their network. that is another thing you can listen for and hear what sucker bird has to say on that. >> we will keep following you on twitter. your twitter handle is @steve ntdennis. thank you so much. >> c-span's "washington journal," live with news and policy issues that affect you. kevin cozaar will talk about amazon's impact on the u.s. postal service. we are live in boise, idaho for the next stop on the 50 capital toy. idaho governor butch otter beyond to talk about policy issues in his state. be sure to watch washington journal live at 7:00 eastern. join the discussion. on our free c-span

radio app. .e welcome back cal thomas you wrote recently that washington is reaching its breaking point. why? a book on how great nations and empires decline and the central region is -- central reason is debt. over $21 trillion. what happens when we approach 100 percent gdp in debt? we are up to our eyeballs. nospend of that there is tomorrow and if we continue, we won't be financially. this is the decline of nations throughout history. -- as are uncontrolled loss of religiosity in a moral sense, all of these things are coming together in the same time in the united states and no one, particularly congress behind us, is saying no. we're changing our letters from usa to atm.

everyone think thinks they are entitled to something. this is going to break our nation if someone doesn't step up and say, you are responsible for your own life and government ought to be a last resort and not a first resource. we will take care of the truly needy but if you are able-bodied and don't work, you don't eat. -- losing ourove moral certainty with this president in the white house? guest: i think it is a general problem. a presidency is not just reflective of the nation but it is in some ways reflective here the concept of right and wrong, column inad, a great the new york times, young women who hook up and do not remember who they spent the night with we do not want to go back to going said he -- going steady. i grew up in that time and we did not have incurable dvd, we

did not have the broken relationships we have today. men were taught to respect women. much better era, i think. this is the definition of insanity, repeating the same behavior and expecting different outcomes. host: you go back to the point about the $21 million debt. the house this week, will put on , a bill that will require a budget. republicans passed a tax cut that will increase the debt and also democrats agreed to the spending plan and also for the pentagon, eliminating spending caps. guest: it is like waking up in the morning after spending the night with a mistress and then speak -- giving a speech about promiscuity. the president promised to drain the swamp but as reagan said,

the only proof of eternal life in washington is a government program. it is easier to kill a vampire than a government program. both suck the life blood out of victims. we cannot go on like this. it is unending. $21 trillion debt and counting, the idea of entitlement programs, i'm entitled to liberty and the rest is up to me. we have exceeded constitutional bounds. we have forgotten history so we will repeat it. no one wants to say no to anyone . a government program, they knock on the door and say how much do you want and will you vote for me in the next election if i give it to you? both parties do this. it is bipartisan, one of the few things in the town that is bipartisan is spending. no one will ever cut it off in a balanced budget amendment is not going anywhere. it his tried many times before and congress won't do it. host: let's look at where the

amount of government spending goes, medicaid and social security. is that were congress needs to make social -- serious decisions? guest: it needs to but it won't. this has been tried before. paul ryan came out with a serious program to reform entitlements be her he was mocked. the left did a commercial of an actor portraying ryan and pushing granny over a cliff in a wheelchair. that is not a serious response to a serious proposal. it had its flaws, but he was addressing the right issue. george w. bush tried it as well with social security, but a demagogue, this is not a responsible response to a program. to bene knows what needs done. no one actually wants to find a solution to anything. if you find a solution, you take the issue off the table. whether it is poverty or titled

-- entitlement reform, whatever it is. it is an issue both sides want , if you find a solution, it hurts their ratings on tv. that is when nothing gets done. not in the states. republicans and democrats many times were together to solve problems. those people are closer to the people than they are in washington. this paul ryan seek reelection this year? guest: i am not a mind reader but i know he is frustrated. he did not want the job in the first place. conservatives -- the answer is you have got to send more people of an ideological perspective to washington if you want different results. we are a divided country p are a lot of people blame congress for everything. if you want something different, you have to send the kinds of

people here that reflect your point of view and maybe something will get done. .ost: our guest is cal thomas our phone lines are open. -- there are reports of another chemical attack in syria with dozens reported killed. the president is saying it is time to pull u.s. church from syria. the department is critical of syria. course syria is denying it just as they always do. tuesday onlumn on the president's just in that we should pull out of syria. a major mistake. he brags we defeated the caliphate and that is true but unless you completely kill it, it will come back in some form. iraq would love us to pull out

of syria. i am thinking of what george mcgovern said. it is not a good policy and worldwide terrorism that does not have a single base. we have to maintain a presence as we have done in south korea. our allies to pony up more money and put it more troops and get more involved, but terrorism is not going away if we pull out. we will allow another to be formed in syria and iran would love us to pull out, the russians would love us to pull out, and they will have a greater influence and we won't. i hope he rethinks its position. our guest is cal thomas. author of more than a dozen books. as early as the early 1980's. i remember when he told

me about the idea before it was created and i thought it was tremendous. if anyone can do it, you can, and he did. host: color, good morning. caroline, good morning. we will go next to joe. good morning. caller: good morning. it is a pleasure to speak to both of you this morning. i tell you, i am 70 years old. up in the 1950's and 1960's, the days you could leave your door you touched on morality and where we're headed as a country. i love telling people. it is indeed bipartisan and it goes deeper. we can have a rascal in the white house and it doesn't matter if it was clinton or whomever it might be. of course now, it is donald trump and my favorite thing to

respond to people is, steve may not remember this, but after the election, we found our trump was a little rascal, maybe, i said, well, my candidate didn't win and they say come you voted for hillary? for they no, i voted constitution party, a noble man, but see, there is the problem. money and media control politics in the country. me say something about the bipartisan thing and you touched on it good. i tell you right now we have rascals on both sides but when you try to do something to save the children, there is a c were that everybody hates, as much as republicans are rascals, you can try to employ censorship and and say no, no, anything goes, tv's and movies, it doesn't matter. it is a decline of morality. our children are exposed to things we can't get a handle on 24 hours a day. it is just impossible.

host: thank you for the call. guest: he touched a lot of issues and i could talk for the next 30 minutes about them. forprimary responsibility it is the parents. a two-parent home, taking care of your own kids, discipline, loving discipline, sending them to the kinds of schools that will give them a good education, i'm a big proponent of school choice. i think it is a form of racism, apple, to force particularly poor and minority students to stay in failing public schools. the left is against school choice although they are for abortion, which seems to me inconsistent, because they are getting money from teachers unions to lock them up in the failed schools. the primary responsibility is to the parents. they are not totally responsible for heather kids turn out but they are responsible for what they put into them in their younger years. not government. host: elaine, michigan,

republican line. caller: good morning. i'm a bit nervous. i was listening to the beginning with all the people calling in with what they thought would remedy the debt situation. i think if you look back, not one of them felt that the remedy should hurt them. takes all, congress should a cut of pay, which is like spitting in the ocean. but nope, we need to stop spending across-the-board, to include entitlements, and i'm a social security and medicare recipient but i feel i will have to, there will have to be pain on my part. that's a very mature and i think intelligent approach to things. means testing, i'm not the only

one, wealthy people -- i think we need a total reconstruction of our health system. that is what president obama promised to do but rates are going up considerably. husband are her very healthy and rarely go to the doctor except or annual is go. all the children are healthy and they have never been to the doctor for anything major and yet she told me their health insurance rate has jumped to 100 house and dollars per year, and she and her husband and four and five kids. it is untenable. it is as great a threat as the national debt. so again, as i wrote in my previous book, there are solutions out there. politicians would rather have the issue them a solution. that is the frustrating thing about washington. host: the president is tweeting this morning. guest: what a shock. host: with regard to china. he wrote that the president of

china and he will always be friends know matter what happens with our dispute on trade. china will take down trade barriers because it is the right thing to do. taxes will become reciprocal and a deal will be made on intellectual property. great future for both countries. week on wallwing a street, a lot of concerns on market down 100 points on friday because of concerns of a trade war. guest: liver hired the desk the retirees were happy when the market was going up, up, up. i think a lot of electoral votes in florida, it is a swing state in presidential elections, so i think political people are nervous about this. if all of this comes true, he will be a prophet like old testament guys. . thought -- i hope he is right clearly the chinese have been roofing off not only

intellectual property but a lot of other things here they have been dumping rings, undermining farmers and many other on the country. i think they need to be called on it. if he is right about this, i think he will see the stock market again. host: mitch mcconnell going after agricultural products. good are theye know what they're doing. they are not stupid. the chinese have an around a lot longer than us. host: democrats line. caller: good morning. mr. thomas, i have a question for you. when will the government pay back social security they keep siphoning? and i always hear that they will pass back and it has never

happened. something in washington keeping money in it for you when you retire. it is a tax. they rely on the rest of the generation. this unless on like we continue to raise taxes. i think people are living longer now, the retirement age should be increased. people want to work, that is fine and many are at the retirement age. it is not about paying back. it always has been. joe, new york, independent line. caller: sorry i didn't mention my name. guest: i will put you on a mailing list. caller: i want to a dress the core issue that i believe is a core issue. i believe the lobbyists have corrupted the system. and the ethical infrastructure

of the country has been destroyed because of it. can you address that issue specifically? guest: i do not think it is lobbyists alone are the problem is career politicians. founders never expected politics to be a career. most of them were farmers and business persons, lawyers, and whatever. they would come to washington and serve a limited amount of time. a term limit themselves and go home to real jobs. my favorite story, and it is a true story, senator george senator, liberal democrat from south dakota, when he lost in a reagan landslide in 1980, he decided to do something different so he went up to connecticut and bought an inn. it went bankrupt and the wall street journal wanted to know what happened. had known howif i difficult it was to run a business, i might have voted differently in the senate. well there you are. west chester, ohio,

republican line. caller: good morning. it is a pleasure to speak with you after following you all these years. i am interested in solutions as you are in them. when you look at our health care system, we have 18% of gdp tied up in health care. i think we have to take one issue at a time and look for solutions and take the involvement of the american people. imagine if we just take disease, 161ed billion dollars every year according to the american lung association, and said this is society passes issue, not republican or democrat or government, and then we divided that among all of us and say each lot of us has to contribute $50 or month. we take it out of insurance premiums and out of country responsibilities. plan 33% for benefit costs.

imagine reducing that cost and what that does for us in decreasing our cost and gets us jobs. i think i might nominate you for secretary of health and human services. well thought out. you make the point i was making. there are solutions out there, that virtually no problem that comes through the town is unsolvable. you look for some debates that are not debates at all on cable tv. this.ests, both sides do this is bipartisan. says you are ruining america and the other says you are or you are a commie, you are an atheist. likeamericans don't talk that to each other. we do not have real debate anymore p or even presidential debates are not debates. points and all the rest.

elected because he spoke the language of people who are frustrated and he wants something different and they are not getting it here that is because people are not sending people to congress who will solve problems. host: sometimes the debate gets personal p or i want to ask you about laura ingraham. a tweet she later apologized for, said david hogg, parkland student, has been front and center on the never again stop a 4.1 gpa,ement, totally predictable given the acceptance rate, and this editorial from the wilson times, companies are voting with .allets, publicly taking sides nothing in the first amendment compels sponsors to subsidize speech with which they disagree. she has not been arrested or

sued for her tweet. her expression hasn't been stifled. whoever said freedom of speech means freedom from consequences? i don't like this whether it is done by the right or the left. last week, insulted vice president pence's faith. the wrong is approach. i think we ought to have civil discussion. to have aavid hogg civil discussion about this. i think you limit free speech and i want to know what people really think. if you are racist, let's find out and have a conversation about race. of harvard university, some pbs, hel programs on did dna tests. there are no purebred people. we are all mongrels and mixed up in the great jean paul of life.

hite a racist is to really yourself. these are the discussions we are to be having p or it we are americans. if we do not make the experiment work, no one else will. reagan used to say we are only one generation away from losing it all. our real enemies are not each other but isis and taliban. let's make them the enemies, not each other. our next call is from wisconsin, wait, independent line, good morning. caller: the left is for abortion. that is patently false. what the left is for is for a choice. the left is not for abortion or no one is for abortion. that is all bullcrap. i hope you do not have anything from me -- in your house from china because china has forced abortion. guest: that is a long going debate since roe v. wade night 1973 in some ways before that.

if you do not want to stop something that in my judgment is evil and has consequences not only for the young -- for the unborn but the elderly and the sick, we are now seeing increased efforts to have assisted suicide laws and more and more states, if you don't regard human life as valuable because it is not just a biological accident or a product of evolution, then where do you stop? where do you put the restraints on human life. i think it is a great tragedy. guest: joining us from st. louis, good morning. to talk about spending but he just touched on something about like iran and the muslims and things or something that we need to be concerned about. you have got to think since we were established in 1776, our country has been at war for over 200 years for the resources. killing their fathers and sons and daughters and things like

that here we give out this restitution and things were destroying their country. wouldn't you think that just -- the chickens would come home and ?oost so many military bases, everywhere you go, military bases. host: it goes back to the earlier point about military spending. put thehe pentagon defense budget aside, i do not think any budget ought to be put aside. a lot of waste is in the military. during that shimmy carter administration, we need to to newly update our did and skip abilities. certainly russia and china are. especially china. war business, and a , there is evil in the world and it has to be opposed. if not, it will take over.

host: a quick question? caller: i agree about the budget and the deficit and we need to know about each thing, but one thing i do not hear anybody say, how much money are we actually putting in social security? social security is not adding to the deficit. guest: when you are borrowing to pay for something, it is obviously adding to the deficit. if you charge on your credit card more than you can afford, then you are in debt. the interest rate on many credit cards is 18 to 21% depending on the card. you will be in greater debt if you only pay the minimal amount without even charging more, whicmany people . back to living within one's means, the puritan ethic, not letting your reach exceed your grasp, not letting your eyes get bigger than your

stomach, all these other cliches. if you have a chevrolet budget, you will not be able to buy a ferrari. if you try, you will be in huge debt. this is a reason the housing market collapsed. the government wanted more and more people under both administrations, republicans and democrats, to be homeowners. that is a good goal. up --orced banks to give they couldn't pay the increased payment anymore and that helps collapsed the economy in the 1990's. basic rules of life, economic and moral rules, the rules of gravity, if you jump off a building, you will splat on the sidewalk. basicthere is nothing new undee sun but we do not learn from it. host:

>> monday morning, we are live in boise, idaho on the next stop on the c-span tour. butch otter will be our guest on the bus on "washington journal" beginning at 9:00 eastern. this week, facebook ceo mark zuckerberg will testify before senate and house committees on facebook's use of user information and data privacy. will answer questions on c-span3 during a joint senate judiciary and commerce hearing and then wednesday at 10:00 eastern on c-span three he will appear before the house committee. watch live coverage on c-span3 and online on c-span.org and listen live on the three -- on the free c-span radio app. trumpa look at the presidency and the role of the media with constitutional law