phillips weibel talks about the five-year anniversary about the home modification program. calls, will look to your comments and twitter. "washington journal closed quote is next. -- washington journal is next. federalst of the government has been told to stay home due to the weather today. we are here with you for a full three hour washington journal to discuss the looming enrollment deadline for the affordable care act. allegations of cia searches of congressional -- congressional computers. first we will discuss yesterday possible in crimea to secede from ukraine and join russia. we are bringing you the latest

on the ground in ukraine. we will open up our phones to you in the first 45 minutes. we want to get your thoughts and your reactions. thinkt to know what you the u.s. response should be to that vote. our phone lines are open, democrats can call -- republicans -- you can also catch up with us on all your favorite social media pages, on twitter, facebook, or .-mail us at journal@c-span.org a very good monday morning to you. i want to take you to the u.s. and around the world. here's the front page of "the new york times" today --

sanctions on the horizon. "theront page of washington post" -- the front page of "the hartford current" -- and onto the front page of "the pittsburgh post-gazette" -- finally the front page of "usa today" this morning. stories leading most every u.s. paper around the country. bring you the latest according to the wire result on that vote to secede in crimea.

the ap noting the chromium election chief says 90% of voters support joining russia in the final vote results. that is the latest according to the wire services. we want to go on the ground in tf. -- in kiev. andrew kramer joins us now. thank you. guest: thank you. host: what is the latest in kiev ? what is the reaction to this new government in the vote yesterday? guest: the government had a cabinet meeting this morning. they announced additional the military and partial globalization of the army. it is not entirely clear. so there is this sense there is not a whole lot the ukranian

government can do. brusselsare focused on where there is a meeting of ministers about sanctions. there is a lot of guess about what the u.s. plans to do. host: another headline from one of the papers this morning -- thoughts in ukraine about the possibility of further efforts in parts of eastern ukraine? guest: people are worried. it's a very somber mood. people in eastern ukraine, russian speakers, who may embrace russia and follow the crimean scenario. in the capital and certainly in western ukraine there is deep concern about what russia intends to do next. host: what do we know about the russian reaction so far? hast: president putin

announced he will give a speech in the upper chamber of russian the federation council, tomorrow. that is being interpreted as -- the likely point of that speech will be the exceptions of crimea into the russian federation, annexation. we don't know exactly what will be said. russia seems to be moving quickly with the plans to annex the peninsula. --t: take us to the re-u.s. to the u.s. reaction. what is the latest from john kerry? haven't seen the very latest statements. think the debate really hinges on how deep the sanctions will go and which personalities will be targeted. from what i understand there are several possible stations to the sanctions.

after secondary figures first. i heard from a u.s. senator there is consideration of sanctioning russian chemical companies and banks, which would essentially isolate russia economically. host: you mentioned one of the senators you talked to on the subject, we are reading tweets from members of congress and talking about reactions on their twitter pages. here is senator chuck grassley -- that is senator grassley on his own twitter page. andrew kramer, you are in tf. -- you are in kiev. in the the reaction streets? what is the mood about the new government in the streets of kiev? guest: there is still quite a

bit of turmoil here. here, thee square center of the uprising against yanukovych. the so-called defenders of the be dressed in .uite crazy outfits they are now wearing military uniforms. there is a recruitment center for the new national guard in the square. air is a militarization -- and there is a militarization of this movement and of the country in general. it was a very short-lived celebration of victory to a test of how patriotic ukraine can be. host: is there any resolution after this vote yesterday as to what happens to ukrainian troops

who are in crimea? mostlyroops have been surrounded at their bases in crimea. with: i was at a briefing the defense minister here, the ukrainian defense minister. they said they negotiated a truce until march 21 with the fleet commanders and russian ministry of defense. ukrainians would be allowed to resupply the bases and there would not be further attempts to overrun them. no shots have been fired. they have been occupied by these unidentified soldiers. there is a truce now until the 21st of march. andrew kramer is a reporter with "the new york times." we appreciate you joining us on the phone from kiev. you very much.

if there's one thing i could add -- any likely u.s. or european sanctions -- part of the response of russia will likely be here in ukraine and in russia. the brunt of that response will seen in areas of ukraine that may become targets of military advancement. host: thank you so much for joining us this morning. and we are talking with our viewers. we want to hear your thoughts and your take on what the u.s. reaction should be on this vote yesterday. conversation is already happening on our facebook page. if you want to join our conversation there, facebook.com/cspan.

we are taking your thoughts and comments all morning. our phone lines are open. we will start with top coming in -- calling in from florida -- bob calling in from florida. i've known a lot of ukrainians for 30 or 40 years. ofse people are very proud their country. that would be like somebody coming into america saying, hey don't you want to become a part of russia? give me a break.

far as the world population -- we lost him. 97% in favor of leaving ukraine. a little more on voter reactions , this is from "the washington post" story --

we want to hear your thoughts and comments. we will go to georgia and north carolina on our line for independents. caller: it's just really hard to that arethe voices coming out of this world. hypocritical determine their own fate. we did the same thing in coso though. we did the same thing in south sudan. just think about it. what if the shoe was on the other foot? -- what at the same thing happened in mexico? he moved in and a bunch of we moved in and a bunch of countries -- the only

people that are going to profit from this are the bankers. with instability they get to play with money. prices thatfuel have gone up in the last two weeks. three months ago when they started jacking up the fuel prices it was because of syria. when was the last time we heard anything about syria on the news? now it is the ukraine. here is senator john mccain, who was on cnn cost 'state of the union -- on cnn "state of the union." [video clip] term you can't say there is anything but a --

that does not mean we somehow you can have a major part of a country that you yourself signed off in an agreement. they guarantee the integrity -- guarantee the territorial integrity of it. have a wonderful ambassador representing the united states in the ukraine. russia,he vote to join he is saying 80%. it is a done deal. totalshose vote announced this morning. officials in crimea putting it upwards to 97% came out to vote in favor of seceding from ukraine. john mccain talking about some of the military issues involved. here is a story from "the wall

street journal" -- that story also has a map above it. showing some of the areas near eastern ukraine where russian

troops are conducting maneuvers in several of the states nearby. about the thousand russian troops in crimea. troopst 20,000 russian in crimea. we go back to the phone lines, what is your response to what happened in the past 24 hours? a shamei think it is and our president really screwed up. he doesn't care. a i wonder what the remarks are -- i wonder what the remarks are off mike. .- are off-mic thatnk it is a disgrace the president of the united states is letting this happen. what should he be doing here? how would you like to see him

respond? going with the military. not with boots on the ground but with missiles. us thatd explain to there will be a boomerang effect. i think it is terrible. spine.as no he should not be the president. i think we lost marianne there. editorial inead today's "the wall street journal "the wall street journal" on what happened in the ukraine --

the editorial board of "the wall street journal." on ouro to john waiting line for republicans in alexandria, virginia. caller: i would like to comment on why ukraine is important for u.s. interest and why it is

important we do something regarding this issue. oil resources the that exist, namely in turkmenistan and kaz extend, on the western side of the caspian. there are pipelines that go through there. this pipeline goes down to turkey and out into the mediterranean. it is very much in u.s. and russian interest to get that pipeline to cut straight to west -- street west through georgia. -- straight west through georgia. that is important because what it allows us to do is die --ersify and weekend and we get the russian monopoly. -- and weaken the russian monopoly. host: do you think the obama

administration is doing enough to explain a what you are talking about -- to explain what you are talking about? caller: i don't blame the administration. i more so blamed the media. i think the administration should have that conversation that i don't know of that message would be very well accepted. -- have that conversation but i don't know if that conversation would be very well accepted. the i would like to make -- i would like to make another point. nato is dead.of that is a discussion that has been going on over the past seven years. behink our policy should now to extend nato eastward and take efforts to get the ukraine into nato. once we are able to do that we

can reignite this transit lan take relationship -- this transatlantic relationship. now we really have found a reason to do that. alexandria,rom virginia this morning with his thoughts. on our twitter page -- on's go to frederick waiting our line for democrats in pennsylvania. good morning. caller: i agree with the last tweeter. america has no right to talk the ukraine in

because look at what the republicans are doing with the voter suppression here in america. these are the worst hypocrites in the world. that is my comments. host: that is frederick calling in from pennsylvania. we talked to a new york times reporter earlier in the show. is on obama's policy being put to the test in ukraine. he writes -- that story goes on to the jump 'sge, quoting one of mr. obama former senior national security

aides. an analysis piece in today's "new york times." we want to show you a bit from white house senior adviser dan sunday's he was on "meet the press." he gave a bit of his reaction before the vote happened yesterday. [video clip] >> if crimea votes to become part of russia, air is still a concern that there may be an attempt to move into eastern ukraine, a be militarily move

into the ukraine further. do you think that will happen? >> this referendum is in violation of international law. the united states is not going to recognize it. we are working with our partners around the world to marshal forces against the russians and put pressure on that in the form of sanctions. the president is signing an executive order to give the authority to do this. you can expect sanctions in the coming days. host: the senior white house adviser going on one of the sunday shows yesterday, talking about what the u.s. is doing. we want to hear your thoughts and what you think about some of the issues that he brought up. randy is waiting in fort worth, texas. the morning to you. -- good morning to you. caller: nobody is talking about the treaty. during the clinton administration there was a treaty with the ukraine. the treaty was to dismantle their military.

nobody is talking about that. during the obama administration in 2009 president obama signed a treaty to protect the ukraine. host: which treaty are you talking about? and what do you think about the ukrainian troops that are on the russian bases in and is supportively surrounded by russian troops he ? have the military in ukraine, they cannot fly aircraft's, they cannot take the navy out to protect their ports. russia has them surrounded. they don't have the military. president obama signed that treaty in 2009 saying he would protect them. they have a small military, not enough to defend the russians. line from is on the

washington. caller: i just wanted to talk about the first thing that came out of the republicans mouths, -- this isand others the reason we have to open the keystone pipeline as fast as we can. all the keystone pipeline is for is export and they can't get the natural gas out of the ground and exported enough -- export it fast enough. building the keystone pipeline is obviously a process that would take a while if they finished the full pipeline. do you think that would help the situation right now or do you mean sending a message with approving the pipeline? is the corporations

that find another reason to get that oil out of canada and ship won't have any effect in lowering our field prices here -- our fuel prices here. they can get the natural gas out of our ground and sell it overseas as fast as they can. the canadians don't want the pipeline going through. an article in national geographic in august of 2010. approach was taking the pipeline from alberta to bc and the canadians would not let them run their own oil through their own pipeline. they have the trains running it. they are taking to heart out of sand and trying to ship it -- they are digging tar out of sand and trying to ship it.

they have to mix the tar with something and it looks like they are making it into napalm and shipping it. calling in from washington. a few more comments from our facebook page. you can follow the conversation there on our twitter page as well. later in the show we are going to be talking about one of the upcoming deadlines for enrollment for coverage of this year under the affordable care act. a story on that subject from

"the hill" newspaper -- a story that was out yesterday evening. "each day the bracket will be up did it based on votes from online users. it is part of an ongoing attempt to reach young consumers where they are." we are going to be talking about that deadline with a reporter from politico newspaper later in the show today. -- also noting it is primary season. from "the newy york times" on that topic --

we will give you a preview of not just the governors race but some of the other races as well. we have 15 minutes left to discuss this vote on crimea yesterday. let's go to diana waiting in longview, texas. good morning.

we want to hear your take on that vote in crimea. i have been watching this since the beginning when the soldiers invaded. there were a few soldiers at first and we did not know who they were. ukrainians understand -- i am not sure this is true. they do not have weapons. everybody was confused who it was. all of a sudden we had this plane crash. so we don't hear anything about what was happening to russia, which is a little more porton. although a plane crash is very tragic. -- little more important. although a plane crash is very tragic. it reminded me of vietnam.

we want to know if russians are invading -- hasn'to you think there been enough media attention on this? that it has been leading a lot of the vote yesterday. -- it has been leading a lot of the papers since yesterday. caller: [laughter] host: i think we lost her there. we will go to bill. caller: they are a nation and they have their own way of deciding things. therea r are treaties. to getcanno't afford into a military conflict iwtwith russia. we are trying to get out of the

middle east, we have economic issues we are trying to deal with. for those of you who think we -- if youover there put the foot in the door and keep the door open somebody will pull away. we cannot let things escalate. leave thingsould alone for now and see how it turns out. we need to make sure things don't escalate. don't let russians advance any further in europe. we showed you republican senator john mccain on cnn and toss "state -- on cnn's "state of the union." chris murphy was on abc's "this week." here's what he had to say. [video clip] putin moves further in

the eastern ukraine, is there anything we can really do to prevent that? >> i don't think there is anything we can do militarily. tos is a longer-term effort build up the ukrainian the military. on monday we announced with the european union a crippling set going after russian business entities. i think that sends a strong message to putin. think anyone believes -- i don't think he believed the u.s. would take a chunk out of his economy. that gives us a chance to change the calculus in moscow. >> will sanctions be enough? luxe we have to wait for european friends to tell us they are willing to move forward. there is no doubt that if you cut off russian gas it will hurt. there's no doubt that if you freeze russian assets in places like germany and great rich and it will hurt them. this is a threat -- and great britain it will hurt them. this is a threat to the

territorial integrity of europe. host: if you want to follow on our twitter page it is @cspanwj. pablo waiting in fort lauderdale, florida on our line for independents. caller: thank you for taking my call. explain something we may not be very aware of. kremlin has been an extension is force for years -- an extensionist force for years. teheare clearly

geopolitical enemy of us. allowing them to incorporate ukraine is giving them a country of 150 million people, which will become part of our enemy. becomeot allow russia to so much more powerful by annexing ukraine. host: where did he the line drawn here? what do you think should -- where do you want the line drawn here? what do you think should happen with crimea? caller: we are going to allow texas to vote to separate from america? that came up in the past. we are one nation indivisible. the same thing for this italic -- fornd -- for the us

the totalitarian country. -- we are it takes many forms to help militarily, not just boots on the ground. psychologically, with weapons, train people there, cyber warfare. pablo calling in from florida. i want to show you a few more headlines in this segment of "the washington journal" today --

if you want to read more on that , robert costa wrote that story

for "the washington post." not to the 2014 election but to the 2016 , one oftial election the lead political columnists for "the washington post" writes -- he talks about the reasons that would happen --

he goes on to talk about a third and fourth tier. we have about five minutes left to continue this discussion on the crimean vote. yesterday crimean officials voting to at 97% secede. let's go to our line for democrats. caller: thank you for taking my call. the referendum in crimea -- it beend be noted crimea has historically a russian territory. ukraine in given to the 1950's. people in crimea welcome the referendum.

what is not mentioned in the western press, people who are in power in the ukraine along to the neo-nazi parties. they don't want any russian, jewish, or any influence in ukraine. some of this is not being reported. where'd you go to for your information on this subject? russian andad some independent canadian websites. i know you are going to tell me the russianading propaganda websites. i don't think that is the case. there are two sides to the story. that side of the story completely overshadows -- if

anybody does simple research and goes online and seeing what the right sector is, what the -- liations are "the new york times" talking about some reactions from the kremlin and from putin -- elf

james in california on our line for independents. good morning. i was wondering, are there any reliable figures as to how many russians are in crimea? i hear this 97%. i'm certain that is propoganda. 75% --as theye have to a reasonable argument to take them in -- for the russians to take them in. i don't think they should have ever crossed somebodies border without communication for doing that. -- communication before doing that.

i disagree with the lady who suggesting neo-nazis in the ukraine. that is absurd. there is a faction there, but certainly it's not the whole country. we will end the with steven in richmond, virginia on our line for democrats. caller: good morning. thank you for taking my call. russia, ukraine, and crimea's problem. the international people should stay out and see what they do. i believe the vote was legal. crimeave putin invaded because russia has a lot of investment, a lot of money in area.ertain part of the

of the people voted to be in russia, just split crimea in half. a half for ukraine. people international stay out of it but create sanctions for the way putin invaded ukraine. just stay out of it and see what is going on. richmond,hen from virginia. that is all the time we have in this first segment of "the washington journal." we will be joined by michael nlan to discuss -- michael alle to discuss -- kyle cheney from politico. we will be right back. ♪

>> and i have concluded -- >> [indiscernible] the only gentleman on that side who even made a movement was mr. walker. the gentleman did not stand, the gentleman did not rise. i resent the statement. if anybody stands i would have recognized them. >> i did not mean to suggest you are not acting with fairness. what i was suggesting was we do have a bill hear that you have worked with the president of the united states --

>> [indiscernible] on a bill of this type i would never do a thing like that. there wasn't a man on either side of the aisle. did not mean to offend you. >> you have offended me. i will accept your apology. on 35e more highlights years of health coverage on our facebook page. cable, created by the company 35 years ago in karate today as a public service by your cable or satellite provider. brought to ago and you today as a public service by your cable or satellite provider. >> we can eliminate -- we need to make sure we eliminate barriers to getting those out in place. sometimes there are local siting issues, federal rules that

.ffect how we employ things we want to make sure we are sensitive to those issues. at the same time we want to make sure we move forward. those that use these devices every day in their lives, depend on having a good strong connection on getting whenever-to-day info they wanted. >> the wireless infrastructure, tonight on "the communicators," at 8 p.m. eastern on c-span2. washington journal" continues. michaele are joined by allen. how unusual is it for congressional inquiry, the intelligence community, to become so he did that the

that a -- so heated senator would go to the floor and accused the cia from violating -- the cia of violating the law. rare. it is what happened last week with senator feinstein going down to the floor and accusing the cia of searching her staff's computers was pretty remarkable and made a lot of waves around washington. host: you worked in the executive branch on these issues, on the oversight committee and the legislative branch. of talk a little bit -- talk a little bit about the history of the dispute. after 9/11 president bush created a covert program. the covert action program was to capture and detain terrorists and interrogate them to get questions that we might be able

to use for national security purposes, to get information and intelligence. president bush declassified the program in 2006. the full committees of congress had been briefed at that time about the program and the senate intelligence community started an investigation into some of the interrogation techniques that were used. it has been going on for about five years. i think the committee has a draft of the report. they are trying to finish up the report. i think the cia sent some comments up to congress, trying to get some things changed in the draft. that is where the flashpoints whether the senate intelligence committee got a hold of some documents. -- some documents the cia says they shouldn't have and whether the cia have looked at some computers that the senate staff were using and whether they should have done that.

senator dianne feinstein, from her floor statement, had this to say about what happened. she says -- some tough charges there. you are the former majority staff director on the house select committee on intelligence. how is this oversight process supposed to work? it is obviously not supposed to get to that point where a senator is making those kinds of comments on the floor of the senate. the oversight is

supposed to be rigorous, tough, but fair. are able to get all the information about what the cia and the other intelligence agencies are up to. ask hardsupposed to questions, make judgments about whether the programs are working, whether the taxpayers dollars are being spent in the way we want them to be spent, to make sure they are spent .fficiently and effectively that is how the oversight process is supposed to work. it is supposed to be a rigorous but fair person looking over your shoulder. host: talk about the role of staffers. something that angered dianne feinstein on the floor of the senate was the thought that some staffers may be prosecuted by the justice department. how often does that happen in terms of threats against

staffers? anst: i can't think of example where the staff has been brought it in such a big way and put in the crosshairs, at least according to senator dianne feinstein's statement. all members of congress rely on their staff. members have a lot going on between constituent services, they have to go back to the district and the rest. the staff demand committees full-time and try to follow developments what is going on -- development across what is going on in their committees. investedhey have a lot and when you have a big fight like this it is not a good place to be in. her statements from the floor, here is cia director's john brennan's

statements -- clear up what some of the concerns are about the workload of senate staff members. at least from the cia perspective. anythingdon't know from my last position when i worked for the house intelligence committee. according to the newspapers the senate intelligence committee staff may have been able to access some documents that apparently some in the caa believe they should not have access to in their investigation . that reading between the lines seems to be what brought the cia

back to the senate. maybe they got their hands on some documents they weren't supposed to. conducting oversight, how is a congressional staffer supposed to know what to look for, what to ask for when they are looking into an intelligence agency like the cia? guest: this gets to the core of what senator feinstein was talking about in separation of powers. there is a push and pull between the executive branch and congress. to executive branch asked make a lot of assertions of privilege. for example, the deliberative process is something that is geared towards the way president makes decisions. literally putting options before the president about what he can or should or should not do. white house staff and lawyers believe that is something congress should not be able to do. i think people in congress generally acknowledge there are privileges like this.

i don't think they give them as much status as the executive branch would. it is why you have the push and the pull of the people trying to get a hold of documents. host: when we talk about senate staffers thomas who actually has the access to go over there and --k at the site -- at these about senate staffers, who action has the access to go over there and look at the cia computers? guest: there are 20 or 30 staffers on the intelligence committee. you have to go through a rigorous academic check -- .igorous background check all the staff have a top secret clearance and have the ability to get the most sensitive information. that is the deal that house and senate intelligence committees struck with intelligence agencies in the 1970's.

you are doing a lot of things on behalf of the country that are right up there on the line. they are very controversial but somebody has to know about it in the other branches of government. somebody has to look over your shoulder and make sure that in the eyes of the american people the activities are ok. that is the idea there. host: is it unusual for congressional staff to go to a third-party location or for the cia to look at documents as opposed to having them here on capitol hill? occasionsre are many where we would go out to review cia documents. must investigations -- most investigations -- for example, 9/11, most of the documents were sent up here. secure facility to be able to store classified information. because there were so many

millions of documents they struck a different deal. rather than transport them all the way up to congress, why don't you come out to the langley campus or cia property and review them there yet though i was part of the reason we have -- review them their? -- them there? they were housed at the cia facilities. host: we have been talking about senator dianne feinstein and her comments on the floor of the senate. aesident obama himself gave brief reaction that we want to show our viewers when asked about the charges presented by senator feinstein. [video clip] >> with respect to the issues that are going back and forth between the committee and cia, john brennan has referred them to the appropriate authorities. they are looking into it. that is not something that is

appropriate for me or the white house to wade into at this point. , which isntive issue how we operate even when we are threatened, even when we have gone through extraordinary trauma, has to be consistent with the rule of law. i acted on back in the first day and that has not changed. host: we are talking to michael allen, a former committee staff director for the select committee intelligence -- select committee of intelligence. this here to talk about conflict between the cia, some of the allegations leveled rights senator dianne feinstein last week on the floor of the senate. up first from tucson, arizona on our line for independents.

caller: good morning. i wanted to comment the c.i.a. has black budgets and its purpose is largely related to the global paradigm. meone like dianne feinstein, she is running fisa courts and they have a record of not denying nearly any requests for spying on whoever we're looking to spy on. they claim they're going to say who they're going to spy on, that's really just a lie, cover. but the bigger point is we are are own politicians casting doubt right now trying to implement dissent in america with the second amendment and sandy hook we had fdu run a poll after saying to restrict un rights and there's multiple

articles. i've got more comments. host: we've got other callers waiting to chat as well. unless you wanted to comment on john's talk. guest: well, the c.i.a.'s mission and all the community's mission is to collect foreign intelligence. that's why they were created. the point of the system is to be able to get information that can benefit our policy makers so they can make better decisions on behalf of the country. that's what the c.i.a. is trying to do. they're not trying to do anything within the united states. that's not their mission, that's not what they want to do. we've got plenty of problems overseas. so they're really sort of a foreign intelligence enterprise. st: ana in frirks fred rirksburg, virginia. caller: none of the members of congress find their offices in the cross hairs in the post 9/11 war against americans. do you think more might realize that it serves the nation's best interest to summon their

courage and openly knowledge that free fall on 9/11 is scientifically impossible unless explosively used? host: john, you talked about the sort of restructuring of the c.i.a. and the intelligence communities after 9/11. any thoughts on ana's comments? guest: well, the commission looked really into all of the facts around the 9/11 commission plot. i know there's some people out there who have different ideas about how this possibly could have happened. but most of the people think that the fact that they put into their report are pretty solid. my book was about mostly their recommendations. now, that was where they got a lot of controversy of did they recommend the right things in terms of restructuring the intelligence community to meet the threats of the new post 9/11 era. but i think as far as the facts are concerned, those are pretty settled and people think the commission did a good job.

host: on this between the c.i.a. and what's happening on capitol hill and the overserious, marie tweets. guest: the reason that we have an intelligence community again is to try to figure out how we can keep the country safer. we've got al qaeda at least from north africa all the way up through afghanistan. we see what's going on in russia. we've got major problems in syria. and we have to keep an eye on what's going on in china. this is what the intelligence community is most concerned about. they want to collect information so that we can have warning as a country about what's happening around the globe, so we'll be able to protect ourselves from a variety of national security threats going forward. host: michael allen, the autsdz of of blimpinging red. talking -- blinking red.

talking about some of the issues aired on the floof last week. on our line for democrats. good morning. caller: good morning. well, the problem i have with all of us democrats is we're not doing what we said we were going to do when we ran for office. a good example of that of urse is mrs. hillary clinton who actually belongs in leavenworth for dare licks of duty with benghazi. she's responsible for four murders and i feel so sorry for president obama because he's lith h a group of ill rat people like dirty harry reid, you know, my gosh. host: what do you think about what was aired on the floor of

the senate last week? did you watch any of senator fine stine's statements about what the c.i.a. was doing in this investigation? caller: wem, if they kept their hands clean mrs. feinstein, if she was boof board and told the truth all the time she wouldn't have to worry about it. i mean, the only people that have to really worry about all of this kind of crap is those immoral, i onest, will lithrath, the harry reeds. the doibance. fine stipe herself. hillary clinton of course. it's going to be a terrible waste of money if she actually runs for the presidency because they will probably end up putting her in leavenworth where she belongs. host: we play add comment earlier of president obama when he was asked about this do you think that the white house has

plays sort of the proper role here? guest: i think the white house is trying to get somewhere in the middle. they don't want john brennan and the c.i.a. to be in the cross hairs. but at the same time i don't think they want to be seen as trying to change what senator fine stine's staff has put into the draft report on enhanced interrogation techniques. so i think they're playing a little roll somewhere in the middle. but let's take a step back. this is not where the c.i.a. and the administration need to be. you don't want to be on the wrong side of your congressional overseer. very, very powerful chairman, senator fine stine is upset with the central intelligence agency. so i think the white house is going to try to play a mediating role so we don't have such a big blowup as we did last week between the two entities in the intelligence world, they don't necessarily need to get along but they need to not be at such dagger

points. host: on our twitter page. talk about president obama and what he did when it came to this investigation and the looking forward as opposed to looking back. guest: i think that president obama supported and does support what the senate intelligence committee -- democrats by the way. the republicans are not involved in the investigation. i think president obama supports the look back to see exactly what happened with this particular c.i.a. program. i think, however, that it's gone on for a long time and i would bet -- i don't know this but i'll bet they're starting to think this is a distraction and i think all parties are probably looking for a way to settle some of their disputes,

get at least a summary of the report declassified and released in the next few months so that we can move on. host: harold in louisiana. caller: thank you for taking my call. just wanted to mention that while the c.i.a. certainly does provide a very vital role for providing intelligence to our armed forces, this whole incident as well as the snowden disclosures have really brought to my mind a revisit to what was going on with nixon and his administration and the spying during the watergate incidents. i would just like to hear the guest's thoughts on that. guest: thanks for the question. look, the snowden revelations have locked the intelligence

committee and national security posture of the united states really worse than any counter intelligence investigation or incident that most people can remember. so this has been i think -- there's always something big going on in the intelligence community. there was 9/11, there was the iraq wmd issue. there was the reorganization of the community. and now the snowden matter. so there's always something big and major going on. but snowden documents, at least 1.2 million documents that revealed sort of what our intelligence posture is around the united states to have our playbook in other people's hands is a bad thing for the intelligence community and a bad thing for the country. i think it's something we all ought to be worried about going forward. host: you talked about the possible publicication of that senate report on c.i.a. interrogations, when that might happen. the lead editorial in today's

"washington post" talks about that. the editorial board says stop squabbling an publish the senate's report on c.i.a. interrogations. >> the senate committee working on that report said there's been nothing like this report written in the past. what's expected to come out of that. guest: it souppeds judging from press report that is they're going to be very harsh about the covert action program that president bush initiated post 9/11. they're going to challenge the efficacy of the interrogations

and say that didn't result in actionable intelligence. intelligence that the country could have used. i think a lot of republicans are probably going to dispute that. but, look, the editorial makes a fair point. we should probably figure out a way to get the facts out on the table, learn our lessons from this episode and move on. because we've got bigger fish to fry in the long run when you look at what's going on in the crimea, when you look at what's going on in syria and china, not to minimize what's happened in the past. we need to definitely learn our lessons from that but we've got a lot of big things on the horizon. so i think the view in the c.i.a. is that they're trying to look forward to face the new threats. host: talk about john brennan's role with the c.i.a. not just on how he's handled what's going on now but this was a guy nominated before to head the c.i.a. and some of the concerns and his comments about the interrogation programs were one of the reasons why that

nomination was pulled back. correct? guest: i think so. i think in the first term john brennan was rumored to be a candidate for c.i.a. director and then the nomination -- well, the nomination was never sent forward. and people thought it was because he as a career c.i.a. officer probably had something to do with maybe had something to do with this particular enhanced interrogation techniques program during the bush years. i think what happened is that president obama came to rely on him tremendously in the first term when he was the counter terrorism coordinator in the white house and really wanted to move forward with him at the hem of c.i.a. when president obama was reelected. host: on twitter.

guest: neither. the cyber command has two hats. the nsa is to collect foreign intelligence overseas, to be able to find information that our policy makers need. but they have a second hat which is as part of the war fighting command that if we ever needed to use cyber as a weapon in our arsenal, cyber command would write up those plans. host: ask asked on twitter. guest: i think a lot of people were upset about how many contractors we relied on after 9/11. set eded a lot of highly

intelligence people quickly after 9/11. the numbers, it got up to about $80 billion a couple years ago. that's a lot of capability. we ramped up quickly and the intelligence community had to rely on private contractors to help them, translators, people who could work computers and the rest. so it's something we had to rely on for the safety of the country. most people want to shrink it a little bit and i think that's what the congress is doing. the committees are working on legislation that over time is shrinking the budget a little bit to meet the new threats. host: again we're talking with michael allen, the author of blinking red, crisis and compromise in american intelligence after 9/11. why call it blinking red? guest: george tenant in the summer of 2001 said that when he looked at some of the fragments of intelligence, he said i think that there's an

intelligence attack on the way. the system was blinking red. he didn't have what we call tactical intelligence. he didn't know the day it was going to happen. he didn't know what the targets were or the method. but over the summer of 2001, people saw that the threats sort of increased and that was just the way he described it. and it sounded like a great title for a book. host: let's go to richard waiting in arkansas. caller: i would like to have a question. i was thinking probably none of these reports will ever be published. i remember nancy pelosi kept saying she never was made aware of how the enhanced interrogation roles are working. we're going to find out that a lot of those people like pelosi and others were briefed on that even though now they're lying. because when she said that several people said she was in those briefings, too.

do you think that's a cat and mouse game they're going to lay? guest: i think there's something to that. i think a lot of folks in the c.i.a. feel like they were a little bit hung out to dry. that the white house supported what they were doing. i think they feel like the justice department gave legal opinions that supported what they were doing. and at least some in the congress were briefed. so it later became controversial in the years after 9/11. so i feel like they probably feel a little whip sawed back and forth as people -- as people got down into the details of what the central intelligence agency was doing. but members of congress are both through the years have both -- of both parties have tried to do a deep dive to figure out what happened. and i think this is what the senate intelligence committee is trying to do to write the definitive history of the

program, at least in this time frame. host: are these some of the way that is the committees and the intelligence community can sort of push back against each other when it comes to these type of investigations, whether it's a floor speech or some of the issues that the caller just brought up? guest: i think that is it. people often ask, well, how does the congress control? how does it oversee the intelligence community? one way they do it is to pass an annual budget. that is something that fell by the wayside for a time but at least for the last three years chairman rogers and chairman fine stine along with the ranking members have passed an intelligence budget. so that's one way to actually pass real positive law that they can exercise some authority over the intelligence community. the other way to do it is to go public, be it in a hearing or like senator fine stine did, go out on the senate floor and make a big speech that is going to get people's attention and that is going to make sure that the c.i.a. wants to be -- they

want to be able to keep the members of congress satisfied that they're getting the information they need. so it's something that can spur action. host: what are your thoughts bout the tweet guest: i don't know necessarily what they mean. i mean, congress is very, very involved in the activities of the intelligence community. but they have an oversight role. at the end of the day the central intelligence agency is part of the executive branch and answers to the president. but they have to adhere to the constitution. they have to adhere to the laws of the united states. and they need to be able to have a good relationship and be able to have support from the congress. so i think there are a lot of ways that people oversee and throttle back some of our intelligence activities. host: steve waiting in pennsylvania on our line for drabts this morning.

steve, you're on with michael allen. guest: good morning. my comments are regards to this blinking red crisis and compromise. i think our intelligence is under compromise since this administration took over in 2008 we have the underwear bomber, failure of intelligence. times square failure of intelligence, we have fort hood failure of intelligence. we have the boston marathon failure of intelligence. here, they're taking all their time, taking information off ow of our cell phones, e-mails, storing them. then you have the i.r.s. leaking tax information to gain political game and also -- it's just a big compromise. they're wasting so much time gathering our information instead of foreign intelligence. guest: i think you're on to something. you list a series of near

terrorist attacks that almost have occurred in the last four to five years. and that's why the intelligence community needs the budget it needs. that's why it needs the capabilities to be able to intersement foreign -- intercept foreign telephone calls and e-mails of targets, of bonea fide targets of people who might do us harm. the thing that's missing from the debate in the snowden controversy, there's this underlying theme out there that the intelligence community is interested in lining to what average americans are saying to each other and the rest. that's just not the case. there are so many different threats that the country has got to watch, so many islamic tremists from a really a crescent across africa and afghanistan, so much going on in al qaeda and iraq and syria. there's so many different things that they have to follow around the globe.

i don't think they have the time or the inclination to deal with american citizens. there's a different process for that that goes through the fisa court and that's just not really something that they are after. and we need to get more and better collection of intelligence so that the underwear bomber and the times square bomber and these things are foiled not by their own incompetence but because we got the right information at the right time to be able to stop it. host: we talked about your work as a former staff director for the house permanent select committee on intelligence. talk about some of the positions you held in the executive branch when you touched on these issues. guest: sure. i was working in the national security council for president bush and in that role i was the senior director for legislative affairs, which basically means i was the liaison between the white house and the congressional intelligence committees op a variety of different intelligence and national security issues.

so i got to see it sort of from the executive branch perspective about what the white house would like to be able to share and would like the intelligence committees to be able to do for them. and then when i worked in the congress i sort of saw it from the other side of the street. host: another question from twitter. guest: well, it's a complicated answer. it's roughly $78 billion of intelligence. and some of that is in the defense department budget because after all most of the intelligence community is in the department of defense. but a lot of it also goes to the c.i.a. so it's split between d.o.d. and other intelligence agencies. host: let's go to kathy waiting in montgomery, texas on our line for republicans. good morning. you're on with author michael allen. caller: i cannot understand president obama the leader of

our country and eric holder the head of our justice department they seem to have no knowledge of any of this. personally i think they're too busy bullying our american citizens and i think they're the enemy within. thank you. host: kathy from montgomery, texas. we'll go to betty in indiana on our line for republicans. good morning. are you was? aller: oh, yeah. my question is i don't think we should be wasting none of our money putting hillary in as and i think 2016 they need to keep on investigating the benghazi because she's behind all that. and she lied. she just wouldn't make a good president. host: what our caller is

concerned about on benghazi. we've had other callers before. what's your take on that situation? guest: clearly there was a failure on the part of the state department to secure the conflict in benghazi. there are a lot of people in congress who are still investigating and looking into this matter. when i was staff director of the committee chairman rogers was in this issue trying to drill down into the intelligence assessments about what the security situation was in benghazi. my understanding is that those investigations are ongoing and that people are trying to press to get answers about what we knew, or what we should have known, so that we could have prevented the tragedy. host: and the previous caller brought up a possible clinton presidency again in the future. but go back to how the intelligence community sees the new administrations come in, how much does that change the focus of the intelligence

community and the staff, how much turnover is there in the intelligence community? guest: the intelligence community does not generally have political appointees except really at the very top. sort of the senate confirmed leaders, the director of national intelligence and the c.i.a. director are among the couple political appointees. so the vast majority of our intelligence enterprise are career civil servants or members of the u.s. armed forces that don't turn over when the white house flips from republican to democrat. i think the intelligence communities sort of creedo is that they are there to serve the commander in chief. they have duty to the congress, they have duty to the law and constitution and they try to fulfill those duties. i think they try to take direction from the president, certainly the c.i.a. does. and that's why they have such a cozy relationship through the years. and so i think that's sort of how they see what their mission

is. host: let's go to brian waiting in tennessee on our line for democrats this morning. caller: good morning. my question or comment rather is everybody's worried about talking about benghazi and that's a terrible tragedy. but we have -- if that's important, what about the 8,000 people, the 4,000 people who died in both afghanistan and raq? those are the questions we need to ask. not that the four people who died in benghazi because of a miscommunication aren't important. but what about the others who died based on a lie? guest: the commission that president bush set up to investigate what went wrong on the assessments that there were

weapons of mass destruction in iraq i think most people believed the very thorough look at what went wrong and how we can do better in the future. and we certainly looked into the 9/11 commission. the 9/11 disaster was looked at by a commission and the congress and so we have a tradition of looking into major failures that happened when the federal government is involved. and i think you're going to continue to see people press on benghazi and to do similar work that we did in the other two instances. host: the author of blinking red, crisis and compromise in american intelligence after nine letch. we appreciate you joining us on a snowy day on capitol hill. guest: thanks for having me. host: up next, the affordable care act as we get close to that deadline for sign-ups at the end of this month for coverage in 2014 and later in our weekly, your money segment

will discuss the five-year anniversary of the home affordable modification program. but first, here's a news update. >> the european union and their foreign ministers have set up a target list for sanctions on russian's link to the is he from of the crimea n ukraine. they condemn the referendum as has the united states which has also promised sanctions. the crime n parliament declared independence today. here at home the pentagon says a team of navy seals is now in control of an oil tanker that escaped libyan efforts to confiscate it. the seals boarded the tanker morning glory late yesterday in international waters southeast of cyprus in an operation approved by president obama. the vessel whose ownership remains a mystery was carrying stolen libyan crude oil. president obama meets today with palestinian authority

president eye bass at the white house, and presidential aides say the president plans to urge him to sign on to an accord for a final round of negotiations for a middle east peace plan. two weeks ago president obama ade a similar case to netiau of israel pleading with both sides to accept the document being draft bid john kerry. those are some of the latest headlines.

>> we're focused on making sure that we can eliminate barriers to getting those networks in place. building out these networks is our priority. so sometimes there are local siting issues, sometimes federal rules that might affect how we deploy things or what the lighting might be or the impact on historic sites or the environment. we want to make sure we are sensitive to those issues. at the same time we want to make sure we move forward because our customers, those who use these devices every day in their lives depend on having a good strong connection and getting the day-to-day when they want it. and that means having a really robust wireless network. >> the wireless infrastructure tonight on the communicators at 8:00 p.m. eastern on c-span 2. >> "washington journal" continues. host: two weeks from today will mark the final day to sign up

for health insurance for 2014 under the affordable care act's exchanges that have been set up. here to talk about how the signup process is going is politico health care reporter kyle cheney. what's the latest we know on enrollment numbers here? guest: it's imprecise but the white house is touting 4.2 million signups. the number is sort of the rough number that we know. host: remind us what the enrollment targets are here. guest: there's been some dispute. i think initially the projections were that 7 million would sign up by the end of march. but then we had the collapse of health care.gov so that was reduced to 6 million. the white house now says we just want millions to sign up. 6 million, 5 million, somewhere in that range is what they're shooting for. but no set number. host: and that 4.2 million that you talked about broken down by

age groups, ages 18-25% represent about 10% of those, 26-34 years old represent about 45-5423 and %, above represent 30% of those who sign up. but it seems like the most important numbers at least from the obama administration's perspective is that 18-34 range. correct? guest: exactly and you noted 26% of the total signups so far in that range which is passable i think but to the administration's point of view. but i think they're hoping closer to 40% which would really suggest robust enrollment in that age group what they really need when you have older and less healthier people signing up. host: and there's been a lot of discussion about what the numbers are needed to make the affordable care act work. this is a question that president obama was asked on friday in an interview he did

with the website web mm d. here's a bit of what he had to say guest: at this point enough people are signing up that the affordable care act is going to work. the insurance companies will continue to offer these plans. we already have 4 million people, over 4 million people signed up. it will go -- it will be a larger number than that by the end of march 31, the deadline to get insurance this year. if you miss the deadline by the way on march 31, you can get insurance but you'll have to wait until november of next year or november of this year to start signing up again. the impact in terms of the program has always been based more on the mix of people who sign up. do we have a mix of people who are gray haired like me, and may have some old basketball injuries and aches and pains

along with young people who are healthy and don't really have any issues right now. do we have a good mix of gender in terms of men and women. host: president obama in his web md interview that was released on friday. one of several different appearances he's made to promote the affordable care act and this upcoming deadline. correct? guest: yes. he's been out there in full force as the deadline gets closer to march 31. you heard him talk about the mix of enrollees which i think you're hearing more and more seems to be the act warne chief there in terms of wanting enough young people again to sign up and when he talks about the mix that's what he means, young people versus older, men versus women. that's the numbers the white house is focusing on rather than the overall 6 or 7 million these days. host: as we're talking about these enrollment deadlines that are coming up. we want to take your thoughts and questions our phones are

open. democrats can call republicans can call. dependents and we have a special line set up for those ages 35 and younger who want to talk about the subject. president obama appealing to those folks 35 and younger crowd. he went on the website funny or e to talk with comedian zasm about the health care website. here's a bit from that appearance on funny or die. >> if they get that health insurance it can really make a big difference and they've got until march 31 to sign up. >> i don't have a computer. >> well, then you can call 18003182596. >> i also don't have a phone. i don't want you people looking at my texts. >> first of all, nobody's

interested. but second you can do it in person. the law means that inshurers can't discriminate against you if you have a preexisting condition. >> but what about this though? >> that's disgusting. >> how long have you had that? >> just four months. >> really? >> spider bite. i got attacked by spieders. >> you need to get that checked right away. you need to get on health care.gov because that's one of the most disgusting things i've ever seen. >> what's been the reaction to the president's appearance with comedian zack? >> well, the white house reminds everyone that became the leading driver of traffic to health care.gov. so as far as they're concerned that was the best reaction they could have hoped for. some of the fire stomplee where you heard a lot of criticism this is beneath the office of the the president the white house countered we're going to reach young people as they always say where they are.

the media they're watching is not all reading mainstream publicications any more, they're scattered. so the reaction's been across the board but i think in some sense that advance it is white house's goal because there was so much buzz around his appearance that it got a lot more traffic than otherwise. >> making one of the header columns this week, a picture of president obama's appearance and the headline is searching for the young invisibles. the economist magazine this week. we're here talking with kyle cheney of politico. we want to take your thoughts and comments. betty in chicago, on our line for democrats. good morning. caller: good morning. you know, america some of the people in america are really petty. regardless of the rollout, every thing like that has a side good or bad. since october look how many millions of people that didn't have insurance in this country

babies old people didn't have it. they're getting it now. why can't the republicans and people like you all move on and get off that enrollment? we've got people that are being signed up, people that are taken care of, can't you all come from the past and go to the future? also, the republicans keep talking about president obama going on that show. he reached 15 million people what's wrong with that? you get people where you can. this man is trying to get people in this country to have good health insurance. is there anything wrong with hat? host: she was talking about some of the criticism that the obama administration has received on the website and its rollout. how is that -- has that continued today? guest: you don't hear much any more because health care.gov is almost completely functional.

you hear scattered bits about people having problems. the criticism you're hearing from republicans now more is about costs, it's about is the law itself going to work or collapse on itself? to the caller's point, the administration and its allies keep emphasizing that look, millions of people regardless of its 6 million or 7 million, millions of people have coverage now many of which may not have before but we don't know how many were uninsured but we still know that millions of people have enrolled or signed up. so this is the white house's point. that's what matters here the long run this is proof that this is working. host: your story in politico, the headline, how many have paid premiums? talk about the difference between paying for the premiums and enrolling? guest: this is why i mentioned earlier the 4.2 million is imprecise. that's people who go to health care.gov or state exchange or sign up for coverage. to actually be enrolled for an

insurance company you have to pay your first freedomium. and the industry is very standard for a percentage of people who sign up not to actually pay and therefore never be covered. of course the goal of the affordable care act is to actually cover these people signing up. so when we talk to people in the industry you hear more like 80% of people signing up is actually paid and so the anrollment number may be somewhere south of 4.2 million, could be in the 3's which has some bearing on whether the administration is enrolling as many people as it hoped. host: have a special line set up in this segment for those 35 and younger. that line is on your screen. in the meantime we'll go to thomas waiting in west virginia on our line for republicans. good morning. caller: it's actually kevin. no problem. host: go ahead. sorry about that. caller: that's quite all right. this segue's perfectly into my

comment. because from october to now a percentage according to the numbers, people who would have normally gone for free health care relief anywhere because of the unemployment because of the economy, because of people losing jobs, it's built on a lie. 28 different speeches. you want your doctor you can keep -- the whole thing was constructed under a wicked, cruel man iptive lie to gain control of aff sixesth of the economy no matter how much ky it takes. it's a lie. host: talk about how that what the caller was talking about the statement that the president made if you like your health care you can keep it is going to play in the 2014 elections. guest: that's been coming back to haunt him since around november when people or october when people started getting these cancellation notices that basically said their old health plan didn't meet the requirements therefore you have to select a new plan or you're out of luck.

if you like your health care plan you can keep it line is a staple already at this point and it's not going anywhere any time soon. and there is actually some concern we might see another wave of cancellations right on the eve of the elections this year, although the administration has made some maneuvers to prevent that from happening. but that's going to be a potent line again it's a fixture of the special election campaign in florida last week, that was that played front and center an a republican won there. so that was a bell weather in some analyst's minds for what we might see. >> on twitter. guest: i think the closer we get you're going to hear more of that. but the idea was always is that you don't want people to be able to sign up the second they get sick. there is there has to be a window where they have to make a decision and so the goal for the administration is to get the word out and educate people

but you need that deadline for insurers in particular for this to work for their bottom line and make sure they're sustainable. they need people signing up for insurance for the possibility that they're going to get sick not when they actually are sick and picking and choosing. host: let's go to dan waiting on that line. he's in new hampshire this morning. dan, you're on the "washington journal." guest: calling in lee sponse to the woman from illinois who qualed. as to why it's just republicans that are bashing obama care and why young americans aren't signing up. i'm a young american and i'm an independent. and i live in new hampshire. and we're told that we are going to have all the choices in the world and we're stuck with one inshurens company now. i live in a major city, and it has enormous hospitals, and i would not be able to go to that hospital. and that's for the majority of the major cities in new

hampshire. which only have 1.4 million people in the whole state. so i mean, personally i'm not going to sign up. -- all the the part enrollee numbers coming out are skewed. they're not really enrollees. they're based on how many people selected a plan. so i think it's going to be a huge disappointment when it comes time to have these numbers actually come out the real numbers on how many people actually are enrolled and purchased a plan is going to be way lower than what everybody has been projecting and how many people have been enrolled. host: when do we know that those numbers, that the caller is talking about, when are those numbers come out? guest: it may be months. there are still components that aren't built yet and the administration says they may

not be built until the summer when we see that data. so it could be a few months at the least. although you can get a rough estimate around 80 to 85% of the people signing up are paying so you sort of ball park it. the caller is correct we don't know how many people have been enrolled at this point. host: another question on enrollments. guest: that's another one of the mysteries we would like to know. we have seen some surveys that suggest started out earlier at 10%, gone up to 25% of people who are again enrolled are new newly enrolled or newly insured. and again that's what strikes part of the heart of the law is to get people who were uninsured into coverage. so knowing that number will be a big help but one of the mysteries we don't know yet. host: on our line for democrats. good morning. caller: thank you for take mig call. way stion is, with the

the government has been with the health care, with obamacare started, we had a crash with the obamacare. and my question is, how can we avoid that from happening again? thank you. guest: talking about the website itself? when you're talking about that? caller: yes. the website itself. guest: and again, i mentioned earlier that the website is now for the most part up and running. i think one of the things that that laid bare was part of the problem with the way the federal government contracts with these massive it companies and hands out these massive contracts and the president has spoken to this and says this speaks to the need for contracting reform and the way we select our vendors and the ability to be nimble and flexible when it comes to how we contract and with whom we contract. so i think for any other large

undertaking like this, which again this is an undertaking probably larger than any the federal government has ever undertaken, you probably see some kind of reform on the it side in the way the government contracts. host: as we talk about this upcoming deadline we should probably note that there is a difference at what's happening at the end of the month and then signups for medicaid. correct? guest: exactly the march 31 deadline is the deadline for enrollment in exchanges which is the new market places available for people who are above depending on which state you live in above 133% of the poverty level. many are eligible for tax credits. that's the key component for the new law. for those people who don't have affordable coverage offered by their employers. you signed up for medicaid but medicaid you can enroll in all year. host: a question on twitter. guest: and that was one of the

things we heard especially in january when coverage first went live and there were gaps and the insurers hadn't been receiving information from the website and feeding incorrect information from the website. so that is definitely a fear i think the administration has made some maneuvers using regulations and urging insurers to be reasonable and treat each case with care and not deny someone important coverage that they need. and then they would sort it out later when they actually correct and reconcile the data. so the idea is that nobody would ever appear in the emergency room or somewhere or be told you're not covered. but again, it's been imperfect and we have heard aneck dotes where people have run into that problem. host: a special line this morning set up for those 35 and younger. we'll go to that line now. pennsylvania. good morning. caller: i was just curious. do you think the president dreamed too big?

guest: when it came to the affordable care act here? caller: yes. do you think he saw something that he wants it, he saw something that would be great for this nation. but it just wasn't in reach yet? he just dreamed too big. guest: host: how would you answer your own question? caller: i think that's what happened. the country's not ready for it. we have other thing that is we need to get handled. i mean, our foreign policy's gone to crap. i mean, to hear about it, to hear certain stories, it sounds like the greatest thing ever. yet i mean, have you looked at minimum wage and maybe raised that? giving us the money and the ability to pay some of these premiums and so forth, would that have helped? guest: i think your point is an interesting one because a lot of democrats and his allies in particular say he didn't dream

big enough on this law, i think on the left and among democrats the single pair system was always the ideal. which is something that doesn't really have a lot of political traction. but it would eliminate the whole notion of private insurance, which is -- can be very messy and complicated. and it is in part the push to preserve that private insurance system that again occasionally runs up against what democrats really would prefer, that has created some of the complexities of this and some of the problems that we've seen. so in some sense some people would say he tried to be too -- thread the needle too much to preserve the private system but advance health care to all. and when you do that it creates such a thicket of rules and complicated processes, that that actually is the root of the issues that we've seen so far. rather than reaching too far. host: talk about some of the back and forth on the political

side. there was another house vote that had to do with part of the affordable care act, a major part on friday. what was that? guest: the house vote on friday just remind me. there's a vote every week on elements. host: to delay. >> right. my mind is going because we have a different repeal vote every week. this one in particular again you mentioned the doc fix, a major change to the medicare physician formula the way they're paid. it's interesting because there's been a bipartisan push in health care you don't see that too often these days among democrats and republicanses in the house and senate to craft a solution to this decades old problem of the way medicare doctors get paid. and it was cruising along and then republicans in the house and the senate actually decide it had way we're going to pay for this change is by delaying the individual mandate which again sort of guts big piece of

the affordable care act. and democrats can't support that. it has no traction in the senate. so in a sense it derailed what was actually a bright spot of bipartisanship in the health care arena for the first time in a long time. and so it's unclear if that kills the doc fix for the year, which again is a huge goal in terms of a realigning the way medicare pays its physicians. host: what are the chance force this vote that happened in the house this week in the senate guest: they're nill. the senate won't entertain something that guts a major funding implement. they're back to square one. the policy is still there if they can come up with a pay for it. but delaying the individual mandate will never pass. host: 20 minutes left talking about the looming deadlines for the affordable care act to sign up on those insurance exchanges with kyle cheney, a health care

reporter of politico. we're taking your comments on twitter. ou can also e-mail us as well. kevin writes on our twitter page. et's go to diane in texas. caller: good morning. yesterday the president was saying that he has given the green light on the affordable care act. what i would like to know is how could anybody trust that man? he said admittedly on jay leno that he doesn't know math. he couldn't even help his daughter with math. how could he possibly fix an economy and get jobs created when he doesn't know math? he's ill lit rat in it. he should come out right now and explain to us the truth about what's going on. tell us that -- host: can i ask you what's your

health care situation and does any of the affordable care act has it affected you? guest: oh, yes. host: how so? caller: you could ask cast row here . host: how has it impacted you personally? caller: for 2-1/2 months all i did every day was go on the website. i called up the attorney general when it switched me over to expeerion. i went out of my mind. i -- a dope addict answered the phone. i couldn't believe it. and i called the attorney general. he had to call washington in the beginning to find out if we were supposed to call expeerion. there was no communications between washington and what was supposed to go on with the act. but obama's good at talking talking rhetoric. but just give us solutions. host: talking about her experience in san antonio, texas. we'll go to david in maryland on our line for those who are 35 and younger. a republican. thanks for calling in this

morning. caller: thank you. i just wanted to talk to the gentleman. i'm 31 years old and going to the aca. once you turn 30, you cannot have these quote/unquote catastrophic plans any more. i wanted to say the plan that i have currently with aetna, which they are currently going to leave the state of maryland, and i can't say it's because or not but my plan is 100% co-insurance with a 500 deductible. so the plans that are offered when the state, you know, the common ones are like a 6,000 deductible and would be 06%. even the platinum plans are only 90%. so essentially you could pay more up to a high deductible and then pay part of a cost of the actual coverage once you use the plan which currently i wouldn't pay now, plus it doesn't include anything like dental or vision where mine now

covers dental. it's just so ludicrous that these people once they use these plans will realize that the plans are absolute garbage compared to what quote/unquote is junk now. guest: you mentioned the idea about catastrophic plans which again the affordable care act allouse people under 30 as you mentioned to sign up for these certain really small-scale plans. but even some of those small-scale plans have new requirements in them about minimum standards of coverage. so if you were in a plan that didn't meet those that may not be available any more. because you're now over 30 you may not have access to the same kind of catastrophic level plan you described. although there are other exemptions in the health care law that would make you eligible for the plan. and then as you mentioned, too, some of these bronds plans are actually pretty bare-bones coverage. they come with new protections and benefits that may not have been available before the law.

but because of the law, because the bronze plans themselves were meant to be sparor than some of the higher tears of coverage you may find yourself with a higher deductible. host: on this st. patrick's day we'll go to irish ice. guest: partly has to do with if you're eligible for tax credits and subsidies from the government, they do a -- sort of a detailed financial check on you that includes through the i.r.s. and homents and other aspects of government where they can verify your records and insure that you truly are eligible for a tax credit. that's part of the process they're using to verify the people who get those tax credits are expected or eligible for them. host: we're talking with kyle cheney, health care reporter with politico. have about 15 minutes or so

left to discuss the looming deadline for the affordable care act. would love to hear your experiences. we have a special line set up for those age 35 and younger. the number is on your screen. let's go to david in minnesota on our line for independents. good morning. caller: good morning. my comment is pretty simple. i'm a reasonably smart guy and i did the math. when i was working for corporate america i went back and looked it up. my monthly health charge through the company insurance was $460. i called in to the -- one of the affordable care lines and got an estimate. the amount of money that i would have to pay -- and this is personally per month -- is $470 a month. so i'm looking at a yearly bill of $5,600. i am amonged the group of people who have lived a healthy

lifestyle. i go out every other morning like clockworks a two-mile walk. i haven't had even a cold for 10 years. so i do myself more as being more in the 35 and under group instead of the 55-year-old where i'm at. all i want from health care is pretty simple. pay for the medications that i need right now. 90-day supply of what i need is $100. i want regular checkups. i don't need anything else at this point in my life. as far as emergency care, i have the reagan health care reform from what was it 1998 that says no emergency room can turn me away. so at that point as opposed to the affordable care act, i am

ctually saving myself over $3,000 a year. and if you add in the $700 fine per year from the i.r.s. for not signing up for it, well, then it, it is still close to $3000 a year i am saving. host: your thoughts. sure -- the $700 fine. i think it varies depending on income. the first year, $95 or one percent of your income if you are supposed to get coverage and you don't. i wasn't clear from the caller if he has an employer-sponsored health land, and if the cost of that went up and if that was done by the employer may get a response to some changes. the callerre where would fit in in terms of having prices on theo exchange or tax credit

availability and all of that. you do hear situations where people see their bills go up and immediately linked it to the affordable care act and if it is -- and if it is not clear whether the employer made. but the affordable care act becomes -- i don't want to say scapegoat that the cause of concern about seeing premiums rise. host: little rock, arkansas. caller: i am an underwriter. i went through several of the aca classes here in arkansas. thecan tell by the way whole organization for this is put together that they did not bring in anybody who was an expert in any field of creating policies, such things, in the beginning. this think could not have been put together worse from word go. in the united states, insurance has been a regional animal because people make different incomes, have different health.

to $6,000,table which is what most cannot afford but if you live in new york or isifornia, $6,000 adaptable probably what you will pay. you live in texas, kentucky, --n south like that, you may not be able to get the money together. as far as people enroll now, we know at least 4 million, as many as 7 million people's insurance was canceled but normally would not so of the people who signed up, we don't know how many are replacement policies. and all the people they put on medicaid, the reason these emergency rooms are even more full is because most doctors will not take medicaid. as far as the whole thing put together, the people thought the little too much about themselves about they could put something together without bringing expert in on it. guest: an argument you hear a lot from critics of the affordable care act, which is the law itself, they basically call it a one-size-fits-all solution where you later these very complicated policies on a nation that is extremely

complex. where again, you have states like new york and california that are extremely different than states in the midwest in terms of the cost of living and the expected cost of health care. so when you later these national policies on top of the existing systems in those states and each state retains some form of autonomy over the insurance market, it can be very complicated and you can end up with a lot of states where they are resisting precisely because the affordable care act does not work on their state. host: you talk about critics of the affordable care act. some sit on the republican side of the aisle. on the house ways and means committee, that is where health and human services secretary kathleen sebelius found herself earlier this week answering questions from congressman kevin brady, republican congressman. here is a bit of that exchange. [video clip] >> madam secretary, when you were a for the committee april of last year you ensured there would be no more delays of the

affordable care act. we have had eight delays since those assurances which brings the total of 35. for families at home, what other delays can they expect? are you going to delay the mandate that individuals have to buy government approved health care or pay a tax? >> no, sir. >> are you going to delay the open enrollment beyond march 31 question for >> no, sir. >> is it correct that you don't have the authority to extend that deadline? position the centers for medicare and medicaid made, do you agree with that? >> i have not seen their statement, sir, but there is no delay beyond march 31. kyle cheney, how much concern is there that there will be further delays? said: the line of delays the narrative that the bill was not ready for crime -- prime time.

they delayed pieces of the periodically. we are not getting a piece -- any signals that any core components of the law will be delayed, whether before the enrollment deadline or march 31 and no signal at all they will extend the deadline am a perhaps maybe for people who had last-minute glitches. i don't think you will see the sort of delays we have seen to this point, which is the big one being the delay of larger employers providing coverage and escaping penalties if they don't. number we have seen a today and republicans underscore that as we get closer to election season, the more they talk about delays and the more it emphasizes that parts of the law were not ready to go live when they were supposed to be. host: a special line for those 35 or younger. washington,re in dc. good morning. go ahead. i am about to turn 25 in april and i got a job.

i moved down from new hampshire, like one of your previous callers. i decided to stay on my parents insurance. i was not making enough money -- i guess i am making not enough money to get a subsidy -- i guess i am making enough money not to get a subsidy. i want to the website. i was totally refused to my dad talked me into staying on his insurance for another year because it was such a disaster area. host: and experience you have heard other people have? guest: one of the bright spots for the white house is the estimate around 3 million young adults stay on their parents' plans, and people who may not have that coverage of the wise and individual market or the jobs. when you hear white house talking about millions and rolled, they include a 3 million adults who are able to have covered to not because they stayed on the parents plan. through 26. peoplenot heard about

transitioning away once they hit the 26th birthday and have to , those people as they have to -- they have to relearn experiencing the marketplace. host: keith from evansville, indiana. good morning. colorcode good morning, gentlemen. yes, my comment is -- caller: good morning, gentlemen. yes, my comment is my feeling is that everything is being implemented all at one time. the health care, the immigration policy, the stopping of building , the scandal and all of that. it seems like all of this is one big conspiracy to break our country. to pile on so much stuff that there is no way we are going to get out from under it. my son works at a cemetery. he's got a children. and he was promised a job, a

full-time job. now since this health care -- this health care thing is coming, he works 29 hours a week and he has to take care of eight kids. he works as but off digging graves all and freezing, 18 degrees below zero, he's got to be there and do his job. help,he is not there to it puts all the work off of my wife. isust feel that all of this one big bill to break our country. this is just a feeling i have at this moment. i voted for president obama. is calling everybody a liar -- liar. all he has to do is call me and i can prove to him my son cannot have his job because of health care. about theerns health-care law cutting back on hours that people can work. guest: absolutely. that is one of the lines you will hear a lot more of year. republicans, in the many hopes to gut the law, actually focused

of america,timing saying the law actually encourages companies to employ people fewer than 30 hours ago is that is the threshold that employers need to provide full coverage. aboutave been talking pushing it up to 40 hours and even some democrats are sympathetic to that. although the administration argues there is no data that suggests employers are making that shift toward part-time. on ouroyce is in texas line for republicans. good morning. you are on "washington journal." caller: good morning. i am calling because my husband and i fall into a group -- we are self-employed. fluctuates from month to month, week to week. see abouted to

insurance, because we never had insurance. but because we don't qualify for subsidies because sometimes we make more money and someone -- months we make less money, the insurance agent said that if we went above a certain amount, that we would have to repay any subsidies that we have qualify for before. so even looking at the bronze plan, the premium would have been $850 a month and then a $6,000 deductible per person. $850 is equal to my house payment. up.our income is not going i just wondered if there is anything that could be done for --ple who are self-employed we kind of seems to be left out

of the equation. guest: at is true. the self-employed do not always fit into a neat box limit comes to health policy. one of the things you talk about that is a real field is real fear that we will hear more of is the notion of reconciliation. receive aes if people tax credit and income during the year was higher than expected, they are actually required to pay back the amount that they shouldn't have received had they predicted the income accurately. when you talk about fluctuating income and whether you may be above or below a certain line for a tax credit, that is something we will hear a lot more about later in the year and it will impact the war self-employed. on the other side of the coin, you will hear from supporters of the law that people have more freedom to pursue their own business ventures and be self-employed because they are not locked into certain jobs where they are totally dependent on that job for their health care. so on the flip side, there are some aspects of the law that could free people up to pursue their own employment, their own

business ideas, but then again, you are going to hear complications in terms of things like how do you receive subsidies. host: we talked about the tax penalty. another question from twitter -- is it true the tax penalty can only be elected from tax refunds refundyou go -- get no and do not buy insurance, how will the tax be collected? guest: it is correct. it is meant, when you file your taxes during tax season, the irs certifies whether or not you had health care during all the months you were required to have health care. essentially, if you had health for anything less than nine months of a year you are subject to a penalty and it varies based on your income. it is deducted from your return. i heard theories -- although i am not 100% -- not 100th uninsured -- if you did not receive return they have no mechanism of cannot -- of collecting it from you. host: kyle cheney from politico, health care reporter. he also covered previously when

he worked at the statehouse news service in boston. guest: that correct. health care is a pretty big deal and everybody thinks of massachusetts a precursor to obamacare. host: a couple of callers waiting for you. ham, north in dur carolina. caller: good morning. i wonder what health care would look like if democrats, republicans, independents, and americans all worked together. looking at some kind of alzheimer's disease. president obama, when he tried to pass health care, he had so much opposition, it would not have passed. theried to push single-payer system, and every

republican went against that. g inthey are still callin this, talking about the problems. but i wonder if we all worked together as americans what health care would look like question mark -- would look like? people a few years ago what it might look like if everyone worked together, you might have people describing the system like the one we have, at least if you talk to supporters of this law. they will say this is built on republican free-market ideas where you actually boost private sector insurance and preserved the system as opposed to what the democrats want, which is the single-payer system which would have totally scrapped everything that is there and disrupted -- been a lot more disruptive than even the admittedly disruptive system that is in place today. it will be interesting to see what it would be like in that sort of hypothetical world with everyone working together. but it may not be so far off

from what we looking at today. host: concorde, new hampshire. the line for independents. you will be the last caller for the segment. caller: good morning. this personal call from new hampshire earlier and talked about only one option, one insurance company. i've done research in this because i just have the time to and everybody says this is a federal takeover of health care, but what they forget is there are 50 insurance commissioners. i am happy kyl worked in issachusetts, because when worked in massachusetts and lived in new hampshire i had to get insurance under romneycare. the only problem was he was no good in new hampshire. i actually had to have two health insurance is, one when i was home and adding to my home state and one when i was at work. i insurance new hampshire would not cover me in math and my math insurance will not cover me in new hampshire. say thaterybody to

obamacare made all these changes, better start looking at your own state insurance commission. host: kyle cheney, in the last minute. guest: new hampshire is such an interesting situation, as the previous caller mentioned. you have one insurer in the exchange, mississippi has two. you hear a lot of situations where people are not thrilled with the options that are out there. there really aren't options. you are hearing republican starting to put together an alternative proposal to obamacare i wanted the features is the ability for insurers to sell policies across state lines -- one of the features is the ability for insurers to sell policies from across state lines. in a mess -- it is a messy situation where each state gets to control its own insurance market and you later obamacare on top of that and he creates these complexities and conflicts with state and federal law. host: that alternative proposal from republicans making news just this weekend as well.

jacob exactly. "washington post" had a story about the principles they are outlined. they are familiar principles but they are at least 30 to but together the pieces of the rebuttal. host: always appreciate you coming by "washington journal." next we will talk about the five-year anniversary of the home affordable modification program, which allows average homeowners to temporarily reduce mortgage payments. but first, a news update from c-span radio. secretary of state john kerry has announced a new special envoy for syria. naming career diplomat daniel rubenstein to the post. theucceeds robert ford in job who retired earlier this year amid a breakdown and talks between the syrian government and opposition forces. secretary kerry says ambassador rubenstein will travel to the region in the coming week. turning to the situation in ukraine, nato secretary-general

tweets this hour that the "so-called referendum in crimea is illegal and illegitimate and that it violated the ukrainian constitution and international law." adding that nato allies do not recognize the result. nbc news reports that ukraine's parliament and/or state residential decreed today to deploy 40,000 reservists to the army and national guard. just hours after crimea voted to join russia. minutes ago, the associated press reported that european union foreign ministers imposed travel bans and asset freezes on running when people they linked to a push for the succession and possible annexation of ukraine's crimean peninsula. the ministers meeting in brussels but not immediately release the names and nationalities of those targeted by the sanctions. and those are some of the latest headlines on c-span radio. >> what we are focused on making sure we can eliminate barriers to getting those networks in place, building out these

networks is our priority. sometimes there are local siting issues, sometimes federal rules that might affect how we or what thengs lighting might be an impact on historic sites on the environment. we want to make sure we are sensitive to those issues. at the same time we want to make sure we move forward on employment because -- deployment because our customers who use these devices every day depend on having a good, strong connection and getting day-to-day when they wanted and wherever they wanted. >> the wireless infrastructure, tonight on "the communicators" 8:00 p.m. eastern on c-span2. "washington journal" continues. this segmentek in we take a look at how your money is at work in a different federal program. this week we are joined by phillip swagel, professor phillip swagel, former assistant

treasury secretary for economic policy. we will be discussing the home affordable modification program, which markets five-year anniversary earlier this month. is theor swagel, what hamp program and why was it created in the first place? guest: hamp was a response to the financial crisis. y did lots of things to stabilize the markets and in 2008 and into thousand nine individual steps were taken to help homeowners. of programsuite undertaken by the obama administration starting in 2009 to help individual homeowners, whether to modify mortgages, reduce the principal -- you use -- and now or units you owe $200,000, or lowering interest rates. host: how much money was put into the hand for a gram? -- into the hamp program?

guest: the amount of money spent, $10 billion, in real terms is a lot of money but relative to the size of $700 billion in tarp is not a huge amount. most of the money to help individual homeowners came not directly from the federal government through fannie mae and freddie mac, through refinancing. individual homeowners got lower interest rates and the owners of the mortgages as a result got lower payments come and we as taxpayers were owners of many of those mortgages through our ownership of fannie mae and freddie mac. host: statistics on how many program,ed the hamp according to the inspector general. about 1.20 7 million mortgages have been modified under hamp, about 894,000 are still active. defaultedave re-

according to the report. that rate of default, is that high according to projections? guest: yeah, it is disappointing but not too surprising. over the last five years we have had a very weak economy and for much of the period, home prices have continued to fall. theireone who has lost job and his underwater on their mortgage and owes more on their loans in the house is worth, there is a very substantial incentive to walk away from their home and allow foreclosure . that's it, the bank in most states do not go after the car or attach wages. it is a powerful center for foreclosure. host: we showed this to our viewers watching a little bit earlier, but we want to talk eligibility requirement. how does one qualify? guest: it is a little bit of a program that is ending because it was meant to help people who

through the beginning of 2009 were stuck in unsustainable situations, high interest rates, and could not refinance. years later.e many of the people who were in that circumstances who were meant to be hamp or the suite of tools are now either ok with their home prices going up or they already refinance for they are ready sold and moved. the number of people still eligible is very small. host: is there a number of how much it lowered peoples mortgage payments by? guest: i wrote it down. n monthly savings was er household.h p again, it is not a huge amount of money -- host: the 1.20 7 million people 1.27 million people.

guest: what is interesting, another 28 .6 million people who refinance mortgages on their own. we know what happened. interest rates went rock bottom and everyone and their neighbor refinance their mortgage. many people did it on their own. they were not in trouble. they could afford their home. they got a good deal. all is good. but, the 27 million were people who were in danger, and they got help on their own in the private sector. that does not get counted in the special inspector general's report, but it is part of -- i think part of the program that has helped. host: we were talking with phillip swagel, former assistant treasury secretary for economic policy. also a professor of international economics at the university of maryland school for public policy. we are talking in the "your money" segment on the hamp program, home affordability modification program.

our phone lands are open. host: and we have a special line for hamp participants -- we would love to hear your stories and how they impacted you -- how it impacted you. when does it end? guest: the administration formally extended it for another year or two. it is coming to an end in the sense that there are very few people who still need the help. again, there are not many americans still in trouble, still in a difficult situation but given the particular eligibility requirements of someone losing their home before 2009 and had trouble with their mortgage, there are very few people in that situation still left. host: we talked about the sigtarp report on the hamp

program. here's a chart from that report that we will show to our viewers. it talks about the re-defaulted homeowners who participated in hamp. it breaks it down by region. it noted that the highest re- default rate, those who used the program but then re-defaulted on their loans, cap and in the southwest region, south central region. 104,000 people participated in modifications under the hamp program. defaulted, a0 re- rate of 32%. almost 200,000 people participated in the midwest, 62,500 re-defaulted, a rate of 31%. was there an expectation of numbers of people who would re- default, even though they were using the hamp program? guest: a lot of this was set up on the fly with lots of

tinkering, it is probably some of the problems with the program. the adjustments cap coming and it made it difficult for the financial sector side of the occasion to implement it -- the adjustments kept coming. i would say the numbers on the high side but they are not unexpected, again, given what has happened over the last five years. this is where someone has gotten assistance. they are having trouble with their loan and they got assistance, whether their loan balance that reduced or their interest rate. lowered, or both. and then a year later, six later,later, 18 months they got something else and they cannot make it. unfortunately it is naturally going to happen in the weak economy we have had. some people got a modification and it looks good to go, or maybe themselves or their spouse lost a job and they could not do it. it is a tough question for society. someone who can't afford their home, to what extent should the rest of us help them out?

bigourse, there is a very incentive and reason why we should, but there is a countervailing reason on the other side saying there should be a limit to public assistance. host: it goes to sandy's question on twitter. since when has it become the government's duty to step in and give free taxpayer money out to save homeowners from default? on theof course, it is other side. it is a very powerful factor behind the obama administration's design. i was in the bush treasury, so i was not there when they did the design. things we talked about when i was in the treasury, and we thought about. the obama administration was trying to thread a needle between helping people and being effective, but not helping so -- what the caller had to say, it is a very legitimate thing. why should this caller help a neighbor who bought too big of a home stay in their house? but there is a good reason, though, and this is something former fed chair ben bernanke has said.

if your neighbor defaults on their home, the grass does not get cut, they sell their home for less than they might otherwise, and it affects you in their neighborhood. there's frustration but there is a powerful reason why you might want to help others. and of course, in a rich and caring society, we want to help our neighbors to begin with. host: jim on twitter says that 20%total re-default rate, over the entire program, according to the report here it he says it is outrageously high and approves they made loans to deadbeats. can you talk about how people were selected to participate in this program? i know we went over the qualifications. the comment, that is a tough one. it is hard to know which people make it with some help. people'sis to look at individual situations -- which again, administrative lead, difficult.

how many viewers would know where all their loan documents are and be able to produce them? you look at each individual homeowner and say, ok, here is your interest rates that's interest rate now the value of your loan. if we knocked down the value of your loan, if we look we interest rate from 6.5 to 4.5, what does it do to your monthly payment and your incentive? and then try to get low enough so it looks like the homeowner a sustainable. many of these so-called re- default people, they met the criteria. the monthly payment was reduced enough that it looked like they would make it, and then something happened. for many of them, maybe they lost their job and many people lost their job in 2010 after getting a modification. and that is just what is going to happen in a weak economy as we have had for much of the last five years. host: let's go to the callers. a special line set up for hamp participants. 585-3883. other lines are open and we will put them on the screen as well. one of the hamp participants

calling in is from st. louis, missouri. he is a democrat and a hamp participant. good morning. i would like to comment on a couple of the facts right quick. first of all, to the guy who calls people deadbeats because that takes advantage. i mean, an unfair disadvantage of an unsuspecting consumer not being financially versed in doing a home loan. america.e problem in sugarcoated by saying the person bit off more than they can chew. how can you blame a victim for a crook? the banks are crooks. me and my wife, when we purchased our home, we had a credit but they put us with the worst loan products, the highest payment. we did not get a walk-through on our house.

there were so many things that they violated. , as this program is coming to an end, had you started to see your mortgage rate go back up, and would you mind sharing how much you're seeing them go up? bank has never did anything. they send you all of these offers. they told us they would reduce are known, and this would be our new payment. and then they turn around and try to make us qualify for something we already purchased. 1500, then was adjusted up to $3500, the president or nobody in america could've afforded their home. guest: a couple of thoughts. these are the kinds of stories that go behind the numbers. administration's statistics, if you go to the treasury website there is a link for the number of people help. millions of people, just like our caller, who had got the

runaround from the bank or the help was not enough or some other thing happened. of course, one of the most difficult parts of the housing fiasco is foreclosure that millions of americans got into homes they cannot afford. again, i am not saying this particular caller, because i do not know the individual situation. but i think we all understand that. some people were duped, some were victims of predatory lending and some people were victims of themselves, in terms of their eyes bigger than their wallet. and the foreclosure crisis is a mix of all of that, and that is what is so hard, which is to say, which of those people should be helped? a person who cannot afford her home but has three investor homes. the obama administration tried not to help them, but it is hard to weed those people out. two more thoughts on the same topic. the consumer financial protection bureau has a mandate to go after this behavior.

predatory lending practices by banks, they have a mandate and they are acting on it. one of the problems as they are not setting out how they are acting on it. you can imagine from the consumer's perspective, you want someone with your back, you want someone watching out for you. from the lender's perspective, you want to know what the rules bre good and the cfp be -- cfp is not done that and it has gone after banks, gotten banks to admit guilt, without saying what the fault is. there could be built. in the could be problems, but we need clear rules of the road so banks can make loans, consumers can find on the dotted line. we need to get our house in system that to normal, and unfortunately we're still some ways away. host: the five-year anniversary of the home affordable modification program did earlier this month. we are talking about it in today's segment on "washington journal." let's go to fred waiting in ohio on our line for republicans.

fred, good morning. caller: good morning, gentlemen. can you hear me? host: yeah, go ahead. i worked in my industry my entire life. i literally got my real estate license and eight -- 80 -- 818, for the broker's license at 21. i am a little over 50. there are so many other solutions. when you go to purchase a property with a mortgage you are generally required to have title insurance. you are generally entitled to have insurance to protect it in the event it is damaged, for whatever reason. you can actually head to the change in value. case shiller came up with the perfect equation. i do it every bit -- every year. you can go to the cme and you can hedge the decline in value of your property. you can also had your interest rate changes. and the cost may be one percent maybe oneit costs

percent a year. so why not required -- particularly in the high risk loans, if someone is paying less than 20% they should be required. they are already paying mortgage insurance. they are already paying other things. my dad as well later it off and it shares the risk across the board. it also forces them to become more sophisticated in what options they have available to them. at, we could have avoided the vast majority of these things. because it was definitely people who didn't understand, as the one gentleman said earlier. guest: thanks very much. it is a really great comment. areas.goes into so many as a nation, with all brave homeownership, and properly so. there are many positive externalities from having safe neighborhoods to lower crime, having people invested in their homes and the neighborhoods. and then again, many americans are not quite ready yet for

homeownership that you want to make sure people are in a sustainable home. some of the tools fred mentioned would do exactly this. of course, title insurance. but when he talks about hedging the interest rate and price risk. they are really great tools. one of the problems in 2007, 2008, which exacerbated the downward momentum of the housing market is the phenomenon will -- if people do not want to catch a falling knife. a terrible metaphor. home prices were going down and both homeowners and investors did not want to buy homes in a neighborhood in vegas or arizona or the inland empire and california were home prices were falling and the foreclosure dynamics were such that they could be expected to fall, and that behavior put further downward pressure on prices. there are financial products to hedge exactly these kinds of risks. of course, fire insurance when there is a fire is very expensive. so these kinds of financial

mechanisms would add to the cost of home ownership. i agree with the caller, he thinks we as a nation should seriously consider it a muggle we have to understand there are impact in both directions. and another thing i want to vehemently agree with the caller that financial education is something that is needed. clearly it was shown in the wake of the crisis. too many americans did not understand what they were getting into. and the documents are complex. financing is complex. but it is very important. host: we mentioned the hamp program is coming to an end and mortgage rates are starting to reset for those participants to the rate they had before dissipating the program. on "the washington post" lays out the number of homes and participants will see their mortgages reset in the coming years. 30,000 will see their mortgages reset in 2014. close to 257,000 in 2015 and it

in 2016, to 188,000 125,000 in 2017 and just over 100,000 in 2018. we are talking about the hamp program in the "your money" segment. whether special line for hamp participants. line inn that jacksonville, florida. jia is a democrat. good morning. caller: good morning. several little comments to make, and i will try to make it quick. i have been through three housing seminars that have come through jacksonville to help homeowners that are trying to get their loans refinanced or their payments reduced. and over 95% of the people that are at -- that come to the seminars are just average working people that don't own two and three properties, that were in just a regular mortgage,

and they were trying to apply to or apply for am modification within their mortgage company. and payments were only reduced not enough to really make a difference, according to their financials. one, the mortgage lenders were able to say we helped those people even though they did not really help someone. if your mortgage is $1500 and it they puteduced $200, all the behind payments on the bottom and it would appear on paper that the mortgages were reduced, but not really. make them look good, but not really to help the participants in their situation. two, in my case, i didn't buy a home that was above my limit. $92,000. but today they tacked on

$117,000 worth of fees that no one at this point cannot explain. modifications were not based on your current financial situation. wererd that they computer-generated and they were generated to make every thing even and fair in an perfect and a world to make it look like they helped the participants. saying is, i don't know where he gets the statistics from, but if he has ever been to the seminars, we are just average working people. host: i will let professors wiggle jump in. guest: thanks very much for the comment. the statistic i mentioned when i looked down, right from the treasury website. treasury.gov. and on the right-hand side of the screen, there is a fee.

that is what i'm looking at. let me mention two issues raised by the caller. there is no rent answer here, and that is what makes it tough. we are trying to help people with the right amount but not too much. it is really a fine balancing act. if president obama would reflect on this backwards, and maybe tim geithner in his forthcoming book will do this, they will conclude that they were probably too prudent in their perspective. it is a tough balancing act. if they were going to do this, do a homeowner bailout, they've got all the political fire for doing this, for bailing out a homeowner, but they do not do it as effectively as they could have. they only got really effective when they eventually did harp ii , a wider scale refinancing program which ironically was suggested by ed demarco, a career staffer and a holdover from the bush administration. --se are some of the most

some of the most effective programs were suggested by people from the bush administration. i'm sure that we'll get some calls on the democratic line. tough part, which is, as the caller mentioned, interest rate modification or the mortgage modification was enough to make it look good but not enough to help them. it is a tough question. and housing part lands they talk about the front end and the back and. imagine somebody who gets a lot of help on their mortgage. their mortgages cut down so it looks like they can afford it, but that same person as credit card debt or other bills. maybe alimony or child support. things like that, which is a very normal situation in our society. you might even expect that housingwho has a lot of debt might also have a lot of credit card debt. the overextended in one direction and maybe in another as well. you can consider all of that if you are going to look at someone's entire financial situation, but that takes time.

2009, 2010, the focus was on speed, on getting people some help right away. and so some of these backend data were not considered as well as they could have been. people were not helped as much as they and needed to. if someone had a huge credit card debt, is it society's responsibility to help them or should they be a renter and rather than a homeowner? let me went in -- mention one other thing that was in the news recently, a national mortgage settlement. the attorneys general of the united states got together to banks and got a certain number of billions of dollars of help. the state of california was just sued by a coalition of housing help groups to say, look, governor brown, you took these billions of dollars that you said was going to help people and you put it to your own purposes, to stabilize the state budget. now you are boasting about the state budget is in great shape

-- which is not, but that is what he is boasting about -- but there are millions of californians you said you would help and you didn't. host: you talk about the news recently. there is a new housing related proposal that just came out, i believe, just yesterday, in the senate. correct? guest: that is right. host: what is that? guest: a lot going on still in housing. there is a sense in which housing is the unfinished business of the financial crisis. the dodd-frank law on banks, but housing and how -- and housing finance is still there. senators johnson and crapo, chairman and ranking member of the senate banking committee, yesterday released a text of a proposal on reforming housing finance. this is the form of any may and -- fannie mae and freddie mac. the idea is to better protect taxpayers. there was a $190 million -- $190 billion bailout of fannie and

freddie. to better protect taxpayers and at the same time provide the roles of the game so private funds and again flow and be the cash behind mortgages. i still think we can do both as taxpayers and provide better access to mortgages, including those who now are shut out, who cannot get a mortgage now because they perhaps had a being or to on the credit report -- ding or two on the credit report. host: we have 15 minutes left to talk about a hamp program. a few tweets, a common, and then a question. karen's comment. what about personal responsibility? buyers must sign under penalty of perjury that they understand the month it a question from joy availablehamp program to non-us citizens? guest: the second one is a really good question. i don't know.

if someone is a legal resident -- that is a good question. i don't know. it is a great question. of course, that has been a big issue with health care, with the affordable care act, which is non-citizens. to on the personal responsibility and signing on a data line. of course, i suspect all of us, when we took the cellophane off of our new laptop computer, click on the button saying i read it and i understand it. i bet one or two of us didn't. where we click but we did not read. i absolutely agree. for most of us, buying a home is the biggest and most important purchase -- biggest and most important financial transaction of their life. and everyone has a responsibility to understand it. in reality, many people didn't. in part, because the products, the mortgages that were used in the run-up to the financial crisis were complex. for twointerest rates

or three years, and in their interest rate reset, and it reset based on interest rate index tabulated in london by a bunch of big banks. is natural that many americans do not understand, and the information they were given was not enough to help them understand. that is something the consumer financial protection bureau really has done very well, telling banks you have to provide better information to potential home buyers, including but the payment is going to look like going forward. -- i am not disagreeing about the personal responsibility part. i just think the situation is pretty complex. but there has been some progress on a. host: 10 minutes left with phillip swagel, former assistant secretary of treasury for economic policy, 2006-2009. as i said, a professor of economics at maryland school of public holocene here to take -- public policy, here to take your calls. specialized for hamp

participants and ron is on that line, west chesterfield, new hampshire. he is a democrat as well. caller: good morning. can you hear me? ok, great. i am a participant of the hamp program. i've got to tell you, i think that this program -- in fact, i am so this program saved not only my home but also my family as well. i have two disabled members of my family. we had won a five percent down. i am a very hard-working american. had not a deadbeat -- we 25% down. i am a very hard-working americans that i am not a deadbeat. when president bush allowed our economy to crash, i lost is the spirit i'm self-employed. things went a little bit bad. we surely would have lost our home had it not been for this and my family probably would have been split updated there is absolutely no way we would have gotten another home that would have accommodated the disabled members of my family. and i am so thankful for this

program. now i have a question. what is the difference between a predatory loan and loansharking? if there is no difference -- and i don't believe there is -- why are these banks that were doing these predatory loans and these extremely high interest rates, taking advantage of people wherever and whenever they could backing 2008 -- back in 2008, why are they not in jail? predatory loan is just another nice word for loansharking. these people should be paying for their crimes. guest: ok, well, i just have to start with one note. the comment about president bush in 2008 "allow the economy to crash." to me, it is one of the symptoms of our divided society. you're one caller earlier talks about the deadbeats, which obviously ron took some exception to, and i think they're reasonably. and you say president bush allowed the economy to crash, which obviously he did not allow

the economy to crash. i would say the bush administration, from president bush on down took determined action, creative determined action to make the situation course, iut of understand -- i again, i am family say that but i think it is a little over-the-top. so predatory lending is a real issue. loan forhe right different families? there are some loans, the kind of loan they mentioned before, that have a reset provision. ee year time period of a fixed rate of very little interest rate and then the interest rate resets and it goes up. that might be an appropriate thing for someone. someone whose income is low now but will be high in the future, it is a perfectly reasonable thing. but for many americans, it was not the right mortgage. it was a teaser, it was a pure e.as someone who could afford the low rate but could not afford the

next 27 years. completely inappropriate loan. and too many lenders do not do that kind of analysis, did not explain it to people. hey, look, you have to think of all 27 years. and of course, too many americans did not do the analysis on their own. loansharking has certain connotations. the banking industry is very heavily regulated. but what is not heavily regulated until recently was actually origination. of the mortgage origination is regulated at the state level. again, look at the state of california, the epicenter of the foreclosure crisis, that was a failure of regulation and supervision there. and the last thought is this has been in the newspaper just today , about the priorities of the obama administration in enforcing the law. of course, we all know they choose what to enforce and what not to, and it turns out that going after this lending activity was at the bottom of their priority list. know, absolutely, i

agree that people who acted badly should face the consequences. host: a comment on our twitter page. good people are still struggling to keep your family in their home in 2014. shouldn't this problem be solved question mark at birth -- question for you, professor swagel. how does the administration measured the success of this program? when it is all said and done, how will they say this has been a success or failure? guest: a good question. and with the caller said is right -- it is 2014 and people are still struggling. on the administration's website they have a monthly scorecard that treasury and hud department put out, and it gives the numbers. the treasury website has numbers. just looking down to read some of them. modifications, 3 million refinances to underwater anothers, fha helping 3.2 million.

there are a whole number of statistics he could go through, and these are millions of homeowners helped. -- then another 26.8 million 2620 homeowners that refinancing other open private means. but million suffer closed on. ns like mine in new hampshire when a situation with a difficult economy and different situation and did not make it and suffer closed on. me, that is the terrible tragedy, that there are millions of americans, way more than there should have been, in that situation. and they are the am so the last five years. the financial crisis on the legacy of the financial crisis is what we as a society did not get that. what i saw him this is in terms of the obama administration, if you look at the numbers they put people,y helped many

and maybe even more than i would have expected them to be able to give them the kind of modest amount of help they did offer people. but they promised much more, right? early 2009 and as americans we do not know back then that really president obama would overpromise and under deliver, kind of his mo. this was the first 10. in this case he was the victim of his own overpromising, where in the end he actually delivered hee than people think but vastly overpromise so he is still dealing with the political fallout five years later. it's great time for a few more phone calls. -- host: time for a few more phone calls. brian and washington, d.c., on the line for independents. you're on the line with professor phillip swagel. caller: i just have a couple of questions. i have an investment property in maryland, and is that property -- would that qualify for a hamp , i guess, modification?

guest: know, generally it will not. i do not know the details of every single program but in general they tried to limit the programs to owner occupied rather than investor housing. host: another question? caller: the other question is, can you tell me in your own xactly what made homes lose their value? it seems that people are trying to say it was the owners and the borrowers. what actually dropped the value of homes and caused this catastrophe? guest: that is a great question and i think academically made this many will be struggling with for years, what were the factors and what were the causes. the first place i would suggest looking is the financial crisis inquiry commission established i congress, it put out this huge report which is really not very good, unfortunately. it was contentious and

politicized. , only 27y a dissent pages, with excellent. it is notead it, political. it goes through the causal factors in a very clear and crisp away. that is the first thing i would recommend. ng, in my owni words is what you asked for, is whose fault is it. to me it is the difficulty. no one person is at fault, no one institution. there is a sense in which the entire system failed. banks made loans they should not have, homeowners find them at that align for think they should not have done, credit rating agencies messed up, investors around the world invested in mortgage securities and did not do due diligence. the government did not supervise. the government did not have the right regulations of fannie mae and freddie mac. and on. you can go on and on. it is not like there is one thing that failed and therefore everything is messed up. is everything on top to bottom failed. this is the question of my mind

-- imagine if one of those links had not been broken? the investors said, hey, i am not going to buy that subprime mortgage-backed security because i don't know what is in it and they look like crazy loans. i demanded the loan documents and these look like crazy loans. i'm not investing in that. then the money would not have flowed down to the homeowners in california. to me, that is the tragedy, is there were so many broken links that lead to this. host: that is all the time we have with phillip swagel, professor of economic policy at maryland school of public policy and also a former treasury secretary for economic policy in 2006-2 thousand nine. i appreciate you coming on to talk about the hamp program this morning. that will be the show for you today. one programming note, tonight on booktv and prime time on c-span2 we will talk about u.s.-russia relations, and including the book "the new cold war."

berman will discuss "implosion," his book, and the afterwards program will discuss "the limits of partnership." that is tonight on c-span2. in the meantime, we hope you have a great tuesday and a great st. patrick's day. [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2014] [captioning performed by national captioning institute]

luck, we've got snow here in the nation's capital covering much of the mid-atlantic region here in washington, d.c., between 5 - 10 inches. most of our life programs were canceled. thisess happens to be out before a planned recess. members will return for legislative work next week. in use today we're learning that president obama signed an executive order imposing sanctions on russian officials within the government responsible for ukraine. the white house released a statement saying today's actions and a strong message to the russian government that there are can't does for their actions that violate the sovereignty and territorial integrity of ukraine including action supporting referendum for crimean separation. theident obama is welcoming