then, a conversation on the latest air traffic technology with the director of civil aviation with the accountability office. [captioning performed by national captioning institute] ♪ it isgood morning, monday, august 26, 2013. president obama is scheduled to hold meetings at the white house today as a ministration officials reveals a list of targets for potential strikes in the syrian government in response to last week's suspected to michael attack. even though congress is not scheduled to return to session for two more weeks, several key lawmakers took to the sunday shows yesterday to discuss u.s. options in syria. in some cases they pressed the white house to act. and as we take you through the latest on the syrian situation, we want to hear your thoughts.

should the united states take new action in syria and if so what should that action be? it is a call, our phone lines are open. republicans can call-in at -- you can also catch up with us on all your favorite social media pages, on twitter and facebook, or e-mail us at journal@c- span.org. good monday morning to you. the syrian story on the front pages of most of the major newspapers today. here's the front page of "the new york times" -- moving a step closer to possible military action --

that is the front page of "the new york times." here is how it plays in "the financial times" -- and we will show you the front page of "the washington post" -- and the front page of " the washington times" --

as we have said, several of those members of congress went on the sunday shows yesterday. senator bob corker, a republican of tennessee, he is the ranking member on the subcommittee, he appeared on fox news sunday yesterday. i want to play you a bit of what he said. [video clip] >> i think we will respond in a surgical way. as soon as we get that to washington we will ask for authorization from congress to do something very surgical in , something that gets their attention and makes them understand we will not put

up with this kind of activity. i think there are numbers of things that we can do, both from the shift that we have based friday's -- the ship we have based off of the coast. i think you are aware that we have people on the ground in very nearby locations. obviously, no boots on the ground. i think we will take action. it may not wait. additional activities occur there. congress has had a pass on these kind of activities for a long time. i think it is time for us to take a step up and take responsibility here. my guess is they will. i have been talking with them recently this week, i think they will come back, i think they will ask congress for authorization. that was senator bob corker of tennessee, a republican. a bit more on those pops -- almost possible options created

in "the washington post" -- i want to play you a bit more of those members that went on the sunday shows.

senator jack reed is a democrat of rhode island and a member of the armed services committee. he was on "face the nation." [video clip] >> our objective is to prohibit any time tree -- any country from using weapons of mass destruction. we cannot let ourselves get in a situation where this becomes a springboard for a general military operation in syria to try to change the dynamic. that dynamic is going to be long-term, very difficult, and settled by the syrians. want to hear your thoughts, how should the united states responded in syria and if you believe we should respond, let us know what action you think the united states should take. here are a few comments from our facebook page.

one other comment from kristi underwood -- kristy-bill underwood -- we are taking your calls and comments this money. our democratic line is up first from alder, maryland. good morning. i strictly a prose military action. the reason why is because 60% of

polls,ns, according to don't want americans to be -- to go into syria. innocent countries like afghanistan, ironic, and vietnam and so forth is only going to make things worse for many people. [indiscernible] it is a terrorist organization. they hold a an islamist state, which basically we do not want. i oppose it. if you want to get the president's popularity up, he needs to not have cruise

missiles in the coast syria. host: she brings up a recent poll on this issue. we have a story on that for you. this from reuters

you can read more on that poll at reuters.com. we are pulling you this morning. a john is up next from arlington, virginia. i am concerned people are acting a little too quickly. things don't sound right. there probably was some sort of chemical action there. we do not know who did it, though. if it does not make a lot of sense. why would the syrians launch a chemical attack with the united nations already there. the folks at the white house say that it is too late for them to find out what happened for events four days ago. he were there to try to look

into some chemical attacks that happened four months ago. u.s. of voted for that, saying that really didn't -- it doesn't make sense. secondly, there was a side incident that not a lot of people paid attention to. it was a rocket attack on israel at the same day that the israel's -- the israelis figured out did not came from has blood. the israelis responded pretty limited lee, which is - good for them. which is limitedly, good for them. here is the next question, who did it to? make sense for syrians to deal with all those guys on the ground. what we should do is get with the russians, who have a completely different view of what happened there. happenedee with what and then how to figure out how

to stop this day -- what happened and figure out what to do to stop this from happening again. it could have been the syrians, some road group in the syrian rb, -- in the syrian army, it could have been the rebels. host: some more information on that attack that happened last week. as it has been reported, syrians are known to possess nerve gassed and internationally banned agents. the headline --

that is the story in "the washington post" today. we are taking your calls on the subject. allen is up next on our independent line from columbia, maryland. how should the u.s. respond, if at all yucca -- it at all? i believe the nonsense should not get involved in syria. i believe it is a set up.

-- the united states should not get involved in syria. i believe it is a set up. if president obama moves to intervene he will lose the political support from his own base. she will be impeachment -- he will be impeachment-bait. as far as the reports from syria over what happened and didn't happen. not trust the news media. we think it is a bunch of lies. we see how the iraq war was started from a bunch of lies. the leave guysn have good intentions. but if you are regurgitating what the other news channels are saying, it is the same pack of crap. as far as who is doing the saber rattling, i would look to susan rice and john kerry for actually trying to make the policy of

war. i am fed up. host: thank you for the call. tweets coming in, as well -- several editorials today on this issue, first i want to read one of the lead editorials in "the wall street journal" --

an opinion piece by andrew roberts in "the wall street historian ands a author. that piece notes --

back to the phones, hamden, connecticut. good morning. think this is ridiculous. why should we go fight if we don't really know the fax? -- know the facts? run into a crazy to situation without knowing who is the real cause of the action. we cannot police the world. it is notying them, going to help anybody. it is going to hurt us. we are going to get our sons and daughters killed over a situation where we do not know who is the culprit. is like the big bad wolf and we have come to blow your house

debt. we will get some bricks pushed back on us and our people are going to be hurt. i don't think it is a good idea to be running there without all of the true facts. sayingf reporters are this man actually did it without knowing if that is true or not. that is like a mad parent. you cannot assume the child did without fax. running in their, we would be putting ourselves in that situation. the white house is now saying -- caller: i don't like that --pons of mass instruction of mass destruction statement. last time they said that, it was a big flat out lie. host: when the white house says there's very little doubt, as a senior official told -- said in a statement yesterday. you don't believe the white house at this point, either? caller: i am not saying i don't believe you.

weapons of mass destruction, we know that is a lie. if any politician stay that politicians say is that statement, i know you are lying. host: al jazeera america on what is happening --

a tweet from joseph ramirez this morning -- justin is on our republican line, good morning. don't think we should jump to conclusions until we actually get the report from the united nations, become a co-op in team on the ground, to see who did the weapons. i don't want us to make the same wetake we did in iraq where

had inspectors on the ground camee he -- before we in and entered a war we should not have gotten into. host: matt is up next on our independent line. good morning. caller: i hope these politicians, democrat and republican, who are warmongering , will listen to all of these scholars. i happen to be one of the majority of americans who are against doing anything before all the facts are in. alse rebels are mostly qaeda. they are killing syrian christians, earning churches. if the country wants to do anything, they should increase humanitarian aid to the churches of syria and other organizations

to help the people. i am tired of war mongers like republicans, mccain, and democrats, engel, it is outrageous. if you don't learn from history, like iraq, people tend to repeat it. that was a tragedy. it was also in moral. host: matt from emerson, new jersey. on twitter -- we will stay on the subject for the next 20 minutes. we want to show you some of the other news that is happening out there, including some of the other members of congress who went on the sunday shows yesterday. that includes texas senator ted cruz. he went on the sunday shows to double down on his longshot to

de-fund obamacare. this is honest data the union. -- this is on state of the union. [video clip] need 218 republicans in the house and that will only ?appen -- you know what this fight is likely to heat up in the month of september. that is likely when the battle is engaged. i am convinced there is a new paradigm in politics that actually has washington very uncomfortable. it has politicians in both parties very uncomfortable. that new paradigm is the rise of the grassroots, the ability of grassroots activists to demand of their elected officials they do the right thing. a grassrootswe see tsunami, that is going to cause

republicans and democrats to listen to the people. but it is going to take us know me -- it is going to take a tsunami. i am going to do what i can to encourage that tsunami area host: sent -- that tsunami. host: senator ted cruz on "state of the union." front page today -- i want to reach her a little bit more about that story from "the washington post" --

we are taking your comments and thoughts this morning on how should the u.s. respond in syria. plenty of editorials discussing this issue. shay is up next from fort pierce, florida on our democratic line. good morning. caller: good morning c-span and

america. syria, like to say about the reason i am saying what i'm saying is because we have a lot of problems right here in america. america, i am still upset about that trayvon martin shooting. a citizen can shoot in other citizen dead, killed him, call it "stand your ground, code that is a terrible thing. somebody can run up to me, doing nothing to them, i get the best of them -- host: let's stay on the syrian situation for a second. an editorial from andrew roberts, who noted --

is the use of chemical weapons over there going to change your opinion, if the united nations find that and confirmed that it happened? thing: it is a horrible for country to use that on its citizens. that is a terrible thing that needs to be doing something about. all i am saying is that we americans have a lot of stuff to deal with here ourselves. we are doing nothing about our own country. there's a lot of stuff that needs to be done here. it is not right, it is a terrible thing. it would be if america was doing that to us. we have talked about those u.n. weapons inspectors on the ground. a new alert from the ap this morning, from damascus, syria.

that is the latest over there. next from washington dc on our independent line. good morning. caller: how are you? host: good, go ahead. caller: the nsa can find out what happens up there. it is a fact of life that unconventional things that -- unless we scale want to accept without responding with something worse, then we have to do something. when the most people are heard, for instance in rwanda and sudan, we do nothing about it

until it is reported on. decides as a collective that this is actually going to -- this is something we are going to do something about. of a is the leader sovereign country. it ist sovereign country, terrible what they are doing to the people there. we have the technology to some -- with to respond -- technology to respond. host: where do you think the united states should go? caller: there are plenty of pilots just jumping. like one general said on a we don't need 60,000 people on the ground. i was a volunteer, we should probably have a draft army. pretty low enlisted man. i guarantee there are plenty of lot to would give up a

help some of these problems. host: talking about a possible u.s. response. here is an opinion piece in today's washington post, with the headline, down raged dreams. is written by eliot cohen.

if you want to remark that piece, it is in "the washington post." let us go to marry from pennsylvania on our republican line. good morning. caller: i would like to make a comment about the fires in yellowstone. they seeing clouds over california and colorado to make it rain? host: we are talking about the syrian response, do you have a comment on that? i am sure we will get to the wildfires and other questions down the line. caller: great, i will call back. aaron is from canton, ohio on our independent line. good morning. caller: good morning. almost caught me off guard there.

i am getting antsy or listening to the comments coming in. i just wanted to let you know that we should have been in there a long time ago. you can turn your tv off and go ahead. caller: the tv off -- the tedious off, this is just a cell phone. we should have been in their a long time ago. -- we have hurt ourselves. there is no possible way we will ever have boots on the ground and there. the americans move toward having any other battle because of the iraq war. it put our society into what -- into the mind of world war i and world war ii, we are going to let the world go to hell before we step in again. it makes me think of my favorite quote, all it takes is one person to stand -- i messed it up all it takes is one person to

stop evil from happening. thanks for the call. darren brings up some of past u.s. military campaigns on that subject. president obama is going to be awarding the medal of honor for conspicuous gallantry to a veteran of the afghanistan war. that was staff sergeant carter, who will receive the medal of honor today. this is according to a white house press release.

"usa today has a number of u.s. service members killed in afghanistan -- up next from florida, on our democratic line, give us your thoughts on how the u.s. should respond in syria and caller: obama has been put between a rock and a hard place.

general patton said he could start a war and blame it on the other guy easily. there is a book called "the gun and the olive branch." when president aside of syria said outside elements would be behind the rebellion. syria has a short and long-range plan to destabilize the middle east. it is not obama. give us your thoughts, what should the u.s. do right now in response to those chemical weapons? the white house says yesterday that they believe that there is little doubt at this point that chemical weapons were used against civilians. this has been going on for quite a while. we do not know who has been this nursing -- who has been disbursing these chemical weapons. re,we get sucked into thei

which prime minister netanyahu wants -- he was counting on a romney to be president. believe the crazy evangelicals -- host: we will stick with what is happening right now. another update on the attack we talked about, on the u.n. cap of -- on the u.n. chemical weapons inspector. his is the latest update from ap --

if there are more updates we will get them to you from the associated press and other agencies. we are talking about possible u.s. response. members of congress going on the sunday talk shows to talk about this issue. sean is up next from baton rouge, louisiana. caller: good morning. i think we should absolutely do nothing. we get into much trouble if we stick our noses in where they do not belong. they didn't do anything to us, we shouldn't do anything to them, and it will solve no problems. hitler did not use poison gas and world war ii.

the british and americans had read -- had it ready to go. host: a few stories i want to note for you this morning, this is from "the usa today," --

one other interesting story. here is a piece from "the washington times" --

that story has a picture of john hickenlooper. they are facing a secession movement in his state. left ona few minutes the question we are posing to our quests -- to our viewers. how should the u.s. respond in syria? ryan is up next on our independent line in maryland. good morning. i think it is time for america to stand back and let the nature of all course of her. think obama, if he gets in on this intervention, what happens again is we forget all of the innocent civilians. no one is calling a spade a spade in this situation.

there has been a lot of deaths attributed to these. is that going to be a part of this? comment on twitter -- we go to eddie from millbury, massachusetts on our republican line. good morning. caller: good morning. no, we should not get involved created president obama should try to go to the u.n. and get the combatants together, all of the arab states that are supplying arms to them. you never know how it is going to turn out. think kennedy, he went to

vietnam with advisers. it and it wasted at the osco -- it was a fiasco. franklin roosevelt sent the air force to china. that is why the japanese attacked us. you never know what is going to be the outcome. do not get involved. negotiate through the united nations. host: two more tweets -- that is going to do it for this first segment on "the washington journal." today" reported that -- cracken will join us to

talk about the latest trends. and later we continue our discussion on the health-care law and how employers are try to keep costs under control. we will be right back. ♪ >> in our original series, we look at the public and private lives of women who served as

first 80s during the nation's first 1200 years. that's first 200 years. >> the building of rights will be one of the foundations on which we would build in the -- d >> i don't think the white house can completely belong to one person. it belongs to the people of america. the first lady should preserve its tradition. 2, from edith roosevelt to michelle obama, starting at september 9 on c- span. tonight we will conclude the encore presentation of season one. "> "washignotn journal continues. host: small businesses created

80,000 jobs in the worst part of the year. spending is trending upward. today we are talking about small businesses in the current economy with the president of the national small business association, todd mccracken. your group refers to itself as america's small business advocate. as you look at the data coming in each month, what is the most important metric in your mind? confidence, the that is the key thing. it doesn't reflect -- it doesn't just reflect the desire of these business to grow, but their willingness to take risk. and also the risk of new startups, which is hard to capture. it does have do the confidence overall. host: the national small business association recently hold [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captioning performed by national captioning institute]

-- recently polled. we have a chart we can show you. what is the latest numbers on small business owner confidence? trend.eline showing the guest: it is trending up slowly. that is something we have to -- we are not going to see a sharp uptick for a while. it is interesting when you look at that line, it seems to follow pretty closely the talks over the deficit and a lot of the fiscal cliff breaks mentioned we have seen over the past couple of years. wefiscal cliff brinksmanship have seen over the past couple of years. that is an important thing to keep in mind. host: we'll get into the more

details of your group's poll. explain what the national small business association is. of small-are a group business owners who advocate for federal policies that will contribute to their growth, economy.in our us we work on a nonpartisan basis. for localederal group and regional small businesses. host: how is your group funded? guest: on was entirely through membership conjugation and dues. host: how big is it? guest: 65,000 companies across the country. host: how do you define small business? guest: fewer than 500 employees. there are a lot of ways to think about small business. it really does depend on what issue you are getting at, what

issues are relevant to my whether it is a lending or tax issue. the 500 is what we use for membership purposes, but not a catchall for every policy issue. host: we are taking your calls and questions for todd mccracken. we are setting up a special line in this segment of the washington journal for small business owners. we want to hear from you about whether you are confident about the current economy, what you are seeing in your part of the america. at phone number is 202-585- 3883. the rest of our standard lines will be open. you can call -- i want to go to the national employment report, by adp, that talks about the rise over the first six months of small

businesses. employees of businesses, about one of 19 employees, there are 50,000 jobs created in the first six months of the year for businesses of 20 to 49 employees. how does that compare to the previous six months and the first six months of 2012? guest: i am not sure how to compare to the previous six months but it is one relatively -- but it is relatively weak. we have always seen significant more job growth in those sectors that we have seen coming out of this recession. that is clearly one of the primary reasons that the recovery has been so slow. we're not seeing the growth we have seen in the past. as time we had a recession, at

this point small business it had added well over one million jobs , not tens of thousands of jobs. host: what is the difference? guest: confidence. when we do these polls, we ask current small businesses whether they plan to hire or not higher in the next two months or whether they have done that. but they always miss and what is really hard to get at is new business startups. when of the most important things the small-business community contributes is new jobs from the current crop that is not new jobs from the current crop, but in companies start to grow. that is crucially important. that is why it appears our economy is missing. when someone is thinking of starting a business, essentially they are quitting their job, they're possibly taking out a second mortgage on their home, they are risking their life savings. they have to be really confident about the future of not just

their company but the economy overall. that confidence just isn't there. people are not starting businesses the way they used to. numberusa today" has a that has other numbers on small businesses and the economy. -- has numbers on small business and the economy. which one of those numbers most concerns you or are you most of -- are you most optimistic about? when businesses burrow

money, they borrow money to grow. they borrow money to perceive that there is an opportunity to expand their business and take advantage of growth. lending -- growth in the lending is important and it has been one of the problems over the past five years. even one company saw an opportunity they were not able to get that lending together sometimes. the fact we are seeing more of that is a positive sign. we are taking your calls and comments on this segment. we especially want to hear from small business owners. cynthia's on that line from a -- on the line for small business owners. talk about your business and your level of confidence right now in the current economy. thank you for taking my call. i have been a business owner for have --, andit and

have been in small business for 12 years. i have had to keep my job because of a lack of willingness of the banks to loan money to small business. our growth is less than one expand, and we wanted to . finding somebody to loan us money in order to expand is extremely difficult. tohas been a real struggle stay in business and maintain a profit. that i have absolutely no confidence in our national leadership. that our economy is going to go into recession and i think we are going to see a andssion later in the fall that it is just because of our ladder -- because of our

national leadership being unable to make a decision to mandate bipartisan manner. -- make a decision in a bipartisan manner. to planat are you doing for that? you believe a recession is on the horizon. how is that affecting how you run your business? going to bere hiring somebody, actually. no thanks to the federal government because are payroll taxes are so high. since our payroll taxes are so high, i cannot get paid. i am not making enough of a profit to support myself with this business. it is really the federal government that i blame because of their payroll taxes. it is terrible. what kills me is that large corporations get away with so much. a small business like me, we are just squeezed and squeezed. here i am, struggling to try to

make a living, trying to get out of my full-time job so i can expand it with the knowledge that i have read -- that i have read i cannot because i'm getting squeezed to death by the feds. (202) 737-0001 host: that level of frustration, talk about it. we asked our members was the single biggest thing the federal government can do to improve our climate. they didn't even mention a specific issue. the number one thing is they want congress and the president to work together does -- together to resolve these disputes and move forward with something rather than continuing the gridlock. that reflects a high level of frustration.

she raises a lot of really important issues. she talked about lending and the inability to get enough money. a lot of folks out there lump consumer lending and small business lending together, and they are fundamentally different. when you see a small business opportunity you need to exploit, often need to hire somebody, rent a building. all of those things you have to do before the money starts coming in. get the money echo you either have it or borrow it. if you cannot borrow it, you cannot hire the person or by the equipment. it sounds a lot like what the color is talking about -- the caller is talking about. people forget small-business owners pay a federal payroll tax. employeeit for the half and the employer half. if team percent beyond income

taxes, the small-business owners have to pay. host: you brought up the midyear economic report that your group conducted. how many folks you talked to for that survey? guest: 100, if i recall. host: which of the following issues do you believe congress and the obama administration should address first? any of those responses surprise you particularly? guest: not particularly. i was surprised that ending the gridlock was so far above the other issues. those top three issues are all

tied together. tax reform, reducing the deficit, and ending the partisan gridlock. the only way you can do tax reform and deficit reduction is by ending the gridlock. they are all linked. we seem to have been growing confidence in 2011 until the deficit in talks hit. we seem to be up against the wall in terms of national default. we continue with that pattern from more than a year with brinksmanship and one crisis after another. you can see that directly affected the confidence. host: that confidence survey and you are talking about this area right here when those talks were happening, a dip in small

business owner confidence. guest: that is right. that the talksr and the inability to reach an agreement, which was on the news every night, talking about the possibility of a fiscal collapse directly hit the economy. it clearly was a significant problem for our economic growth. is with usmccracken this morning and taking your comments and questions. david is up next from ohio. good morning, david. caller: good morning. standard oil almost took over the world, teddy roosevelt busted it up.

we have the same thing happening again today and it is called walmart. the walmart family has the equivalent wealth of about 50% of the american people. the real crime is they are to $2 millionlion per story in tax subsidies. uni are paying to keep walmart in business. this is a joke. this is crony capitalism. towns.ll these empty i do not believe they have the lowest prices. this is what we have to do to break up this big crony capitalism. this talk about competitiveness issue. guest: it is a significant issue.

is primarily aue retail issue, as the caller says. walmarts have grown tremendously. have not beenlers able to compete with walmart. it is also the internet. the are able to undercut prices that small businesses charge. the bigger issue for small companies is often, consumers much bettersier -- service at small companies. a consumer will go and figure out what they want to buy and get it at walmart at a smaller -- lower price. .hat is clearly a real problem

retailers drive hard bargains with their vendors. small companies cannot get the same prices for their products. that drives down there profits and makes it harder for them to expand. that gives the consumers more money and he grows our economy, but it is a balancing of one against the other. this issue that we often hear in washington about red smith.ritten by matt regulatorying the .urden on business was about 8%

talk about that. guest: it is a significant issue. it depends on the kind of business. not all regulations affect all businesses. it depends on the industry you work in. there is a big knowledge factor that keeps some people from because theysiness cannot figure out which regulations to comply with. the individual small companies do not distinguish between federal, state, and local regulations. a lend of the impediments that small businesses face are local in nature. -- look will sometimes at the total amount of federal regulations and it goes up every year.

unabated in terms of the number of regulations that small businesses have to face. you do not have an attorney or some expert on staff to deal with these various regulations. it is the small business owner that has to deal with and find out about them. they spent time growing a business. that were you surprised issue came in fifth on your survey? did you expect it to be higher? guest: i do not know that i had a clear expectation. with the focus on the deficit and the fiscal cliff, i think that has arisen on the radar screen. the regulations are always in the top five. i would be astonished if that

fell out. it moves back and forth depending on the value of the other items. host: we will hear from small business owners this morning. we have a special line set up for you, 202-585-3883. on that line from san antonio, texas. good morning, you are on with todd mccracken of the national small business association. caller: good morning, sirs. and starting a new business in the process of -- one very important part is gasoline. the prius effects the product that i am producing. of theo that price

customer'participation affects how they participate and my sales. if the price of gasoline skyrockets, it could put me out of business very easily. how can i compensate for this instability in pricing? guest: i am not sure that you can. very large companies can create financial instruments to hedge against variations in the price of fuel, at least for their own consumption. the scale simply isn't there to do that sort of thing. it is a risk you have to build into your business plan. think about the consequences of say,us -- as you particularly for some businesses, fuel prices are hugely important and could

affect your business and your product more than almost any other variable. host: san diego, california, on our democrat line. good morning. you are on with todd mccracken. anyone how can we trust in the chamber of commerce to be able to tell us what the truth is about things? they might step on the toes of people in power. it just seems like there is no good answers. modelre a new business that you can make easier for people to do something so they don't need that power and the money and the backing? how can we take the tax breaks away from people who have too much power?

is there any solution? would you be penalized and shunned by people with money? is it dangerous to get out there and tell the truth? guest: i take the caller's point. we get all of our money from small business people. we are not beholden to special interests. identity ined our what is best for this community. that is what it is. cynicism givene what happens in the city. significance.have is we're doing the best we can. about theave a text annual budget. guest: about $3 million. host: we are taking your calls

and comments with todd mccracken from the national small business association. i want to ask about the affordable care act. what are small business employers saying about the health-care law? guest: every time we have asked about their understanding of the , their sends is what has to happen will decline. we reach the rollout of a new have more and more sense whether they like it or not. exactly the opposite is happening here. host: we have the numbers from your current survey.

20% said they had a clear understanding. number was 17% back in december. the question is not asked if they understand what the law says but if they understand how it will affect their business. i do not think 80% have no understanding about what the law is supposed to do. they do not know how the law will affect the overall marketplace and their business. what will the insurance product look like? they do not know. orl there be greater demand

will there be less demand because of the exchanges? they just do not know. and seees a wait game. they think about the future and what it holds. host: another question from your survey. do you plan to offer health insurance under the new health- care law? guest: for those companies that have more than 50 employees is not to expect a significant change until they see how it shakes out.

that is a little bit different than some of the discussions out there any significant shift in employers taking responsibility for health care purchase. host: we will get into that subject in our next section, talking about the health care law and its impact on businesses. our phone lines are open for you to speak with todd mccracken about small businesses and the current economy. steve is waiting from arizona. good morning. go ahead. caller: a couple of things i would like to make --something washington does not understand, common sense. we have to overturn this obama health care. we have to go through that with a fine tooth comb. nobody understands what is going

on with that. get this oil going in this country. it is a three ring circus. i watch on your station, i watch the senate. everybody is walking around like a chicken with their head come off. we should start listening to we the people. host: he brings up the financial reform bill. guest: primarily affects it affects lenders and people who aren't lending the money. that does add complexity for these folks. we don't have good data on how it affects small businesses.

been of the law has not and lamented yet. yet.s not been implemented we do not have a clear picture best tochanges would be improve. host: with the federal swipes fee -- there were some recent developments on that role. if you could explain. a businessssentially has to pay a fee every time they use a debit card or credit card to the credit card companies. that market has been uncompetitive. processors have

had control of that market. we have been advocates to make reforms that would introduce more competition and bring those fees down, allowed businesses to fall to thealways dictates of the credit card companies. they might be able to pass some of those fees on to customers if they so choose. up on the line for small business owners from texas. you are on with todd mccracken. caller: good morning, mr. mccracken. most of the people that i have listened to on the financial shows that represent small business organizations do not have a clue. sometimes i think all they do is go out and have drinks and golf.

i am not putting you in that category. based on the remarks they make, i do not think they are that tuned in. gridlock oner meant the top of that poll. i tend to agree with that. is just like the gentleman called in from arizona. i do not run into that many small business owners that have a problem with the affordable health care act. most of them have a problem with paying their fair share of taxes. they are watching the larger companies not pay their fair share of taxes. another point i wanted to make is that a large part has been retiring people.

even theng industry -- smaller banks, they do not want to take risks. if you do not put every single penny and come to the table with enough money to finance something, it is pretty hard to get financing. if you cannot afford to pay for it, they are not interested in financing it for you. if you want to buy a small business, you have to put your house out. you have to sign the paperwork that will put you in a situation -- "why would i want to take this risk?" that is a problem. financing is not where it should be. i do not see regulations sustain a big problem for small

business. they will find a way to make it happen. a lot of times seller financing becomes part of the deal. it is not back where it was. the large banks -- i have never had a situation with the large banks. somebody wants to buy something and they have a relationship. senate,rnment -- the the house, the communication between them and all the confusion that they create. a just makes people look back and say, do i want to risk this and put everything i have on the line, even if it has good numbers and will pay out. you just have to stop and think. host: let todd mccracken jump

in. guest: i think the caller is exactly right. the dysfunction in our government right now gives small business owners real pause. come on that with the stricter lending standards. crisis, andinancial the banks probably were a little bit too easy with lending money beforehand and now they have swung too far in the other direction. they have gotten better in the last year or two. even if businesses can get their credit they need, they have to risk everything still. the national leaders are not giving them the confidence to do that. that is a nice synopsis of where we are in our national economy

right now. host: an independent from colorado. how confident are you about the future of your business right now, bill/ ? caller: i am getting cross feed from another phone call. i can barely understand you. this is not about obamacare or regulations. this is the last five years the banks have had a stranglehold. doesn't seem to matter how well established your record is. the banks were not lending any money. it did not matter. you were lucky if you got a phone call back denying your loan. the other problem is congress jerking our economy whenever they feel like it. they seem to feel when they don't want to have money moving,

they get up there and create a scene. people do not spend money. why would somebody want to take a chance right now in laying out money for a business wh you cannoten count -- when you cannot count on the flow of money? host: what kind of business are you in? caller: i have a very small business. i have not been afraid to spend money. it has been a great time as far as being able to spend money and my money going a lot further than it has before. here we are going into another holiday, christmas. i haven't had a good christmas in five years because our congress is playing games.

they go into it every year. my customers do not want to use spend money when all this fighting is going on. i haven't had a good christmas in five years thanks to our christmas -- congress. they do this every year. guest: i think that is exactly right. itdoes tend to happened -- has been often near the funny to of the year, which is not helpful -- near the end of the year. we are coming up against our spending limit and so forth. congress has that learned a lesson and it will not repeat the mistakes of the last couple of years. host: we have a few minutes left with todd mccracken.

i want to turn to the immigration reform bill. in --mills writes illegal am in favor of immigration. we have been in favor of immigration reform. we think the reform is headed in the right direction with a couple of exceptions. visaink some of the provisions are overly complex difficultind up being for a lot of small businesses to fully use and they will wind up ovinceng the profits -- privi of larger companies. we are concerned about some of verify provisions. we worry they will be -- th ere be citizens caught

up in the morass. they have people on payroll that have come back as non-verified. they do not know whether to train them or to pay them. there are continuing worries about making sure that they are streamlined and simplified and clear as they can be host: lucy on our republican line. good morning. caller: we have had an insurance brokerage for 35 years. now we have dodd frank. obama is trying to grow the government. congress has been blocking him. let me tell you about growing the government. -- 10ve one regulation

government employees harassing your business and your people. one of the callers was saying how the regulations will not be a problem. when the government starts showing up in your office with arrogance. we have 2000 clients. i hear a lot about the government coming in with regulations. there is a belief through on my line -- there is a bleed-through on my line. congress is not the problem. congress has sent 31 job bills up to the senate. denied themas from coming to a vote. that is the real issue. small businesses are struggling. host: to see from california.

jeffrey from greenbelt, maryland. good morning. you are on with todd mccracken. caller: good morning. it says to me that one of the reasons is that the heritage foundation, senator cruise and mcconnell -- cruz have done a wonderful job of giving this information. host: you are talking about the affordable care act? caller: yes. [indiscernible] toator mcconnell trying intimidate the american businesses from getting this information. hallweek i had in a town

meeting i heard a republican congressman from minnesota telling people -- [indiscernible] man -- they will pass they are still giving wrong information to the american people. lawmakershave the that are not interested in creating -- problems. they are not interested in governing. get don't they just ha out? host: if you want to talk about the affordable care act and what you found in your survey. guest: there is ongoing concern

about the and limitation of the affordable care act. see howmpanies do not that will benefit them yet. it is worth noting that the shop , those are not going to have employee choice yet. they were supposed to have a model so employees could choose which model they wanted through their employer. that has been delayed for a year. this is not something that will get resolved this fall. we will have this discussion again next year. is theodd mccracken president of the national small business association. thank you so much for joining us

this morning. we will continue our series on the new health-care law. today's focus is how employers are trying to keep costs under control. later, a look at how your dollars are being spent. this week we will look at the $40 billion that has been targeted to the air traffic safety system. but first a news update from c- span radio. the palestinian authority has canceled a meeting with israeli peace negotiators, this response to the killing of three palestinians at a refugee camp in the west bank earlier today. forces tried to arrest a suspect came under large-scale attack, resulting in the deadly clash. talks on the agenda in pakistan. hamid karzai urging pakistan to

facilitate peace talks with the taliban. expectations are low in both countries that much progress can be made. the visit comes after an attempt ao jumpstart peace talks in doh floundered in june. the group had a flag, anthem, and symbols of the islamic emirate of afghanistan. army psychiatrist convicted of the fort hood rampage that killed 13 people begins the sentencing phase of his trial today. he is facing a possible death sentence. major nidal hasan showed no reaction after being found guilty last week. those are some of the latest headlines on c-span radio. >> i have been writing for years

now and the proof has arrived in the last year or so. sales fallingpc dramatically into double digits five quarters in a row. before that it had been quite flat. some of this had to do with the economic meltdown around the developed world and the whole world over the past four or five years. the pc has peaked. i do not mean it is done or that people will throw their pc's away or that tablets or smartphones will replace everything a laptop can do.

daily scenarios for which people use to grab their laptops that are more conveniently done now on a tablet. ofa look at the future personal technology, tonight on the communicators at 8:00 eastern on c-span2. >> "washington journal" continues. host: we continue our series on the new health-care law with the help of kaiser health news. today we are joined by jay hancock to talk about how the law is impacting employers and how some are trying to control health care costs. you had an edge is a story about a recent action taken by ups,

one of the country's largest employers. what did ups announce? put out a notice to its many employees telling them that if they had spouses on the health plan and they had access to coverage, if they were working spouses, they would no longer be eligible for coverage at ups. it is called spousal exclusion. widespread at large employers like ups, but it is growing. the analyst indicated this may be part of a trend as companies look to control their health care costs. this is one way that will save ups ups millions of dollars.

the affordable care act puts the responsibility on employers to cover their employees. primarilyour spouse's employer should fill that and we will no longer offer coverage. host: we will show our viewers the language that was used. host: how many folks are we talking about being impacted by this decision? guest: it would affect about 15,000 families.

15,000 spouses. these are white-collar, managerial jobs only. workingnot excluded spouses from the majority of its jobs. 3/4 of its jobs are unionized. their spouses are still covered. the company is still offering spousal coverage to those employers. these are managerial employees. host: which is about 20% of their employees enrolled in the flex plan at ups which could potentially be impacted. we will be going through this story and other stories. we want to take your comments and questions as we talk with jay hancock of kaiser health news. our phone lines are open. at 202-s can call us

585-3880. .mployees, 202-585-3881 if you're a family member of an employee, 202-585-3882. we would love to hear from ups employees who may have been impacted, whether you are and employee or a family member. memoeemed to say in their the health care act several times. finding thatyou this decision was attributed to the new health-care law and how much two other factors as a: ups rasied it factor. they mentioned it four or five times in the memo. the noted it was part of sum total in the decision-

making. projectionsd some for what they expect their health care costs to be next year. they were expecting about an 11% increase in the total health costs and the attributed about .% to the affordable care act we talk to independent experts who suggest there are cost for large employers like ups built into the health law. there are taxes and increased health coverage. in the large scheme of things, those are relatively minor components compared to the big picture in health care, which is the overall increase in health care costs.

defenders of the law pointed out that if the law works the way it , in the long run that will cost companies like ups far less money. the money they save will far outweigh their initial startup costs for the aca, which kicks in in full gear in 2014. host: we are talking with jay hancock of kaiser health news. we want to hear your thoughts and how you are being impacted. our phone lines are open and the numbers are on the screen. kaiser health news is independent from the kaiser family foundation. they are a research and communications corporation and

not affiliated with kaiser preventing. some numbers were put out on inflation of health care plans. talk us through some of those numbers. guest: the foundation does a rigorous survey of what employers'health costs experience is. the survey this year showed what it is shown in the last couple of years. slowdown inket health care cost inflation. employers,rage for the cost is going up at about an rate of 4%. five percent for single employee coverage increase. those are down from increases of as much as 10% before the recession. the recession was the borderline

for the cost slowed down. those are still far above the inflation rate. health care is still increasing more than the economy is growing but it is slowing down to a preshow degree. caused opponents of the health-care law to take credit. there is still pretty striking argument about whether this is sustainable. we have seen health care costs slow down before and everybody said we have it fixed. it did not turn out to be true. the question now is whether this is permanent. host: here is how the editorial board of the new york times put

.t host: that is in today's "the new york times." waiting. few callers

you are on with jay hancock of kaiser health news. caller: hi. points.sically two it seemed america would make the correlation between employers and health insurance. i question whether that correlation should exist. anmight be a benefit employer might want to provide. there should be no correlation there. the items are separate. and a lot of times the premiums are dictated not by the persons lifestyle but by the size of the company, which should have no bearing on the price. if a construction cubby has 50 people and another has 10,000 people, the second construction

company would get a much better deal in america. but the whole point is to aggregate risks. is like they are cheating with the numbers. guest: thank you. two good points. a lot of people share your opinion. they asked why health insurance is tied to employers in america. legacy an historical that grew up by accident in world war ii. there were price controls and employers were not allowed to give employees raises but they could offer health insurance. depend dynamic where it has been associated with employers. the idea behind the affordable care act was to work with the system that we had. it was impossible to overhaul

the system. the act took the insurance companies that we have and try to work around that. a lot of people share your opinion that that is not an ideal way. raised the point about more --paying more per employee for smaller employers. one of the ideas behind the affordable care act is to narrow poolsap by having risk for small employers. this is what the small employer exchanges that are opening in 2014 are supposed to accomplish. host: these are the ones that will be pushed off by a year. guest: they are still going to open next year. the choice that you have when

employeesoffer your will not be as extensive. the idea was to have a look like the individual obamacare exchange in which you will have four or five different plans to choose from. onerimarily going to be insurance company that you see for the first year. the idea is to throw them all in thatool and try to get price under control. austin,y in texas. good morning. caller: it is probably good for the employees that they are not going to cover their spouses. i worked for the state and i had insurance. my husband has me on his insurance. i got sick. my insurance was the primary

insurance. his insurance would not pay for me anyway. it doesn't make sense to have your spouse on your insurance when the insurance is not going to pay anyway. only my insurance paid because mine was primary. guest: thanks, joy. that is a good illustration of what employees and employers have been wrestling with for a few years. the way the system grew up had a lot of overlapping coverage in two-income families. there would be overlapping benefits. one of the things that has been happening over the last five years is you have companies like ups trying to sort that out and

decide we are going to cover this but if a spouse is covered, we will only cover that secondarily or we might not cover it at all. what you are seeing is a separation of the overlapping coverage. it sounds like your employer's had impose the policies. extreme stepa more of this benefit coordination. said president obama often in talking about the affordable care act that if you like your current insurance, the act would not change your current plan. ups was blaming the affordable care act. what has been the white house reaction? guest: the white house is basically saying -- they are not responding directly to what ups did. they are saying that in

scenarios like this, there are other options available for spouses. the spouses that are no longer eligible forps are coverage at their employers. saying therese is are these other options available now in the exchanges, the online marketplaces that open in 2014. if you do not like the insurance and your employer, this is another option. host: chris from texas. good morning. you are on with jay hancock. i think we lost chris. allan from maine, a family anber of somebody -- of employee with health insurance. good morning. caller: i guess i want to make a

statement. carethe cost of health seems to be the most important issue. my wife retired with disability and we were able to continue our health care plan by purchasing it ourselves. we are aware of what the costs are. we started paying and the cost was about $4000 a year for a family. $16,000. is this does not seem to be brought up enough. some way to reduce the cost. i am just making that statement because i would like to see the statistics point out more often about these high costs and how much they have increase in a relatively short point of time.

at affordable care act least attempts to adjust this issue. guest: no argument here. health care is really expensive. it has increased the on the rate of growth and beyond the overall inflation rate for nearly three decades now. it is putting real pressure on budgets everywhere. government. a lot of the reason we are seeing the government deficits is attributable to health care costs. great point. it doesn't get brought up enough. let me add something. i do not know your individual situation. let's assume you are buying an individual insurance policy for your wife through a broker or

directly from the insurance company. 50's orprobably in your early 60's and not eligible for medicare yet. one of the things that the affordable care act is intended to do is to bring down the premiums that you are paying now for the policy for your wife. sts, brings to pool co down costs with older folks with perhaps chronic conditions and bring down the price difference between someone like your wife and somebody younger in their 30's who is healthy. if that is your case, you'll almost see if you can go shopping on the main health exchange starting in october. you should see a pretty substantial price reduction.

thatubsidies to be pay for depending on your income. $94,000income is below for a family with a few up toence or $46,000 -- $46,000 for a single person, you may get some tax credit help. good luck to you. you may see some changes. are talking about some changes that some companies have made. you bring up a few parts of the health-care law. if you could bring up what they are. you bring up a temporary fee to stabilize online occupies his and a catalogued tax -- cadillac tax. guest: there are a lot of taxes

associated with the affordable care act to pay for this new coverage. we are paying for this coverage now outside the health care system. you mentioned the research tax. a temporary tax to subsidize these online marketplaces we have been talking about that will probably be unsuitable -- unstable for the first few years. employers tax that have to pay that will help pay for those costs. on veryllac tax will be generous health plans. it does not kick in until 2018. are lookingke ups at it already. it is quite a stiff tax. if it is over a certain amount,

you have to pay a tax of 40% of the value of the plan over that threshold. that is a pretty stiff bit e. companies are looking how to reduce the value of their plans. beyond that, maybe the larger factors is the added coverage requirements. they mentioned the aspect of the plan that is best known which is adult children can stay on their parents' plan up to age 26. the cap on lifetime that if it's is removed. that raises costs and so forth. that is why ups mentioned the affordable care act as one of the factors that caused it to exclude working spouses. survey thatte a

asked employers how they plan to change their health offerings for employees in light of what is going on with the affordable care act --the current situation on how employers charge their employees. about 20% charge working spouses annexed or 20%. host: is that correct? guest: yeah. this is a trend. this is continuing a reduction of health care coverage that employers have been doing for quite a few years now.

but looking at spouse coverage and working spouses is something that companies are looking at more closely. host: ups being such a big company making this move. have you seen reports of other companies starting the process? guest: the university of virginia announced it was making a similar policy. it would not cover in the future working spouses of uva employees. is ahing more prevalent surcharge. at his spouse has access workplace, you might pay $1000 a month. we talked to xerox, which will charge employees who have a working spouses $1500 a month,

itch is a different way -- is a nudge to get working spouses off the plan. we talked to other employers who go the opposite route. they will pay you a bonus if you're working spouse -- if your spouse seeks coverage elsewhere. that is another way that companies are doing it. ups took the logical end of the step. host: chris is up next from florida. good morning. you are on with jay hancock. caller: thank you. good morning. the single person -- i i am an individual.

their subsidies available up to $46,000 a year. guest: right. caller: they are more substantial. i work on commission. i fluctuate between those two. if there's enough of the difference where i am going to come out the same, i am not going to work too hard to come to the 46. i will come closer to the 35. that is kind of scary. there are probably a lot of people like that. to be done about healthcare. i am concerned about that. we are all intertwined. we are all connected.

if there is not an -- not enough won't be people, there enough money to come in and purchase my services. -- we are all part of the economy. that is scary to me. combine that with the small business exemption -- businesses hit 49 employees, that 50th , there'll will have to be a serious profit increased to hire that 50th employee. tot: j hancock, do you want talk about the hiring practices? discussionslso been about limiting hours to get under certain parts of the affordable care act. guest: it is a sliding scale.

the amount of the subsidies decreased as the amount of your income goes up. about yourou mention incentives to work the marginal our, the incentives -- the marginal hour, the incentives to hire the extra employee, it is one of the major critiques the republicans have. republicans in general are against incentives put in by government to decrease the propensity of people that work and produce. there are a lot of reports out sayingbout businesses we're going to have to keep our employees under 30 hours now because the affordable care act requires coverage for an employee only if he or she is over the 30 hour threshold.

you're seeing a lot of part-time jobs being created when the job creation numbers come out. a lot of those jobs are part- time. people are attributing that to the affordable care act. repairing to stay under the 30 hours even though the administration has postponed the enforcement of the employer mandate. if you're an employer over 15 employees you have to offer coverage. that is put off until 2015. people that oppose the affordable care act are pointing at these and setbacks that your -- these incentives ask that you are pointing out. it is going to take several years. that on nbcy on

news on friday. they talked about subway onechises, interviewing owner who is cutting hours below 30 hours a week because they cannot afford to offer health insurance mandated by the affordable care act. paul, alexandria, virginia. on our employers line.

caller: i am self-employed. practitioner. i grew up in new york city. has the health insurance land there. the blues were mutual insurance companies. sometime about 15 or 20 years ago among blue cross of virginia zedutual eyes -- demutuali and i got a windfall. companies been allowed to demutualize? what is it supposed to achieve? what percentage of the inflated cost of medicine can be attributed to this?

guest: you bring up a little- insurance.t of the wasinia's blue cross plan bought by anthem. it is now part of the well points health insurance company today. marilyn's blue cross plan, wellpoint attempted to blog that -- to buy that. it was blocked on the grounds that you bring up. a not-for-profit plan would be better for the state's interest than a for-profit plan. i am not familiar with specific set -- specific studies that you are bringing up. how much of health-care cost can we blame on the for-profit insurance companies.

theel fairly safe in saying structure of the insurance company, and even the administrative costs behind insurance companies is not the main factor in the really expensive health care that we have today. any economist will tell you the main factor is the prices that we are paying for health procedures in this country -- they are twice as high as they are in most other developed countries, and the number of procedures that we perform, well beyond what similar nations do -- that is what is driving health cost. we talked about the concerns of subsidies and making sure they go to people who actually need them. here's a question from james. beyou expect people to

honest in reporting their income? is there anyway to know we aren't giving subsidies to liars? guest: the short answer is no. at least in the short term. it sounds like the state and federal governments will be fairly lenient on taking people's word for what they say their income is. or two,ly, after a year there will be hopefully stringent enforcement processes. exchange,o to the you're going to log on, you are going to verify your past income through the internal revenue service. if that goes right, the irs computers will talk to the exchange computers which will talk to the insurance computers. you will buy a plan and granted

subsidies on the spot. measuring -- what will dictate the size of your subsidy is the income in that year. it will ask you to project your estimated income for that year. for people who are on commission, that may be a little iffy. the idea is to true that up over time. if you overestimate your income and you file your tax return, it will get adjusted when you do your turbotax. in the short term, there are not a lot of controls as i understand it. host: on cutting hours to avoid some provisions of the healthcare law, bill says if and

employer cuts and employees hours, why are they not find? fined?are they not is no measure in the law that says they have to be fined. there are penalties that employers pay for not covering full-time employees, but the law is written -- it does not penalize an employer for component of its workforce that is part-time subject tond not health coverage. it should be said that the administration, the people that that that law, knew is not always a smart packet for employers anyway. employers like to have full-time employees that fully understand their job and are engaged. it is a balancing act the employer has to go through when

they make that decision. host: we have a few minutes left. hancock onlow jay twitter. his work is that kaiser health news.org. we are going to doug. caller: thank you very much. with walmart being the largest canada, in the u.s., mexico, and the service industry that the company has become, that 30 hours promised is going to have to be looked into. story, if spouses are not working, are they still covered and what about their families? i have a catastrophic policy that i buy that gives me $2

million in coverage in case in case god forbid i get into a terrible accident that would expand my medical costs. would obama care, the affordable care act, get rid of the lifetime cost. do i need this additional policy that costs me about $50 extra? guest: yes. if the spouse is not working, he or she is still covered by ups, if you have kids, they are still covered in any case. even if the spouse is working. greatther question is a one. will give you two answers. one is a copout. talk to your insurance agent.

one of the reasons for the rationales before -- behind the act is toe care keep people from having catastrophic out-of-pocket costs that lead them into bankruptcy court. for a longn going on time. one of the key reasons that the proponents of the health act put forward was let's stop this. let's not have this happen. i suspect this is what the insurance agents call and indemnity policy. it is not really major medical coverage but picks -- but kicks cancerertain events, that has various triggers, people see them as a good backup policy in case something terrible happens. those will still be legal, allowed after the health act kicks in.

whether or not they are needed, you should talk to the guy who sells it to you. from let's go to laura austin, texas on our employees line. good morning. caller: thank you for taking my call. i have a comment and a question. it seems that the social been shredded by every single u.s. business there is. they are mistreating their employees by shoving them into part-time jobs and cutting their hours. business has u.s. no interest in taking care of their employees and no interest in offering healthcare. why does the government not go to a single-payer plan and cut out the middleman? right now, none of the medical healthcare costs are coming down until we address he fragmentation in the medical healthcare system.

i am fixing to have surgery. i am going to be dealing with four or five different medical corporations to conduct one surgery. covered, therem is no telling how much extra cost i am going to have to pay out-of-pocket that won't be covered by insurance. i know the majority of people andhit with these overages it makes health insurance a joke. i was hoping you would address that. thank you for your comments. i don't know of anyone, republican or democrat, who would argue with your assertion that the medical system in the united states is really complicated and hard to

navigate. there is a minority support out there for single. -- a single-payer health system. political movement right now. it will not happen unless the affordable care act is a dismal failure. there may be renewed support for , which isayer plan basically medicare for everyone. radar screen.he everyone is watching the affordable care act. it is not going to be simple either. the people who passed the law think it is an improvement on what we have. jay hancock is a senior advisor with kaiser health news. weekly your our money segment. we're looking at how your tax dollars are being sent on the $40 billion that has been

projected for upgrades in the air traffic safety system. a news update from c-span radio. the economy this hour. the commerce department says orders for durable goods dropped over seven percent in july. the steepest drop in nearly a year. orders fell just 0.6%. the declines came after three straight increases. the figures suggest that manufacturing growth remains sluggish after a weak start this year. speaking -- spoke earlier in jakarta. the nine states will only take legal on serious with justification. this is in response to the alleged to michael attack in damascus. chemical attack in damascus.

he plans to talk with his british and french counterparts about the situation soon. the russian foreign minister says military action without a mandate would be a violation of international law. jeffrey feldman has arrived in iran. his second visit in a year as top u.s. envoy. he visited last september you secretary- general. he is the highest ranking jet -- tolomatic representatives visit. c-span. we bring public events from washington directly to you. the room atn

congressional hearings, white house events, briefings, and conferences. this is a public service of private industry. cable tv industry 34 years ago. funded by your local cable or satellite provider. you can watch us in hd. in our original series, first ladies, influence and image. as we move into the modern era, we will feature the first ladies in their own words. we will build in the world an atmosphere in which peace could grow. >> i don't think the white house could could -- could belong to one person. it belongs to the people of america. should leave in it

something of herself there. live, monday night, including your calls, facebook comments, and tweets. include -- will conclude the encore presentation with ida mckinley. >> washington journal continues. how yourtake a look at money is at work in the segment. airre looking at improving traffic safety and coronation. it is called next generation transportation system. it costs about $40 billion. that cost is split between the faa and the airline industry. we are joined by gerald

dillingham. give us a better sense of what nextgen actually is. what is that $40 billion supposed to buy? transfot is the full rmation of the air traffic control system. 28 -- 29 different products. is to move from a ground-based, radar-based system to a system that is based on the global positioning system -- the gps. we are moving into the 21st century with our air traffic controller system. in 2004 and started expected to be finished in about 2025 with that 40 billion dollar price tag. what is this going to mean for passengers, pilots, and air

traffic controllers? to meant is going significant gains for each group. or the air traffic system, it is going to give us a more efficient, greater capacity, andronmentally friendly, for the general public it is going to have a positive impact on emissions. it is also going to do away with -- not completely, but have an impact on delays that we experience within the system as part of the flying public. from here is a headline the wall street journal. billion-dollar adventure. it is beginning to speed flights in the market section of the wall street journal. did you decide in 2004 to go

ahead and do this? guest: congress passed legislation that required the federal aviation administration to begin this initiative. stagerted in the planning and we are now some nine years headlines the indicates, there were some bumps on the way. we are starting to see some benefits of the new system. we are moving forward in implementing the nextgen system. host: let's talk about the old system. from the 1960's, some of it from world war ii. it was based on ground-based airline'smeant that i -- that airlines would fly like highways in the sky. they had to stay a significant difference -- distance apart.

flying theing about most efficient, most direct of routes. we are going from a man centered anen controlled airspace to airline centric machine based a beating system. geralde are talking with dillingham of the government accountability office. we are taking your calls and comments on this nextgen product -- project. attempt to revamp the airline processes. i would love to hear from you.

you touched on this a second ago, but dean asked, will it include remote control aircraft as has been shown to work since the 1970's. ? guest: it will have the capability to include unmanned vehicles in the system. there are lots of hurdles that the faa has to overcome in order av's to fly in the system safely. the faa is still working on developing those regulations and rules that will allow uav's. this from april of this year on nextgen and its implementation. has made some progress in

midterm implementation, but ongoing challenges limit expected benefits. talk a little bit about your findings on that report. guest: we found that we were getting to see some limited implementation of nextgen, however there were hurdles that needed to be overcome. the biggest hurdle is to get equipment should -- equipment on the aircraft so they can take advantage of those capabilities. the airlinescle is need to feel some confidence that if they invest in these technologies that faa will come through and also do its part with the ground infrastructure with procedures and policies that are needed to operate. at the same time, we need to remember that we have a system that has to operate 24 hours a day, seven days a week. we have to manage both the ongoing system as well is the

transition to the new system. the breakdownut of cost. $40 billion at the outset of this project expected. you looked at the inner room, or the near term in terms of cost. airlines are going to have to cover about 6.6 billion dollars out of a total of $18 billion to implement nextgen's goals. are we still on track for $40 billion when this thing is finished? each time the system is delayed, and it has been delayed for several years, you can expect an increase in cost. the $40 billion number was a number that we obtain from faa at the very beginning of the initiative. we have not updated that number at this point in time. -- since thebeen finish date has been extended a number of times, i think it is reasonable to expect that the

cost will also increase. how: let's show some folks nextgen is impacting folks right now. a program led by the faa allows all carriers to use satellite to satellite-hes to, airports. tacomattle- airports. the green lines are the new gps guided tracks. how many airports have actually implemented this new gps guided tracking and thus cut down on some of the routes? in place, this

kind of orientation in at least 10 airports across the country. is the most of those airports with the greenest sky. the greenest sky is the best example of where the airlines are able to do a very smooth landing into an airport. the aircraft's are on an almost ideal. you are getting less noise, and the airlines are sick -- saving a significant amount of money. the less time they're up there, the less fuel burn in a less money involved. planeshese are paths of approaching houston airports.

the older path is this longer route here. we talked about saving on fuel and money. are we going to see those savings get passed on to the passengers of the airlines? guest: it is hard to say with the airlines will do with those savings. a very thinrate on profit margin. they are beginning to see a profit. we are seeing those profits into passengerd services. do anill eventually airline decision, but we are seeing some of those benefits passed on to the passengers as well. host: we're taking your calls and comments as we are talking to gerald dillingham. we will start with james from florida on our democratic line. caller: i have a couple of

technical questions. i am a pilot and flight instructor. have issues with nonparticipating aircraft in the gps system. how will they be accommodated? i am worried about aircraft that may be saturating our airspace. -- maybe 10 trading our heirs be penetrating our airspace. there will always be radar backup to take your the kind of situation. this is also a dod project and a homeland security project as well. agencies about six that are involved in nextgen. part of it involves national airspace security as well. we will have a backup system of

radar in case there is gps interference or spoofing. host: following up on that question, roger asked about the older system as a backup. he also asked how many jobs would be gained or lost with nextgen. anyt: i haven't seen studies with how many jobs will be gained or lost. inn we looked at this issue terms of how many air traffic ortrollers would be lost along those lines because we would be doing more automation than we are currently doing -- i think the consensus is that we are looking forward to greater capacity. the losst projecting of control or jobs at this point. the controllers will be able to manage and handle more traffic than we currently have. nextgen the impetus for

-- the estimated traffic increase that we would see in the next 15 to 20 years. host: daniel is next from pennsylvania on our independent line. you are on what gerald dillingham. i am a retired air traffic controller. the american public should be aware that the faa are kisses new equipment, -- purchases new equipment the same way the military does. they collect bids from large corporations that do eventually produce a product that seldom meets the original specs. that is usually vastly more expensive than anticipated. goal, but iendable think that separation standards between aircraft are just about

as small as they can be. of trying to make a lot points all at once. one example how controllers have been quite disappointed in equipment that we have received that was much ballyhooed and sold to the public -- it turned out that the faa bought shiny brochures and not real equipment that was highly functional. he received a radar system in 1970-1980. we had keyboards that communicated with two different functions of the system. conventional qwerty keyboard and the other was an abcdefgtical keyboard --

whatever. we complained about the intended system extensively before was thevered but we got unworkable system and had to make it work. guest: you make some very good points. let me speak first to the separation standard. the separation standard are such that faa and the controllers have determined that there need to be certain space of vertically and horizontally between aircraft. for we found is that increasing the margin of safety, the air traffic controller have added to those separation standards and therefore you have space in between aircraft's that if they are put together closer with a more precise location of where they are, where you can

obtain through the nextgen system, then you are able to add capacity to the system safely and efficiently. pilot's reaction times -- pilots will be able to react in case something happens. guest: absolutely. it will giverule, more space to the aircraft in their operating envelope as such. the second question that you raise about equipment that when it goes into operation or when it is brought into the air traffic controllers is not what it is expected to be, that is one of the long-term problems with faa. the need to bring all the stakeholders together so that when something does finally get to the control tower, it is in fact, reflective of what the controllers need.

it is equipment that needs to be maintained by the faa technicians. a lot more coordination, collaboration between all of the stakeholders. i think air traffic controllers are on board and they are indeed well integrated into this nextgen system. am worksald dillingham at the government accountability office. how long have you been working there? tost: longer than i want admit, but at least 25 years. you were there --host: you were there when the gaa put the system on the high risk list. why was nextgen on that list for a while? had a modernization system on a high risk list.

it is a list of programs and projects that we believe are at ofk or could be at risk exceeding their schedule or fact that weor the want to monitor those for the congress because they are large or complex problems initiatives that need to be monitored so we can inform the congress as soon as possible if we see anything developing. we had the atc system for about 12 years. that was because it experience all of those problems that we just talked about. it was over budget, behind schedule, it was complex. years, the faa decided to move to running the atc system as a business. it began to bring the project in on time, with budget. he took it off the high risk a list with the notion that we

would be monitoring nextgen as it came into being. wellde sure congress was informed of any situations that were on their way to being a challenge or problem for this nextgen system. host: we talked about the ,otential savings with nextgen will airlines passed the cost of implementation to the consumer? will our tickets cost more to pay for this? know thist we do point, airlines will be saving money. -- we hope those profits will be turned into better customer service, newer aircraft, and things like that, rather than passing on the cost.

host: will controllers become passive if a gps system is used for landing and takeoff? what threshold is needed to override that system? guest: the controllers will shift from hands on control of -- there will be a human in the loop. the controllers will be a part of the system. from let's go to marie's -- maurice from georgia. caller: good morning. i am confused as to why this would take 21 years to implement fully. about it, the primary impediment seems that the airlines and their

implementation and their adopting of the transponders is the primary impediment. that is the reason it would take so long for this to be implemented. -- was in the money in the stimulus program specifically for the gps conversion? are other countries already doing this? 21 years on implementation, mr. dillingham. significantis a undertaking on the part of faa. it is one of the largest infrastructure. infrastructure projects that we have taken on. there are a number of issues that have impacted on why the system is taking this long.

the key is part of what you say equipms of equipment -- age by aircraft. it is not only the equipment and the airlines, it is a significant issue, but there has to be procedures developed, tested, the systems have to be demonstrated so that they are safe. they have to be operated while the current system operates. there are so many other issues equipage. we have criticized the faa for almost 10 years of planning. will -- thathat we we are at the point where we are seeing some returns on the investment that faa and the airlines have made in regards to

seeing benefits from nextgen. host: the other question was on stimulus funding. ,s you were talking about that or their cuts under sequestration that could impact nextgen? guest: if i can go back to the first question -- or second question about other countries. other countries are doing something similar to what we are doing. european countries have an initiative that essentially ends up being the same thing that we are doing. they are not in front of the u.s. in terms of doing it. they're working together. they're collaborating together. all of these are moving step by step. aircraft's operate internationally. otherwise, airlines would have to be equipped with two different systems. that would not be cost- effective, or safe.

other countries are doing it and we are working hand-in-hand with those. with regard to the stimulus money, i am not aware that the airline -- that faa received any to push nextgen forward or push gps forward. the gps system is also used by dod. aware if there was money involved in that or not. the third question you asked, that has to do with the sequester. effect on faa. faa is at this point, developing ofionalized implementation sweeps of nextgen program at many of the major airports around the country. involve bothives

the air traffic controllers, the airports, as well as faa personnel. some of those initiatives had to be delayed or put on hold while the sequester was in place. at this point, we don't know how it is going to come out or what the congress is going to do with further sequestration. could also affect and delay the implementation of nextgen. host: we have about 15 minutes left with gerald dillingham. phone lines are open for your questions and comments about nextgen -- this effort to upgrade the u.s. aviation systems. joe is up next from flushing, new york. the jets taking off of runway 13 at laguardia have

three -- four options to take off. -- safest one takes off over the faa are diverting the jets for baseballopen, games now, and they're going to a new climb called the flushing climb over densely populated areas. will nextgen pinpoint those neighborhoods as highly political -- the takeoff routes. used to nextgen be fairly distribute the planes and the noise and the danger? host: i want to show the story in today's new york times talking about this issue.

it is called a rumble in the sky, and grumbles below. climbdia's new tennis over a swathplanes of queens. guest: the new york area is one of the most congested areas in our country where three major m&a --s in close rocks in close proximity. nextgen's capability to reduce noise and then mission

is in fact the mission of nextgen. help aircraft smoothly land in airports with their younes almost on idle so get less in missions less noise. it will also make for more precise landing and takeoff as well. when you move traffic from one place to another, someone is going to experience the ways that perhaps they didn't experience before. the faa is working to minimize the impacts where they can and the airlines are working with quieter and more efficient jets as well. linesparticular takeoff that you mention are something

studyaa, under its own and procedures, made a determination that this was the safest, most efficient way to proceed. that faa will continue to address this issue as we move forward. to apollo, from tucson, arizona. good morning, you're were on with gerald dillingham. the nextgen system is moving from a ground-based to a space waste type system -- space based type of system. how was it going to help manage that? as it turns out, faa is responsible for commercial space flights. it is responsible for integrating unmanned aerial be

heckles into the airspace system. aerial vehicles into the airspace system. the most efficient way to handle both of those missions. gps and nextgen is the answer to our air traffic control system in accommodating those new types of traffic. back to the article in the new york times and the different departure routes around laguardia's airport. one of the issues that was fact that thethe environmental reviews can take a long time when trying to reroute plates -- planes at different airports. explain that issue.

the faa didund that not involve community members as much as they should have. and newse new routes takeoffs and landings were implemented, it brought a surprise to the community because they were receiving more noise and emissions than they had previously. one of the key things that must happen is that community involvement must be attended to by faa and those who are developing nextgen. york area in particular, it is difficult to find a route out of new york it is not going to affect someone's noise and their environmental feel. it becomes a priority to involve the community as part of the stakeholder group when you start moving forward and changing routes. cambria heights, new york.

good morning. live in cambria heights. right now, i have two letters i was about to send off to the congressman and some other person. the traffic from the airplanes is so many and so noisy. -- whether they reroute or alternate them with other areas. no one area should have to accommodate or put up with all this. we know that flying is important. different areas should absorb some amount of it at different times. the planes are flying so low, it is very scary. your question is very important.

i think you are beginning to take the steps that i would recommend which is to contact your congressperson and let them know what your concerns are. you should also contact the faa. and closer toint you, contact the airports because they have noise mitigation committees and executives. they need to know what the complaints are. if they move forward with further reorganization of the new york airspace, these are the inputs that they need to have to know how the community is being affected by new routes and takeoff and landing lanes at the new york area airports. host: let's go to marry, from fredericksburg, virginia. caller: thank you for taking my call. i am enjoying your explanation of everything. you make it sound -- well it is

easy for me to understand. wondering, is this going to be a gps platform? is that what you're talking about? guest: absolutely. a shift fromo be ground-based radar to automated gps-based communications and airon for aircraft traffic controllers on the ground. caller: my question is, what happens when satellites are disabled? what kind of a backup plan will --re be in that some mario in that scenario? guest: there are redundancies within the gps population so that a switch can be made almost automatically should there be a

problem with one satellite. a second backup -- we will maintain ground-based radars for a long time into the future to make sure that we are -- that we have that kind of backup. a third backup -- you have the pilot. you will have the human in the loop. that will also be a backup that can guide and control those aircraft to the ground or to their flight paths if necessary. another question from sea of tranquility on our twitter feed. well can they detect possible drowned dass -- dwo owndrafts? the globaluse of look that this will have, the pilot will know where bad weather is and will be able to fly around bad weather.

it is a simulation you may be familiar with. you are sitting on the ground in miami and the weather is clear but you get an announcement on the intercom that says we are having a weather delay because of the weather between here and .enver or here in seattle with gps and being able to route to the most efficient will beroof routes, you able to minimize those kinds of delays and move straight through the air traffic control system because of gps. host: we have a few minutes left with gerald dillingham. he is the director of civil aviation issues with the government accountability office. paul, on our independent line. i am --caller: i just .eard mr. dillingham

i think he is very well-versed on the air traffic control system. i think the public has noticed in recent years that airlines tend to shut down and not fly in thunderstorms areas. that is not due to a concern on their part about safety, but it is the fact that the system is so procedural eyes and computerized that it is not flexible enough to change with rapidly changing conditions. what assurance do we have that -- computer systems and in and a more procedural eyes system will be able to react very quickly and flexibly so that a controller will be that you can descendent to philadelphia from the north and he will be able to set it up and get going?

in the old days when i was a theroller in the 1970's, system was very flexible. you could swap airspace around, you could change whoever and what airspace. you could change procedure rapidly. i fear that the new system will be too rigid and won't work very well. host: a fear that you share? guest: not really. i think we're going to have the automated system, the gps-based system, with its procedure navigation and all the pluses that go with that. we're also going to have the air traffic controller still at the heart of this. we are going to have two systems that are going to be able to operate. what is important about gps and

the nextgen is that aircraft will be able to see their own path. they will know were other aircraft are an aircraft will know where they are. you will get more capacity, even in terms of bad weather. nextgen also includes a weather segment. it will be getting the weather on a more rapid basis and they will be able to manage it more precisely and effectively than they have in the past. host: we talked about what nextgen will mean for passengers in flight. can you talk about what it might mean for passengers in the ground before they take off and after they land? guest: i think the first thing is delays. not too long ago, one in every four flights were delayed when leaving or arriving at an airport. with the greater capacity of the system, we expect that delays will be significantly decreased. i think that is the biggest

issue for passengers on the ground. the nonflying public can benefit with regards to those positive environmental things that can, from nextgen. where you can see some of his work on this subject at gao.gov. wanted -- one to take our viewers live to where the w.k. kellogg foundation is holding a theussion on race today and title of the program is healing america for our children. day, and we will see you back here tomorrow for "washington journal."