contributor ryann liebenthal talks about the government's student loan forgiveness program. we will take your calls and you can join the conversation on facebook or twitter. "washington journal next. ♪ host: good morning and welcome to washington journal. hillary clinton startup washington by saying democrats cannot be civil with republicans in this election season. that was followed up by attorney general eric holder, who said when they go blow, we kick them -- go low, we kick them. republicans are calling it a call for political violence, which democrats are denying. we want you to call and tell us what you think.

republicans call in at (202) 748-8000. democrats call in at (202) 748-8001. independents, (202) 748-8002. let me give you those numbers again. republicans call in at (202) 748-8001. democrats call in at (202) 748-8000. independents, (202) 748-8002. you can always reach us on social media, on twitter @cspanwj, and facebook. clinton's statement came on tuesday while she was talking about the confirmation of supreme court justice brett kavanaugh. she told her need to be tougher in the relationship republicans -- and their relationship with republicans. [video] he cannot benton:

civil with a political party that wants to destroy what you stand for. if we are fortunate enough to win back the house and then it, that is when civility can start again. until then, the only thing the republicans seem to recognize and respect is strength. you heard how the republican members, like mitch mcconnell, demeaneddent really the confirmation process, insulted and attacked not only dr. ford but women who were speaking out. i remember republican operatives shutting down the voting in florida in 2000. swift boting -- voting kelly. i remember what they did foid to

me for 25 years, which unfortunately people believe because republicans for the lot of time, money and effort into promoting them. they are driven by the lust for power that is funded by corporate interests who want a government that does its bidding. you can be civil, but you can't overcome what they intend to do unless you win elections. host: republicans have taken the statements as a call for political violence. all week long republicans have an calling for democrats did andunce clinton's statement walked back calls for violence. here is senator john cornyn of texas on how he thought about clinton's statements and what should happen next. [video] >> i was very disappointed to hear the former secretary of say yours. clinton,

cannot be civil with a political party that wants to destroy what you stand for and what you care about. she said civility is only possible if democrats were to win back of the house, or i should say the house or the senate. her commitment to civility in our political discourse is contingent upon political outcomes. did you notice the virtue used? "destroy," which i think is telling. it is not that people may disagree with her or her party. it is that people who disagree with her once to destroy -- want to destroy what you stand for and what you care about. very disturbing. it should be of concern to all of us who want to restore some decorum and a koran --

and bipartisan cooperation. we will have our differences, and i welcome the opportunity to debate those differences. that is what the united states senate is all about. but there is a line we saw crossed last week during the confirmation hearing. we learned it is our democratic colleagues who have associated themselves with special interest group still go to any length to achieve their desired ends. words,-- in other the ends justify the means. that means getting arrested, chasing senators and their spouses from restaurants, screaming at members and elevators, sending coat hangers to senators at their offices, and offering what amounts to a bribe. that does not sound very civil to me. tweet that says,

"liberals have not shown an ounce of civility since trump announced he was running and they showed no signs of changing." let's go to keith from baltimore, maryland. caller: good morning. host: go ahead. isler: i think civility something of the past. i hope one day we can find it eitherut i don't think side wants to play along with the other. to carol from minneapolis on the democratic line. caller: we cannot be civil. we have to fight. we can't fight with sticks and stones. we have to fight at the ballot box. vote democrats. vote. remember these people supportive man who bragged about grabbing

womens' private parts. host: joanne from nevada. caller: good morning to you, too. hillary clinton has been a pain in the rear since the 1990's. she is always on the republicans that are out to get her. someone is always out to get this woman. finally, maybe we can get some answers to what she did with the emails. she is as crooked and has been a rear forhe rae -- years. democrats, get over it. host: matt on the democratic line. caller: good morning, jesse. all, i that first of wish someone would put a muzzle on mrs. clinton. i wish she would stop talking. the one thing i want to mention

here, and i have not seen it on fox cable news, is the youtube video put out by the republican candidate in pennsylvania for governor where he physically threatens our city governor with physical -- sitting governor with physical violence. this is the pot calling the kettle black, with republicans calling us on civil and inciting violence. you have republican candidate out here basically saying he cleats on thepolf face of a sitting governor. anybody else posts a video like that and the pennsylvania state police will show up five minutes later for terroristic threats. carolina, from north good morning. are you there? caller: hello?

host: go ahead. caller: my friend was beaten up after mrs. clinton comments, julian angel. noah.i think we lost linda from mississippi on the democratic line. caller: good morning. civility starts from the top of the party. when you have a president who stands up and criticizes, demeans and tells people at his rallies he wants to hit someone in the face, and when they went to this kavanaugh thing, mitch mcconnell said he would push it through regardless. no respect of women. women issues. and they just don't care. nervepublicans have a

calling whatever a democratic does a mob. .hey forget the tea party believe me, those republicans that call in that agree with , those independents that call are ashamed to be called republicans that they are republicans. they are ashamed of what he has brought, no respect to the women, two women, -- to and a respective anything. but if you disagree with them, you are uncivil. you are a mob. this was a country built on freedom and diversity. but these republicans do not want it.

in georgia, kemp is trying to keep minorities from voting. this is how they think they can win elections. that is what keeps people fighting. out, democrats, vote them because they clearly do not care about this country. vote, vote, vote. host: the day after secretary clinton later statements, former democratic attorney general eric holder came behind her paraphrasing a famous statement from michelle obama. holder said, quoting michelle go low, wen they kick them." here is what michelle obama had to say about the use of her statement and about civility in politics. [video] >> fear is not a proper

motivator. hope wins out. if you think about how you want your kids to be raised, how you want them to think about life in their opportunities, do you want them afraid of their neighbors? angry? vengeful? if we think about the values we children,ch our what are you telling your girls? which model the want them to live by? i have to think about that as a mother, as someone who was a role model to young girls. we want them to grow up with promise and hope, and we can't model something different if we want them to be better than that. host: here is a tweet. "when the oligarchy government suppressing the majority, civility falls by the wayside as the struggle for freedom takes place."

rose from woodberry, new jersey on the independent line. caller: good morning. i think it is very difficult for anyone to be civil when they are being lied to by the media. the president is being called racists, but when he made the comment there are good people on either side in charlottesville, he was referring to the people who wanted the statues and the people who wanted the statues down. not to the neo-nazis that he denounced. when hend thing is that talked about the mexicans, he was talking about illegal immigrants that came with evil intent to distribute drugs. they conflate that the media. also the clintons have not been prosecuted for their crimes. media gets

straightened out, when the american people are told the truth they will make the right decisions. somebody should look into the british and israelis who are behind a lot of the trouble in our government, and now brought rosenstein is refusing to testify -- rod rosenstein is refusing to testify. i miss my liberal and conservative friends. me get to the truth we will come together and thank you very much. host: steve from florida on the democratic line. good morning. caller: good morning. number one, for every uncivil act there is provocation. i was watching c-span a while back. , ire was sebastian gorky can't remember his last name,

but he would make comments that anybodyhe would call who disagreed with him socialists and make implications that they were just people who wanted to live off the government. finally when somebody calls in and lashes against him, becomes a victim. you violated civil discourse. see how mean-spirited as people are? and the other thing is, is there any violence here? the protests, the civil disobedience, that is part of our history. part of the constitution. if violent acts are being committed, yeah, come lock me

up. otherwise i have not seen any violations of civil discourse. thank you. host: former attorney general eric holder after the controversy started around his statements, tweeted, "stop the fake outrage. i am obviously not advocating violence. when i was ag it was at a historic low. republicans are undermining our democracy and democrats need to be cuffed, proud incentive for the values we believe in. the end." richard from clear lake, iowa, republican line. caller: hello. what i called about was there is a cinnamon from pennsylvania you spoke to earlier. ofaccused another network not showing or not talking about this political ad in pennsylvania.

dictated. --it did. it shows that. a lot of the division we got going now is because people look at just one network or not. i like to look at different networks. that is what i appreciate c-span. i wanted to point out somebody accused fox network of not showing something because it does not fit their narrative. that is not true. they do show those things. that is all i want to say. the same thing is true of pbs oratives that attack something like that. they are kind of crazy because you have to listen to both. everybody has their bias, but they are not always evil as certain people like to point out. i really appreciate c-span because of that.

host: let's go to rob from new york on the independent line. caller: good morning. i think you are doing a fantastic job. comments, itlary's is just another way to divide us. she is trying to distract us from the uranium one thing, and eric holder has no credibility. he was the lead guy for the fast and furious project that let all those guns go crazy in mexico. as far as your last comment, -- last caller, you are darn right we are divided. 90% of the people i talk to know that 9/11 was an inside job. you need to see building 7 to understand that. napa,shauna from california. caller: thank you for taking my call. after listening to all this

incivility, this from hillary clinton where if you don't agree with her, they are not going to be civil. take simplicity. eggplant.n't like all of a sudden you have a disagreement. you have a simple disagreement and incivility ensues. this is the way it is in between these two political parties. i am blaming it on high-tech gang war between the political parties. all their little cronies out there, they send them out to do whatever they want to do just because they simply can't be civil to each other. and our children are watching and listening to this. what do you think our children are going to be like in 10 years watching this stuff? host: let's go to michael from michigan on the republican line. good morning.

caller: can you hear me? host: you are on the air. caller: i find mrs. clinton's comments -- grant from go to salt lake city, utah, independent line. caller: good morning. i am an independent. i have been watching the discourse in washington for many years. they are not getting anything done because the don't want to cooperate with the other side. i figured they are building a wall and they just keep putting bricks on the wall and throwing logs on the fire. soon we will not be able to look over the wall and we will be consumed by the fire. you know what i mean? the: when did you think incivility started? how far back did you go to say, this is where it started.

caller: i am 66 years old. i have been watching this go down i would say since clinton got an office. the rebellion against bush. a cap going on and on. they just keep building more bricks on the wall and throwing more logs on the fire. see the discourse is going to get beyond our control. callingt's go to pete from california on the republican line. caller: good morning. thank you for taking my call. it is kind of say a misnomer. party hasican changed. they don't believe in compromise or working with anyone else. kavanaugh down the

throat of america. i would have no problem with kavanaugh if there was a real review of his documents and a real inquiry into the allegations against him regarding ford . it started with newt gingrich where the whole thing is don't compromise no matter what. the republican party has become really mean-spirited, and before the last presidential election i gave a contribution to lindsey graham, who was rational back then because he understood about working with people. it seems like he and the rest of the republicans have drank the kool-aid and what is going to theen is we have it where

minority is running the government because of the senate. the people, like me, who understand the constitution, believe in the constitution, believe in the rule of law are getting so frustrated. it is really bad for our country. host: let's go to lisa from illinois on the democratic line. good morning. caller: good morning. thank you for c-span. should not even mention being civil. she was not civil with bernie sanders. if he hadn't stepped down, we wouldn't have trump in the oval office. host: robin, good morning. caller: god bless the republic. i want to know what the

democrats are running on. what is their platform? i wish a democrat would tell me what the platform of the democrats is. say god bless the republic and god bless president trump. host: donald from san antonio on the democratic line. thisr: first of all, topic, what she said. i don't see nothing wrong with what she said. both sides are going crazy. i'm listening to all these people calling in, and in the --stion you ask, the topic how can you be civil in this country with anyone? everyone has gone into their own little corner. they areyou say, pushing something down my throat.

instead of us coming together and compromise. this country -- do you ever listen to what our president is saying? now they want to play the victim. every party gets in power and wants to play the victim. how can we ever be civil when we have politicians out there saying if we send them to washington to take care of us, i don't see nothing but the bickering with each other and dividing this country. i hope and pray we don't have the civil war in this country between the races. we have something there and people calling in, but i've been what do they be listening to? where did they get this crazy stuff they be talking? from connecticut on the republican line.

caller: hi. i thought i called on the independent line. what i would like to say is that i think we are going to be spending a lot of time with our new presidents to come taking back what the old presidents put in the law. it seems like this is going to happen. trump took everything obama did. obama took everything that bush did and got rid of it. this is what our presidency is going to be all about. whoever is president is going to reject what the last president did. it is going to perpetuate and keep going on and on. what are we going to accomplish? we will be chasing our tale. as far as hillary is concerned, she should shut her mouth. fix holder, six chicago -- chicago first before you talk about anybody else.

my concern is we are going to be going in circles in circles. wins as president, they will pull all the laws that bush put into place. how are we going to accomplish anything? host: jack from massachusetts on the independent line. good morning. caller: good morning. about the media and have a media has something blessed -- some complicit in this in all this. my opinion about the right is the propaganda machine at fox news and the republicans have become so good at what they do with the twisting of facts and the spin, the pointing towards fake news as a way to keep any

civil discourse out of the debate that the democrats have basically failed to recognize it. this goes back years, at least five to 10 years. the message coming out of the left has been unable to compete with the message coming from the right because they are not as good at the propaganda that the right is. just trying to keep normal discourse with that side of the right has left them without the tools to debate at the level of the propaganda coming from the right. the democrats -- the left has --, they are coming from behind in the game so to speak. they have to step up their game thehey want to compete with

manipulation coming from the right. thank you for taking my call. host: speaking of debates, tonight in wisconsin there will be a senate debate between tammy herwin who will be debating challenger. live coverage starts at 8:00 p.m. eastern on c-span, online at c-span.org, and the free c-span radio app. c-span, your primary source for campaign 2018. i want to turn for a tweet -- to a tweet. " of course we can be civil. we must. it is a matter of survival." steve, good morning. caller: good morning. i would like to point out we have been civil. it does not get through fox. people are simple. they need a quick soundbite.

there was a guy who called up and asked what the platform was. the platform was infrastructure. there are floats throughout our kent -- floods throughout our country now. we will not get infrastructure because of the massive tax-cut trump gave to the rich. i watched tv party people peopleg on -- tea party spitting on a bunch of congressman after the health care debate was passed. mcveigh, theothy abortion guys who low of office buildings, they were on the right. they believe in the deep state. you talk about being uncivil, we don't blow up buildings and kill people. thank you. host: dexter from san bernardino, california on the republican line. good morning.

caller: good morning. i just want to call and say i used to be a democrat for many years. i started studying my history about democrats. gearing worldt war ii -- during world war ii and slavery, the democrats were behind slavery. today democrats don't even talk about god. they keep religion out of everything. it is frightful because i believe god put trump in office for a reason, and god is in control of the world. not people. we will find out soon that god is in control of the world because people nowadays do not even put god in none of the conversation. where are we going? where are we headed? writes, "incivility

starts at the top. look at our leader, my shining example." dorothy from cleveland on the democratic line, good morning. caller: good morning. first of all, with these republicans don't understand is hillary clinton was not talking about anything. she was not even in the spotlight. but every one of his rallies he throws up her name. he is so obsessed with her he can't see straight. i don't blame her. i would come out and defend myself. she has sat back and said nothing. everywhere he goes he brings up her name and the "lock her up" stuff. he came out and started talking about mobs. everybody on fox was hollering mob.

even the senator was hollering mob. there is no mob. people are protesting what they feel is wrong with this country. like the guy said, it comes from the top. host: ron from michigan on the independent line. good morning. caller: good morning. it starts at the top. who goesa president before his white power rallies and talks about senator warren and the native americans, and and as far as the mob rule, it is the white supremacists who killed the woman protesting the confederate statues. as far as violence, when john brown's martyrdom comes up a couple of days away, we should

remember and always hold in our hearts a progressive like john brown who put this country on the right track. i hope we don't have to do it again. if it needs to be done, it has to be done. host: rick from louisville, ohio on the independent line. caller: how are you doing? can you hear me? host: go ahead. caller: i have talked to you before. i am 60 years old, white. in the past 15 years i have written three books about the rise and fall of the greatest civilization in the history of mankind. it was basically throughout the midwest. through the labor unions. thens taxed that 90% back which force all the profits back

into society to create jobs. one million employees. employed another 7 million through suppliers. happeningout what is in the past 40 years you have to understand this is all regional. we are going back to the civil war. in the past 40 years -- let's take the state of texas. the last 547 started by texans. weree last five wars started by texans. the largest oil company in the world is in texas. half of all the media in the country comes from the state of texas. on publicear somebody airwaves talking about the war or oil, if there not talking about the state of texas, george

bush and fort hood, you are being brainwashed. host: bring it around the question we're talking about, civility in politics. caller: the incivility is social engineering. you are talking about divide and conquer. you are talking about the humanizing and desensitizing. -- dehumanizing and desensitizing. half of all the media in this country is controlled by the state of texas. the state of texas needs people to be divided. they need the white kids to be on opioids. they need the white kids to be fat. they need the black community to be so dysfunctional it can't operate. that is half of it. the other half of the media is california and new york. that is your facebook in your apple computer in your google. new york needs you divided. they need the midwest to be divided.

that is jpmorgan and goldman sachs and your treasury department and federal reserve. the incivility is being brought to this country by three states because they control all the media. trillions, states, trillions of dollars sucked into them. host: james from massachusetts on the republican line. caller: hi. i think clinton has no right to have this information about republican candidates. why should she? for -- because she is a logical and she has good experiences. she is an appropriate person. her election model is better and stronger together. her model shows how much she cares about this really important issue of unity.

we need to be focused on health care and immigration reform. growth and welcoming jobs and infrastructure. -- well-paying jobs and infrastructure. and the safety of our children. and an mental health opioid crisis to overcome and congressional terms we need to limit. scalise said in a fox news article that when eric holder and others call for violence, that is a direct threat to democracy. as a survivor as a politically motivated attack, this is an unacceptable state of political discourse. i refuse to stand for this and i will call for an end to it. a healthy, strong democracy is not possible if anybody lives in fear of expressing their views. if this is going to stop, did must start with democratic leaders who need to condemn

rather than promote dangerous calls to action. at the ballotwin box, not the mob rule or intimidation." brenda from houston, texas. good morning. caller: good morning. i went to reprimand you before i give my point of view. do cut off the lady that you cut off -- you cut off the first lady that lit into trump. you get nervous. now i want to make my point. to me, when i heard what you just informed the audience that she said, i heard malcolm x years ago. you have to deal with the beast. the only way a beast understands. that's exactly right. the biggest beast is the idiot in the white house. he has started all of this,

along with the palin type in the tea party group. now we will end it. from kansas on the republican line. caller: yes. --ould like to host: go ahead. caller: i am glad to talk with you. i agree that our biggest problem -- i'm talking. host: go ahead. they need to get unity going in this country. the democrats have a bad fdr on through. we need to clean up and stop the

clinton cartel. let's work for the people. the people of the united states. not just a certain few. we are a great country and a good country. i was a bona fide democrat until clinton. . finally have seen through i'm sorry, we have good people in washington. hang in there and keep going. nothing butdeal was a witchhunt out of california. i'm sorry that happened. two people'sed lives. grow up, democrats. dolores from alabama on the independent line. caller: thank you for taking my call.

they both act ridiculous. that is the problem. when they get in office they forget they are representing the people. for every democrat, there is a republican or independent or someone else. i don't understand why they can't get up there in quit -- they can't represent the party and work together on everything. kavanaugh, i don't know if he was innocent or guilty, but that further divided the country. republicans should say, look, we are not saying he is guilty. let's simply seek another candidate, but they didn't because, and this is merely my opinion, they were afraid they might lose the house. there was not going to take that chance. i don't carry the stand, you

can't say that was a full investigation. his demeanor. they were saying the bar association, they withdrew their support. you had a couple of justices that said he was unfit. country,t to run this we have to quit doing this party gain. -- game. the republicans were not even vote for obama's nominee. get -- quit getting your news of social media. this is not even true. until we decide we are going to work together to understand everybody has got a different thought and try to find common ground, this is never going to end. my senator from alabama, richard

shelby, i have called him for five years. i will never vote for him again because this is what is representative told me. he does not meet with small groups, just large corporations. until we vote people out like that, i don't care of their democrat, republican or independent, things will not get better. people have a right to protest. listen to the other side of view and try to find common ground. host: tammy from louisiana on the republican line. good morning. caller: good morning. hoping they democrats and the republicans could come together at some point in time. hillary is upset having a hard time dealing with her loss. we have been praying for her. our republican side needs to stand up.

and do to maybe search what we are supposed to do, which is pray away with going on. to stand up strong and do the right thing when it comes to the people. i think hillary has lost touch with reality a little bit. i wanted to let her know personally we are praying for her and her covenant. aying her covenant has found the name of jesus, and we are thankful judge kavanaugh has gotten to his seat. and donald trump, god bless you, donald trump. thank you for what you're doing for all of this country. we see you for what you're doing sir. thank you for your beautiful spirit. eric from compton,

california on the democratic line. caller: good morning, america. i have a statement for america. evil for evil. what goes around comes around. that is what capital said -- capital -- kavanaugh said to the american people. i would like to make a point on voting. cycles only two women vote. all men step back and let our women vote. we need to bring unity to america. let the women choose. let's try that. from let's go to carrie oklahoma on the republican line. caller: good morning. say i wanted to call and think we can be united as a

country. it will take people electing officials that represent us another own interests. we are not a country that wants to fight with each other. we are not a racist or sexist country. we do believe in equal rights for everyone. earlier you had a gym they called in from pennsylvania about his governor. and the guy threatening. he did go on fox news and apologize. he took back his statement. i think stuff like that needs to stop. there is no reason for us to be angry with each other. we need to debate each other and come to common grounds. i have talked to democrats online and i have to comment -- come to common grounds with some of them. think we just need to debate and put all this anger and violence --

host: joe from south carolina on the independent line. good morning. caller: how are you doing today? listening to some of your earlier callers, like the gentleman from florida talking about he had not seen any violence. he had not seen any bad things. i believe he talked about the tea party spitting on people. a john f. kennedy democrats. i came from a democratic family. all but two of all the members of my family now vote either independent or republican. i am an independent myself. , andi have trouble with the democrats talk about the otublicans were trump -- trump -- or trump does not

believe women. you can't necessarily believe all women every time. 90% probablylieve of the cases of women accusing men of things are probably true. life done never in my anything against a woman's will and i got arrested for rape once because the woman was extorting me. she also had nine other tournament arrested in a nine-month period. this was back when i was a teenager. it is not always somebody can believe. there are people that are not to be believed. when you look at someone like kavanaugh who has had a distinguished career, never had any mention of this in his entire life, and then someone brings something up when he was a teenager, which might or might not be true, by the democrats

held back the facts and i just -- i'm tryinghe to think of the name of the group. antifa. they had people with bicycle locks. then the democrats in general only seem to want to believe them. when they are accusing republicans. independentthe line. caller: good morning. it is the first time i have spoken with you. i have two things to say and then i will have a happy day if you let me say them. first, hillary clinton, ok. as far as politics goes, she was not really a people person.

you can say a lot about her husband bill, but he was a people person. he was a good candidate and a good president. i far as what is going on, have been in all three parties. republican, independent and democrat. for us to bring civility back we must step back and just go by the facts. whoever, getsian, up there at a rally and starts throwing gasoline on a fire, guess what's going to happen. it is going to burn. politics is like a religion. at a certain point the fever takes over and we stop thinking by the facts. we need to go by the facts in the facts only. that is why we are a nation of laws. by the law, the facts and the facts only. if we stay with the facts and get the emotion out of this whole equation, we will be a

successful country again. i love this country. i hate what is happening to it right now. we are at each other's throats because some politician thinks i'm going to make money off of this no matter what and i'm going to steer people in the wrong direction. i think that is what he is doing right now in the white house. he is steering people to make money for himself. let's hit him with the facts. i want to know what robert mueller knows. i want this whole process to come to a conclusion. people, take the emotion out of it. let's go strictly by the facts and that is where the truth lies. host: mark from des moines, iowa on the republican line. caller: good morning. i think when the college kids and high school kids in 20 or 30

years reader history books, they will realize this was one of the worst times in the history of the united states. able just impossible to be to compromise on anything, to getting the agenda done for the people themselves. insteadl work together of this decisive time, it would help out the majority. the clintons need to go away. they are not helping their own party. they are not helping the people. like back in the next and days s. mixo -- nixon day it is not good for anybody. thank you for taking my call. dumo from georgia on the

democratic line. caller: thank you for taking my call. i just want to stick to two points here. first of all, i want us to republicanshat the and the democrats are christians. i'm sick and tired of thoughcans pretending as they know god more than the democrats. we are all christians. is not a godat god of confusion. anything that is right is right. itn the talk is clean, filters down to the masses. right now we don't have a leader. that young here to say are a christian. if something is wrong,

republicans, come out and say that your leader is wrong. ,f it was the other way around republicans would crucify that person. come out in state the truth. then you are a believer and a child of god. let's not be hypocritical. host: patricia from mesquite, nevada. caller: thank you for taking my call. i appreciate the time to say something. what i wanted to say is i'm 80 years old and i'm really, really scared for what i see with these streets,ople on the trying to get their cars or stopping them for no reason, breaking peoples heads open.

who is paying these people? this is something i want to know. people?aying these i am terrified of going out. i will start taking means of protection myself. i just don't believe it is safe out there for people that are elderly to even go to the market anymore. it is ridiculous. virginia. from good, caller: good morning. thank you c-span for taking my call. is our current status. it is not going to do any good. i hear people talking about this blue wave. the democrats can't seem to get rid of the face of hillary clinton as their party. until they do such, they don't have much of a chance because

she not only has lost once but twice trying to make a presidential bid. until we bring civility back, weility back into politics, will not get anything accomplished. we can see the decline in our nation because of it. thank you for taking my comment. host: beverly from corona, california. good morning. caller: thank you for taking my call and for c-span. the question of civility, where was the question of civility when obama was president and the tea party all of a sudden was in the news? they were bringing ak-47's to town hall meetings with pictures of hitler. you talk about civility. when you bring out a man like donald trump. all he has done has divided the country along racial lines, bringing up charlottesville did

not happen in a vacuum. demonstrators and protesters -- they are not mobs. that is a democratic way of getting your opinion heard. frankly nobody in washington is doing anyone's job. all of a sudden kavanaugh was such an issue. when garland was nominated, they would not even hear him. mitch mcconnell, they took that right away from the sitting president. or weugh was not vetted would not have had to hear this story. next, colum up lynch will discuss the fallout over jamal khashoggi. later on, scott drenkard will discuss his organization's tax rankings.

first, you can watch all of our candidate debate coverage online at c-span.org, in the section dedicated to campaign 2018. here is an excerpt from thursday night's illinois governor debate. governor was asked if voters can trust his democratic opponent given allegations of financial improprieties. here it is. [video] >> the voters can in no way trust him on any issue. he is demonstrated a complete lack of integrity, ethics and character. he is not worthy of elected office in the state of illinois. yes, a bank robber that gets caught and returns the money is still a bank robber. the $330,000 hee has returned stole from every tax player in the state of illinois because he knows it was wrong, but that in

no way reduces the seriousness of his crime. these are serious white-collar crimes. people have gone to prison for far less. the simple factor is that four of my nine predecessors as governor went to jail. mr. pritzker has a very good chance of being number five. the people of illinois, the people of illinois deserve better than this. go ahead, governor, finish your thoughts. >> the people of illinois deserve better than this. he cannot be trusted on taxes. he keeps his money in offshore accounts. inherited billions. never worked an honest day in his life. he doesn't pay taxes on it. this is wrong. fromied to buy an office governor before he went to

prison. not deserve tos hold the highest office in the state of illinois or any elected office. to injury, he was caught using the language of racists referring to elected officials in the state of illinois, calling black elected -- what did he call them? >> i will leave that to you. >> offensive. >> your time is up, governor. there is a lot here. feel free to respond. you have one minute. >> you have just heard the nt of a failed governor who is in the final hours of his campaign and governorship. [applause] please hold the applause. >> you are likely to hear more of that tonight.

he just has lies and excuses. theuld like to respond to question. this was an internal memo that was late for political purposes -- leaked for political purposes. the report that was issued was actually a report about the problems in the tax assessors office. i believe there are real challenges in our property tax system that we need to address. as for the renovation problem that was underway, it was halted because it was unclear whether the home would be sold or rented out. the project was restarted. all the taxes that were assessed were paid. this is governor rauner trying to distract from his own record. he illegally sought three homestead exemptions. he wants to raise taxes on $1 billion on the people of the state of illinois. >> washington journal continues. host: we are with foreign

policy's colum lynch about jamal khashoggi and his disappearance. first of all, good morning. remind us who jamal khashoggi is. guest: jamal khashoggi is a saudi journalist. he more recently has been a columnist for the washington post, which is why there is so much attention being paid to this issue. he has had a long-standing relationship with the saudi government, started out as a young journalist covering afghanistan, al qaeda, spent a lot of time in the region. more recently, he has emerged as a key critic of saudi arabia's crown prince. the likely future leader of saudi arabia, mohammad bin salman, there has been some belief and this is what the turkish government has been

claiming and what u.s. intelligence officials have been telling reporters privately that they believe the saudi government murdered mr. khashoggi in the saudi consulate on october 2. host: what is the latest news about that? things have in changing about this story almost hourly. what do we know that is going on? guest: everybody is trying to get more details about what information the turks have. there was an intriguing story that came out yesterday in a turkish newspaper, which has reporters who have good contacts in the turkish security and intelligence community. they reported that khashoggi had entered the consulate with an apple iphone and his fiancee was outside the building with the phone. he had a watch on his hand.

they were reporting that he had recorded his own death. there have been questions about whether that is possible, whether the bluetooth mechanism on an iphone can actually reach that far and whether you would have been able to pick up signals from inside the consulate. there is some suspicion that turks may be revealing information about how they obtained audio and possibly video of the killing and whether they are trying to suggest that maybe it was not through intelligence means. it seems most likely that they either have the place wired, were intercepting an internal video feed inside the building, ir owny have the surveillance capacity to be able to listen in on what is going on inside the consulate. up until this point, the turkish government has been liberally leaking bits and pieces of

information on the incident, but they have not publicly come forward and put their intelligence on the table and showed it publicly. they have not come out publicly and made those kinds of allegations more concrete. there was an interesting story by shane harrison and a number of others of the washington post, which cited u.s. intelligence officials saying they had been briefed by the turks as well, and they are confident he was murdered by the saudi's. the saudi's deny all of this categorically. this is having a big impact on them diplomatically at a critical time when they are trying to rally international support and business support for the modernization project inside saudi arabia. host: for our viewers and listeners, here is some tape we have of jamal khashoggi in 2017

as he was speaking about the difficulty of reporting about corruption within the saudi government. [video clip] >> i think the saudi people are supportive of it. we're going through some kind of euphoria, but people don't question. impacton't discuss the of such decisions. two reasons, it is this euphoria and for government controls. that are called by security to sign pledges not to criticize the government. they stay in their home. when somebody is arrested, another writer is afraid to speak because they don't want to be arrested. the environment in saudi arabia does not allow for constructive criticism or debate or discourse lively matters that affect us for the future. be thehat is going to

trump administration's response to his disappearance? what can the trump administration do even if they want to? guest: the trump administration response has been a little confused. has acknowledged that something probably very terrible happened in the saudi tosulate, and he has pledged sort of get to the bottom of it. he said on friday that he planned to speak to king alman very soon. he has also made it clear that saudi arabia is a vital military and commercial partner. they spend billions of dollars on u.s. military hardware. jets,uy f-15 fighter

apache helicopters, spend a lot of their money on the american defense industry. he made it clear that he did not want to do anything to jeopardize those links. later this week, there was planned and important investors meeting in riyadh in saudi arabia, kind of nicknamed avos in the desert. this was a way of bringing all the key foreign investors and come and other outlets to and find out ways they can invest in saudi arabia's modern ization. u.s. treasury secretary steven mnuchin has confirmed he will attend that conference. since then president trump has

sort of indicated that they are going to have to assess what they know before he goes. he raised the possibility that he might not go. christine lagarde, the head of the imf has said she is going to go, but there have been a number of media and business investors who have said they will not go. uber had planned on attending. they indicated they will not go. cnn has pulled out. another --a number of other businesses, virgin airlines, richard branson has suspended business projects in saudi arabia. this was supposed to be an important turning point for saudi arabia, and this incident is kind of spoiling that. everybody is waiting to see how this plays out over the next couple of days. host: we are talking about the

disappearance of journalist jamal khashoggi with colum lynch of foreign policy. if you want to join this conversation, give us a call. republicans call in at (202) 748-8001. democrats call in at (202) 748-8000. independents, you can call in at (202) 748-8002. you can always reach us on social media. we have a call from john from new york on the republican line. good morning. caller: hi. as is obvious, he was not just a journalist. he was a very important person. he completely disagreed with the saudi crown. he fleet to turkey to save his life. something happened. i have a question, why our the foreignd

minister does not make saudi arabia take the responsibility .f what they have done we know he was one of the washington post journal. we are a nation of the superpower of the world. a lot of news of saudi arabia, they have a large amount of bribery as hush money. why we shouldn't be silent, saudi arabia is like a fat cow prepared to be milked. why don't we make them take the responsibility? please answer this question if it is possible. host: go ahead. guest: should i take that? yes. this is an extremely pointed question. there has been a kind of reluctance to hold saudi arabia accountable for a number of

issues over the last couple of years. this goes back to the obama administration, but the relationship between president trump and king solomon has strengthened since then. i think the administration sees the saudi's as key partners in terms of military alliances, in terms of fighting the war on terrorism, that they have been willing to not push too hard on in saudis when they engage conduct that is controversial or operating outside the norms of good behavior by governments. one of the issues for the last couple of years, saudi arabia has led a military coalition in a war in yemen fighting a rebel movement led by ethnic shia who houssis.

that has led to large-scale atrocities in yemen. the united states provides some targeting information, refueling for their jets, and has been unwilling maximum pressure on the saudi's to improve their conduct in that war or to put pressure on them to end the conflict and reach some sort of peace deal. reluctance to a push hard on the saudis. the trump administration has been moving to apply increasing pressure on iran. saudi arabia is iran's chief rival in the region. the u.s. sees saudi arabia as a vital partner in its struggle against iran. under the obama administration

there was more of an effort to balance those two countries. reached an important agreement over the nuclear arms , and trumpith iran has backed away from that and embraced the saudis wholeheartedly. he has taken a much more confrontational approach with the iranians. as far as financial security and that the trump administration views as vital, it has been reluctant to break the relationship with the saudis. we cannot forget that saudi arabia is a major oil producer and that it's relationship with the u.s. has been very deep and central to american foreign policy in the middle east going back decades.

host: here is a statement from the united nations on the disappearance of jamal khashoggi. an independent international investigation must immediately be launched into the event. we call on the saudi and turkish authorities to cooperate fully to resolve this case. we are concerned that the disappearance of mr. khashoggi is dreck late link his criticism of saudi policies in recent years. to openfor the saudi's the fundamental rights, including the right to life and expression and dissent. we saw president trump, yesterday and make a statement. [video clip] >> are you reevaluating the relationship with saudi arabia? president trump: we are going to find out what happened with respect to the terrible situation in turkey having to do with saudi arabia and the reporter. nobody knows quite yet.

nobody has been able to put it all together. people are starting to form ideas. it is certainly a terrible thing. >> has their record been overlooked for too long? president trump: i think a lot of records have been overlooked. if you take a look at iran, syria, a lot of countries, a lot of their countries records have been overlooked. this is a very serious thing. we are looking at it in a very serious manner. host: let's go to sisi, who is north carolina on the democrats line. guest: good morning. caller: good morning. please allow me to finish my statement. i would appreciate it. as an american muslim, i am embarrassed and ashamed of what happened to this reporter. this comes from a long list of things that this country, the states has

embarrassed me over. mention theorgot to long list of relationships, as far as monetary, relationships trump has had with this country. republicans are so two-faced. 9/11 sayingt after they hate this and that. you know one a man has been murdered in an embassy, and they don't say anything about it, and trump skip's, he doesn't know anything, or he is not sure. we are all sure. we sit here and watch the scrap crack and day out -- this day in and day out with this administration. i could never vote for the republicans. i could never support a man like trump he has so many things going on with this administration. it is all based on money.

that is what it is all about. a man's life is worthless as long as he is getting some money out of it. that is all i have to say. i am sad. i am embarrassed. my heart cries out for this man who went into the embassy and got chopped up. have a good day. host: let's go to bob from indiana on the independent line. caller: good morning. anyway, i have called in several months. -- haven't called in several months. i tend to stick with you. when i heard this, i had to call. i did not think it would get through. anyway, this situation with military expenditures by the saudis buying all these planes and missiles doesn't make any difference.

they are all objects of destruction and murder. believe,d yesterday, i i am paraphrasing, money is more important than human life. he did not say that way. he talked about jobs. he said we just have to go along with this because we have got to have the billions of dollars worth of expenditures on the military for saudi arabia. i understand the jobs thing, but i think this country is losing our moral standing. not losing it, we pretty much lost it. i hope we can regain it. i think it is all about what people, the congressman and senators, what a person cares about in analyzing that in their own minds and projecting what

they care about to the people of the united states of america to let people know what they really care about. let's hope it is not all about money, not when we have all these other unbelievable problems sitting in front of us with the water in the country, climate change in the country -- in the world, rather. these things we need to spend some time and money on. some people are. host: what is the relationship between saudi arabia and the united states right now? we are hearing people talk about arms sales. what kinds of arms sales are we seeing between the u.s. and saudi arabia? guest: we sell them most of their advanced military equipment, f-15s, apaches, missile technology, provide them

with intelligence. the whole array of equipment that has made them one of the int advanced military powers terms of technology in the region. effective as as some of their rivals in the region, such as iran, in projecting power. in terms of equipment, they have the best possible american military equipment that you can buy. one of the concerns expressed by callers had to do with this transactional nature of foreign policy under the trump administration. i think president trump has been quite honest about his motivations in this case and has tried to always hedge.

saying, on the one hand, i recognized something horrible happened, but this guy is not a u.s. citizen. this happened in turkey, not the u.s. by the way, we do billions of dollars worth of military trade with the saudi's. we are not going to do anything to jeopardize that. very much elevates the kind of commercial interest above the human rights interest in this case. they will shift their position over time if there is sufficient pressure. i think one of the most interesting developments is that there has been a partisan concern growing in terms of our relationship with the saudi's. a lot of this has played out in terms of the saudi led coalition in yemen and the feeling that the u.s. is arming and he are being a military coalition that has been engaging in massive atrocities.

saudi arabia has come under enormous criticism from the united nations for military theuct that has led to maiming and killing of large numbers of children. other issues like that. heard the u.n. statement that you mentioned, but i was curious whether that was actually a statement from the u.n. secretary general's office or from one of the human rights independent special reporters. the u.n. has been very cautious about criticizing saudi arabia because when they do criticize saudi arabia, it acts in a radical way. criticism forr this issue of the killing of children in the midst of the war in yemen. saudi arabia threatened to pull out of the united nations and bring a number of arab countries with them if the u.n. did not

take the name of the coalition off the black list of terrorist groups in countries that have killed children in the course of conflict. response quite aggressively to criticism and is financial cut off investments and products. on u.n. relies enormously saudi funding for a lot of its counterterrorism efforts and a lot of its humanitarian work in the middle east. they would be concerned that if they pushed to strongly against the saudi's that they might jeopardize that. eric callingo to from georgia on the democratic line. caller: thank you. this is bigger than that reported.

this is about trumps weakness. locality acted with these dictators, kim jong-un, putin, and workday. saudi arabia attacked the united states on 9/11. the u.s. did nothing because of financial ties. trump had investments over there then. will we need is all these people attacking him, nothing is going to happen. he is not going to change his opinion. he is weak. he tries to make people think he is strong. look how he grumbles. hillary clinton this morning. host: president trump is actually going to be talking about the jamal khashoggi case on 60 minutes this weekend. he has said there will be severe punishment. here is a look at what president trump had to say. sorry. minutes,eak from 60

trump said there would be severe punishment. he is telling leslie stahl on 60 minutes that if saudi arabia is found to be responsible for this death, there will be consequences. what does this relationship between saudi arabia and the u.s. seem to be devolving into? guest: it is not clear. if you listen to those remarks, they sound tough and kind of the opposite of what he was saying earlier in the week. balance aoing to tough response with the fact that he doesn't want to jeopardize the relationship with saudi arabia, i don't see what those consequences might be. i would think if there is any sort of consequences involving sanctions or anything along that

line, a stronger hand is likely to come from the u.s. congress. they have considerable power to do something about that. as a result of the activities in yemen. there is pushed back on u.s. support for the saudi's in yemen. there is growing frustration with the behavior of the saudi government over the last couple of years, particularly since the emergence of crown prince mohammad bin salman as the de facto leader in saudi arabia. he is not picking, but he has largely been -- not the king, but he has largely been driving saudi military activities over the last few years. host: let's go to jimbo on the independent line. caller: good morning. god bless brian lamb. he is my hero and role model.

the only thing more terrifying than the disappearance of the washington post reporter is the president's initial response to when heh was so telling talked about this fictitious number of $117 billion of military hardware that the american industrial military complex cells to saudi arabia. number, 110,t rumors that this guy was actually killed with a chainsaw, tortured and dismembered with a bone cutter in the embassy and that his remains were hermetically sealed and shipped back to saudi arabia. suspend the sale of all weapons to saudi arabia? i want to know about our complicity as a nation

with the genocide in yemen. i also want to know about the blockade in qatar. we have a military base there. can you explain that one to me? is that enough for the platter right now? .hank you so much guest: that should do it. let's take the fourth question on whether the u.s. is complicit in war crimes in yemen. there seems to be growing evidence that the saudi led coalition has committed crimes against humanity and war crimes. there is also mounting evidence that the rebel who -- also undertaken atrocities. the saudi led coalition has far more equipment. the rebels have been firing rockets at saudi arabia.

the u.n. has beliefs that most of those rockets are coming from iran, so there is this connection between the rebels and iran. in terms of u.s. complicity, the u.s. provides military equipment to the saudi's. they are a behind the scenes partner in the military coalitions. they provide some degree of targeting information. refueling for saudi jets. they are a party to the conflict. whether the u.s. will ever see this case brought before any sort of international tribunal, i doubt it. theoretically, the u.s. does have some exposure for some in what ismplicity going on in yemen.

at the same time, the u.s. will argue they are working behind the scenes to try to get the deal.s to pursue a peace they have been trying to moderate saudi behavior. they realize this is not going well. they want this to end. it is embarrassing for the u.s. as well. the saudi's seem committed to pursuing this to the end. the caller was right about this ongoing feud between qatar and saudi arabia and its other partners in the region, bahrain, was atarab emirates and a briefing last september with senior foreign ministry official who was saying that efforts, including some efforts mediated by the u.s. so far have not done

much to resolve that conflict with the qataris. host: all of this is coming as the u.n. investor in the u.s. nikki haley announced her resignation. of her term opinion as u.s. ambassador to the united nations? been ai think she has really interesting ambassador in she reallyear created or remade the role of the u.s. ambassador to the u.n. as a primary spokesman for administration foreign-policy. this has always been the junior foreign policy member cabinet but during a 17 we had a

secretary of state who was really reluctant to speak publicly and to engage with the press. would find nikki haley filling that vacuum. you had a national security adviser at the time who was willing to let her have enormous .reedom that was the case under mcmaster. she emerged as this person that was in front of the camera on dealing with issues with ukraine and theia, syria, iran middle east. that was the next ordinary role. that has changed quite a bit since secretary of state mike pompeo came into office. john bolton as well. those are two influential officials who know the u.n. quite well. her profile had diminished in

.he past year she was much less visible on the key issues of the day. in terms of her legacy, i think there are a number of issues where she can cite accomplishments, probably most prominent is that she successfully negotiated a number of sanction resolutions in the security council, bringing the chinese and russians on board, applying more pressure to north korea to bring whatever it hopes will be an end to the nuclear arms program they have. there's a lot of skepticism as to whether that is possible. she tried to embrace the issue of human rights, quite critical of russia at a time when the president was looking to forge a close relationship with president clinton, very tough on

the syrian president at a time when the administration was looking to work out some deal with the government. in a sense, when she first came into office, she had set up a quite distinct ran and foreign-policy approach from the president. the president gave her some in the to pursue that last year, she has moved closer to the white house, particularly championing the move to withdrawal from: 2015 new video with iran that was negotiated by the obama administration. she took a hard line on the middle east peace process and has been a leader in the administration along with jared kushner. off palestinian assistance. andhad been a prominent

outspoken supporter of a to the -- aid to the palestinians. that she is coming out of this an efficient without the kind of damage other cabinet members have faced, coming out with a reputation or image that is somewhat independent. at the same time, you have to knowledge that the united states has become increasingly isolated at the u.n. on issues like the middle east, where she cast a veto against a resolution on jerusalem, which was criticizing the u.s. decision to move the embassy to jerusalem. of 14as a vote against one. she vetoed that ended did not come out particularly well in the following vote in the general assembly on jerusalem. she has been promoting the idea

no longer linking u.s. foreign aid on the basis of foreign need and more on the willingness of countries to align their policy more closely to the u.s., embracing this america first strategy, which has proven unpopular with her diplomatic partners but is certainly popular among the wouldican base that potentially decide at some point in the future whether she may succeed in running for higher office. let's get a question in from david who is calling from california on the independent line. david, what is your question? caller: good morning. this is a fascinating topic. what is interesting to me about this topic is that it took one of the members of the press to

be summarily butchered before is pr power of saudi arabia put on full display. i would say that what has been going on, and it has been mentioned in yemen where hundreds of thousands of beingen and women are bombed back into the dark ages. it takes someone from the press to be butchered before this type the inhumane, crazy policies we have been practicing over that region. say thatt there between saudi arabia and israel, these two have such public relation power, and they shower congressman and the press with such a great amount of influence

and resources that stories that are buried, that don't get to the american people is really criminal. this is aress, wake-up call for you. you cannot keep selling your access to the populists with these lobbyists like israel and saudi arabia. it is high time that we begin to focus in. you mentioned lopping a bomb. this is the same pr nonsense about israel when she says she has an open-air prison and devastating the palestinian people. this is the power of pr, or should i say propaganda that emanates from saudi arabia and israel and their influence. hence this nonsense about the iranian bogeyman.

that is what you guys do. a bogeyman and focus the attention on that. meanwhile, genocidal madness is going on in israel and with saudi arabia and yemen. we have a focus on this. host: your response to that? guest: i'm a little confused because i don't know that he has been listening to what i have been saying. i've talked about the administration's approach to palestinians as well as the issues involving -- we have been talking at length about the question of whether there is potential u.s. complicity in yemen. getink they are issues -- i that it has taken the khashoggi murder to bring this to broader there has been

quite a bit of press coverage on the whole complex relationship between the u.s. and saudi arabia over yemen. i think not sufficient attention. a major story that has not been covered sufficiently. it is certainly not something the press has been ignoring. host: let's see if we can get one more call from accu calling from new york on the democrat line. caller: good morning. i want to pose a question for your journals. suspicious lot of activities in this important issue. pay millions of dollars to qatar to fire, and then -- [inaudible] saudi, andlled in

the approach to the regime want to pay lots of money to some countries like turkey. the united states, the cradle of democracy. i will ask your guest to answer this. problem sosolve this that he has to pay the price of that. they haven't. host: can you ask that question again, i don't know that we understood you. i think we lost matthew. before we let you go, talk a little bit about the release of andrew brunson from turkey and the consequences and results of that. guest: obviously, this has been a huge sticking point between the turks and the americans. this goes back to the relationship has been going into

a spiral since the attempted coup against the erdogan government. somehow the pastor has gotten drawn into this, and trump has made it a high priority to see his release. earlier he thought he had an agreement to let him go, but that did not happen. then there was imposing sanctions on turkey, tariffs on turkey to try to put pressure on him. i'm kind of see that this is efforthe beginning of an by the turks to rebuild the relationship with the u.s. in a sense, turkey's leader, president erdogan is not entirely unlike president trump in that they find themselves ratcheting up the rhetoric and talking very tough to one

another and have to find ways to simmer down. they have waited a while. they were not going to let the pastor go immediately after trump had made some sort of demand about it. this is probably a sign that establishingstart a decent relationship with the americans. host: we would like to thank foreign policy senior diplomatic writer colum lynch for taking time with us this man. think of i much. guest: thank you. --thank you very much. guest: thank you. up, scott drenkard is going to discuss with us his latest state business tax climate rankings. ryannter mother jones' liebenthal is good to discuss student debt.

newsmakers interviewed emily kane, the founder of families emily's list. you can hear that on c-span radio and watch it online at c-span.org. here is emily and a candidate talking about supporting minority groups. [video clip] >> story this week out of georgia about african-american forrs whose applications voter registration had been suspended because there identification did not match other records in state government. is minority recruitment policy priority for- emily's list? how does minority recruitment fit into your overall strategy of electing more women?

>> let's start quickly with what is happening in georgia. stacey abrams, i think it is no accident that suddenly we are having this conversation about held up registrations for african-american voters as we are looking to elect the first african-american woman as governor in our country's history. she is tied in those polls in georgia. nobody thought that could be possible. she is a friend of mine. emily'sbeen friend of list for a long time. i know what is going on in georgia. this is ridiculous. it is not an accident. i'm glad that stacy and her team and nonpartisan sources are getting involved to say this is wrong and taking action. when we think about the importance of diversity in elected office, 40% of the women we have helped to elect in our history have been women of color. we know we need to do more. we are on track this election twoe to elect not one but

of the first native american women ever to congress. latina tonever sent a congress. we will send to this year. deliberate result of recruitment efforts by emily's list and other organizations to get these women in these races early and on the ground in primaries. i think that is what the american people should want and expect. >> "washington journal" continues. host: we are here with scott drenkard of the tax foundation. what is the state business tax climate index? guest: the state business tax climate index, which is a mouthful, is our annual taxmeter ranking of state systems. state tax systems are complicated as a general rule. there are a lot of brackets and complex provisions.

what we do with this publication each year is boiled down over 115 of those into an easy to understand overall ranking of your state's tax system. we are not just looking at tax collections, which is often what you hear about in the news. we are really trying to get into the nitty-gritty of what about tax systems matter, how broad is the tax base, and how low is the tax rate. we reward states that have a neutral tax system, broad-based, low rate, which is the general agreement of what makes a good tax system. host: what taxes are you looking at? are you looking at corporate, individual, unemployment? --employment? guest: we're looking at everything. individual, sales, corporate, property, and unemployment insurance. we have rankings for each of

those components. if you are interested in one particular tax, you can look at that. we have an overall ranking where we take over 100 variables we look at to examine. we maybe even give some options for improvement for policymakers to look at in their tax system. foundationthe tax have any political or ideological view about taxes in this report? we are an independent organization, nonpartisan. sometimes people don't know exactly where to put our analysis because we do want from bases and low rates -- broad-based and low rates because that is the most efficient way to collect for government services. critical of some things that my friends on the left might be critical of. we have things that will hurt your score if you have carveouts

or itemsess firms, that are designed to shape individual or business behavior using the tax system. our view is we need taxes to fund government services. we should be collecting and levying taxes in the broadest soe, lowest rate possible that businesses and individuals can go on with their lives to their own desires. host: here is the question, what states rank well and what states don't? bottom 10 top 10 and can be quite instructive. there are the usual suspects, whining, alaska, south dakota, florida, montana, hampshire, oregon, utah, nevada, and india. there is a lot in that top 10 list. a lot of states in the top 10 go without one of the major tax types.

for example, wyoming does not have an individual or corporate income tax. florida, people know there is no personal income tax. have allindiana, they the major taxes can but they withthem on broad basis low tax rates overall. example, generally thought of as a high tax state, they go without sales tax. think that improves their competitiveness dramatically. they come in seventh in the country. host: what are the 10 bottom states on your list? guest: usual suspects, lowest new jersey, california, new york, connecticut, arkansas, iowa, louisiana, minnesota, ohio, in vermont. in new jersey and california, if you live there, you know the tax system is marked by a pretty

narrow tax base and quite high tax rates. my whole family is from new jersey. when this comes out every year, i get a couple of phone calls reminding me it is probably a pretty good metric because from their understanding of the is not so great. you also get a state like louisiana, which is a low tax collection state, very complex tax system. the sales tax is unparalleled in louisiana compared to the rest of the country. there are multiple baskets of transactions that are taxed differently depending on which parish you live in. to trackle t complex issues like that as well. are looking at business taxes, not individual taxes. how do these categories, explain the difference in those categories and how it affects the index? guest: that is a really good

question. you have to remember that when most of us think about business taxes, we're thinking about corporate income tax. businesses pay a time of different tax types. they pay individual income taxes because a lot of pass through organizations, whether it is an s corporation or sold proprietorship or llc, they pay their taxes through individual tax income returns. we account for that by monitoring those taxes. , although businesses consumers pay the sales tax when we purchase something him that tax is collected and remitted to the tax collection authorities by businesses. there is a lot of overlap between the taxes that are paid by individuals in the taxes paid by businesses. a lot of them are kind of both. the corporate tax, while it is

mostly unseen by us as individuals when we are interacting with the business tax environment, it is paid by people. it is passed on to workers in terms of lower wages, shareholders with lower dividends or payouts, and consumers in the terms of higher prices. host: we want you to join this conversation. we are going to change the phone lines a little bit. if you are a business owner, whether it is a corporation, small business, home based business, business owners call in at (202) 748-8000. if you don't own a business and want to talk about this business tax rate index, we want you to call in at (202) 748-8001. once again, if you are a business owner, call in at (202) 748-8000. at (202)else, call in

748-8001. once again, we are always available on social media, on twitter and on facebook. havewhat about states that strong commodities like oil, energy, wyoming, north dakota, alaska? how does that affect their position on this index? guest: there are a couple people every year we put this index out, they place calls or emails and remind me that not every state can be like wyoming. their tax system misread you have a lot of oil. system is great, but they have a lot of oil. that is not really great advice. find oil your state. those with massive reserves are able to levy straightforward tax

systems across the major taxes. to your question of how do we examine resource taxes and there's not a veritable right now, because we are looking at the general tax system. if you were to open up a contract,e store or a because those taxes are so specific and we're not the index. generally, we find that those states that are able to from that helps them not levy other taxes. host: how have the tax changes by the administration affected these rankings? guest: there was a little chaos begin the year. system offtheir tax

of the federal tax. the way individuals expect that is what we use software there prepare our to taxes, there is a cute little image that says not transferring your taxes from your federal returns. lines from federal return are being moved to the state return. the calculations change in some cases dramatic weight in the last year. dramatically in the last year. states are seeing more revenue coming in unless they make a change to their taxes. activity on were reform than we

normal year. those are states like kentucky, georgia, idaho, and a couple of others that because their tax ned byad been broade federal tax law, they came through and get other reforms. from let's go to antoine california. and i want good morning. caller: good morning. host: go ahead. caller: i want to know the difference between new york francisco. and san guest: those systems are kind of similar actually. they are both relatively high. i don't have the actual rates. in new york, there is a statewide rate of around 4% local add-ons. in california, the statewide

rate is around 7% local add-ons. those are relatively high terms of sales tax. will we have seen that on the sales tax is a problem where creeping up ever so slightly each year, year over year on verage, because the sales tax base has been sort of eroded away because our economy is changing. the it was created in 1930's, they were on the sale of goods. for a long time, that worked. most of the economy was transaction of goods. now we have a more service-based economy. ofvices represent about 2/3 final consumer products, and our sales tax for the most part is not track or does not collect sales taxes on those ties of transactions, so unless they go

back and do some sort of broadening of their sales tax, we see rates creep up over time, and that is one of the issues in california. host: let's go to bill, who is calling from illinois. bill is a business owner as well. built, good morning. caller: good morning. categoryif you have a where the state just treats you like a jerk. if you own a business and you purchase equipment, you own a tax, which is similar to sales tax. in illinois, if you end up with use taxedit in your account, you would think you could call up and say you know my thousandse back, and you are correct, but no, they tell you you have to

wait until you go out of business or you have to plead poverty. categorywould have a -- is the state tax department on the business side just a bunch of jerks? fairly?treat business in other words, there should be a category, are they working ?ith business and i have got to say, i think illinois, you should throw into the bottom of the heap there. guest: that is a good comment, and i hear you on that one. one of the things that is hard to measure is how taxing authorities run their operation. we have certainly, in my travels to states, i have seen some states that do it better than others. did mention one

application of the sales tax to intermediate business transactions. one of the things we do look at is to make sure that when the sales tax is applied, it is only applied in that final level of consumption. that is really what we are trying to tax with the sales tax in this country, when a consumer buys something, there should be a sales tax applied. one of the areas where states get into trouble is that they try to apply to sales tax multiple times along the production chain, and that could result in pyramiding where you have taxes stacking up on other taxes before the product is ultimately sold to another consumer. there are some states that have issues with that. host: this is an annual report. other states that are moving up and down the list from

year-to-year, are there some stay out of the moving low, for the ones who are lower starting to move higher on your list? guest:. yes. this year, the big mover was kentucky. they actually conducted revenue positive tax reform, meaning they brought in additional revenue from changes that they maintain their tax system, but they did so in a way that product tax bases overall -- broadened tax bases overall and lowered their index. it went from 29th two 23rd. they were able to change their multirate to individual tax system, to a single rate tax system, moving from 6% to 5% and also made changes to their business taxes and some other changes that were designed to lower the cost of capital in that state. they did so and brought in additional revenue that was brought forward to prison

reform, which is an issue that thateally bubbled up in state, where pensions are a big issue in needed to be addressed, because they were growing at such a ingrained that they would not be able to make those promisesor bring those to pension owners in the public sector. host: anyone going be off the direction? guest: new jersey. my family will be so upset with me for new jersey to hike individual and come taxes and also corporate income taxes. they have some of the highest corporate income taxes and personal income taxes in the country now. they have some of the more progressive structures, meaning where ae a narrow base firm that have lower profits and in particular year pay a much lower rate or sometimes have little to no liability, whereas

if you are a bigger firm, you are paying real large liabilities. at some point, because they are getting in the tens of percentages -- and remember, this gets stacked on top of your individual tax burden -- firms are required to move if they are taxed too heavily in a particular jurisdiction, particularly the marginal rate, meaning the tax that applies to that next dollar of business activity, the tax that applies to the next dollar of profit. so businesses can find a way to locate somewhere else and incur a lower cost of doing business, often times they will do so. host: new jersey's governor, bill murphy, actually had a tweet about it. he tweeted "new jersey has been ,argeted by the gop's tax law limiting tax breaks for -- the

s.a.l.t. deduction to pay for tax breaks for corporations and the wealthy. now they are trying to make it permanent. no. we will continue fighting washington on this unfair and unconstitutional tax on the middle-class taxpayers." do you believe it? guest: one is a deduction for state and local taxes paid. this is only available to you if meaningan itemizer, you do not take the standard deduction, you actually adequate bunch of other deductions. t. deduction as it is called, the state and local tax states that have really high taxes tend to have residents better taking that reduction with greater frequency and a greater magnitude when they do take that deduction very so there has been some concerns from new jersey and new york

residents in particular that this was a targeting of their residents in their state. some extent, i understand those concerns. i do not think the election itself is actually reasonable, because you exist in the united states, you exist as both a resident of the state and a resident of the federal government. it seems appropriate to me that will those jurisdictions can levy taxes on you, and they do not -- you do not need to offset those taxes against each other. because you get those from the federal government and your state and local government at the same time, so it seems appropriate that those two consent on top of each other because those layers of government both give you something. host: let's get a couple of questions in. let's go to gary calling from virginia on the line for us. gary, good morning.

caller: good morning. i know you are mostly involved with state business taxes, but this question concerns the huge federal debt, which i believe has exceeded $21 trillion and climbing, yet we have a tax cut that is supposed to ask more revenue to the treasury. i'm wondering if you can whiten us whether or not the gap between what we are spending and taking it is narrowing, stating the same or getting better. guest: the caller is correct. tax legislation to increase the debt overall and increased the deficit going forward overall. there is a question about when a time of reckoning might come, get too largers and we cannot pay our bills. and the state level, states balance their budget each year, statess possible, and

are able to do in year-over-year. problems in such the tax system, particularly volatile taxes unelected corporate income tax or tax revenues derived by capital gains income. swingcans somewhat wildly with economic sessions and such, and it is hard for states to plan around for budgeting purposes for tax collection. this is one of the reasons we see at the state level moving away from the more volatile tax instruments. corporate tax, for example, 16 states have cut their corporate is in the2008, which middle of the last recession. i think that is one of the reasons is to try and help with that smoothing effect, the ability for states to have a balanced budget each year, and trying to make sure that their revenue instruments are conducive. host: let's go to david, who is

calling from berlin, new york. david is a business owner. david, good morning. caller: good morning. can you hear me? host: go right ahead. caller: good morning, america. good morning from greenpoint, brooklyn. mayor de blasio susan amo yesterday he established an advisory commission to develop recommendations to an on the city's taxinform the property system. the goal is to make it f more, simpler, and transparent while ensuring there is no production revenue used to to find potential city services. guest: that is a good question. new york has traditionally had very large property tax burdens, across the entire state , not just in the city.

there is a relatively new that we foundap in our index is actually starting to do some work. it has slowed the growth in property tax collections within the state. one of the bigger problems in new york is not necessarily what is going on in the city but how a texas and that, in many ways has been structured around the newomic activity around york city impacts those in the state. when we talk to those in the state, this is the number one concern. it contains governor andrew cuomo did was look at a corporate tax reform that was the state moree business friendly, particularly with upstate in mind.

if you were a sea corporate crm, therefore waterways -- corporate firm, there were four ways. the reform was not the best thing in the world, but it did improve new york's state tax climate rating from 54% to 48%. new york used to be a below was ranking, and now they bring a little bit better than new jersey and also california this year. host: let's go to air in who is calling from cincinnati, ohio. aaron, good morning. caller: good morning. taking my call. i think i am only hearing half of the story here. and a a question comments. i will ask the question first, comment.let me make my one, which states are providing the best services, clean stuffng water, preventing

from the and jumped all over our environment, the health care. and also, what above the federal, state, and local tax policies all combined? to need to work together to provide the important social services, environmental services that we need to survive as a civilization. you said early on that you cannot use the tax system to influence policy. but throughout many years anyway, we have used that system to try to do the right thing in our society, so anyway, which states provide the best services? go ahead and provide a comment on this total -- we need to look at the total policy together in this country, federal, state, and local, and maybe those systems contradict each other but do not complement each

other. i do not think i am hearing the whole story from you. thank you for taking my call. guest: thank you, aaron. that is a really good question, and it is not something that we measure in this particular index. it is probably a good topic for future studies. one of the things we're trying to do here is make sure that people are equipped to understand the cost side of the government equation. there is the cost to the government and also benefits that we get from the government, which you touched on quite nicely. one of the things that you do not want to be in the situation is having a government that is very costly but then does not give you good services. and sometimes we find ourselves in that situation, and that can be very frustrating. the best combination of course would be to live in a state where the cost side of the equation is relatively low and the benefits side of the equation is particularly high.

one of the things we're looking at here is how efficiently that revenue is connected. really have an ideological stake in how much revenue is brought in, and particularly with this or o report. revenuebring in tons of with a broad-based income tax or a broad-based sales tax with a low rate. subprime states that ranks so well as massachusetts, because there is a flat income tax with relatively few deductions, exemptions, and exclusions. it brings in quite a bit of revenue, but it is not very distorted to labor decisions or business decisions. host: let's see if we can get one more quick question and from jimmy calling from maryland. jimmy, give us your question. caller: i just want to point out with this program started, the guy said he was nonpartisan. that is not true. this organization is funded by the koch brothers, the founding

members were alfred sloan, who was part of gm, another guy from standard oil, and a guy named brown. o this guy is clearly not nonpartisan. he is very right wing, and it is a very right-wing organization. guest: i am happy to address that. we have thousands of donors across the country. a lot of them are regular taxpayers. 1/3 of our funding from individual taxpayers. 1/3 of it from charitable, nonprofit foundations. and the remaining 1/3 from business owners. it is a pretty mixed fundraising base, and we do use that to make our that we stew word independence and certainly treat our research that way. like to thanks

scott drenkard, director of the caps on bashan, for being here. thank you. guest: thank you ray much. host: coming up, ryann liebenthal will be here to talk about the government's student loan forgiveness program. we will be right back. ♪ this weekend on american history tv on c-span3, tonight at 8:00 p.m. eastern on "lecturers in history," indiana university bloomington professor stephen andrew on conspiracy culture in american history and how concerns the berries have changed over time. andrew: is that a problem in america that people have a secret society, is that a problem that they gather in places that are defined as secret? the bohemian growth. is it a problem that they are meeting without press?

maybe, maybe not sure it isn't a problem that they put on roads in front of the first -- maybe, maybe not. is it a problem that they put on robes in a ceremony? it is weird, right? >> and former iowa senator tom harkin explores the history of loss that have impacted americans with disabilities. there was a georgia case, again, it was two women who were put in an institution, and they had argued that they did not want to be there, that they should be free to live on ,heir own out in the community and this made its way all the way to the supreme court, and the supreme court sided with them. is that yes, the constitution,

the least restrictive environment is a constitutionally based right to persons with disabilities. imagine that. >> and at 6:00 on "american artifacts," we travel to france to visit key battlefields and monuments to market 100 anniversary of the end of world war i, including a visit to the argonne forest from the story of the lost battalion. from then were cut off main body of the division. they are from two different divisions, 307th and 308th infantry and their mixed companies. they are led by major charles wilson, an attorney. the germans are surrounding them from the hills and firing. whittlesey's men takeover by

the charlottesville milk. meanwhile, the rest of the division cannot reach them. >> watch this on c-span3 this weekend. >> "washington journal" continues. host: welcome back. we are on our spotlight on magazine segment today where we are talking with ryann liebenthal, a contributor from "mother jones," who wrote this great article about the incredible inside story of american student debt machine. ryann, good morning. guest: good morning. thanks for having me. host: what made you decide to focus on the student loan forgiveness program? had read a lot of articles over the years about theynt that generally, and often focus on cases that well know in default, had their parents cosign, and it evolved into something terrible.

that is definitely a major issue. but i wanted to focus on people who had done everything right, had followed everything kind of to the letter of the law, and took the benefit of something that was promised to them, and it just was not working. i knew that the program was not working because i had, for some it, so i time, been in had a sort of personal stake as well. host: what is the public loan fp?giveness program, the pl guest: it was passed into law in 2007. it was passed in the house and senate by democrats, but it is a broadly bipartisan bill. is passed with a huge majority in the senate, and it was signed into law by president george w. program at was a that time to incentivize people

to go into public service professions> , which i think pretty much everyone knows are generally lower paid, and at a time when we as a nation will be aware of this burgeoning student debt burden that people were following under. it was meant to help people deal with that, if they wanted to go into professions of great need and of service. way it works is after 10 years of making on-time payments on a qualifying loan within a qualifying program, you will have your remaining loan balance forgiven. so 120 payments, and then the rest of your student loan balance on your direct federal loans would be forgiven. first cohorts -- host: go ahead. guest: the first people who could be eligible were in october 20 17, 10 years after the law was put into effect.

host: what happens to those students and those loans? we are just finding out now, really, we are getting some data, and recently some interesting data came out that 28,000 people applied for forgiveness under the program as of june 30, and only 96 qualified. it may vanishingly small percentage of people just in general but also out of those who believed that they were really on track for forgiveness under this program. host: so why do students even need these programs in the first place? i think we really are in the midst of a debt crisis. we have more than $1.5 trillion in student loan debt currently --standing, and jobs really wages have not kept pace, and people are not benefiting as much from federal scholarship programs.

those also have not kept pace. state allocation to education has dwindled, and so people wind up with unmanageable debt burdens, and they are faced with a pretty difficult decision, lucrativeinto really professions, if that is available to them, or just live under this debt forever, potentially, without really a lot of options to get rid of it. host: we want you to join in this conversation about student debt, and we have special lines set up for you today. if you have student debt right now, we want you to call in at (202) 748-8000. off your student debt, we want you to call in at (202) 748-8001. and if you are in either category, we still want to hear from you. you can call us at (202) 748-8002. and you can always reach us on

social media, on twitter @cspanwj and on facebook at journal@c-span.org. -- at facebook.com/cspan. you did a bunch of interviews with people who took part in the public loan forgiveness program. what were their experiences, and what types of problems to they encounter with this program? and large, first of all, there are not that many people who even as they really knew about them, so there is a huge communication problem at the beginning. finding people, it is difficult sometimes to find people who have known about it for a number of years and have been participating. among the people that talked to us, one of the recurring issues with the federal loan servicer, a private contractor that the government sort outsources the management of these loans and the repayment of them. that contractor for this program

is called fed loan servicing, some people would find their loans in forbearance for reasons that he did not understand. forbearance being a period of time where you do not pay the loan, but you continue to accrue interest, and that is not into for forgiveness. so they would think they had the number of qualifying payments, and they would discover in talking with the loan servicer that they had far fewer, or in trying to renew a repayment plan , they would be automatically put into forbearance for several months without any real option for continuing down the path of forgiveness during that time. so there forgiveness would be delayed, they would have fees. case, a person's credit was restored because of an error on the part of the loan servicer. so people wind up in this kind of morass of administrative problem that they do not have

much resource to resolve. that was a lot of the problem. host: here is a little bit about what you actually wrote in the article. "in addition to service or borrowers fall into an absence of information. guest: yes, that is a huge issue. host: tell us a little bit more about that. guest: i'm thoughts to elect people in the program, and they had problems, but there were a , andr of other servicers before people even enter into

this program, let saving went to a different service or maybe enter something, handing the hate, i am a teacher or a social worker, or what have you, i qualify, it is a yes, everything is fine, but come to find out many years later, when they are one of the for00 people who apply forgiveness, maybe they did not have the right loan to begin with, so they would never qualify for the program and would have had to consolidate their loan into a direct loan to do so, but they do so, but they did not know that, and now it is too late, and they would have to start all over again. or maybe they were not in the right claimant pla payment. so they are thinking all this time they have been paying, thinking they are progressing toward this light at the end of the tunnel, and actually they have not done anything. years, tens of0 thousands of dollars, that this was meaningless. part of that is interest rates

were so high, in some cases, people are not actually paying down their loan, even though they are making the required payment every month. so recently, actually, the american federation of teachers filed a lawsuit against navient because peoples, are just really being misled, and part of the situation is first ofavient -- all, it is costly to deal with over the phone, but they put you in forbearance, a quick process, rather than to discuss with them, to consolidate your loans, we have to do this. i thought of that, if navient gets someone into this program, they lose the business. the loans are automatically transferred to the exclusive contractor for the program, so

navient does not have any particular incentive to help people in this instance, and that has really hurt a lot of people. host: the publishers of the public loan forgiveness program say they should have picked a pay offob so they can their debt. is that always the case? not think that is always the case. i think there is a fundamental error with that argument, but when you look at the estimates equaleople have made, justice works, an organization lawyers,s publishers' estimates that people will likely say about 91%, on average, of the original risible balance. so after 10 years, let's say they borrowed $100,000 to the

go to law school, they have been workin at a nonprofit, adding $100,000 value to society, after that time, they have maybe a $90,000 back, but because of their interest rate, the loan balance still is very high. maybe it is even higher than it was to begin with, so when they are forgiven, it looks like they are getting this huge payout, but actually it is just a line in a federal register somewhere that is being crossed out, and they are freed from this. they have made a lot of payments in the process. host: this is something that you actually brought up in the article, the public sector and private sector workers.

host: so it seems like moving into these public-sector jobs was one of the reasons the program was even created, to get people to go into these public-sector jobs. has it worked out like that? guest: i think it has. i think the fact that people are applying for forgiveness indicates there are people who aim to benefit from it. and i would say, to return to the point about -- is it worth think without a program like this, we are essentially telling people you cannot do public-sector work if you cannot afford it. to be a lawyer, you have to get an advanced degree. to do social work, you have to get an advanced degree.

in most cases, to be a teacher, you have to get an advanced degree. what we're saying is you can only do these jobs if you are already wealthy. people who in many cases had a real strong passion for them, want to serve their own community is, does a huge disservice to them, to the communities, and to our society, basically. and: let's go to the phone go to linda, who is calling from utah. linda still have some student debt. good morning. caller: good morning. i had a chance to do loan forgiveness, and one thing i have noticed is if you are one late, they two days start the clock all over again. so it is almost impossible. and also if you go through forbearance or anything, they take the interest rate only went back to the beginning, so you end up owing more than before

you have taken it out. guest: mmm. host: ryann, go ahead. guest: i was going to say one thing that is nice about this program is it is not actually consecutive, so you could take a break, if you took a different drop that did not qualify, the does stop during that time, but if you go back to a public-sector job, you do actually pick up where you. left off. . you have to get back to 120 payments, but it could be over 15 years or something. the issue of forbearance is problematic. people who change their payment plans -- this happened to me, actually -- and you have been accruing interest over that time, it normally kind of sits in this side pool and is

uncapitalized it is here alone, but if you make a change, the interest is then applied, capitalized, so now your principal balance is blown by whatever interest is sitting over there, and your new interest amount is calculated based on this new principal. loanis kind of how your can start growing over the years, even as you are making payments. host: let's go to david, who is calling fro cincinnati, ohio. caller: this is david, jones from cincinnati, ohio. host: go ahead. caller: some colleges do not assist enough credits from other universities that students have owned or paid for. also, these colleges overcharge, and i think they waste a lot of

money, and i think they should accountable,lleges have these colleges refund some of the students some of the tuition and stuff. what responsibility do colleges have for the student debt that we are talking about here, ryann? i think that is a really interesting question, because, as i was researching and reporting on this piece, i talked a lot about -- what do we do? both with respect to this program and generally. some people said oh, we should forgive all of the debt. it would just benefit the economy. it is just the right thing to do. and a lot of people said well, yeah, but that does not solve the problem of the future generations who are facing the same situation and are going to wind up under this blanket of debt. part of the responsibility for that lies at the feet of

colleges who have been jacking up tuition over the years, spending money in ways on amenities, gyms, what have you, and some argue that is partly because they know that they are getting this student loan money, and they do not have as much of a stake in how it is managed. a futurehink that solution to this will have to address the fact that tuitions are really kind of outlandish at this point. host: let's go to aubrey, who is calling from richmond, virginia. aubrey has student debt. good morning. caller: i was listening to ms. benthal, and she was making comments about lawyers, and i think that is a commentary on our legal system. but in virginia, some of the costs have been driven by the tax cut mania over the past 30 years or so, where now the

universities have to provide itir own funding, and then is built into the system, especially like the s.a.p. program were designed around traditional students. this relates to a lot of the the loanon i got from programs that mentioned c-span, by the way. but my understanding is that you years, andbt over 25 you have made on time payments, real payments, by the way, is where is that part of the program still in effect? host: ryann? guest: that is actually a separate thing. signed,ime pslf was

there was another program, the income contingent repayment plan, they have direct loans to make payments based on their income every 20% of their discretionary income, and after 25 years, that would be forgiven. a have not actually hit 25-year mark yet, so we do not really know how that is like to one disillusioned factor of the public service loan forgiveness program is after 10 years, when the debt is forgiven, it is tax-free, whereas at this point, as it currently stands, the other forgiveness programs, and addition to the income contingent results, ivr, income-based, and other repayment plans that have lower timelines than 25 years, but those currently, as the law stands, when you are forgiven, you will have to pay taxes on that forgiveness.

so the forgiveness will be considered taxable income. o if your loans have balloons, unit $250,000, les say, forget it, now you have to turn around and pay some exorbitant tax bill that might potentially will the amount you originally borrowed. so you kind of wind up in this endless shell game of loan debt. is there any move in congress anyway to get rid of this program? are we going to see any congressional action on this? guest: is an interesting question. there has been an attempt , a few different attempts to eliminate it. they have not so far been successful. there was an attempt for the reauthorization of the higher education act, which is long overdue, that would have enacted

this program along with many other benefits under the h.e.a. bed trunk budget has attempted to eliminate the program as well. again, so far unsuccessful. even if those attempts were successful, it is very unlikely that the people are pretty advancing toward forgiveness would be grandfathered into the program. at the same time, there have been issues with the program where people have loans under an family loan program, the federal education loan program, that were not eligible for pslf. they do not know that. they had been making adequate payments over 10 years. they find out they do not qualify. recently a fix was implemented for those people, $350 million allocated to help people, to no faultople who, by of their own, were in the wrong situation. but that is a first come, first

serve fix. any future people with that issue will not be able to get relief. that is kind of where things stand now. host: let's go to tracy: from virginia. tracy paid off her student debt. tracy, good morning. caller: good morning. how are you? calling, everything i have been hearing her say, i am not in my head yes, yes, yes, because i was caught up in all of the paperwork and the bureaucracy. might alone would get changed, and i would get a letter that that now you have to pay to so-and-so, and every time i would call, i would get a different answer. every time i would ask -- is this a qualifying payment?, i would get a different answer. i have been teaching for 25 years. i have been in public service.

a lifetime seizures do not get raises, so it is very difficult to pay this off -- a lot of time, teachers do not get raises, so it is very difficult to pay this off. i crunched some numbers, and i said is this all goes as planned, how much would be forgiven at the end of this, and he did the numbers and said "$50." that is what they would forgive. when my father passed away and we sold his house, i said i am just using it for this, because it was more of a headache to be paying it. i had to put in paperwork to my employer every year, and it came at different times every year. it was just -- it was so -- it just seemed antithetical to what it was supposed to do. we were supposed to get a break for being an public service, and it was more of a headache. i was lucky enough that i could pay it off early. i did not have to wait until the

very end, which would not have really benefited me anyway. that is all. that is my comment. host: ryann? guest: i think that is really interesting. a lot of people are in this situation, and it goes back to the idea that it is not a giveaway. people are paying for 10 years, they mayases more, and not wind up event benefiting that much under the program. sad that something that was intended to be a benefit for people who really have done everything right, everything that society and the architects of the program have told them is what we want are just kind of being punished and face with a morass of bureaucratic problems that they do not really deserve. i want to go back to something in previous caller set about states.

one of the interesting things about this situation is the company that manages the public service loan forgiveness program, the loans under it, is an offshoot of something that pennsylvania, the pennsylvania higher education assistance agency, created in 1963 by the pennsylvania general assembly to manage its state grant program. over the years, it has branched off. it now makes a lot of money on these other loan servicing work, and pennsylvania has really fallen short in allocating money to higher education. i believe it was recently 47th in the natio. now the state asks the pennsylvania higher education assistance agency to address the costs and the budget shortfalls.

i've appreciate the weird, convoluted framework where the state agency that is meant to help pennsylvania students is now incentivizing in some ways ,o exploit students nationally roboros that does not really make sense. who: let's go to matalin, is calling from new orleans, louisiana, and she has also paid off for student debt. good morning. caller: good morning. i paid off my student loan debt a long time ago. i am a lot older than these people. i would like to say as a teacher for 40 years, that the way this program has worked is a scam for the students. students are encouraged to borrow money. their parents, who cannot afford to send them to school, are encouraged to borrow money. nobody asks the question -- what kind of money is the child going to make when he graduates? no one looks at his interest or

whatever and his ability to support the loan. ands like buying a ferrari, then when you get out there, you are making the salary of somebody in a yoyugo. i think it is a scanned by the government, a scam by the bank, and people are making tons of money. nobody is advising the children do courses online, go to junior colleges, stay-at-home, do not go out and get an apartment, do not go out and buy a car and have a car note and all of those things on going to college, and borrow the money to pay for it. this thing is out of hand, and it is a complete scam in terms of it is not benefiting these people. it is actually harming them. thank you. yeah, i think there are a

few different things going on there that are really interesting. things, i do believe there is a multi-or a generational issue where certainly when i was about to go to school, my parents' generation said, you know, definitely higher education is the better thing for you, student loan debt is good debt. it.t worry about and if you get a higher degree, you do better financially, so functionallyking rational decisions here, but i think the older generation is not understand the wave this is becoming a huge problem on a different order from previous decades. time where before your loan debt was fairly minimal relative to what you might earn, and you could pretty easily pay it off. i also think we are in a situation where the student debt

program, system has become a kind of frankenstein monster. was never really intended to be such a huge portion of the higher education funding system. johnson initially wanted a g.i. programtionally was aeryone, and this compromise and has eclipsed every other portion of the and so it really does not have to be a situation where areke the caller said, you paying for a ferrari and are running on the basis of a yugo, there are ways that we could make this better so that people do not feel like they have had to sacrifice their entire lives, buy nothing, do not go to school, do not do anything in order to get ahead. host: if you are one of the

people caught up in this program and you do not think that the pslf is working out for you, do you have any recourse? is there somewhere you can go, like the consumer financial protection bureau? is there anyone you can talk to to help you get help? guest: yeah, i mean, that has been a problem. or are places you can go, but i do not think people are necessarily aware of them, and they are in some ways dwindling those options. you can go to your state attorney general. many different states are now filing lawsuits on behalf of borrowers in their states. in massachusetts, maura healey has filed a lawsuit over this very program. you can go to your congressperson, there is an on bosman at the company -- an

ombudsman at the company. recently the student loan on ombudsman resigned and the reason he is resigning as there is not much support for that part, and what we have seen is the current presidential administration has been more or less systematically dismantling everything that is helpful to people, so people would complain. you can actually go and read those complaints. they are very horrifying and hard to read in many cases, but i do not know if the cfpd is really helping people anymore. it kind of absorbs the student loan arm of the agency and claims that does not mean it is going to be changing program. i'm not think it will have much of a help. host: you reference a fed loan.

tell us what a fat loan is. loan is a risk of the pennsylvania higher wasation agency that created in 1963 to administer state grant. time, it -- over branched out and got into servicing and lending of his own under a different name, aes, american education services. orer the financial crisis amid the financial crisis, the student loan system kind of was on the brink of collapse. there was a point where banks were not able to make loans, and the government seeing this as a huge problem, which would have, as one person told me, resulted in the closure of all tuition dependent colleges, effectively

nationalize the student loans is. previously, loans were given out by private lenders, but they were functionally insured by the government, and there were these companies,uaranteed that made sure the loan got paid back. it was one of these guaranteed agencies. as the loans came in house in 2008 -- we're talking billions of dollars -- the government was not really capable of dealing with this flood of loan business. and so it outsourced management of these loans to a number of servicers, and one of them was fed loan, which was created at the time out of fea. the government kind of worked with people it already knew, and one of the original

contractors to get his contract in 2008 to manage these federal student loans. and then in 2012 -- so from 2007 to 2012, and the pslf program, there was no way to know for sure that you were doing in theing that was right program. you recall your servicer, but as we heard, you get a different answer every time. in 2012, the education department decided to implement people could fill out and has signed by their employer, send in, to determine if they qualify for the program. if it was determined and that determination was made by fed theirhat they qualified, loans were automatically loan, whichto fed began qualifying them under the program. and there were problems with that.

peoples the first time have some sense that they were on track. host: let's go to rich calling from new jersey, and rich still have student debt. we hear you. caller: this is for my wife. my wife had gotten started late in college, and about 10 years ago, she had finished her masters degree. we have been paying off debt slowly and really not getting very far at all. i guess my question would be, because she is older, would it make sense for her to try to go through a forgiveness program? she has not been working after finishing her masters degree, and she is just getting back into the field now. i am just wondering if she runs out of work before she can get forgiveness or if that makes any difference. guest: i think that that is, you know, the personal question, there is one of kind of

cost-benefit and looking at the various programs available. i would say that as much as people have had issues with this program -- in many cases, is still in the most viable pathway to getting rid of the loan debt, and in some cases kind of the only one. there are other federal programs now where after, say, 20 years, your debt will be forgiven, as i mentioned before, but then it is taxable income. it is kind of just looking at those repayment plans, figuring out if, you know, after seven years she leaves work, is not able to continue on in the going tois it still benefit her to be a part of a longer-term forgiveness program? will she wind up paying more in the end? that is a very granular question, i think, but people can check all of that information at the office of federal survey. check out that

information. the office of federal student aid has links to which programs might better benefit you. if it is just attacking the loans very aggressively to pay them off completely, as the caller before mentioned doing. host: we would like to thank "mother jones" contributor ryann liebenthal for being here and talking about her story, "the incredible rage inducing story of the american student debt machine." ryann, thank you so much. guest: thank you for having me. host: we would like to thank all of our callers and guests who have been on the show today. w would like to remind all of our viewers to join us tomorrow for another "washington journal," where hillary olson will talk about the future of the republican party. you will also hear from msnbc national correspondent steve

will discuss his new book "the red and blue: the 1990's and the birth of political communism." once again, thank you for being with us today. [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2018] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] ♪ >> spnspn first new jersey's 11th congressional district where candidates are vying for an open seat. after that the tennessee senate debate for the seat of republican bob corker who is retiring. then on to massachusetts and the debate between the candidates for governor of the commonwealth and conclude with

arizona's second house debate. current representative martha mcsally is running for the national to replace jeff flake who is retiring. c-span's 2018 campaign coverage continues. tammy bald rin tonight debates in wisconsin live at 8:00 p.m. eastern and sunday ohio senator sherrod brown debates his republican challenger, jim renacci in cleveland live at 6:00 p.m. eastern on c-span and online at c-span.org and live on the c-spanradioapp. c-span is your primary source for campaign 2018. >> tonight three retiring members of congress, joe crowley of new york, democratic congressman gene green of texas and republican senator jeff flake of arizona all discuss their experiences in congress.

>> i think our greatest achievement was the passage of the affordable care act. we work closely with the obama administration whipping that bill in the floor and getting the votes we needed to pass it. one of my greatest accomplishments in washington and delivered it for millions of people who had no insurance and today have it. >> i have a district that has probably huge numbers of immigrants, so, you no -- you know, some of the things the president has done is against what i think our country ought to be doing. people ought to -- the dreamer act, these are people who were brought here when they were children. you can't commit an offense when you're a baby or child, so , you know, we should be more inclusive. america is an immigrant country. >> it's a tough time to be here. i never did warm to the

president, as he campaigned or governed. and these days, you not only have to embrace the president, you have to embrace all of his politics and his behavior in order to get through a republican primary and that was never in the cards for me. i just couldn't do it. >> join us for conversations with retiring members of congress tonight starting at 9:00 eastern on c-span and c-span.org or listen with the free c-span radio app. >> sunday night on "after wards" fox news guest analyst and member of the trump 2020 campaign media advisory board on her book mad politics, keeping your sanity in a world gone crazy, gina loudon, interviewed by rudy gomert of texas. >> is president donald j. trump crazy? >> crazy like a fox i say, yes. i believe narcissism is his

spectrum and believe most of with us, no not meaning you, you may be the great exception but most of us that put us in the public eye have confidence and there's a reason, if you want to call that narcissism, i don't have a problem with that. is that a dangerous source of narcissism, i don't think so. are there dangerous sources of narcissism, i don't think so and we've even it in our politics but i don't think our president fits in that category at all. > watch on c-span 2's book tv. >> the first of our five debates begins with house candidates in new jersey's 11th congressional district. the republican state assemblyman jay webber is on the ballot against former rosecutor mikie sherrill, held by rodney frelinghuysen who is retiring and comes to us from

newark, new jersey. an october 9 monmouth university poll found ms. sherrill with about a five-point lead. >> welcome, everybody, to the j news debate, welcome mikie sherrill and jay webber. we'll get right to it and start with a question for both of ou, starting with mr. weber. we have been listening to a national conversation about kavanaugh and you're running for a national office, was the senate right to confirm mr. kavanaugh. mr. weber: thank you for hosting us this evening and we appreciate the opportunity to be speaking with you.