we will discuss job growth for 2014. you can join the conversation on twitter and facebook. ♪\ morning and welcome to "the washington journal." iran dominates the front pages with of the united nations resending its invitation to iran to attend the syrian peace talks. the u.s. demanded the u.n. disinvite iran because the talks begin wednesday in switzerland and iran did not agree to stipulations that the sorrow assad must go. -- that bashar al-assad must go.

"the wall street journal" says the fed has once again scaled back its fed buying program. --rt with president obama president obama's on marijuana. he said it was not more dangerous than alcohol. what is your take on the debate? republicans, call us at -- also send us a tweet. you can also join the conversation on facebook.com/cspan. mail us,also e- journal@c-span.org. he said this to the editor in chief of "the new yorker" --

the president had more to say in "the new yorker," when he went on to say -- president obama sitting down with the new yorker's editor-in- chief for a lengthy profile peace and talked about many issues. one of them being marijuana. we want to get your take on that. he said marijuana is not more dangerous than alcohol.

if it waser asked him less dangerous. the president went on to say, -- sue in kentucky, democratic caller. what do you think? inler: i think that here kentucky we have always had a war on marijuana. host: because of the tobacco companies? why do you say there is a war on marijuana? who is on the two sides?

been thet has always government and the people here in kentucky. marijuana has always been legalized as something that is more harmful than alcohol from the standpoint of a lot of people. the recent writing on the book, "cornbread mafia," opened a can of words. going to be a tremendous problem for colorado. host: what have you heard? caller: if you have a large amount of cash in your business and you are afraid to walk out the door, it is an outstanding

amount of money from what i understand. that is v ery dangerous. host: you think there will be more crime because of legalizing marijuana? caller: yes, it has always been more crime. with the president making this thatncement, it just opens -- his accountability is not there. host: do you think it is more dangerous than alcohol? not as dangerous? perspective of seeing it through my life here, i think alcohol is more dangerous. host: clinton maryland, independent caller. it is absurd we are putting people in cages for smoking a plant. people want to look at the imperial cult evidence, they go

to the cato institute's website and look at their study. drug use inss portugal after the decriminalized it. -- after they decriminalized it. february 14 through 16, there is a conference to hear from the drug policy institutes. host: what are you debating? caller: we will be talking more about drug use and how we need andecriminalize drug use move forward with better policies. host: joann says this --

charles in new york, democratic caller, what are your thoughts? i definitely agree with some of your callers that it may be as dangerous. any smoke in the system is not good. for that matter they may as well make cigarettes illegal. that is very dangerous to the body. i think it is much more harmful than marijuana. alcohol is much more dangerous -- you can smoke a joint and it is not going to kill you. everyn smoke 10 joints day and you lay around and do nothing. drink and drink 10 drinks it won't do about the

same thing. it should be equal to alcohol. richard cohen weighs in in his post --

he goes on to say that he wishes the debate was less about marijuana and more about smoking. mostly i want them and everyone else to ask -- marlene in florida, democratic caller. go ahead. caller: good morning. believe that marijuana is no where near as dangerous as alcohol. alcohol.band died from his organs shut down one by one. i have never heard of somebody overdosing from marijuana. purposes, itananal

grows from the ground. if it is helping people medically and it comes from the ground, not created it. i see no problem with it. it.od created i see no problem with it. the drug-free america had this to say -- in "the washington post" from a iseral perspective, this greg sargent's plum line --

charles in florida -- in colorado, independent caller. it is your perspective from a state who has moved to legalize marijuana. dispensaryven had a until the government decided to shut it down over stupid rules and regulations. it is the evil that never came. to jail is empty here due marijuana. do you think people are going out and saying, i am going to go get stoned. i do not know one person who said, it is legal now, let's go do it. most of the people have been doing it for years and years. we are going to make a lot of money. if you look at all the stats and everything, marijuana doesn't kill. there had the dispensary

would be a lot of kids coming in. i don't even smoke anymore. i was real surprised that most of the people that came in their have fibromyalgia, cancer, they had all of these problems. the evil that never came. we are going to make a bunch of money. his whole country is going to fall sooner or later and it won't be a big issue. host: a few questions for you. how much money you go -- how much money? caller: i think they are talking $20 million the first year. skewed off because what the government out here has done is said if you have a building full marijuana- of medical and you want to go become a man recreational

marijuana seller, you cannot sell that medical marijuana. you have to get another building, grow four months, then sell it is recreational. means the first day they open it, the pot was gone and now they have to catch up. there are a lot of legal boundaries. the city saids, you cannot have dispensaries here and there. nobody knew what the boundaries really were. you could be in the very back of them all. of theas the other side mall, 1000 feet within a do it.rhood, they cannot what we are going to see out here is the evil that never keep

-- the evil that never came. stop?why did you i'm 54, i quit smoking 30 years ago. echo --y'd you stop the stop the echo -- why did you stop? caller: it got boring. i decided i did not want to smoke anymore. a conservative perspective in "the washington post" -- james in new york, democratic caller. caller: hello. there are so many positive uses for marijuana, cannabis,

hemp. we used to be hemp for america back in the 40s. see industrieso follow these growers around to pick up their stocks and stems. how much not believe stronger plywood would be if it were made out of hemp because the fiber is -- i mean, clothing products created -- products. you don't have to smoke marijuana, you can ingest it. i see reports all the time about kids with psychological problems, children that parents -- children whose parents have gone to find these doctors that .rescribe these pills we will find out down the road

that god put this plant on the .lanet for a reason hopefully we will take full advantage of it down the road. i am a recovering alcoholic. many talk about the marijuana maintenance program, which has helped me for 25 years stay off alcohol. we are going to keep taking your thoughts on what the president had to say to the new york in their lengthy profile about marijuana. he had some other thoughts as well. get your take on it throughout this first part of the washington journal. house bureau reporter joining us.rsey is let's begin with the back and forth between the hoboken mayor and lieutenant governor there.

is the hoboken mayor saying that the lieutenant governor wanted in exchange for more sandy relief fund? there is a large development project that is taking years to get off the ground. the mayor is saying the lieutenant governor and chris -- the lieutenant governor said to her that if the program can get moving, the city would also have to act more quickly. host: what happened? guest: the project has been stalled. it is a really complicated story. represents the developer that is trying to do this project is also the chairman of the port authority of the and -- of new york and new jersey. mayor ishere the alleging the quid pro quo comes in, the administration wants to get this billing.

the project has not been approved nor rejected either. area doesto get the it made it in a way that will speed up the project. -- area designated in a way that will speed up the project. for --sey has ideas future storms they have all been seeking, a portion of the standing money that congress has approved. approvalas received for what it is looking for. it ends up being $14 billion worth of project ideas and not as much money. -- howow will this and will this be investigative? the mayor has said the

u.s. attorney's office of new jersey visited her on sunday to speak with her about what she says is happening. e of her interactions -- leastosecutors at appear to be taking a look at what is going on. really the legislature cracked down on this remains to be seen. they were saying -- what happened with the george -- i am notridge sure they will. allege it will be a pretty serious power.

they are also very divergent. this is even more politically explosive than the bridge incident. what is going on with the bridge involves folks in christie's office. there hasn't been anything that would directly implicate him being involved. people believe he had more knowledge involved. people are saying the messages were basically being related to her at christie's request. host: what evidence does she have of that? she looked at journal notes at the time these conversations were had. she provided those to prosecutors. other than that it is basically her word.

she had a conversations with the state community and a fair commissioner before the taping of the television program. the station was running a recording of what was said before hand. she definitely had a conversation with the lieutenant of other. that ist content of what is being significantly disputed. there is not necessarily a way to prove or disprove what was said there. host: how much money did in new jersey get from sandy relief on the from the federal government? how much has been spent? and where is the money going?

you probably remember months after sandy, congress approved roughly $60 billion over supplemental. a $10 billion was flood insurance money. not all that has gone out so far. if you add in the flood insurance money, it is 8.5 billion dollars that have come into the state. a lot of that is for flood insurance. the amount of money from the community development program, which is about a third of all through, that comes staked out about $1.8 billion of that. to people raising

their homes. there is money for business grants, they will use other money for settlement grants to get people to stay in their homes. the amount of money that has gone out the door, it is hard to put a finger on it. the state had committed a certain amount of money. they are currently writing the plan for how to spend the next installment of that block grant fund. symons wrote this piece, a breakdown of where the sandy dollars went. thank you for your time this morning. inside "usa today" they have the latest polls on chris christie.

believe he did not have anything to do with the closure of the bridge and -- of the bridge. let's go back to our topic for all of you. president obama says that pot is not more dangerous than alcohol. harold from new jersey, republican caller. what do you think? just give me the facts. i believe in the fax. i have a little pamphlet, "keeping your kids drug-free." it talks about drug fax. -- drug facts. i spent christmas in her playing with my three-year-old great- grandson.

be old think i would enough to play with a great- grandson and if i had ever used drugs, which i never have. children, 12 grandchildren, i have been to many schools when they gave out awards for the drug-free programs. teachers accepted with great enthusiasm that we should do everything possible to keep the kids drug-free. nancy reagan was no dummy. here is what i really think. to bed obama ever gets elected president when he has ideas like this? i blame it on columbia and harvard. with all my grandchildren, i go to graduation ceremonies of

colleges like rutgers. we pay tax payer money, the guy gets up and says there is no such thing as right or wrong. if brought -- if obama believes that, of course it is not wrong to get stoned. of course it is not wrong to kill your brain and your body and your soul. this is from the white house website from the office of national drug control policy. this is what they say --

'sat is on the white house office of national drug control policy website. next caller, go ahead. what i would like to suggest is look at the of money.e ofing the days of probation alcohol in the 1920s, there were speaker sees. speakeasies. they sell a lot of money problems. you would be dealing with the

less harmful criminal type. .hat would be the cartels south american countries ringing it in with guns. -- bringing it in with guns. i just heard breaking news that the senator woman is following with that following through with president obama's -- is following through with .resident obama's comment everybody is hurting for revenue. i think colorado is going to be great. it is looking up. some feed -- i already have some feedback that a lot of people are going there.

iron patriot says this -- it is online now, gawker.com talked to the editor-in-chief, the one who did the interview with the president, and they say even "the new yorker closed quote agreed to his approval rules. even "the new yorker" agreed to his approval rules.

him we are talking about his comments about marijuana not being more dangerous than a call. , independent color, what do you think? caller: i think marijuana is not worse than alcohol. i grew medical where wanda -- medical marijuana in california for five years. make ady thinks you lot of money. you're not going to be able to keep up with the big guys once they come in.

it is very scientific in growing marijuana. soil, theo get the water, the ph, all of this. the little guy is not going to be able to keep up with it. host: john in indiana, democratic caller. what do you think the echo -- what do you think? comment reallyto quickly on the dude from west virginia. he said nancy reagan was not a dummy. i am 26. when his generation was battling the war on drugs, crack was attacking everywhere. it does have medicinal properties. drunk andoing to get beat the out of my kids. i know that has been the case with alcohol.

marijuana is not like that. it is prescribed for anxiety, depression, eating disorders, stuff like that. down here that went to jail for 9.5 months. boy aroundgood old the corner making moonshine and he's not getting in trouble. host: front page of "the pittsburgh post-does that post quote has -- "pittsburgh post- gazette" has this -- this interim accord taking affect. post" front page with the headline --

and then "the new yorker" this morning -- front page of "the new york times" says --

on this nuclear deal, the " -- ine in "the usa today the wall street journal reports that chiron is seen as needing big steps for any final deals. says to ronnk tank would have to remove -- a big challenge ahead as the united states continues to negotiate. on security, for the olympics, front page of "the washington

times" this morning -- in "the washington times closed quote peace, they say this -- "washington times" piece, they say this.

that will be a debate here in washington today. security at the center for strategic and international studies. we will have coverage of that at at 8:30 a.m. eastern time. our next caller, what do you think about what the president had to say? caller: i agree with the president. most of us understand the issue that marijuana is clearly not as dangerous as alcohol. virginiaeman from west was claiming that he bases his on facts.

he may have been getting his facts from "reefer madness." a couple of things that marijuana. hermana -- marijuana's primary component was thc. levelsve increased the cbd, which component, has nerve protective effects on the brain. the department of health and human services has brought a patent on the use of any telenav annuls --any can have any -- i'm grateful not only to president obama but to c-span for recently having programs

discussing marijuana and the fact that we have probably lost this war on drugs that send -- it goes wayn beyond what the crime may have been. can i ask you one personal question, you had a baby last year, was of a little boy or little girl? host: little girl. can in new york, republican caller. -- ken in new york, republican caller. caller: i love c-span. reasons, people cannot get jobs because of laws on. if they find out you smoked a joint two weeks ago, they can fire you. a thing where everybody had to do a drug test.

a lot of people could get fired because of it. they could take the money from the taxes and bring down the cost of health care. less people will be in jail. that would be a big state -- big savings for states itself. they stopped making criminals out of good people and there would not be so much need for drugs. host: what about the slippery slope argument? once you start legalizing marijuana than you have a muchrsation about how other drugs, how dangerous are other drugs? caller: i do seriously believe the other drugs are bad. i have medical problems. hermana --it smoking smoking marijuana because they started drug testing.

look at the amount of people moving to colorado. more taxpayers and more voters. politicians are afraid to say anything positive about it. if they put it on the ballot i believe it would be legal. i smoked it for 50 years. i had a really technical job and i was still able to do my job. i never missed a day of work because of it. host: in domestic news, front page of "the new york times" this morning --

"usa today" has the latest poll on that usa -- on the nsa surveillance program. privacy over security. on the same story, courtesy of the museum -- "the wall street journal" front page this morning has this

headline -- also in politics, james lankford from oklahoma has said he will run to finish up the term of retiring senator tom coburn. it could be another brutal gop huddle involving outside congressional groups. it says the senate conservative monday, sayingp even before james lankford's

, theyal announcement would not get support because of his funding of obama care. james lankford saying he wants to finish up the term of senator tom coburn, who will be retiring at the end of his term because of a battle with cancer. "the wall street journal" this morning praises senator covert -- senator coburn. it says --

"the wall street journal" weighing in on senator coburn's principles. also in the obituary section of "the new york times closed quote -- times" -- york ohio, democratic caller. what do you make of the president telling the new yorker that marijuana is not more dangerous than alcohol alcohol applaudol? caller: i him for making politically incorrect comments. i also like the idea that he is appealing to the younger youthful voting group. i am 58. i feel like he is appealing to me and my ideals.

i am a social worker and have been all my adult life. i have worked in a lot of various fields and seen a lot of human tragedy. i have experienced personal tragedy. not one of those tragedies have been related to marijuana use. they have been related to alcoholism and hard drug use. both my first husband and my brother-in-law have dealt with alcoholism. it is indescribable what it does to people. i think we can all, tom how many drug -- how many drunk driving incidents. i have never known anybody that has had a marijuana accident. i think as many callers have mentioned, what the tragic -- what the travesty of what has

happened to varying contribute in people is they got caught up in the criminal justice system. a man was sent to jail for a roach compared to the person making moonshine around the corner. everybody i know, most of the people i know use marijuana. they are all hard-working, responsible, mostly professional contribute in people who do not go to work stoned. that is not the issue here. legalizing marijuana does not mean all of a sudden your way of life just takes over. i have never once, in my entire life, used marijuana before work. why would i trained before go to work? -- why would i drink before i go to work?

people are so consumed and afraid of something -- the -- that in our society is what we need to be focusing on. coming up, today marks the fourth anniversary of citizens united. a tweet -- c-span is doing a segment coming up. get involved, we want you to. executiveoan, director for citizens for responsibilities and ethics here in washington. later we will be joined by hans von spakovsky. we will get his take on citizens united as well. we will be right back. ♪

them a c-span, we bring public affairs events from washington directly to you, and you in the room at congressional hearings, white house events, briefings and conferences and offering complete gavel-to-gavel coverage of the u.s. house, all as a public service of private industry. were c-span, funded by your local cable or satellite provider. like us on facebook and follow us on twitter. i did not see myself as someone who has a message for my world. i see myself as a person trying -- nderstand lectures atg some

the academy in colorado springs. a very nice, well educated had lots of liberal chats with me, which i find very interesting. he told me he was a liberal. correct in myto mind that she wants to correct in my mind a vision i had gotten from the media -- he wanted to correct a vision in my mind that i had gotten from the media. he tells me he was in favor of immigration. thispeople come to country, they should learn the native language. i said i agree, everyone should learn spanish.

settlement and movement of the united states from the latin perspective. and online, you still have time to weigh in on "the liberty amendment's." enter thetv.org and chat room. >> "washington journal" continues. melanie sloan is back at our table this morning. here to mark the fourth anniversary of the supreme court's decision and citizens united versus the ftc. let me show you the tweet from citizens united this morning. host guest: it marks the victory of anonymous money funding our political system and the vitriol

political ads. what have you seen since the 2010 decision? guest: what we have seen as more and more money going into our political system, most of it anonymous. there are social welfare organizations, which were started initially in order to promote social welfare. now what we have seen is political people craving these 501(c)4s. innocuous sounding names. noou have no -- you have idea who is behind any organization. they are funding nasty and district of political ads. we really have no idea who is funding all of this. host: explain what the supreme court decided. caller: what they decided was

that -- they basted on an older supreme court case. based it on an older supreme court case. in the past there has been a ban on corporate treasury funds and union funds being spent -- given to candidates directly. that was struck down. not the candidates, giving the money to soft money. that was struck down. what we have seen -- some of the things we are seeing now were already illegal before citizens united. citizens united changed a mental impression people had about what you could and could not do in our electoral system. while there was some use previous to citizens united, it opened the doors to a whole start of political funding.

candidate specific organizations. those do disclose their donors. candidate doesn't have their own campaign committees anymore. packsave these super which are allegedly supposed to be independent. closeenerally have staff to the candidates themselves and it is hard to say they are not coordinating. these groups spend way more money. the we have seen is both candidates and party communities have less control over the message than they did preece's citizens -- did pre-citizens united. a website had five ways citizens united -- host: a website has five ways citizens united has made a things better.

guest: rick santorum and newt gingrich are perfect examples because both were in the race because they had one incredibly rich supporter. had sheldonh abelson and rick santorum had foster freeze. those donors those

candidates would not have been able to stay in the race. candidates who did not have widespread support would not be of the say in the race. more speech for the multibillionaire's and corporations. for the vast number of people there is far less speech. they say that imagine if world war union bosses were no longer controlled by the democrats were even occupy wall street could form its own super pack. citizens united allows people to pull resources -- guest: i would buy some of that more if most of the people who were funding the political process weren't trying to stay anonymous. we have no idea who is behind many of these candidates. americans cap at the ads they see into context.

if you knew exxon was funding an ad against a member of congress running for reelection who is pro-environmental regulations, you may take that as a different perspective than if you see the american action network is running the ad. what is being done by you or other groups to overturn or get new laws on the books in response to citizens united? guest: a group of people are pushing for a constitutional amendment to say that corporations don't have free speech rights. corporations are not people. that is one of the big things that have come up. act.ve the disclosed it would require more disclosure about the donors to these kinds of funds. people are looking at different kind of areas to work in.

crew recently filed a lawsuit against aetna, the insurance company. they claimed they were feeling political expenditures on these reports. contributionse were not included in the contribution report. there are other people pushing with the fcc to change regulations should shareholders would have a right to know about political conversation. on the constitutional amendment, here is people from "the american way." "the huffington post" has this --

people for the american way, public citizens, hold a lobbying campaign. up first.are researchers have discovered that -- probably -- properly included as data in --s report, would you be willing to read his letter and consider having an --anization the echo organization the feel free to send us a letter at info and we'll certainly take a look. host: is that something you look and or is it mostly money

politics? guest: we do, that but we also use the freedom of information to obtain the information from the government that it share.ot want to host: tom in wisconsin, republican caller. yes.r: your guest -- a while havece in a guest to balance what she's saying. tom, we'retuned, going to get the other side. three yesterday you had liberals on in a row. any rate this is a it'seft wing prop, unbelievable. and everything she says is probably very questionable she supports the union, she supports obama. that's all she cares about, she care about any wants the or she .epublican groups

supporteryou an obama and -- nonpartisanis a organization and we've taken on both sides of the aisles and money in politics is something we're concerned about across the bore. host: ralph, brockton, massachusetts, democratic caller. caller: hello, i live in massachusetts, i definitely isnk that melanie sloan exactly right, with regard to ftc. and my opinion is we have to or republican,at let's face it, that's really a now.f baloney right andi think democrats republicans should realize citizens united is very in the last four years.

and the ftc, that's fun noble our liberties, it's one of our .liberties, to do what guest: no matter what issue you care about today, whether it's loans, health care, economy, banking, all of those amount ofed by the money flowing into our political system. and more americans need to be paying attention to this and making this a first priority issue. every few months democrats and members of congress receive a party from their committee saying how much money they have raised, but recently these lengthy documents have

an extra column that a number of members said they've never seen before. raiding their fun system,on a new point another quote from a congressman. it reflects a hard truth about ofrican politics, the cost campaigning as continuing to rocket. here's a quote from george california democrat who is going to retire. members of congress would not find it unusual to spend two, four hours out of a day making fund raising calls. guest: that's right and i think the low end, i think it's more than that. if you are running for congress, win one day and the very next day you're back out there trying to raise money. to giveis most likely you money by the people who want something from you. and part of the problem now is, citizens united, while we know how much money and who the donors are to candidates campaign committees, when there supportersnonymous

supporting a candidate, we don't know who that many is and we know what they they or may not be trading to get that level of support. host: the article says that tom daschle a democrat said typical senators spent two-thirds of the last two years of their six-year term raising money. has to raise $10,000 every day that they're in of their six day years, to make the average amount that's spent today in a race. guest: and it will be more if you're in a high cost media market like new york or philadelphia, some of those are revery expensive. but this is a major problem and prettyliticians are unhappy about it. they don't want to be spending raising moneytime spending time raising money, then they're not spending time working on the facing us. host: the average cost of a

winning campaign for a house 1998,as 640,000 in 1.6 million in 2012. the average kotion of a winning seat,gn for a senate 4.8 million in 2002, 12 million in 2012. up noeems like it's going matter what. guest: there's no question that there were more and more creative ways that people were spending money on elections. main benefits has been to political consultants who have gotten very rich working the system. but we should recognize that we need it get it under control. the last presidential election basically a billion dollar campaign and seems like money could be better spent on more important things than vitriolic tv ads. host: why can't anyone with money make ads? soup it? the public is

>> i think the probably isn't that it a super pac ad, it's the public doesn't know who the donor is behind that. we'reericans are busy, getting our kid to school and our work day, we're not sitting analyzing each ad to say who put that ad out there and themshould i know about and what might they really want? host: texas is next, tom, a republican. good morning. caller: good morning, thanks for call. my i just want to say every year billions and billions of dollars superent by these leftist pac's like abc, nbc, cbs, pbs, times," "new york "washington post," trying to elect democrats and defeat and since your moneyseems to think that doesn't have anything to do with speech, i was wondering if she'd grate to limit the spending of all these super pacs that i mentioned to maybe $100,000

produce their products, pay their employees and pay all their other expenses. guest: well, the organizations you named are not in fact super pac's, they're media and the rules are very different for them. super pac's are not the biggest have out there because at least those soup pac's have, the donors are named pac's.r the biggest problem are these 501c4 organizations which are allegedly supposed to be social welfare organizations, but of mishandling over at the i.r.s., these social welfare organizations have act asly been allowed to political organizations with anonymous money funding our campaigns. host: pete in hydetown, new caller.independent caller: hello, how are you. host: good morning, keith. morning.ood really nowadays, it's nothing the, the chances of a rich man going into the heaven, no, the richer you get

the less you care about the small people. we know the money is tied to donors,, big rich billionaires only donate money for a cause that benefits their cause. when you talk about the middle class being separated, well, at the expense of them believing in some of what the politicses sold them out, the middle class, be poor, there's going to be no middle class. it's called class conflict and control. us blind for so many years, we've never been able to see what the rich and the been doing inve moving forward. this country is definitely in for a bad set. now, ask christie the money that to trenton, 100 some million dollars, we had to layoff 112 police officers, a record year of murder in trenton, new jersey. follow the money. why, just like he held the money just like heoken, held the money back from fort lee or whatever, it's just the

same. as i say or you'll cost. guest: well, certainly there's element of political payback in politics when elected canwho are take out their anger against who didn't support them. and obviously that's a problem and chris christie is under forral investigation exactly that right now. i think that's a positive thing and we'll see what comes of that. host: jane wants to know, melanie, would you be satisfied donor names were required to be released. would that helped the uninformed to decide? guest: that would be a terrific ton of events. in fact, in stibs united the about the need for disclosure and how disclosure would help a great deal. but despite the fact that there is still language about disclosure, we've seen people like senate minority leader mcconnell who once said oh you can have as much money as is want, the important thing disclosure, now 20 years later he's back tracked and said there

disclosure. and that's because he believes that republicans benefit from the amount of anonymous money going into campaigns. we've seen that that didn't work as well as the republicans term.t it would last mitt romney despite all the anonymous money coming in and the huge amounts that he had, win.t and president obama also had a lot of money coming in to his well, and into organizations that supported him. so i think we may see some withlicans joining democrats in talking about the need for disclosure. but right now it's sort of been an element of practically the republican party platform that there should be no disclosure, that anonymous money is fine. and justice scalia has previously said that you need to have the courage of your convictions, yes, you have a right to engage the political speech, but you don't have the anonymously.t you should have to be identified and if you think your views are would promote the american people, then you should be proud of that and have your released. host: isn't that the key there? why hasn't there been

address that? guest: well, there has been legislation to address that and the disclose act. host: why hasn't it's been signed into law? guest: it can't pass the house because the republicans don't support night the house of representatives. guest: i wouldn't say that anybody is virtue us in this somethingink that's everybody can agree on. the money hasn't been completely distributed. there is far more anonymous money on the right because they believe in less disclosure much certainly democrats who contributed to these anonymous groups and that's unacceptable as well. the democrats' view has been although they totally support disclosure, they're not to disarm unilaterally and not support the same kind of organizations that the republicans are supporting, if they did, then the republicans would win hands down. kind ofve this escalating warfare going on that's really harming all of us

americans. host: robert next in veil, caller. democratic caller: good morning, how is everybody this morning. i'd like to take about 20 seconds, first of all before my comment, to explain our names. vail, arizona, our name is genius robber, genius jeebious rob by, so there's five brothers, and most of the of us thats four genius.e and we're all but what i'd like to say is how the supreme court has really the constitution, and i'll explain it, okay. the constitution when you re: preamble, it is done for the which at first, were the americans, which were the people that were here, that

were native americans and, you know -- robert, i need you to get to your point. caller: okay. the, my point is how supreme court has been essentially criminal by allowing fromhis foreign money foreign entities and foreign even though a lot of them are from the u.s.a., that is foreign money. host: okay, let's talk about that. guest: there are questions about how much foreign money is going ato our campaigns, there is prohibition on that that still exists that foreign money can't political campaigns. and they shouldn't be supporting campaigns. lot of corporations are multinational and it is very hard to say when you are a you haveon abroad but a u.s. based, a large u.s. based center, whether or not the money is really foreign or not, so remainingquestions about how to deal with this problem.

form of money isn't a speech, how oh would you define freech of speech? think the freedom of speech is the right of citizens and other people to speak their right toly and the associate freely. but saying that a corporation is like a person it has its own speech, rights to free i think that's where the court goes too far. california,in republican caller. caller: hello. good morning. a lot of these groups want to stay anonymous they're so than socialists get a freeups, they pass and are not as for rowly investigated or put forth into public. i remember during the shutdown obama and reid would not negotiate that elizabeth warren believe 12s than i times that republicans were anarchists, and if you look up anarchist, that's a pretty strong word.

thatemocrats have said babies would starve and old people would die, and it's a thing on capitol hill and in media and it's just constant. so that makes total sense that they want to stay anonymous. it just balances things out. there was a guy who called and thatd about all the money gets funneled in for the socialistsd the through abc, nbc, cbs, pbs, et cetera, well, i go so far as to say all major magazines, all the major popular music, all the most of allhows, the large corporations and their commercials that they put out, plus all the educators in the public schools and in the the newsies, plus all editors and all the newspaper and magazines, pretty much out there inat's society does have a liberal

socialist vent. guest: well, i think that's simply not true. i think we're seeing a lot of robust debate in our society and fairly evenlyems split between republican and democrat. there are, the republicans oftrol the house representatives, and certainly her're making their voices every day. so it doesn't seem like there's a lack of ability to spend money leaders. republican host: what have we heard from on movinghn mccain for now that the court decided verse ftc,ited different perspectives cape finance for exawn reform back in early 2000's. once ator mccain was huge advocate of campaign finance reform and during his quieted down he and you didn't hear him talking about that any more. republicansse overwhelmingly are not

supportive of campaign finance regulations. mr. mccain more recently suggested he does see the problem of money in politics that heut i'm not sure is prepared to be a leader on this issue at this time. about the president's administration, what can he do decision?ve what can the s.e.c. do? guest: i'm graduated you asked that, because there are so many things that could be done that haven't been done. one of the major things that the i.r.s. needs to fix its regulations. 501c4's were supposed to be engaged exclusively in the social noware of americans, but thanks to an i.r.s. regulation, they changed exclusively, defined cleufl to be primarily to say that the social welfare organization must just primarily working for the social welfare and that has been taken to mean that 49% their spent on political activity. that regulation alone can be changed and now that there's lot of controversy about 501c4's starting last july when

this issue of had the i.r.s. been targeting tea party groups, now the administration proposed some regulations to look at 51c4's, but sadly they're not addressing the issue of exclusively versus primarily. crew has a lawsuit against the over the definition problem between exclusively and primarily and we've asked the this rule andge go back to the orange meaning of exclusively. so that's one thing that can happen. the s.e.c. has been a disaster, the -- it's been dysfunctional for many years. one of the things president obama could do is appoint more commissioners, he finally appointed two, but many others' terms have expired. --we need a figure s.e.c.. and finally the s.e.c. had this opportunity to put on this rule would have required more political contribution

disclosure from corporations and it said itbled and wasn't going to consider that right now. this proposed regulation had hundreds of thousands of supportive comments, more than anything necessary the s.e.c.'s history, yet still they tabled it. host: here's an e-mail from one of our viewers in indianapolis. help solve would this problem. politicians will not spend such a large portion of their time raising money for their next campaign if we element them to one or two terms in office. aret: i think there problems with having members of congress only in terms for one or two years. if you're in the house of representatives, that's a very short time, you're not going to learn much about how the institution runs. we do need isngs for people to work there for a while, not always be saying that washington is this terrible place, because we need washington to work effectively and that means legislators have to get to know each other, talk compromise,r and and i don't think you can do that this a short amount of time. host: another e-mail, can states limit contributions to their

residents? their states can't limit residents' contributions to federal elections, no. but one of the things we are toing is states trying implement their own kinds of we'ree regulations, and also seeing it in cities. so we're seeing because the federal government has been, has so failed to take the problem of money in politics seriously, you the lower level at the state level and at the city level you are seeing efforts to this problem. host: ken is next no mobile, caller. independent ladies.good morning, i just wanted to thank slan for she's doingl job keeping the american people informed, and my question, well, wanted to say is i think citizens united is a reflection of the one percent here in america, you know, keeping everything secretly, you

are not knowing who's behind what's going on in america. and, you know, who's basically, you know -- host: all right. derek next in pennsylvania, independent caller. well the name is eric actually. my question is, obviously i'm speaking with someone who is the topic, andn vague.tion is decidedly with the money involved in will there ever be an era when we have politicians that see themselves arving in office as privilege? to the country. vague question. washingtont, george couldn't even pay for his cab

inauguration. guest: well, i do think there are politicians who are committed to working for a better america and for a better americans.all so i don't think that we can just write off all politicians. a major think it's problem when politicians have to spend most of that are time looking for campaign cash, and it's just human nature to be more supportive of the people who support you. people out there who donating to these politicians or helping them fend those folks when want something, politicians like all other people will be grateful for aassistance and they're going to give those people a closer listen when they have robs, and that really americans.many we saw during the effort to regulate banking, the banking the crash inr 2008, we saw dick durbin from illinois say we can't pass anything because the banks, they own the place. and we've seen in the past pharmaceutical companies who have huge numbers of registered lobbyists and make large

contributions, also to campaigns, we've seen a lack after billity to regulate the cost of prescription drugs, for example, and that too is because of the problem of money in politics. host: back to the financial times piece this morning on says mr. obama had the resources to defend himself against the new giants scape.campaign land those super pac's, which have no caps on the money they can raise donors muchual members of congress by contrast can solicit a maximum of $2600 from each individual donor for each election they face. potentially putting them at the mercy of hostile super camp pac's. mr. miller, congressman from california, see when he was first elected 40 years ago, of your fundraising was done in your districts from your constituents, the people you represent." o today i would say that in most districts you can't even begin to raise enough money when going up against a super pac or a combination of them. guest: that's exactly right. you check out most members of

congress' fun raising you'll find that most of the money they fact come fromn their states, it comes from the industries they regulate. member ofmple if a congress is on the agriculture committee, they're going to get from big a dw ri business, and similarly if they're on defense mostpriations, you'll see of their money coming from defense contractors. you have to wonder if when those members of congress are regulating those industries they're a little softer on those who are giving them so much helping them stay in office. host: how many pac's with interests are promoting this tpp trade deal, who benefits? we know it's not the american worker. guest: i don't know how many organizations are involved. manyhere are always so involve and the big problem is we'll see these organizations and they'll have names for like american action network and what does that mean, american reallynetwork, who is behind that. we know it run by former senator coleman, but we don't know what the view of the

that fund it, why they're funding it. coleman?ernor guest: no, senator coleman from minnesota. new castle,rocky in pennsylvania, independent caller. go ahead. caller: good morning. agree with ms. sloane that disaster thata courtn the supreme you know, that corporations could be individuals. overturnd it take to congress, and, you know, i think there's been said weak link is the part reallygovernment that

know, watch carefully. guest: well, the supreme court had the chance to reconsider citizens united a couple years ago when the montana supreme another case had said that money is corrupting, money has a corrupting influence, and the coppering about kings' influence in the state of montana. and the supreme court refused to and considercase the problem that we have. so it's going to be a long standing problem and that's why are people focused on a constitutional amendment. some of these things can't be merely by legislation because the supreme court hassle straighted this to a constitutional issue. host: edward in greenbelt, maryland, democratic caller. morning.ood ir responsibility and ethics, think you've done a wonderful could -- wish i you're well,

researched and you do your homework and you do your fact checking. yourou have the right to own opinions, but not your own facts. and melanie and miss brauner, before, i'm ame i've donescientist, many studies in europe and i have a fresh view of the world. concerned, greta and melanie, i'm very concerned when wing power the right machines, they have broadcast facilities blasting information all over the country. powered, mod us systems. this is unfair and these systems funded by people, you don't even know who is funding these guys. would like to -- msnbc,was listening to people are calling in, they are

uninformed. be innocent people, but you drive across this country and listen to your radio, all up is somebody some of these powerful machines and bombarded.being host: so what's your question? caller: my question is how can stuff, if wes don't do something about this, our country can run, you know, direction.wrong guest: well, i think that's exactly right. and in some sense in america we deserve iternment we we all have the right to vote and our elections are free and mostly fair, although i think there's been some questions about the fairness in the past few years. engagedave to be more citizens, we have to take action, we have to tell our politicians that we're not happy amount of time they're spending raiding money every day, we're not happy about the off and havey go campaign events in ski resorts when it's cold. we want them to spend their time working on our interests. of them wouldmany say i'm not so happy with the

system either, but that's going effort by a concerted americans, because politicians really only change when we as do.icans demand that they host: our last call, miami, florida, republican caller, go the air with on melanie sloan. caller: hello. the only thing that matters is true. the ad it doesn't matter put the ad out. if the ad is false they should person for being false. it doesn't matter who puts it out there. also, and if i'm speaking now, should my name and address be have an opinion? no. i have a right to privacy. as long as the ad is true it's a good ad, that's all i have to say. we've one of the problem seen is the ads really aren't true. and some of the organizations ads and say that they are false, but the fact is very see the website to review what the ads content

or fiction,e truth but that doesn't stop the ad from running over and over again. will disotheres than themselves with misleading i had nothing to do with that, it was put out by the iser pac's, but the fact that ad still supported that politician and americans don't understand that there was a lot thosese information in ads. host: in political news, the miami her al reports that jim messina who was obama's campaign joined theas gubernatorial campaign charlie kris in florida. melanie sloan with the citizens in responsibility and ethics washington, thank you very much for being here, appreciate your time as always. pleasure.was my host: coming up next we'll talk of unitedrter citizens case, hans von and later an economist on predictions of which states growthe the biggest job in 2012. first a news update.

>> it's 8:30:00 a.m. eastern time. secretary of state john kerry is headed to switzerland for an international conference on the crisis in syria. this after a last minute decision to cancel iran's participation in the meeting. the united nations invited iran disinvited it yesterday, after the u.s. and some of its allies and the protested itsion inclusion. russia's foreign minister said decisionoday that the to disinvite iran was a mistake, but not a catastrophe. russian security officials say they are hunting three so-called black widows the country.are in officials are concerned they could be targeting the olympics. potential three female suicide bombers is believed to be in the olympic city of sochi. wives of are the previous suicide bombers. the center for strategic and international studies is focusing on security at the upcoming olympics in a discussion that is beginning and you can watch it on c-span 2 or hear it at 10 on

c-span radio. tweet from cbs news chief white house correspondent mark that, writing this morning the president is planning to travel to europe in march, the trip begins with a nuclear summit in the neitherrer land from march 24 and 25, then to brussels on march 26 for the u.s. e.u. summit. then the president will meet with the pope at the vatican, and in a statement the president says that he, quote, looks to discussing with pope francis their shared commitment growinging poverty and inequality, close quote. those are some of the latest headlines on c-span radio. >> did i feel prepared, yes, i really did. first of all, i wasn't elected so it didn't make that much difference. i did notice, though, the difference between being the vice president's wife and the president's wife is huge, because the vice president's say anything and nobody cares. the minute you say one thing as

you'vesident's wife, made the news. so that was the lesson i had to learn. quickly. >> watch our program on first barbara bush at our oibs, or sew it saturday at 7:00 p.m. and live hundred day our series continues with first lady clinton. created by the cable tv industry 35 years ago and funded by your local cable provider.te host: on the fourth anniversary of citizens united versus ftc,

we are continuing our conversation, hands von spakovsky joins us now, he's the law reform manager and senior legal fellow at the heritage foundation, thanks for back. guest: good morning. host: so the man who heads up democracy 21 is calling for more transparency in campaigns, calls legalizedns united bribery, four years, citizens ruiningzens united is democracy, here's how to get it back, he writes the decision door for anybody, individuals, corporations, interest groups, to give unlimited contributions to groups, that then do the spending to influence federal s in effect the donors and candidates are allowed to sucker kim vent. guest: the citizens united decision was a terrific it restoredcause the first amendment political

americans.ts of the federal laws in the past which i used to enforce when i was at the federal election commission actually put the being ant position of censor. citizens united was a small nonprofit corporation in ashington that had made political documentary about hillary clinton. the president faced five years in prison and criminal prosecution if they broadcast advertisements about this documentary. the government, that theally argued government had the ability even radio not just films and ads that had political speech in it, they said they could ban decided toongress extend the ban to books. i don't know about most of your listeners, but i frankly don't want to live in a country where

a congress and the government the power to ban politicalthat kind of speech. host: what about the so-called dark money groups, the people who they are,lose donating to these groups, that ads.these guest: what's going on is political speech. if you are an american and you want to join an association whether it's represents your views, whether it's liberal or joinrvative, you want to the n. r.a. or the sierra club because you believe in rights, do you really think that the fact that you are members of those beanizations should disclosed to the world? no. we have protected those kind of since then al rights supreme court protected the naacp in the 50's and 60's from to disclose their memberships. should those organizations be

from speaking?ed let's not forget, again, the decision freed up nonprofit corporations. so before that, organizationing like the n. r.a., the sierra club, they were also banned from engaging in certain kinds of political speech. i don't think that's what we want in this country. i think the more political have, the better. and if they actually give contributions, that does have to disclosed. host: how so? guest: well, if you are a committee, youn have to file all kinds of disclosures with the federal election commission, where i used to work and that discloses all of your donors. if i give money to the n. r.a. and they decide to run an about gun rights and urging people to vote a particular way in congress, yes, that doesn't have to be disclosed except that the n. is going to have to file disclosures if they spend a certain amount of money on those

and that's all failed with the f.t.c. a 501c4?t's all under guest: doesn't matter what kind of organization you are. if you engage in certain kinds communicationsng and you spend more than a certain amount of money, you have to file a disclear of that f.t.c.e and for those who say oh, well, these organizations are doing no one knows who they are, look, can you go to the websites of american cross and it'sr example, pretty easy to quickly figure out that carl roaf is the one who put that together. make a secretctly of what their views are on issues, that kind of information disclosed, it's pretty easy to figure out who's saying what. gregory tweets, melanie is necessaryisclosure is for 501c4's, votes are not only at the both. what that not sure means.

501c4's are nonprofit corporations, again, anything from the sierra club to the n. r.a., and we a long time ago that those organizations and their association al rights under the first amendment are protected. host: so you do not have to who belongs or gives money? guest: no, and you shub have to. missouri,in democratic caller. caller: thank you very much, i'm atually registered to vote as republican, but i vote democratic. driver, was as a truck commercial truck driver and dealing with insurance and stuff me that a it seems to lot of big businesses and stuff are attempting to become their own branch of the government. executive branch, which is the president's office, is legislative branch, which the congress and senate, and of judicial, which is the supreme court.

trying to adde their own branch of the government for their own specific issues, and that's not how government is supposed to work. election campaign money, i do think your earlier caller was true, really some interesting stuff, the earlier segment was about marijuana, but stuff, thelection election thing seems to be just money, it's like they just can't get enough money and they're really bummed out they don't have it. i need to do some further ifearch on some websites, can you post that on the screen i'd appreciate that. was that private industry is not supposed to become the government. let's take that point. guest: well, i don't think corporations control the american government. did, they wouldn't pass the kind of regulations and laws go through congress that put a lot of very burdensome

corporations. and i kept hearing this thing about there's just too much money in politics. up all of the money that was spent on american actually lessis than the amount of money that american companies spend fast food last year. i don't think that is a lot. isey to spend in what basically a candidate's advertising who they are and so theey believe in american voters can make their own decision on who they want in the government. host: this is a piece on "huffing post" that says money unleashide bid the supreme court's 2010 citizens united decision and the climate of never ending fun raising for members of congress have pushed both parties to seek partisanm their most supporters. further empowering the right wing insurgency inside the republican party in that with that is this graphic, spending republican party primaries surged following the

decision.urt's 2010 guest: but see they're not talking about principles, abouttutional principles political speech. they just don't like the particular politics of individuals who are now being able to engage in free speech. i would point out that this when, january 2010. what happened in november 2010? we had the most competitive congressional elections since the 1930's. citizens united decisions actually increased competition to n the political that's a good thing. host: tim, from california, caller.ic caller: good morning, friends. i have a two-part question, but long.erly that aid you say corporation has an independent will of its own separate and the will of the executive officer, his

and his board? and if corporate management stockholders' money, let's say that's your money, hans, if investor, and they use your money against you by offices, byc bribing and intimidating your representatives and by to advantagelation corporate management at the sphens expense of labor, consumers and investors, would you then feel comfortable saying that's just a corporation exercising its freedom of speech? guest: well, the problem with your question is that you're together,o things bribery and the citizens united decision, which is not the same thing at all. public bribery is illegal. and the justice department bribery. public so if a corporation actually tries to bribe a public

official, they're going to end jail, the corporate officials who did that. what the citizens united was that free speech extends to everyone, and you don't lose your free speech when you associate together, for example, in a corporation. shareholders don't like what a corporation is saying, they can sell their shares. same thing with a labor union, forget,hould all not the citizens united decision didn't just affection corporations, the sale ban on speech applied to labor unions, so they were also politicalo engage in speech. again the more speech we have, the better. if the government should not be the power to censor. host: let's go to james, next, in california, independent caller. caller: hello, i used to be a republican, i'm a desert storm vern. afterbecame a socialist the capital system utterly

failed me. to talk about a thing the gentleman just said about corporations how they pay for policy. in virginia and the poor condition of the tanks, i think that happened because that to have those inspections, you know, the and iy of them lowered, don't think the people living in the area would want those condition.such bad money to didn't spend improve them. guest: if someone was bribed, a againstofficial, that's the law and that can be prosecuted. that should not be confused with giving individuals and associations, corporations, nonprofits, the ability to speak freely. that's what this country is speech., is free host: we're talking with hands spakovsky, served on the

federal election commission from to 2008. we'll go to karen next from chester, pennsylvania, caller.ic caller: thank you, good morning, i have two quick questions and answers. the first one is, you mentioned that if there's so much money to disclose,quired what is that amount? thesecond question is previous caller mentioned the prohibition on foreign countries foreign governments contributing. i'd like to know what the mechanism is that polices that prohibition. you. guest: sure. under the federal campaign rules, to contribute more than, if you contribute more than $200 to a federal candidate, that has to be disclosed, your name, your address, who you work for. law also prohibits not just foreign governments, but foreign citizens and foreign

corporations from contributing to federal candidates and the united case does not corporations.gn we had a number of cases where sometually prosecuted individuals for that. it's a criminal matter, the u.s. justice department will .rosecute it host: in kentucky, a democratic caller. caller: oh, am i on? host: you are. caller: okay, one question regarding voter i.d., i know in pennsylvania a federal judge up ruled that voter i.d., the longer valid that

individuals can vote without a i.d. what would be wrong with someone let's say that lives in steubenville, ohio on registeredy that is in steubenville that went over to west virginia, then drive over to pennsylvania and vote in assumingferent states lawsthese voter i.d. aren't required. there's several places around the country that this thing, if this keeps going, that would our democratic process joke.ially a guest: i'll be happy to answer that, although i don't think morning.topic this but i've written a number of papers that have shown that requirement that proves the security of elections and it's not a problem at, all

you hear that people don't have i.d. are simplefully untrue and all the states that i.d. laws in have had them in place for years like indiana, have not had any problems, in fact states has gone up. host: i want to ask you about the voting right act, a trio of togetheren have come to update the voting rights act to try to get around the supreme court's decision that struck section 4. what do you make of their legislation what do you think it would do? guest: it's a terrible piece of legislation. people need to understand that the main provisionings of voting act are in place, nay prevent scream nation in the voting context across the country. what the security threw out was one small provision that was be anally supposed to emergency provision, only applied to a small full of states. the reason the score tossed that because the evidence clearly shows that those states are now the same as the rest of longerntry, there's no any kind of widespread

discrimination. the problem with in new is that it thinks that it's 1965. it no 1965, it 2013. and it once again wants to place under special supervision by the federal government. problem, and this is really terrible is that the voting rights has always been race neutral. has protected all americans from discrimination based on race. provision specifically excludes whites from protection provision.new i think that's terrible to take which was race neutral, and to now bring race into the matter of excluding races from protection. host: one the key sponsors is a wisconsin, used to chair the house jewish committee, he joined with the conferencet a press last week, here's what he had to say about another provision in dealing with --

committee. >> it's constitutional, nationwide in application and enactllow states to reason al voter i.d. laws. voter i.d. laws are essential to protecting the integrity of our electoral process and when aoperly drafted do not have discriminatory intent or effect. guest: well, the exception that he's written in is a very weak to really's not going stop the justice department from trying to go in and prove that the laws are intentionally discriminatory, because that's eric holder that has. now, he lost when he try to do that against south carolina, court and they beat him in court. but that's just one of the many problems with this law, and frankly is quite that you can be covered if you they call low voter turnout. so it doesn't require any kind of discrimination, you may have

low turnout because people aren't interested in the candidates. yet that could bring you into this special supervision by the federal government. got one problem after another. host: sites not a good tradeoff identification? dwrp it is not a good tradeoff, way ericrly given the holder has shown the way that he's abused his authority over enforcingive years in federal voting right laws. wisconsin, axt in republican caller. caller: a comment and question. it all rights if for the president to use taxpayer money to use influence votes, i don't have a problem with the corporations or unions that put their input in. and the question i have is is there a legitimate connection between this decision that ability that press has a clause in the first amendment, therefore unionstions and shouldn't have a right to

they have their editorials and everything else and they don't have to spend any that's their, business, and i'll take my comment off the air, thank you. well, in fact, that was a key issue in the citizens united decision, because the federal law that banned certain political speech by corporations and unions actually had an mediaion in it for corporations. and one of the things the supreme court asked the government was, well, if we uphold this law and congress comes back and says, we're going to get rid of that media just have it apply to all corporations, does that mean the government could prevent media corporations like the washington post from engaging in political speech. and in fact the government's answer was basically yeah, they could do that, which again is just such a fundamental violation of the first amendment. but that's a key issue. can engagerporations political speech, why can't other corporations, there's no

that kind offor discriminatory treatment. host: michael in rockville, maryland, independent caller. caller: good morning. because i calling think citizens united should be repealed. have the clout that these corporations have that they can contribute and influence elections and policies, and i just think it's not fair. that comment i'll just take my response after line. guest: well, you're saying that the citizens united decision should be repealed. are you saying that the first repealed?should be and the way that you can get your views out is, look, there associations, no matter what side of the political eyed you're on, that are interested in issues that probably are important to you. that's how people work in the they combinena, their voices. find an association that works

an issue that you think is important and join them. the n. r.a., for example, if you believe in the second amendment, is made up of millions of american from all over the powerfulthey have a voice because they've joined together. same thing for the sierra club. that the way you get your voice heard. you don't repeal the first amendment. host: the financial times this morning had a piece about the pressure of lawmakers to con tably be fun raising and they put these numbers together that the average cost of a winning seat wasfor a house $640,000 in 1998, 1.6 million in 2012. for a winning seat in the in 2002, andillion 12 million in 2012. make of the rise of money in these campaigns for house and senate seat? does citizen united play any role in this? well, some, but not really.

the cost of campaigns has been going up for decades. reason for that is that the majority of the money that on tv and spend is radio advertising. and the costs of that have gone up tremendously. running in texas and you want to reach the major media market, you have to spend of money. that's not really the issue. the reason that folks have to raising moneytime for example if you're running for congress, base of the low campaign limits. au can only get $2500 from donor, and so you have to spend money. time raising jack kemp once said that the limits are so low that trying to office is like trying to fill up a bathtub with a pea spoon. if they raised the limits, phone wouldn't have to spend so much time raising money. states,en, many of the virginia is one where i live, utah is another, they don't have and the candidates there spend a lot less time, i

money than in those running for congress. financial times quotes tom daschle of south dakota assaying that a senator has to raise $10,000 every data they're in office, every day of their averages to make the amount that's spent today in the senate race. guest: right, but that's because low.imits are so host: paul in north carolina, democratic calmer. hi. caller: i'd like to make the comment that there is a big corporations and as your n.tions such r.a. and tough like that and your votes rights organizations, get the government that we pay for and corporations the contribute to both sides of the political spectrum, so they have unlimited access and control, and we can see this through our laws and our trade laws

which have destroyed our workplace in this country, and the fact that when you look at thing that politicians all agree on is they're against pac funds with their and their free train ride on the bank roll. so, like i said, we do have the canrnment that corporations afford. thank you. actuallyll, i would point out that if you look at any of the good summaries that on campaigne spending, open secrets.org, is you will find that most of the top pac's, that is the mostthat spend money in contributions are union pac's.not corporate second, the caller says well there's a difference between a corporation and a nonprofit corporations like the n. r.a., well, it wasn't federal law. federal law banned all

corporationings whether or not or exxon, orx whether you were the sierra club, you could not engage in political speech. so it didn't differentiate really between profit and nonprofit corporations. host: smiley on twitter says they should make election cycles three months long, that would cut down on some b.s. don't think that would really work, because people working oning and campaigns often long before the official time for what you have to actually file your qualification papers. host: germantown, tennessee, incaller, hi, rose. morning.ood i have been listening to this and i've been following all the i see theand when attorney general, who has taxpayers money to do the exact opposite of what is asked for and to get honest and

elections, fight -- and allow the dishonesty to peoplee without asking to identify themselves, we have to identify ourselves in every possible from banks to grocery stores or wherever, and now he doesn't think that the supreme court a say and that he would, theist was able to get discrimination and blackmailingand private people from an and having a vote. so i would like to know, what do in other to get honest can weness elections,

fingerprint the people that come in, can we photograph them when do in thein like they grocery store or in the bank? can we do something more than just showing a false itch d. promoting and giving out, and the attorney do something to stop him from using federal money? host: all right, rose. well, there's not much you can do to stop the attorney general. in way you change who is office in washington and in the administration is through i should tell you that both texas and north carolina are fighting eric court, there are lawsuits there over their voter i.d. laws. of the voterost i.d. laws that have passed in the country have been upheld in fact in 2008d in the u.s. supreme court said that the indiana's voter i.d. law

an constitution at and not unreasonable burden. host: how would you conduct the election? guest: i don't think there's a perfect election. it remind me of the famous saying that democracy is the worst form of government except no one has ever invented a better one. so i'm really not sure how you do. that one thing, though, i that is ilear and don't think that the artificial limits that we have on thing,utions are a good because it forces candidates to spend too much time raising and also those limits make it tougher for challenges. the fact thatout incumbents in office just stay in office, it's hard to get them out. reasons for that are these campaign finance rules, very tough for challengers to neededhe amount of money to get people out of office, and that's something that would the limitse change on campaign contribution. host: do they not get enough the outside groups? guest: well, the citizens united

helpedn helped that, it challengers and that's why we electionsompetitive in november of 2010 right after the united decision. want change in washington should be happy about the citizens united decision, it makes it seizier to get some of the folks who have been in congress there for a time out. host: how so? it compensates for the problem that challengers money.ising people under the senate and congress, incumbents, they have money,er time raising they're well-known, been there a long time, they have name recognition. host: they mit sit on a relevant committee. challengers have a tough time because of the fact that donors have to be disclosed. that means i've seen donors who say look i'd love to give you money, but i'm afraid the

incumbent is going to find out about it and it's going to hurt so they don't give money to challengers. host: from the financial times democrats about having a rating system. the point system, he said, recognized their contribution and overall effort. pamela is next in houston, democratic caller. hi, pamela. caller: hi. yes, i'm interested in finding out why we have the heritage foundation speaking on our reform whenpaign everybody knows that there's a long history of receiving large donations from overseas for the heritage foundation. wouldms to me like there

be some sort of direct conflict of interest in even listening to on theseage foundation issues. host: let's take that point. guest: i have no idea what the about, that'sing simply untrue. the heritage foundation has over individual members across the united states, all about 2% of our yearly fundraising comes from aboutdual members, only 2% comes from corporations. no idea what she's talking about about foreign money coming into heritage, it's correct. host: do you disclose your donors? guest: we don't disclose but theal donor, largest ones i think we do disclose. host: so there's the website on screen. heritage.org. joseph in pennsylvania, caller.ent caller: thank you for allowing

me to come onto your show. i run a paint and body shop and cars, and one of the things for the last three years that i've just been upset fact that we've lost manufacturing in america. the back bonet's country. and it should be coming out of congress, excuse me, this means mymuch to me, i've seen fellow small businessmen closing i've heard -- excuse me. much study, i think that we have reason is that men in congress that's not decisions because they're bought off every two years for these elections. as ahat i come up with solution is we need to have a

8-year term, a single 8-year term, and that will take power away from the corporate lobbyists to control our congress. term limits. guest: i don't believe in term limits and the reason is and idy once told me really thought about this, was that if the british government limits, then winston churchill would not have been the prime minister during hadd war ii, because he served so many terms in parliament before that. a solution to getting rid of people who we don't like in congress, and in the presidency, it's the ballot box. office.ote them out of work against them, raise money, get together with other folks believe as you do, put your money together, buy advertisements telling people vote for these folks. that's the american system, that's the way to do it. are at think term limits good idea. host: a tweet, is it true that

organizationsan are laundering money through party to sir couple vent state contribution limits? not true.s in 202 when the mcfeign passed it putas in all kinds of restrictions to prevent that kind of thing from happening. they didn't want money that was meant for state elections elections.o federal money --'t want so they put restrictions on that, so that's not occurring. host: bill in new york, caller.ent caller: hello? host: good morning, bill. make a fewike to comments to your guest. number one, i'm wondering if familiar with the found

samuel adams as way socialist, that a democracy was an very power with one vote. not an english monarch with a wealth and not a king with ,reat individual which the forefathers were obviously against, you could mobile companies are kings. they put in the money and take over everything. is --stion to the guest robert morse ended up broke. he believed in free trade, he believed in no regulations, he ended up in the poor house. i think that the american people should read this book to get a real sense of our founding fathers. host: all right. guest: the essence of what you are saying is you do not think the first amendment should apply to corporations, but i would say

to you and your other listeners -- but i hear that a lat, corporations are not people. if you believe the first amendment should not apply, you must believe the rest of the bill of rights does not. you clearly think, for example, that if the government wants to go into any business in america that is worker -- is a corporation and sees all of their records, go through their computer files, that they should be able to do it, clearly they do not believe the fourth amendment against -- about unreasonable search and seizure. or if the government believes that it would be really good for the bottom dollar if the and didnt seized google not give any compensation to the shareholders. obviously, that is ok, the fifth amendment, which happens to bar against eminent domain without compensation, obviously is not applied to corporations. start taking the mind of the

first amendment does not apply in you are going down a dangerous path. >> trenton, --host: trenton, new jersey. caller: i would like to know why we do not have a moderate person on the other side of the table taking some opinion against what this guy is saying. the other thing i would like to say -- you must have just tuned in. melanie sloan was talking about this issue earlier. caller: i am not finished, then. i would like his opinion on the supreme court that is not so supreme, it is made up of a majority of conservatives. these guys is going to vote to serve every time. they are republicans and they vote republican. that is the supreme court. that is actually not

true. look at the court decisions over the last several years and you will find many, many unanimous opinions, opinions where the -- the conservative liberals and conservatives all agree. this idea that they always split their vote or vote a particular way, down party lines, is simply not the case. i challenge you to go through and look at all the decisions that have been decided. particularly the 9-0 decisions. where they all agreed that the government was wrong and cases. you will see that that particular view is just not right. host: you can follow hans von spakovsky on twitter. he is the election law reform initiative manager at the heritage foundation, and their senior legal fellow. thank you very much. outng up next, we will find where the jobs will be across the country in 2014. we will get mark zandi's perspective on that right after

this news update from c-span radio. >> a car bomb has ripped through a shiite neighborhood in southern beirut today, killing at least two people, sending plumes of smoke over the area. the latest attack targeted supporters of hezbollah in lebanon. -- syrian civil war spills over the border. secretary of state kerry is headed to switzerland for an international conference on ending the crisis in syria. chris christie has a full day planned of inaugural ceremonies today as investigators continue to look into allegations that his administration ordered .etaliation in his inaugural speech, the governor is expected to stress bipartisanship and diversity. he is also expected to cry

gridlock among washington politicians. c-span radio and television will have live coverage of the nomination. politico reports that senator mike lee will deliver the political response to the state of the union address. state of the union address is set for next tuesday night. we will, of course, have it live here. those are some of the latest headlines on c-span radio. [video clip] >> first of all, i was not elected. it did not make that much difference. i did notice the difference between being the president's wife and the vice president's wife. it was huge. the vice president's wife could say anything, no one cared. the minute you say one thing as president's wife, you made the

news. that was a lesson i had to learn pretty quickly. watch our program on the first lady, barbara bush, on our website, or see it on saturday at 7 p.m. eastern as the series continues with first lady hillary clinton. >> i do not see myself as a prophet with a message for the world, but a person trying to understand and situate myself. the idea for the book came to me when i was giving some lectures at the u.s. air force academy in colorado springs. , well-the very nice educated, broad-minded, liberal young air force officers had a chat with me. he told me he was a liberal.

i did not want to create in my i had in myression mind of the u.s. air force academy as being this right wing, strange, radical thing. he tells me he is a liberal and tells me that he is in favor of immigration. but, he said, when people come to this country, they should learn the native language. i do not think he was speaking about comanche. i said yes, i quite agree, everyone should learn spanish. >> of the evolution of the united states from the hispanic perspective. part of booktv this weekend on c-span two. online on the book club, you still have time to weigh in. read the book and join the conversation. click on book club to enter the chat room.

>> "washington journal" continues. joining us from pennsylvania this morning, mark zandi, chief economist from moody's analytics. let's begin with the big picture. you have called 2014 a breakout year. why? --guest: iwe will think we will get more growth, jobs, and unemployment. there are multiple sources of growth, but one key -- one key factor is the fiscal drag that was part of the sequester last year, it will not be playing as much of a role in 2014. the fact that fiscal policy will not be a drag on the economy to the degree that it has been is a plus. it means more growth and more jobs. there are other reasons, but that is a key one. host: what is the growth prediction? guest: if we look at the growth

valuables that we produce, that has been growing roughly two percent every year since the economic recovery began. in 2013.wo percent i expect growth this year of culture to three percent, that is again with gdp, and again in 2015 with four percent growth. it is good enough that i think we should all in general feel much better about things a year or two down the road. >> what does that -- host: what does that mean, then, for jobs? what type of jobs will see growth? will mean more jobs, to give you a context, in 2014 we created 2.2 million jobs. that is what we created in 2012 as well. expect 2.2 5 million

jobs. a lot of the additional job growth, i think, will come from another additional source of growth that is gathering momentum, which is the housing market. it has been in recovery for almost two years and i think we ,ill see a lot more activity with more construction going into the middle of the decade. to the very important job market. every single family home that we construct produces or jobs over the. of the year. everything from the obvious construction jobs in manufacturing jobs. thinking about the lumber and the appliances that go into a the, transportation to move materials around, home retail group and improvement jobs, landscaping, the market runs very deep in. just in one part of the country, it is almost everywhere. i think that that is going to be an important source of new job

creation over the next few years. host: what industries are going to see growth? will tell you, interestingly enough, we are seeing job growth almost across- the-board right now. very few industries are not adding. until recently it had been the case that state and local governments were laying off workers, but that is not true anymore. federal government is still downsizing. other than that we are seeing industry. in every but one important source, and this will matter over a longer. of time rather than in a given year, but jobs in high-end services. i mean things like accounting, legal, management consulting, architectural services. economic consulting, like what i do, for example. ofre is going to be a lot

demand for those services coming from the rest of the world. they are going to demand those services and to be competitive in producing those services. of course, those jobs require lots of skill and a higher level we will have to work hard to train our workforce to fill those jobs. they will be available in the future. host: the pew charitable trusts put together a map based on the numbers from moody's. which states will generate jobs in 2014? which states will see the most job growth? guest: well, the good news is we will see job growth from coast- to-coast. across the economy country should experience job growth, which is a positive development. but the strongest job growth should remain in the center of the country, particularly places like texas.

the texas economy has done quite well throughout these tough economic times. in other partsle of the country who have lost their jobs and decided to move to texas to look for work has helped to support further growth in the texas economy. a lot of support in the energy producing areas of the country, the upper midwest, around north dakota, western pennsylvania, new york. we should see a lot of growth in the technology industry, it is doing well and producing a lot of jobs in california, the bay area, los angeles, texas, the carolinas. one other source of job growth? the vehicle industry. the vehicle industry is doing quite well. auto sales are up, which is producing a lot of jobs in the greenville,ces like south carolina, atlanta,

georgia, and through the midwest into ohio and michigan. we are going to see better conditions across the country. host: we will be talking about the auto industry tomorrow in " -- on "washington journal." these jobs, are they going to be high paying jobs? low-paying jobs? what will be the average? good question. to date, so far in this economic recovery, as i pointed out earlier, most of the job growth -- the predominant amount of job growth has been in lower paying jobs. if you think about the occupations and rank them by , much of the job growth has been in the bottom third. that is going to change.

we are starting to see much more job growth in the top one third, the high-end, also experiencing much better job creation. i also think that in 2014, if i am right about the broader economy, we will see job growth across all pay skills. if housing is really kicking in with a lot of instruction and manufacturing, those are middle income paying jobs. if i am right, we will start seeing more jobs and stable government -- k-12 teachers, emergency responders, police. the recovery, so far, has been mostly lower paying jobs. we have been seeing more higher- paying jobs, but i think that going forward we should see job growth across all the pay scales. host: we are talking with mark zandi, of moody's analytics,

about where the jobs will be in 2014. you can start calling in, and we will take your tweets and e- mails as well. what is your prediction for many things.: of course, most immediately, congress and the administration have had to come together and add legislation to increase the treasury debt limit. the debt limit will become a problem in a few weeks. according to the treasury secretary, if we do not have a piece of legislation by late february, early march, we will have a problem. that would be a significant threat to my optimism. another potential threat is interest rates. the reserve board is now trying to wind down there very aggressive monetary policies, keeping interest rates at zero for a number of years, they have been buying bonds through several quantitative easing programs. with a better economy and better to market, they are trying

exit out from those extraordinary interventions, which will be tricky to do without long-term interest rates rising quickly. if they rise to quickly, it could undermine the housing market. every jew not get the growth i am anticipating, we will not get the jobs. my optimism will then not come to pass. there are others overseas that we can go to, but those are the key risks at this point. host: carol, minnesota. caller: where were you employed before you were at moody's? guest: i started my own company back in the early 1990s. it evolved into a company called economy.com, an economic consulting firm that i sold along with my colleagues to

moody's six or seven years ago. i was a startup, i have been a small business person, and am now part of the establishment. i have seen it from lots of different angles. host: why do you ask? caller: i do not understand why you have this person on. you have had him on seven -- several times, but this is one of the key people in the ratings area of those mortgages that were all junk that he rated high . he should be in jail. i do not understand why you keep having him on. he was doing high ratings for junk mortgages so the banks could make money for several years. host: let's get a response. mark zandi? in the ratings agency. the moody's corporation has two independent subsidiaries. one is the ratings agency with mortgage securities, with

moody's analytics. i have nothing to do with the ratings side of moody's. that is not what i do, i have nothing to do with it. have written fairly extensively on the crisis and the cause, having talked quite a bit about the many factors thriving the crisis, including the ratings agencies. i know it is shameless to plug one of my books, but you might want to go read "financial shock." that will help you to understand where i come from and how i think about the crisis. host: since we are going down this road, in 2008 you were the economic adviser to john mccain. what was your role? an honest role, i was part of the team of economists providing help and support. my specific job was to monitor the daily economic information and data and relay that back to

the team, so that that could help to inform the process. i was doing what i do for my day job, watching the economy on a daily basis, trying to make sense out of it, and based on that understand where the economy is headed. next, froms jacksonville, arkansas. where are the jobs going to be in 2013? go ahead. caller: he needs to wake up. there ain't no jobs. we will not have these jobs until we get rid of the crooks in washington. host: mark zandi? well, you know, i do rely on data and the key part of the data is the bureau of labor statistics. i realize that one is a survey of companies across the country.

the survey covers roughly one third of the job base. every year that survey benchmarks the employment count, so we have a very good accounting of almost all the jobs in this country once he year. in fact, we will get that data next month. producing morere jobs. as i mentioned, earlier, in 2014 we created 2 million jobs. jobs perbout 200,000 month. in normal times, if unemployment were lower, that would be considered to be very good. that is incredibly strong job growth. it is, of course, quite disappointing in the current context. unemployment is still very high. it undercuts the trust out there, you have a lot of underemployed and discouraged

were -- discouraged workers. we are creating jobs. the job market is picking up. having said that, it is not the case for everyone. it is not the case for every community across the country or every industry. i missed where the caller was are some verye hard-pressed regions of the country. detroit, michigan. west virginia, kentucky, mississippi, alabama. areas where unemployment is still incredibly high, too high. better, in ais broad sense, but it is not better for everyone and, of course, until everyone is feeling better about things, we have a lot of work to do. i sympathize with the caller's perspective, but things have improved and are getting better.

joseph, hollis town, pennsylvania. republican caller. you.r: thank the inner-city people, they have turningbut other than and selling drugs. we need congress to come out with a manufacturing program across the united states. to let people start a manufacturing. if they see it, they can build it. we need to get this country up and rolling. manufacturing was the backbone of america. we need to get action going in america. we need to put in flux taxes on incoming products that are built in other countries. we need to put america first and foremost. we need to put on this manufacturing rally.

let's have mark zandi respond. joseph was from pennsylvania, by the way. joseph, for you, the question. let me say a few things. first, i agree with you that manufacturing is very important to our economic future. it is a key source of middle income jobs. important to the psychological change in innovation that was key to our longer-term growth. so, i agree with you. and i do think that the future of manufacturing is quite right in the united states. if you are a manufacturer who survived the recession, you must be doing something very well, you must have a competitive and low cost structure. selling something that people in the rest of the world want, you are primed for growth. --. manufacturer crossed

cost structures today are in the same place they were 25 years the so quite competitive. other thing, of course, at the back of it, u.s. manufacturers in the energy sector, they are the ample suppliers of natural gas and oil. that is bringing down the cost of energy to these manufacturers. that is a huge plus and i think it will provide a key source of manufacturing, going forward. first i would say that i agree with you, manufacturing is very important to our economic future . i think that will become more evident in the coming years. the second thing i would say, in response to your question, i think we need to be a little bit careful about trying to set manufacturing to locate within urban areas. not be the appropriate place for manufacturing to set up shop. , perhaps,facturing

but usually to be competitive they have to have scale, big -- be big, they need land, which meet -- which makes it difficult to set up manufacturing in an urban center. which is not to say that we cannot manufacture in locations nearby urban centers. but i think that is a heavy lift. the final thing i will say, the sentiment that you just expressed is increasingly the consensus amongst policymakers in washington. ideashard to come up with to promote manufacturing ideas. it may reap manufacturing benefits down the road.

i am just a little bit cautious about saying the solution for the problems in the urban willrs -- i think that have to be addressed through other means, not necessarily through manufacturing. one other thing i will say about that, manufacturing, even when it is growing quickly and there ,s a lot of increase production it doesn't generate a lot of jobs, so we cannot look to manufacturing to be a source of a lot of job creation just because it is so productive. >> the report this morning from "the washington post --host: report this morning from "the washington post," a plan to create a federal fund to leverage private investments on transportation and other infrastructure. the money comes from bond companies earning cash abroad,

bringing it back to the united states. this tweet -- guest: i think that the , thestructure efforts promotion of more infrastructure, i think this is fantastic and key to long-term economic growth. everything from road system to rail to seaports. this is important to keeping the cost of doing business down. that willdo that, promote economic growth and development. an infrastructure bank is a good

idea to help facilitate more infrastructure developments. has beenidea that kicking around for some time and it would be great if we could bring that to fruition. regarding how many jobs it will create, i do not have the numbers for you. it is an important source of job creation in construction and manufacturing, but a lot of it depends on how much additional infrastructure occurs. but i am quite confident that if ouran approve -- improve infrastructure and make it more efficient for our businesses, it will be a boon to us, long run. i think that most of us agree that our infrastructure is lacking. just driving anywhere in america , you run through potholes, the bridges, we have all kinds of in our seaports and rail

systems. if we cannot address the infrastructure now, the 10 year treasury bond is going to three percent. we have an unemployment rate that is 6.7%. they would come back and work on the infrastructure projects. if we cannot get it together now and promote infrastructure development, that would be quite disconcerting. this is really the time to do it. all the pieces for making this work are in place. "the washington post," calls this an attempt to fund transportation through additional sources. "the federal gas tax, 18.4 cents per gallon --

monique, in detroit, michigan, democratic caller. hi, there. i am calling about the unemployment. i live in michigan. unemployment rates are skyrocketing here. i just got laid off of my job after 10 years. i could not get an unemployment extension. if there are no jobs and no unemployment -- i am not one of those people looking to work the system for unemployment, i want a job, but i cannot find a job here. i cannot get additional unemployment. what does the government expect us to do? he have to live. very good point. you may know that there has been, since the recession four or five years ago, something

called the emergency unemployment insurance program, providing an insurance benefits to folks like you, who run out of their state unemployment insurance benefits for extended. of time. particularly in states like michigan. back at the peak of the program, a worker could, potentially, get unemployment insurance for as many as 99 weeks. that program expired at the end of 2013. congress has been debating whether to extend it. they have not come to an agreement. at this point it looks less and less likely that they will. my view that is a mistake. i think that extending the program, particularly in the context of very high unemployment, would be appropriate. just to give you a statistic, for every open position, there are still three unemployed

workers. it is much better than it was. if you go back to the beginning of the recession, it was six unemployed workers for everyone unemployed person, so that is a significant improvement, but in a normal time, it should be one for one. it is still very pointed, still very difficult. even if you are working hard, working at it every day, to find a job in these hard-pressed regions of the country. , it would be appropriate and desirable for congress to extend it, but unfortunately that is not the case. this has put a lot of hardship on people, like the caller. there are other social conservatives -- of course, no one really wants to avail themselves of it, but they are there if you need them.

i sympathize with your situation and it is unfortunate that congress could not get it together to extend the program. texas.et's go to surely, independent caller. where are you calling from? caller: [indiscernible] outside bull worth. host: ok. is -- how doestion we get our states to modernize the education systems? we need the skills and the education to reach these jobs like the technical robotics, the computer related, the medical field. that arehese areas getting a lot more jobs. about theworried current job market, people graduating from college with --rees and cannot get a job something is wrong with the education system. they need to be trained so that they can get those jobs.

that is all i had to say. guest: i think you have it exactly right. i think you have hit it right on the head. if we are going to succeed, as a nation, if the economy is going to succeed going forward, we need highly skilled and educated workforces. that is the key to long-term economic growth. falling short in that regard across the spectrum. k-12, centers of higher education. we need to invest more in educating and retraining our workforce so that they can compete in the workforce going forward. of course, it is a difficult and pernicious problem. in part the cause a lot of our k-12 is financed through

property taxes, and depending on where you live and how well your community is doing, that is attached to your ability to finance that funding. a significant issue. the federal government actually plays a relatively small role in educationlot of the that goes on in our country. the ability of the federal government to play a role here is quite limited. there are some things that we can do. one thing that i would argue that would be quite helpful in terms of raising the education of the population and the skill advantage of the skills we have, is immigration and 4 -- immigration reform. , if we allowight the kids coming from overseas to our universities to stay more easily in the united states, that will be a fountain of growth and jobs. by definition they are very

entrepreneurial, risk-taking, starting companies, creating jobs. it would be important to keep that talent here. they will be the job creators of the future. but creating those jobs here in the united states, rather than taking them home. however, the path to citizenship is very important to unlocking the skills of many immigrants in our country. they may be illegal immigrants, stuck in jobs, in many cases, that do not take advantage of the talent. a clearlyas not defined, reasonable path to citizenship, i think we would see those skills unleashed and unlocked, to the benefit of everyone. it goes to raising the educational attainment and skill

level of our population. the second thing that you said, you are exactly right. we need to invest much more in raising the educational attainment of the skill level of the country or we will be left behind. zandi, reporting on states leading the way in immigration boosts. in new jersey they joined 18 other states with policies youngstersdocumented to pay in-state college tuition rather than the higher out-of- state rates. governor chris christie and other republican said that this would maximize the investment that the state made in undocumented students whose k-12 schooling is financed by taxpayers. that makes sense to me. that is quite a bit in the education of these kids.

it is quite an investment and these kids will be important to the growth of the economy. why not make it easier for them to stay in those states and produce more? i think that is a reasonable thing to do and makes sense to me. host: this tweet from twitter -- good point. absolutely right. the bad job market has been tough on everyone, all ages, all regions of the country, all occupations. it has been a tough time, but it has been especially hard on folks in their 50's and 60's. it is going to be incredibly -- i really worry about this group, it will be incredibly difficult

for them to get back to work and back into the labor force. hopefully we get some infrastructure development and housing. will thensome of them come back. my sense is that some of those workers in the construction trade were in some housing related activities prior to the recession. and talentse skills necessary to work on those kinds of jobs. it housing comes back, some of those people will get work. unless they decide they are going to move to other parts of the country, where more jobs are , or go back and try to reeducate, gain, or phone the skill, they will have a very difficult time in this economy and in getting back into the workforce and back to a job that pays anything close to what they were paying before. thatf the various groups

got nailed in this recession, that is the one group i worry about the most. obviously they do not have a lot of time in terms of retirement. every day you are out of work, the more difficult it will be. the higher the burden will be on taxpayers. there will be higher financial pressures on government security, medicare, medicaid. is one of the most serious, damaging results of the recession, what it did to folks in their 50's and early 60's. host: colleen, joining us next, democratic caller. is -- you question said that of the probable of the trans pacific i've yieldership,

that they are just as bad as nafta. like ross perot said, you will hear a big sucking sound with jobs leaving the country. they said that there were provisions in there that would andride our sovereign laws that corporations are pushing to make cheap labor universal around the world. i don't agree with that perspective. tpp, tradethat the agreements in general, are going to be a plus for our economy. there are winners and losers in any trade agreement. that is clear. but on net trade agreements like

nafta, it will be a significant plus for our economy going forward. i do think that nafta and other trade agreements that were put ago,place 10, 15, 20 years were less of a plus for the economy. partially because it opened up the global economy and competition for the low-paying which really did hurt to a significant degree the low- paid workers in the united states who lost their jobs. very devastating. many of them lost manufacturing jobs because of these trade agreements. at this point in time, we are now on the cusp -- the united oftes is on the cusp enjoying in enormous benefit from those agreements.

those emerging economies and the rest of the world, like china, are now developing their middle- class. they are starting to want the kinds of things that we produce here in the united states. sophisticated aerospace, sophisticated instrumentation. materials. other services that i mentioned earlier. accounting, architectural services, advertising, media. all of these things that we do well in the united states, which produce a lot of jobs, we will now be able to sell those things developed, developing, increasingly developed emerging economies. the trade agreements have been a net plus all along. clearly much less so when nafta was in a slamdunk policy. there were a lot of losers in nafta. but going forward i think that

anything that opens up global trade will be a huge boon to the united states, the economy, and producing more jobs. the tpp is part of that. work hard toould get that passed, i think we should work hard to get china involved in the process. if we can open up those emerging economies, it will just make those markets bigger, more vibrant for the kinds of things that we produce here in the united states. host: the front page of "the usa today," with a headline about income and -- income inequality across the globe. they found the richest one percent owned nearly half of the world's wealth. this tweet -- agree, income ofquality, inequality

wealth, inequality of consumption, is a very serious problem. wealth and income consumption have become very skewed, increasingly so. with the factors driving the , ating so firmly in place some point it could probably effect -- has probably already affected, the global environment, the laws that we make. this generally reinforces this. we do need to address it. i do not think that a financial transaction tax, which the person proposed, is going to work. you arearly because if going to work on something like that, it definitely has to be global, right? if you implement a financial

transaction tax in the united dates -- actually, europeans are further along with this idea in the u.k. or europe, those financial transactions are not going to be done in the united states or europe, they will be done in macau, são paulo, other parts of the world where they do not have a tax because financial transactions do not have a border, they could go anywhere. even if you liked the idea of a financial transaction tax, practically speaking if it is going to work than it has got to be done by everyone, everyone must sign on, otherwise it will fall apart under its own weight. i think that income wealth distribution, particularly raising the population skills -- but i think -- i don't think it is practical to implement a financial transaction tax in the

united states. if we were going to do it, and i am not saying we should, but if we decided to go down that path, it would have to be done globally, not just here in this country. mark zandi, the cover, here, janet yellen, what are your thoughts on the differences between her and ben bernanke? great andhink she is the right person for the job at this time. one of the key risks to my optimism about the economy is that interest rates might rise to quickly. that the interest board might not be able to manage the increase in a graceful way. important that we have someone at the helm of the federal reserve who is very adept at connecting monetary

policy. and she is. she has been at the fed for a number of years. she is a wonderful academic researcher. and i think she has the right temperament. i mean, to be able to land the thee, so to speak, on tarmac, she will have to get a consensus from the federal reserve board, making sure that all of these voices are not speaking into disk or it away, it makes the market a more difficult place to manage. if anyone can do that, if anyone to bring therament federal reserve board members together in a consistent way, it would be her. i think we are quite lucky to have her. i think she will be quite successful in managing monetary policy going forward. it is critical. the federal reserve board knows

that the economic recovery has been important to keeping it all together. now they are going to have to work really hard to formalize the policy, and that will not be easy. it will be tricky. we are fortunate that she's at the helm to do that. all right, the fed says they will trim their stimulus again at the next meeting next month. we have to leave it there. it. zandi, appreciate thank you for talking to our viewers. guest: thank you for the opportunity. i appreciate it. host: that doesn't this morning for "the washington journal." we will join you again tomorrow morning, 7 a.m. eastern time. thanks for watching. ♪ [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2014]

>> looking live at the u.s. capitol. snow expected to blanket washington, d.c., and the mid- atlantic today. this will impact live coverage as organizers have handled some live events due to weather. and senate inouse today for brief sessions. comeouse cummins 4 -- will in for a few minutes at 11:00 eastern. we will have that live on c- span. now, still planning to take you live today to trenton, new jersey were chris christie is not duration ceremony. he will take the oath of office for a second term. whether taking a