duff, a member of the concerned veterans for america. and later national journal contributor and editor talks about >> assented no has a bill that would avoid a government shutdown, but it would also at the same time defund the health- care law. senate democrats say they could hold up the bill until september 29 when they send it back to the house stripped of the funding provision. that would give john boehner about 24 hours to get a house vote. when it comes to the possibility of shutting down the federal government over the health-care our first 45 minutes this morning, i look to you to give us your thoughts to see if

that move is worth it. if you think shutting down the government is a worthwhile proposition, give us a call at 202-585-3880. if you do not think it is worth it, give us a call at 202-5 85- 3881. tell us why you think it is worth it or not worth it. you can reach out to us on social media, two. about 25 comments starting the morning. you can send this e-mail to. the headline on "the boston shows house gop ups the risk of shutdown. is reflective of a lot of the headlines this morning. that house vote yesterday, you may have seen it on c-span, you

can see the highlights on c- span.org. the legislation was approved on 89. twoine vote, 230-1 democrats voted for the measure. the report this morning this is a continuation of what you'll find on the front page of "the washington post."

again, on the idea of a government shutdown over the defunding of the health-care law. we want to get your thoughts this morning heard if you think is worth it or if you think it is not worth it. i'll get the phone lines for those that think it is worth it. for those who think it is not worth it. you cannot only participate in the polls, you can also give your comments as well. two folks have done so. mark stein.

we also heard from patricia meredith. again, your thoughts this morning welcomed on the phone line and social media as well. from wichita falls, texas. monique saying that it is worth it. high, i think so because first of all the last time the government shutdown happened, i believe if i'm right, the republicans did something good. it needs to be not shut down, shutdown there's nothing bad going to happen to the republicans. think they are being

told what is going on that is right by the people who they are voting for. i believe it would be worth it. nexen is larry in mississippi. -- next up is larry in mississippi. why specifically do not think it s worth it? caller: caller: it is going to destroy the economy. there's no doubt about it. the only reason the republicans are doing it -- remember what they said. this is exactly what this is about. is the same thing they got in massachusetts and they loved it. the republicans don't want the rest of the country to have health care. you have one republican complaining about making hundred

$72,000 and he is a millionaire. that tells you everything you need to know and have a good day, sir. host: renee zimmer los angeles. she thinks it is worth it. i don't like the fact that the government is telling you what you have to buy. it has nothing to do with color issues here. what about all the illegal aliens? they're not going to have to pay for it, so why should we pay for it? do you think is actually going to happen? don't like the health- care law at all. i don't think it is right. those are just a sampling of opinions on a show this morning. have heard some of the thoughts this morning from people calling in off of facebook there are some true to people as well. if you want to give us your

thoughts again, 202-585-3880. you have our social media avenues just to give you a sense of some of the sound that took lace in light of the vote yesterday. first up, house speaker john boehner explains the house gop motivation and he also sent a message to the u.s. senate. say no. time for us to it is time for us to stop this before it causes any more damage to american families and american businesses. you have businesses all of the country who are not hiring because of the impact of this law. you have other businesses that are reducing the hours for their employees because of this law. to the united states senate is real simple. the american people don't want the government shutdown and they don't want obamacare. [applause]

[applause] the house has listened to the american people. now it is time for the united states senate to listen to them as well. [applause] a couple of comments off of twitter to add to the conversation this morning. sylvia baumgart says it is not worth it. l kde says let it shut down. what difference, at this point, does it make? that is the question we're posing for the remainder of our time this morning.

this is eric thinks it is not worth it. good morning. caller: the government shutdown -- if you go back to the newt gingrich and bill clinton years, bill clinton did everything that a right-wing president would do. don't ask don't tell. he was extorted. president obama has to spend his time trying to get it overturned and work with them. basically what you have is a bunch of people who are angry. you get mad when you lose a ballgame or marbles or something you take your marbles and your ball and you go home. it is also racially motivated. a lot of these people were brought up in a time when racism is rampant. .hese people are still living these tea party people are directly trying to destroy this government from within. after bill at it,

clinton and them balance the budget, the very next year when bush and cheney took office, it doesn't matter. they give it all back to tax breaks. youlanced budget -- if grover norquist plan to destroy the government, don't let the government of democrats, act like the democrats -- act like the deficit matters when it really doesn't. caller: i absolutely think it is worth it. we have had so much trouble getting health care where i am living in a world area. it has nothing to do with race or anything else this has to do with what the american people want. we want to stand up and be heard . we have been heard. it is about time.

i hope this goes through. i am praying for. i think it is best for the whole country. we don't need any more debt. we need to shut this down and stop it and make things right again. you may have heard some of the president's comments before i started the show this morning. a little bit more from the forddent who spoke at a plant in missouri yesterday. he chastised republicans over the vote that they were planning and over efforts to stop the health-care law. here's what he had to say. >> unfortunately, there is a faction on the phone at the republican party right now. it is not everybody, but it is a big faction who convinced their leadership to threaten a government shutdown and potentially threaten to not raise the debt ceiling if they can't shut off the affordable

care act, also known as obamacare. think about this, they are not talking now about spending cuts. they are not talking about entitlement reforms. we're not talking about any of that, now they're talking about something that has nothing to do with the budget. they are actually willing to plunge america into if we can't defund the affordable care act. .et's put this in perspective the affordable care act has been in the law for three and a half years. it passed both houses of congress, the supreme court, it was an issue in last his election. the guy who is running against me said he was going to repeal it, we won. the washington post this morning has a list of some of the things that would remain intact. according to the office of employees and budget, who provide for national security including the conduct

of national security. more of that in "the washington post" this morning. next up, this is james from phoenix, arizona. he says it is not worth it.

shutting down the government over something like this is stupid. everybody needs healthcare. 60% of the people are going bankrupt over health care. it is something we need. with the financial situation like it is where everybody else thehe world is going down tubes, we don't need to follow them. arguments atre some republicans put forth at us about costs, overall costs, how do you react to that? caller: oh, they can cover costs when the bill came up. makeshould have tried to their argument when they were

there for the bill. now they're shutting down the government. host: we will hear next from rick in oceanside california who thinks it is worth it. hello. rick, you're on. it is worthi think shutting it down for the simple fact that the constitution stands for the united states and i believe that obamacare is a socialistic regime taking over. courseowing the natural of the constitution to function. i think it is worth it. thank you. is up next from edgewater, new jersey. she says it is not worth it. high. caller: good morning to you. thank you for taking my call. i don't think this is worth it. -- i think what is so surprising is that there are enormous rippling effects. i was able to check art of the

president's speech to the business community earlier this week. from a business perspective, he made some compelling arguments about what the social responsibility of the corporation is and what the corporation can do to interact with the american people, from all different points of view. that is what you are seeing right now. you're seeing this battle of points of view. right now, there are those who say it is the tyranny of the minority and that these individuals on the republican side are fighting for what they believe the country should be on a course of or type of trajectory. there are plenty of republicans that don't believe that as of october 1 the entire financial system should take a ripple effect that could be

enormously harmful globally. people are moving forward. they want progressive solutions. so i am willing to listen to the president talk about a bill that is law that can be modified. thate republicans believe some aspects of it are bad and some are good, then allow the law to stand and then correct the parts that are incorrect. they have more power to do that. we want to see them work together. it is not feasible that it continues this way. in "the new york times" you will see an article that talks about this issue. there is a part to to this story, though. as "the new york times" highlights.

gregory, you're up next from florida. you say it is worth it. caller: it is definitely worth it. the democrats passed this with no republicans and now the --ublicans are in power and in just one aspect of the government and that is the wrong rest. they're doing the best to get the american people want. statesimum of the united

population wants this law done away with. keep stopping everything that comes over. this is just congress's way of upting these to to take it so that the electorate can see what the senators are doing and then perhaps we can get a change in the senate. thank you. host: do you think that change will happen in the senate? caller: there are problems with this scenario. even warren buffett who is the president's friend does not think that this is going to be a problem. he says the shutdown won't cause the ripple that people are talking about. i think someone like him would know. host: the viewer mentioned that "he poll in "the new york times is a c paul taking questions about the president's health- care law. here's the question.

as you may know, that was a pullback in -- i was a poll taken back in may. morningsking you this if you think a government shutdown over the health care law is worth it. in fortmavis lauderdale, florida. she says it is not worth it. good morning, mavis. say to mostlyd

the republicans, it is not worth it. tell their congressmen to give up their healthcare that we out here, the little people are paying for them and their families. i don't understand who in the world that is born who does not need healthcare? mississippi, louisiana, arkansas, oklahoma, it is amazing. i have german to the states and people are talking about roadkill because they can't afford meat? things are tough out here. steve king has been getting millions of dollars for farming and he does not farm.

the farm bill was fine. look how much congress people got money for that. go ahead and give some of that money back so we can pay for healthcare for everybody. we are entitled to healthcare. the farm bill being a topic on our program. you can see it at 9:15 this morning. knoll in new york says it is worth it. are a: i believe there couple things. at present already gave a one- year waiver to a large business. he was also looking to give a waiver to congress. we also know that a cleveland clinic is chopping employees because they can't employ them on the insurance program. we know that home depot is chopping people. arenow that the unions uprising and don't want to have it either. there employees are union members. a shutdown of the u.s.

government has happened many times before it is not a big deal and we can live with it, but i don't think we can live with obamacare. even all the people in the union are tried to get away from it. red ande next color is he joins us from florida. he says it is not worth it. good morning. caller: i think it is not worth it because they're not going to get enough money in their one percent hands. they are greedy and what they're doing is spent 80% of the money on the patient. that leaves them 20% to divide amongst these greedy as obese. host: so who is the they? said they are doing this. who are the they? caller: caller: the one percent to have all the money in this country. host: this is bridget in

huddleston, virginia. she says it is worth it. bridget, good morning. yes, i think our government gives away too much. the blue collar worker just give give give. host: what would a government shutdown accomplish, then? hopefully they would start listening to the taxpayers. a message we are going to give to everybody. we are out there working every day to pay for everybody else that doesn't want to work or is unable to work. representative for the state of ohio in congress is now the head of the main street partnership. it is an organization of centrist republicans as they bill themselves. they talk about these issues saying don't lay in the house speaker. that is the headline that you will find in the "washington

post" this morning. other members of the house believe it is their only responsibility as a member of congress to show up and vote no. frankly, they take such a dim view of their job that a trained monkey could do what they do. gene from new york.

he says it is not worth it. good morning. caller: this is not only not worth it, this is absolutely treasonous on the part of the republicans. we have to protect our country's reputation and its status. we have to pay bills that we have already accrued. for them to keep attaching their possession to obamacare to everything that they try to push through is absolutely obscene and pointless. such as obamacare needs tweaking. social security went through a variety of upgrades and changes as it was developing. so did medicare, so did medicaid. obamacare will need to go through changes as time goes by, but to not let this law go into effect is in my opinion

treasonous and totally irresponsible. host: what about the cost concerns that republicans keep ringing up? there costhink concerns are ridiculous. there are ways in which this is going to be paid for and we are a wealthy country. we have to take care of those who need it. everybody who doesn't have health care does need it. here isat is gene, william from kentucky. he says it is worth it. high. i think that the house and the senate are being bullies to the president and i don't part of the is united states. there are a lot of people that need this. the ones that are for this are the poor and the ones that are

against us of the rich. i vote that they let gone through if the government wants theyown, so be it. couldn't pick off the president. he has more power than they do and this is all worth it. if a government shutdown does shutdown, then what is it worth? what is the purpose e caller: caller: he stood his ground and said he was tried to make this a better place for the poor and the rich. host: one of the voices weighing in on the activities this week is a republican from louisiana. a chairman of the republican study committee. at 10:00 andsunday also at 6:00 in the evening. he talked with two reporters about issues concerning reportable care act. but issues concerning the affordable care act. here is what he has to say.

>> there is a public outcry going on through the country. so many of the senators like senator landrieu of louisiana. she is going to face election like next year. they're going to keep in place even though the president himself says that it isn't workable. if anything does come back, if they don't model legislative tools we have available, rarely -- we plan on tackling the debt ceiling next week also. we are going to make sure that the country pays our debts. we are also going to make sure that the president's health care law will be delayed and also addressed the economy. we're going to put provisions like the keystone pipeline in the bill and say look this is going to create over 25,000 jobs. the president has listened to special interest and turn away those jobs for now. when we say yes to those american jobs and get our economy moving again? over tos feared passing the senate are showing that we are doing our job and fighting to keep government funded.

you can hear more from representative steve scalise on sunday at 6:00 in the evening or do can catch it later on a website as well. if you want to see highlights from the house debate yesterday, information concerning a bill that on passed, all of our c-span website at c-span.org . also information that you can find in our video library, too. all of it together at c- span.org. "the hill" newspaper taking a look at this issue. friday, and how should pass a government funding measure for only the military. the senate spends back a funding bill that does not fund obamacare.

another story from "the hill" takes a look. alexander bolton writing. saying that the democrats in the senate are urging the majority leader to be aggressive in the standoff over government shut down. again, for our remaining time, about 15 minutes or so, when it comes down to the idea of the government shutdown of the health-care law. if you think is worth it and want to contribute, the numbers are on the screen.

this next call is from rural, mississippi. barbara who does not think it is worth it, good morning. i don't think it is worth it because i want the economy to continue to grow and to not have double effects on the economy. lawmakers in congress should be focusing on trying to correct what is wrong with the obamacare law. it has definitely already begun to affect the middle-class household. number one, my husband and i both have been affected because i have lost a job that i had for 10 years because of income. the company i work for is seeking ways to save money. they won't need to pay the

portion they need to pay concerning the law. foundnd's employer another health insurance car coveraget reduced the he was getting. have the same health-care plan in the united states, it would just not have been obamacare. that is what i was saying again. i would like to know why it is that these economies are allowed hoursuce their employer so they won't have to cover portions of the health-care law? why is there not a law against that? host: don in tennessee says it is worth it. caller: did people forget about the sequester and how we were going to lose hundreds of millions of jobs because of the sequester?

now we are going to be affecting the world economy if we don't get obamacare. i don't remember voting for obama care on any ballots. we had a bunch of legislators that decided that need to pass. nobody is screening shut down the government on the republican side. it is all the democrats. so we have to shut down the government. all us conservatives want to do is simply trim off some excess fat. the obama administration took some $700 million out of medicare to pay for obamacare. let's put it back into medicare. these are my comments. let's go to sandra in miami, florida. she says it is not worth it. i am the only one who is

the head of the household. i cannot continue paying for everybody. this is just not worth it. host: because? caller: it is causing me to come out of pocket for everything and i don't have the money. and then just taking all this time working on obamacare, they are not taking care of the rest of the problems. the next time you look around they have shut down everything and they go home and they are happy. we are not happy. we are trying to survive out here and we need to have obamacare. everybody has to speak for themselves. i'm speaking for my household. we need obamacare. toeeded because i needed help my husband. i can't do it all myself. i have $300 after i'm finished working one whole month. that is all i am surviving on. i am a bus driver. host: that is sandra from

florida. "the wall street journal" takes a look at syria.

ethel, good morning from texas. she says it is worth it. good morning. [indiscernible] i don't think that they should let the children suffer. they are not doing their job, cut their checks away from then and due to the children with autism. that is the way i feel about it. ron, from pittsburgh,

pennsylvania. he says it is not worth it. caller: the caller said sequestration didn't hurt us. that was an engineered crisis by the republicans. are veryublicans disingenuous with the shut down the government thing. if democrats were shutting down the government, imagine the outcry from them. these companies laying off people are cutting their hours are largely companies that don't want to be regulated. this is why we need to vote these folks out of the congress could vote the republicans out of the u.s. congress. they are totally out of line. host: that is ron from pennsylvania. a story from arctic ice in the "new york times" this morning.

raymond, on our last couple of minutes. raymond says he thinks it is worth it. he is from minnesota. good morning. caller: good morning. the government right now is completely out of control.

our monetary policy and our foreign-policy are intertwined. until the federal government gets that under control, they keep trashing the dollar. the dollar doesn't have the buying power it had. our health care is going to reflect that. the cost of health care is going to keep increasing because our dollar is worth less. we have to get it all under control. until the government knows how to balance your budget, i don't think we should give them the check look. it is time for them to take like i have to take responsibility and pay my bills. they need to take responsibility and pay their bills. host: a couple of e-mails for you. that is mimi. and lou from highland park, illinois.

al is up next and l is from beachwood, ohio. he says it is not worth it caller:. good morning. caller:thank you. i'm so glad you took my call. democrats, some of the people there are making $172,000 a year. they have the assurance with their family and we are not -- they are not affected by what is going on for people making $50,000 or less. trying to brainwash to

middle-class republicans to make us all fight against each other to destroy our country. i appreciate you taking my call. i think we should stand together. it doesn't matter whether it is black or white eared we are here together as a family and a unity. those one percent republicans making all that money want to divide us and put the money in their pocket. orther it is for gas healthcare or anything else. here is matthew from wetumpka, alabama. he says it is worth it. you are on. caller: the caller that call before saying we spent too much money, i completely agree. there's probably a lot of the problem. they don't have any problem sending it overseas and they never want to stop it but heaven for bid that we spend money on our own people. all jobsinsurance on in the 80s and 90s.

>> wrong with obamacare bringing that back? our last call this morning will be path from geary, pennsylvania. she says it is not worth it. caller: i want to remind people toothre publicans fought and nail against medicare and social security and have been trying to repeal them ever since. i wish to replace some of the old speeches by some of their leaders like ronald reagan he was screaming that medicare and social security would bankrupt the government and oh god it was a communist lot. there, welicans out don't all have trust funds and didn't jesus say something about whatsoever you do to the least of my brothers? even christopher reeves who was a very rich actor wanted all the money for his health care. i prefer that we have a universal health care plan that would be basically medicare for way but this idea of the

they are doing it is actually a republican idea. -- ithing that comes from had a laugh when bill maher was talking about everything that obama, the republicans have to be against it. he was calling it black tracking . if obama is for clean water, then they have to be against it. thanks, pedro. from "time"s magazine. coming up on our program we are going to talk about the military base safety in the light of this week shooting at the navy yard here in d.c.. part debate.it's on, some veterans applying

for disability assistance can wait for up to a year to get a response. all weekend long on booktv, and american history tv, they are featuring the literary life and history of fredericksburg for genia. booktv for ourto offering. it also includes a look at simple light activists and presidential freedom -- presidential medal of freedom inner which is located fredericksburg. from 1985 until just before he passed away in the summer of 1989. he was an incredible teacher, an incredible lecturer and i would argue that his time in the of the mosts one significant moments in american public education. leader in the, a

american civil rights movement had the opportunity for more than a decade to interact with students on a regular basis and regale them with stories of the front lines of the civil rights movement. playing] together and marched. no, it is not so. young.kins or whitney strategies ofe peaceful nonviolent resistance to the movement in the early 1940s. she was the founder and organizer of a congress of racial equality and he was the inspiration for the 1961 freedom march. lady who requested the japanese cherry plants be planted along the edge of the

park. live monday night, our series continues. >> we are in prospect garden here in princeton new jersey. she originally designed this when she was a resident of prospect house. she brings the white house garden back to this garden at prospect house. she says to the white house theener, let's re-create section of this garden at the white house. this becomes the famous rose garden at the white house. doesn't liveally to see the rose garden completed, however. of is dying in the summer 1914. she is wheeled out into the space outside in her wheelchair and she watches as he gardener works, but she doesn't live to see the completion of this vision she had four roses blooming at the white house. >> meet the first and second wife of resident woodrow wilson monday night at nine eastern.

also on c-span radio and c- span.org. "washington journal" continues. thanks for joining us very it what did this week's shootings tell us about guest: security and military installations? it told us they're not very good. this man seemed to have a record of petty crime and mental instability going back some. of time which intensified recently and nobody picked up on it. talk a little bit about the ability of someone to walk on base with a weapon the way he did and what it says overall about being able to keep these types of installations secure from attacks like these. i understand there are about 4 million people in the government, maybe more than

that, with the same level of security clearance that this guy had, a secret clearance. in order to get this, the government is a national security check. this isve been claiming a background investigation. it is a check of various databases and in his case they checked government databases and did fbi fingerprint check. they checked with local police in places where he lived a check .is credit rating probably his credit cards, but they didn't actually interview anybody. as far as i can tell they didn't even interview him, which they do sometimes heard so therefore, this is a pretty cursory investigation of him, but that is a sort of investigation they normally conduct for a secret level clearance. for a top secret level clearance like edward snowden, you have much more extensive checks. -- thise in that case

guy had a pretty cursory check. he had some legal problems when he lived in fort worth or colorado, maybe. he shut up some of these tires -- he shot up somebody's tires and said he had a blackout. this suggested some medical or mental problem. that that was insignificant, which, arguably in the context of that time, maybe it was. inhad subsequent outbursts 2010, maybe 2008 as well. 830 clearance had artie been granted in 2007 and 2008. it was a tenure security clearance. insofar as one can tell, in terms of these other incidents that occurred, where he shut up the roof of his apartment in

fort worth in 2010, claiming that his gun had gone off accidentally. ,s incidents are never reported because they were fairly petty. clearance, soe there is no reason to go back and investigate him. he has appropriate clearances and id to get into this building in washington and to shoot it up. so a deeper background check would've exposed those things? guest: you can't be sure about it it might have done. the system could be improved to conduct more thorough checks and also the system could be improved to ensure that when somebody with the security clearance gets involved in some sort of legal or police trouble, the authorities are notified about it. we all saw that this fellow -- she apparently was traveling for the last several months with a crew of computer experts.

it was one of those magazine sales crews that go around from town to town. the magazine sellers go from door to door. governmentm insulation to government installation, updating computers or whatever. when this guy was in newport, rhode island in the beginning of batty and claim that people were following him and forces were talking to him through extra low frequency radio. the police were called, he called the police himself and said they are after me, they're after me. the lease reported this to a in newport,ffice rhode island, which is where he was staying at the time, but nobody recorded he had gone there. you can say there were warning

signs, but there is no real mechanism in the system for these warnings to be passed on to the people who might have been able to do something about it. phone numbers will be on your screen. you can also reach us on twitter. there is a chart that goes and describes the security clearance process. it starts with the request, it is transferred to the office of her snell management. that goes to investigative services. a third of those are handled by staff. talk about the workload and especially the role of the contractor in this process. guest: it used to have its own staff of government her snell investigators. both of these national agency checks. for people are getting high- level clearances and top secret clearances. ofe years ago that service the office of personnel

management was privatized and created into a new company called u.s. investigative services which is now owned by another company which is known by another company which is owned by hedge fund would you believe. it is all part of the same veryny that owns kroll a famous private investigation company. the people who own it at the top or wall street people. arguable or at least reported problems with the way this company does work for some. of time. it was under investigation by the inspector general, the office of personnel management, this is the same company that did the background investigation nsadward snowden the whistleblower. there are certainly allegations that it doesn't do its job as well as it could. i believe there have been some recent cases in which it has thatdemonstrated by the ig

some of the people who investigated these cases for you sis were themselves unqualified or dishonest or both perhaps. host: "the washington journal" points out that guest: guest: that is exactly what i was talking about. ,hey're owned by a hedge fund ultimately, which means that the hedge fund is more interested in making money for its owners or investors than making sure that the government gets what it pays for. host: joining us to talk about

military installations safety is of reuters.l caller: thank you for letting me on. momento what you're doing with security checks, somebody will always get through. the problem is that they didn't learn a lesson from fort hood. clinton towhen bill create that they should be gun free. i can't believe that this existed. instead of 13, maybe they could have saved 10, you know? host: thanks caller. indeed, the security in all of these places could be better. interestingly enough, i covered the edward snowden case, the case of the nsa guy who took

literally hundreds of thousands or more than a hundred thousand very secret damaging documents from the national security agency installations through his work as a computer operator or systems administrator. he has now given them to the media. after the leaks of the wikileaks by private bradley underg, the white house obama set up a special task force that was supposed to tighten up all the security measures for my physical security measures and data security measures for ensuring that people could not get in two files that they weren't supposed to get into. and also to flag security people in the event that they -- that people didn't try to get in.

it, the promise to improve things is almost a complete failure. the government has invested rather more extensively in physical security, areas to make sure that people who should not get in there were like and there. they have not improve their data at all. clearance,e security have the appropriate id, sue can get in past the barriers even though the bears were better than the ones they used for getting people into data they're not supposed to have. there is such a layer of problems here that you almost sort of think you have to go back to square one and start all over again. there is a real serious of problems here. the governor says there will be a two-part review. one takes a snapshot and the other takes a deeper view is far

security is concerned. and he idea what the approach will be like on those two fronts and ultimately what they will find? >> if you use the example that i just used of the wikileaks case, the government was tearing its hair out or was public you professing to tear tear out after the wikileaks. this one soldier in iraq leaked to the media, again, hundreds .nd thousands of documents toe of them were dangers u.s. national security. he said at the highest possible level task force under the white house to fix things and from the sounds of things the whole thing is just a joke. host: here is secretary hegel on wednesday at a briefing. here's what he had to say. >> we will find this caps on we will fix those gaps. to go beyond that in the specific areas of your questions , i would leave that to the

review. there are many questions that are going to be asked and need to be asked in many reviews. the intensity of those of the rs have to go down to every asset. the security of our feminine -- physical presence, the security standards of that security clearance, are they strong enough? why do we do certain things the way we do. we need answers. and we will find those answers. they would say that, one at they? they always say stuff like that. and then the premises -- the promises that they make very -- followedt fallen through on. host: tom on a democrat line, good morning, you were on with mark hosenball of reuters. caller: good morning. when i was in the navy, the fbi came and talked to my friends, family, and everything, for my

security clearance. i worked for the department of defense for a few years. it all worked out to sub on charters. jacksonville, florida at the time. it just got rid of a lot of people down there and broaden sub contractors to take over -- and brought in subject -- sub contractors. out anding agents to go security checks, they were some protected out to -- they were subcontracted out. they do not have the best interest of this country at heart, they have the best interest of their shareholders and stockholders at heart. they could be in china as far as we know. thank you. guest: well, yeah. the system is not functioning ,articularly well, as i say

demonstratively, there have been summary failures even within the last year involving the snowden case and then with mr. alexis here that they really ought to take a deep look at this stuff and see that they need to take it apart and rebuild it. missouri, dodi is our next caller, independent line. caller: good morning. this is our country. this is the second time recently in the last few years, you know, there is a weigh-in in and a way out. don't they check these people at the security clearance? the bags,to check they need to check the people, you know, something has got to happen, you know. our people are dying. our people, not their people. it has got to go from the president all the way down through congress and everything. to look into these things.

it is not working. something has got to happen. somebody has got to step up your to the american people have got to stick together and do something. we cannot be killing our people and let this happen. , what rolehosenball do you think congress will take on this issue now? guest: congress is very good at making a lot of noise about this. some committee of the senate in , which is has advised already been looking into this issue, even before the snowden case, i think. certainly continuing to look into this issue. sometimes when congress get involved very extensively, you have 15 subcommittees looking at the same thing and they come up with 15 different answers to it and argued that makes the things worse. congress will actually look at this. whether that is better of course remains to be seen. june you wrote a story in

-- budget cuts hit security for defense contractors. guest: that is true. the collaboration with the obama administration has forced one of the mainies, one of agencies that his response will pour security clearance for defense contractors like this for securitysible clearance for defense contractors like this guy. if that really wise under the current circumstances? what does that tell you a little bad about the intelligence of congress and the effectiveness of the security> -- security? caller: thank you for taking my call. i want to echo what the gentleman from shrewsbury said. if people were able to defend themselves when others are around them, this would not be as big of a, you know, a

massacre as it was. i think this is just getting brushed under the rug, and all this gets pushed aside to talk about security issues. it needs to be addressed. how many people are armed and our military installations? guest: the answer is i don't know. but the idea is just having more people with guns in secured buildings does not strike me as incredibly wise. batson and going holding up. it is very secure buildings where people have very high , running them through metal the sectors or whatever to make sure that they do not have guns, when i go into a very secret building, the employees there don't usually have to go through metal detectors, but the isitors do, although again

have been in very secret buildings in secret places in the sacred buildings sometimes, and in certain circumstances not have to go through any security checks. run a securityey check on my background before they go there. host: color from chicago, democrat line. caller: good morning. the government pretty much does not think anymore. government privatize -- it is just some baby steps under ronald reagan. and then it went on steroids under bush and cheney. we remember we had a halliburton, kbr, blackwater, and all these private security firms. the government was doing nothing. securityere 70% of our has been outsourced to private,

for-profit contractors. this is not the government. this is not us. nsa iss controlled by -- controlled by booz allen hamilton holding this is wall street. this is the one thing percent. when people say the government is doing is, the government is not doing this. people need to look and see who is really behind all of this. of course the government is not really controlled by booz allen hamilton holding going back to the days of eisenhower, he was the general, a very heroic general in world war ii, and he condemned the military industrial complex that had too much influence in washington. so, you know, the idea that sometimes the contractors, which helped the government to run inelf, are arguably too much charge of their own work is not entirely invalid. on the other hand, sometimes

contractors actually do perform the kind of work the government does more effectively and cheaply than the government does , to set a fast rule, no contractors, whatever, is impractical in terms of the way the u.s. government is set up now, and is not necessarily wise in all cases. all these things certainly should be open for review now, at least in the case of security clearances. host: in terms of time, what is the difference in time between security clearance and a deep background check? guest: a national agency checks, which is what this guy had, the cursory data back rentech, that thed take a matter of -- data background check, that would take a matter of days or weeks, depending on how much of a backlog they have. with the fbi finger print checks, they used to have a six- month backlog. i think they have eliminated that now. a full background investigation, like the time with snowden, that

mr. alexis did not have, and take four to six weeks. much longer depending on if there is a backlog. they interview people that you list on yourt you security form, which is in some cases 100 pages long. then they interview people that the people that you list tell them the secondary references. they go around your neighborhood and interview people in your they will go interview your former employee will cross- examine you about your disclosures and what people said about you. if interesting things turn up. proceduree a lengthy if the contractors who do it carried out the right way. and then if you are working in a particularly sensitive intelligence position, and i think that's what the case with snowden, certainly is with nsa and cia, they will give you a

detector, polygraph test as well, although some people argue that that does not work for a while, but it is a method of making you think that it will discover if you are lying to them, and that is another way of getting information out of you, so some of these -- the background can take -- it is supposed to and could take quite a bit longer than the national agency check. it is much more thorough. guyhe other hand, this snowden who at every possible clearance i think one could have in the u.s. government, he went of atre and over a period least a year, downloaded a bunch of stuffy should not have and then gave it to people, journalists. host: nash from twitter says nothing is foolproof, check, check, check. guest: manpower takes to fix things yucca we cannot even begin to think about that. again, as i said, wikileaks

occurred two or three years ago in the first instance. task force,pecial they had a bunch of investigations and recommendations how to fix that. so far i can tell none of that was ever done. host: so we need to talk about the background checks. guest: we will, indeed. host: caller from jacksonville, florida, you are on the line with mark hosenball. caller: thank you for c-span. i think the major problem is you have civilian authorities doing back projects for civilians. these people are making profits on this. happened to the military? i was a united states marine. we did not have nose at billion watching our base. civilian watching our base. this is insane. theare going to discharge military man and then hire them as a subcontractor and pay them four times more. what is this country going to learn? you cannot keep doing this.

the people are making this for profit. that is all that says, big moneymaking profit. when some to get the whole thing up? come on, man, strata now, use your head. thank you, sir. guest: ok. host: annie miller says in the 1964 the, i had a clearance to work for ge and other missile and space the coproducers. it took several months to get the clarendon many people i knew were interviewed before entering and leaving the facility, our bags were inspected. why did this process change? in some installations, it did not change, and others it did. there are not very good national standards. evidently there was no mechanism to check whether this guy had a gun. based is government

not have metal detectors for the cleared employees. certainly the ones i have been into, and i was into a fairly secret building just within the last month or so. indeed, i had to go through a metal the sector, i had a journalist with me, but the employees do not think you have to go through metal the sectors. host: blue river, oregon, democrat line, good morning to lee, go ahead. caller: good morning. i find the guest's comments to be somewhat cynical. i believe the twitter person hit it on the head. solutions -- how much time, how much money you go how many -- money? how many billions of dollars are we willing to spend, and was up these random events? i think no. i think what happened this critic like this come on as a given it is a visit terrible with their snide little laugh, , they're taking away our freedoms and spending

half the budget, you are not going to sub events like this. i am cynical. why what can i say? unfortunately, you see these things happen again and again, and the government does not seem to be very effective at improving things, even when they see that there is a big problem. host: as this was going on, september 16, the inspector general for the defense department put this up report -- systems did not effectively mitigate control risk. if there kind of a lesson we can learn from the i.t. report? they: they take away if had a problem and where is the evidence that they did anything about? here is the investigation where they found a bunch of problems, where the improvements? improving physical security, putting in that of the sectors if need be, may be conducting more it extensive security checks. if you have four or 5 million people with low level secures security terraces, you need to

go back and reinvestigate all those, i do not think so, or not on practical terms. so there is a mess here that is not easily solved with a wave of a magic wand. you are talking about a series of compounds, intertwined problems, that it will take some time, effort, and money, the mental effort to sort out. it is not going to get sorted out overnight. this tragedy could happen again just as easily tomorrow. host: how many facilities like the navy yard exist in the u.s.? hundreds.bably there are probably literally dozens here in the d c area. host: -- the d.c. area. host: brad nexen, republican line. active dutyd towards and another 12 of a federal employee. i can assure you that the

security system is effective. what is not effective is the supervisors, the people that actually go ahead and approve, liberal people that simply refuse to accept the training, discipline, and refuse an individual clearance. the system works fine. 400, they had of all kind of information available -- out at fort hood. they had all kinds of information available. a good supervisor would've gotten rid of that guy. the security people on those doors and gates and stuff, they can do that. --don't take lots of millions and millions of dollars to clear this up. you just have to give people authority and hold them for decisions that they make. it is as simple as that. believer or not, i know what i am talking about. guest: i have to say it is not

if the bullet that, it is very consultative. to turn the government around and get them to do things effectively is much more difficult than it sounds. after wikileaks, after the fort hood shooting. indicate of the fort hood shooting, the government, the , bringing together various agencies, intelligence indicating that this guy, major system -- themy army psychiatrist, he had been contacted with suspected terrorist recruiter, imam, in yemen, on were all a lucky -- alwaki.l-

who some people thought was suspicious or incrementing. they conducted an investigation and came to the conclusion it was completely harmless. and this guy goes out and shoot people. under those circumstances, what does that tell you about the effectiveness of the government? he covers national security for reuters. mark hosenball joining us to talk about military installation. about 10 minutes left. next up is jim on the independent line. caller: good morning. i used to be a police officer in the air force, and there are two separate issues you are looking at here. one, you have got to understand when you are doing security clearances and you're are trying to keep a base secure, usually the security is based on whatever the mission of the base is. the other problem is, and this

really hurts the commanders of the installations, and that when you bring in all these private contractors, it starts to limit their command and control. is an over reliance on private contractors, military personnel held accountable and stop at the commander of the desk. desk.s the -- commander's that is the reality. if you go on a flight deck, you will find cops with guns. but if you go into a top-secret area with i.t. people, you will not find people they're protecting them. is probably that true. the fact is that in some cases, the contractors don't necessarily feel the loyalty to that the government employees that work for the agency would. this is something the government has to consider. on the other hand, the reason there are so many contractors is because the government believes -- particularly a series of

presidents -- have believed that that is a cheaper, more effective way than having all these people employed by the government. in some cases, i'm pretty sure that is valid. in other cases, maybe it has gone too far. certainly you can make that argument any case in point we are talking about. host: he said security was based specific. true: i'm sure that is because some places have nuclear weapons and bombs, and other airplanese trucks and , transport airplanes that have risk to them, see you would have higher security at the place with nuclear weapons than the place that just repaired trucks. again, these things have to be calibrated appropriately. it is pretty clear across the board in the government that you could argue this could happen at almost anything. sandy, utah, lee from our

democrat line. caller: hi, i am a veteran, and i was a nurse at one of the va 's, and for this man to be hearing voices, to start to hear voices at this age, you suspect cocaine, which can also cause them to be hostile. be quarterly drug testing, especially ron 9/11. thank you. guest: that is an interesting point about mental health. as i understand by reporting on this case, several people in the government said to me that over so,last sort of 10 years or that the government had a full ,- and at a very high level both republican then democrats -- have made an effort to play down the significance of mental illnessand mental

treatment and security investigations. in the standard form the selected a security clearance, -- that you fill out to get a security clearance, it says that you must disclose any history of mental illness or history of mental treatment. under any circumstances except -- and it puts in these two loopholes, which is if you're mental health -- your mento helmet -- you're mental health issue is related to marriage issues -- >> some say that could be loosely applied in mr. alexis' would not havee to disclose if he had mental treatment within the last seven years. arguably, this is a manifestation of political correctness, maybe.

i think general dempsey, the head of the joint chiefs of ,taff staff in a last few days said we have to treat mental illness with sensitivity. yes, you do have to treat it with sensitivity, but not in a fairly stupidity. you should be alert to these things or at least there should be some way to alert people to these things. it is clear in a case of mr. alexis, even though he was so divorced from reality early in august that he called the police i think on himself, that nobody reported this to any authority that could have actually done something about denying him access to sensitive government facilities. host: how often are security clearances renewed? every fivesecret, years, indicates a secret, 10 years. unless there is some cause to go back and reinvestigate these things, in the case of mr. alexis, there was no reinvestigation. so he got a 10-year security

clearance in 2008, even though in 2008 and going forward, there were some incidents where he came into contact with the police. not only to have no impact on his security clearance, there's no indication the security authorities learned of any of this. host: we go to jeff from michigan on our republican line. good morning. caller: warning. -- good morning. host: go-ahead, sir, you were on the air. caller: hello. host: go ahead with your question or comment. caller: yes, i am concerned, i was is that southbridge base this last weekend, in my capacity as a private contractor, i work at the commissary. i will share with you that the isurity at the guard post handled by a private concern. i've never seen a uniformed

officer at that front gate. my vehicle has never been searched. i wave a security badge at the guards, it is cursory. i jokingly say i slow down to 20 miles an hour. i could carry in weapons. a surprising, shocking lack of security. i have never been pulled over. i could do anything i wanted to do. guest: well, i think that makes my point. and thisas far as -- is a daily occurrence as far as your ease of getting through without someone questioning you at the gate so to speak? jeff? caller: yes. host: so this happens all the time yo? this epic ability to go through without any intensive search of your car or vehicle? caller: yes, that is an everyday occurrence. probablythink that is

the standard procedure at most military and for that matter nonmilitary government installations. going into federal court buildings now, they have much higher security now because i guess there have been incidents in court where people have gone in and shut up be -- shot up the judges. you do have to turn out your pockets and most federal and through the going metal the sectors not because they have been turned on really high. courts, airports, it does maybe about theomething physical security at the courts and airports is tighter than at militaryurity bases and other sensitive government installations. from gran is timothy bay, alabama, independent line. caller: yes, sir, good morning, i appreciate y'all discussing this subject.

i work at a local defense , and the problem as mr. marquez indicated, security is being hasled -- mr. mark indicated, security is being handled -- there are no uniform individuals that have the law enforcement military background that we need at our facilities. when we do have contractors there, they are usually and strong, to use a perfect word, to inspect baggage, backpacks, lunch boxes coming into the facilities, and unless we as a nation decide that we need to have our security clearance is handled only digital instead of hardcopy to eliminate the backlog that i'm sure he has

investigated and found to be a parent -- apparent. we are in a an information age. what we have to have everything onhardcopy instead of computers where we can call this information up in mere nanoseconds? incidentsations and are going to keep occurring until we are tired of it and we demand things to be upgraded, and i'm sure with his experience -- host: thank you, caller. guest: i think that is fairly true that things will continue as they are into we demand that they be upgraded, but we are talking about a very complex -- as i say, intertwined series of problems that are not sorted out with the waving of a magic wand or the waving of magic money. it is not going to be sorted out overnight. i does see this being sorted out

very easily within the foreseeable future. i think this is going to go on for quite some time, and unfortunately it is going to enable more unfortunate incident like this or security breaches like snowden or whatever, you do not know what is going to happen next, but probably more things that are not nicer going to happen. host: does the defense department say how long these reviews are going to take? guest: i do not know. host: suzanne is our last call, georgia, democrats line. caller: hi, this is suzanne. i was married to a fighter pilot in the 1980's, and he had a top 5e, andy, he flew an f day-to-day security clearance, and he was a drug dealer, and he got a robber security clearance. makes myain, that point that these investigations sometimes are not entirely adequate. of reutershosenball

serves as the "newsmaker seniorl security correspondent. to every much free time. vietnam era veterans make up a significant portion of those looking for disability help from the veterans administration. there is a significant backlog when it comes to those veterans and others. our next guest is going to talk -relatedat another va issues. she is retired sergeant jessie jane duff of concerned veterans of america. later, jerry hagstrom from "national journal "jihadist terrorism -- a threat assessment -- later, jerry hagstrom from "national journal "jihadist terrorism -- a threat assessment -- "national journal will be our guest. ♪

>> the subject of whistleblowers is a very important and sensitive subject. we depend on whistleblowers. we value their information. it is reported that they feel comfortable coming forward and say that we have information that you need to have, and my identity, i am very concerned about. we understand that fear to the statute requires us to extend protection. in practice, what we as ig's will do is to advise whistleblowers of these protections, to say to the extent that you can give us specific information, that is much more helpful to us than general information, and sometimes in the course of providing specific information anails, it may be that educated and informed person may be able to guess to the identity of the whistleblower. and we need to be aware of that

risk. >> more with agricultural department ig phyllis fong sunday night at 8:00 on c-span's "q&a." span2's book tv has shown over 40,000 hours of programming with top nonfiction hours including bob woodward. >> we were going to do the book after he died, but he preempted that, and i was horrified, quite honestly. and then i was delighted. >> i always felt that people are more alike than they are different. so the artist in me rose to that occasion that if i can create that is so moving and that permits the kind of distance that you sometimes need from what is painful, then people will understand, and understanding is basically what is fundamental. >> but the point is that no

argument is given to that effect, none of the relevant facts are considered, and this is regarded as one of the half- where a just war theory entails that the use of military force was legitimate. are the only national television network devoted inclusively to nonfiction books. every week and throughout the fall, we are marking 15 years of booktv on c-span2. c-span online archives will redefine social studies education in america. arezisman archives treasures. the c-span library is a great resource for you to view and share content anytime. it is easy. here is how -- go to www.c- span.org and go to the video library to look at the newest video, go to the recent tab. click on what you want to watch, and press play. you can also search the video library for a specific topic or keyword, or you can find a

persevered just type in their name, hit search, and go to people. go to their bio page and scroll down to their appearances. you can also share what you are watching it make a clip aired use the set buttons or handle old, at a title and description, and then click share and send by evo, facebook, twitter, or google plus. the zisman video library -- searchable, easy, and free -- the c-span video library -- searchable, easy, and free. provided by your local cable or satellite provider. "washington journal" continues. host: we are joined by jessie jane duff of concerned citizens of america, former marine corps gunnery sergeant. guest: thank you for having me. host: we were talking about this week's shooting at the navy yard. your talks -- your thoughts regarding the person in question. guest: how did he have a clearance, how did he get on

base? the reality is they apparently found out that the investigation company that had probably been contacted by the office of personnel management had some investigations apparently with snowden. we are waiting to see what happens with the ig report, which is the inspector general report. there are some question behaviors in his past, and how did he get this clearance? host: there is a story in this year's "washington post," here is a quote from it guest: absolutely. it is very hard for us as veterans. ptsd does not necessarily mean you are are going to be psychotic and go shoe people. i think it is clear that this man had some sort of psychiatric disorder. he was hearing voices. that is not a ptsd issue. it is sad when veterans get a statement like that, but people need to understand, ptsd has a

wide range of things that influence and affect a person. it does not mean they are not capable of having a job, it is not mean they are not capable of becoming a productive member of society. host: in light of that, how does the veterans administration, how does the government in general help people like that, people with those types of problems, especially after they leave the service? guest: apparently when you cement your lame after you get off of active duty, while you are on active duty, these things are being recorded. and when you submit your claim to the veterans administration, if you have an apparent problem or either medical or illness related, and then they can address that so that they are able to receive compensation for that problem. wet: part of the issue brought you want to talk about ,hough is the backlog of claims other type of claims, at the veterans administration. give us a snapshot of what is going on. guest: people need to understand what these claims mean. the benefit backlog, these are people pending claims within the

va either for medical, sometimes education, or various other claims that are pending, but most are medical. we are looking at close to 500,000 that are and what is called the backlog. the backlog of any claim that has taken over 125 days. with that, it has taken an average 304 days for many of these claims to get resolved, and there is evidence that there are claims that have gone on to 600 days. then we have appealed, which is a whole other category, where there are 250,000 that are waiting on their appeals to be addressed, and does can go up to 1000 days. host: what is taking so long? guest: well, the veterans administration had decided in 2009, secretary said when he was sworn in that he would resolve the backlog. that increased 3000% under obama's administration. the reason was secretary should hinseki had opened

the doors for ptsd, agent orange andlains, and everett -- desert storm syndromes. in a variety of other clinton had not been recognized. what happens if you have a flood of people that come in and they were not prepared for it. it accelerated and almost hit one million veteran backlogs. we had 900,000 pending claims in february of this year alone. shinseki do as far as accommodating that? guest: he basically put in a plan that all of the backlog claims will be resolved by 2015. what is upsetting to us is that it happened in the first place. 97% of these claims were being handled manually. not even automated. so what are we doing when we open up the doors for more opportunity for claims, and then not having a plan in place to handle that efficiency? that is like saying i sell online and have no shipping process an order. you have to have this set up correctly. now we have a plan by 2015.

what about the veterans that are dying in the meantime? last year in 2012, there were almost 20,000 veterans that died before they even receive their benefits claim. that is 53 today. done. orangely a lot of agent men that suffer from being on. it is really disturbing that i got this way at all. the plan that is in place, we're keeping the gas on them to resolve this, but what they're doing is allowing a lot of workers to work overtime, 20 hours overtime, and it is a funding issue. people have to understand the second largest budget next to dod, and they were given $25 billion by congress in the last four years. so they have just had poor mismanagement. host: jessie jane duff from concerned veterans for america. she is going to take your calls about related issues at the veterans and administration beard if you want to answer the lines are divided

by party. (202) 585-3880 for democrats, (202) 585-3881 for republicans, and (202) 585-3882 for independent. we had a separate line, if you want to give us your thoughts this morning, (202) 585-3883. a bit of alay speech the president get to disabled veterans talking about it v.a., talking about affecting sequestration at the time. we will let you listen to what he had to say and get your response. [video clip] >> some of you may be aware right now we have the reckless across the board budget cuts copy the sequester that is hitting a lot of folks hard on the that is slashing education, science, medical research. i made it clear that your veterans benefits are exempt from this year's sequester. [applause] i have made that clear. [applause] but i want to tell you going

forward, the best way to perfect the v.a. care you have earned is to get rid of the sequester altogether. [applause] congress eats to come together and agree on a responsible plan that reduces our deficit and keeps our promises to our veterans and keeps our promises to future generations. that is what i am fighting for, that is what you deserve. host: jessie jane duff? guest: i was appalled when i saw that speech. i am a member of disabled veteran american. i sat back and gasped. how could he tell veterans that i protected your benefits this year, but i can't guarantee anything later for the benefits you earned? i thought that was a veiled threat. this is a no-brainer. i think it was offensive. hisreated --

administration, his white house created sequester, and now he is telling people it is a bad thing. please remove it, and you veterans, if you want your benefits, you need to help me. i thought him putting his political agenda in there, dealing with our deficit, economy, and all the other issues, don't intimidate or threaten your disabled veterans. host: with that in mind, calls for you, for jessie jane duff, concerned veterans for america, memphis, tennessee, good morning on our democrat line. eraler: i am a vietnam- veteran. back from theame military, they denied me my voting rights. i love the job i had, so i stayed. 25 years later, i was put into management. nothing, ime for sued them for determination. i am disabled now from the railroads.

a friend of mine went to iraq and came back and they denied him his rolling rights. ?uest: has what rights caller: his rolling rights, to make sure he had a job when you get back. they had people after he was gone. when you go away in the military, and they come back and hire people, they got me the same way, they got him the same way. they told in guest: the same thing they told me. it is too late. told him the same thing they told me. it is too late. butt: i'm not in that area, they are not required by law to give you the same job back, i do realize that, any injustice may be ethical for you to handle, but the only thing i can suggest is you write your congressman and say politically

active if you feel you were discriminated against. host: someone asked the question of you, whose idea whether to buy incompatible data systems for the v.a. and the dod, and if you have some exclamation, please do. guest: this is an overwhelming problem for many years. i do know they have a concert that was supposed to automate all of the pit of, and i would say 97% were still being done manually, so now they are process you can go online and looking your benefits data, but it was a very difficult, and it should never have gotten this far. host: so they do not treat it with each other's, is that what you're saying yo? guest: all of the manual records were still paper. onef you look at the press, building in north carolina actually became structurally incapable of holding the backlog

anymore because it was so full and overwhelming. these things should have been digitalized. even when i got off of active duty, i had a record this bacon it was not electronic. host: we have got when it comes to the actual pending claim, 36% silk of them from the vietnam era. guest: yes, that is from the agent orange that they opened up from approximately 2000 nine third whenever you offer a benefit or some type of service, you're going to expect a large number of people who want to apply for a good many of these vietnam veterans had already deceased and their families are making the claims, which they are allowed to do. many of the claims being paid out are two deceased veterans. host: 21% from iraq and afghanistan, 20% from the gulf war, and 11% for peacetime as well. dakota,om south republican line, veteran, good morning. caller: good morning, sir. my first point was

august 20 8, 1970 when i was 20 years old. i'm 62 now. i'm still fighting them. i have been up to the court of veterans appeals for times. i've been back and forth, my files have been shredded and tampered with, i've got letters from the v.a., i have been cancer,agent orange i've got upper respiratory problems, i have been fighting the v.a., and i have got ptsd to the max. i have been through a lot of treatment -- host: caller did you have just been your own money as far as the appeals process? caller: yes, i've been spinning my own money. 1996,awarded 100% back in and like i say, my first claim

was august 20 8, 1970, sir, i am still fighting it. many: yes, there are claims that have taken over 10 years that have not been addressed. i'm going to bring to people's attention this man's story that is called and that is very similar to matthew goldberg, a 47-year-old retired arms special forces. yet three towards in iraq. inhe had three towards iraq, three bronze stars. he had to submit his claim in 2008, 8 it is still pending. en 30% basically giv disability, but they are failing to recognize his shoulder and back problems basically saying it is not happen in his two decades of service. the big thing that happens -- that frustrates him as he filled like he was treated as a second- class citizen. so what that caller pointed out is what we frequently hear.

that they are dragging it out, and the appeals are taking thousands of a spared when they go to the u.s. court of appeals, the v.a. claims are taking several hundred days. i am but that's what this man for having to get his own attorney, and i recommend to people to be aggressive. many veterans get so frustrated with it and they feel as if it is futile, but it is better to get your claim resolved whether it be 10 years later and get that back pay than to sit there and feel like you were never vindicated. host: what goes into determining if you get disability and how much disability you will get? guest: essentially, you have to have a very good document agent, so i always tell people copy, copy your records. there have also been fires, many people that follow me on twitter has said they have gotten calls from the v.a. saying or e-mails oh, we did not receive the paperwork basement, and pretty later, we do not receive the paper and literally two days later, we do not receive the

paper. even the v.a. workers are frustrated because they cannot find a lot of the paperwork. it is literally paper. it is a electronic data. so the system should have been involved many years ago, 10 years ago, so that all the medical history was on electronic data and it was not. host: it is a question of efficiency within the v.a.? guest: horrible inefficiency. is separate from its peer and we are talking about the benefits progress as. ss.proce they review your claim to save a disservice-related disability. and i'm not going to lie, some veterans have been smoking for years and say that the cancer is because of the fighting in vietnam. we have to be reasonable when there are people that are trying to abuse the system. and there is that percentage. so they're going to scrutinize the claims pretty domination must be clear. i would recommend people he utilize dav. they have counselors throughout

the nation who can help get your submitted and do it effectively ceded to reinstallation and resubmit. host: donna that next for jessie jane duff. good morning. my father died in a veterans hospital in 1972, and i have realize that they have made a lot of leaps and bounds in medicine since 1972, but i still have a bad taste in my mouth when it comes to veterans hospitals. i ran into a lot of veterans over the years. i was in the national guard when i was in high school, and i met a lot of the video -- vietnam veterans on their way to the wall. --d.c. macros in the guard back when i was in the guard. i have a lot of respect for veterans. i think the way they are treating them is of lawrence. -- abhorrent. they should've known that these veterans were going to come into the system with all of the wars

that we have been in for the last 10 years. i really wish they had actually stepped up and actually took the money and the time into it before all of this started happening. guest: absolutely. his statement have hit it right on the head. the way it has happened in how for it to get to this point for to get to the attention of your having a backlog of 100,000 clams was appalling, but it did not receive national attention until the veterans administration made it clear earlier this year that we may hit a one million person backlog. when all of the media started following us, it became very , then the v.a. put an implant to have it resolved by 2015. the 2015 deadline, and that the more people that they have included or other elements as well? guest: all of the backlog is supposed to be resolved by 2015.

all of the claims over a year older getting priorities first right now. but what has happened is that the appeals side is being neglected, for example, the army veteran i just spoke about, he already went through the benefit side and got 30%. he has that massive disability, idiots having to appeal a, and he has been waiting since 2008. we are concerned, we are seeing tick anyse in a slow appeal site. here's what our concern is, they're going to shut some of the claims through. they may have a higher amount, but they don't want to spend the time on it, give them 10%. and shove it on now. peter tooing to rob pay paul, take these numbers and put them into another column. then many of the people that normally addressed the appeals side are now being pushed over to the benefits aside, the backlog side because that is the side getting national attention. over are over 1500 workers at the v.a., claims adjusters.

they have approximately 1500 people that work on claims, so there is a lot of resources that have been pumped into this. however, because it is so behind now they're trying to get rid of the ones that are looking the most bad, giving them a bad either -- eye. host: our guest served as a marine corps gunnery sergeant. she belongs to the concerned veterans for america. what you do for your day job? i'm very active in the national security arena right now. i'm highly proficient in the dod topics and veterans issues. is our line585-3883 for veterans, john, joins us from goose creek. caller: thank you for the show. i think there is a shift in .esources to the backlog i've been on the poster 11 g.i. says it was passed in 2009

when it went into effect. i'm enjoying a good school, good education, i came in under the veterans education assistance, which was a pretty weak program when the military was being the the. after the two iraq and afghanistan wars, we started seeing benefits for veterans. in the last three or four months, it has been slow down quite a bit. right now, i am about 2.5 months behind. they are probably putting the resources so heavily on backlog that they may be neglecting other demands. what do you think? guest: that is interesting to me because i thought once you are on the g.i. bill, they start making the payments to you on a regular basis, more or less like a paycheck and that you could count on it. i had no idea that some of this money was not showing up in people's bank account. that is your benefit. that is separate from this. they cannot take -- sequestration is not touching

any of this. i'm not sure what is happening. there has be somebody you can connect with to find out why our is my -- wire maintenance not -- why are my payments not coming out on time? host: we will take another call. caller: good morning. is for ms. duff, i am a retired vietnam veteran. i was in service for eight years. i put in a claim for my back in 1979. the thing that they do is not right, where they examine you nothing tell you ain't

wrong with your back. they did not do no x-rays, mri. i was an active-duty when i had problems with my back. i am 100% a veteran. this is connected. many others have disconnected ability, you have a -- of people that work for yeah, i know i am at 100%, but if i have other things connected , i'm supposed be compensated, am i right or wrong? guest: once you are at one under present, there is no more money that they can give you. it seems like a five 100% for one identified area, then another area would be additional onto it. but the process is not work like that. when under present me that you are essentially going to receive 100% composition for whatever range you were while you are on active duty, and to get beyond

that i think would basically be -- what they're doing and saying e5,let's say you were e3 or and you get the comment they should based upon that pay grade, they cannot give you that conversation if you were a gunnery sergeant like myself who invested more time. i would say be grateful because the most veterans i talk to have a very bad disabilities and are still at 30%, 40%, and to be blessed that you have access to the military base to get to the exchange to be able to get your vacation. you should -- your medication. you should be able to get 100% care from the v.a. if you are 100% disabled. host: how much paperwork is involved for an initial claim? guest: it has gotten a little bit easier due to many of these complaints. they make it seem like an is very seamless, but you have to submit all of your medical records, so you can have

anything missing. if you're going to make a claim, you have to evidence of that in your medical worker -- medical record. if you never talk about whatever illness or, you have, your claim will get rejected. if that is a fair process on that level, people cannot randomly say something was associated with your service, especially when you get off of active-duty, you're supposed to exit physical, and you can still do this if you are on active duty. you can get it done while you medical veteran v.a. center. i followed up at the v.a. medical center. then the paper get submitted and documented. it is a slow process, it should not take more than a year, though, if that is a problem that is dragging on like this. host: the v.a. calls a fully developed claim, what is that? guest: essentially when you submit a claim, just where to get picked up on average, it is taking 125 days. for to be process, review, looked at, considered, and the

disability to be recognized, it will take close to 240 days. the full process of the time that they take it up to the time that they give you your rating, the rating is 20%, 10%, 100%, that is the full from cradle to grave. host: the penning on the rating you get depends on the money you will receive? guest: exactly. and if you have been retired out of active-duty and your rating is less than 50%, you will not receive a supplement to your retirement. what you receive this, reasonable, if you have -- i will just use a loose number, you get $1000 a month from your retirement, and the get 20% disability, they will take the 20% out of your taxable income, and it will come to you from the v.a., 20% untaxed. host: ok. guest: so you get the money, but 20% from the v.a. is not taxed because it is medical related. it is essentially to compensate you for what you were and able to do now out in the civilian word. -- world.

disability does not mean we are now disabled and we have the blue parking spot, ok. i have a disability i the v.a. rating. what they do is a essentially saw the damage within my knees over the 20 years of service, and i capable of walking and going up and down stairs now ? can sitley, but they there is damage that was probably more transferable by

i have known people who have

gone through various senators and they have been able to get their ratings resolved. you need to have someone advocate for you. if you go to the court of appeals, they can teleconference the hearing. you don't have to fly in for it. learn the ropes. you can go on to several web sites and learn what your process is. be inquisitive, educate yourself. if you have to get an attorney, there may be a fee taken out of your reimbursement, but if you're talking 14 years of disability coming to you, that's worth the price to have the attorney handle it. >> when do you know it's time for an attorney? >> i think once -- the average claims were taken over 370 days. if you're hitting over 600 days, if you're hitting 700 days, i think that's time for an attorney. but i would not recommend -- that's each person's judgment but don't go under a year because your claim very well may be in the works and it should get resolved. unfortunately it is a wait game. you have to use common sense with what your instincts are telling you. but 14 years, my god, get an attorney. >> but attorney's fees could outweigh what you get in return? >> there's a lot of attorneys that specifically represented this. if you're waiting 14 years and

you're going to get backdated 14 years, i think that that fee the attorneys are going to take is probably going to be well worth hiring them. however, i'm not giving legal advice. i'd say use common sense. you shouldn't have to use an attorney. use your congressional leaders, use your senators. write and you become that squeaky wheel gets the grease. make waves and push and push and push. it's important. this is your future. it's your family's future, because the medical costs that you're paying out of pocket to compensate for these problems is ridiculous. >> geno is up next on our republican line.

hello. caller: how ar>> thank you for . i think you've neglected to mention a few things i'd like to ask you to comment on. it's very interesting that you're talking about people going to their congressman or their senator to help try to adjudicate these claims but you've neglected to mention the fact that most states -- i believe all states and also most veterans groups have certified service officers that will submit claims for veterans and act as an advocate at a very local level. and these people are trained to get the paperwork done right. and to me, the biggest issue is the fact that these -- a lot of these people i believe that are in the backlog -- and maybe you can address this if there are numbers on this -- these people that have submitted the paperwork themselves probably again might have filled the paperwork out incorrectly.

and if people would utilize -- these veterans would utilize these service officers, their paperwork would get submitted properly first time. >> i agree with you and i did mention disabled american veterans. it's a limited show so i'm probably not going to get all the data out and please forgive me for that. you can also utilize the american legion, the disabled american veterans have counselors and, yes, they are trained. i recommend that highly. when you're waiting on your claim, though, just waiting, d.a.v. can't even give you an update on that. disabled american veterans can't tell you what's going on, why is it taking 700 days when they know it was submitted correctly. that's when you need to get a congressional inquiry done. that's what my point was. but absolutely, veterans, utilize the american legion, utilize the disabled american veterans, go to the local groups that you know, if you're part of the marine corps league, i'm quite confident they can dreact now the right way. any affiliated organizations will have counselors either associated with me or be able to direct you in an area. as far as filling out the claims wrong, yes, and no. it's not what hard an and shoult be that difficult. and especially people who are elderly, may have disabilities, a lot of younger veterans, this process is fairly smooth for them to get it submitted correct. but seek out a counselor to help you ensure that it's submitted correct.

absolutely. >> concerned veterans america for web site is concernedveteransfoforamerica.o. lots of information for you to check out the organization for itself and to submit claims. anthony joining us from south carolina. veterans line. hello. caller: good morning. how are you? >> fine, thank you, go ahead. caller: i had a claim that i submitted, hi fros i had frost . they turned me down. one, they said my age. when i was in the military, i didn't complain about it. and then i resubmitted it and they said, say, you hadn't had any treatment. but there isn't any treatment for frostbite. now i'm 5 and i'm feeling the results of of my injury and i'm just kind of curious if you had any advice for me.

>> i don't want. make your your complaint is complete. people don't want to complain on active duty. i get that. if you walked around hurt, people looked at you as if you were faking it. i understand. but if there is absolutely no documentation or evidence that you acquired this while you were on active duty, the v.a. cannot be held accountable or the military because they cannot prove that it is associated with your terms of service. that's basically just the reality of it, unfortunately, and i'm sorry about that. >> i was asked by e-mail if v.a. is fraught with fraudulent claims. and is twisted ankle a disability? >> a twisted ankle is not a disability because that can heal. i've had multiple twists and sprains. but i did get what was called a zero percent disability for my ankles because i had chronic injuries of spraining my ankles on runs and hops. what that means is later on should i have ligament damage or

whatever other issues, they recognize that i have a history of damage that could potentially result in problems later on in the future. but if you just -- you know, cut open your finger and it's stitched up, no, that's not going to be considered a disability unless there's an association with deterioration in your health. >> so with the larger question about fraudulent claims? >> oh, yes, they're fraudulent claims, that's why the v.a. has gotten more difficult with the claims they're predicting. i love veterans and advocate for veterans but there are veterans out there that are using the system for get money from the government and ensure that they aren't, you know, basically they're laying, which is very, very sad. but any program's going to have that. you'll see it in the welfare system, you'll see it in the food stamps program. it doesn't mean everybody's lying. but you have to have the discretion:the v.a. cannot just rubber stamp things and say you got it because you said it. they will review their records and ensure that they're not handing out disability payments because this is taxpayers' money. snipe>> independent line, veter.

caller: hi, i'm just concerned about when i was in the hospital in syracuse in 2012 and i watched a closed-circuit tv, they had the director of the veterans affairs make a statement saying that the budget was cut back 21% and they're a hiring proceed yet there's an increase 900,000 people from fort drum that are putting in claims for benefits and stuff yet they're understaffed or underfunded. how are they supposed to catch up on all these backlogged cases and everything when they're cutting back on the budget and having a hiring freeze. that doesn't help.

>> keep in mind, the jury is still out on whether the v.a. has enough money. >> you were asked on top of that what a government shutdown affect claims and processes? >> it shouldn't affect it but it could. i'm not an expert on what's going to happen with this budget coming up. i would indicate that it could shut it down but i don't expect we're going to have it shut down for long. i was on active duty with the last government shutdown. it was pretty quick. active duty wasn't affected. they still did get their paychecks. but it will impact the country and it's not going to stop the claims from being recognized, it's just going to probably halt some people from going to work everyday. so, yes, we'll see an additional slowdown. >> here's matthew, riverdale, florida. caller: how are you today, sir? >> fine. go ahead. caller: i'm a disabled vet and i'm rated at 100% and i just went through a reevaluation process and i just got dropped down to 30%. and i have got more medical issues now and seeing the doctors more now than i have in many years. i was wondering how i even try

to go about and try to maintaining my00%. >> you'll have to resubmit your claim. for example, like i indicated with my ankles, i'm at 0% for my ankles and 0% for my flat feet. what that means is should i have start having increased as the future goes on, then i have to resubmit my claim. there's a difference between looking for backpay and just having the disability recognized. now, they do expect disabilities to increase as we get older. so, for example, i may have potential ankle problems based upon all the multiple sprains i had or the flat feet i have. so these are things that can change with time. you just go see a counselor over at the d.a.v. or american legion or any of the v.a. or veteran veterans-associated groups and they should have counselors who can help you with your claim and get another submission and then you should be able to get this resolved. it's not going to happen overnight. it won't. but be patient and you should be able to resolve it. >> how common of an occurrence that you could get rated to 100% and then get pulled back to 30%.

>> i've never heard of that. once your rating is granted, it's already gone through. i'm not sure of his specific case. i've never heard of that. >> matthew, are you still there? caller: yeah, they gave me a 100% in 2006 and they said they made a grave and unmistakable error with it. when i went through, they just did a reevaluation in 2011 and came back and said, oh, now you're at 30%. and i've gone back to d.a.v., they've tried to help me, i've contacted my congressmen and they said they can't do anything unless i become homeless. >> did they clear -- did they explain clearly what this error was in any way? caller: they said basically because i've had 13 doctors that -- at the v.a. say that i have this issue, part of my ptsd and stuff like that, my sleeping, but then i had one c.n.p. evaluator that said that i don't have anything but he only met with me for five minutes and had me take an mmpi examination test. >> then you need to go to

appeals. you have to submit an appeal. caller: the personal hearing appeal and they pretty much said no. they said that they're coinciding with the c.n.p. evaluator because of the fact that he holds more weight and bearing than everybody else. >> and what's that evaluator? caller: compensation and evaluation foreyour claim. >> so you went through the v.a. courts of appeals for v.a. claims? caller: i did a personal hearing at day pines in nor floor. >> there may be another level you can still take it. i don't -- i'm not an expert on diagnosis or giving people their benefits, i will say with ptsd, and i'm not trying to undermine anything that happened to you at all, it will not necessarily qualify somebody for 100%. it is a very tough process to get. i mean, 100% is tough. you really have to be incapable of working. it is a -- it is an intense disability problem that has occurred over maybe the years of accumulation or what-not. so i wouldn't discourage you but

i would encourage you to find out what the next level of an appeal is and you would be able to establish a hearing with the u.s. courts of appeal for the veterans administration. >> matthew, thanks. we go to clarence, last call. independent line. veteran. good morning. caller: good morning. first of all i would like to thank jessica an jess -- jesse r service. >> thank you. caller: my concern is i was pretty much healthy when i was on active duty but the biggest problem with me was injuries. you know, i didn't get sick but i just got injured a lot. i had two of my fingers amputated. i tore miami. c.lmiami.c.l.my a.c.l. during t. they make you feel as if you're going to war. i look as it as they put me in the battlefield and then eight

hours in the gulf war but it's taken years. i filed my claim in 2009 for my a.c.l., for my fingers amputated and the other injuries that i received. so when i processed my claim, i did have counselors process my claim for me. everything was good. but it was denied because they could not find my medical records. >> oh, god. caller: you know? so the biggest problem for me, they tell me that they cannot find my medical records so now i have to do the -- the background and trying to determine where my medical records are. i went through the process of going back to the last duty station where i was stationed out in aberdeen proving ground. they tell me my medical record was sent to -- >> they won't have it. caller: i called st. louis and they tell me my medical record was sent to d.c. i call d.c. and they tell me my medical records went to baltimore regional. >> we'll let our guests respond to you. >> it will be at the regional office that was handling your

claim. that's where it would be at and you're not going to find it. i hate to sound so dismal but i've seen the photographs of these medical records. they're stacked to the ceiling in large warehouses. i don't know what happened when you got off of active duty but i was told, photocopy that medical record. do not submit the only evidence you have. that is -- that's like suicide. you know, it's -- it's not giving you the opportunity to resubmit. if you did not -- did you get a photocopy of your medical record? did you do that after you got off active duty? >> he's no longer with us. >> oh, dear. i have a copy of mine. i'm not quite sure where i put it but i do have a copy buried among my many things. if there's no evidence of that medical record, the only thing i can say is you submit -- go to the congressional representatives so they'll do a congressional requirery as to where your medical record is. it is not destroyed. it's just probably next to impossible to find and they need to dig it up. and it would be at the regional

office that was handling your claim. >> jesse james, formerly of the marine corps, formerly with concerned veterans of america, we thank you for your time. >> thank you so much for having me. >> coming up, we'll talk about the farm bill. with the house and senate far apart specifically with respect to food stamps. we'll have a discussion on future of the farm bill when "washington journal" continues.

>> when ellen wilson is in the white house, she brings the white house gardener back here to prospect house and says let's re-create the rose section of this garden at the white house. and of course this becomes the famous rose garden at the white house. ellen tragically doesn't live to see the rose garden completed, however. she's dying in the summer of 1914. she's wheeled out into the space outside in her wheelchair and she watches as the gardener works but she doesn't live to see the completion of this vision she had for roses blooming at the white house. >> meet the first and second wife of president woodrow wilson monday night live at 9:00 eastern on c spa c-span and c-s. >> many have said that our

report would advocate mere reinforcement of embassies or closing down our presence. no conclusion like that could be farther from the truth. we recognize that perfection and protection is not possible and that fine and good men and women will still come forward to serve their country and risk their lives on the frontlines of danger. we should continue to do all that we can to protect them as they go about such challenging tasks. that was the sole purpose of our report and it was produced with the deep sense that we had to get it right. politics, elections, personal controversy and all other external factors aside. >> this weekend on c-span, house oversight examines the obama administration's response to the terror attack on the u.s. consulate in been gaz bengazi. today at 0:00 a.m. 10:00. and all weekend on book-tv, live

coverage of the national book festival in washington, d.c. >> joining us is the founder and executive editor of the hagstrom report joining us to talk about the farm bill. where do we stand on the farm bill? >> well, we now have all the legislation almost that is necessary to actually go to conference between the house and the senate. this week the house passed a nutrition title which would cut food stamps by $39 billion and

so they'd already passed the far program section of it. now there's only one thing left. they still have to pass another measure to put the two bills together and send them to the senate and we're expecting that that will happen next week. >> and that will happen easily, in your estimation? >> that's what i wonder, because the conservative groups have said the bill should be permanently split. they want one bill for the farm program, one bill for the -- for the food stamps, and, quite frankly, they want to cut both programs. but i think that the house leadership is probably going to whip this pretty strongly and they might even attach it to another piece of legislation so that it does go through. >> how did we get to the point where the house separated food stamps from the farm bill itself? >> well, the -- the house tried to pass a comprehensive farm bill in june. the -- the nutrition portion of the bill and the farm program have always been in one, since the 1970's, in order to make sure you could get both rural votes and urban votes.

and this year it didn't work. the democrats found the cuts in the -- in the nutrition programs too -- too big and only 24 of them voted for it. but a lot of the republicans still thought the cuts in nutrition were too small so the bill failed. and so then they brought up the farm bill by itself, the farm program, and now they brought up the nutrition program alone, but they still have to put them together in order to have a corches a comprehensivconference bill. >> but will the food portions be the sticking point? >> i think that will be -- i think that will be the major thing. although, frank luke us, the chairman of the house agriculture committee, says in the end on the food stamps, it's going to have to be an agreement between president obama, house speaker john boehner, and senate majority leader harry reid. they're going to have to decide on a number and that's what the rest of the congress will accept. >> overarching issues such as

the debt ceiling and everything else, could this affect negotiations between those three men? >> well, it certainly -- it certainly could. because if they're looking for cuts, if they're looking for money to save, then it's possible that they -- that they would look to the farm bill for part of those cuts. but it's also possible that the farm bill could be attached to one of these pieces of legislation and that would make it easier to get it through congress. >> 40 -- i'm sorry, $74.6 billion when it comes to the snap program, as it's called, food stamps as it's commonly called, about 46.6 million people on it, about 22 million households. the average benefit per person, $133. per household, $278. jerry hagstrom, that figure today, how does it vary from years past in terms of the amount of money we spend on foot stamps? >> it's a lot more than it used to be, double from some years ago. but the fact is we've had a recession and a lot of people

are getting food stamps who didn't get them in the past. and this is particularly true of, let's say, suburban people, who have lost jobs. and one of the things that happened under the recovery act is that people were allowed to get food stamps even if they -- if they had assets. in the old days, if you had a fairly expensive car, you would have had to sell it and you don't have to do that now. because the argument is, well, these people need cars in order to be able to go to job interviews, et cetera. and so the -- it's been -- it's easier to get on food stamps now than it has been in the past and so people with more assets are -- are doing it. but it's understandable. >> we're talking to jerry hagstrom about the food stamp program, the farm bill overall. we've divided our lines differently this morning in terms of location. if you live in urban areas, call 202-585-3880. if you live in rural areas, 202-585-3881.

if you're a farmer specifically, 202-585-3882. and you can give us a call or tweet us as well if you want to ask questions about those breakdowns, urban, rural, farmers. they all farm under a farm package, so to speak. >> that's. and it's interesting you've divided them this way rather than republican and democratic, because it -- really the farm bill usually has not been a split between republicans and democrats. the battles in it have been -- have been regional. and there has been a bin agreement to supporbipartisanagn programs, especially food stamps, but that kind of broke down this year in which you didn't have a single democrat vote for the bill that would cut the food stamps so much. and you only had 15 republicans also vote against it. the bill passed on republican votes. >> taking a look at the house bill, specifically when it comes to food stamps, it would cut $40

billion from the program. it would allow states to require work requirements for able-bodied recipients. they wouldn't receive the benefits indefinitely. what's the difference on the senate side when it comes to cuts? >> on the senate side, they're only cutting $4 billion. and they have -- they're only doing things like taking -- requiring the states to provide more money in heating assistance if you're going to qualify people for food stamps. they're taking them away from any lottery winners, making a few other small -- small changes to the food stamp program. >> let's hear from rick who is in massachusetts, defines himself living in an urban area. rick, you're on with jerry hagstrom on "national journal." good morning. callercaller: good morning, gen. this problem drives me nuts. there are a lot of abuse. people trading them in for cash, drugs. they should be kicked out permanently.

but the main reason i'm calling, which drives me even more nuts, is why are we paying for farm supports to farmers? almost a hundred years. farming is a business. the commodity crop farmers -- not all farmers get subsidies, as you know, they should stand or fall on their own. and for any republican that calls himself a conservative, free market person, they're hipp hypocrites. and if you're not, please tell me how you're not. that's my commented on this issue. >> well, the argument about why we have a farm program is basically that farmers are people who manufacture outdoors and there is so much about their production situation that they cannot control. they can't control the weather and they can't control world prices. and so since the 1930's, at least, they have had a safety -- a safety net program. and just last year, there was an incredible drought in the country and the crop insurance program paid out $17 billion in rural america and there was no

uproar over this drought. if there had not been that program, you would have had farmers marching in washington demanding what we call ad hoc disaster assistance and congress probably would have passed some kind of special bill. so that's basically why the -- the farm safety net exists. and you can argue a lot about the details of it but that's the basic reason. >> jen offers this scenario. how about the farm subsidies given to rich people who own land in new york city. much farming going on there on fifth avenue? >> [laughter] no, there isn't farming on fifth avenue. the number of people -- there are, of course, a few people -- a few people like that but there aren't actually very many people in new york city getting the subsidies. most of the subsidies that go to people in urban areas actually go to cities that are near the farmland. and now it's kind of gotten complicated because about 50% of the farmland in the country

today is rented often by the heirs to the farmland. let's say somebody's grandparents or great-grandparents were homesteaders and maybe the next generation farmed, maybe even two generations, but now the -- another generation owns the land and there are fewer people farming, the farming operations have gotten bigger and those people rent their land to another farmer in the community but they still may get some subsidy. host: is there a definition of a farm when we're talking about these issues? >guest: well, there are actually definitions of farms in terms of the fact that commodities are protected by these -- by direct subsidies. and by commodities, we mean things like corn, soybeans, wheat, cotton, rice, peanuts. while specialty crops -- and that would be fruits and vegetables and tree nuts -- do not get direct subsidies. they get other things to help them out like grading standards.

and -- for example, you notice you never see an ugly apple in your grocery store and that's because the system created by the government does not allow those fruits to be sold in the stores. the ugly ones, the damaged ones, go to canning and go to freezi freezing. but this to some degree props up the price of the -- of the beautiful fruit in the stores. host: pittsburgh, pennsylvania. this is cecil, lives in an urban area. hi. caller: hi. i've got a problem with history. i'm eight decades being a veteran of korean war, and i find that every 10 years we have a different problem with our veterans with the general public. and here we've got this food stamp thing. and we didn't have any problems food stamps out of the second world war and korean, which i got caught up in that. now, the only thing i object to

is, why is it that the veterans, along with the general public, is plagued with things that are -- like a gas tax at the gas pump. it's actually a tax, they're paying more. and there's not a thing like gas rationing when we had the great war, world war ii. people sacrificed a lot, came back and they had schools and things to their advantage. and we're giving subsidies to the farmers. and the problem i have with it is that, what is it? is it corporate farms? because the small farmer is kind of crowded out by people like monsanto and their seeds. there's all kinds of things going on there. host: thank you. guest: the gentleman has brought up a whole lot of issues. i'll try to address a few of them. when he talks about corporate farming, most crop farming is actually not in the hands of corporations. it's still in the hands of individual farmers or family

farm corporations in which there may be a son and a father or brothers, something -- or also these days more likely husband and wife. they buy the seeds from monsanto but monsanto is not directly involved in farming except for its own seed plots. now, when he raises the issue of veterans and whether they're getting a proper treatment, one of the issues that's coming up in this proposed cut to food stamps is that this category of able-bodied adults without dependents, it includes a lot of veterans, particularly those people who may come back from iraq and afghanistan and who are troubled. technically, they're able-bodied but they're not mentally or emotionally able. and under the current rules, if the program operates exactly as it's supposed to, they can only get food stamps three months out of every 36 months. but the states have asked waivers for these what they call

a-bodies, able-bodied adults without dependents. and so this new rule -- new law which, of course, it was only passed in the house, it would take away the states' ability to get waivers for these people. host: vivian asked, can you tell us how much the members of the committee gave themselves in subsidies? guest: i don't have a figure on that. it varies. there are a few members who do. i would say most members of the house agriculture committee don't get subsidies but there are some -- there are some who are farmers and there are other members of congress who are not on the committee who are also farmers and have gotten subsidies over the years. host: so frank lucas is the chairman of the house agricultural committee. what's his lifelike in the next couple days as they're trying to resolve this thing? guest: well, he's the one who's responsible. he's got to get the house to pass this rule that would allow

the bill to be sent to the senate and then a conference to be called, and then he's got to convince john boehner, the house speaker, to appoint these conferees. the senate's already appointed its conferees. it will have to reappoint them with -- when they merge the two bills, but that probably won't be a complicated process. and another question for mr. lucas now is whether he can convince boehner just to put members of the house agriculture committee on that conference or whether he'll have to bow to pressure from the conservatives and put somebody who's outside the committee, who may not favor farm subsidies or food stamps. host: is there a deadline to the current farm bill? guest: well, the bill technically expires on september 30 but that's a complicated statement because individual farm programs expire according to crop years, so it depends on the wheat crop year, the cotton crop year, et cetera. so it's just -- technically the

bill expires then. the biggest issue with the -- with the bill is that on the 1st of january, the old dairy program from 1949 would go into effect, which would cause the government to buy milk at very high prices and then cause mick prices to gmilkprices to go up. this was the issue that came up last year and that's why the dairy -- why the fiscal cliff bill also contained an extension of the 2008 farm bill and what we called the dairy cliff legislation that made sure that the -- that milk prices would not go up. host: jerry hagstrom from "national journal" is our guest to join us to talk about the farm bill. also the creator of the hagstrom report, which is what? guest: the hagstrom report is a daily report on agriculture. the subscribers get a -- what we call a pushed e-mail about whatever has been going on that day or maybe some feature stories. and then there's also an archive of it at www.hagstromreport.com

and that's available to the public. guest: the "national journal" puts out information about this as well. can people get access to this information. guest: if they go to nationaljournal.com, it's also open to the public now. host: joining us to talk about these issues, there's a map that you'll find, by the way, in that "national journal" the politics of food stamps and jerry, what is this map telling us as far as information is concerned? guest: well, it is showing the percentage of the population in each of these states that's -- that's getting food stamps. and it's interesting, that varies depending on the poverty level in the states. for example, there's -- the -- there's a higher percentage of people in most of the southern states who get food stamps. it also depends on what effort the state makes to inform people of their food stamp benefits. one of the big controversies at the moment is whether the government should advertise the

availability of -- of food stamps. some years ago, actually during the bush administration, the government began an advertising campaign because they were afraid that people were not aware of their right to food stamps. and so that played a role in the increase in the number of people who are getting the -- who are getting food stamps, actually now called snap benefits, and they get them through electronic benefit transfer cards which are like credit cards. but that's now controversial. some of the republicans do not think that the government should encourage people to sign up for this program. host: here is jared from minnesota, lives in a rural area. good morning. caller: good morning, how are you doing today? host: fine, thank you. caller: i had a question just kind of related real timely to the map you put up. my question is related to the individuals that make up those areas that -- you know, that have that dark blue because oftentimes, you know, we hear that barack obama is the food

stamp president and giving food stamps to, you know, minorities to buy votes or to get votes. so my question is slon what is:e actual data on the percentage of individuals receiving food stamps in are they classified as minorities or nonminorities? guest: well, the country is mostly white so most of the people who get food stamps are -- are white. also but i would say, most of the people who -- who get food stamps are women, children, disabled people. oddly enough in this category of able-bodied people without dependents, about 60% of those are -- are men, and that's where this question of the war veterans comes in. we don't know exactly who those -- who those people are, but one of the controversies is if it would cut them off, this might

upset a lot of people in republican areas. host: we have a viewer who's interested in learning more about those members of congress who receive benefits. he asked the question, have him expend on the rich celeb members. congress benefiting from the farm bill. guest: [laughter] well, i find it -- i find it difficult. you know, i'm going to direct you to a web site called the environmental working group, and they -- they keep lists of various types of lists of members of congress who get food stamps -- excuse me, not food stamps but farm subsidies. and that's also where you can look up the -- the subsidies that individual farmers -- farmers have gotten. host: barbara joins us from little rock, arkansas, urban area. good morning. caller: good morning. host: you're on, go ahead. caller: oh. i just recently seen on the news about the food stamps where they

was -- they're talking about start testing -- drug testing people that's getting food stamps or other government programs. and i want to know this -- why -- why were they talking about testing -- drug testing -- i'm in arkansas where you have a lot of farmers. a lot of people are receiving checks for many, many years to not to farm. and they call this subsidy but it's just another thing for welfare. and i want to know, why wasn't they talking about testing those people -- drug testing those people for receiving those checks they've been sending them? i had opportunity to see some of them checks and a lot of those

people that are receiving those checks are marijuana growers, users and a lot of -- of -- a lot of meth in this area. host: caller, thank you. guest: she raises the question that other people have asked. if you're going to ask the food stamp beneficiaries to go through drug testing, then why not -- why not the farmers? and the only answer i would have is, that just wasn't part of the bill. and i think you'd have a very hard time organizing a campaign to test all the -- all the farmers for drugs. but she raises -- she raises a point that has been brought up in washington, a question of fairness. host: she said people receiving checks to not to farm. i think that what she'farm. guest: i think what she's referring to is the conservation

reserve program which takes land out of production, land that is considered to be marginal. but the program started in the 1980's when we had a surplus of agricultural product. so there was -- there were two reasons for starting it. one was that -- to -- to take marginal land out of production on the theory that if you have this land in production, it causes pollution problems, for example, runoff -- runoff of pesticides into streams, this kind of thing, hilly land. and so -- and the other was that there were -- that there were simply too -- there was too many wheat in the world, too mantoo h corn, et cetera. well, now that there's more demand for agricultural products, a lot of it has to do with the increasing wealth in china and china's desire for food. another part of the demand is the ethanol program. farmers are taking some of that land out. but in these years, farmers have been receiving checks, there has

been as much as 370 million acres out of the 400 million of crop acres in this program, but the new farm bills would reduce the amount that can be in that program to 24 million ache of m. host: one of the articles in the "national journal" is the two sides of crop insurance. for those who don't understand what is crop insurance, how does that affect the debate going on on capitol hill over the farm bill? guest: okay. crop insurance is a program in which the government pays part of the cost and the -- the farmer pays a part of the cost. the government pays about 62%, the farmer paid about a third. and under this program, farmers get insurance against both weather risk and price risk. and it has become the most important farm subsidy -- subsidy program. compared with the others, which have made direct payments, for

example, to farmers. there is -- there are arguments about this program. i mean, it's been very successful, especially that was the one that paid out the $17 billion last -- last year, and there would have been chaos in rural america if you hadn't had those payments. but some people question why very rich farmers should get this much of a subsidy for their -- for their premium -- premium payments. they wonder if this encourages marginal land to be in production. and so there have been -- there are some things in the farm bill that would restrict crop insurance a little bit. that's -- that's in the senate -- in the senate bill. but then there are other pressures to increase crop insurance for crops that don't have it. it's much harder to do crop insurance for the specialty crops, the fruits and vegetables, the nuts, et cetera, because they're grown on smaller acreages and so it's hard to develop the program in which you figure out what the -- what the

rules would be. with the wheat and the corn, et cetera, you spread it over, you know, over large areas so the program works fairly well for those but not for some of the products yet. host: judy is up next who lives in a rural area. good morning. caller: good morning. my problem is, okay, i've been a cashier for many years and i see a lot of illegal immigrants coming in that cannot speak english and they've got a thousand dollars or more in food stamps. and i want to know why it's so easy for these people to be able to come into our country, okay, and be able to get on food stamps and they're not even a united states citizen. guestguest: well, first of all, illegal immigrants are not

supposed to get food stamps so they have had to prove or provide some evidence of their legal status in the united states in order to be qualified for the program. i can't speak to the thousand dollars. if they have a thousand dollars on the e.b.t. cart, it would have to bcard, it wouldhave to y to have that. but it is not that easy to qualify for food stamps. and i don't know if your experience is recent or not, but these days, the food stamp beneficiaries get their benefits through these electronic benefit transfer cards, not through physical coupons, so it isn't so easy to just sell them to another person for a percentage, which is what people -- people used to do. i guess that's about all i can respond to that. host: here is deborah who lives in hampton, virginia, rural area. hello. caller: hi. good morning.

and i thought that was interesting what the last caller just said, a thousand dollars in food stamps. i've never heard anything like that. but i'm one of those able-bodied adults with dependent children and my children who are dependent are also disabled, severely disabled. they were twins. at any rate, you know, i remember back when i was working, i didn't work under 40 hours. i was a full-time worker working 40, 50, 60 hours a week. i had one child at the time. i was a single mother. i kind of rolled my eyes when i would see -- you know, some years ago -- i would roll my eyes, okay, go out and get a job. but i understand what it's like now because i am a recipient of the food stamp program. and, you know, what it is, i'm a divorced mother who is now -- needs training, some job

training or education because i'm -- you know, jobs that i've applied for, you know, i'm not qualified for because i've been out of work because i've been home taking care of my disabled children. so you don't know what people's situation is. and a lot of people, you know, think there's this narrow-minded narrative that we're lazy. no way in the world i'm lazy, you know, taking care of my family. however, i want to work but i'm just in that -- that situation. and, you know, causing people to -- you know, you just can't put a blanket, you know, whatever on people's situation. it is what it is, and, you know, you're going to need help at some time. and i found out, you know, the way that i found out after rolling my eyes at a cash register that, you know, you're going to need help. host: thank you, caller. thank you. guest: well, the caller speaks to the delicate matters that we -- that we are talking about here. first of all, i want to assure her that this -- that the house

bill would not take any disabled people off of food stamps but also that this bill still has to go through conference with the senate. and the expectation is that the senate and president obama are not going to be willing to accept a very big cut to -- to food stamps. host: there is an article written by one of your colleagues for "national journal" but the headline says, "sugar growers reap sweeter results than dairy farmers in lobbying fights." how much of sugar is part of debates over farm bill? guest: oh, it's a big debate every time. and you have the debate between the sugar growers who wanted to maintain their program, and the sweetener users, which is basically the candy companies and other industrial users of sugar, which say that the sugar program restricts the -- the supply of sugar too much and raises the price and raises their cost of production. the sugar growers have -- however, have a very strong

lobby, they have a very large public political action committee and so they have done -- they have done very well at maintaining their program. and it's -- it's in -- it's passed both the house and the senate so it would be maintained, assuming that -- that there are no changes in the conference. host: so jerry hagstrom, in light of that, dave humphrey makes this statement on twitter, you can respond if you wish. all agriculture price manipulation by our federal government should end. let farmers earn a living using the free market. guest: well, it's a lot more complicated than that. it's -- it's hard to say that there would be no price manipulation because we are in a world economy. there are subsidies and import and export restrictions all over the world. agriculture is a little bit different from most other forms of -- of business. so i think that it's unlikely -- it's unlikely that the world he

wants is going to happen. host: here is fredericktown, ohio. joining us is clarence. he's a farmer. good morning. caller: yeah, hello. this is more like a two-sided conversation. i do not understand why we subsidize the rich. i'm in a poor county and public record tells you how much the local farmers around you get for subsidies. it's all in the public records if you go hunt it up. i know several, they call them family farmers, they're not family farmers. when you're farming thousands of acres, it's not a family farm, it is a business. the same as we're subsidizing oil, why are we subsidizing the rich and burying the poor? we take away whatever the poor have. i am a small farmer. i've lived on this farm, it's

been in our family for a hundred years almost, and it's only a 50-acre farm. it is an old farm. host: what do you farm? caller: we raise sheep and we raise chickens and we want to move into some small cattle. but we don't get nothing for subsidies. we don't get anything from help. but my neighbors, i have found out, in three years get almost a million dollars. what is wrong with this situation? we always help the rich and to heck with the poor. i don't understand the u.s. doing this. host: thank you for your input, clarence. guest: well, first of all, he's basically a in animal agricultue and animal agriculture does not get direct subsidies. there have been arguments over the years that animal agriculture, you know, cattle raising, chickens, turkeys, sheep, as he said, have benefited from the fact that crop farmers have been subsidized because it may have

kept down the cost of animal feed. now, today there are other arguments about that because the renewable fuel mandate is shifting some of the corn to -- to ethanol. but on the issue of why do we subsidize the rich, it's so complicated because the agricultural subsidies follow production, and over the years, as agriculture has become more mechanized, there are fewer farmers. and -- but if you have, let's say -- let's say you have a big corn and soybean farm. but if you have a drought, you have a big problem and you probably have expensive machinery, you may have employees, and the argument would be that these big farmers need the assistance, let's say from crop insurance, in order to stay in business for the next year. but i agree with him that it is a very complicated issue between the big farm -- the big farm and

the small farm. if he were in crop production, he would get some subsidies. host: what -- when you apply for a subsidy from the federal government, what information do you have to provide and how often is a farmer turned down? guest: well, first of all, the -- the subsidies go along with various -- with the crop. so you have to provide information on what land you own or land that you are renting. you have to do -- you have to report what you're planting and what -- and your production. for example, if you're going to get a subsidy based on a loss, you would have to provide information about that. you also have to sign a paper that you will follow normal farming practices. and there are spot-checks on whether you are -- whether you

are doing that. host: this is john, harvey, illinois, urban area. hi. caller: hi. my question is why these people who are allowed to receive these subsidies like who are elected officials. case in point, senator eastland from mississippi, for years and years -- i'm talking about back in the 1950's -- when we didn't even know what a subsidy was, he was allowed to receive subsidies for not growing. he's a united states senator. for not growing anything. and probably wasn't planning to grow anything in the first place. but my point is, if there are other people receiving these huge subsidies who are sitting up in washington as elected officials, why aren't they -- why isn't it made known that, you know, this -- this situation exists rather than just people receiving food stamps who are going to be cut?

why can't we cut some of that fat from the budget? and i appreciate if you would give us that -- you said you had a list of elected officials who receive subsidies that you were going to make public and i'm sitting and waiting for that. if you'd let us know that, i'd appreciate it. thank you very much. guest well, to find the list of officials, go to a web site called the environmental working group. i think it's ewg.org. and there you will find ways to find lists of people who have -- who have gotten subsidies, various -- various types of people. now, when you talk about senator eastland, that was a long time ago. i mean, in the 1950's, the programs were -- were very different. so i can't really speak to that in -- in current terms. i wouldn't overemphasize the idea of public officials getting the subsidies. for example, most members of the house these days come from the

-- from the suburbs or from the cities, and one of the problems in passing a farm bill is that so few of them have any connection to agriculture anymore, they don't really understand very -- very much about it. so i don't think you're going to find as many people as you -- as you might think, but there is the issue of people who do get subsidies still saying people shouldn't get food stamps. and i think there -- there are reasons to raise issues of hypocrisy about that. host: the subsidy database is farm.ewg.org. there's a database. you can type the zip code and find more information about individuals from that. again, farm.ewg.org. so play out from this point on what to expect as far as negotiations about the farm bill. guest: sure. well, the first thing is they have to pass this -- this procedural measure.

then the house would send th the house-passed bill, both the farm bill and the nutrition bill combined to the senate. then the senate would say no, we're not going to pass this. we've already got our own bill. we want a conference on the two bills. then they send that message. and then they reappoint their conferees and then they send that message back to the house. and then the house appoints conferees. and then they would hold a conference, theoretically come up with an agreement and then pass it through each house again and then send it to president obama. now, i think the next question is: how long or how -- will this take? and my answer would be, it can be as short or as long as they -- as they want, depending on how serious they are about getting this bill done. and jerry hagstrom from the

hagstrom report, thank you. guest: thank you.