issues being discussed next week. they are discussing measures that will require companies to

discuss revenue changes and the other is country-by-country tax reporting. if the u.s. makes a commitment next week on some of these issues, do you support them >> will they be able to pass the legislation along those lines, whether separately or within tax reform? >> those are two issues we have not really fully vetted in the ways and means committee. obviously, if the administration makes a statement on that, we will have to ramp up and take a serious look at that. some of that came up yesterday. they were mentioned sort of tangentially an hour tax haven hearing yesterday -- in our tax haven hearing yesterday. there is an oecd report coming out july 1, and i think it

would beheld for to get that before we move too far on that issue -- it would be helpful to get that before we move too far on that issue. as i say, we have not really dug as deep on those two issues as we will after there are commitments made on behalf of the united dates by the administration. >> that's where we are, too. >> on that, thank you so much for doing this, chairman baucus, chairman camp. [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national >>ble satellite corp. 2013] the house and senate return for business monday. they gamble and at 2:00 a.m. for speeches. those are expected at 5:30 a.m.

-- 5:30 p.m. he said he plans to finish the immigration bill by the july 4 recess. the house couples and at noon for speeches and legislative work. the farm bill has nutrition programs. watch the house live on c-span. >> thanks for having me. i want to talk about how the patriot act has been implemented. you were inside the justice department. we spoke of how quickly this became the law.

what isr standpoint happening? >> it was a massive effort from ever happening again. very early on we needed to equip the law enforcement officials with new tools that they could use to detect terrorist plots before they happen. the pastry and tries to do that in a number of ways. it has a couple of key goals, one of which is updating block based on technology. these are laws that have been written in 1960's and 1970's to govern analog communications and looks terribly out of date. it tried to level the playing field. there are double tools that ordinary cops could use to investigate drug dealers and mob bosses.

there were not yet available for intel is officials trying to investigate potential terrorist threats. the patriot act equipped our intelligence officials with the same sorts of tools that law enforcement had been using for decades. the third thing you try to do was to improve coordination and information sharing and make sure the right and new with the left hand was doing so that intelligence officials and law and forced officials could launch a concerted effort. host: let's go back to the debate following the bombings in boston where the administration was criticized for not connecting the dots or keep track of what the brothers were doing. guest: how can the government be checking phone calls? the answer has a lot to do with the oversight mechanisms to prevent the kind of abuses we worry about like privacy and civil liberties. under the programs that have been disclosed in recent days, there is an awful lot we don't know. the previous guest talked about over classification and

declassification. we are still waiting to find out the exact content and details of these programs. it looks like what is happening is the government is asking special fisa court for permission to collect large amounts of data about phone communications. it does not look like they are vacuuming up the content of the calls. it appears they are getting a phone number that has been dialed, other types of transactional information. there is a distinction. host: did -- did this story surprise you or did you know when you're at the just a part in this is taking place? guest: i haven't been there for over a decade so i was out of the loop on current counterintelligence and counter- terrorism surveillance programs for host: and the story came out "why were you surprised? guest: i was surprised to learn the details but i was not surprised that the government

would be collecting information and using it to prevent future terrorist attacks. in this year, we have a sense that the government would be derelict in its duty if it was not doing its utmost to protect us against terrorism. host: let me go for some of the details of the patriot act courtesy of govtrackus , section 215 basically gives easier access to business records, section 203 allows information to be shared with intelligence agencies and section 206 the fisa wiretaps' center under the provision and under section 2 of the 13, allows for the leak and peek search warrants. [video clip] >> section 250, business records provision, was created in 2001 in the patriot act for tangible

things -- hotel records, credit card statements,etc, - things that are not fall more e- mail communications. the fbi uses that authority as part of its terrorism investigations. the nsa only uses section 2154 phone call records, not for google it is or other things. under section 215, an essay collects phone records pursuant to a court record. it can all look at that data after showing there is a reasonable, articulate, suspicion that a specific individual is involved in terrorism actually related to al qaeda or i ran. at that point, the database can

be searched but that search only provides meta data of those five numbers, things that are in the phone bill. that person -- the vast majority of records in the database are never accessed and are deleted after a period of five years. to look at or use content of a call, a court warrant must be obtained. is that a fair description or can you correct it in any way? >> that is accurate. host: that was general keith alexander. let me follow up on what she said this morning from "the washington post."

guest: there is no question meta data can be incredibly revealing when you look at it. who is looking at it and under what circumstances? as senator feinstein indicated, there appears to be something like a two-step process. the first step is the nsa acquires the information by using an order under section 215. that data that goes into some vast government warehouse, a digital equivalent of the warehouse in indiana jones. the second step of the process becomes under what circumstances

can the government look at the data collected? the answer is upon a showing of reasonable suspicion to believe the data in the warehouse might be relevant to an ongoing investigation to protect against terrorism you are quite right that meta data has the potential to reveal intimate information about our lives and relationships and daily business. it is important to understand the circumstances that the government is looking at it and appears to be in situations only where there is a demonstrated linked to terrorism investigation. host: our guest is nathan sales/ he is now a professor of law at george mason university in virginia. our phone lines are open and you can join the conversation on twitter or facebook. david is joining us from plymouth, n.c., republican line. caller: good morning. it always puzzles may help people think we live in a free society. government means there are

controls that will be put in place. i have worked in side of government. we all have covenants will live under and i am surprised when you have people think that when i got my first fan, it was a party line. people listened in on your conversation. things have never changed. we have always been governed, that mr. have to be some controls in place for it whether it be a church, we accept that there are limits imposed upon us in church for their limits imposed upon us with government. the same people that -- we try to live in grey but we rule in black and white. guest: that is an excellent point. you need to keep the distinction between information about the transactional information, the nmetaadata and the contents of the call. the party line example is good because it shows how your expectations of privacy and the conversation you're having are

pretty incensed. what you say to your wife or your husband, the privacy of a telephone call or e-mail -- it is sacred and we want very strict controls on the circumstances in which the government can access that information. legally speaking, the amount of privacy we enjoy with meta data, historically that information has received much weaker protections under statutes and the constitution. when you dial a phone number, you are voluntarily conveying that information to a third party, namely verizon or at&t. in the olden days, you did directly. you told the operator you like to call in number and now there are computers that serve as intermediaries. the basic principle is the same breed when you voluntarily disclose information to verizon about the number you want to

dial, you sort of surrender a measure of your expectation of privacy. that's what the courts have held. host: this is from our facebook page -- guest: it is a good idea and i would stop the sentence there. it is important to have strict oversight mechanisms. the most important one we have under the patriot act and under fisa, is the underlying statute, is the requirement of judicial review. the government cannot support of your phone records unless a court says so. the government cannot listen to

your phone conversations or read your e-mails unless the fisa court says separate is not so much trust the government to do the right thing, i think it is trust the courts to serve as a check on the government in the same way they serve and a variety of other contexts. host: guest: that's one thing we don't really know yet. i would like to know and awful lot more about what sorts of internal controls the government has on using this information. we have to infer what the penalties are from other contexts. a good example of what can be false someone misuses data comes to us from a fairly recent history. in 2008, there is a scandal about state suburban contractors who had access to passport files of the three major presidential candidates. they were snooping around in the

records and it was discovered fairly quickly and the reason for that is it is possible to -- to put audit controls on data bases. those automatic controls flags the contractors. i think they were fired. that gives some hope that there are mechanisms in place to detect unauthorized uses of information and hold those who do so accountable host: this morning from " the new york times" -- guest: there are a couple of different statutes that mr. snowden could be charged under. there is the espionage act which dates from world war one. we talked about updating belote. the espionage act is in bad need of being updated. it was written in an area of telegraph, forget rotary telephones. that is one possible set of laws

that mr. snowden has potentially broken, laws making it unlawful for government employees to reveal classified information to people were not authorized to receive a like members of the press. another specific law he might have broken concerns communications intelligence. shortly after world war two, congress enacted legislation that was specifically directed to the problem of leaks of communications information. it is possible that mr. snowden violet to that wall -- that law as well. host: we hear more about booz allen hamilton. what you know about this firm? >> it is a well respected firm that does government consulting across a wide variety of disciplines. i have a division that deals with national security matters and anti terrorism matters and

it seems that mr. snowden was affiliated with that branch. host: orlando, fla., democrats line, good morning. caller: good morning, thank you for taking my call and thank you for being there to discuss this. my concern first started with the pitcher act. ever since then, there is more and more lost chipping away at our liberties. and we're told that the and we're told that the terrorists don't like our liberties and freedoms and way of life. it seems like the government's only way of combating that is to take away our liberties and freedoms and way of life. it gets confusing when you think of it that way. they cannot even come up with agreement on how to defend our own southern border. where people are coming in illegally yet they are taking

all our information and looking at it. i just have a hard time understanding that. thank her for letting me talk. host:? for that comment on that as a segue into this editorial from "the baltimore sun" focusing on the aclu. guest: the most valuable aspects of the aclu lawsuit is it emphasizes the need for more information. there are good reasons to classified intelligence operations but there is also an important need for the public to be well-informed about the national security activities being done in our name, after all. this is a democracy, policy set by the people elected representatives with input from the people so it is important for the government to declassify as much information as possible. i would like to know more about exactly how the government is

using the information that it acquires under the 215 provisions. what plots of been disrupted as a result? we need to know these things in order to make an informed judgment as to whether the surveillance the tories should remain in place or maybe whether they should be strengthened for we cannot have that conversation on last we're given the information we need to form our opinions. host:ed is joining us from albany, n.y., and lynn -- independent line. caller: good morning, i think the patriot act is unconstitutional. it was set up right after 9/11 and you ask for proof -- petworth where are the black boxes? a plane is never gone down about a black box? host: that goes back to earlier point. we will go to chuck from alabama.

caller: good morning, i have followed this patriot act quite a bit and i think, at the time it was put it, after 9/11, it was put in to deal with terrorists and i don't really see a lot of wrong with the act the way it was written. unfortunately, the problem is that we have a justice department going back to the clinton administration when they went to waco and killed people, the government did it, ruby ridge, the government got involved in that, oklahoma city bombing, we got fast and furious and all these things. i think the correction is in our justice department because this man recalled eric holder was involved at all of these things and yet he is the same man who wrote the pardon for mark rich clinton. guest: i think this requires judicial review.

any executive branch agency across the board has the potential to break a law. any human being has the potential to do something the shouldn't do. that's what it is critically important to have judicial oversight and congressional oversight, making sure the laws in place are being enforced effectively. i think we could take comfort from the fact that in the context of the patriot act and fisa, that's the system we have agreed in 1978, congress made a conscious choice. you cannot snoop around in e- mails today or letters back then unilaterally. you have to go to the fisa court and say mother, may i? that helps us set aside work while some of our concerns about executive branch overreach. host: a moment with your former boss president bush at the nsa there is this comment from one

of our viewers -- guest: not directly but the supreme court has ruled in previous cases for the foundation of some of the provisions of the pitcher act. you mentioned sneak and peak search warrants. in the trade, it is delayed notice search warrants. in 1979, there is a case where the supreme court expressly held that when you are executing a search warrant, you don't always have to provide immediate notification to the target of the search. if you are searching a town eight sopranos house, you don't want to know you are searching his house immediately. you can delay provision of notice that the search warrant has been executed. in a 1979 case, the supreme court said the notion that immediate knows is always required, it is frivolous, that is an example of how the picture that is informed by underlying supreme court precedents.

the supreme court has not tested that many provisions since but the supreme court's prior caseload forms a jurisprudential foundation for what is done in the statute. host: the whereabouts of edward snowden remaining question whether he is in hong kong but the democratic leader in the house, nancy pelosi, had this to say last week. [video clip] >> i think that leaking the patriot x 215 and fisa 702 and the president's classified cyber operations directed on the strength of leaking that, yes, that would be prosecutable offense. i think he should be prosecuted. host: based on that, as a lawyer and former just a part in employee, what is the process involves? guest: the first part is collecting evidence.

it is a port for prosecutors to know exactly what mr. snowden allegedly did, what data did he have access to, how did he steal it, to bomb did he give it and under what circumstances all these highly insensible specific factual questions need to be resolved before you can think about a prosecution for it wants to have a clearer sense of the underlying facts, you think about how those facts map on to the governing statues. there is the espionage act, the communications act, etc. we heard from the head of the house intelligence committee who referred to at was noted as a high-school dropout and may have a -- embellish what he said about the program. guest: some of the initial reporting on the program, it is two separate programs -- some of the initial reporting turns out

to have not been entirely accurate. the initial report was that under the prism program, the nsa tapped directly into the servers of isps and telecommunications service. the press has begun to walk that back. it turns out that may not have been entirely accurate. the companies that are alleged to have participated, pushed back fairly vigorously on the notion the gave the government access to the crown jewels. it is quite possible some of the initial reporting we have seen is not going to hold up. host: our next caller is joining us from the united kingdom. this program is carried live on the bbc channel, good afternoon to you. are you with us, alistair? caller: [indiscernible] whe a briton logs onto american servers, how does that affect

the act? will they reach into the data from foreign users? does that mean we cannot log on to american servers? host: i think we have the essence of the conversation. guest: we are talking about the surveillance of foreign too far and communications, somebody in london picks up the phone and call somebody in sydney, australia. in the olden days, it was difficult to tap that communication because you had to tap an undersea truckline in the bottom of the pacific for atlantic ocean. today, in the internet era, a lot of the packets are a now routed through service in the united states. it is easier for the

intelligence community to, pursuant to court order, listen in on e-mail communications that originates overseas, the termination of which is overseas. the only connection to the united states is that we have a lot of the world's internet backbone here. it raises some privacy issues and operational equity issues. it is more effective it easier for our intelligence community's to get surveillance under those circumstances, but it can raise privacy concerns for citizens in other countries. >> -- host: the patriot actors put in place very quickly in 2001. one of our viewers saying that it is curious that congress has not moved to correct the law as quickly as it moved to enact the original. guest: it was only about six weeks from the terrorist attack to the patriot act being signed into law, but that was a very six weeks -- very busy six weeks. they were doing nothing else.

i cannot remember the exact number of congressional hearings a rational hearings, but it was certainly more than the numbers of fingers on my hand. it is the case that the act was enacted after a great deal of careful study and the liberation, interaction between representatives of the executive branch, the senate, and the house of representatives as well. host: comments from rep sanchez, who sat for you are last week, part of the series of closed door meetings that took place in the house of representatives and the u.s. senate with general chief alexander. this is what the representative said you're on c-span. [video clip] >> what we learned in there is

significantly more than what is out there today. i cannot speak to what we learned in there. and i do not know if there are leaks, if there is more information from somewhere, if someone else is going to step up, but i will tell you that it is just the tip of the iceberg. again, all of these things are legal. host: is this worse than what the public knows now? guest: may not worse, but accumulated. broader than most people realize. host: that was last wednesday on "the washington journal." tomorrow we expect to have more

information as general alexander indicated that they would be releasing this up until now classified information that would corroborate or confirm the information that this has presented a potential terrorist attacks. guest: it is important to have that information. we have to do a cost-benefit analysis. we need to know what the offsetting benefits are on the other side of the ledger. we as voters and members of the public can engage in a rational conversation about the trade-off between privacy and security on the other. host: is that not another double-edged sword? as they release more information, potential terrorists now know what is happening, forcing the

government to take another path. host: there are disclosures that are helpful end of disclosures that help the terrorists. is possible to get summaries of what they're doing in this area that does not tipoff a terrorist to the scope of our activities. it is from the 1998 world trade center trial. osama bin laden was under indictment for the first bombing in 1993 and during the trial it was revealed the united states had been listening to his satellite phone, which you would expect them to do. the cellphone went dark shortly thereafter. it was much more difficult to get intelligence on osama bin laden. as the government weighs disclosing this detail or rationale, it is also important to withhold the most sensitive methods of intelligence

gathering. host: if you are just tuning in, our guest is nathan sales as we drill down on some of the details of the patriot act. joining us from hastings, england, another viewer from the bbc parliament channel, this program comes live on sunday afternoon. guest: thank you for having me on. i have been on this connection twice before. the first time i spoke it was about drones, the second time it was about the power of hackers in cyberspace. now it is all about surveillance. i am on the outside as much as the people in the program who do not seem to be seeing the elephant in the room. once mankind got into technology, mankind has enabled himself to do with technology, those who have the power to abuse it would.

the fact that even most people do not understand the training section in the financial world being done by computers, millions of transactions. if anyone got into that and put down those machines in any form, the world would be in a sort of state. supposedly they want to keep an eye on everything, that just comes as part of entering into this world we have never entered before. people nowadays just in to interact and use their phone is a camera and translate pictures and information in seconds. there is a price. i wrote a poem and if i could just read this part of it.

i talked about the spider's wanting to do what mankind does, creating a web, but web of unimaginable experiences, not only creating a new way of experiencing the world, but global interaction beyond comprehension, doing it while the busier of your prey does not even cents that the second is beyond belief. it just amazes me that people are surprised by what is going on. that is all. host: thank you for your call. good to hear from you again. guest: it is about absolute power and absolute power corrupting absolutely. there is always the potential

for that new capability or power to be be used. the critical question in my mind is now we have given the government these sorts of tools, what kinds of checks and oversight mechanisms do we have in place to prevent the government from overreaching? i think the most important one in this context is judicial review. anytime the government wants to read your e-mails, it has to go before an ordinary article 3 judge, the target of the investigation has to be approved as an agent of a foreign power. the person under surveillance is a spy or a terrorist. you cannot do this unilaterally. you have to go before a judge and say please. judges take this very seriously. they oversee the justice department and the nsa operators and they make sure that they can apply to the terms and ultimately the question is how

effective the oversight mechanism is and one of the most important one is to interpose a neutral judge between the government on the one hand and the citizens on the other. host of this story by tim start with an emphasis on the intelligence issues -- host: this story by tim start with an emphasis on the intelligence issues -- guest: i hope that the debate helps to inform congressional deliberations. i happen to think that ideas matter. as more information is revealed to congress, i hope it informs our national conversation about whether these laws should be

expanded, contracted, or whether everything is working as the traffickers of these was originally intended. host: a book that many of us may have read in high school, 1984, is this 1984 in 2013? guest: if it is, george orwell will be disappointed. google, apple, and amazon know more about the effort -- average american than the government does. the government does not know what i ate last night and do not care, with good reason. they do not care what nathan sales is doing for lunch this afternoon. even if they did care, there would be strict constrictions and restraints on their ability to find that out.

we do not, say, trust the government not to snoop around, but we do trust that they will comply with court orders constantly being used to oversee their activities and enforced by the court. host: clinton, n.y., democratic line, welcome to the program. caller: this is basic physics, given the free fall after 9/11, why did the fbi now review explosions in your building? guest: i will put this on the table. in your mind, was anyone out said the terrorists involved in what happened at the world trade center or the pentagon? host: absolutely not. if the government were involved, we would know by now. host: there is no proof that outside forces were involved? guest: none whatsoever. host: andrew, england, good morning. caller: good afternoon

yourselves. how're you doing? basically, what i would like to know, these companies out there making money through selling security products, very often whether it is mobile companies or something semantic around software, we have cloud based services, etc., they pretty much applaud international boundaries. obviously the united states is significant in this background and i would like to know if prophecy protect the country from terrorism by leaving out 100%, sharing information with your allies, etc., i have done nothing wrong so i have nothing to hide. at the end of the day there is this kind of air of -- is this really the way in which we should actually start looking at

the clearing service? like financial embassies given diplomatic attention? if my personal data is being stored overseas, because i have purchased a certain company's product, should that country's authorities have access to it? i do not think so, even though i am doing nothing wrong, it should be for the citizens of my country to give me all of the data that i choose to stock. host: thank you for the call. guest: an interesting idea. i am not sure how it would work in practice. data stored on the servers of, for instance, yet many isp's -- yemeni isp's, those being off- limits to the u.s., i do not know if that is a workable rule

because of the types of communication in which intelligence is most interested in the united states typically do not originate or terminate in the united states. we are interested in communication between senior officials on the border -- on the borderlands. and their associates down the war -- down the road. making those off-limits to surveillance from the united states, the united kingdom, those are the sorts of things we are most interested in. host: we are talking with nathan sales, a graduate of duke, worked with the justice department in 2001 through 2003 and is currently a teacher at george mason university in fairfax, virginia.

one more call, one more tweet, jack, northport, alabama. caller: i keep hearing everyone talked about the oversight that there is and how much of it there is, but i was listening to those questions from the other day. the story of the fbi came up twice, the atf came up one time. the irs asked over 300 improper questions to make sure that their election was run fairly. and there is supposed to be oversight and everything they look at behind closed doors on the internet? our phone calls? of personally, i hate to lose my civil rights and watch my constitution be shredded when

eight out of 10 of the muslims being investigated are in this country illegally. host: ironically, this last twitter is about this as well. ask what proof he has the awards -- warrants are done so when the court is secret. host: to his point into jack's point? guest will let me take the irs point first. first of all, i do not have or brief for what the irs is supposed to have done with tax- exempt status for combat -- conservative organizations. on the one hand the nsa and fisa context is that the oversight is judicial. there is no judge overseeing the irs on a day-to-day basis saying yes you can ask this question, no, not that one.

there is a compare bolt mechanism in the fisa context. now the question is -- how affective of a check are they on the branch? the justice department and that court provided regular, routine, comprehensive briefings the congress, usually classified, about the kinds of activities being offered. someone in congress knows the scope of those courts and their oversight. and whether the justice department is secretly engaging in wiretapping activities without authorization. if that sort of activity were taking place, my sense is that someone in congress would be blowing the whistle, if not publicly that privately. host: we have had a number of calls on this and i have asked callers about evidence of their theories behind september 11, this is from richard, who focuses more on trust and he says, you should

not be surprised from the conspiracy calls. it stems from trust in government or the lack thereof. on the larger issue we have seen what happened with the irs, the nsa. your thoughts as someone employed by the federal government? guest: no one should trust the government, but what we should trust is the overnight -- oversight mechanisms. they are naturally prone to overreach, naturally prone to breaking the rules. that has always been the case with government action and it always will be. the jewel of the american system is the creation of checks and balances to prevent this from happening too often. in the specific context of national security surveillance we see that in the fisa court, where we need to confirm that the target is a spy or terrorists before the attack takes place. i think that the reduction in abuses the we have seen since 1978 were struck.

host: nathan sales, thank you for adding your expertise to this conversation. guest: thank you for having me. host: in a moment we will continue to look at the fisa rule and how it was put in place >> tomorrow, and look at ian swansonad with and rebecca synder brand. sinderbrand. zarate with a report. then a report on disaster relief spending. "washington journal" live at 7:00 a.m. eastern here on c-

span. as ae excepted gettysburg defeat. he could not accept it as anything else. he was not delusional. he accepted it as a defeat but logistical the outcome have been very good from a confederate perspective. as for the longer-term impact, he argues that the heavy losses in gettysburg not exceed what it would have been from the series of battles i would have been compelled to fight had i remained in virginia. >> the 150th anniversary battle of gettysburg. , on c-unday, june 30 span 3. >> today on c-span, "newsmakers ." kline,sman john followed by speakers from the faith and freedom coalition conference. first, randa paul, followed by

marco rubio. then, former florida governor jeb bush. >> this week on "newsmakers >> this week on "newsmakers" john kline, republican and chairman of the workforce committee. >> i am really glad to be here. >> we have two reporters. all johnson, the national journal congressional reporter. >> as you know, on july first if congress does not act stafford loans doubled from 3.4% to 6.8% for millions of student including those who are still paying them off. do you see a way with the house and the senate still not having figured out how to come together on this? do you see a way that doubling gets a verdict before july 1? >> when you say congress need to act, the house has acted. the house passed legislation to avert that doubling on july 1. it was solid registration in keeping with the president of united states, what he propose, to get away from politicians deciding what that interest rate should be, tie it to the