federal funding for science research and space exploration. we will take your calls and you can join the conversation on facebook and twitter. "washington journal" is next. host: in the papers this morning. fightg on shiites to back. iran's president is offering assistance to the country as well. here in the u.s., president obama says he will put no boots on the ground in iraq but his advisers are weighing the options. airstrikes could be a likely strategy when dealing with what is going on in iraq. when it comes to the use of airstrikes, would you support it? (202) 585-3881 for republicans.

(202) 585-3880 for democrats. independents. for you can let us know on our social media pages. you can send this e-mail, too. the new york times highlights the use of airs trikes as a possibility. michael gordon and helen cooper writing. should the obama administration go forward with airstrikes, the unstable situation in iraq would require the aircraft to be based in neighboring countries. armed drones could be based in the region or possibly in kurdistan.

if the obama administration wanted to use air power to influence battles closer to baghdad where insurgents are operating your civilians, the strikes would be most effective if the united states deployed small teams of special forces or s.telligence agent identifie -- it isng iraq highlighted in the m on the map. highlighting the fact that drone strikes against militant likely --re more are already two

armed with tomahawk missiles in the persian gulf. would you support it? for republicans. (202) 585-3880 for democrats. (202) 585-3882 for independents. you can put your thoughts on social media as well. on our twitter and facebook page. there is a poll if you want to participate as well. to help us expand on the conversation, joining us on the phone is mr. lake from the daily beast. the timeframe if airstrikes were to come and play. you say aircraft could strike within 24 hours. can you set that up for us? caller: this is not my view. it's the view of a lot of senior retired air force general to know a lot about it. who was adavid petula

real pioneer when it comes to .he use of drones and isr looking at the basis of similar to what we had yesterday, looking at, here is where a lot of assets to the united states are. like bases in the region be readyere they would to go within 24 hours. guest: as far as the experts you comes to, when it the likelihood of airstrikes, how high does it go? caller: i was the first person to report -- this is what the iraqi government is asking for. from the perspective of this is what they are saying, please do whatever you can to help us -- the president has said he is considering it.

whether or not the president -- experts say there are a lot of problems with airstrikes alone. what are you striking? united states had significant human networks in iraq in 2011 before it left. because the united states was unable to secure policing rights where a lot of individuals and drones and other types of kept, thewould be intelligence networks and the ability to know what's going on has diminished significantly. while there is an ability to hit our goods in iraq -- targets in iraq, it's unclear what they would be hitting. even though we know the group on a rampage right now would be the

group you would hit. the individuals inside that organization, that is a taller order. host: that gets more complicated as you go into dense areas like cities like baghdad. president obama would be thatwary of airstrikes would have potential for lots of casualties. that is the first point. he has tried to minimize that in countries where we do conduct airstrikes like pakistan and yemen. there is a new drone strike regulation. the deputy prime minister, a rival of prime .inister maliki

he says, yes, the americans should do some airstrikes, but not in high population areas. he says pick those targets and it will punish the civilian population. it is unlikely that you would see these types of airstrikes inside high population centers. everunlikely that you will -- host: when it comes to the youst in iraq, what do think is important to highlight that we did not know yesterday? the country is really teetering on the brink. we fewer needsspan be to know that this is what

happens when terrorists have a safe haven. who is isis? what does it mean when they implement their plan and they have taken over a city? when you start taking over, they are imposing an eighth century version of islam. they are barbarians. women can't leave the home without a male guardian. they have to cover themselves up and dress modestly. isis had takenof ul in 2006, they were punishing people for smoking and mixing genders.

this is not the view of most livems or people who in the middle east. it's the views of lunatic fanatics who also want to kill us. that is the key thing to remember. there is no chance -- there is a difference between the government of iraq and these guys. eli lake from the daily beast. his latest tory, u.s. aircraft could strike iraq tomorrow. thank you. to your calls on if you would support the use of airstrikes. donald is first up. burlingham, alabama. caller: i'm against the

airstrikes. ,e spend too much money treasure and blood over there in iraq. , we have to side face our national debt. we ought to bring our resources back home. is thatr concern i have the country is saying we don't want no more wars. we spend too much time and energy over there. too much tax dollars. we were talking about our veterans. our veterans were over there -- come home. they are still not getting no service here. we need to take care of our own country here at home. not spending any more tax dollars in iraq.

host: all over from iraq. -- oliver from iraq. independent line. i'm an iraqi-americans .r d completeck to iraq to school there. i was able to finish my degree in geology. i graduated this month. this situation is very -- there was a lot of fear. all kinds ofeing things. some people are saying that the united states is behind this. we need to intervene. we spent a lot of blood and money. there is a lot of oil there. there is one field that is the

second largest oil field in the world. we have to intervene. not only airstrikes. military and special forces. we need to preserve our interests there. -- they will go to kuwait and saudi arabia. the price of oil will be $500 a barrel. it will destroy our economy. you think it means that a lead cleric there is calling on shiites to rise up? what is the end result? caller: that means there will be a bloodbath. the number of shiite to 75% of the iraqi population. theme government gives

weapons, it will be a bloodbath in iraq. that is why we need to intervene over andan takes iraq becomes another iranian state. you're talking about the guy who served in iraq for 7-8 years. i was evacuated to germany back in 2003 and i went back to iraq because i believe in this. the iraqi people now believe that the united states is the only country that can save them. tois a good opportunity now win their hearts and minds. host: david on facebook saying the issue with letting the country fall to hell in a -- facebook is a way

you can make your thoughts known. make your thoughts known on twitter as well. you can also give us a call on the phone lines. page, there is a poll there you can participate in. that poll simply says, would you support use of airstrikes in iraq? your answers could be one of those. give us a call and let us know your thoughts. this morning saying that iraq forces are finding the body es of 12 police in recapture town. bellmore, new york.

republican line. caller: good morning. i am one of those opposed to us bombing or getting involved in this situation. isis is aem with problem of our making of some years ago when we overthrew iraq. suggestions that iraq should be divided up into three parts according to the ethnicities of the inhabitants. who have in the north established their own government, the sunnis in the middle and the shiites to the south. reason, we felt, no, it should be a solid nation. it's amazing we did not apply the same thinking to yugoslavia. it was perfectly fine there too that the croats and serbs and muslims all have their own areas. why the same philosophy could

not apply to iraq is totally beyond me. we have seen what has happened when the shiites were given dominance over the sunnis. they totally misused their powers and the sunnis really were put upon terribly. now, they have this chance -- the people helping them are not nice people. i'm not promoting the cause of isis. sometimes, when the situation gets this bad, people will look to anyone. you may recall the sunni uprising when they drove al qaeda out and work with the americans. the americans should work with the sunnis, but it should not be to allow the shiites in the south to regain dominance over the sunnis. that was wrong when this policy was instituted. we are announcing what happens when you introduce such a silly policy. it was totally outrageous. host: would you support the use

of airstrikes iraq is our question. . non offering its support country should offer assistance to terrorists. we should take steps towards a world against violence and extremism. democrats line. hello. i think the biggest --blem was that the it was most of our countries are based on dictatorship -- they decided to bring down -- we did everything. we made states for all opposition to fight against government. host: when it comes to airstrikes in iraq, would you support it or not? supportof course, i

iraq to bring down the isis. .ost: justin president obama, before leaving with michelle obama made statements about his administration and what they're doing and considering. [video clip] >> iraq he security forces have proven unable to defend the number of cities, which has allowed the terrorists to overrun part of iraq's territory. this poses a danger to iraq and its people. given the nature of these terrorists, could pose a threat to american interests as well. this thread is not brand-new. we have been year, steadily ramping up our security assistance to the iraqi government.

training, equipping and intelligence. now come iraq needs additional support to break momentum of extremist groups and bolster the capabilities of iraq he security forces. we will not be sending u.s. troops back into combat in iraq. he asked my security team to come up with a range of other options and i will be reviewing them in the days ahead. james fromup is atlanta on our independent line. this is the problem we are having -- it was a disaster in the first place from -- these muslims are armed because of john mccain. they paid these guys billions of dollars. they aren't these guys and now these same guys are turning it on them. when they stopped paying the guys wereese

attacked. all of this is because of the surge. they armed these sunnis. they negotiate with them. these are the guys who won the war in iraq. now you have the united states talking about going in against these guys. the united states and president i am leaning democrat but this is one issue that would divided democrats and will cause you and the next president to lose the election. host: a tweet that links to his statement talking about the situation there. crisis in iraq is ultimately up to iraq used to -- this thread has been

growing for months and the iraqis have been asking for assistance to attack these terrorist camps through drone strikes. ."mocrats sendin a map of the key cities that are in question. california -- "i agree with president obama. no war in iraq." when comes to airstrikes is a possibility, would you support it or not? henry, you're up next. republican line. caller: hello. i support the idea of airstrikes in iraq. of the reasons this group has formed is because we chose not to act in syria. they were able to create a home-based and create this group

and now they are moving into iraq and surrounding nations. it will go after places like lebanon and stuff like that. the longer we give these groups in area to safely train their their army,reate they will keep coming at us and they will come after all of our allies. saying that we will spend too much money on this for , it's a lot easier to spend a few million dollars now shooting these guys and killing them and making sure they are not a problem anymore than spending billions and trillions of dollars later trying to upgrade our security programs and fight them in the middle east. surrounding get the nations to even trust us again. let alone if other nations like russia or iran decide to help them and they take control and

then they have more of a basis europe.ol oil to withbody has a big problem the american immigration because we feel badly for these people in in other countries that are coming to the united states. what about the people who were over the ocean? they are being massacred. children are being killed by hanging and stuff like that. for things like supporting gay at.hts and stuff like that hea host: the financial times has a photo of truckloads of the tounteers, men who volunteer fight against the jihadist. williams -- "ark

airstrikes can cause civilian casualties and death. this is throwing gasoline on the fire. we will get burned." rick from ohio. independent line. point, thethis american people are being brainwashed. it is no longer propaganda or lies. they are being brainwashed. you can look at conservative movement -- they have been trying to control the middle east since the 1960's. in 1961, we signed an agreement with saudi arabia that all oil in the world will be traded in dollars. , that oilnt into iraq was leaving. us going into iraq,

halliburton was not allowed into the country. host: bring it back to airstrikes. caller: why continue this? in 1961.ted why continue this? we know what's going on here. by thears are started south. in the military contractors -- they are in the south. host: republican line. nick from florida. let's move on to judy in florida as well. democrats line. caller: hi. us engaging inf airstrikes and putting special forces on the ground.

i think it is very important we do that. people in this danger frommize the the extremists in the middle east. it is almost unbelievable to conceptualize what a threat it is to the people in the region. us that we are not so far away from that danger. frightening to appreciate that reality. host: you identify as a democrat. a previous caller said if president obama goes down this road, it would divide the democrats. what do you think of his statement? caller: i think it might happen. but i think there are some

that are more important than political considerations. for puttinglt obama political consideration over reality. think it is shortsighted of him to do that. i think that, when somebody becomes president, they are privy to information that most of us don't have. reason obamat the initially did not close guantanamo bay and had a surge in afghanistan and did not immediately withdraw troops from iraq in spite of the fact that

onhad one on those -- won those pledges was because he found out that the security countries --those out: john boehner sending a tweet with his statement on the president's statement yesterday. hillary clinton talking about her book. also talking about options in iraq. [video clip] >> it is also imperative that malki be presented with a set of conditions if you are even to discuss seriously any kind of

voluntary -- military support for the fight against the jihadist. that is a delicate and difficult task for our government because we certainly don't want to fight their fight because you would be fighting for a disk functional, unrepresentative, authoritative government. -- dysfunctional. there is no reason to sacrifice a single american life for that. [applause] potential crisis with rall regional and even global consequences. regional and even global consequences. website for that

and look for information there on the video library. recording, new york up next. independent line. paul. caller: i'm against airstrikes in iraq. what we have -- what's going on in iraq is our own doing. because we are invading this whole region. we give money and fund terrorists. all of the military money we ends up inat country terrorist hands. is we are doing by invading causing problems. -- we need to come back and worry about america. we need to scale back the federal budget and stop with military interventions.

they can settle their own problems. just like the previous caller talked about yugoslavia. invaded yugoslavia and look what happened there. let these people figure out their problems for themselves. twitter -- "malki created this problem by not including sunnis." another story of political nature in the wall street journal this morning taking a look at the irs saying that rnerils connected to le have been lost. efforts topered its requestedrespondence as part of a congressional review of the agency's treatment of conservative groups.

andts effort, additional 24,000 e-mails are being provided to lawmakers. rows, good morning. germantown, tennessee. republican line. this whole administration -- they have played politics with our lives. they are talking about barbarians. they will not stop there. they will continue. just like nazi germany. they will not stop because we een't like -- we think th

will fight. it's beyond that. letting the barbarians have the control of civilization. the united nations should get their act together and they don't do anything. obamay clinton and barack don't have the slightest idea and could care less about anything that matters. , thesees for the irs children that came over -- host: new york. democrats line. caller: if you remember, just a few months ago, we were ready to launch cruise missiles into syria. the neocons were very active, including hillary clinton. what happened? andamerican people woke up

hundreds of thousands called their congressperson and said don't do it and it stopped the neocons and the administration cold. the same thing should happen to this business about using drones or bombers from aircraft carriers. fighting on the sides of the sunnis, which will further enraged the shiites. turn it over to the united nations. what does it say to you as far as what's going on in iraq? caller: why is the president considering -- host: what point is he at in considering options? though he is a second term or and a lame duck, he is throwing it out there so they can see what kind of

political support he gets from the amerco people. let's hope that they rise up again and let president obama no that we are sick of taking sides. to thatit turned over wonderful organization that we have demonized, the united nations. host: paul is up next from pennsylvania. independent line. i think we should have airstrikes. -- i don't think we should have airstrikes. let their country stabilized. let the people decide what they want to do, not us. host: are they capable of that? caller: i don't know. we never give them a chance. talk about what the u.s. should do as far as looking at the situation. i think they should just take care of themselves. sooner or later, they have to do something.

let them make their own decisions. host: eric cantor will soon lose that title because of his loss in the election. he loses perks as well. -- mr. have to reduce with awill have to go reduced status made obvious by a -- by a reduction. -- by pay reduction. it is unclear how many of them will find a place on mr. cantor's regular staff, which

currently has about 20 paid employees. see antor will also dip in his paycheck. -- 20,000 in1000 annual salary. raul labrador of idaho was 010.ted in 2 kevin mccarthy of california has supportp a huge well of that is hard to break. a source said not one of their commitments was contingent on labrador not getting into the race. more important than the outcome itself, his candidacy will be a test of how conservatives

perform in a leadership race. roger from tallahassee, florida. talking about airstrikes in iraq. would you support it? supporti actually don't airstrikes. the main problem that we are having in this country is, we are divided already. the nation is against itself, it will fall. we are so busy around the world trying to make everybody else happy. if we had a country come to this nation right here and say we will overthrow the democrats or the republicans, it would be divided. who were they to come into our country and tell us what we can do and we can't do? that is what we are doing when we go to these other countries. anybody knows that we did not go over to liberate kuwait because of -- we went over there because

of the oil. if you could get these liberal leave the keystone pipeline alone and let it be dependentwould not be on the oil around the world. i don't understand how people could be so blind. we should get the united nations more involved. "i do supportook, airstrikes against isis. if they are ruthless." don from michigan. democrats line. caller: thank you. all, this happened back in vietnam. i'm against the airstrike. this happened in vietnam. the follow-up saigon happened so quick, president ford wanted money to go back and to go back into vietnam. guess who walked over to the

cabinet and directly confronted him? us, no way.s told here we go. when it comes to airstrikes, why not? you say just airstrikes. people died. we're are sending more people back to die. who benefits from this? the contractors. the rich people. cheney, bush, rumsfeld. it is sickening. host: last call on this is from sylvia in louisiana. independent line. think thison't

nation could carry out an airstrike. it would be a waste of money. it is the right call, wrong administration. they have not carried out anything in the past eight years. what makes them capable now? a sense of what it looks like militarily when it comes to iraq, the wall street journal has a map. it lays out cruisers and , aircraft carriers and f-16s. shows all the places in the region that you heard our first guest talk about. areas that could be used should airstrikes be called into play. we are asking your thoughts on it. monti on twitter saying this morning that airstrikes will be againstng terrorists other terrorists. you heard those facebook postings as well.

,o update you on the poll three categories for you to choose from. people saying they would not support the use of airstrikes. 38 people saying yes. a people saying they don't know. he will take this call from richard. florida. independent line. eight people saying they don't know. caller: no airstrikes. we've lost a lot of blood over there. theirt these people with entire army. are taking uniforms out and running away and giving the equipment to the enemy.

no airstrikes. we need to get out of there. if they can defend themselves, no. host: republican line. caller: we should have from vietnamut until now, the emerick and people are getting sick and tired of all of the bs from the government. why don't we go over there and wipe them off the face of the earth and get it over with? host: options for the united states and the obama administration. our guest joining us for that of themichael rubin american enterprise institute. later on, we talk about student loans. theill talk about current condition of those paying them. we will take up those

discussions and more. ♪ >> one of the things people don't always recognize is that, during the war of 1812, it was bought from 1812 until after 1814. americaeally about reestablishing its independence against the british. this was our second american revolution. this flag is the object for which francis scott key penned the words that become our national anthem. in 1995, the flag was made to wholeld and restored -- and restored. when it was moved into the

space, there was a decision by the curators not to do that again. what we wanted was the flag to become a metaphor for the country. it is tattered and worn but it still survived. we are not trying to make it look pretty. we are trying to make it look like it has and/or its history and its still celebrated. >> the 200th anniversary of the naval bombardment of fort mchenry during the war of 1812. learn more about the flag francis scott key wrote about when we toward the star-spangled banner exhibit at the smithsonian. but if american history tv. -- part of american history tv. this weekend on c-span3. affairsn brings public events from washington directly to you. putting when the room at congressional hearings, white house events, briefings and conferences and offering

complete gavel-to-gavel coverage of the u.s. house, all as a public service of private industry. c-span, created by the cable tv industry 35 years ago and brought to u.s. a public service by your local cable or satellite provider. watch as in hd, like us on facebook and follow us on twitter. >> "washington journal" continues. host: joining us to continue our conversation about iraq, michael rubin of american enterprise institute. good morning. what options does the white house have when it comes to iraq? guest: we need to recognize that good options. president obama is right to say that there should not be american troops on the ground. when we talk about airstrikes, it is about stopping the advance to baghdad because that would complicate the problem should baghdad fall. ul -- it has always

been a bit of trouble. i was stopped at iraq he i checkpoints telling me that i should not one because it was too dangerous. one of the things that shocked me was to see the syrian refugees on every street corner doing nothing, just wallowing. you take a city that was the source of saddam hussein's court and you added tens of thousands of refugees, that isn't -- we need to address how to deal with the refugees from syria because this will impact iraq and jordan and lebanon. are put in an uneasy spot. talk about the region.

were the players now -- who are the players now? guest: a lot of people will put this in the framework of sunni versus shiite division. look at the conflict in syria, what began as a syrian conflict was quickly internationalized with turkey and saudi arabia. supporting the sunni led opposition in syria while iran supported the syrian government. there is a danger that if iraq is allowed to internationalized this, what we are seeing in iraq syria 2.0. jihadistshe g are actually flying into istanbul on regular passenger

the price of at $40 bribe, they are crossing the border. we could put pressure on turkey to stop the flow of these jihadist into syria. that would be a great help. the prime minister is either the devil, he has been list of around for a military equipment to do the job himself. the reason we have not given him what he wants is simply because the iraqi kurds have said he might use it against us. that is more politics than a real concern. now that isis has created a common threat to both, that should be reason enough. host: president obama late liki.s directly on ma

let us hear what he has to say. [video clip] past decade, american troops have made extraordinary sacrifices to give is anused th opportunity to create their own future. they have been unable to overcome the mistrust at secretary and differences that has long been simmering there. that has created vulnerabilities i government.aq any action we may take to provide assistance to security forces has to be drawn by a serious and sincere effort by iraq's leaders to set aside secretary and difference and promote stability and account for the legitimate interests of all of iraq's communities. to bring people together. that could result in a situation -- do you agree? guest: it is also nice to have a

pet unicorn in your backyard. while it is all well and good to say that we should have as broad-based a coalition as possible, would a situation in washington work if president obama's chief assistant had to share a desk with karl rove? sometimes these things sound better on paper than they do in reality. iraq did have an election, the sunnis participated, they are an active component of the negotiations. will take theaqis prime minister's side anyway. if the united states comes in and tries to impose a coalition, that simply will delegitimize the coalition. it's time to let iraq keep politics take their natural qi politics take their natural course. also minister maliki

has sunnis in his coalition. the government issued a warning against the former vice president and they love people said it was shiite acting against sunnis. -- the man hethat was accused of killing is actually a sunni. it is more complicated than the secretary narrative we have. talking about saddam hussein being involved in this as well. guest: while the united states this aling on isis, qaeda affiliate, everybody i've talked to says remnants of saddam hussein's army are much more hand-in-hand. we have seen three similar uprisings. falluja in 2004. we responded by empowering --

that turn on us. -- that turned on us. in november of 2004, you have an uprising in mosul. david petraeus had empowered the police chief. they handed the keys over to the radical islamists and now we --e the same coalition host: michael rubin of american enterprise institute talking about what is going on in iraq. your call is are welcome. calls are welcome. (202) 585-3881 for the publicans. --(202) 585-3881 for republicans. first call from ron. republican from california.

good morning. you have to have this information. great to have mr. rubin on. if these people call in and say don't airstrike, that is fine as long as they don't care about double the price of oil. sul is the key ingredient in this process as it sits between and the major syrian aspect of what you are talking about. i would be interested in what you think about us making our mosul and retaking mosul and the oil that's it's there. guest: great: great question.

70% of iraq's oil is in the field outside of the shiite dominated area in the south. that is stable and secure. most of the oil in the north is .ne hour away from ,osul that is under control from the kurds. l. one hour away from mosu the danger we have now is much more psychological. my biggest fear when it comes to oil, if you have the insurgents go down and destroy any of the , the one in shrines baghdad, that could set the whole middle east a light.

one other quick point, when we talk about airstrikes, this is what worries me. to have adequate intelligence to have an effective airstrike, you need to know where the insurgents are going to be one hour from now. this whole uprising should cause us to question the ability of our intelligence and iraq's intelligence. isis was able to take iraq's second-largest city and nobody saw it coming. raises a major question about the value of our intelligence. up to my from pittsburgh, tony. democrats line. -- next up, from pittsburgh, tony. caller: i was listening to the news yesterday and the newscaster said the whole rest of the world is shocked with what's going on in iraq. is itt is the case, why

the whole rest of the world is not clamping down on what's going on over there besides america? it seems to be the same premise that got us into iraq in the first place. fear mongering. that is all i hear them talking about. if we don't do that, they will come over here. they know their country inside and out. we have tried and tried. if they are going to come here, let them come here and we will beat them on our turf. bible -- "do not be drawn into wars." these wars have been going on forever. guest: you raised a lot of good points. statesot only the united which is worried about what is going on in iraq. diplomats have been held hostage in mosul.

we already have iran sending advisers to baghdad. what we are trained to prevent is an international invasion in this crisis. what we have seen from syria and iraq is that sometimes these crises don't limit themselves to national borders. the best way to think about al qaeda or islamic movements like national insurgency. more likely an international insurgency that does not fit nicely into the compartments in which americans naturally and normally think about things. general ways to look at terrorism. one is the terrorism motivated by grievance. to that is toswer address the grievance and the terrorism goes away. the other is that it is motivated by ideology. is, it is hard to negotiate with and hard to isolate. should they come and strike us

on our soil again, should we have more opportunity to prevent it? host: washington offering up some version of a federal plan that joe biden proposed one decade ago. that is a very good point. when it was first announced one decade ago, joe biden talked -- you have provisions for a bicameral legislature like we have in the united states. in iraq, you have a parliament and the council of regions. it has never fully been implemented. that is something that iraq he policymakers are going to look at again. holocene makers are

going to look at. iraqi policy makers are going to look at. when we talk about bosnia and , people forgetple about the deaths that occurred. when it comes to u.s. military presence, "president guest: it was set in motion before president obama. but there's a difference between combat troops tand american presence. when president bush announced this admittedly i'm a republican i opposed it. just because bush said something doesn't mean i have

to agree with it. but one of the questions iraqi consienly complain with, i go -- i'm not in the u.s. government bubble. i like to think that i'm able to get unvarnished opinions than only the people allowed in embassy walls. what i consistently hear is talking to the prime minister and i know him personally we sat down and talked. he and senior aides have said look the americans wouldn't take yes for an answer. on maintaining some sort of presence because the issue and where it all fell apart was whether american forces would have any sort of immunity. the iraqis said yes you can have immunity. we're not going to have our soldiers arrested and tried under iraqi law. the obama administration said we need the iraqi parliament to confirm that and that became mpossible because of the makeup. and then iraqis have been desperate to implement our

agreement to have american businessmen come back, american advisers come back. they have been knocking at the door and unfortunately no one's been answering them on that issue. host: is there maliki a strong enough leader to resolve this situation? guest: tat beginning i said that he wasn't an angel and he wasn't a devil. some people say he's an authoritarian. most don't have to worry about winning the next election. and his election was very much up for grabs even before this occurred. when you go out from the center of the iraqi government, the so-called green zone where the republican palace is named after the republic of iraq not the americans. you don't see prime minister maliki's picture on all the walls like you do in syria, egypt, tunisia morocco and so forth with their respective leaders. so no. here's the problem. in the united states when a president is elected he chooses his cabinet and the cabinet answers to him.

in iraqi situation, the prime minister doesn't have direct control over his cabinet. they're coming from all different political parties. that's a recipe for dysfunction. so what he did was create a shadow cabinet, if you will, with certain key advisers, you have the ministry of education and an adviser, and he started relying on his ide visers more than the actual ministry. some people said he's consolidating too much power but i would guess that the problem isn't maliki it's the sim system and whoever comes next is going to rely on the same strategy. host: jenny, thanks for holding. caller: enough spent on american lives and money. because it's their problem. it's their land. let them pay with their blood. guest: i certainly understand that sentiment. and it's something i hear a great deal about. the reason why it may not be that simple, however, is

because the problem may not be able to remain sexartment liesed to iraq. when it comes to this battle of ideologies and the expansive ideology with al qaeda groups embrace, sometimes they reach out and strike us. and if there's a safe haven that's created that might make the matter worse. that's what happened before 2001 guest: if you could comment on short-term ksh -- caller: if you could comment on

what their involvement may be. especially with turkey being a nato ally, what do you think the implications could be down the road? u guest: let's start on turkey. i'm very disappointed in turkey. while it's been a nato ally over the past ten years the administration of the prime minister has not only become much more authoritarian and islamist. it's become much less of a reliable ally to the united states. when we talk about a nato ally, today in turkey one out of every five generals is actually in prison and they're not in prison for anything they did. for things they may have thought, for having the term ert to suggest that the onstitution should trump his ideology. most radicals enter through turkey. when it comes to saudi arabia, saudi arabia once officially or unofficially supported many al

qaeda militants and terrorists. and it was only when they suffered blow back that they realized that they had to take us seriously. now, they're much less of a problem than qatar is in supporting the most radical islamists not only in iraq and syria but also in egypt with the muslim brotherhood and so forth. one of the things that we can pressure saudi arabia on, however, is this. saudi arabia has refused to accept the democratic legitimacy of any government in iraq which is run by the shiite. and ultimately saudi arabia needs to stop undercutting iraq's government if iraq is going to be able to reconstruct itself. whenever i've talked to senior saudis, they hold out hope. why don't we have a do-over. put in a strong sunni general that can lead iraq. the fact of the matter is that's not going to happen, 70% of iraq which is shiite is not going to stand for it. so let's deal with reality. when it comes to iran, iran is unwilling to have an -- a

suneea-al qaeda affiliated group take root in baghdad. i spent time in the taliban's afghanistan before 9/11 and i remember having a conversation with tall abs back in the year e 2000 how they wanted to impose the perfect islamic state. and i said what about saudi arabia? and they said no the king -- he welcomes americans in saudi arabia. he is no good. what about egypt? mubarak at the time is a fairo. he's no good. just for the sake of argument i said what about iran? and they turned to me not knowing that i was jewish and said the shee united states are worse than the jews. -- shiites are worse than the jews. the thing to remember is they have least tolerance for anyone who is muslim who doesn't actually agree with the way they see things. and so that is a major iranian concern. they're going to be acting as the protectors of the shiites

whether we or the iraqi shiites want it or not. and i forgot the depourtsdz country. host: on the topic of iran. president rue hani sent a tweet. they offer support. so that's what you described. guest: just because the united states and iran disagree when it comes to the nuclear shis and terror ysm and so forth doesn't mean we have to define our policy by whatever iran is against. that said i wouldn't be so trustworthy as to want to ally ourselves with iran in this regard. just because we're on the same side doesn't mean we have an interest in intervening together or that the price in which iran would want to extract from iraq in the future wouldn't be too great to bear for the united states or iraqis. >> some talked about putting a u.n. presence in there letting things work out there. nato also as well. do any of those forces have any possibility of changing the situation? guest: short answer is no. first nato is not going to come

in. and even though turkey has called an emergency meeting of nato, because of the hostages which they have taken, no where on the table is nato intervention. it's just not there. when it comes to the united nations, unfortunately whether you're in favor of internationalization or against when it comes to military force the u.n. is a paper tiger. back in 2003 i think august 2003, their headquarters were blown up their response was to leave the country. the fact is when you have a situation where you're shot at but you can't shoot back, ultimately people are going to figure out that if politically you come down against them you simply shoot at the united nations and they flee that's not a situation they're going to get into. host: our next call from louisiana. democrat's line. caller: i believe in the president of the united states.

he nose what he is doing. and the situation in iraq is getting bad. so right now we've got to take action because these people will come over here and blow up america. guest: it's a good question. ultimately when the united states feels is threat it is good to support the president. the president got up at the white house and said he is going to consider all options the only concern i have is the timeline by which he considers all options because there's a conceit in washington which is both republican and democrats that we can have debates endlessly regardless of how it changes. unfortunately in a crisis situation it's not enough to mull option force two or three years as we have in syria because unfortunately problems left unaddressed can metastasize. host: what about if baghdad goes? guest: if baghdad goes you're going to have the iranians

intervene simply because of the number of shiites. the shiites are the majority of baghdad. at the same time you would have a massive refugee flow and that would be something that impacts all the neighboring states. people may agree or disagree with american policy but traditionally american policy has been quite bipartisan. if you have jordan fall, or saudi arabia fall -- and i am no fan or saub and i have questions about the king of jordan. that's going to fundamentally reorient the middle east in a way we haven't seen since world war one. host: volunteers lining up because of the calls. clerkic. talk about how they play into this. guest: ultimately, the grand ayatollah, is the most important shiite cleric not only in iraq but in the world. he is independent of government. but his major concern repeatedly has been that the shiites shouldn't be oppressed. historicically they have been all over the world so they come

at it from that perspective of never again shall we fall into the situation. the important thing to recognize as these volunteers take root is of course iraqi army was a disaster in missouri you will. the only thing -- mosul. the only thing they managed to accomplish was throwing down their weaponry and taking off their uniforms. first it's time to stop thinking about the army as a unitary army. it's much more a collection of militia. those who are shiite can beat ack in the insurgents in mosul. but it's not going to be shock and awe. at the same time we need to ask real questions in the united states -- and again this is bipartisan. we withdrew from iraq whether we want to attribute that to bush or president obama. in reality it's both of them. because we were told that the iraqi army had been well trained and could stand up and fight. the question is whether politically the white house was

knowingly deceiving us in order to justify withdrawal. or whether the army and the generals who had been in charge of this including again david petraeus at one point had exaggerateded the competency of the iraqi army simply because they didn't want to admit failure. the reason is because we're about to do the same thing in afghanistan. host: robert from missouri. caller: good morning. i don't think we ought to spend one penny or one bullet over there in that iraq. we have tried that for ten years. and the first security police in their army is too cowardly to fight for their country. get out and leave them alone. the united states would be a lot better off if we keep our nose out of other countries' business. guest: thank you. i mean, i certainly understand where you're coming from on this. one of the issues which is the

subject of the political debate is in 2011 the united states did withdraw from iraq. we did leave them alone. when we withdrew from iraq there had been a good understanding a compact in iraq and the sunnis and the shiites and kurds were working together although not perfectly. the question is, and this is something that's going to be rehashed out in the debates right now, is whether we withdrew prematurely. and i'm not talking physically taking our troops out but if we cut our relationship, told them to go on their own, if we had remained engaged for another year the question is whether this could have been prevented. because ultimately the price of chaos may be too great to bear. host: maggie from pennsylvania. caller: thank you very much. i love c-span. michael, you're very bright and so i'm wondering if you could both look backward and look forward. backward to help the general

public understand the difference between shiites and sunnis as it relates to whether mohammed, they wanted mohammed's son to take over or not. and also looking forward as it of tes to longer term goals the islamic philosophy, if you will, or state or group of states as it relates to the united states of america. i was at the crash site on 9/11 and so what was the impact on our own land? guest: thank you for your question. of course i'm originally from pennsylvania too so i welcome your call as well. when it comes to the basic difference between sunnis and shiites it all starts back in a secession dispute as you say in who should secede the profit mohammed. now, what's important to remember is the divisions we see today haven't been consistent through time.

at various periods of islamic history they worked much more closely together, were much more tolerant of each other. in fact at certain periods of islamic history the shiites were considered just to be a school of sunni islam as it were. however, today we are where we are. and there has been especially since 1979 after islamic revolution in iran much more tension between the sunnis and the shiites. and ultimately iraq is in the front line. the other important thing to remember, hour, is if you look at any basic book about islam or take a course on islam 101 they will tell you that the sunnis represent 85% of the muslim population throughout the world and the shiites 10 to 15% at most. the important thing to remember is if you go to the heart of the middle east, from the mediterranean sea through iran, you are at 50/50 parrot so everything is in play which -- pairty why it seems this crice

has occurred now. when we look forward as to what is, the key lesson we need to learn is this. there's no homo jen atety. islam is a very diverse religion and muslims are a very diverse community. whelm mean talk about sharia law, the analysis i make is it's talking about state law in the united states without ever mentioning what state you're talking about. because there's no one une formed codified agreement as to what sharia is or is not. it depends on what community you're in. i see many muslims to be very, very moderate. the guardian newspaper of london -- it's a leftist center newspaper. before operation iraqi freedom, before the united states led the invasion of iraq, had an article which stated that one out of every six iraqis had actually fled iraq under saddam hussein. when they sedled in the united

states or in europe they had no problem embracing democracy, which to me led to the conclusion that the problem was less cultural antipathy towards democracy and more an issue of rule of law. in the united states, my one concern policy is this. all too often with allow the -- we allow the squeaky wheel to get the grease. we ignore the more moderate muslims who want to work with us and focus on the radicals and that legitimizes the radicals more. likewise when we have dialogue between american muslims and overseas too often the state department will have a dialogue and they assume it should be between clerics but who represents the population in the united states more? imma'ams, school teachers, engineers, air force pilots, and a whole host of representing the opportunity which america has provided. host: a viewer off twitter.

guest: short answer is yes. and the reason for that is simply that the status quo in iraq was breaking down. i don't see it as foreign relations president called it as simply a war of choice. and while our intelligence was wrong, with regard to the weapons of mass destruction. what we do know from all the documents seized from saddam hussein is that he was planning to reconstitute his program. some people would say we wouldn't have this al qaeda presence in iraq right now if we still had a strong dictator like saddam hussein. and the answer to that is saddam hussein made assad look like an amateur. saddam hussein had used chemical weapons 20 years before assad ever did. i'm not sure whether the situation would be any better. but ultimately that's a question which historians are going to be debating for quite some time. host: another viewer asks.

guest: ultimately, everyone in american enterprise institute works as an individual. we're sort of like a university without teaching. in that we all act as individuals. i advocated on behalf of iraqi freedom and i don't apologize because i still think it was the proper call. that said, i can't speak institutionly. no one at aei can. you would have to ask my colleagues at the american enterprise institute about their personal opinion. we don't have an opinion shoved upon us or position we need to take. we're independent of any political party. host: here's morty. caller: good morning. thank you for taking my call. i have a few quis. -- questions. i am 87 so i go back to 1944 so you must know what i'm talking about.

have you ever been through the persian gulf through the straits of her muss? the space there is iran. it is one solid block. and it is the largest producer of oil. i sailed there four times during the second world war. it is called by seamen who went through there the belly of the beast. if you know what i mean. now, you have shia and sunni. this is not a place where we are going to settle by a bible. we walk around even in our own country with bibles. who is the leader of the sunnis and the shias? guest: very good question. i have not sailed through the strait of hormuzz although i commend you for your

>> the oil that passes there goes to east asia or perhaps to europe. when it comes to the whole issue about the bible, i simply don't see this as coming in to the debate with regard to american national security. some people may hold the bible much more individually, it might color the way they think much more of an individual basis. but as a national basis it's not the document which the pentagon utilizes the white house utilizes. and remember when we talk about

foreign policy, maybe only one to three, maybe a dozen people get up before the cam rafment but in reality you're talking about a process involving thousands of people. and therefore, the constitution comes out front and center with the separation of church and state. the last part of that question? i'm sorry. i forgot. host: so the president says no boots on the ground but others saying military planners have been developing options to place u.s. special operations forces on the ground and iraq. do you need people there to provide intelligence if some type of military action is to take place? guest: ultimately, the president is commander in chief. so whatever the contingency plan the pentagon has come up with if president obama has said no boots on the ground and if he decides to impose that they're not going to have an option. they're going to have to rework their plan. that said when we were talking before about intelligence there's a couple different types of intelligence. of course you have the satellite intelligence and the

signals intelligence. but human intelligence is where the united states is increasingly lacking but it can be the most important. the analogy i would make is if you want to track a terrorist, sometimes it's more important to have a cigarette vendor set up a shop outside a mosque that has been reputed to go to for seven months just in order to see whether he shows up or not and hear the gossip than all the billion dollar spotlight platforms we have. it's that cigarette vendor that becomes the most important. if we want to be effective with regard to our intelligence, we're going to need to know not where the terrorists are this ins stant because if people are flying in from jordan, from erik carriers it's going to take them some time to get there. they would already be gone. we need to know where they're going to be in advance. that involves human intelligence. but when it comes time to pick up the pieces in iraq i wouldn't be surprised if we continue to have trainers the inside iraq. and indeed, one of the crisis is that the air base that there

were american trainers there helping the iraqis with the f-16s, helping to conduct the training. ultimately i would see that sort of presence again in iraq in the future. host: i imagine you'll get inside information from the white house as far as time lines but how soon realistically do you think the united states has to respond in some way? guest: this is where i don't have a lot of faith in the white house because i think we're measuring our ability to respond in hours where at most days not in weeks or months and all too often in the united states the white house likes to mull this for weeks or months. that said unlike the debate that president obama -- president obama had with whether there should be air strikes in syria after the chemical weapons used the white house acknowledged didn't have an expiration date. so legally by the white house's interpretation they don't need to go back to congress. host: this is ken from south carolina.

caller: i'm a desert storm veteran. and i said from the beginning as soon as we leave this would happen. the shiite will not include the sunnis. and inside the green zone it's like apple pie. outside of the green zone is garbage on the street no power or nothing like that. keep think our people saying we know everything. it's a complete failure. got us into going to iraq while president bush dick cheney, [inaudible] shaum kept iran at bay and kept the country under control. soldiers are dead, wounded. how much $2 trillion. how much do you want from us sir? guest: thank you, ken.

and i certainly understand your sentiment. that said, what i always -- the reason i go back to iraq as often as i do and what i always warn analysts is don't assume because you're stationed in one part of iraq that you understand all of iraq. it's important to travel around and don't understand iraq six weeks ago is iraq of today. the fact of the matter is when i traveled around iraq, i don't spend time in the green zone although i visited. and you're right there's a difference between the green zone and the area outside. but kirkuk has been rebuilt the same thing with bass ra which is booming. one of the thing that is shocked me when i went to basra last summer because of the restorations you actually have basra about 10 degrees cooler because of the environment has gotten back to normal. it's changed. the wind comes over the marshes and cools. it's natural air conditioning. and the fact is for several

years iraq has rebuilt. if you want to look at refugees as a metric of success, they've reinreturning to iraq until of course last week rather than fleeing from iraq. and we're not just talking about the kurds. we're talking about arab shiites as well. in addition, the last point i want to make is don't exaggerate the sectarianism. sometimes i think americans are more sec terrence about the sunnis and the shy united states than iraqis -- shiites. first, the veterans of awakening council today have endorsed the prime minister according to press reports. the governor of mosele was sunni. the governor of tick rit is suneeafment when we look at ice sis terrorists, they're killing sunnis. sunnis killing sunnis. not shy united states. so sometimes the sectarian model we have in our head starts to break down or isn't act quatly known. host: off of twitter.

guest: actually, certainly they would be noncombat. they would have been minimal. but the issue would have been psychological whether with the sort of trip wire the same sort of trip wire that we have in the battlics, for example, that we have in qatar, that we have in kuwait, that we have around the world, whether this would have been enough to prevent the sort of chaos in the first place. this is where i have a fundamental disagreement as a republican with president obama. i tend to look at american power and american force projection as the finger in the dike figuratively holding back the deluge of chaos and terror that otherwise exists in the world, whether it's russia in the crimea, whether china in the sea of japan or south china sea, argentina in the balkan islands again. unfortunately president obama seems to look at the military

as just another option. something that can enable a war of choice. i don't think he fully appreciates just how important a strong military able to project its power everywhere in the world is to maintaining the type of peace and security to which americans have grown accustomed. host: secretary of state john kerry has he weighed in? guest: i don't hear much from secretary of state john kerry. although the white house has -- i'm sorry the state department spokesman has made comments. traditionally the iraq portfolio under president obama especially after the withdrawal in 2011 i believe it was has been in the office of vice president joe biden which may be one reason why secretary of state john kerry has been silent. but we see it also in syria that when secretary of state john kerry was proactive in his statements sometimes he got cut off at the knees by president obama and the white house subsequently when they contradicted him. so perhaps john kerry is simply

being cautious and not putting his neck out there until the -- president obama's national security team comes to a consensus. >> and the vice president? have we heard anything significant? guest: no. that's something that certainly is worrying not only iraqis but also afghans who are looking at iraq as potentially their future. that said, that president obama did come out and acknowledge the severity of the crisis and the statement of the white house yesterday is a positive solution. and i believe that members of both parties in the u.s. congress are going to continue to pressure president obama to focus on iraq even if he sees iraq if it were as the origin sin. host: but what's going on in iraq, how does it affect ultimately what we will do in afghanistan. guest: ultimately one issue is whether the afghan military is adequately trained to provide security. a few years ago, it was said that we would leave -- that the afghan military we would need $6 billion per year to

subsidize the afghan military of 352,000 man force. suddenly that number went down 250,000 $4 billion and man force. did that go down because there wasn't enough money or suddenly the afghan troops are that much more stable? at the same time as we come to an agreement with whatever the next president of afghanistan will be, i mean, the afghans are saying we're ready to sign a status of forces agreement with you even though karzai isn't but they want to make sure that this agreement will be uphe would. and the thing we need to upheld. it's good for the president to promise money but if congress isn't on board then what the president says and the diplomat says is meaningless. host: when it comes to going on in iraq, look ahead a week to ten days to see what happens. why that time frame? guest: what i said is it seems that iraq is on the precipus.

and either they're going to fall and iraq is going to fall or they're going to slowly walk down. and perhaps i'm being too optimistic and looking for that silver cloud. but traditionally, recently political paralysis in iraq. you've had the sunnis, the shiites and the kurds unable to resolve key differences from the oil law to what federalism neens to what the role of religion is in society. but now that they see the future, with isis and what's going on in syria, maybe this will be enough to kick them in the seat of their pants and to come up with some sort of new grand compact. and that's what this recent election was supposed to be all about. now, before this broke out, i had thought maliki would be a shoe-in for a third term. now i heard he simply wants to retire with immunity. the question is whether you have any coalition of sunnis, shiites and kurds who are able to break through some of these key issues so as to prevent iraq from falling. host: michael ruben, thank you.

guest: thank you. host: coming up we were going to change gears and take a look at the high cost of student loans. our guest joining us gnat alia. later we'll turn our attention to nasa see how much money the house and the senate wants to give them for space exploration. we'll break down the figures for us later. we'll be back with "washington journal" in just a moment.

host: joining us from california. natalia. here to talk about the topic of student loans. good morning. caller: good morning. thank you so much for having me. host: could you tell our audience a little bit about your organization and its background? guest: about two years ago, student debt crisis.org was formed. this is based on my colleague robert am balm who wrote a petition to forgive student loan debt and let's be clear it was quite similar to the president's plan but it was a ten-year repayment program at 10%. we received over 1 million signatures to this petition. at that point we realized that we had a real crisis on our

hands and it was the time to organize, and organize a nonprofit so we could attack this single issue because the issue itself has so many facets that we felt we needed something dedicated just to the student crisis. host: how are you funded? guest: well, we're not really funded. this is -- we operate on line. we don't have any money really. this is a labor of love for all of the cofounders and a very member driven organization. we're very thankful to sign on and move on for allowing us to access our member list and email them and work with digital organizers. and we work with the higher ed not debt campaign. and that's a coalition of think tanks, policy groups, grassroots organizers like myself. nonprofit organizations, and through that they help fund some of the great ideas that we want to do to attack this crisis.

host: you were present in washington when the president announced taking a look at student loan actions. could you tell our audience what the president did and what your take on it is. guest: so this past monday, the president announced that he was expanding his pay as you earn initiative. and what that does is it allows borrowers to pay 10% of their income for 20 years and then the rest would be forgiven. it's key to note that would be taxable that remaining balance. we feel that it's a very good step. but in no means buzz it solve the whole crisis. one person, one legislator is not going to do it. but it will help 5 million more borrowers. host: as far as the debt forgiveness portion, does that go to the taxpayer though if debt is forgiven? guest: yes. you're probably right on that. i think it does. but i will say that the domino effect in the economy by having such high student loan debt, that that 1.2 trillion that is

trillion with a t is going to affect the taxpayer and the american citizen maybe more. host: you highlighted the $1.2 trillion. it highlights that figure as well. how much of that in your research, how many of those loans are in default currently in the united states? guest: we have roughly about 7 million people that are in default. out of the 40 million borrowers out there. so we feel that this is a real problem specifically at student debt crisis.org we're fighting for the defaulted borrower. like we mentioned the president's program earlier this week you can't enroll in that program unless your loan is in good standing. so we need to figure out a program to help the people who are suffering the very most in this crisis and so far that doesn't exist. it's a no man's land when you're in default because you're not allowed to go bankrupt on your student loan . host: when it comes to the plan itself, is this a negotiation between the person who receives the loan and the bank, or are

there people in between? and how do they react or how do you think they'll respond to what the president is proposing? guest: well, this is for federal student loans only. so that this is dealing with the department of education. and i would say that we've already seen that the department of education has made to the tune of 50 plus billion dollars and as senator elizabeth warren says that's quite obscene. so there's profit there already. i think that by helping these borrowers, i've got to go back to that domino effect. i'm sor worried about this being the next big bubble to burst. and the protection bureau has highlighted this issue quite well. i suggest anybody check out the testimony this past week on just how much this is affecting our overall economy. host: and the $50 billion that was made because of previous actions by the administration in restructuring how student loans are done? guest: correct host: what happened? well werks decided to federally back all student loans.

and for federal loans we made the department of education the main servicer. and therefore, there was a profit due to the high interest. right now the banks borrow at 0.75% and student loan rates are at an average of 3.9% and for graduates it's 6.8%. so that's where you get that profit spread. host: you hear directly from people who are affected by this. what's it like to have student loans over your head? what's it like for a person trying to get a job and doing the thing that is you do normally every day? guest: well, times just wrote an article on how it's affecting people's health. i think the stress of this debt. and the fact that they don't feel light at the end of the tunnel. we see bankruptcy with credit card debt, foreclosure with mortgage debt. there's nothing if you get into real trouble and you fall behind. defaults happen after nine months, raoul 270 days of failure to pay your loans. and at that point, it gets really bad.

all of a sudden your wages can be garnished, your social security can be garnished. if you're of social security age you can't even apply for a reverse mortgage. in montana they take your drivers license away. in many states they take your professional license away. which takes away the ability for you to raise money and get to earn money and get out of debt. host: a fact from the "wall street journal" saying that the average loan amount for undergraduates is $33,000. hat's up from $18,600 in 2004. why is that price going up? guest: we feel it's two factors. one of the biggest factors is state disinvestment. right after the financial crash of 2008 we saw a lot of states pull back their funding and spending per students. in some states like louisiana and south carolina they pulled back to the tune of 40%. but then there is also this

fact that so many people are going to college. people feel this is their only option. of course i believe and all the groups we work that higher education is a right and people who want to go shulled be able to afford it and have easy accessibility. but we need to encourage community colleges, trade certificates because not all of us can go to college. host: we can look at your website by going to its address. we're here to talk about reform. oans and we've divided the libes by if you are a student. if you are a parent. nd all others can call us. send us your thoughts on twitter and by email.

first call is from ed from new york. a parent. good morning. you're on. caller: good morning. i was just calling my daughter just recently graduated here in may from university and she is carrying o $33,000 in debt just as you mentioned. as to total amount. i just talked with her recently and she's telling me that as an elementary educator or being educated in that background she is facing one job per 600 applicants. what can happen to change that in the future? how can -- she has to cope with getting other jobs or whatever in the meantime. and i'm just concerned that she got all this training and then is just left with a one in 600

chance of obtaining a job in the area where she was -- she got her education. could you comment on that? guest: well, first congratulations on having your daughter graduate from college. that is a huge achievement. unfortunately, it does come with this huge weight of debt strapped to it. did i hear you mention that she's trying to be an educator? host: i believe he did. yes. guest: so there's a great program called public service loan forgiveness. once she's able to get into a job and get past that threshhold, public service loan forgiveness especially coupled with the the president's program of pay as you earn, will allow her to aboutly pay for 10 years and then have the rest of the loan forgiven. we need to increase job availability in this country. and some of my great partners are working at that. but i would say keep trying definitely pay off those loans. and if they are federal loans this is where the president's program is coming in and helping 5 million more people.

so i would say enroll immediately in pay as you earn. the great part is if your daughter is making 0 or making a very low amount she is only going to pay 10% on that. 10% of 0 is still 0. it's a great stop gap so to speak before she can find the job that she belongs if in. host: but that extends the life of what they'll pay. guest: it does. but as we talked about what happens when you go into default, it's much, much better than default. so i would say for those that are underemployed or unemployed, this is a way to save yourself from going into default. it does extend the life. it does extend the interest. but right now it's one of the better programs out there. and that's why we exist. we want to keep fighting for better more comprehensive reforms that actually allow borrowers to get out of this within 10-15 years. we hear of borrowers still paying their student loans 30 years after they took out their original loans.

host: ms. abrams from twitter. guest: i don't think that's changed. i know many people working full time jobs. it's just it's not our parents' student loan debt situation any more. it used to around the mid 70s that the pell grant, a grant offered by the federal government covered about 70% of the cost of college. so you could work a part time job or even a if you will time job, take very little debt and be paid off in a year or two. now that we're seeing the cost of even a state school, my alma mater ucla is about $14,000 a year. private schools go up to $40,000. so when you're accumulating debt amounts to the tune of about 150, 200,000. it's not that they're not working. it's that the the amount is so

high that there's no way with even a full-time job and grants that they can pay off their loans right away. host: teddy up next from our others line. caller: hi. i'm a world war ii vet. i went to college under the ive bill and i'm -- givi bill. i live near tennessee. and i learned that tennessee now is going to have free tuition at community colleges. this is the republican state. why can't other states have free tuition at community colleges? guest: well, thank you so much for your service. i agree with you. i'm a product of a community college as well. it was quite affordable when i went. i think i paid $13 per unit which wasn't free but now

that's about $30 per unit. i think we see that outside of the washington beltway this is not really a left or right issue. the two states that didn't have state disinvestment after the financial crash were texas and montana. both republican governors and republican states as well. so we need to stop politicizing this issue making it a left-right issue. this is a human rights issue. this is a civil rights issue. education especially at the community college level where people are trying to figure out where they belong or learn a trade, i believe, should be free or virtually no cost. host: the huffington post highlighted some of the issues with student loans. they talk about interest rates. guest: that's absolutely right.

they tied it to the treasury note. and i would just say again when -- as senator warren said, when the banks are borrowing at 0.75%, why are we making students who want to better their lives pay such a high interest rate and have it be variable? i think that certain things in our country -- you know, i'm a capitalist. i believe in our democracy, capitalist republic system so to speak. but i don't think everything should be for profit. we don't have interest rates on our health care debt. we don't have high interest rates even op our i.r.s. tax debt. and the i.r.s. is an easier agency to deal with than a student loan servicer we have a problem. host: clinton, maryland is here tom is. caller: i think what we have here is a right-left issue. the conservetives the republicans want to cast

students and people trying to seek a better position than the higher education in this country versus people who are trying to live off the government and they use this debt situation as a means to beat them saying it's going to cost the government more money if they don't pay higher interest rates. they want to send troops in iraq and spend $2 trillion to kill people in iraq and nothing from conservatives. they were all for that. but to help american students people who are trying to help themselves to build the country up by having educated people, they're against that. it's so sad. guest: i couldn't agree with you more. and we at student debt crisis feel this is a national security issue. we joke why don't we put higher education into the defense bill? i believe it was under eisenhower that it kind of was part of defense for our

country. the smarter we are, the more educated we are, the less debt we have, the safer we are as a country. so i think we need to start changing the nature of the debate. i think it's also really important to remember that this is not just a youth issue. this is not college students drinking and partying with their money. we have 60% of people over the age of 30 that hold that 1.2 trillions in debt. and we have roughly 13 to 15% of people over the age of 50. we have everyone of -- it's an intergenerational issue. let's put it that way. host: so if a viewer disagrees with you. guest: they're completely entitled to their opinion but that's something that we rongly believe at student debt crisis. host: from lawrence, colorado on our other's line. steve. good morning. caller: good morning.

i've got two real quick comments. for one thing i've seen a lot of jobs that have been canceled because [inaudible] the good welder can get over $100,000 a year. when i was a kid back in the 70s, you could go to college for $18 a credit. now since the government has gotten into it you can't touch it. it's like everything else the government touches. the more the government gets into it the more expensive it is. so if the government would get out of the way and let the free enterprise do their thing, people could afford college. thank you very much. guest: again, there's a lot of people that agree with you, sir. however, we've seen where the private industry has taken over in the for-profit sector. a lot of people used to go to community college to get their trade certificates and now

they're going to places like the university of phoenix and devry at very high cost per year to attend. and the default rate that we mentioned a little earlier at 7 million, roughly 50% of people went to those for profit colleges. so i don't think the private industry is doing much better and i think the government is doing all it can to help alleviate the burden on student. host: why do you think there's been that shift? guest: we've just seen more of them come up. i don't quite know that. i will have to look into that. host: so here's the president from earlier this week. you heard the guest talk about the proposals he made. here's president obama from monday. >> i have made it clear i want to work with congress on this issue. unfortunately, a generation of young people can't afford to wait for congress to get going. the members of congress who are here are working very hard and putting forward legislation to

try to make this stuff happen. but they have not gotten some of the support that they need. in this year of action wherever i've seen ways i can act on my own to expand opportunity to more americans i have. and today i'm going to take three actions to help more people pay off their student loan debt. number one i'm directing our secretary of education to more making a loan payment a chance 10%. their payments to host: and we also have this statement from representative john kline, chairman of the educational workforce saying that nothing the president announced will make the cost of higher education more affordable. nothing the president promised will help graduates find the job and opportunities they desperately need. ultimately, the president did talk about working on congress on this. do you think this issue of resolving debt is as far as congress is concerned is it a

nonstarter? guest: well, we've seen senator elizabeth warren introduce her bank on students emergency refinancing act. that was phil bustored on the floor on wednesday. however, we did see three senate republicans vote for it. we are seeing more energy and people in power come to light on this issue. i think the dial has to turn somewhere. right? i've been working in this space parttime for five years, full time for the last three years and i've never seen so many of our legislators talk about this issue. and we've heard from senators warren and franken that they're going to keep pushing the issue. and there's one thing i would like to note with representative kline's statement. we didn't hear him insult the program. he said it wouldn't make college less affordable. there is some truth to that. but the program will help 5 million more people. and i think that is a really great start. host: as far as how you got started, what made you get into the field? guest: in 2009, the uc system

raised tuition 32%. i myself had just graduated but i have many of my friends that couldn't finish their four-year college degree because they couldn't afford their senior year. think about that. 32% from one year to the next. we believe that there should be a single price per degree. we can cap it at 5 years. but what other large consumer purchase do you purchase that changes the price on you year per year? i don't purchase a car at $15,000 and the next year they say sorry the car is $22,000 now. we need to create a single price per degree so those four or five years that you take to do your degree it stays at one price. so you're able to afford completion. host: are you still dealing with student debt? guest: i have a little bit of debt left myself. i had initially $15,000. now, that's only from two years at ucla because i was able to

go to community college at a very low price. i'm doing pretty well. i pay 6.8%. i am not one of those who are is struggling the way so many 40 million people in our country are. host: do you have the ability to refinance your loans or can a student? irgets no. at this point there is very limited refinancing. and if you have a federal subsidized loan you're probably somewhere between 3.9%, 3.8% to 6.8% if you're a graduate student or parent. private student loans are around 1%, 8 to 12%. -- they cannot apply for any of these new programs that the president has introduced. and elizabeth warren's refinancing bill would have saved 25 million borrowers. and that would have also helped those with private loans and those who have parent plus loans. host: the next call for our from ohio, a

parent. caller: good morning c-span. and a wonderful c-span audience. i really appreciated your comments about bankruptcy. and it's sort of ironic. i believe it was president bush who disallowed the bankruptcy option. and what's ironic about it is before he was president he was involved with companies that did go bankrupt. then you see all these so-called captains of industry on all the business shows and i heard one of them -- i will not mention their names but they're always on cnbc and fox. but one of them actually said he uses bankruptcy as a business tactic. now, now that option is being discriminated against with the students. they should be allowed the option. and believe me, not all of them will take it.

probably a smaller portion than can be imagined. and those people within a year or two will be allowed to get mortgages, credit cards, they will be pure borrowers once they get employed. i think the bankruptcy option ould be on the table basically in terms of the great american spirit of fairness. thank you so much for your wonderful comments. guest: yes, we agree that not everyone will take advantage of bankruptcy. even former republican chair of steele ., michael said, borrowers aren't looking for bankruptcy just to get out of their debt. few people take advantage of the system, of course. that happens everywhere. when people are looking towards bankruptcy to their student loan debt, it's often due to medical issues, unemployment

for many years due to the downturn in the economy. so we believe, too, that the bankruptcy, especially on these private student loans should exist and should exist for everyone. and we've heard people critique that, you know, there's no real asset behind that and they can't take your education away, and i would say i could use my credit card, i could travel through europe, eat my way through europe as well and you couldn't take that back either but yet i would be able to go bankrupt on my credit card and foreclose on my home. i don't know why student loan debt is scrutinized and this negatively different debt you take in this country that you can't go bankrupt, you can't refinance has many negative implications other types of loans do not have. >> you think students have to make better choices about what majors they pursue? >> i don't. i think that we need to remember what the university is about. and it's about learning and it's about critical thinking.

i was a gender studies major and i really valued my education. i valued the conversations i had with my professors and my peers and i learned pretty much how to be an adult personally. and i know that's not true for everyone. i think you should think hard and long about your college choice. it's not something you should rush into lightly. no $100,000 purchase should you rush into lightly. but i do think you should pursue the degree you want to pursue because that's when you'll be most engaged and most likely to complete your education. >> what's the private scholarship field like these days? do students have resources on that front or are those collapsing as well because of the economy? >> no, i think there still are a lot of scholarships out there and a lot of untapped scholarships out there. we've done a few lectures at community colleges and really try to stress make looking for a scholarship your full-time job. if you're looking to go to school soon, check out all your loan options, try to exhaust as much federal subsidized loan

debt as you possibly can and also look at scholarships. start with google, look at every different -- they have scholarships for everything. i'm a six foot tall woman, they have scholarships for that. they have scholarships for first generation students. so exhaust yourself with the amount of scholarships out there, the amount of grants and the amount of federal subsidized loans you can get. host: coal chester, vermont. t.j. for that tall yeah -- for natalia abrams. caller: i recently paid all my student loans to the tune of $43,000 and i went to the state university of vermont, the university of vermont, and i have to say i kind of chuckled when you talk about raising the cost of tuition at ucla because i did guarantee you vermont state tuition is quite a bit higher. the reason it's higher, i think, in part is because of a

certain elephant in the room nobody else wants to talk about and that's the administration at the state universities making six figures a year at a state university. our former president, dan fogle, president of the university, had to step down two years ago because of personal scandal. now, he was making around $425,000 a year and because of his cronies on the board at the university of vermont, when he had to resign early, he got a severance package of $425,000 a year, take the year off, and then was guaranteed a faculty position in the english department making $250,000 a year. now, he's not a nobel prizewinner or a pulitzer prize winner. why should he be getting more money on the faculty at u.v.m. than any other english department faculty member there. host: a question for you if i can? caller: sure. host: you sound young, how did you pay your debt off so quickly? >> i broke my back.

i paid more than was the minimum due every month because i could not stand having this debt over my head and i lived in poverty conditions for about four years. host: t.j. from vermont, thank you. ms. abrams, go ahead. guest: i completely agree with you. we're seeing administrators make far too much in the higher education field. former president gordon mcgee of ohio state was making seven figures and making about $1 million a year. you know, my mother is a teacher. she did not go into that field to make lots of money. that's never been this lucrative field, while i believe teachers should be paid far more, why are these administrators making six or seven-figure salaries. you're 100% right. that's absolutely part of what is driving up the cost of college along with state disinvestment and along with college amenities. we need to go back to just learning. colleges need to stop competing

with themselves for rock climbing walls and pools in every dorm room and we really need to focus on the hard-core learning and critical thinking and start treating students as students and not consumers. host: as far as expenses are concerned, text books and the like, what's the costs like these days? >> the cost is very high. y friend from the think tank said the pell grant covered about 70% in the 1970's and now basically covers the cost of books. so books are outrageous. and a great organization at 20 million minds run by dean flores is really trying to work on bringing the cost of text books down by bringing on more online text books, kind of rewriting the >>ic lum so there's not as many the curriculum so there's not as many costs. there are so many points to the student debt crisis that somebody like myself are still

struggling to keep up. i can't imagine what it feels like for a new parent looking for their kid to go to college and just starting at the beginning of this process. host: we talked about a lot of the facets, what's one of the ones people may not know about? guest: i think what we talked about with defaults and bankruptcies and amenities, we're covering them all. host: are there hidden costs parents or people may not know about when it comes to education other than tuition and text books and that kind of thing we haven't discussed? guest: just room and board. i think where you're going to going to be very expensive. you need to look for the going expensive. you need to look for the least expensive option. and you need to figure out if you can work part-time. start paying your interest while you're in school if you have an unsubsidized loan. i know of a few parents that are doing so and that's a way to help bring down the costs, or even yourself, if you can pay that interest while you're in school, you will graduate with less debt. take out as little debt as

possible. use that debt just for the education. sometimes you will get more than you need. don't take it. just try to keep those costs down as much as you possibly can because as we heard and we're seeing with this average $30,000, now $33,000, it just jumped this year, and 40 million people don't become one borrowers. million host: from crofton, nebraska, jeff is a student. go ahead. caller: yeah. i have some debt still going on, not a lot because just like the last caller, i busted my behind end paying off the loans. and i have -- i can't even tell you how much i disagree with ms. abrams. once again, once again we have something -- someone representing the millenals with oh, give me something free, i've got to get something free, i can't take it, oh, please,

help me. oh, i should have never taken out the loans. come on, give me a break. guest: so there's a lot of people that agree with you, and you're not alone in feeling that. no one i know is looking for a handout. we're looking to better ourselves, get a good education , take down the interest rates. i'm not sitting here right now advocating for free education. it would be great but i don't think that's where our country is going to go. what i would say is that people don't realize just how bad the interest can get. if you go into deferment or more so forebearance and your interest is rising while you're not paying your loan and then you have capitalization of your interest, we're hearing people who took out an initial $20,000 in debt and they have been paying for 20, 30 years and have paid over $45,000. they paid their loan back. we're just talking about the interest here, sir, that if

somebody has paid for their initial bill and they paid double for it, they should stop paying. we're not necessarily asking for handouts. 'm at the very tail end of the millenial age. we think we should go to college and be able to pay it off in a reasonable 10-year amount of time and see the light at the end of the town ell -- tunnel so we can stimulate the economy. my fear is for those who don't have student debt, if there's no new buyer for your home, it will affect us all and we already see it all when the national association of realtors is coming out and saying this, when the fed chairperson janet yell an is saying it's affecting home purchasing, this isn't just millenials but everyone across the board from people in government to people in the private sector. host: you make comparisons to student loans and automobiles, assuming people are educated

when they go in the decision but you make the decision to take the loan, so ultimately shouldn't you be responsible to pay it? >> yes, if we taught financial literacy in this country at the high school level, i would agree with you more. but people really don't understand economics in this country. they sign because they want to go to school and they sign for a specific amount. and then tuition starts to increase on them. i had a friend in vermont that actually did all of his homework. he saw how much the tuition was going to be, saw how many grants and aids and scholarships he was receiving, chose a school based on those factors and tuition rose on him and that's why he ended up with debt. he did his homework. he was fiscally responsible but the game changed on him. we're just asking for fairness as one of our previous callers had mentioned. host: in new jersey, a parent. this is tom. good morning. guest: good morning. the problem when i went to shopping colleges with my

daughter and saw the unbelievable recreation centers that were going up. my first thought was wow, my second thought was wow, how much is this costing? then when i see and found out that the layers of administration and all the new departments that have sprung up, especially those in the state schools, really all the ones i checked out were -- some were private as well, of diversity inclusion. and then they're all taking an advantage of students and parents who definitely want their children to get a degree thinking that's the answer and the government who is going to fund all this. and then when you refer to your degree being in gender studies, i don't want to have to pay for a variety of degrees that are not going to contribute to this nation at all. i prefer if i was going to be required to make payments out drop down to help

this debt, it would be for engineers, physicians, people who are going to make a honest contribution right away. host: tom, thank you. guest: i haven't been unemployed since i graduated college. i feel my degree was worth it. gender studies is one of the second degrees that leads into law school. it's a very heavy reading and writing, com mention type degree. but you're certainly entitled to your opinion. i just think that we get in a very risky place if we start valuing one degree over another. however, yes, if you're so inclined, go into one of the stems, math, science, technology. those are really good degrees and we need more people in our country to go into those degrees. we need more people to fill the job openings for those sectors. but i think that we need to, again, remember as i stated

before, that education is about critical thinking, it's about learning, and you can get that with a liberal arts degree. and there's so many jobs that can come straight out of having a liberal arts degree, even a gender studies degree like my own. host: what do you do as a career? guest: i do this. i don't make a lot of money doing it, i consult with the higher organizers and help out with debtcampaign.org and my husband and i own a small business and i was forced into entrepreneurship which i'm now grateful for after the financial crash and that helps keep me going. my activism doesn't really pay a lot of money but i'm able and lucky i have a private sector job that keeps me going. i will say my degree really helped me with human resources and managing a staff of people and being able to work with people and understand their issues and what they're going through and it led me to this. and while i might not be making a ton of money doing this, it

fulfills me so much and if i can help one person, i feel like i'm doing my job. host: let's hear from one more call, louie from texas, a parent. caller: good morning. it's willie. students don't understand the financial issues because of organizations like this young lady's, they push floored rhetoric and ideas, for example, how is a college education a right when a right is something you receive from birth alone, life, liberty, pursuit of happiness. what is a college right line up with those and it sounds like you want to change the old age culture of interest on a loan, interest, quote, unquote. that's what makes businesses give or banks give loans. i'll answer one more question you couldn't answer, ma'am. the caller had it right, you know, the for-profit colleges are able to drive because of the guaranteed government guaranteeing the loans that they receive. so that's how these for-profit

colleges are able two thrive and community colleges get pushed to the side. host: willie from texas. thank you. ms. abrams, go ahead. guest: i agree. i don't think the government should finance or allow aid for the for-profit schools and should get out of giving grants and loans to the for-profit schools. i completely agree with you on that. i actually forgot the first part of the question. host: he made a couple statements but as far as what president obama did this week, is it enough? what else would you like to see? guest: so i think it's a start. i don't think it's enough. i think that helping five million people is great. there's some of our members that feel this is a band-aid but i like to say a band-aid does stop the bleeding and helps the wound heal so we can keep going. i think he stuck true to his word. you know, president obama and first lady michele obama had debt themselves and they really understand the situation. he started talking about this

really seriously last august. he promised us he wouldn't give up and he's continued. now, as i said before, i've been in this base for quite some time and we have more people in power really starting to talk about this. and that really makes me feel that this is the time we need to keep acting and organizations such as myself, higher ed, not debt.org and we're seeing the unions come into this. we're going to make change happen and it's not necessarily a handout for students. it's students and borrowers given a fair shot. host: studentdebtcrisis.org, what kind of information would they find there? guest: there you see student testimonials or borrower testimonials and see videos to put a human face to the issue and wonderful articles on the student debt crisis and a couple of petitions to help support the legislation we support in the congress and senate. host: an early morning in california for our guest,

natalia abrams, studentdebtcrisis.org, the co-founder. guest: thank you. host: in our final segment, a what does the nasa budget say about human research and space flight? we'll be told the details when "washington journal" continues after this. >> c-span's new book, sundays at 8:00 include huffington post senior correspondent david wood. >> there's something that drives them to this ideal of ervice and it's like so many people i know who served in war, that the intensity of the experience, the intensity of the relationships they had with

their com bat buddies are so trong and so pure and true that they look back at those times with longing. i always asked them, do you wish this had never happened, you know? and they're like i'd do it gain in a heartbeat. and i think something that goes on, too, is that going through a near death experience somehow seems to give them so much strength and courage and optimism that that's one reason why they would do it again. >> read more of our conversation with david wood and more featured interview with our book notes and q&a programs from c-span. now available for a father's day gift at your favorite

bookseller "sundays at eight." >> "washington journal" continues. >> e host: dan leone of space news. a staff writer. good morning. where do we stand as far as approval from the house and the senate on nasa. guest: they're midway through the 2014 appropriations process. the full house has passed their version of nasa's 2015 budget. you're looking at about $17.9 billion with a b. the senate is about the same place. the senate appropriations committee got their bill to the floor and we might see action on that next week but they're about the same level with a few differences. host: when you look at the budget, not only did you produce a chart that breaks it down but the headline, flat nasa budget shows where the white house and congress disagree. a couple things. let's start with the flat nasa budget. how does it compare with year's past? >> if you go back a couple years and find that nasa is about an $18 billion agency in round numbers this year.

they took a whack and became about a $17 billion agency when there was sequestration in 2013. when you go back in time and make adjustments for inflation, you see them floating at something like $18 billion to $20 billion and now are on a downward slope. the flat budget -- flat is the new up the nasa people like to say a lot like everyone else in the government. what the white house and congress disagree on is where to arrange the puzzle pieces under this flat budget. host: when you say the puzzle pieces, what kind of pieces are we talking about? guest: the big stuff, about human space flight, science, the robotic missions to other planets, the robotic missions to this planet of which there are plenty. everybody has different ideas within congress on which of those missions more urgently need the most money. the white house has its own ideas and they'll have to recollect ok sile this year like they do every year.

the past couple years it's been the same arguments more or less under this flat budget, the same tug of war between the white house and capitol hill. host: walk through some of the details on the science budget, about $5 billion i'm seeing. there's a bunch of categories under it but generally the $5 billion. where does it go to? guest: there's two noticeably large, two of the five nasa science divisions are larger than the others which is earth science which is exactly what it sounds like and planetary science which is all the planets except for the earth and you also have sun science and astrophysicalics, telescopes to look at the stars, and you've also got inside the science account this massive telescope called the james webb. this is the spiritual successor to the hubble space telescope. and on the senate side you have people more particularly interested in earth science and astrophysicalics. on the house side you have people who are more interested in planetary science and will have to come eventually to an

accord on which of their favorite programs get a nice piece of the pie this year. host: to that end their interest in the programs probably depends on their interest their congressional districts or states? guest: like anything you can appropriate hoin for in congress, yes, the short answer is yes. senator barbara mikulski who is very influential happens to love the goddard space center in maryland and happen to do work on the planetary side and are building the james webb telescope. some of the question marks that are open, as we're in the middle of an appropriations process, there's a good deal of foreshadowing just based on where the work is. host: exploration, about $4 billion, breaks down into three systems, exploration systems, commercial space flight, exploration r&d, paint us a picture. guest: in the exploration account you have the human space flight stuff except for

the international space station. particularly within exploration you're talking about the space launch system rocket, the big rocket nasa is building which would lift a thing called theo ryan -- the orion space capsule to perhaps a vicinity in the moon and are looking at a flight to 2017 as a shakedown. but then you have commercial cargo services and these are paying for commercially operated capability to do what the space shuttle used to do, vary goods and services and eventually crew to the international space station that remains about $3 billion a year, the nation's premiere human space flight program. host: to the headline you showed, is there disagreement about the building of this rocket among the members of congress? guest: well, there's less disagreement with the big rocket between members of congress than there are with members of congress and other people within washington, d.c. the big rocket actually has quite a good reputation on capitol hill, although it was not admittedly the white

house's priority when the obama administration came in and began making decisions about what to fund within human space flight. so currently the sfls rocket is set up for a big increase if the senate gets its way and what it usually gets, frankly. host: will this be the next step, the next space shuttle, so to speak? guest: that's a question our audience might have some strong opinions about. insofar as it will be a great big rocket people at nasa pay attention to and work on in their day jobs but will do a little more than what the shuttle did because the shuttle wasn't meant to go beyond the perth and the l.s.u. of the rocket is it will return us from far away places which is something the shuttle didn't do. host: the nasa budget and we'll look at details of it with our guest dan leone of "space news." if you have questions about the budget and some of these programs you heard about and the science involved, here's a

chance to find out more, 202-585-3881 for republicans, 202-585-3880 for democrats and 202-585-2882 for independents. c-spanwj. tweet @ we had a chance to speak with steve swanson of the international space station and talked about the big rocket as you refer to it and gave us his impressions of it and listen to what he had to say and get your thoughts on it. >> right now science is pretty much separated between the u.s. side, or i should say the u.s. which includes the european space agency, canada, all those and then the russian side. so the scientists are what separate it. however, we do require the russians for us to get up here and get back down right now. hopefully in a few years we won't need that but right now we need that to happen. and that's probably the biggest

deal right there. if we can't get up here, we can't do the sigh pence. " the science. -- the science. host: he talked about going back and forth and the dependence on the russians. can you expand? guest: the shuttle stopped flying in 2011, in july and now it's almost several years to the date now and left us in a position where if we wanted to fly astronauts to the international space station we had to turn to our senior sponsors, the russian federal agency who does the jobs with the space rockets and the so i ezz and have done -- the soye zembings and have done that very good now and now it's time to bring this to the u.s. oil and it's a big point of pride for everyone to have american snaunts launching from american launch pads and now nasa is in the final stages of the competition that they hope will allow that astronaut carriage from u.s. oil to resume. what the commander alluded to

is that there's a couple options on the table, there are three options on the table so far as anyone knows about and nasa will make a decision soon what to pick. host: three options from the three companies involved? guest: that's right. host: ultimately how do you pick one out of the three? guest: ultimately it will come down to how comfortable nasa feels about the system the company has proposed. price certainly will be a factor. and as anybody at nasa will tell you, whoever has sold the agency on having the safest, most dependable approach will probably win this thing. host: as far as when a decision is made, will money go to the company to build the rocket or will this be a joint effort between nasa and the company that eventually wins? guest: there will be a great deal of government investment. the white house had asked this year for almost $850 million to do that sort of work. and congress has never been inclined to go all the way with the white house's request but are coming pretty close this year.

the senate has ok'd $800 million as part of its appropriations package and would go into this commercial crew program as nasa's generous share of the cost. now, it's not to say the companies won't have skin in the game, they absolutely will. but they won't make any secret that their participation in the program is contingent on the aid from nasa who needs the service to get the job done at the international space station. host: several of the stories said when the issue of full funding of this program came about, it's always been a tug of war between congress and the companies involved. guest: you got it. that's been -- when the comes to human space flight, that's been the point of disagreement between congress and the white house and they're not so far apart in the cosmic sense but have clearly different opinions about how to go about replacing the space shuttle as a crew carrying system. host: will we come to the place where future space shuttles or space rockets or the like ever become part of nasa solely again or will we always depend

on commercial entities? guest: well, what nasa will tell you is that they've been going to low earth orbit for a long time and have a great deal of experience with it. and the whole point of doing the commercial crew program is that nasa doesn't have the time or the inclination and frankly the budget to be owning and operating the entire space transportation infrastructure by itself. they're going to try and encourage commercial operators to do this insofar as they can. now, there's no great customer besides nasa for these commercial operators right this second but i think nasa's hope is that if they can make the commercial crew and cargo program succeed, they won't need to mess around in this close to home earth orbit anymore and they can be in the business of owning and operating deep space vehicles. st: dan lee one -- dan leone for "space news." talk about your publication. guest: "space news" has been around for decades and covering

the business and politics of space and like everybody else, for better or worse, we have a print publication that you can carry around with you and we have a website. host: this is randy for our guest, on the democrat like, go ahead. caller: why is nasa involved in geology, the it starts for aeronautics and space, what are they doing in geology for? thank you. guest: that's an interesting question and i thought about nasa doing geology a lot and i'm not sure what the gentleman thought of nasa doing geology. it's certainly true they work with the u.s. geological survey on a program called land sat and that's a long running series of images taken since the 1970's which are being taken right now. in a really strict sense, tapping a rock with a chisel or something like this, this is the basic work of planetary exploration any of our landed robotic missions are doing

because frankly there is not a whole lot you can get a robotic probe to do other than poke at rocks and take samples as curiosity does on mars now or take images from orbit as satellites around the earth do. so the short answer of why is passa involved in geology, because that's how you study another world. host: i'll take a stab at it a he may have thought it's a space administration where there's a category for earth science. guest: because the earth is a planet. and it happens it's logistically easier to launch a mission to an earth orbit than it is to launch a mission to a far planetary orbit and there are billions of human beings living on this planet and none living on the others and so this is not a new thing for nasa. in 1958, legislation that created the agency, one of the mandates was to make this world a better place and one of the ways nasa and the white house's estimation you can do that is

by studying this planet from afar. host: from florida, the independent line, gerald, good morning. caller: hello. thank for you c-span, by the way, wonderful service. i want to ask mr. leone about the poison pill senator shelby put in the senate bill requiring the commercial crew people to use federal acquisition rules accounting rather than the -- they sign their contracts for a fixed price. in other words, the whole thing is the government gets a big savings from three to 10 times if the government did the work, it would be three to 10 times more than the commercial people. but in that process, they lose the right to go to those companies and say give me an accounting, a detailed accounting. the commercial crew people have the right to say well, that's not your business.

that's part of the deal. you just give us this fixed price that you said you were going to give and we'll give you the equipment that you said you needed. host: gerald, thank you. you may have to set it up for the audience who haven't been following that closely. guest: gerald's question, he asked about a poison pill in the commercial crew competition. to back up a bit, nasa has awarded contracts -- or nasa has given out funding for the commercial crew program using something, and this is into the weeds of bureaucratic speak here called other transactional authority. for our purposes what it means is nasa has two kind of contracts essentially they can use, one which is regulated by the federal acquisition regulations which is the government's best shot to make sure they're getting a fair deal. there's a lot of oversight compliance with that and requires paperwork in an engineering program and can make things move somewhat slower and then nasa has another option it can use and for the commercial crew work it's used this other option

before because it lets the engineering fadeses of -- phases of the program move more quickly and not subject to the federal cost accounting standards gerald mentioned. and this brings us now up to the present. there's a commercial crew competition going on that nasa is going to use a regular old overnment contract for and saw exemptions for some of the federal acquisition regulations that include this poison pill gerald asked about. so nasa wanted to make sure the government was getting a square deal but also wanted to let these commercial contractors have free rein in their development process and make things move quickly. insofar as senator shelby introduced a poison pill, he said in a report that was part of the nasa budget that the senate appropriations committee passed a little while back, he said we want nasa's commercial crew program to use these standards. we want you to tell us where you're getting your supplies

and how much they cost and you have to prove to us they cost that much. by the way, the way that you prove they cost that much is by having your supplier certified to participate in this program, too. some people think if this bill becomes law before nasa awards its next contract, nasa will have to go back and do the competition again because the fact you have to comply with this provision means you might have gotten an entirely different result than you will if you proceed as it is now. host: democrats line up next. pam? caller: i recently saw a public program ing system called earth to space and shows what the satellites can see in terms of the movement of air and water or temperature. and it really gives you a feeling that the earth really is an organism.

and at the end of the program, they mention that some of these satellites are going out of service, they're old and need to be replaced but that there's no money for replacing them and i thought that nasa had some of those satellites up there observing these wonderful things about our planet. guest: nasa has a great deal of satellites that are observing things about our planet. it's true that there are some of them that have aged and are going out of service. this is a normal thing. satellites are built for two years, three years, five years of service, it's called a primary mission, and essentially that's the minimum somebody who launches one of these hopes to get out of it once it's there. lots of them -- lots of them go much longer than their minimum missions and continue to return science about the planet for a very long time but eventually those will go out of service.

nasa's earth science division just talked about a couple, one in particular, acromsat is which a earth observing satellite that's gone on too long at this point. it's just gotten too old. the earth science division and all the other science divisions are actively replacing their constellations, keeping them as healthy as they can keep them but just because one satellite falls out of sky or goes to a graveyard orbit doesn't mean it won't be replaced, especially in earth sciences, if you pay attention to the program, you'll see new satellites going up. host: a viewer asked how much of nasa's budget is concerned with cleanup projects? guest: there's no easy answer for that because -- the bulk of it will be within the earth science division, certainly. if you're talking about climate change or global warming, then by definition you're talking about this planet, the $1.8 billion earth science division task. so they're the ones looking at

things like carbon levels in the atmosphere. by the way, on july 1 they're going to launch an orbiting carbon observatory, one more satellite in the earth observation train and they're looking at ocean temperatures, the state of glacier ice and polar ice and things like that. so an easy answer for cocktail conversation would be they've got a $1.8 billion earth sciences division that's doing science related to the earth including climate change. host: dominik, good morning from springfield, virginia, independent line. >> thanks for taking my call. the question is along the lines of i guess what mr. leone alluded to that nasa has authorities to do things such as wave the federal acquisition regulation and engage in more commercial type procurements, we're seeing federal agencies enter into what we commonly call public-private partnerships, alternative financing arrangements because of the restricted federal

moneys that are available now because of the tight fiscal times we're facing so the question to mr. leone is do we expect nasa possibly to engage in public-private partnerships or similar arrangements where we might rely on private financing but in exchange for example, giving the private inancing contractor property equipment under, let's say, 30, 50, 100-year leases or maybe more importantly, are there space interests or space rights that nasa may have being inherently governmental that it might exchange and give to the private marketplace those rights in exchange for the private financing? thank you. guest: well, one of nasa's favorite words is private-public partnership right now. that's what the agency believes it's doing with the commercial program and the commercial cargo program which is ongoing. you mentioned long-term leases. there aren't a terrible lot of

things that nasa actually controls in space. they own the things by international convention that they launch there. and they haven't -- although they can and sometimes do make agreements to allow private entities to use those things that they have in space, it's not the same as a toll road. you're not going to lease something long-term to a private company that put up the money to get the project done in the first place under your auspices. now, if you're asking if nasa is going to go forward with more of these commerciallike procurements, i think the answer is undoubtably yes, they've seen how it worked for them delivering cargo to the space station which is an ongoing project with two new rockets launching from florida and virginia and they like it. they want more of that. they've been very careful to say they're not going to do this for every single program. it if they're going to try to mount a mission to mars, just for an example, then they're not necessarily going to look for the quickest and most

commerciallike procurement with the least amount of federal paperwork and minimal oversight and redund enzi -- redundancy during the design process and things like this. as far as can nasa essentially fund an owner operator the same way the dulles greenway nearby here is, probably not as much. nasa will -- even if it procures in somewhat a more commercial sense, probably remain in a landlord capacity for very big missions, particularly crude ones, i would think. host: is mars still on the table? guest: mars never has been taken off the table in a let otheral -- rhetorical sense. space missions don't just happen. somebody has to pay for them. and there's not money in the budget right now that leads human explorers to mars in a hurry. but as far as flying humans are

concerned, it's the agency's purpose and pretty much always said so and never stopped saying so. host: outside of the agency, active interest on the white house on these issues? guest: the white house's priorities may not put boot prints on mars absolutely first. the white house, for example, is very interested in climate change. and nasa is very capable of helping the white house push that frontier. so the white house has never said it's not interested in mars. the white house has actually announced a proposed precursor mars mission. not everybody agrees this is a necessary precursor to mars but no one will tell you it isn't a precursor to mars and they suggested tractoring a ship to orbit and hasn't been done and there are issues where nasa recalls some of the risks related to mars retiring. it would be contribute tore but it's not a foyer directly to

mars, so to speak. host: how does the current work of nasa when it comes to space flight compared to other countries? are we at the head or -- guest: i think by the numbers, you have to say that absolutely, yes. nasa's budget is far and away the largest space agency budget, and there are tremendous space agencies doing tremendous things. there's china, of course, which is launching a dozen space launches per year. that is sort of incredible. that's almost -- nasa pays right there almost on pace even when you add a lot of the commercial satellite launches and china has an appreciable portion of the global launch count by itself. europe is doing very interesting missions to far away places like a comet, the rosetta mission. and even so, nasa is still the 800-pound gorilla on this scene. host: from shamberg, illinois,

this is jim on our republican line. go ahead. caller: i just wanted to correct an impression that mr. leone might have made with his comment about stands the poison pill. this really has nothing to do with fiscal accountability or responsibility. the cost of -- there will be two outcomes of forcing far on the commercial program. it will delay it and significantly increase its costs. now, if the commercial program had not been having money taken from it to fund s.l.s., which is sometimes referred to as the senate launch system, which is a pure pork barrel project, we would have the capability to be sending astronauts to the space station as early as next year

instead of paying the russian space agency $70 million per seat. host: jim is well informed. guest: this is the essential debate within human space flight whether the commercial crew should get the funding nasa says or the space launch system should get the funding congress says. and the poison pill provision, if nasa indeed had to live with those provisions as part of its next commercial crew award would -- and you know, the poison pill is only some people's words for it. it would in fact make the process slower. it would probably delay the day that the astronauts were actually to fly on these systems. and it, frankly remains to be seen whether that provision is going to stay in the final version of the bill that comes out of congress. host: the viewer mentioned the russians. a viewer on twitter says how

much of the current situation with russia is affected at the international space station and its missions? guest: i haven't been to moscow lately and don't know what's happening behind closed doors at star city and the russian officials are meeting with american counterparts. but the situation is the station is operating now and the u.s. cargo flights are still going up. if there are delays to cargo flights, it's not because the russians say they don't want us there, it's because there are the usual problems with the rockets on the ground. look, essentially its situation normal up there. this is a big project that involves a lot of national prestige for both countries. you've had officials on the russian side and on the u.s. side come out and say hey, maybe you're all putting a little too much attention on the rhetoric here. so for the time being, things are normal on the international space station and our friends, the russians, other than telling us they don't want us to use one particular rocket

engine for military launches anymore are essentially treating us the same as they always have. host: we talked to steve swanson onboard himself about the relations. here's his perspective. >> the next step is proving the vehicle is safe for humans which we have a few companies now bidding for that opportunity right now. and once they start in their project, the end of that project will be by 2017, we'll have a man test of an american vehicle at that time, and they'll probably do one test flight and maybe to the station, maybe not. but then the next ones from then on will start be rotating crew members on the american vehicle. guest: he did talk about the fact they have heated discussion -- amicable discussions about relations, it doesn't affect the ultimate work of the science. he would know, he's living with russians right now which probably says a lot about the program. host: if you want to see the full interview, it's available on our c-span.org website.

peter from aberdeen proving ground, maryland, is up next on the independent line. good morning. caller: yes, good morning. thank you. i had a question going back a little bit in time. there was a book published in 1958 by a gentleman called princeton ard, a physicalist and the book called "nuclear rocket propulsion." i read it and then i understand there actually was a nuclear rocket constructed in 1969 and passed ground tests. and the specific impulse of this rocket would improve performance over chemical rockets and shorten space travel times by 75%. i'm still curious as to what -- n 1969, really much -- i was

an infant, and i'm getting up there in years now but this seems to be an incredibly long time for a proven technology for nasa to adopt and if there's going to be a mars mission, let's just go for it, guys. i can't for the life of me understand what the holdup is. guest: so nuclear propulsion is something always discussed when it comes to mars missions and deep space missions, particularly, just to give you the short version of this discussion because i'm not a propulsion expert, i'm not a rocket engineer, it costs in the neighborhood of $60 million just to make sure that the teenie tiny bit of nuclear material aboard a saturn orbiter called kaseeny wasn't going to call ill effects to anyone's health in the unfortunate its launch vehicle, its rocket was destroyed and

scattered bits and pieces of the spacecraft all throughout airspace. $60 million just to make sure this one tiny part of this mission, which, by the way, is still orbiting saturn and doing just fine, was safe. o although there are professed advantages as far as your fuel efficiency, if you will, in making a space jaunt with certain types of nuclear propulsion. the fact is nobody is willing to expend the political capital and go through the expense of trying to get a nuclear powered rocket straight off of a launch pad in florida where lots of people's constituents live and even vote and you have perfectly good chemical fuel alternatives. host: rodney from los angeles. thanks for holding on the republican line. caller: thank you for c-span. i love you guys. i have an important question for you and i hope you answer it honestly. is there any pushback for the

climate change debate in nasa as it relates to the causes of it? i hear that this is a possibility that there's planet x and can also affect the climate here on earth. and also, as far as aliens, is there any proof that there are that extraterrestrials have visited the planet in the past? guest: regarding planet x, i've never seen it and i was reading on twitter the other day, though there is some sort of new beyond pluto body, the search for planet x goes on. relative to planet x's effects on the climate, i don't know. i'm not a planetary geologist. i'm not a soil scientist or anything like that. and it's funny you mentioned extraterrestrial intelligence, i remember once not too long ago i was talking to a

gentleman, a astronomer at nasa and before i left the center that day i turned around and said look, for the record, nobody here has discovered aliens and not told me, right? and the gentleman folded his arms and looked at me and said, i'm not saying. officially, though, there's no record of extraterrestrial intelligence though nasa's astrophysicalics division will tell you they've got telescopes out there looking for signs. host: as far as where nasa is spread out, is it florida, texas, alabama are the main bases or are there other places as well? guest: you left out a very notable one in california. that's the jet propulsion laboratory. if you can remember all those pictures and videos of people crowding into times square to watch, quote, unquote seven minutes of terror as the rover descended to mars, the jet propulsion division is responsible for doing things like setting a large payload

down but you hito on some of the big ones and that's the ames research lear tore -- laboratory and had huntsville taking care of the s.l.s. project and the johnson space center in houston and there's maryland, there's florida and there's even a presence in mississippi, too, you have the stennis space center all tied into the rocket work and you hit in the big ones and i think i filled in the gaps. host: as far as the need for these many spread out bases, did that change because we don't have a shuttle program anymore guest: no. nasa had a presence because it offered politically people a way to see the space program, which back in the apollo era we were committing to very hard for reasons of national imperative. you know, you needed to show everybody there's something in this for you. we can all do this and come together. so that's an artifact of the way that nasa was, and it's for

the foreseeable future because it's probably politically impossible for one agency to just decide it's going to change how many field centers it has, it's the way it's likely to remain. host: here's fred from new hampshire, democrats line. hi. caller: good morning. i have a two-part question. first of all, in this world of deficit spending that we seem to be in, what do i personally get from the space station? and until we're flush and have a balanced budget, would it be possible to do things to cut back like subleasing our space on the space station as an effort to balance the budget for a short period of time, at least to make the effort? i'll take my answer on the air. thank you very much. guest: sure thing. fair question. what do you personally get out f the space station? guest: i'm not sure. that is up to you. what does anybody in general get out of the space station

project? it's not like it's a science fiction enterprise where they can grow lots of food and some kind of futuristic orbiting greenhouse or something like this. the main purpose of the space station, though they do a great deal of science there, there's basic research science going on up there just as there is basic research science going on down here, the differences is we have gravity here and they have no gravity up there. some people who do the sort of science, you have to go to school for a long time to be able to do the field science, it's worth it up there. the other big thing they get out of the space station is the ability to what nasa calls live and work in space. if you want to learn about space, there's nothing quite like being there, just like if you want to learn how to sail, there's nothing quite like going out on to the ocean. that's a big part of what nasa is doing with the international space station. they are accepting the worthiness of being in space and learning how to live, work,

play, and build in space at face value. host: jerry from alabama. we're just about done so if you can launch right in with your question or comment, please. caller: ok. i was going to ask about, could the something about inventor or the manufacturer of tesla, and it's a fantastic car. and he has got a contract with nasa to -- host: i think we get to where you're going. >> elam music is the founder of several technologies such as space x and they're doing something which hasn't been done much in this country and are a vertically rocketed spacecraft manufacturer. when nasa wants to build a rocket and spacecraft they are horizontally integrated and pull in their supplies across the country and assemble it and

put it on the launch pad in one particular space. space x does that stuff in house. elan music was in house this week showing off his latest speights craft which he hopes will send astronauts to the space station and with two other companies for that business and he feels we need millions of tons of cargo and hundreds of people on mars and if you ask him, he will tell you that's why he started space x. host: dan leone with "space news." find it at spacenews.com. how often are you posting stories? guest: daily. host: thanks for your time. coming up today, you may want to stay tuned at 11:00 today, it's the iowa state g.o.p. convention at 11:00 today, live on c-span. and will include bobby jindal, rand paul and rick santorum. the coverage will begin at

11:00 today. as far as tomorrow's program, an interesting big week in politics this week, we'll discuss that and what's ahead on tomorrow's program with domenico bank and montanaro will joins us and the former advisor on u.s. forces in iraq in 2008-define and the founder and president of the institute in the study of war for the violence in iraq will be at 8:45 and we'll look the a the papers and take your calls as wells "washington journal" comes your way at 7:00 tomorrow. see you then [ [captionsing performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp.2014] .

>> coming up next, a discussion about modern libertarianism. after that, live coverage of the iowa state republican party convention in des moines with bobby jindal and rand paul. later, president obama delivering the commencement address at the university of california irvine. next, a discussion about libertarianism and today's politics, and how the move was influenced by barry goldwater. one of the speakers include an historian who as a little boy interviewed mr. goldwater in 1969, a reporter who follow the campaign of ronald paul -- of ron paul. this is one hour. and now it is my great pleasure to introduce our moderator, mr. brahm