says john mccain is peddling cluster bombs and the blaming the usa. she writes, this is a bomb that has been taking for a while. they were flummoxed over why the leading network anchor felt he needed a heavyweight dish at hemingway-esque -- the media big shots who once roamed the land were gone and there were nowhere -- there was no one around to pull his chain. a look at other network anchors from maureen dowd. david, you get the last word from corpus christi, texas. good morning. caller: good morning. i wanted to ask the question, why is it that anybody would want us to go to war over there and what is the benefit for us? we will lose money and lives and

it is not going to make any difference. we have been to these places before. we recently went there and it was all for nothing. even if we win a small war chances are they will have another dispute and we will be in the same box again. host: david, thank you for the call. a recap of the house and senate in session this week. a number of key hearings will be covering. the full schedule available at c-span.org. angela merkel will be at the white house tomorrow and we will be covering the joint press conference with the german chancellor and the president and we expect that the president will send his request for the authorization of military force. you can expect that debate in those comments on the senate floor. when we come back, we will turn our attention to other topics including grover norquist. he will be here to talk about where the president's edge it is and republican reaction. patrick tour realm -- also we

will be talking to a dreamer about the president's executive actions on immigration. first, a preview of the newsmakers program that airs at 10:00 eastern time as leaders continue to watch the battles between ukraine and resident food -- president putin. covers and adam smith of washington discussing whether the u.s. should arm ukrainian forces. here's a portion of what he had to say. [video clip] >> it seems there is new momentum to consider supplying weapons to the government in ukraine. that is something the obama administration and its allies have resisted for a while peering it could add fuel to the fire. where do you stand on this? >> i think we should do it. we should give ukraine that are quick meant to defend themselves. -- better equipment to defend themselves.

russia is going to try to militarily engaged in countries underneath the surface so does not appear that they are actually engaged. they will use their soldiers in ways that we cannot see. they did that and crimea and now they are doing it in eastern ukraine. we do not -- we want ukraine to be independent. if this works for russia and ukraine there are a lot of russians become people in other countries around there. estonia, poland. where does russia stop? when you read the rhetoric coming out of the highest levels of government in russia, it is not encouraging. we have to help ukraine stop this before it spreads. we have to show russia that there is going to be a high price to pay for this type of military intervention. if ukraine is not properly armed , russia could end up dominating half the country.

>> how do you think vladimir putin would react? do you think this would cause them to back down? would cause them to step things up in some of the other countries in the region? >> it would cause him to recalculate. right now, he is facing the economic sanctions, but militarily he continued to move forward. if it appears that this is going to be something that will be low-cost, there is a greater risk that he will continue to do it. those risks -- there are risks on both sides of this but we are defending a sovereign nation by giving ukraine the aid they need to protect themselves. host: adam smith is our guest. the democratic congressman from washington on c-span's newsmakers program.

10:00 eastern time. we want to welcome back grover norquist. guest: good morning. host: we've not had a chance to get your reaction to the president's budget blueprint. guest: it was a political statement, not a governing document. there are a list of things he wants to talk about rather than a list of things he intends to do. if he wanted to do anything on that list, he was president for two years, all of 2009 in 2010. the wind was at his back. any of the things he wrote down he could've passed back then easily. this is not a list of things he is burning to do. he campaigns very well. a very good candidate in 2008 and two dozen 12. he is not been as good -- and 2012. he is not been as good at

governing. people go to things that they like to do. he does not like to govern. when we were negotiating budgets in 2011, he was not in the room. he would send his vice president . he does not like to make those kinds of decisions and to govern and make compromises. he likes to make grandiose list of things i will do someday. he has moved from being president back to being a candidate again, which is unfortunate because we need president for the next two years. host: the issue of sequestration. he points out that in his budget, he is investing in the country and infrastructure and paying for it by raising taxes especially on corporations and there are a lot of loopholes in the tax code. does he make a valid point in terms of trying to pay for this having corporations pay more?

guest: there are a lot of loopholes and deductions. massive tax subsidies for ethanol and solar and wind and things like that. very politicized parts of the economy. we should eliminate those targeted tax credits deductions and reduce the total tax rate for all americans. not raise money, but clean up the code and get rid of the cronyism that obama has been aggressive on doing more of rather than less of. we should undo what he did in those areas. not to raise more money. investment. investment is what politicians say when they do not want to use the word, spend your money. they want to make it summit they are investing in something --

they want to make it sound like they are investing in something real. the stimulus package was supposed to create jobs and did not. the number of people in the workforce, even looking for work, continued to go down, not go up. infrastructure. politicians used to say i will build roads if you give me a tax increase. some people would raise taxes and then the money would get spent on other things. in wisconsin, before governor walker came into office, the democrat legislature had spent over a billion dollars of gas taxes on things other than roads . they turned around and said, we do not have money for roads. the reason they like to talk but infrastructure is that when people promise to build roads

they do not. you can check on roads. in virginia, governor woerner kept raising taxes to build roads, he spent it on other things. this is a challenge. promising people, if we raise your taxes for roads, they take the money and spend it elsewhere. host: i'm sure you so story last month. raising taxes. at least eight republican governors venturing into this once for been territory including somebody who you for a while were pretty close to, sam brownback of kansas. host:guest: that article is sort of plagiarized from the article that the establishment press runs every two years. they always write this article and call me about it and say these republicans want to raise taxes and i say, who?

i would here, republicans want to. it turned out frank wolf was the only republican who is talking about raising taxes. everyone else had committed never. one guy is not much of a trend. if you look around the states at the more than 30 republican governors we have, across the board, they are cutting taxes. that was not in the article. the governor of ohio has significant income tax cuts. governor of wisconsin is cutting taxes. i just met with the governor of arizona, they will be bringing taxes down even though they were left with an overspending problem they will have to fix by reforming spending. round back is committed to abolishing the income tax. -- brownback is committed to abolishing the income tax.

it is the model that other states are looking at. when revenue comes in, more than 2% a year, all additional revenue coming in will come down -- the income tax will be cut so that income tax will be ratcheted down if there is a recession or problem that does not ratchet down that year. governor lepage, who just got reelected in maine with more votes than anyone has ever been elected governor of maine, is a tax cutter. he wants to put in the constitution a ratchet down. north carolina is looking to continue their ratchet down which takes the business rate down to 3% ratcheting. looking to take that all the way to zero. with the exception of nevada, governor sandoval has been a tax increase or. r.

if governing is too hard for you, you say just do it we've been doing for the last 100 years, we will not change anything because that takes time and people will yell at me. we will just raise taxes to do more of the same. governing is difficult. it is interesting to see the number of governors who are governing and reducing taxes. host: do you have a candidate in the twee 16 field? guest: i'm for the republican candidate that can win the primary and general and will not raise taxes. we do not know who it is yet. host: has anyone not signed the pledge? guest: all the people running have committed to not raising taxes. jeb bush has not raised taxes when he was governor. in the middle of our negotiations fighting against the president, he was a voice going do a tax increase if you

pair it with spending cuts. the challenge is not his but it -- his position on taxes, it is is bad negotiating skills. reagan in 1982 agreed to treat -- the spending cuts never happened, tax increases were permanent. reagan said it was the biggest mistake he made in his presidency. his vice president was promised two dollars of imaginary spending cuts for every dollar of tax increase. i thought it was an unnecessary -- why not $10 a fully spending cuts? -- of phony spending cuts? spending went up, not down.

any politician who says, i'm going to negotiate with the democrats on tax increases and spending cuts is a bad negotiator, does not know his history and missed the successful fight we had in 2011 when boehner and mitch mcconnell said we're not raising taxes. we spend so much money. the economy is not doing well as a result. here's what we will do, we will give you 2.5 trillion in debt ceiling. that was the budget control act which includes the sequester to enforce it. spending went from 24% of the economy to 20% of gdp. it is why we are beginning to see some life in the economy. growing at 2.3%. this is the weakest recovery in

american history since we started counting them the same way in 1960. every other recovery has been stronger. if we had an average recovery , ill be $1.6 trillion higher. if reagan cost growth compared to obama's, 10 million americans out of growth. that is the difference between reducing taxes and regulation and spending too much and having too many regulations. working. host: we welcome your calls and comments. go to our website at

c-span.org. we'll go to the democrat line. thanks for waiting. caller: grover norquist favors the 1% and is not interested in taking up the subsidies from the oil companies and the corporations. and he gets angry if he's disagreed with and i suggest you take more questions instead of letting him just rattle on, telling lies about the way this economy needs to be straightened out. guest: what we've done is go through the painful acts of the weakness of this economy that has suffered in obama's overspending, overtaxes and overregulating approach. it's not working. you may not know people who are out of work but millions of americans are out of work and the number of people looking for work has declined. during recovery, like reagan's recovery, the number of people

who say i want to be in the work force increases as the number of people who come into the work force and say i want to start looking now. under the recovery, technically it was in a recovery and positive rather than negative growth that number has fallen which doesn't happen in normal recovery. so the unemployment figure would be 10% if you didn't have so many people walking out of the work force. you mentioned getting rid of deductions or credits in the industry and i'm sorry you misspoke, actually americans for tax reform and i personally am strong in favor of pompeo, a republican congress from kansas, has a piece of legislation to eliminate all targeted tax credits and deductions that apply to the energy industry and take the rate for all businesses down by the same dollar amount. so that we would strip it all out. oddly enough, the president has not supported that because, as

you'll find out if you actually go and check the tax code, most of those targeted tax credits go to alternative energy, not to oil gas, and what we think of as traditional energies because they produce energy as opposed to alternative energies which do something else but produce a lot of money for people who invent companies but not energy like sylendra. >> what will taxes be for a american family with a median income? guest: very good question. end the i.r.s. because it ends us. and that book goes through the history of taxation to give us some sense of what our taxes have been. we may look at it over the last 20 or 30 years and doesn't seem to have changed very much. but in 1774 when the british ran the 13 colonies, when we were a colony of the british empire taxes paid by americans

are between 1% and 2%. we're now up towards 30%. of the american economy taken and spent in taxes. so we could do a lot better. we didn't have an income tax until around world war i. as it was dramatically increased. there's supposed to be a tax on the 1% and your point, what would happen with middle income people? watch what the politicians do with the rich. that's what will happen with the middle class in a few years. the income class was only to be in the top 1% of the american people and by the end of world war ii, it was hitting everybody and now certainly hits at least half of the american people. the alternative minimum tax, some viewers may be familiar with, was put in in 1969 because 155 people, they thought, wrpt paying their fair share, 155. today, millions of americans pay the alternative minimum tax

and if a republican fix hadn't been put in it would be about 30 million that were paying that. tax increases are put on higher income -- on them foreigners, through tariffs or them meaning some subset of the american economy, but then they tend to spread to everybody else. they start -- when politicians say i'm going to tax the rich, they haven't finished the sentence, i'm going to tax the rich first and then you. host: from sterling virginia, republican line, gary is next. good morning. guest: hi, gary. caller: good morning, everyone. i agree with what you say about money being misspent on the infrastructure. governor mcdonald spent $300 million on a road down in southeastern virginia and didn't get a foot of pavement laid. but until we use satellite

computer technology to design our infrastructure, analyze it, prioritize it, zpwizz -- zpwizz -- small businesses -- disit, we'll get the same thing -- subsidize it, we'll get the same thing the donkey dance. we have to use technology. host: what's the half donkey dance? guest: i'm against the half donkey dance but explain to the others what it is. caller: i think it's pretty obvious. look at the road system we've got now. they're making mountains out of molehills. guest: there are a lot of challenges. one of the things we expect the government to take care of is roads. and what we often find is mayors like to fly around the world and make pronouncements on foreign policy or think they're dealing in

international trade and don't get the potholes filled. potholes and then come and tell us your thoughts on what our relationship with armenia should be. there are a lot of challenges. one of the challenges on roads is that they passed a law in the 1930's called the davis-bacon act and was truly stupid and evil. it was designed to keep african-americans from moving north and getting jobs and competing with white unionized labor and they said so on the floor of the congress as they passed that bill. it was designed to discriminate. and it dramatically increases the cost of every road that gets built if the federal dollar touches it or buildings, by about 25%, maybe more, but at least 25% it raises the cost more than it needs to. we can have 25% more roads or our gas tax could be 25% smaller if we didn't have this law dating back to the 1930's put in with evil intent. add to that, about 18% of your

gas taxes, you go to the pump and pay the gas taxes and say they'll build roads with this. no, they're not. 25% goes to davis-bacon for overspending on contracts and 18% goes to subway systems in new york and around the country and has nothing to do with roads. people using subways should pay for subways and if you pay to the road and use it, you should pay for the road. or if you use light rail, pay for light rail. some of the costs politicians say they're spending money on roads is siphoned off and ending that would be very helpful. host: next, he began his career with the college republicans and the national taxpayers union and is the president for the americans for tax reform. our line for independents from south dartmouth, massachusetts, ray, good morning. caller: hi, how are you? guest: hi, massachusetts, my parents still live in the boston area. i grew up there. host: how much snow you have,

by the way, ray? caller: let me tell you something, number one, i think elizabeth warren is a very good senator. number two, i think any company that moves their corporate headquarters out of this country so they don't have to pay their fair share shouldn't have any contracts with the u.s. government. i'm talking c.v.s., burger king, any of those companies, you know. they moved their companies out of the country their headquarters, so they don't have to pay their fair share. you know, elizabeth warren has done plenty for this state. and you think you're going to take over on 2016? take another look. host: ray, thanks for the call. what about the inversion issue? guest: you brought up the question of american policy and how we tax american firms here and overseas. most countries in the world, not north korea, not the united states, have a territorial tax

system and that is it you earn a dollar in the united states they tax it, whether you're a person or a company. but what other countries do, france says if a french company sells things in the united states and they earn a dollar, the american economy taxes it, the american government taxes it the local government taxes it, the city taxes it, the state taxes it, the federal government taxes some of those earnings. when they bring that money back to france, they don't tax it again. they want that money to come back to france to be invested. our idiot government has the different policy than most of the rest of the world, civilized or not. most of the rest of the world. and that is it you earn a dollar, your company, microsoft earns a dollar in japan, the japanese tax it. if you want to leave it there, ok and build a factory ok. if you want to bring it back to the united states, obama wants to tax it up to about 43%.

you know, up to the highest you could possibly tax it in the states. so there's $2 trillion that american companies have earned overseas that could be brought back to the united states tomorrow to create jobs and factories and infrastructure and all that good stuff, ok? but obama's position is it you bring it back, he wants to tax you. and that of course, has been keeping money overseas, and we ought to go to a territorial tax system, as other countries do, which would encourage people to bring money here. when a company the democrats are very supportive of a particular inversion moving overseas, health care company because the only way that company can invest and create jobs in minnesota is by moving their legal ownership overseas and they can bring the money back without taxing it. to stay an american company,

they would be punished for that. so even democrats understand people aren't particularly investing in massachusetts over the last few years because of some of its policies. but in other states, they need and want that investment. host: quick follow-up, this is from a viewer saying how many republicans signed your no tax pledge and do you have the names? i assume some of the names listed on your website? guest: all the names should be on the website. we have a majority of the members of the u.s. house have taken the pledge and close to a senator in the senate, and congressman, over about 1,000, many state legislators, many of the country's best governors, rick scott of florida perry of texas, bobby begin call of louisiana, scott walker in wisconsin and the good news is candidates who take the pledge keep the pledge because it's a written commitment to you that

as a voter in that person's state or district, i won't raise your taxes. it's a promise that when a problem comes up the politician says i'm going to govern, i'm going to reform government. i'm not going to take the failures of government and raise your taxes to pay for them. that's off the table and that's what republicans collectively told obama in 2010, we're not raising taxes to pay for your mistakes. we're going to correct and reform your overspending and that's how spending came from 24%. this is not frequently talked about. it's one of the successes of the last six years, spending down from 24% of the economy down to 20% because of the sequester, because of the budget control act, and obama, surprise, surprise wants to poke a hole in that so he can go back to the failed policies of raising taxes rather than reforming government. host: again, that website is

atr.org. let's go to david in columbia, missouri. our line for democrats with grover norquist for americans for tax reform. good morning, david. caller: good morning to both of you, especially to you, mr. norquist. guest: good to see you. how are things going in missouri? caller: not bad. the weather is pretty good around here this minute. guest: good. caller: i'm kind of interested, seems how, if i remember right, mitt romney during his political campaign said that corporations are people, too. well why don't those people pay like i do on my taxes? guest: two things, corningses are not people, people are people. and second, when politicians like to hide their tax increases on you, they often like to pretend they're not raising your taxes but will raise taxes on businesses. ok. the corner grocery store, when

the local politicians raise their property tax or the state government raises sales taxes or the federal government raises income taxes, the only place that a grocery store has the money to pay for obama's tax increases is to raise the prices to you. those are the only options they have. and so business taxes corporate taxes are taxes on individuals that the politicians think, they have contempt for your intelligence. they don't think you're bright enough to realize when they raise taxes on your phone bill that the phone bill goes up. if you look at the bottom of your phone bill, there are all those little added taxes at the bottom of the thing down there. there are different charges. they do the same thing with your electric, power bill. take a look down there. it's tough sometimes to understand and deliberately written in a difficult way. some states have banned power

companies from telling you clearly this is a tax that the idiot governor put in. you're just supposed to make it sound like it's money going to the electric company. so people should be very careful, read your electric bill, read your phone bill, read your cable bill and realize those lovely politicians that you their tax and corporations are screwing you, not the company. host: our guest is the author of this editorial available at the reuters website if the internet becomes a public utility, you'll pay more. here's why the debate over net neutrality. let's go to allen on the republican line in scottsdale, arizona. good morning. caller: good morning. thank you for c-span. i'd like to compliment norquist regarding the -- you've been making the effort for the pledge. but here's the spin that i would like to propose to you and that is there are $7 trillion worth of taxes taken

out of the american public. i'd like to see a pledge for our next republican candidate to lower taxes, lower the cost of living, forget the taxes lower the cost of living for every american. and that starts with eliminating the i.r.s. and allowing all the tax authorities in every county and every city and every state to collect the money for the feds. host: thank you, allen. guest: as i mentioned earlier but will mention again because you gave me the opportunity. i just finished a book and will be out april 15, entitled "end the i.r.s. before it ends us, the u.s., us and is the history of how we got here, how did taxes get raised and how did you take a country born in a tax revolt and end up heavily taxed? what happened? and there are a series of dozens of efforts the

politicians made over the years to convince us this was a wise move to ratchet up the size of government. then it has about 20 different ideas on how do we bring it down. there's no one silver bullet. but there are a series of reforms that we need to make bringing rates down to get to a single rate tax. the reason you want to have a single rate tax -- and again, prior to immigrating to the united states, i lived in massachusetts and in massachusetts we have a single rate tax by constitution. you can have one rate but only one rate. and if you want to raise taxes on the people in massachusetts, you have to look everybody in the eye and say i've got a really good idea and i'm raising all your taxes, you're all paying for it. then we're all listening. ok. tell us about this really good idea. it's a very important project to get everybody's relationship with the government to be the same, both bill clinton and barack obama did this, i'm only going to tax the top 1% or 2%, the rest of you may want to step out of the room.

this isn't going to be pleasant and may be a little loud but it's not you i'm working over. this is the richard speck theory of tax increases, that if you can't take on everybody in the room at once, you take them out of the room one at a time. very important as we move forward on tax reform to get towards a single rate tax so the politicians have to treat us all equally and the same and among other things i point out in the book is federal government says taxes have to be uniform and if that doesn't mean a flat tax i don't know what they're talking about of the supreme court in the 1890's said it needed to be a frat tax. we need to focus on uniform taxes rather than unfair, discriminatory taxes on different groups of people at different times. host: kiki makes the point, i just read my cable bill, added $25 a month. caller: when you rent a car, i went to boston to see my parents, $20 for the car,

includeing sales tax, another $20 on targeted taxes and fees, doubling the tax. and there's actual legislation being put forward to say -- federal legislation to ban state and local governments from putting discriminatory taxes on your car rental because politicians in one city go, oh, we'll tax the people who visit by taxing rental cars but then when anybody in your city goes some place else, they get dinged the same way. we ought to have, look, you have a sales tax, apply the sales tax. then go away. no discriminatory taxes making people pay for stadiums they'll never visit. >> from franklin north carolina, larry is next, independent line. good morning. caller: good morning. i have a couple questions. he mentioned he had a whole lot of republicans and maybe a few democrats that signed the pledge that says no new taxes.

i was just wondering if that includes the gas tax, will he fight raising the gas tax. and my other question is it you really wanted to save the united states of america, why don't we require that everything that we purchase with american tax dollars, whether it be state local, or federal government be manufactured right here in the united states whether it's from a foreign company or whatever, but to have to come over here and build the product here in the united states if we pay for it with our tax dollars. host: larry, thanks for the call. first on the gas tax. guest: there has been an effort by some of the people who build roads to say they don't have the guts or the toughness to take on the davis-bacon act and the overspending. so they won't cut -- they won't increase the amount of roads we could build by 25% by getting rid of the davis-bacon act. many states have many

davis-bacon acts which in ohio increases the cost of things built in ohio by 10%. many different bacon davis acts on the state level need to get rid of. i know west virginia is looking at doing this as well as the federal, davis-bacon act. and then the other issue of diversion, money is taken out of roads and put into other things. so the lobby for roads says we'd rather fight taxpayers than other spending interests. and my argument is you're going to lose that, you can't beat the taxpayers, boehner, the speaker of the house, has told them forget it. the head of the ways and means committee, paul ryan, told the interest group no, we're not raising taxes. roads are important. but let's get rid of the davis-bacon act and get rid of the diversions to nonroads and let's and head of the u.s. senate, mitch mcconnell also said no. that's not on the table and we

need roads built and it's a very important thing to focus on but we can increase roads by 25% by getting rid of the davis-bacon act. you can't shoot yourself in the foot and then act as if somebody else caused your problem. host: delano is next from conway, missouri democrats line, good morning. caller: thank you very much for c-span and thank you for your best. a short question. i understand 40% of our federal gas tax goes to washington, d.c. that's more than half of our federal tax goes to washington, d.c. guest: much of the gas tax is a federal tax and goes to washington, d.c. and they take some of it to build subways, not roads, and they take some of it and require that as much as a 1/4 of the cost of roads goes to the davis-bacon over

paying contractors, not actually into build roads. there is an argument and i'd strongly suggest it is we get rid of the federal gas tax and every state -- we built the federal highway system it's there. we're talking refixing it, widening it from time to time. let's do it and let states raise taxes, actually could spend a lot less on taxes and take care of your own roads and not have new york think they'll get rix taxing people in california and texas to pay their highway or transport cost in transit. host: your comments on the excise tax is sparking a lot of debate including gary, look at the bill in new york city, they charge high taxes, the same in orlando. that's how new york stays afloat and how florida has no income tax. and you can share in the conversation on our twitter page at c-span at wj. i want to draw your attention

to this piece inside "the new york times" on congressman paul ryan, the chairman of the house ways and means committee and playing a key role in the president's agenda, his role with house republican leaders. let's go to mike. have you read the story, by the way? guest: i have not. i work a lot with glenn and if something changed i don't know it. host: from wyoming, the republican line. caller: thanks grover, for your service to the american public to explain things in a way that they can understand. i think it helps out a great deal to simplify it like you do. and i guess my comment would be you know, president obama last year, i saw, he only paid 20.5% in his adjusted gross income. now, they talk about that fair share, i think he needs to be voluntarily lead by example and say here, i'll pay the 39.6% or whatever it is, the high rate, and also bill clinton is always

hollering about income equality. and he's worth $100 million. how about if he just gives up $95 million to make it a little more equal for everybody. what do you think. host: mike, thanks. guest: i tend to think we should have a rule that no one should pay a higher percentage of their income in taxes than al sharpton. and if we can just keep it down to that i think we'll be in great shape. he's taken a very aggressive attitude to get his tax bill down and i think the rest of us should benefit from his progress on that, what he's paying is fair, the rest of us shouldn't have to pay more than that. i tease. look taxes are too high and taxes need to come down on all people. we're not shifting them from one person to another. the government is spending too much money, step one. and what's very interesting is the modern republican party and the pledge played a role in saying we're not raising taxes, end of conversation. we haven't had republicans voting for a tax increase since 1990 when george herbert walker

bush made that mistake and got taken and convinced some republicans to vote with him. none of the republicans who did that are still in office. the new ones voted against, to a person, voted against the tax increases put forward by clinton. bush had no net tax increases and the republicans have all voted against the tax hikes put forward by obama. there are 20 tax hikes -- obamacare is not about health care. they are 20 tax increases with health care stamped on it somewhere. it's all about 20 different taxes, raising over time trillions of dollars in higher taxes. so we do need to get the total spending level down and then the total tax burden down and somebody brought up hotels as well as the whole effort on taxes auto car rentals. there are a series of discriminatory taxes. also look at your phone bill. they've gotten very bad on

discriminatory taxes on your phone bill and cable bill as well and trying to convince you that you're not paying those in taxes, they're a part of your phone bill. those are taxes attached to your phone bill. you sought to say sales tax and no more, end those discriminatory taxes across the board. host: you mentioned al sharpton, the subject of the front page this morning, and inside "the washington post" the public life and private doubts of al sharpton. john from wilton, connecticut, independent line. good morning. caller: oh, good morning. thanks, mr. norquist for coming on. i heard a lot about you. you know it scares me, you know, when you hear about republicans signing up on a great sound bite with the lower taxes. and also you hear obama in 2010. but, you know, let's be realistic and look at the macro of you. we spent $2 trillion in afghanistan and iraq on a republican administration.

reagan -- president reagan is held up as an icon. let's be serious under his administration, the u.s. dollar was depreciated by 2/3 in the accords of 1986 and when our country started a 30-year push to deregulate. you talk about cable and electric. you know they are essentially monopolies and i agree would be great to have uniform taxes and get the taxes lower. if we're going out on a republican administration spending $2 trillion you know, our finance deregulation started in 1986 and ended in 2008 you know, financial debacle which we're all paying for which obama inherited mostly under reagan an clinton. why don't we be honest and say

our country has severe problems. host: we only have a minute or two left and give him a chance to respond. thank you for the call. guest: politicians over the year have spent too much money, earmarks and very corrupting and a way for people to do corrupt stuff in terms of targeting government spending to their friends and allies. that ended after the tea party changed the modern republican party. prior to the tea party, the modern republican party said we won't raise your taxes. you're quite right, president george w. bush did not spend less money on the agenda. every crisis seemed a reason for more spending, not less spending including foreign policy in katrina and other things. there are ways when we fight these problems like fanny and freddy, we should have privatized those entities and not allow them to have government guarantees