later, as part of our spotlight on magazine series, brian miller of bloomberg industries will discuss his recent article on trends in the u.s. gambling industry. andill also take your calls you can join the conversation on facebook and twitter. 0.mocrats, (202) 585-3881

n theus a tweet or joi conversation on facebook.com/c-span. .mail journal@c-span.org we will get your thoughts in a minute but joining us on the phone is richard wolf to talk about yesterday's decision. background first on this case, how it came before the supreme court. me.t: thank you for having the last set of major cases are in 2003, both out of michigan. one of which said that the university of michigan undergraduate school could not use quotas, racial preference quotas. lawother one said the school could use race among .ther factors

that said opponents of racial preferences to get a sed,titutional minute pas they succeeded in 2006. it has been the subject of legal efforts. to thee finally gets supreme court after the lower .ourt ruled one way the supreme court yesterday, after oral arguments in october, the supreme court took six months to come up with this decision and in a 6-2 decision said it was not for them to overrule what state voters wanted vis-à-vis preferences at universities. host: who were the judges that join together and what do they -- and whatrational did they say about their

rationale. guest: there was a plurality. anthony kennedy is frequently the swing vote and wrote the plurality opinion with chief justice roberts and justice alito joining him. three others concurred and ruled for the state to have the ban, but for different reasons. justices scalia, thomas, and justice breyer, who is more frequently aligned with the liberals. opinion.a third they said the ban is upheld. side, justice sotomayor or and justice the dissent.e justice elena kagan was recused, that is why it is -62. 6-2. is

presumably, she was involved in this case to some level when she was solicitor general. host: let's look at what justice kennedy had to say. this is not about how racial preferences should be resolved, it is about who should resolve it. there is no authority for the judiciary to set aside michigan lost that commit this to the voters. what is he saying? about this case was not -- reading, giving a summation of his 18 page opinion when he spoke from the bench. whethernot about universities can have affirmative action policies, they can. that court has ruled that they can, although the majority thinks it is very tenuous. this is about whether states can choose or a government body can

but we aree they can going to have a referendum in our state to decide whether they can. the voters say they cannot have . that becomes law if voters decide that, they have overruled what the court has said universities can do. it is not so much over affirmative action policies over what political action can be taken at what level of government. this action by the voters of michigan can be taken and it is not for us to overrule them. host: what president did they set with this decision? none, what i mentioned

before, there were three justices -- there was no majority for a reason. that is very important. the supreme court decided yesterday that the state could do this but they did not decide why. picture another state, say the state of maine decides we are going to ban racial preferences and they get taken to court. the lower courts in that state are not bound. this decision was not decided based on any one thing. in justices' minds, it was different reasons. host: some justices said this is about race, what did we hear from them question mark guest: that was the most interesting part of this case. the vehemence of justice sotomayor.

since she came on the court in 2009, she had never read a dissent from the bench, which is a fairly unusual occurrence. justice ginsburg did it four or five times in the last term. , anwrote a 58 page dissent extraordinary length, she was very vehement in reading a portion of her dissent from the bench yesterday. she is accusing the other justices or at least several of them of being naïve. justice roberts said the way to stop discriminating on the basis of race is the way to stop discriminating, just stop discriminating rather than coming up with new court decisions. her dissent basically said that is naïve. there is still racial injustice and a need to overcome racial injustice.

the policy that michigan and acted by a constitutional amendment sets back racial minorities beside the others. the key to this case. from the point of view of those who oppose the ban at from the point of view of justice sotomayor and justice ginsburg, what this amendment does, the amendment is worded very neutrally. it is very short. what justice sotomayor said in her dissent is as a result of with if you are a student a legacy status, one of your parents went to the school, or if you are a star athlete, you can continue to try to get into the public universities in to the schooling board and going to university officials and trying to get in through the normal admissions channels. but if you are a racial minority, the only way you can do that is to try to overturn the state constitution. bans onher states have

affirmative action. what has been the result of those bans? into: the evidence came play from the opponents and from soto mayor. seven other states have similar bans, including california and florida. some of them have had far more success than others in having arguen, which one could is a good thing to try to do, without upsetting the percentages of minorities that get into the state's most perceived as schools. florida has had notable success in coming up with other ways to continue to attract and admit minority students. california and michigan have not. their enrollment of minority students, blacks and hispanics in particular, have declined due in part or in full to having

these bans. that was part of justice sotomayor's dissent. she even had bar graphs in her 58 page dissent showing those declines at the top schools in university of the michigan ann arbor. this has been going on in michigan because, since the ban was passed in 2006, it was struck down. it was overturned and allow, back and forth by the district and the circuit courts. it has been allowed to stay in effect while being challenged. both in california and in michigan, there has been a notable decline in the percentage of minority students at the state's best schools. host: we will get our viewers to weigh in. i want you to talk about another piece you have in the paper today on oral arguments before the spring court yesterday. the justices will be deciding how you watch television.

what is this case? what did you make of the oral arguments? guest: it is a fascinating case. it has to do with an internet startup named aereo that operates in a bunch of cities around the country. but are not nationwide yet hope to be. they can stream live broadcast television into your home with dime sized antennas, each antenna goes to one home. by doing that, they claim they are not a public performance, they are a private performance. therefore, they do not have to pay retransmission fees to the broadcast networks. it came to the court, there was a lot of thought that the court would look with disdain upon this business model and say this is ridiculous, you only have dime sized antennas sitting and circuit boards on rooftops in various cities to get around copyright laws. there was a lot of rhetoric along those lines. if you look back at the oral arguments for the best quotes, all of them tend to be justices

being very skeptical of this business model. it is not totally clear that the court will rule against aereo, that is why it is interesting. if they do not rule against aereo, it could change things for the broadcast network companies because they rely very heavily on retransmission fees from cable companies. get around paying those fees, lots of others will try. wolf, supreme court reporter for "usa today." appreciate your time. guest: anytime, greta. host: your thoughts on the supreme court's decision, upholding the ban on affirmative action. ed, michigan, democratic caller. caller: hello. i think sotomayor is correct. there is still a huge problem with racism in the country, sexism. it might be getting worse since the election of obama. flagsthese confederate

protests and i am thinking are we still fighting a war? let me go over the supreme court in makeup. kennedy is a white guy, scully is a white guy, roberts is a white guy, alito is a white guy. -- correct me is otsi suggest is thomas had l of opportunities with affirmative action that opened up his career. and when he was appointed to a government position, he was the beneficiary of affirmative action. host: have you read that somewhere? caller: he went to yale, didn't he? didn't he go to yale law school? i believe that was part of affirmative action.

that,i am not sure about but we take your point. here's what justice sotomayor had to say in part of her 58 page dissent. "today's decision is this rates strand of our a equal protection." gary, virginia, republican caller. caller: thank you. i agree with the first caller. the supreme court, if they had listened to c-span over the last year, they would have heard the president called the n word, a monkey, and so on. this guy, these people that call in and say israel is controlling

our government. askink they ought to jonathan pollard about that. he spent the last 27 years in prison. he was spying for israel. host: what's your point? how does this relate to affirmative action? caller: racism is still alive and well in this country. listen to c-span. it is like you are living in a bubble. actually, under a rock. host: ok, gary. on twitter. "i agree for the reasons michigan made the change, however the wording does open the door for abuse." affirmative action has a good side and a bad side but public places should be accessible to everyone." agree with the dissenting justices, we cannot run from our history of discrimination."

mike, new york, democratic caller. caller: hi there. host: you are on the air. caller: this is a highly controversial loaded decision. beirmative action should used on a case to case basis. also, it generates -- i don't know. there is going to be doubt because of the section five gutted, this opens challenges by other states. people will be hurt by minorities and hurt by this decision. journal"e wall street has this chart. prior to tuesday's decision, 8 affirmative action or preferential treatment based on race at public colleges. where and when the practice was ended. ban on affirmative

action and the years they did so. 1996 for california. washington state in 1998, a ban on affirmative action. this is "wall street journal" this morning. friday, republican caller. caller: good morning. this is layer upon layer. i have never seen so much attention given to a minority opinion. n/a supreme court decision. it was 6-2. in the last 10 years, i had never heard so much media attention on the two minority opinions rather than the commonsense majority. second, the majorities do have the right to make this law. even if the majority did not do this and pass the amendment in affirmative action, you can discriminate against white people and males, i thought there was equal

protection under the 13th, 14th, amanda. sandra day o'connor sell differently and we had this mess. affirmative action is jim crow in the reverse. the supreme court did proper. affirmative action should be illegal. host: here's the attorney general out of michigan who brought the case before the supreme court. arguing for the band. bill schuette tweeted this. upholdspreme court constitutional requirement for equal treatment." he has a lot to say, @ schuetteonduty is his handle. the minority leader in the house, nancy thpelosi, had this to say. bill schuette, the attorney

general out of michigan, also had this to say. diversity onave our campus is achieved by constitutional means." that from the attorney general on twitter. vanessa, rockville, maryland, democratic caller. caller: good morning. i definitely, i take issue with the recent ruling. simply because i'm african american -- host: we are listening. caller: i am african-american, i went to an elite school. i came from a community that was impoverished, really bad school. i dealt with it and i made the best of the situation. i went to class and i did not have -- my school do not offer ap classes. i knew i wanted to go to a certain university that required

a rigorous academic type of schedule. i had to make the best of what i had. the teachers were not the best type of teachers, there were a lot of issues with violence. what i am essentially saying is we do not start from an equal playing field. there are many minority students, black or latino, that are attending schools that i attended. nevertheless, they have dreams of becoming doctors or attorneys. what do these students do? should we act as if everyone is equal. i understand there are a huge segment, and new york covered this with a piece on appalachia, other impoverished white people who do not have access to opportunity. we have to address it from an economic standpoint. we also have to be honest and admit that race might be a

social construct, but it still permeates our everyday life. economics is important but race is also very important and how people are treated. i will end on this note, there are a lot of people calling in and stating we need to stop the screening, -- stop discriminating. we do. we need to judge people by the content of their character, this is true. by's be honest, we judge appearances, we have stereotypes about who people are based on their skin color and the class they come from. until we are all treated equally, we need to give people access to opportunities. about justice clarence thomas, i recently read the book by professor hill about clarence thomas. that stated he

received affirmative action and attended yale, i will just say this -- clarence thomas is a bright man. i do believe, based on the school that he came from, there was some sort of preference yes. to him, there is nothing wrong with that. he did not have access to the same type of schooling as other people. he did benefit from affirmative action policies. it is hypocritical for him to sit on the bench and to act as if affirmative action played no role in his success. >host: i will leave it there. laura on twitter. can voter bans on gay marriage be struck down but affirmative action bans be ok?" bob in philadelphia, independent. caller: good morning. another point is that gay marriage. if people were hearing out sharpton on tv after this, he was basically saying we need

this because the people of the impoverished areas have learning disabilities. i don't think it is a learning disability, it is an indictment on the education system and the ch ine that tea low-income areas. that is the core of it. because they are not taught as well. they are not well educated because of our unionized teachers. they need charter schools. this, we need to raise education in impoverished areas. host: chuck, chicago, republican caller. sorry, jay, missouri. caller: first, i am a black man. i am a 20 year navy veteran. i came from an impoverished area called "the vale" in st. louis, missouri. even though i came from an impoverished area, i do not need the white man's handout.

i refuse to be handcuffed to liberal politics because of affirmative action or any other program that handcuffed black people to white, liberal politics. host: ok, chuck, chicago, republican. you're on the air. caller: yes. host: good morning, go ahead with your comment. i'm going to move onto beverly in north carolina, democratic caller. caller: hi, how are you. what can i say, i agree with the first caller. this is typical of the supreme court decisions recently. it is usually 6-3 with the same attendance. most of their views are mostly bigoted. we have one black judge who always imitates the decisions of scalia. that says a lot about him. he never says a word, he just

says ok, ok, this is ok with me. the way i am looking at america now -- there are two things that are very important to them. just money and bigotry. i don't know where we are going, i do not see a good future for america. thank you. host: derek in maryland, democratic caller. your thoughts? caller: good morning. i agree with the previous caller. she is right on point. she talked about clarence thomas and he is a disgrace. i think about thurgood marshall and i think about him, clarence thomas -- this guy talks about affirmative action. he would not have even gone the education if it wasn't for forward action -- if it wasn't for affirmative action. receivede vote romney in the last election was from white americans, specifically, we know who they are, 60 and over.

particularly white males. people, get out and vote. vote, we will take care of this. host: "the wall street journal" has this picture. a few of the devastation. president obama survey the distraction brought by a mudslide that killed 41 people in washington state last month. mr. obama mourned privately with families affected by the disaster. here's a little bit from president obama's visit yesterday in washington state. [video clip] >> there are families who have lost everything and it will be a difficult road ahead for them. that is what i wanted to come here. to let you know that the country is thinking about all of y ou. we are not going anywhere. we will be here as long as it takes. while very few americans have

ever heard of oso before the disaster struck, we have all been inspired by the way that the community has come together and shown the love and support that they have for each other in ways large and small. month, we have seen neighbors and strangers donate everything from chainsaws to rain jackets to help with the recovery effort. we have seen families cook meals for rescue workers. we have seen volunteers pull 15 hour days searching through mud up to 70 feet deep. oso, wedent said we are just do it. host: president obama in oso, washington yesterday talking about a mudslide. senator patty murray from that state tweeted this out yesterday. $7.5 million in fema funding

for that area." after leaving washington state, president obama traveled over to asia to begin his four country tour there. he is in japan this morning and will be in south korea, malaysia, and in the philippines this week. also talk about trade. the headline in "the washington times," u.s.-japan far apart in trade associations. agreement crucial to a wider tpp deal, the trends pacific -- the trans-pacific partnership. a trade deal that president obama and japan are trying to get back on track and get approved in this country and in those countries as well. the pew research poll put this out on monday. the majority in the u.s. back a trade treaty, obama is likely to discuss this on the trip.

it is a good thing that america would be trading 22% think it is a bad thing. to research -- pewresearch.org. caller.o, democratic caller: good morning. i just think this is the dumbest reason i have ever heard. been back in the 1960's so we could have voted out busing. these guys were looking for a reason, they come up with a dumb one. host: who is looking for a reason? conservative justices? caller: yes. they had their minds made up. to say they could not overrule the voters of michigan -- now,

that is what affirmative action was all about, to protect minorities from the majority. they are saying that the majority has the right to vote it out. host: ok, all right. tom on the supreme court decision, 6-2, deciding that michigan voters' ban on affirmative action can stay. michigan is one of eight states with this ban. no longer, "we are living in a nation of widespread and institutionalized racism, affirmative action is a relic." bud, florida, independent caller. caller: good morning. affirmative action is not good for the united states and other people here. i grew up in poverty myself. can get up anducau

do something with your life if you want to. affirmative action is a reward for people that have not prepared themselves for college. not everybody can be a brain surgeon. some people have to be carpenters. we might as well admit that. host: bud, what about not having the same opportunities to adequately prepare for college? caller: i don't know about that. there is a public school available for everybody. i attended public schools. i don't know how they can say, unless they just refused to go to school, how they cannot learn. host: do using all public schools are equal? caller: well, you know, everything is not equal. this stuff ain't fair. get off your butt and do it yourself. you know, we cannot use i'm a you know, that sort of logic to

say whether we are successful or not. everybody needs to look after n umber one and do the best they can. theey do, we can be -- color of your skin has nothing to do with this. host: bud in florida. " graphic onk times how minorities have fared in states with the affirmative look at california. hispanic and black enrollment at the university of california berkeley and the university of california los angeles dropped sharply after voters approved a statewide ban on affirmative action in 1998. those numbers have not recovered, even as the state's hispanic coalition has grown. ned affirmative action in 1997, each selected university enrolled fewer black and hispanic students. university of texas later

readopted affirmative action in 2005 and sought minority enrollment go up. and 40versity of florida state university have been more successful than colleges in other states at maintaining minority enrollment despite a ban on affirmative action. hispanic enrollment has tracked closely with the growth of young hispanics in florida. that is from the new york times editorial pages, here is "the wall street journal." bows ton supreme court democracy. they write this. justice scalia blew up our justice kennedy's constitution natinal halfway house. forxcoriated the court on racial speak preferences."

that's from "the wall street journal" editorial board. "the new york times" editorial board, racial equality was at the court. in response to her pointed rebuke, this is justice sotomayor, john roberts wrote a concurrence chiding sotomayor for questioning her colleagues openness and candor.

that is from "the new york times" editorial board. margaret, west virginia, republican caller. hi, margaret. caller: i just want to say -- i have been low income all my life. i am low income now. my children, i have two sons that went to college. they went on scholarship. my oldest son is a respiratory therapist. my younger son, he works for the state of maryland in revocation. they got fellowships. they went to school. i worked with my kids through school, i helped them study. we made it. fine, i thinking

that is what everyone in america has to do. they have to help themselves. that's all i wanted to say. host: patricia in illinois, independent caller. caller: allowing the people to decide would leave america with slavery and the true fact that i as a woman would not even be able to vote. that is utterly preposterous. the good lady who says she comes from a poor neighborhood, she is clearly white. she says her children were fortunate enough to be able to attend college, i have no idea what neighborhood she came from. however, i would venture to say wereher property taxes ably higher than people from poor neighborhoods are. as long as property taxes are

attached to education, as long as schools are linked to property taxes, children from all poor neighborhoods, be they green, they, red, will be educationally handicapped. that is extremely important to point out. furthermore, it would strike me that it is more than time to ofhink the process nominating and allowing the supreme court justices to reign and rule for life, time to rethink that. i don't know how this became part of our democracy. clearly, these people are not even the of the -- premise of democracy. we must rethink that and reverse it. if it takes an amendment to do that, we must do it in our time. host: all right, patricia.

from the michigan papers courtesy of the museum. eld is their headline of the decision yesterday to allow michigan to keep its ban on affirmative action. then you have the detroit news. court upholds right to ban rac e. michigan'ses back to in 2006 was the number of michigan voters that approved that ban. "the detroit free press," court upholds affirmative action. from the michigan papers this morning on the court's decision. back to your phone calls, but for some other headlines. vice president joe biden is in ukraine. "the new york times," biden offer support to ukraine and issues a rebuke to russia. vowing the u.s. would never recognize russia's occupation of crimea.

he reread it -- he reiterated the support of ukraine. it also said in recent weeks, officials in washington, including president obama, have issued warnings to russia threatening increasingly harsh economic sanctions if the kremlin does not help de-escalate the crisis in eastern ukraine. does seem to have gone largely unheeded. times" in "the new york on the situation in ukraine. the front page of "the washington post," marine one. earlier efforts to modernize the presidential helicopter fleet ended with soaring costs and billion.3.2 the navy says they have learned and will try again on raimarine one. a story on the irs in "the washington times."

inspector general found that between october 1, 2010 and december 31, 2012 come more than 2800 employees with recent document conduct issues in disciplinary action received more than 2.8 million dollars in bonuses and more than 27,000 hours in time o ff. more than 1100 irs employees with tax compliance problems receive more than $1 million in cash awards and more than 10,000 hours and time off. lots of political stories for you in the papers this morning. "the new york times" has this. run, the clinton debate begins on a two woman ticket in 2016, with pictures there of senator elizabeth warren, senator amy klobuchar, and other high-profile women. in the senate race in louisiana,

mary landrieu is the incumbent running against bill cassidy. this is an "the wall street journal," businesses giving money to hurt rather than her republican opponent because she has crossed the line on many issues. one of them being bush's 2001 tax cut as well as the keystone xl pipeline. david in new jersey, republican caller. talking about scotus' decision yesterday. caller: two points. i have been involved in education and my town. the first point, i support affirmative action. however, we see where this is going. what we really need to do, this is my first point, we really need to focus on a-12 -- focus k-12 education.

we keep too many kids in public schools that are dropout factories. the same liberals that described this decision will do nothing to get these kids out of dropout factories. they do not support charter schools, they would not be caught dead supporting school vouchers. many of these black politicians from barack obama on down, never send these kids to their public schools. that's my first point. the second point is that when michigan is not a racist state. people who keep having all this gloom and doom about the future in this country, they are wrong. michigan voted for obama twice. voterst that these same voted for this does not mean they are racist. they do have a different point of view. i don't necessarily share that point of view. but we have to do the hard work

of putting back together our families, our family structure is at the basis of all this .ailure once we tackle the problem of dropout factories and allowing , thenkids to go to school this will be solved. otherwise it is just political rhetoric. host: cynthia, independent caller. caller: thank you for having me on the show. i listen to c-span a lot and there are a lot of things i am not about -- a lot of things i am mad about. people saw a shining light that they wanted to come to. to try to get back to where they were before -- this race thing, 95% of black voters voted for the president. , a lot ofarrassed

people in the black race want to be with white people. we have on television -- the things people talk about. the supreme court is there to be fair and honest. when something goes against my race, it is always they are not for black people. they forget, some of them do not know the history of america. it was white people who fought against each other to have us black people be free. we need to move on with our lives. i am in jamaica, low down here and see what is happening with us. i live in an uptown area, it is better compared to downtown. we don't have a race problem but murder is running amock.

i visit america regularly and i have never broken a law. those who are there, stop trying to change the country and let us live in peace. the supreme court is supposed to be there to administer justice. when it goes against one side or the other, you would have thought they put them there to be for this side or that site. and look up to america when i hear "the star-spangled banner," my eyes go red. i thank god there is america. host: kingstown, jamaica, thank you for that call. that ends our conversation on "washington journal." towill turn our attention sentencing reform, we talked to the current ready -- we talked to vikrant reddy. later, a look at consumers rights to sue.

we will be back after a short break. ♪ >> notwithstanding this point of to go i urge passage forward with the health insurance on behalf of the 21% of my state's constituents under the age of 65 who are uninsured. they are too young to qualify for medicare or to middle-class to qualify for medicaid. or eulogy could more eloquently honor his memory than the earliest possible bill, for which you fought so long, his heart and his soul are in this

bill." the above quote could easily refer to my father, these words were in fact spoken by my father as he rose on the senate floor to honor his brother, president kennedy, during the debate on the 1964 civil rights act. the parallels between the struggle for civil rights and the fight to make quality, affordable health care accessible to all americans are significant. dr. martin luther king jr. said in justice and health care is -- most shocking and acumen and inhumane. health care is not only a civil right, it is a moral issue. thank you, madam speaker, for your leadership for helping those to secure a more advanced

protection, especially in the area of mental health and addiction. , for you, president obama delivering on your promise of providing the politics of hope rather than the politics of fear. i yield back the balance of my time. >> more highlights from 35 years of house floor coverage on our facebook page. america'seated by cable companies 35 years ago and brought to you today as a public service by your local cable or settlement provider. " continues.journal host: we are back with vikrant analyst forr policy right on crime, joining us from texas to talk about sensing reform. mr. reddy, what is right on crime? guest: right on crime is a project of the texas public

policy foundation here in austin, texas. it is a think tank like any institute, the brookings institution -- we focus on state-level policy. we focus on things like andation and health care criminal justice. we have been finding ways to improve criminal justice in texas. to get better results and spend less, improve outcomes for offenders and improve public safety. we have been very successful. we have launched a national campaign based on the texas model. that is what right on crime is, our national campaign to get conservative thinking people back to first principles when it comes to criminal justice policy. host: you have some high-profile supporters, who is on board? guest: we have a statement of

principles people can find our website, rightoncrime.com. that has been signed by newt groverh, governo norquist, many prominent lights and american conservatism. host: what are the principles you are putting forth the comes to crime? we need tol, s get back to basic ideas of accountability and transparency in criminal justice and the same way that we do in every other sphere of government and government sending. conservatives are terrific about holding government's feet to the fire when it comes like things like education and health care and these other services. for many years, and criminal justice, there has been a lock them up and throw away the key approach. the notion that you cut the government a blank check and do

not care where the money is going or how the offenders are being handled. that has never really fit squarely within what conservative philosophy is supposed to be. i think the results have been counterproductive. the federallook at prison population from the bureau of justice statistics. 00 prisoners, that increased by 1500 and 2011 and 2012. between 2000 two and 2012, that decade saw an increase of 33%. what has been happening in the federal prison population? the exact opposite of what is happening in states. many states, including texas, prison populations have been decreasing. in texas over the last three years, we have closed three prison facilities. this is part of a larger phenomenon we have seen. many states are pursuing successful policies, but the federal government is not quite

as successful. they have had a much more difficult time getting with the program. host: let's look at those statistics. in 2012,on prisoners declined by 29,000 from 11 to 20 51% ofifornia was that decrease, louisiana have the largest increase. what are the states doing? guest: what the states are doing, they are finding ways to supervise and monitor low-level, nonviolent offenders. prisons are important and they are necessary. you have to remember that prisons are places for people that we are scared of, not mad a t. you take people who are low-level, nonviolent offenders and find ways to supervise them through probation, parole, better drug courts, electronic monitoring. a host of ways that keep them in the community rather than

behind bars. in texas, foreseeable, locking an offender up for one day costs $50, having the offender on probation is a little over $3. it is a difference we are willing to pay when it comes to a murderer or rapist. when it comes to a low level caughtfender, a youth with marijuana or one who stole something out of his next-door neighbor's garage, maybe someone who has bounced checks. people like that come out of prison worse than they started. we have to be careful about how we treat those offenders. host: what is your group proposing? guest: we are proposing taking funding that would be going into very heavy-handed incarceration and instead putting a portion of that into improve information, improving -- improving probation, improving drug courts

and committee supervision. host: is this gaining traction on the federal level? guest: i think it is gaining traction at the federal level because it has been so successful at the state level. there is a quote from the supreme court justice louis brandeis who said, more or less, the states are laboratories of democracy. they should learn from one another's best practices. it is also true that the federal government can learn. the government has look at states like texas and georgia, ohio, pennsylvania, just this past week, mississippi and kentucky all have passed very significant criminal justice reforms. the federal government is now saying at the states can do this, there is no reason we should not be able to also. done by the this be obama administration or should this go through congress customer ? throught ought to go congress, we are talking about

significant reforms. we have been traveling in one direction for 20 years. so much of our law has conformed e approach, this will require changes to law and statutes. it is something that covers has to lead on. reportede l.a. times" that the senate is preparing legislation. what would this do? guest: this legislation would tackle the problems of mandatory minimums. we have, at the federal level in particular, really taken away judicial discretion to handle offenders the way the judge feels is most tailored to that particular offender. tohave taken the authority punish offenders and given it to congress. congress has set up mandatory minimum sentences that judges have no possibility with.

impose. required to this legislation would scale back some of those mandatory minimums and restore much of that judicial discretion so judges can say this is a uniquely dangerous offender, for the sake of public safety they need to be locked up. we have trafficking risks with this individual. or they can say no, this is 70 would benefit from treatment. public safety would benefit from having this person go into treatment and kick this addiction they have and get back on the streets and earn money and be a taxpayer and take care of his family and kids. something the-- obama administration can do? we saw stories about clemency this week. clemency guidelines, the administration starting to move on this as well. guest: i think the most important thing the obama administration can do is provide

leadership. and large, the actual work, the nitty-gritty has to be done by congress. it is congress that has to pass the legislation. they have to understand the problems and hold the hearings. they have been doing all of this. these things are proceeding really well. i think the administration should be careful not to get in the way of a good thing. in thehis is a piece huffington post with the headline law enforcement lobby quietly tries to kill sentencing reform. it says president of the national narcotics officers dssociation coalition conten that state and local governments could end up bearing some of those same costs to compensate for the federal government's softer approach. states and counties would be compelled to log of more people than they do now. guest: vikrant reddy, what is

your response? uest: the evidence we have shows that is not the case. in texas, because of this texas made to reduce incarceration in 2007, all these burdens would have been picked up by the counties and you would have a host of new problems shifted to a different level of government. that is not what happened. what happened in texas in 2007 is that a state agency cut the legislative budget board told state legislators that because of growth in texas population we would need 17,000 extra prison beds. they had a budget surplus but did not want to spend all that money, they said let's find a way to do this in a cost-effective manner. 0hey took a smaller amount, $24 million, and put it into improving probation and parole. thatpanded the drug courts

we have to handle drug addiction among criminal offenders. the years went by, when 2012 rolled around and we were told extrald need 17,000 beds, we did not need them and were able to close down three prison facilities. one in 2011 and two in 2013. the number of offenders in prisons has dropped. most importantly, the texas crime rate is at its lowest point since 1968. reason that you would see the same kinds of significant gains at the federal level. is seniorant reddy policy analyst for right on crime. here to take your questions and comments on sentencing reform. on twitter, "louisiana senate decided not to lower sentences for pot possession yesterday." "incarceration of nonviolent drug offenders, a waste of money."

kentucky, independent caller. caller: good morning. i think people who use cocaine and heroine every day of my life -- i am a police officer. i want to ask the gentleman you have on the program, he is talking about low-level, nonviolent offenders. there are a lot of them who get arrested. where do you think they get money? cocaine and heroin cost money. almost every single day of their lives. where do you think they get the money to buy this cocaine and heroin? they do not go to the bank of america. they rob, they steal, they processes, and a whole bunch of other things they do. many do not get reported doing this but you just think, where does the money come from?

have a lot in we common. we agree on many of those points. it was be a grave mistake to reduce sentences across the board and do nothing any further. we have to take the savings and put that money toward drug treatment. the caller is right. if we do not address the we are justoblem, going to see criminal justice issues. >> a tweet -- guest: that is the argument that was made whenever mandatory minimum sentencing was pushed. what you are seeing is something

nobody expected. it turned out to be crap -- counterproductive. ship against politicians. the reason was to say you would make it one year longer and then somebody comes along a few years later and runs for office is as they would make it longer. then you have this endless ratchet and things get higher and higher over time. completely disconnected from what we would say is the basic principle of the punishment needing to fit the crime. it become an economic issue for republicans like yourself and others who signed up or your group? didn't just stop making economic sense? to some degree it is an

economic issue. we had a terrible economy since 2008. corrections spending has been the second fastest component in state budget in the past years. that is something they can really find savings of a confined areas where they cut and they could take money and get budgets back in order. be part ofat would it but i do not think that would be the entire story. were example, in texas, we had our significant moves that in 2007 when we had a budget surplus. i think other things are happening. maybe another thing we are being is a lot of social comes to reduce who really picked up on the issue because they drew a clear link between high levels of incarceration and the breakdown of the american family. in a lot of cities, families are being racked because so many young fathers are serving extremely long prison sentences. they're not out there earning

money and providing for their families and children, paying restitution to whatever victims they may need to. social conservatives have really picked up on that. you have a fusion of social conservatives with traditional alsol conservatives, and libertarians concerned about the size and scope of government power. they have all come together to strongprovide leadership's. religion plays a role in this? main issue is government policy needs to be based on evidence and principles and ultimately on the core function of government, which is securing liberty. we are at a place right now where a lot of those goals are being undermined because of the sheer amount we are spending on

how we areon and averaging families with incarceration. host: on twitter -- guest: california has been a really unusual case. ways, a case study in everything you would do wrong in criminal justice. by and large, we do not have mandatory senses. in california, they have some of the most notorious in the country. a lot of your viewers will be familiar with the three strikes you're out law. that is a law which was pushed by many prison guard unions in california. was almost a maximum employment bill for them in the mid-1990's. over time, we have seen at the

third strike, regardless what the offense is, however low level it may be, you see people get locked away for many years. the prisonguard -- yard is terribly overcrowded. level of told this overcrowding flat-out violates the cruel and unusual punishment provision of the eighth amendment. they have to let people go immediately and they were not really in a position to do it in a more tailored way where they can determine using more risk assessments who really needs to stay in prison and who can be released. all of these were matters that should have been handled 10 or 20 years ago and not waiting until there was a supreme court mandating. host: democratic caller. caller: i respect your opinions,

i am not in agreement with some of them. for instance, we have a republican house which has done years, this entire two the time our president has been in office. therefore, legislation is going nowhere. your group has good intentions regarding crime. said this particular issue should be left up to the congress. that is when you have a working congress. we do not have a working congress. housee a speaker of the who refuses to present legislation on the house floor because of politics.

i will bring up an issue regarding your group. it is mostly conservative. i think it flies in your and everyone else's face to think if you are anticrime, your only conservative care that is a ridiculous way to present an issue. i think everyone is against crime. we have a huge drug issue in this country. it involves heroine, it involves -- i cannot even pronounce the drug. host: oxycontin? thank you. senior moment. it involves so many of our young people. even inside some of our older groups.

so, i respect your opinion about wanting to do something about something. i think we all want to do something about something. qwest we will leave it there and get a response. i think i have more confidence because of the things i am seeing out of congress. the main bill we have discussed, the one that would reduce mandatory minimum sentences, that has been proposed by mike lee and by senator richard durbin. i think michael he is is that -- about as conservative as they get in the house and senator durbin is about as liberal as they get. they both manage to find common ground in this area. at the state level, i have seen that kind of thing and it does not surprise me. we commissioned a poll on peoples attitudes toward criminal justice reform. what was fascinating is we saw came fromest support

self identified liberals and self identified to party republicans. this has been an interesting alliance. it is the tea party and the left that has come together and they're pushing real legislative change. another thing to keep in mind is that you can get real legislative change whenever both sides feel like they're doing this for reasons that are important to them and important to their principles and philosophy. of why it is part a conservative issue. people care about reducing crime and having a better correction system, but both sides think and process in different ways and our goal is to talk with conservatives because we are conservatives and we are eighth and the reuters group. that is the framework we are most comfortable in. >> will similar legislation make

its way through the house? guest: similar legislation is being reviewed in the house. task forces have been set up to review some issues. it has been voted out of the senate judiciary committee. rock tomid in little arkansas, republican caller. caller: thank you for taking my call this morning. we went through this process in arkansas in 2011. we adjusted many for crimes, we heard the rhetoric talked about in terms of the people we're afraid of and not the ones we are mad at. those are great platitudes. they sound good. do act, when you prostitute is in law enforcement and parole officers and victims

of crime and families, those platitudes do not go very well. we saw an enormous uptick in parolee crime, ballot crime. a lot of times, these drug crimes people are ultimately charged with, those are charges that are played to. and i hated good some of my conservative friends are buying into this myth, because some are more worried about tax cuts than serving public safety, our first obligation, i think mr. reddy look across the country and see every state is not texas. in arkansas, we were suspending a genetically lower level on corrections. what happened in arkansas has gone through the process in the we3 legislative session.

fixed a lot of these problems. we have begun to get a handle. first and foremost, stacy to make sure they have an extreme -- states need to make sure they have exhibited robust -- and not letting people out of parole that they should not be. that is what mr. reddy's group ignores. they talk about slipped sanctions, but most of them is is put on lessening the sentences and clearing out resins. there are enormous costs to people committing crimes. a lot of the folks we are mad at, they drive the cost of the criminal justice system, law-enforcement, and they do drive up the cost for counties. there is an enormous human cost and a cost to increase crime

rate. we have had seven homicides in the past five days. texasddy works well in and the governor is a good friend of mine. but it does not work in every state area those principles have done great harm for us and i hope my conservative friends in the house and senate do not i into the myth. if you want to learn about what happens in this process, come to arkansas. what do you do it arkansas? caller: a state senator. a little county -- it is a significant area. host: go ahead and respond. if i understand his point correctly, he is saying you cannot just reduce sentences and

completely ignore the parole and probation. if you were to do that, that would be a terrible mistake. that is what he is saying and i think he is completely right. any state, or the federal government, that choose to do that is locking down the wrong road. you have got to take some of the savings that will be realized from reduced incarceration and you have got to apply them to making the systems better. you have to be sure offenders are being held accountable. that is the real tough on crime philosophy when you get down on -- down to it. it is not tough on crime to tell somebody to just sit in a cell. if you have a drug addition, you're going to get passive and we will force you to get treatment. will force you to pay restitution to victims and require you hold a job and we will monitor you and we have the right personnel in place and are using the right technologies. i think that is tough on crime and that component is absolutely

critical. that is what i understand him to be saying and i entirely agree. host: let's go back. caller: it sounds good, but often times, what happens when you look at states that go through these processes, you can look at new hampshire, mississippi just went through this, what he says is what we should be doing first. robustsure we have a probation system, one that punishes individuals. in arkansas loan, we would have people, violent criminals, people who should be in prison who are let out on parole who would violate the terms of parole and even commit new crimes, and were not sent back. spending hisd be time doing, instead of talking about reducing sentences and having these wonderful little platitudes about dealing with the people we are afraid of and

not those with whom we are mad, what he should be doing is focusing first on the parole and .robation system talking about nothing else. int: you are a state senator arkansas. mr. reddy talked earlier about the cost of keeping someone in prison a day, $50 a day, versus probation, parole, three dollars a day. said there are costs for law enforcement, for the city, for the justice system. xplain those costs? caller: it is what we do. people ask what you do and it is to try to understand the true cost. it is true you could take an excel spreadsheet and take some college -- columns and cells in them, you could show and say there is something between someone being on parole and being incarcerated.

the truth is, a lot of the things we talk about in terms of monitoring, in terms of stepped-up probations with a certain sanctions, those rarely happen. what we have seen in arkansas, the experience has been that you see in enormous number of the same repeat offenders committing the same crime over and over again. they go through this process and we have these wonderful laws. a great example in arkansas was, -- a lotthe threshold be watching the show, criminals pay attention to the law changing. we have seen it skyrocket in our state and the fact of the matter is a lot of times theft and robbery, those are violent crimes waiting to happen.

there are a lot of nonviolent criminals who just did not have someone get in their way. the truth is, a lot of the folks, we hear a lot of this is because the drug habit, and we have had a lot of people in our prisons serving because they were caught with an ounce of marijuana or a joint. it is a happen. those types of stories are used to sell reforms. >> ok. i will jump in and have mr. reddy respond. guest: we agree more than we disagree. this comes down to drawing real distinctions between violent offenders and nonviolent offenders. i'll pick up on one thing he said that i completely agree with. there is a myth that people are terms becauseong of marijuana sentencing. he is right that is not happening. what is happening, and what is

individualsg at, with marijuana will be arrested. they will spend time in jail as they await their trial date. we have that problem in texas. in 2007, the legislature looked at the problem. thernor perry let that problem. he said, what we could do is issue citations for those people that require them to come to court for their court appearance. what is the point of paying for their time in jail if when they finally get to court, they're just going to be given probation anyhow. that was a very sensible move. was a really smart way to handle the marijuana problem in texas. it does not necessarily mean we have a lot of marijuana offenders serving long prison sentences. it is a't knowledge

component. to twitter -- guest: it is a question of violent offender versus nonviolent offender. agreeeople would probably some white-collar criminals, for example, need to serve time behind bars. bernie made off, for example. we're basically looking at finding some ways to distinguish between those people we are mad at and those people we are scared of. host: democratic caller, edward. caller: i'm doing fine.

i want to tell him in florida, when you get out of prison, when you get out of prison, you go to a work release program and the findam actually helps you a job. once you are out of the program, once you're out of the program, they do not help you find a job anymore. it is better if they get hired at these jobs, actually get paid, at the end of the year. we are listening. caller: they get paid at the end of the year. what i'm saying is, they are not, they are not, -- i am nervous right now. -- rison -- i cannot host: we lost him.

independent caller. caller: how are you doing this morning? agree onto say i do what you are speaking about. a moreve we need to make prominent, distinction between actual defendants that do pose a .hreat to the public if we could actually go back and rewire, the psyche and or focus on the rehabilitation of those western offenders, we could stop the problem right at the roof of the problem. host: on twitter --

guest: actually, that kind of ties into what the caller from florida, who hung up, was saying. i think what he was getting at reentry difficult processes are. we have to find funds to do that. if we could find ways and take a portion of savings from that and from that, and making it easier for sex reenter society, , thehe research out there number one factor is making sure x offenders stay afoot. democratic caller,

jennifer. caller: thanks for having me on air. i am a texas president and i have been personally touched i this issue. for the past 10 years, he is a repeat offender and has had four felonies. texas does not have an effective system. i have personally gone to his andings on a monthly basis i have had to pay the full fees. --y throw away his dirty texas does not have drugs within the prison system or outside the drugn system for these

addictions, especially methamphetamine, and powerful street drug. is an issue with domestic violence as well associated with this. it is not being addressed or funded here in texas. are not any opportunities for jobs, if you have a felony record. you have to pass a background screening. where are the jobs for people who have a felony? i do not see how you are dressing these issues. just by reducing the sentence, is not solving the problem just because it is costing the taxpayers money. it ruined my life. he's still doing the same things he is always done. fiascoou pay the parole -- fee? caller: yes. he gets out, and by sheer

re-think and conferences and offering complete double to gavel coverage of u.s. health, all as a public service of private industry. service andpublic he is in. follow us on twitter. are a class at our desk this morning, ami gadhia. she is talking about the consumer's right to sue. this comes as general mills put a policy in place recently. what happened with general mills? guest: last week, the new york --es reported general mills

what they said on the website online you joined in an community, facebook page, --inic you -- a coupon, download a coupon, you were effectively as a consumer giving up your right to sue them in a court of law for a claim you might have against them. you are bound to forced arbitration. it is an outside of the court process to resolve disputes, which we think should not be forced upon consumers without their consent. quite a bit of pushback on general mills. social media trend to get quite

a bit of pushback. we claim some of the press they got, misunderstood their intent. they said clearly they stipulate for all purposes their previous legal terms were reinstated and the arbitration would not have legal effect. that was the right thing to do and we are glad to see that happen. host: widely reported general mills recently reported a wide set of legal terms on the website. those terms and our intentions were widely misread so we listened and we are changing them back to what they were before. we have disputes with consumers and arbitrations streamlined how they're handled. many companies do the same and we felt it would be helpful but consumers did not like it. i want to focus on the part "many companies do the same." guest: it highlighted for people

how many companies, how many of the contracts they signed every very fine print signing away your right to sue. forced binding and mandatory i think, is not right. it does not treat consumers fairly. it takes away the rights they have should they be wrong. >> when does the consumer enter into a contract with the company ? >> you would be surprised. anytime you engage in a company and you get the box that pops up before you join there, or if you are downloading a coupon, the box pops up and it has tons of fine print. at it and there is a

little box at the bottom. when you see the kind of fine print that comes up, whether in a contract in the store or online, you need to be on the lookout for it anything causing binding arbitration. companies thater have policies? .uest: nursing home contracts they are quite ubiquitous and harmful to consumers. >> starbucks, for example, has similar language. guest: it is mandatory, you do not have a choice. let's say you saw a claim for a product defect or you have a

congratulatory -- contractual they did notse treat your grandparents at a nursing home facility. you do not have a choice on whether you see them into -- in a court of law. mandatory arbitration forces you a court of out of law. what the binding part means is whatever judgment comes out of that, whatever a word in arbiter makes, whatever choice you make, you're giving up your right in a court of law. unfortunately have held up. in 2011, the supreme court said that california law that allowed class action a complaint by --sumers, it did not apply it did not stand. instead, consumers were giving .p their right

courts, an, mike the lot of these documents are secret and do not see what the awards was. consumers who individually might have smaller claims but who together could speak with a powerful voice that can match the powerful voice of the company and the other side, on the individual basis, the fees are significantly higher for consumers. is there a specific word consumers should look for? guest: a lot of words, arbitration, dispute resolution, binding mandatory arbitration, american arbitration association , one of the associations that provides the arbitrators. be on the lookout for those words in the fine print.

fixedtimes, they are contract. what we have been urging to do is to take these kinds of forced arbitration out of consumer contracts. there was a hearing in the senate judiciary committee last december on the arbitration fairness act. that is the legislation issues in the senate and the house. we have been urging consumers to ask themlegislators to to support the arbitration fairness act. host: we are talking about the consumer's right to sue. the policy council here to take your questions and comments about that. let's talk about the role of social media. it has a whole mother wrinkle to this.

-- a whole other wrinkle to this. and like facebook something, a product they have, and then at that evidence against you? guest: what this general mills case highlighted is the way that companies treat social media could have -- than any of us realize. you like a company's product of a stick or tweet with them and you think you have a relationship for a different kind of relationship. consumers have to remember this is another tool to market the product to you. the fine print and that this is marketing. consumers are interacting much more directly with the companies here. consumers need to remember who has the power in the relationship.

it is still not the consumer. news story,c "general mills legal policy and a statement from general mills that said, "this is probably ."scharacterized and no one let's go to bill, a democratic caller. caller: good morning. this is a question. i agree with with a lot of what she says. the loss of your consumer rights ,s happening more and more where all your cable and telephone companies have been in conglomerates where you only have so little options. one cable company, one telephone company. in order to have indications or

a media outlet in order to watch c-span, you have to sign for the binding arbitration and it takes away your right to sue. i was friends with a past attorney general they cannot do anything either. they tried. i believe the binding -- aration should be nonworking legislature. one day, we hope that will be taken away. binding arbitration. that means consumers need the right to sue. not a frivolous lawsuit, but they need the right to sue over the general policies. you make excellent points and i agree. we are not talking about somehow giving access to courts over frivolous lawsuits. what we're talking about is legitimate claim, if the consumer is hurt by a product or

wrong to buy a product, if there is a defective product, delivered in a way that hurts .omebody could a state have a law on the -- it is notid allowed in the state? guest: the 2011 supreme court case. case, it wascular the california law. concerns significant and consumer groups that this is something, even though state laws could not protect people. host: independent caller. caller: good morning. a lot of politicians talk about tort reform and how it would

lower the costs of a lot of goods and services. this forced arbitration a form >> theed reform? distinction to be made is between mandatory and voluntary arbitration. if you are choosing that as a particular avenue, that is one thing. if you are doing it and are -- going to court, nobody's arguing against that. where we are seeing problems in having concerns is with the mandatory arbitration, where the fact that you're giving up the right to pursue something in the is written in very tiny print or you may not -- realizet is in the paperwork you get. if you're giving away that right and you do not know it and it is forced upon you, that is where the concerns lie. new york, independent

caller. caller: i have been listening to some of the other colors in their echoing some of the concerns i have. with regards to at&t, i am not a lawyer, i am a small businessman. i was reading some of the pieces you are talking about there. the unconscionable aspects of these adhesion contracts, where these situations where you do not have a choice. it had to be a one-to-one arbitration, some difference between some class action. doing it as a group as opposed to one-to-one. -- scent of that decision

the dissent of that decision was justice prior. out a one-to-one arbitration where it was a small contract amount of some $33 or something of that nature, where it would not make sense. it seems to have some ability in our process of bringing somebody accountable. a product problem or a service problem. strange here.very guest: i think you raise all excellent points. that is exactly right. even class action arbitration was not allowed. individuals, even if the individual claim was not all that high in dollar amounts, they will have to go thege a lawyer to do arbitration for them. that is right.

what lawyer will take on a case in which the harm chooses consumers like that out a one-te arbitration where, $33. the whole point of class action is, even though the harm to the individual consumer may not be huge, if this is something that is fundamentally unfair and fundamentally outside contract is or other laws, but happening to hundreds of thousands and millions of consumers, that is obviously a law that should be addressed. class-action is the only way to do that. consumer tould a voluntary arbitration? guest: some reasons are to perhaps move things along more courty, rather than the process, which could take months or longer. arbitration could potentially move more quickly. there are significant things they should be aware they are giving up, in the sense of different evidentiary burdens

that sometimes applied to arbitrators. there are different of presidential law. primarily, that quicker aspect, the quicker resolution of things. if you do voluntary arbitration, can you sue? guest: it depends. if it is binding, even if it is voluntary, then you say, if i lose, that is it. sometimes, there are provisions in these contracts. if it is not binding, if both sides again are coming to the with equal, awareness, equal rights, then they can agree to appeal any award the arbitrator gives in a court of law. both have to agree with that. other companies might

have a similar policy. you could unknowingly sign a contract with a company by clicking on a coupon? that is what they were highlighting. they reversed that policy and would back to previous policies. a republican caller, texas. yes, i was going to roastup, i was doing a and a crystallized and brokers a lot of pieces and it caused a in the ovenhouse which bellowed out a lot of smoke. done when all of that was because we had to paint the house and put in a new oven and when i called and told them about it, and he says, you know

of cannot sue us because that paper. i said, what paper. they said, you know you cannot sue. i said, i am not trying to sue you all. i'm trying to bring it to your attention that these broke. there must have been a crack in it or something. said -- i said no, so i'm just telling you i will not sue, i will bring it to your attention and i apologize for because ing you thought this product was so important to you all. i have not entered around and started talking to other people and found that there were more dishes breaking. i said, they knew all about it. but they made me look like a

fool and i just wanted to get away from them. was there any resolution? caller: i do not know. guest: first of all, i am sorry that happened to you. i hope you in the house are ok. you raise a couple of important points. it's something like that happens to you, and it is a case where the glassware was somehow does -- defective, you have a right to pursue that in a court of law. and to contact a lawyer and say, this is -- is this a legitimate claim. they are claiming -- they are saying you could not sue them, but we would not agree with the considering giving up their rights in that way. as an aside, consumer reports in

the past looked at last bakeware of different brands. it is these very same problem. we have come across this. the concern we have generally in glass bakeware. i would urge you to tell the u.s. consumer product safety commission that you have the .roblem they track this kind of product safety concern. online anddatabase if you go there, you can fill out a little online questionnaire that tells the agency that this has happened. we urge you to do that in addition to the issue with regards to arbitration. host: democratic and -- caller. fascinated bym the whole outbreak with general mills. i would really like to point out what it really is.

consumer -- not anti-consumer. it is anti-lawyer. consulting with a lawyer when their kid chokes on a piece of cereal and showing up with 20 other people that are saying the the thing in suing out manufacturer and walking with a settlement, that is going on nonstop on and on. i would be interested in knowing if there is an amassing of legal groups behind all of this, not just regulatory organizations. i also want to point out your guest today is a lawyer. at the end of the day, on behalf of a lobby. they have a vested interest in making sure the legal community can continue suing in an unfettered matter. the person that raise the point earlier about this being an alternative was really spot on.

i am arguing this was anti-lawyer more than anti-consumer. host: hang on the line. the statement they put out, they wrote this. they wrote -- "we will just that we never imagined this reaction. sorts of consumer contracts and arbitration clauses don't cause any went wave a valid legal claim. at no time was anyone ever precluded from suing us by purchasing one of our products at a store or liking one of our facebook pages. that was either a mischaracterization or just very misunderstood. not that any of that matters now. on behalf of our company and brand, we would like to apologize. we are sorry we went down this path. we hope you continue to download hot coupons, talk to us on social media, and look for recipes on our website. " dc.ost jack in washington

guest: there are common misperceptions about what are involved in these lawsuits. the common perception or the common misperception is that people are just turning these cases around and they may not have any merit. the kid choking on cereal, they are suing and getting tons of money out of the cases. the reality is very different. we are talking about legitimate claims and not frivolous claims. courts have their own mechanisms for taking out frivolous claims. if someone has got a legitimate claim and were made very ill buy a particular food product or were harmed like the woman that isrom texas, something they should as a consumer be able to pursue. i understand people feel like this is all about lawyers. need to keep in mind is that consumers are very

often not aware they are giving up these rights. if you were to ask the average consumer, did you know that if this product somehow fails on you or harms you and your family members, you cannot do anything about it. you have to go through it arbitration process. most people would be surprised. host: this was by general motors, they filed monday to enforce a bar lawsuit stemming from cars sold before 2009 actiontcy as a class litigation that seeks to set aside the restriction. not gm's is recall does forude suing new gm economic damages related to a vehicle or parts sold by old gm. the company said in a filing in the banking court for the southern district of new york. when mary was up on capitol hill testifying about the omission --

ignition defense, she kept referring to the new gm. are they a new legal entity, therefore people are not allowed we don't think so. to the extent that there is a liability that they have to the people who were killed or should be liable. unfortunately, things that they are seeking to hide behind, from the report you have read, it seems like there might be an effort to hide behind the 2009 bankruptcy refiling and restructuring. the consumers union and a number of other groups road to gm, urging them to set up a compensation fund for victims who may have been harmed by defective vehicles. to get at the concerns of the legitimacy of those claims. that will all play out. but if individuals have been we don't think that

bankruptcy and restructuring should be a barrier to justice. this is from "the wall street journal" this morning. the top gm engineer is out after this recall of these cars. the company and his duties "are being split, according to the internal probe." from twitter -- that is a very good question. i don't know, that's the honest answer. on whetherdepends that is a form contract and there is some other language in there that says that nothing you mark on this contract could in any way change the contract. tohink rather than having fight that in a court and see whether it was effective or not, we think that the way to address this is to change the system and

to bar a finding mandatory arbitration in these types of contracts. host: jeannette, pennsylvania, independent caller. caller: several of these people spoke earlier. one, the class-action lawsuits more renumeration to the council than the aggrieved party. years ago there was a case where people had booked airlines and the aggrieved party got coupons. the council got millions in cash. are oftenon lawsuits more valuable to the attorney then they are to the party. the rest of the world has addressed this problem by saying -- loser pays. that would solve the whole problem. if you have a legitimate claim, you pursue it. if you don't, you think twice, it may bankrupt you rather than the small business you are

suing. host: are you a lawyer? do caller: you have experience with this? no, ma'am, -- do you have experience with this? caller: no, ma'am. i am not an attorney. isst: the consumers union actually proposed those types of settlements, because you are right, what winds up happening is the individual consumer is with aed and winds up very small award, a coupon for a future purchase, that kind of thing. we don't think that those are real solutions, as you mentioned. i think that, again, if you look at the idea of the concerns over frivolous lawsuits, very often it depends on the individual case and state. sometimes there are provisions that do award legal fees in the case that a particular suit is

brought. those mechanisms are out there and what we have actually seen is the wave with arbitration, the result is actually taking away the rights of consumers. >> the federal arbitration act that you talked about earlier, that the senate is looking at, there is similar legislation in the house. is there a losers pay provision in there? that theat it does is forced mandatory arbitration, whether or not you have a choice , that is not allowed. why not include the idea of losers pay? people would think twice for they pursue a lawsuit. you mean as far as a court proceeding? host: yes, well i think -- in, can youping

include it in the arbitration process as well? of theit is a part arbitration process. you will see consumers unknowingly signing up for arbitration without knowing what it involves, this idea of loser pays. i think that what you want to do, the important thing is to preserve access to the courts. if someone has a legitimate claim, they should be allowed to pursue that. if it is a frivolous lawsuit, there are mechanisms to reduce that case. int: victor on twitter ways -- monday, elgin, illinois, you are up next. -- mende, elgin, illinois, you are up next. of the i have seen a lot

forced and binding arbitration language inserted into employment contracts. even to the extent where you are applying for a job online, it is one of the steps. you type in your credentials, your references. towards the end when they do the eeoc checkboxes there will be something, a page or more, a similar language. i am kind of curious, what kind of rights? you have not gotten a job. the fact that it could affect your long-term employment? are the options for consumers in that area? great point.s a you could argue that in that particular case, you are ampletely without -- that is very tough situation, right? a prospective employee does not necessarily want to make waves and raise this provision. think it is not

conscionable, as we don't think it is, it is very difficult to do anything about that. that is why the arbitration fairness act that i mentioned, which has been introduced in the house and senate, it would ban those types of forest arbitration clauses as well. issues to exactly the that you raised, you could be a flying without realizing that you are signing away rights. host: we have five minutes left with our guest here this morning, ami gadhia for more information, you can go to the consumers union website and follow them on twitter. police, next,m middletown, connecticut. go ahead. caller: thank you for taking my call. medical malpractice is a personal issue for me. my parents, while elderly, their deaths were partly caused by the bad decisions of a doctor or

hospital. i know that the republican congress opposed these kinds of lawsuits because doctors and hospitals have a lot of lobbying power. where my parents passed away in florida, that is a very powerful hospital franchise. you cannot find a law firm that will take on a medical malpractice case. could you please address that? guest: thank you for your question. i am very sorry to hear about what happened to your parents. that is absolutely something we have been concerned about, though it is a slightly separate issue from arbitration in that ofthere has been a lot discussion and controversy surrounding the idea of medical malpractice and tort reform, as other callers have referred to it. you are right, some states have passed laws that have made it difficult to pursue even legitimate claims of medical malpractice. to thewe think that

extent that folks do have legitimate claims, you don't want to do since a devise them from being able to bring those legitimate claims in a court of law. host: tony, ohio, hello. myler: thank you for taking call. can you dress in alienable rights and the issue of how it is that contract law, and clicking the tick in the software, society assumes that we can give away our natural rights as human beings? seems it that regulations to skirt the issue of what it is that we are really, as human beings, that the government cannot take away from us? you are right, these contracts are getting more and more complicated every day. you really need to sift through

the fine print, it can be very difficult to understand what is being said in the contract. ist we are dealing with here not so much the government taking away that right, but the corporation saying that by your agreement with this contract, you agree with this service that we are providing and by downloading the coupon or buying our product, you are giving away this right, which likely said, we don't think that people should be doing that without the information to make that choice. we believe in an informed and educated consumer empowered to make the choice they want. companies should not be able to take that away and fine print. host: this is a tweet from a viewer -- tough one. is a i think what we have seen playing out with the supreme court case in 2011 and at the

state level in numerous cases is that consumers have tried to sue and that contract was not voided and they are actually prevented from an arbitration claim, prevented from suing class-action. scarlett.ama, yourr: i was wondering if guest had any statistics you could give to get people's attention. mostly we have an issue of most consumers thinking that they are not going to be affected by issues that wef usually don't see in the mainstream media. we will not things about how we are being taken advantage of by pharmaceuticals, by other countries, there are economic policies. just a certain group that wants us to know. does she have any information that could draw the attention of

people and say that this is more common? that you don't want to be in this situation? i am very interested in this. i have to click on accept so many times now. i am very interested in getting people's attention. scarlet,rlett --guest: you have raised very good points. these binding arbitration points are far more widespread than people realize. they are in contracts that you encounter every day when you may not even realize you are signing a contract. that is what the general mills case brought attention to. it is not just the big purchases in life. not just buying a car or buying a home, but it is downloading a coupon for cereal, going to the store for a new cell phone, signing up at the store for a credit card.

short of statistics, i can tell you that people should go through a couple of days and see how many times that they click on agree, downloading software or signing up for a loyalty program, like the starbucks program i mentioned early on, look through that rocks that comes up and see what is buried in there. see how many times per day or week you are encountering this. host: by the way, general mills as reverse its policy, reported on by "the new york times." on thursday they said "an update ,o its new legal policies consumers join the online community could not sue the policy -- company," but they called that a mischaracterization and have reversed themselves.

uniontown, pennsylvania, hello, mary. caller: thank you so much. what can make the clause so burdensome is that it is coupled with the requirement that the arbitration as set by the company. i just signed up for a service myself where i would be able to take credit cards for my business and it had a mandatory arbitration provision in it from san francisco, california, which would be delightful, but not likely that i would ever arbitrate a claim that would require me to go to san francisco, california. >> very glad i brought -- that you --guest: very good -- very glad you brought that up. you're right, sometimes the fine

, the small business in mandatory binding arbitration. they are willing to arbitrate with a particular arbitrator. folks will be surprised what they are forced to look at. caller: free-trade, a lot of the products, even the medicine and stuff, is made in china. a lot of our food is made over there.

we really don't know how it will damage us. this whole notion of free trade was pushed by mainly republicans. they push this for years to get through. bush's father often spoke of a new world order. he was talking about making the whole world one market. your point, about buying products overseas? guest: that is another wrinkle in all of this. if you were to be harmed by a product or if, for example, your relative was treated negligently in a nursing home and the product was made in the u.s. or service was provided in the

u.s.? you could go after the u.s. company. for imported products and foods, if there is a u.s. agent for that particular food or product, you could go after them. but in lots of cases there is no u.s. agent and things do get significantly trickier for consumers. drywalls a problem with itumber of years ago that was making people very sick, it contained a chemical that caused mold problems. it proved very difficult to pursue those claims. you are absolutely right, this is another wrinkle, another layer to the burdens that consumers face. host: ami gadhia, from the consumers union, thank you very much. coming up next, our weekly magazine spotlight program continues with a piece from "bloomberg businessweek." we will talk to brian miller

aom bloomberg industries, gaming analyst, right after this news update from c-span radio. the justice department will consider clemency applications for nonviolent federal inmates who have already served 10 years or more in prison. an announcement from the department is expected today as part of the broader obama administration effort to trim the population and he's sentencing disparities involving drug crimes. an update on the missing malaysian airliner, material that washed ashore industrial you is being examined to determine if it comes from the missing jet. officials are not describing it at this time. meanwhile, the australian prime minister says that failure to find anything in the current search does not mean they will not -- does not mean that they will stop looking. a study from the u.n. education agency says cell phones could be one key to reducing high illiteracy in countries where

books are rare. unesco says that 774 million people worldwide cannot read. most people in sub-saharan africa don't own any books. but cell phones are increasingly widespread. the report says that large numbers of people in such countries are now reading books ,nd stories on "rudimentary smallscreen devices." those are some of the latest headlines of c-span radio. [video clip] >> i remember on saturday, the first conversation i had with the people at the table, it was you are from, it was about ukraine, politics, our belief in education and religion. after that moment i was like -- this week is going to be intense. but it has been really cool to see the evolution of our friendships and bonds, just from talking about politics, our experiences, but we have learned, we have met.

this is an experience i will never forget. >> i have always been cynical about it. always thinking i could never go that far in politics, that it is such a caustic environment. slowly through the week i have chipped away at that opinion, which has been so ingrained in my head. that maybe i do want to make a difference and run for something local and state local in my community. like president obama said yesterday, he told us not to get cynical. this nation does not need more cynical people. it will not help us to relieve our problems. >> one of the things that gets brought up a lot about our generation, the social media. we are able to express our opinions very easily. we can just send a tweet about what we think. we like to talk a lot. there are conversations in social media, we like to get our opinions out there.

>> this all week has been about learning. a small town where it is very politically homogenic . there is not much chance for people who do not think the same to get their opinions out without being read -- being ridiculed. being here with the other delegates is given the to learn other viewpoints and get my ideas out about the fear of being shunned for thinking differently. >> high school students discuss their participation in a senate youth program. a weeklong program held annually in washington. sunday night, 8:00, on "q&a." last hour here on wednesdays, of "washington journal," you take a look at a recent magazine article. today we are looking at a bloomberg businessweek piece with the headline -- casinos know when to fold them. brian miller is the bloomberg

.ndustries gaming analyst your colleague wrote this piece for the magazine. you have studied this industry every day. how large is the gaming industry in the united states? wethe gaming industry that look at at bloomberg industries is $38.5 billion, the full year number,ear 2015 including commercial casinos throughout united states, but not native american casinos, which are very large in their own right. and then lottery sales, the lottery itself is a very large industry that somewhat specializes to certain states. has been the history of casinos in this country? what has been the trend? what is the present day status? to the 1930's,ck 1940's, you really have one

market in the u.s., las vegas, nevada. 1970's, in the late gambling was also legalized in new jersey, atlantic city. late 1980's,e 1990's, and to thousands, there was a corporation of casinos around the country referred to as regional gambling markets. you had one major destination market in the united states las vegas and the las vegas strip, then atlantic city with other little markets around the country. even though the industry continues to grow, it is saturated and declining in some specific areas, certainly the more mature markets. one that we can discuss is atlantic city. casino revenue there has declined 40% since 2006. your headline, "casinos know when to fold them

." what is going on? is twofold.roblem one, too much supply. regardless of where you are, it really deals with how close you are to the casino. the problem you have in many , as other states legalized gaming, that sucked business away from casinos. casinos have a high fixed cost structure. you have to have a lot of employees in a casino, especially if there are hotels with other amenities attached. you have to have a certain amount of business coming in on a regular basis. what happens is when you lose customers, those customers get a supplyble. that is problem. the second problem is a demand issue. what we have seen there following the great recession was that the dynamics of the

labor force in the united states had changed. there was a dual recovery for the upper-class wage earners had done much better, proportionally, than lower income people. we have seen people move from blue-collar jobs -- construction is a great example -- to retail jobs that have lower hourly wage basis. it sucks discretionary income out of budgets and they are able to gamble less. host: why did we see states start to build and approve more casinos in their regions and areas? guest: there are two reasons for that. one is jobs. theis the employment at casino itself. second is tax revenue. casinos are taxed at the federal level, but then somewhat separately state and local

follows the recession, or even from before, states look for ways to plug holes in their budgets and they look for casinos as an opportunity. they can be taxed at high percentage, anywhere from 20% to 30%. the incremental money going into fundseneral obligation of or school funds, they kind of use it as a stopgap measure to balance the budgets. the: from the article, irony is that it was the economic downturn that prompted several states to expand their gambling offerings as a way to increase revenue. maryland voters improve their first casinos in the 2008 referendum. massachusetts legislators joined them in 2011. illinois began to roll out those in 2012. they approved a maximum of seven resorts last year. financial projections have been made with a gambler's sense of

optimism. ohio voters were told to expect more than one .2 billion dollars annually in gambling revenue hyundai approve the first for casinos in 2009. the take was $821 million last year. what does this mean? >> you can apply the general rule of budgeteers being overly optimistic to anything within the federal, local, or state budget. but it really means is that you are going to have an issue because of these overly aggressive assumptions. another example, online jamming -- online gaming is a relatively new phenomenon. new jersey is the largest state. the chris christie administration, when they put out their fiscal year 2014 they assumed that online gaming was going to generate $1.2 billion in revenue that would be taxed at 15%. in reality, over that same. of time online gaming is

currently scaling to look like it will be a $100 million business. that is one example where government is really optimistic in what they assumed. that's going to actual gaming. what is profitable? what games are profitable? who is profiting? att: at the bottom --guest: the bottom line, everything is profitable. the way they gaming industry works is that whether you are playing slot machines, the most popular form of gambling in the united states, table games, blackjack, or roulette, statistically the casino will take a certain amount of money. between eight percent and 12%. over time the casino will keep about $10. for table games it is 15 dollars to $20. they make money on an ongoing basis regardless of what is happening. the issue comes in going back to

that fixed cost structure and having too much supply. are you doing enough business to cover your costs and be profitable? as far as who is in the mix, it is an interesting consortium of large public companies that would be well known to the audience like caesars entertainment, who has 53 resorts around the united states and a large presence on the strip with many casinos in atlantic city and other regional markets, with another one that is well-known, mgm resorts in the las vegas strip, they have casinos down in the southeastern u.s., in mississippi, but then you get into smaller, regional companies. and then you have one offs where it is private companies or it is loaned by a very local group in a specific area with one casino. that does not even touch upon the native american tribes. four hundred 30 native american casinos

interspersed around the united states as well. the public and native american casinos regulated? casinos, itublic really is a states rights issue. it is legalized and regulated on a state-by-state basis. if you are in las vegas, the casino there is regulated by the nevada gaming control board. they are not suspect to laws in other states other than nevada telling them that if they do not abide by laws, like in new jersey, their license can be revoked in nevada as well. as far as tribal gaming, each tribal casino is regulated by the tribe. those are all different sovereign lands. you run into issues there if you are an investor if, for example, you give money to the tribe to they falter,o and financially, you may not have recourse there. once you get into tribal casinos

and tribal gaming, it becomes an interesting mix. you are just dealing with the tribe. >> our viewers here, the question here is from twitter -- what is gaming and how is it different from gambling? guest: a good question. theng is a term used by industry itself. certainly, if you go to a casino and our gaming, you are gambling. it is most specifically answered by saying that those terms are more or less synonymous. alex, good morning. aller: it just seems to be bunch of nomenclature to mask what seems to me to be drug addiction, marketing something that is as addictive -- i mean, i am not a drug user or addict, but my experience when i played roulette in las vegas 10 years

ago, i won $100, i lost $100, my heart pounding, it seems to me that it is like a drug. they are marketing very clearly to the same thing that is alluring to drug addicts. this brief burst of pleasure. host: any thoughts? guest: you could say that gaming is really industry verbiage of taking the edge off a term that might have negative connotations. as far as problem gambling, that is certainly an issue. the way that we look at it is the way that we look at other vices as well. at the end of the day it comes down to self-control, to some extent. no one forces you to go into a bar or any other vice activity. elsee same extent, no one forces you and you need to make the choice on your own. if this is something that you struggle with, you can sign-up

for an exclusion list and they won't let you in if you show up. another tweet for you -- well, i would say that the racing business in the u.s., the horseracing business specifically is in a long-term structural decline. that is a bit of a different industry. however, it really seems that they -- you can draw some parallels between them, but it seems you are really losing your audience as opposed to where they were 50, 60, 70 years ago, although there are three big races every year, other than that people have not really been going to the tracks. when you look at the casino business, and i mentioned this before, there are structural issues they go to the recovery following the recession. when you look at the

demographics of people who are it skews more towards slightly more blue-collar individuals and people in the middle to low income tiers, though that may be part of the natural dispersion of people in the u.s.. anyway, those jobs have really not come back at the same pace that higher wage jobs have. those people make up a larger part of your core customer base, you are going to see an impact through less revenue. one of the trends that has been expressed in the last year, a lot of regional casino operators, there is a decline in visitation. when you go to the casino maybe you show up with $100 to campbell. if you were going four times per month, you would still show up with $100 but you would go fewer .imes are fro $10 in the long run before you

show up? they just lost you the revenue that they were getting. taking a look at the data compiled by bloomberg, 2007 is where it was at four las vegas, and the downward trend for those areas -- brian miller, another tweet, how much in tax money does the fed take from gambling? host: --guest: it is an interesting case. casinos are highly leveraged business. a numbers are based on that comes into play after interest. businessen a souring over the last five or six years and large business expenses for these casinos, some of them do not pay a lot of taxes of the

federal level. however, i would say that part of that is because of the current business environment in another part of it is due to the way that their business structure is set up. when you want to think of revenue coming out of casinos going to the general populace, you want to look at that on the state and local level. you would not want to say that the strip is doing $10 billion per year in revenue, because how much is going to uncle sam? according to the american gaming association, in 2012 u.s. commercial casinos employed 300 32,000 people, paid wages of 13 point $2 billion, and contributed $8.6 billion in earnedgaming taxes and 360 billion dollars in gaming revenue. working at aho is casino? what are their wages like? host: you have many different

types --host: guest: --guest: you have many different types. the integrated resort, like in las vegas, with entertainment and dining options. a very big deliver gambling is only one of the things you can do. at one of those operations, you certainly have your employees on the floor and then you have the hotel service staff and entertainers, the people in food and beverage. for you look across those demographics, getting very granular there, to some extent it goes beyond what the bureau offers in terms of data, you are certainly looking at an hourly wage of around $20 per hour. one thing i will point out is a biggere benefit at these locations, large portions of the workforce are unionized. collective bargaining tends to lend itself to higher hourly

thes, a benefit for industry. conversely, a regional concede now might be a stand-alone , there you just have the casino staff. if it is a union workforce, your wages might be slightly lower. >> a net, you are next. --when you first came when you first came on, i wrote c-span an e-mail to tell them i really liked you. stay with us. why are the casinos allowed to operate on palm sunday? it is very hypocritical. there is some sort of law in new york, something about the mutual greeting law. what is that about, mr. miller? it is craziness this. i could not go online to any

other because they sent me an e-mail saying that to to new york state laws, i guess new york state must've contacted them and said that they are not allowed to service you. what kind of stuff is that? other people live in new york. people.eople, muslim who is creating these laws? host: brian miller? understand your question correctly, if you are forceg at any kind of based bedding or anything like that, that can be very different, especially if it goes across state lines. one of the interesting things about the wire act is that sports betting is only legal in four states. if you are making racing bets in other states, a form of sports betting, the bet is taken in a state other than where you make it. without being 100% sure of what

happened in your situation, i think that what might have occurred is that due to the laws in another state, because of those states specific laws you are not able to do an activity you wanted in your state. how that ties into religious holidays is probably outside my expertise. host: what is the wire act? guest: a federal law that prohibits sports betting, essentially, wagering on sports. when it was created there were caveats taken out of it. the one that people are most familiar with is that if you go to the state of nevada, you can gamble on sporting events. what happened recently, 2010, 2011, the department of justice released an updated opinion on the wire act that narrowly pertainingas specifically to sports betting and other types of gambling. that is what opened the door to

online gambling in new jersey, delaware, and nevada. you could see it pop up in other states as well. an offshoot of that that is interesting is the fact that the chris christie administration at that point attempted to push to as well sports gambling in new jersey, which really benefited atlantic city with its issues from a gambling perspective and losing business. i believe that that is going to dateupreme court, but to they have pushed back against that and said that this is only for non-sports betting activities. host: this comes from bill on twitter -- so, there are two different ways to really address this. one is at the state level. the other is at the federal level. maybe we will take the state

level first. that is the more likely rollout of online gaming across the united states to date. reinterpretation of the wire act really opened the doors. it has been up to each state to address it on a one-off basis. what we think will happen is , they will states also legalize it. states that have come to mind that have looked at it includes new york, hawaii, california, nevada. not just for poker, but for other games. and illinois. i believe that eight or nine are currently considering it but it has been somewhat put on hold until they see what happens. at the federal level i think that is a different case. the problem that you have there is that at the federal level you need a majority of the nation to agree to go along with online gaming.

although harry reid has been a , he essentially represents the casino industry who backs and financially, other than him really continuously every session or so pushing a new gaming law, there has not been a lot of ground support for something like that happening. for that reason, we think it will happen on a state-by-state asus as opposed to a federal basis. it comes up all the time at the federal level and it honestly never goes anywhere. host: what about the u.s. gambling industry as opposed to other countries? how do they compare? an interesting question. until recently the u.s. was probably the largest gambling market in the world. if you look at the role of native american gambling in the united states, that is still probably the biggest. lasthas happened over the 10 to 12 years is gambling was

legalized in macau, a special administrative region of china, very similar to, very close to hong kong. after that happened some u.s. casino companies, like mgm and las vegas sands, as well as steve wynn, they opened casinos there. that has been an enormous market driven entirely by mainland china. it is a different type of customer than in the u.s.. i think it is mostly slot players. all everyone plays there is a game called rock around. similar to blackjack. that market has gone from essentially $2 billion to $3 billion up to $45 billion in the last 10 years. it is still growing very quickly while the u.s. gambling business has slowed down to a two percent, three percent annual growth rate. does the united states

attract foreign tourists into our country for gambling? to some extent, they do. they have a scene in "casino" where they have to deal with the frail from japan or china. these destination markets have a certain amount of international business that is usually high-end. what you have there is even though it is a small amount of people, because they gamble so much money, how they do actually skews the casinos revenue numbers for the entire company on a quarter to quarter basis. i would tell you it is a small demographic, but it has an outsized effect. you would deal with other tourists coming from other places. everyday, normal tourists who are not coming in to las vegas with $5 million or $10 million

to gamble. do not have the same effect as these vip customers. host: doug is next. i was in atlantic city the day they opened the first casino. it is going to do wonders and it never happened. ha ha why would people think that this would change with the number of casinos going up now? when it was the only game in town and it did not work, why would it work now that there is this large volume of casinos going up? guest: i think that is a great question that you hit on. i think two things are happening. one, if you specifically look at hasntic city, atlantic city

many bureaucratic and municipal problems that extend way back to before the casino business came to town. someone recently commented to me that if you cannot have the casino market work on the ocean, why would it work anywhere else? in hindsight that market could have done many things differently. certainly the people running casinos now, some of the heads of the different operators there are investing in redeveloping portions of atlantic city, trying to bring in new business. one of the big opportunities that they have hit on is the convention business. you already have a lot of hotel rooms with entertainment or it you have to bring the new business in that is incremental revenue. when that money goes to the municipal government, what are they doing with that money? are they putting it to the best use? is the money getting fumbled

around in a repetitive cycle? the other part of your question is -- does the math work? ohio is a good example of atlantic city 20 years ago. gambling was recently legalized in ohio. casinos, onet 10 at a racetrack, have opened since then. you run into the problem of a saturated market and everyone struggles to as a result. that is the basis of the article from "bloomberg is this week." of these casinos are folding. what about jobs, then? the hit to the economic community? casino closes, you certainly do lose those jobs. when i step back and look at it

in a case like that, it might be that it is worse in the short run but better in the long run? where you have this situation where you have too much supply you sometimes need to go fix something, which can be more heavily for the whole -- healthy for the market in the long run. invested capital, the way that works in my mind, when you are profitable you can invest in your business. it can be any type of business. a small construction company, running a casino, it doesn't matter. more money with excess funds adds amenities to do things like that. createsf itself that jobs that are temporary through the construction process. then there are the new amenities you have created. when you have too much supply without enough revenue to cover your fixed costs and investing in any regular menu or upgrades, it hurts the job picture from

that perspective because you are not creating the jobs to make a property better. it is kind of a mixed bag, as i look at it. there is an immediate impact but in the long run it might be beneficial for the local economy as a whole. host: mark on twitter wants to know guest: this is outside my knowledge base, but i believe that this is handled on a state-by-state basis. pennsylvania, for example, comes to mind. i don't believe that you get free drinks in pennsylvania. i think you have to pay for them . that may not be the case in nevada. they might serve you free drinks in other places. bars and casinos are not allowed intoxicated people gamble. a recent story from "the

washington post," mgm gets the nod to build the six casino in prince george's. inside the article a have a whole -- should maryland casinos be allowed to serve on call around the clock? 65 protest of the five percent said no, 65% said yes. read? on the i am calling racetrack. i am licensed by the gaming commission. racetrack, i was here when detroit got casinos in here. management led racetracks into the ground, with legislators

maintaining in our casinos instead of getting down in the trenches. they chased people away. it was poor oversight from the state of michigan, also. every couple of years you get a new commission? we have been there and they know nothing about it. they have the worst management at these racetracks. here,he state employees these people should not even be in there if they know the reputation. host: ok, brian miller? good: he touches on a point. this has its own issues. one of the fixes from the people that own these properties, and

is adding casinos at these properties. a the other option would be certain states having a certain percentage of the money generated by any casino in the state going towards the horsemen's purse that supports the industry. should you tank your business to prove a point? no. people certainly do it. you see it in other industries. it is pretty prevalent in the nba, for people will run a franchise into the ground to increase their draft pick. core element the of that, that business by itself needs to address specific issues that don't tie into casinos. host: this is a tweet from breaker -- he is referring to a front-page story today from "the new york times."

the middle-class and poor in this country are losing klett -- losing pace with the middle-class class and poor in other countries. maureen, go ahead. maureen, you are on the air. percentage,e was a i believe that you said eight to keep yourable money. can you explain that to me? guest: i missed the beginning of your question, but i believe you asked me about how slug genes and table games worked. the way it works is there is a -- although the machine is not set up to pay out on a predetermined basis, you can't go in there and it is not everyone but times you hit it with a jackpot. it could hit two big jackpots back to back, but the way the math is program is simply that over the long run, and this is

regulated and set by the state within the certain range, over the long run a slot machine is preset to keep a certain amount of money. a better example is -- if you go to a casino like parks once per week, every week, with $100, over the course of the year every time you go there you will probably walk out with 90. one time you might hit $1000, another time you will walk out with no money. in the long run there is math kind of the machines that predetermines how much money the casino makes. the american gaming numbersion have these put together, commercial versus other spending in 2012. byut $37 billion is spent consumers at commercial casinos

versus $204,000 for consumer electronics, full-service restaurants, etc.. tell us about discretionary spending and how people spend their money at casinos. gamblinguest: certainly falls at the far end of the discretionary scale. the numbers you just pointed out, including nevada, i would argue that the majority of the state has never gone to a casino. those numbers, although gambling is small, you probably have a small demographic that does it compare to the number of people going to the movies, for example. but your question was? did about a little the amount of money that consumers spend on gambling as opposed to going out to eat or consumer electronics.

what is the trend on that? just talk a little bit about what that means, economically. host: ok. --guest: ok. i guess the way we have looked at that as we have looked at casinos around the united states, which excludes las vegas, when you look at a regional casino normally your business radius is within two hours. within that 50 mile radius, casino spending comes out to between one to 1.5% of the total income generated by that population. comes outino revenue to about that. that is definitely skewed to people who gamble on a regular basis, tempered by those who never gamble at all. when you look at other activities -- trying to think about other relevant numbers -- when you look at moviegoers or anything like that, you are

probably looking at a larger population demographic with a smaller amount spent per person on a whole. so, that one percent to 1.5% for factos is skewed by the that the vast majority of people don't gamble. host: let's talk about who is the gambler. who are the primary gamblers in the united states? host: i will reference a study --guest: i will reference a study done by igt, a slot machine manufacturer, the largest in the united states. in 2011 they really looked at the demographics of who gambles at slot machines. slot machines account for about 70% of all gambling in the united states, the largest share. table games are the other 30%. poker, the other it, is very small. the largest percentage of slot

machines, broken into different age brackets, is actually people 45 years old and up. i seem to remember a comment made from the manager at penn national in ohio, their demographic was women 45 years older and up. one of the challenges the industry may be for dash facing already, as the baby boomers continue to retire and move to more fixed income structures as opposed to generating a wage or living off of social security retirement savings, that could be a headwind against revenue growth. you might not have as much money as you had to go gamble with before. but my base point is that on the whole you are looking at an older demographic for slots in the united states. host: what is the future of the

gambling industry in this country? what are you watching for? biggest thing is diversification. las vegas is a great example. for anyone who really tracks their slogan is still -- what happens here, stays here. they sell themselves on that. within vegas what we have seen from 2006 to present is actually that their business mix is gambling and from towards other activities, like entertainment, food and beverage. atlantic city has tried online gaming b i