laura davison talks about u.s. tax policy and campaign 2020. we will take your calls and you can join the conversation on facebook and twitter. "washington journal" is next. is next. ♪ president trump told reporters he spoke with chinese leaders about trade and tariff issues saying he is optimistic china want's to achieve results when it comes to tariffs. president trump is expected to hold a news conference at 9:30. this is the "washington journal" for august the 26th. the economy a key issue for campaign 2020. a new poll attracts americans and if they are up to him -- optimistic, pessimistic, not sure about the economy. when it comes to your view of the economy, are you optimistic,

or not sure? if you say you are optimistic, 202-748-8000 is the number to call. 202-748-8001 if you say you are pessimistic and if you are not sure, 202-748-8002. you are welcome to share your to share yourr twitter thoughts on our twitter feed at @cspanwj and our facebook page, you can participate in a poll at facebook.com/cspan. andw poll done by cbs yougov takes a look at sentiments about the u.s. economy. those responded saying 38% of those polled saying they were optimistic about the future of the economy and 35% described themselves as pessimistic. 27% saying they were unsure. idea ofcomes to the optimism, people are asked why they thought that way.

45% looked at the job market saying it was a sign of optimism naming the economy itself and looking at trade policy. they asked the same poll about personal finances as an indicator of weather people were pessimistic or optimistic. 40% saying when it comes to looking at finances, they were the same as two years ago. 29% saying their finances were better than two years ago and only 22% saying finances were worse than two years ago. the confidence in the economy overall, 53% of those saying directly tote it president trump. tweetingose saying

from the president hurts confidence in the economy and 25% saying the president's tweets increased confidence. go ton find more when you the website at cbs news conducted with cbs news and yougov. we want to get your thought. if you say you are optimistic about the economy, it is 202-748-8000. if you say you are pessimistic about the economy, call us at 202-748-8001. and maybe you are not sure. you can call us as well at 202-748-8002. you can always tweet us at @cspanwj your thoughts and if you want to also post on our facebook page, if you go to the page itself, not only can you leave comments, but there is a poll you can take. if you want to register your thoughts, you can do so at facebook.com/cspan.

starts us off. we will hear from glenn in florida, says he is pessimistic about the economy. tell us why. caller: the reason why is because we are headed for a recession. there is always a situation with the republican president because they use reaganomics and we know fails for this economy. it always starts out well, everybody doing well and making money and all of a sudden the bottom falls out. it is no different than what happened during the bush years. this time, it will be the american farmer that will be the reason because of the fact china, their biggest sellers are farmers that have those contracts. they have been told they are no longer going to be involved in business with them and they are

thoseing to renew contracts. they have already said they don't trust trump and they are not doing any business with our country when it comes to farmers. host: that is glenn in florida. let's hear from raymond in pennsylvania. if you are optimistic, pessimistic, or not sure about the economy. go ahead. caller: i am optimistic about the economy, especially what trump is doing in relation to china. i also have a comment that might be helpful to c-span. everyone who is a little bit advanced or even halfway there in terms of what is happening to the media today have 90% of the news. is times and cnn and msnbc anti-trump. it is so obvious.

aboutwe are not talking that stuff, we are back to the economy. tell us why you are optimistic. caller: because we have a president going against the powerful forces and c-span is continually using the new york times. host: we haven't used the new york times at all this morning. why do you think the president's strategy is a right one? caller: i told you why i think it is the right one, that is not the point. host: okay, raymond, we will stick to the topic. the president himself talking about this idea of the u.s. economy and what he felt his condition was. [video clip] >> our country is doing great. everybody was telling me yesterday, we cut taxes down, we regulations, more

than any president has gotten rid of. want a recession because they think may be that is the way to get trump out. i don't even think that would work. if there is anything, we have to go into trade negotiations to get it right. our country is doing well, we have horrible trade deals and i am straightening them out. host: one of the stories coming out this morning of china saying the president spoke to chinese officials possibly working on a deal to resolve issues between the countries, specifically over tariffs saying talks will restart. we will play a little bit of that sound later on. brad in kentucky says he is optimistic about the economy, hello. caller: good morning. i don't see why we would have any reason not to be optimistic as long as we continue to

bailout large financial firms when they make terrible mistakes. as long as we spend money we don't have, as long as we continue increasing our spending caps and roofs, what could go wrong? do you relate those two optimistic moves, then? caller: excuse me? host: why do you relate those to being optimistic or highlight the economy? caller: with that question, i must admit i was being a little facetious. these are things that have set us on -- trump has gotten us in . seemingly good economy we inflated money into the markets when it crashed. we are not built on any kind of standard ground. congress keeps spending money we

don't have any keeps allowing themselves to spend more money and allowing us to become more indebted. absolutely everything can go wrong, it is kind of a joke. host: in reality, you are pessimistic. caller: in reality, yeah. it is pessimistic because there is no optimism to a false reality. you can look at the numbers, but there is no solid ground at the bottom. there is nothing to rest upon. host: let's hear from kevin in ellicott city, maryland, says he is pessimistic about the economy. tell us why. caller: good morning. folks that sayy the economy is good when we are borrowing every month.

this president will have a trillion dollar debt this year. . put $100,000 in debt on my critic already and people say you are doing a great job, making great money and looking like your life is good. it shocks me. especially these so-called conservatives. barack obama every year when he started the presidency until he finished, he reduced the national debt. this president has increased the national debt every year. we have got to start paying our bills. if we want to increase spending for the defense, we should pay for it. nobody in america want's to pay for anything anymore. cut when wetax borrow the money, it is a loan

from china and other places funding our debt. it is not conservative to borrow and borrow and borrow against our grandkids. host: that is kevin in ellicott city telling us why he was pessimistic. stephen moore taking a different view, he who used to work for the president writes a commentary section rooting for recession in the washington times saying some highlights of the current u.s. economy include the lowest unemployment rate for women, black, hispanics, and those without high school degrees. the lowest interest rates in most people's lifetimes. when jimmy carter was the president, mortgage rates hit 20%. wage growth for workers is at near 20 year highs. today in america, there are 7.5 million unfilled jobs, this is

the highest level of job .penings in american history if you want to read on their website when it comes to matters of the economy -- we will hear from tina in florida who says she is optimistic. hello. caller: hi. very optimistic. love all the national numbers and i love what is happening right where i live. i am a business owner. my business is almost double at this time. i am about to happen -- hire someone to help me with it. things are looking up. great.k) is i wish people would give the president more support on this china thing. i am willing to pay more to read i want china to do right. host: what kind of business do

you do? caller: i am in real estate. rates, ismortgage that highly influential in terms of the amount of homes you are able to sell these days? caller: it is. it is looking up over here and that is great because it hasn't been so great for many years. host: that is tina in florida talking about her personal business when it comes to viewpoints and outlooks of the economy. we will hear from lynn, says she is pessimistic. hello. caller: hello. host: my apologies, he says. caller: no worries. i am optimistic, i am the tired. severaleen retired years. i think it is doing great. i am just thinking on being optimistic about the economy that our president is out of his

realm. they need to bring him back home . we have a government and people in it, like myself. host: i am a little confused, you called on the line is saying you are pessimistic, but you said you are optimistic. caller: that is what i am saying, he doesn't know anything about our economy. i think i know more than him. i listened to him this morning, sir. i think it is alive. the whole thing is about what he is saying. host: do you think the president has any responsibility or credit for the current state of the economy? caller: yes, i do. it is a problem now and the

problem is him. host: jim in fort lauderdale says he is optimistic about the economy. caller: hello. i would like to warn the people of the united states that politicians and pundits no -- know economics is difficult to understand and they know that and they can go out and make the and preposterous statements get away with it because people don't understand economics very well. before i go on, i would like to say this. americans seem to have forgotten how to do a couple things. we have forgotten how to be brave and how to be optimistic even though the united states has been a world leader in economics almost since its inception. there will be cycles in our economy that go up and down.

you can try to extend those cycles, but eventually, the naysayers, people waiting for weakness will be right because it isn't perfect, but it does keep going up. host: what would you look to as a point of optimism? , we have a brave president. finally, we have a brave president. he knows the games people play and he is calling them on it. when we get the china trade deal and the european trade deal at the usmca, you will see this economy take off like it never has before and donald trump is willing to take the slings and arrows to get us there. thank god we have a president who will stand up for the united betterment of our

country and the world will be better for it. host: that is jim talking about his optimism. taking a look at the back-and-forth exchanges between the united states and china, it was the issue of china the president spoke about early this morning while he was in france attending the g7 talked about what he saw as the status of relations or talks between the u.s. and china over trade and tariffs. here is what he had to say. [video clip] >> china called last night and said let's get back to the table. i think they want to do something. they understand this is the right thing to do and i have great respect for them. this is a positive development to the world. host: that was from earlier this morning. the hill reporting according to

chinese foreign ministry in response to what the president was saying, a spokesman saying he did not know of any phone calls that took place between the countries saying the statements further underscore the president's shifting message on the trade war with china. the trump administration levied tariffs on chinese goods over a year ago and while both sides appeared to near a deal, talks broke down. the president expressing optimism -- he spoke again about the status of talks between the two countries. [video clip] >> i think anything is possible. we are having meaningful talks. for the most part, it is because we are doing very well. china is a great country. i consider president xi to be a great leader. they a great leader and

are losing millions and millions of jobs going to other countries and if i wear them, i would want to make a deal. the united states has taken in billions and billions of dollars and, frankly, there has been no inflation and most of these products have not even gone up because china is able to manipulate and put cash into the system. and have lost a lot of jobs i think they want to see a sensible solution. i think we are probably in a much better position than any other time during the negotiation. host: when it comes to the economy, trade, and tariffs with china. we are asking about your viewpoint. optimistic, pessimistic, or not sure. 202-748-8000 if you are optimistic. if you are pessimistic, 202-748-8001.

and if you are not sure, 202-748-8002. from california, david, good morning. caller: yes, good morning. i am really optimistic because i think he will help a lot in the medical field. i am a holistic doctor and it is time to get this on the scene like synthetic pushing for pre-existing cases. we are so sure of what we are able to do to help people get -- we arer and faster number one in the world when it comes to acute diseases. we are ranked about 36th in the world. if we get that down to top 10, we can do that with holistic

medicine. trump is going to do that. senseempathetic in the that he is going to allow pre-existing cases, i am pleased he will put that on the table because that will cut back tremendously on these chronic cases that cannot get better and save lives and longevity and productivity in general and then personal results. the: can you clarify what president has said when it comes to holistic medicine and the way that relates to medicine -- the economy? caller: they have done a lot of studies on this. i have two doctorates in the holistic field. cut the health care cut the health care bill in half. it was integrated with

conventional medicine, that would be enormous. we have possibilities there. we are not a threat to conventional medicine, we need to work with them. they feel we are a threat. the bottom line is we have to get the body to work right and when you do that, you can cure almost anything. sure andre says he is not when it comes to a viewpoint on the economy. go ahead. caller: one of the main reasons i am not really sure is because we all have different opinions about where our economy is coming from and where it is going. trump usually takes credit for, i don't see how he

has done everything took because like no unemployment and things like this. for me, i naturally believe in giving credit to people who put in the hard work to get good results. i don't believe in giving it to people who have not done everything and i don't know what policies he is planning on doing that will keep the good things that obama has done with our economy, i don't see how he will able to -- be able to keep it going. last week i found out there are people saying we might be in a , 2021 and it2020 policies.with his i need him to really focus. i need him to get out of his ego.

i need him to make sure when he leaves office, he leaves it in a good place. host: credit to president, what policies do you .2? caller: in the beginning, he had to do a lot of things to get the economy rolling during the recession and i thought those courage -- a lot of i'm sure it wasn't easy to know you were to have to add so much to the debt. and like i say, how he dealt with our friends with trade and things of that nature, i feel like if he could have someone who was -- we could have someone who was more concerned not so much of how they are going to look, they would make better policy decisions. host: let's hear from maurice in

pennsylvania, optimistic about the economy. andre said helad was not sure because he did not sound sure. obama said it would take a magic wand to create manufacturing jobs. since trump jobs has been in office. got in office, the optimistic consumer confidence, unemployment, historic numbers. . i do have to give c-span credit because there are more people calling in optimistic than not because i believe you are being disingenuous if you are saying you are pessimistic because the numbers don't lie. the only reason we are having this talk right now is because of the trade war with china and

it needs to be addressed. we are going to pay now like we have been paying or on our own terms. what trump is doing is stopping the madness. if you look at what he is doing with drilling regulations, we are the number one producer of energy. those things are why the economy is doing well. andre just is not familiar with the facts. host: quick question. why do you say so-called trade war? caller: because it is really an imbalance of a relationship more than a trade war because they have been taking advantage of us because we can afford to do it and other leaders did not do what they needed to do to challenge china. when you have people like bill marr wishing for a recession, it is because he can afford it.

those presidents who did not do anything about china -- it is a -- no big deal, we can afford a trade imbalance with china. trump is a businessman. even before he took office, everything was going on the up and up with the stock market. that is the thing getting hit right now. unemployment, producing energy, those things are number one, historic numbers. host: that is maurice in virginia calling us. caller: let's hear from dan in livingston, says he is pessimistic about the economy. hello. caller: good morning. yes. the pessimistic about economy and i will tell you why, unlike the gentleman before. trump's behavior is very erratic. there is no strategy to what he

is doing. he has surrounded himself with psychopaths who are not really telling him what he needs. even if they tell him, he does not listen. cannot make an economy make -- go, but certainly .ncertainty this is the reason i am pessimistic because of all the uncertainty he has created. host: uncertainty such as what? caller: with the trade war, it is up and down. of erraticness in terms tweeting -- the market reacts to the tweets. on friday, he tweeted and the market dropped 700, 800 points, this is not how you can create

any kind of certainty going forward and certainly for businesses, the natural response and for consumers is to pull spending. that is what you are seeing, businesses pulling in spending and eventually, it will catch up with us. thisdent trump is creating climate. .ost: that is dan in new jersey several who have called in this first half-hour, the question being when you look at the economy and specifically the areas you look at, if you are optimistic, pessimistic, or not sure. .ou can call and let us know perhaps you are not sure, 202-748-8000. andanwj is our twitter feed

you can also look at and post on our facebook page and participate in a poll. the president currently in france attending the g7, expected to have a press conference at around 9:30 our time in which he will probably address several things that have come out of the conference. c-span look for that on 2 and follow on our website at c-span.org. george in north carolina says he is optimistic. good morning, george. caller: the president is doing a fantastic job. does the dealing with america, it is strictly for their advantage. the dealership is going to do the best he can to take your money and you are fighting with them to make it a little more

balanced for yourself and that is why i am so optimistic. the president is doing a great job and people should give him more credit. host: do you think, ultimately, we will achieve some trade result with china and why is that? china years i remember when the clinton administration gave them information about the high tech industry of the aircraft and so on, that is one of the reasons i am optimistic and we should not be giving them high tech. we have to watch what we are doing and the president is making sure america is first and they are secondary.

i think there is a balance between the countries they can reach and i am optimistic. host: bill in maryland says he is not sure about the economy. caller: good morning. jimhe plus side, i think from fort lauderdale hit it out of the park when he talked about trump's courage. on the others is the national how, it is unbelievable both parties have, over 50 years, brought us to the brink. really, we are already bankrupt and that is my biggest concern and to hear the one caller, he called in talking about how obama cut the national debt and my understanding is it double to while he was in there from like $10 trillion to $20 trillion and i think what really has me concerned door unsure is the

political parties because they will not work together. the last time there was a real deal struck between the parties was during the reagan administration when tip o'neill cut a deal with reagan where they address to the root cause of the problem, which was the unfunded liabilities and the -- socialis just security, medicare, that has to be dealt with and until the parties are able to get together and deal with that, the debt is going to destroy this country and the only solution i can see is for the population to vote and put enough conservatives in congress and a conservative president so that these structural deficit issues can be addressed and i think at that point there would be optimism.

the convention's states are talking about budget amendments and term limits and i think that is the hope for this country, but we are a long way from seeing that realized. there is a glimmer of hope, but there is a lot of concern with the debt. that is bill in maryland. time magazine takes a look at the deficit, $1 trillion by 2020. time magazine takes a look at some of the reasoning why saying the u.s. last ran a budget deficit bigger than $1 trillion whenen 2009 and 2012 former president obama ran a bailout. the deficit expanded under president trump amid the $1.5 --llion tax cut package

boosting the calls of social programs in a move that would load. the debt the president saying a lot of people would like a cut and payroll tax load and his administration examines ways to .- that is from time magazine from massachusetts, carol is next. caller: i am having a problem understanding why most of your optimistic people are not talking about the deficit at all . they are talking about .verything but we have a real problem with our economy. trump this morning said one thing and by the time his news conference comes this afternoon, he will change his mind. that is no kind of a policy.

anyubt very much there was phone calls from the chinese at all. i would be surprised if that does not fall through. it.n't get the markets are very nervous. nobody seems to know what he is going to do from day to day. he doesn't tell his people and run an hell of a way to economic system. host: this is robert in texas, says he is not sure. i am not sure. i look out on the horizon and wonder if we are finally going to get to a point where socialism will become the norm.

would the economy be better? will it be worse? it is hard to say. the biggest thing probably a lot of people do not realize is sentiment in this country is hidden beneath -- nobody talks thet it too much, but income inequality and equitable -- diverted almost and ify to the top 1% there is a serious adjustment on that, weather it is a progressive tax system or out comeut socialism, it will into the mix and if it doesn't come into the mix without some political partisanship, it will come into the mix in the form of a revolt.

a revolution of sorts. therefore, i am not sure how this will play out. solved.t can be income inequality -- if you look deep, the divisions we have in america right now, you could sayst wrap it all up and this is kind of the flower in the cake. it may not be the nice chocolate on top, but this is really the guts of what this thing is made out of. host: let's hear from cass in iowa. he or she is pessimistic about the economy, hello. caller: thanks for taking my call. i am very pessimistic. not only for myself, but i am really pessimistic for my

children and grandchildren. host: how so? caller: because i think the economy is going down. i think education is going down. we pay thew, how can amount of money we pay for him for golfing trips when our economy is like it is? host: you say the economy is going down, what makes you feel that? caller: you look at the stock unstable and very there are people having to work 2 and 3 jobs to afford their rent. there are teachers in california sleeping in their cars because they cannot afford rent. i don't know, that is pretty

much it, i guess. host: that is one of the people making comments about the state of economics in the united states and the president's treatment of that. amy klobuchar, democratic senator from minnesota was asked about the president's handling of the economy and here is what she had to say. [video clip] he creates chaos and i don't think that is good for getting an agreement with a country like china. you look at what he has done and he pointed this out earlier. august 1 he claims he will put tariffs on $300 billion worth of new goods and august 13, they dial it back. august 20, he says he will lower .axes backext day, he dials that . when you look at trade negotiations with the world and i saw this, you have to keep

your promises and you have to keep your threats. he has done neither. i think that is the first thing. this negotiating by tweet has not been working. we are at an all-time trade deficit. host: we will hear from new york, matthew is not sure and it comes to his viewpoint on the economy. i don't know how you could be sure. i have been listening all morning and it sounds as though the people who are calling up that are optimistic are optimistic about the president, there is a very personal optimism and this thing about china bashing. i am not sure i understand the conservative point of view of what china has been doing to us that is so terrible.

i think they have a system where they have low-wage labor and that helps us for cheap products, right? thing is antiquated. i understand putting progressive policies is expensive, but i cannot wrap my head around the idea that conservatives somehow environments a good we are in with like debt going up -- it does not make sense other than the -- they like trump. they like this crazy guy and i have been watching trump in new york my whole life and he is a crazy businessman. how many times has he been bankrupt? i would challenge conservatives to stand by their man in that sense. he is a lunatic, sorry. host: matthew from california,

this out of france at the g7 saying the president lauded his chinese counterpart today saying beijing was actively reaching out to washington to resume trade negotiations and make a deal. the president said chinese officials called twice over the weekend to discuss trade talks with his administration and he would not say weather he spoke to his counterpart. a chinese official denied knowledge of any phone calls over the weekend. the president adding i think we will have a deal because they -- we are dealing on proper terms. 9:30 is the expected press conference with the president out of the g7. find out more information at our website at c-span.org. for the next 15 minutes, we are getting your thoughts on the outlook of the state of the economy, weather you think it is optimistic or pessimistic.

if you say you are optimistic, 202-748-8000. if you say pessimistic, 202-748-8001. and perhaps you are not sure, 202-748-8002. says she next, jessica caller: is optimistic. hello. good morning. about am optimistic america. i am optimistic about the economy. let me give you reasons for that optimism. i believe science and innovation, investments into fen -- into funding are at an all-time high right now and even california with all the fires on the financial loss, because of the fires on the problems, there is a spirit that is alive and growing within the science community. i believe we are reaching into the far corners of negotiations with president xi, president

putin, all the individuals that are independent actors across the board, as well as those who are fundamentally democratic or those who are reaching for a more stabilized economy. mathematics is the thing that works. mathematics seems to work out all the problems for me. i thought of a few problems out with regards to the international community. i do believe there is going to be a balance, there is going to be a reaching on behalf of everyone with regards to the global community and science, we are going to be taking the forefront because number one, trump, when he did go in, he says we are going to give corporate america some tax cuts, let's get these bad boys going, let's bang the drums.

when you start that wonderful engine going again with america and the age of industrialization is what got us out of the -- i believeially at this age, there is a new age of industrial a. that will take america -- make america take the lead. host: that is jessica from nevada. a person who says not sure, diana from hartford, connecticut. caller: thank you. yes, i have a couple of things if you would let me finish everything, please. the reason i am not sure is because of the upcoming election. i am optimistic with the

president being the president, i believe his policies are working economicsut i believe and i understand how his tax cuts have held to the economy and allowed for unemployment and lower unemployment. i live in a state where they raised taxes, people are living, we have the worst tax structure. i understand economics. i also understand socialism and capitalism and that is what scares me when the media keeps focusing on socialism as a positive. socialism, and i did look it up on go -- google, is a transitional social state between the overflow of capitalism and the realization of capital -- communism. capitalism is a system based on the recognition of individual rights. it rewards people who work hard. socialism is the government

taking over everything and not necessarily doing it for the good of the people. when people talk about the deficit, all i can think about is how are these people going to pay for all the free stuff? host: let's hear from wayne in maryland, says he is pessimistic, hello. caller: how quickly we forget 2008, the last time republicans were in office, there was a terrible recession started by them. millions of people lost their jobs. in this economy, icy we are going to wake up -- i see we are going to wake up one morning, wall street will be very low. there are no real policies in place other than deficit tax relief. it is not trickling down, it has never worked. i don't understand the ups and

downs, i don't see how you can defend the economy being good. maryland saysin he is optimistic, good morning. caller: good morning. how are you? host: i am well, thank you. go ahead. -- peopleu need to listening to msnbc all day. don't take my word for it, turn on the business channel and you will find out what is going on. have a great day. host: before you go, what do you mean by that? what could they learned by the business channel? host: let's go to gym, tennessee, says he is pessimistic about the economy. here, good reynolds morning. i have five reasons i am pessimistic about the economy. i feel trump has alienated most of our world allies and that is

important in trade. he also pulled us out of trade deals like the pacifica trade deal. we have the high budget federal deficit and the two year bond yield that exceeded the 10 year yield, which has preceded most recessions and lastly, we have .rump's management skills people like jerome powell cannot do their best work while they are being attacked. from sarasota, florida, pessimistic about the economy. caller: my name is grace and i am from florida. i am a small business owner and i purchased my items from europe, canada, and china. i am beginning to become pessimistic. i am very well off, semiretired anyway, but the u.s. has not been in this position.

short-term rates are lower than long-term rates. that means people are doing a flight of their money out of the stock market into bonds and the u.s. has a 200 day view, but china has a 200 year view. i am pessimistic about -- not my generation, i think we will get the tail end of what we had after world war ii, i am pessimistic about the next two generations. i am in the health care, beauty industry and it relies on getting clients who are 10, 20, 30 years younger than me and i am concerned -- they are going out and buying a stupid louis vuitton bag and not paying off student debt or buying a home. they have no interest getting married or having a family. i am worried about the direction of our economy and our standard

family values. i am not pushing anything, but i am wondering where is the structure and foundation? it feels like everything is shaken and i feel we have to reach out to europe and china notdo smart economic moves, something that will be twittered out or tweeted. a very long-term, stable view of what our economy is, what our values are, and what we choose to do for the future and women are really out there in the business world, working hard to build this economy and this economy is based on the consumer for 6 months until january. host: that is grace in florida from louisiana. optimistiche is caller: caller:, hello. hello? host: you are on. caller: hi, pedro.

i am very optimistic about the economy and about our president. when trump was talking about the banks and bringing jobs back --e, barack obama said coward. not a he stands up and he fights and that is why a lot of people don't like him. just think if the republicans and democrats would actually work with him, just think what he could do. to the people that call him crazy, i am going to ask this where is your millions and billions? where is your hotel? where is your golf courses? and where is your mar-a-lago? crazy people do not accomplish

and get where trump is. thank you. host: that is mary in louisiana calling. for the next few minutes, optimistic, pessimistic, or not sure about the economy. larry, you are, next up. hello. caller: yes. i want to talk about the economy right now. under president obama in 2008, we were losing 80,000 jobs a month. unemployment was 13%. he told all the american people, democrats, republicans, and -- he told all of us it would take all of us together to bring the economy back. to pay that money out to get the economy rolling. once he did that, i worked at the unemployment office, it was

13%. i saw this. he gave expenses to the people who can no longer have unemployment insurance, he gave an extension for another 6 weeks. several -- weown were getting part-time work, businesses were growing and we have businesses coming back to the united states. to, we were all over the world, all over the world, saw this as a beacon of hope in their -- and their economy grew. we got down to 4%. were 4%. time we were losing

jobs a month and we got down to 4%, that means the economy was growing around the world. that he started taking money out of the economy and the economy is going back into a recession. he did not do anything but try to take the credit president obama has done and there is a lot of people that know within 2008, i am sorry, they are cowards. his character would be assassinated by president trump. the g7he president from as the previous caller described, the unemployment rate in 2000 sixk -- 4.7 rising during the period of the obama administration, falling to 2006. december

when this survey was taken, 3.7% was the time under this administration. taking a look at economics -- steve is next in indiana, good morning. caller: good morning. go realomy is going to bad because the capitalist's are buying back their stocks and that is the only and that is the only reason that the stock market is doing so great now. whenis going to happen they have bought all their stocks back, and i am getting tired of people saying that socialism -- we have socialism right now. medicare, oury, fire department come our police , those are all social

programs you stupid fools. taking a look at stock market performance back to 2006 -- when the survey was done this was done on august 20, 25,086 when it comes to stock market performances. those figures by the washington post. strasburg, new york is not sure. . the key phrase that people need to understand. on a social, civil, and economic isel the key phrase

respected, mutual autonomy. respecting mutual autonomy. and you have globalism international corporations you don't get respected mutual autonomy's because they come into your country and they pillage and plunder all your resources. -- yourre administrators who are running a country can about them to come in and buy up all your resources, sound familiar? let me finish. works for property ownership when you think you have property ownership. under communism everyone owns everything but what they do not

you,you is what they give for what they gave you they take away from your autonomy. finalnew york making the point. all week long we are going to take a look at issues that are important to the 2020 campaign. will talk about immigration, on wednesday energy and the environment, on thursday health care, on friday education. today we take a look at the economy as we have been doing for this first hour. each guest will be joined by a university of maryland economics professor and andy green on the state of the u.s. economy and the 2020 election. reporter laura davidson later in the program on u.s. tax stories about the campaign for 2020. those stories and more coming up on washington journal. ♪

>> cnbc cybersecurity reporter on her book " kingdom of lies" about the world of cyber crime. guest: if we want to understand why all these things are happening to us, whether it is the exploitation of the algorithms that run twitter and ,acebook in order to help us the russian intelligence agency influencing elections or the ransomware that has taken down

big cities like baltimore and atlanta, we have to understand the people who are behind these things and all of them are different. c-span two.n ♪ >> the house will be in order. beenr 40 years c-span has providing america unfiltered coverage of congress, the white house, the supreme court and public policy events from washington dc and around the country so you can make up your mind. 1979, c-spanble in is brought to you by your local satellite provider. c-span, your unfiltered view of government. theuncer: in the wake of recent shootings in el paso, texas and dayton, ohio the house judiciary committee will return from summer recess to markup

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announcer: washington journal continues. host: a discussion on the u.s. economy and how it might relate to campaign 2020. two guests. andy greene is the managing director for economic policy at the center for american progress. also a professor emeritus of economics at the university of maryland. give a snapshot of the economy and as it pertains to issues running for reelection's and becoming president of the u.s.. mr. green, your first. mr. green: this economy has been performing very well for the top and working americans are barely scraping by. they have peanuts here and there. benefits of the economy, particularly last couple of years have gone to the very top. it is an economy that sees an increasing amount of risk.

financial deregulation going on and we see a growing concentration of monopoly power and tariffs on consumer goods. cash being handed back to the largest aggro businesses that are squeezing family farmers. it is not an economy that is working for working families. i think that ordinary people are feeling that. morici: the economy is doing well compared to recent history. it is growing at a reasonable pace. the gains at the bottom have been more robust than in the recent past and that is good. the basic problems of trump administration faces is that a lot of the actions have been mischaracterized. was for the wealthy, ordinary americans got tax cuts which they spent and boosted the economy. the problem they face is none of this is happening fast enough and democrats have framed the

issue not in terms of quantity of growth but quality and in terms of equity. the administration is going to have to make a better case that what is happening now is equitable. my feeling is that doing a lot of things in that direction, for example instead of dumping, you add more money into higher education through internship programs and apprenticeship programs so somebody can go to work for a company for a year or two, get $15 an hour which is not bad out of high school, then look forward to 90% of the cases a job that pays 60 or $70,000 a year, a job that learns a skill. there are a lot of positive things, the question is can you make them happen enough. as for the tariffs i want to get them off the table. clinton campaigned on a 25% tariff -- now that donald trump is doing

it wise of the horror of horrors? americans have no sense at all of our engagement in china is not good for us, that china is not a friendly place to our values whether we are democrats or republicans . they would not like what is going on here this morning. host: let's give our guest a response to that on tariffs. mr. greene: there are a number of challenges. nobody disagrees that what is going on with china in terms of technology theft and their human rights challenges and in terms of the jobs that have been left. in terms of the jobs and the wages that have been undermined here because of the low road wage environmental strategy that china employs. the question is are you doing it with allies or in a smart way. negotiating strategy of this administration is to ask for things that protect u.s. corporate profits in china, not

to do things that would level the playing field for american workers such as higher wages, better environmental protections and reduced subsidies. i would like to point out a couple of things my colleagues said that i respectfully disagree with. the apprenticeships are something that have officially been a union priority. something that those of us on the left, democrats and others have been fighting for. this administration is engaged in deregulation of the very apprenticeship program, the high-quality apprenticeship program that make sure the workers that do that get a high paying job. they are doing things that are actually undermining the very priorities. guest: heat and heritage and economy where less than 10% of private-sector workers are in a union and less than 10% of industry workers are in a union. they are creating apprenticeship programs across the board, not just in welding and carpentry but in banking and hospitality.

places where people traditionally cannot get adequate training in high school and college is ignore. my feeling is we are dealing with the economy as we find it and that is a good thing. these are being developed by the department of labor. they are certified by the department of labor which last i heard was all blue shirts. you have to have a little bit of charity here. not everything barack obama did was bad or good. -- everything donald trump ivanka is buying this anyway. she is the one that is been pushing this. can see just a little bit. [indiscernible] let's take a caller. the very apprenticeship program you are talking about is being deregulated. the question here ultimately is where are the rewards of the economy going?

theorate profits since 1980's have paid out more in every dollar in corporate profits and everything are dollar they have raised in the stock market has gone back to shareholders. the returns during that same period of wages for working class families is essentially flat. going up by 940% since 1970 eight and 11% for nonsupervisory workers. this economy is working well for those of the top and everyone else is working a minimum wage job and trying to get by. host: let's introduce the callers. for republicans (202) 748-8001. for democrats (202) 748-8000. for independents (202) 748-8002. you can tweak your thoughts @cspanwj. @cspanwj.our thoughts on a recession is this a

reality? >> only if it happens. thiseling is a recession far out in a recovery is a threat. the trade situation has to be better managed. it hasn't been -- i have not been completely happy with the way the trade war has been managed. i think the administration needs to do a better job of communicating its objectives and goals. thehe end of the day chinese do not have to agree to anything. my feeling is we have to reorient the american economy away from china and develop relationships with our allies that provide us in creating relationships with regards to where the supply chain goes. the real competition between the u.s. and china going forward is who has the friends and who has the enemies. host: this potential trade deal with japan? >> big deal. japan is the third-largest economy.

-- trans-pacific partnership after rocket if the supply chain -- we wantuth asia that to be in places where we can trade, where we have tariff free access. where people will accept our goods and the governments will not orchestrate piracy of our technology. host: the idea of the recession and if you want to bring up trade? guest: i disagree with my friend on the trade stuff. we are all americans here. see largely agreeing with your analysis about the economy and the recession. >> you are being charitable, not agreeing with me. >> i want to make two points. we do see business investments declining by 5.5% over q2, whereas consumer

spending has been up to 4.3% in q2. and thee a divergence yield curve inverting which suggests there is a loss of confidence. there is a carry trade potential going on in europe with interest rates. we see a potential turning point. the other thing that concerns me greatly is the amount of financial deregulation. we see bankers looking to undermine the rules. >> that is a bit of an exaggeration. >> it is not at all. continue to see high amounts of leverage loans and corporate debt similar to the way the packages were made before the financial crisis. those are the types of things that concern me. to geteconomy starts shaky financial markets are already rocky. you can see financial risks of going up significantly. >> the real financial risks are

not here in -- but in europe. very shaky books. it is going to get accurate bookkeeping and germany. the italian banks are overleveraged. they got a lot of bad loans. they guarantee the bonds. that's like going around the block twice and saying you're in a different place. >> los angeles california. mike, your first up. caller: hello and good morning. i think you have numerous economic problems so i can be optimistic about the economy. economic conditions have a huge effect on campaign 2020. as you know, many experts believe the current situation could push the united states into a recession.

our national debt is over $22 trillion, the federal deficit is over 800 trillion. people than 14 million are at the risk of hunger, 12 million our children. that farmers are not in ideal conditions. lead to theon can decline of american power. what do you think about this issue, thank you. talked about the deficit so let's go down that road. mr. green? are you using the deficit for good purposes? if you're using it to go out and go on a shopping street. particularly if it is a shopping spree for your wealthy grandmother rather than to

invest in close for your kids that is the bad type of debt. we have seen money go to the top 1% and only 17% go to the working families. an overwhelming amount of the debt that has been increased over 10 years or even more, that is a wasteful cap of debt -- type of debt. we are going to be in a worse situation if and when a recession comes. >> the question is how big of a deficit can you have. decade something very profound has happened. in the euronfidence globally and people are not going to accept, no matter how big the chinese economy is, that they should eat their money in chinese currency. -- keep their money in chinese currency. environment there is a massive demand for bonds because businesses need dollars for

their treasuries and to pay bills but i never hold it in dollars they hold it in bonds and u.s. treasuries. what happens when all of that expansion is over? democrats and republicans, my it is disingenuous to attribute the deficit to one side or the other. each likes to spend money in their own way. these large deficits will become more problematic to fit in at some point in the future. aat is an anchor on commercial network, you are always saying that but you never give it a point. monetary policy does not work. the reason that investment spending is down is the u.s. economy is becoming less capital intensive. in the days of richard nixon hoss muscular american economy -- richard nixon's muscular

american economy where you wanted something to work you would buy a machine. now you just buy software you can reproduce. huge amounts of money were established with the ford motor company. environment the economy just invests lest in these big-ticket items. place to look for investment is how much are they spending on training apprenticeship programs. things of that nature. you cannot cut interest rates and get a bang out of it in that world. cutting interest rates does not cause people to invest anymore because they do not want to invest anymore. they just do not want to. the only- guest: thing i would add is that -- i agree and i would add that we have to be more intensive to the monopoly power out there. companies, some of them are well above one and approaching two. this tells people there are

too few companies in the market. >> that is right and they are very profitable because they are protecting other competitors from coming in. sectors,rue of tech agricultural sectors and a lot of places across the economy. wheret to have an economy there is a robust opportunity for working families to start a company and grow it. we need to be intensive to -- attentive to antitrust. it is utterly being turned around by this administration. host: let's get another call if we can. edward in texas, independent line. caller: good morning, thank you for taking my call. presidentoever is needs to change. i believe my allegiance is to the flag and until computers have living the -- level the playing fields of the

world when need to be concerned about borders and tax levels. african americans pay taxes which support parks and statues for rebels who rebelled against the united states and the and our country by doing the uncivil war. at some point we have to be loyal to the nation. we need to come together and we need some black faces at these tables. you are not asking for our opinion, you have not given us reparations, you're talking about giving our children free education while we are paying taxes to support racist parks and we do not have enough money to pay taxes that are due on existing properties. host: we will leave it there and let our guest respond. the tremendous challenge that african-american families

face in this country is very real. theou look at wealth average middle-class family saw wealth decline between 2001 and 2010 because of the financial recession.great it has largely come back for working families. for white families. it has not come back as a significant measure. the racial wealth gap continues with the 400th anniversary of planes coming to american shores, the legacy of that is very severe. there is a whole range of things that have to be done to address that challenge. manydo agree there are things that need to be done. it is also a class related thing. because of the dissolving manufacturing base. technology and so forth and trade have seen their circumstances -- whether we have

republicans in the white house or democrats in the white house. the real question is what kind of solutions do we have? it is a grainthat of sand investing in parks and statues for the wrong person. the real problem is all of the money that we badly invest in this nation. american universities have become extraordinarily expensive to sustain, much more expensive than the health care system in terms of their pace of inflation. you cannot say that what is coming out of there is particularly useful to the economy. cannot solve as problem given a basic set of facts. goodare not considered critical thinkers. whether they go to the business school or the sociology department this is the problem. in disciplines where there are very strict protocols like engineering, either a bridge stands up for it falls down.

in the liberal arts of business and so forth we have real problems with universities producing -- with what universities are producing. they are sapping enormous amounts of resources and the way we finance it is criminal. 18-year-olds making investment decisions about $100,000. here is 100 thousand dollars, how do you want to invest it in your education? and some professor who wants to hold on their jobs says there are infinite people available to people with degrees. thementioning the fact that job market and economy have changed and when that professor came out of college -- when i came out of college if you were literate you went to work for a company and they trained you. now if you want to work for a bank or a good job you have to know some finance. , a lot ofolleges universities and programs are

much more interested in political correctness and politics and social change. we have some on the right as well. i wrote a column about that recently. after many years of subscribing to my emails and my columns, this was the washington times, the president of my little college at new york state unsubscribed. i hope he is watching now because i invite him, i will send him all of my columns. universities are completely tone deaf. talking to a university president about problems of higher education is like walking into a cemetery and lecturing a tombstone. host: on the republican line from maryland, john. caller: it seems like the left wants to vilify shareholders when in fact one of the greatest things about our economy is the ability to invest. whether it is the 529 and education, the 401k in retirement or investments.

this is where we could see a lot of equity brought across african-american, white, asian, hispanic, if those populations invested in the long haul over the market which is a dynamic aspect of the u.s. economy all people rise with those boats and we have seen that. the left wants to vilify shareholders and say they are most of the people are good people that invest for the long haul and i'm sired -- tired of the vilification of shareholders. >> one thing i want to deal with again, big over corporations have been getting more profitable, who are these big corporations? because companies don't live forever we are going to -- if you have benefits to find pensions chances are it will be

at -- we have gone to these contribution defined pensions, where does this money go? it goes into indexes and the s&p 500. when this guy talks about these greedy people getting money, they are talking about grandmother attired in florida. this guy wants to tax grandma. raising the corporate tax is taxing america's retirees and those saving for retirement. we should not rely on social security alone. i will bow with you on social security on another show. findould be trying to better ways to enable people to have retirement accounts even if they are small or do not have a lot of money. even if they make 10 or $15 an hour. that is the way of having some stake in the situation. over the years the stock market has performed well in the long-term.

even when president obama was president. that is very important to focus on, it is not an easy challenge. greene who hasn't infinite supply of solutions like elizabeth warren he must have a plan for that one. would you please give us a plan? >> i am happy to provide solutions. they are ones that work. i want to agree with the collar. i am not here to vilify all shareholders. >> m i a bad person i am a shareholder? >> well. [laughter] i work at the security and exchange commission. >> everyone makes hiring mistakes. host: let him finish. [laughter] there are shareholders that are invested in the long run success and growth of companies. mr. and mrs. 401k.

a pension fund for firefighters and police officers. those are the kinds of shareholders we need to be engaged in. more protection and transparency and opportunity. they have a shareholder empowerment to be pushing for things like corporate long-term to address challenges like climate change to be pushing for corporate political spending and a bunch of other things that are negatively affecting shareholders. i want to distinguish, those types of shareholders from the types of short-term activism where the wealthiest hedge fund investors, line with ceos in some circumstances are pulling cash out of companies, deriving them offshore and that is the type of short-term capitalism that is not working for working families. i agree with that.

to remember about some of these -- for member the tremendous wealth gap in this country. the top 10% of this country owns 70% of the wealth. the bottom 50% have 1.3%. wealth of the average household today is half of what it was in 1999. i think we need to look at opportunities to enable working have more pensions so they can be invested for the long-term and enhanced consumer protection and corporate so we can have consumers and companies aligned in the same direction. >> i generally agree with you. something about the way young people finish their education. they come out of schools heavily in debt, how are they going to invest? in best years to put money is at 20 to 30 because they have

a longest time to grow. they are paying off debt to keep some college professor who teaches six hours spending most of his morning condo planning what he is going to have for lunch and spending the afternoon's contemplating why we are so poorly's -- poorly prepared. college they after work for a living. now they indoctrinate instead of educate and leave these kids with huge amounts of debt. they spend their time trying to blacklist people like me. we are talking about the election overall and this idea of jobs and improving the state of the economy when it comes to plans and things you have heard from candidates, mr. greene, who would you say has a viable plan? >> there are a number of different directions going on right now. there are a number of different shakeups going on in the democratic primary. as tax cuts,a such corporate long-termism and

workers on board and greater unionization to make sure working families get a fair share. we are seeing ideas such as providing support for families to be able to afford rent in high-cost places in this country. as well as a number of other challenges to address the high cost of health care. alle is a range of things, of which will shake out and debate in the course of the primary, i have mentioned antitrust and anti-monopoly from consumers to farmers to small businesses everyone has a fair shot. robust range of debates that are focusing the attention of the public. is this economy working for the majority? host: the ideas resented by the candidates,? >> on the republican side we only have one candidate. the international economic trade system, trade with china has not been working well, the very

people you are concerned about. we have to credit donald trump was something. even you. he has joined that issue. we can talk about how to confront china or the best tactics but what i find is heartening is democrats saying we need to negotiate -- we have been negotiating with the chinese for 25 years and getting nowhere. we need to take matters into our own hands. reorienting the american economy towards places in the world that are friendlier to us and our values and to try to protect those values -- projects those values in a positive and democratic way so we see inocratic countries flourish south asia and we see it restored as much as might be possible in europe. europe has a lot of reordering to do. gdp of italy is lower than before the financial crisis. like to blameuld

the trade war between the united states and china on italy's lousy circumstances. italy's lousy circumstances they have been sliced in berlin. this notions that of reordering our international relationships is very important and reorganizing our international priorities. i think donald trump should be given credit for saying this needs to be done. >> the university of maryland economic professor of america's andy, and the green -- greene is the center -- on the democrats line, dan. caller: excuse me. 100% --like to say i am buybacks and pensions and stuff like that, i am on pension and i am retired. i'm going to let it go with

that. [indiscernible] is an fox tv, peter, have a nice day god bless you. >> some cheap shots we just let go by. [indiscernible] >> how about you go on msnbc? >> i want to give contact. universities face is because of a fundamental shift towards equality. we used to have state and local governments provide largely free public education to working families. cal on $50 and a quarter back in her day. onehe economy has gone from to wear the ceo tote minimum-wage worker wage ratio

utes to be 50 to one. now it is more like 300 times in some cases and even higher. we have seen universities competing with that amount of inequality. that onright, putting the back of working class families to take out debt is the wrong approach. we have to provide fewer tax cuts to the wealthy and funding for public education. >> we need to make sure this is relevant to the needs of the people that go there. 10% of the population went to surege -- we need to make that we impart marketable skills and to do that we need to rebalance education. not be sending 70% of our high school graduates to college. 70% are not qualified to be there. they cannot be the kinds of critical thinking that we do in those places. the other hand, colleges need

to become a lot more efficient. i think universities exist to make money off being a hub of inefficiency. [indiscernible] if my president is listening he is welcome to call me about it. caller: i live here in silicon valley. i grew up here. went to college earning one dollar an hour working six days. now we have these big companies all over the world and just as mr. green a says only 50% of the people own stocks. can't even pay5% for basic needs every month. this is a third world country to me. i have lived in south africa under apartheid because my husband was in the military.

i lived in south carolina for a year. this is the worst thing i've ever seen and let's talk about getting back to some economics. we don't talk about the history of economics that made this country great. i am tired of seeing the ceos buying back their stocks and giving it to the top and giving it to their stockholders. it's not that i don't like stockholders, but not everybody is a stockholder. what's going to happen when these people, i worked in the medical field. we all need medical care. we all have pre-existing conditions and there are only two labs, there is no competition for laboratories where i work. i have cancer. i have coverage. to a good stanford

university. what if you don't have coverage? why do we not care about the people? host: we have to leave it there because you put a lot out there. the caller hits on some of the most difficult challenges we face. the high cost of health care coverage, if you have it it is not necessarily sufficient. becauseer was fortunate there are a lot of callers who are fighting to get the coverage they need. a growing monopoly across a wide range of industries and a declining choice whether it is for consumers or workers or small businesses, entrepreneurs to be able to have a shot. significant amounts of money as i mentioned before going to the very top. i want to go back and agree and then disagree with my colleague over here.

we do need to make sure that the opportunity to lift people out of poverty around the world and right here in america, that is why it is important to have good environmental labor and the good of -- and a bunch of other policies. need to make sure that we are investing here in the u.s. and our trade policies are bringing jobs and opportunity back here. that is wrongngs with the trade deal that of happened in the past is they pay no attention to where the supply chains go. if you look at southeast asia those are tied to the chinese supply chain. to this endorsing that approach will not achieve the right amount of change. we have to take care of all these challenges. we have the money to do it. >> a lot of money is going to the wrong places. we are spending far too much on higher education. we should be putting money apprenticeship programs. we can argue about who is responsible for the growth of

apprenticeship programs but they should be there because that is where the challenges are. mine is a satisfying job to have but we should not say just because we get the government involved we will get rid of monopolies. one of the most monopolizing factors over the last decade has been obamacare because it encouraged the consolidations of hospitals and dr. practices and so forth in a lot of counties. to me it was not well-intentioned. what we need to recognize is the affordable care act is part of the american political landscape and that the real trick is to reform it in ways that finally start to lower cost. you are going to love me. we should start benchmarking the prices we charge in the united states to the prices that are charged abroad. i see no reason why drug should cost more in the u.s. than germany. i see no reason why a needle replacement should be twice as

much as here in belgium. if you go into american households, for the same reason colleges have become inefficient hospitals have become very inefficient. lots of people running around saying " hi how are you." i know a department chair and canada and he is not one to be political. he said one of the things he noticed down here was how many people were bumping into each other at a doctor's office. that is largely because of his regulatory bureaucracy we have created. this is the area where the europeans are doing it right. what is it about the german system? the germans basically have obamacare. private insurers and everyone has to pay unless they post a big bond. if you are one of those big guys you don't have to buy insurance. , they areas to buy in spending 11% of gdp with a gdp per capita comparable to us.

capita comparable to us. we are spending about 50% more here. why is that? there are places where the market does not work. pharmaceutical prices have to be regulated. there are places where public assistance creates incentive. ,here are places where frankly go to a specialist in washington, try to find an orthopedist that does not belong to one practice? no wonder they do not take medicare reimbursement. caller: the health care system is -- guest: the health care system is broken in the u.s. and democrats have a wide range of plans all of which are pushing towards expanding coverage and lowering costs and lowering bureaucracy. we see the contrast to what this administration is doing which is trying to take away coverage while providing tax cuts to the very corporations, not all of health care is for profit but some chunks of it are. tax cuts to those companies that are doing very well.

i think that is the wrong direction. made a lot of good points -- i think you made a lot of good points. if you ask elizabeth warren or bernie sanders how they are going to deal with this they say let's raise taxes and put it into health care. i don't know if i agree with that. if we are spending so much now the trick should be how to we get more efficient to provide health care for everybody? >> if you listen to bernie sanders or elizabeth warren they are actually saying that the efficiency of the government is one of the things that lowers administrative costs. we have a 70% income tax on wealthy -- wealthy people. warren recently talked about this idea of a wealth tax. there is another way we can do structural change in this economy.

it is time for a wealth tax in america. for those of you who may not be familiar with it lets give you a quick explanation. your first $50 million is free and clear. your 50 millionth and first let's talk about what we're going to do with that. pitch in two cents on every dollar after that. does anyone in here own a home? you have been paying a wealth tax forever. they just call it a property tax. i am saying for the top 1/10 of , how about we include in addition to real estate the stock portfolios, diamonds, art and yachts. is great stuff.

it brings tears to people's eyes. the reality is that taxing wealth is very difficult. the people that are subject to the estate tax, it is really tough to put values on a lot of stuff. suppose you own the washington redskins as a part of your $100 billion? try to put a value on the washington redskins not to mention his yacht. to me, it is irrelevant whether we tax wealth or income. wealth comes from income. the question is, how much tax revenue do we need, how do we get it equitably, and how do we spend it effectively? you have to answer the last question before the first two. just giving elizabeth warren more money to spend, if she is going to pour it into a free

is going to give college is another source of cash and poor more subsidies into the health care system. it is insane to say we will raise prices for them. discipline onose the institutions that are spending public money so that public money is spent well. with mygoing to argue progressive friends about the need for a progressive income tax. seen the decline in corporate tax rates, income tax rates, estate taxes over the last four years to the point where the amount of money that is going to the very top versus the amount of money that those in the middle are making is really quite extraordinary. is amount of inequality threat to our social security, a threat to us as a coherent and

cohesive economy. i think that it is possible to go to a place where we can evaluate the wealth, the lending against yachts and stocks and the real estate that the wealthy are buying every day. i would like to agree. if you would like to go back to store for cost accounting and higher cost charges i will be right there with you. -- point is >> pointing -- pouring all kinds of money to hiring people like you. >> it's not the atlantic monthly so we have a bigger challenge. how about the yachts here in the marina? should not let these types of minor questions get in the way.

basic point that we absolutely cannot let the current system, where the pay ay are able to not fair share of income, estate and property taxes. resulting in the types of gilded age transfers of wealth to the children of the very rich. it is contrary to our democracy. there are lots of good things we can do with that money. ,ealing with the national debt addressing the climate change challenges. does it have to be about markle -- mar-a-lago for us to pay attention to it? had a chance to go first. i will let you respond later on.

villa delphic, pennsylvania, independent line. i want to hear your views what larry summers has pushed. is it real to you and what is the effect of that on the economy? what is the u6 rate? i didn't understand the second part. unemployment rate is way down. of structural adjustment, that is the problem of our time. one of the reasons for this great inequality of wealth, some one reason is the fact that we used in the many hands to make most of the things we use every day. we don't anymore.

not everyone is adequately trained for it. about rice, are we going to be able to sell them carolina rice? what would japanese do with the poor rice farmers? we used to think of a den animate -- dynamic economy being able to absorb people but the training requirements are so large that it makes it extraordinarily difficult. you look at vocational high schools back in the 1950's, carpentry, auto mechanics, today if you look at all the things, these apprenticeship programs cover it is a multitude of things. if you go into the poorer counties of the u.s. where people do not have opportunity, they need training and an opportunity to relocate you

cannot provide them with a suitable menu of retraining opportunities. we do not know where they will be because you cannot provide opportunities for training in each place. the structural adjustment problems we face today go back to adequately educating young people and reeducating people in skills that will provide them with some opportunity for the first 20 years of their career. we address that structural change will continue to be something that rivets us and we will not need the chinese to do it, just somebody in silicon valley to invent something new. like amazon, look what it does to retail. host: mr. green? guest: i agree with the analysis of the doctor. in addition to a structural adjustment or sectoral stagnation challenge.

lack workers have two times the unemployment rate or more than the rest of white workers. work atwe need to workforce training through an equity lens. it is definitely true that community's are left behind. we have not correctly understood or thought about things that are largely knowable about the impact of international trade and job loss on certain sectors and certain regions in particular. we will lead the sectors and a type of third world stuff, the other caller submitted -- it is very important to recognize we're going to have to start to relocate populations. farmers endednt and 40 acres and a meal people moved from the south to the north to the factories. to provide opportunities and prosperity's we have to move them to metropolitan areas,

change our house and policies, build taller and smarter cities, become a much more urban society. you go on the campaign trail and you want to win michigan. it used to be florida now it is michigan and wisconsin and a few other places, the people that hillary did not want to speak to. go to those places. i went to maine, i used to tell my students we have to train you to leave maine. i was lucky to get out of the building alive. you're supposed to ride in education for people for jobs here in maine. the jobs are not in maine, they are not in world mississippi or michigan or the border of texas. to create find ways mobility for those people. it will be all the people left behind, we will talk about sunsetting communities.

this happens with the consolidation of agriculture. , theyt to 4000 acre farms are private family farms but they get bigger and bigger because the machines are bigger. communities went away because an set of having one big -- , your thoughts then we go to a call. mr. greene: we are seeing the need in the cities on the coast that are doing well and in the heartland warehousing costs are extraordinarily high. gotten a market for new construction and working-class families, it is not working, we need to invest more to make the markets work better. i agree with a lot of that. i am not sure it is deregulation, it is a mix of things.

we cannot let communities fall behind, paying attention to regional equities and where we are investing and creating opportunities. host: some people have been waiting. on the florida republican line, tim. caller: thank you for taking my call. i would like to get these guys to explain, we have had import taxes and export taxes. the problem is our import taxes are less than what we pay when we export our stuff overseas. what trump is trying to do is level the playing field. to where we pay the same amount of taxes, whether it is an import or export tax, also the properties. if we go back and look towards world war ii this country, we are the ones that rebuilt europe after world war ii. there was an agreement made.

that they would take in support growth towards nato. they do not do that and when the president steps up and says so people get up in arms and say we ournot taking or supporting allies or dumping on them. as far as regulations go, like with your progressive economists. regulations are great. when it comes to the economy. you have to do common sense. the problem is they go way overboard. host: mr. greene, you can start. the story of the u.s. post-world war ii is the one where we are the consumer of last resort. we are the economy that

supported the rest of the world being able to stay in the free world: not go communist. we did that by opening our markets and largely allowing other countries to keep market more closed. we did this with germany and japan. we letexport taxes and them have higher tariffs than we did. that is continued until the present day. as you have gone through the , japan came back online in the 60's and 70's. are about the same population as the u.s. -- we are talking eight to 10 times the size of the u.s. in some cases. the ability for the u.s. worker and the u.s. consumer to adjust and adapt is challenging. we see that in terms of working and wages coming down.

we have more than doubled the global labor force. it is a story where a u.s. president asked other parts of the world to adjust. was doing.t voelker he was working for president nixon at the time when he took the u.s. off the gold standard. this was a long series of on both sides. so. it ist disagree that important to be asking for adjustments and addressing these things, i think the question is one of the priorities -- what are the priorities? these will largely benefit corporate profits and it will not benefit working families and leveling the playing field. on the hard left were critical of barack obama for the same reasons. the reality is what drives foricans, what is good general motors is not what is good for silicon valley.

i do not like the politics one bit. every time they are buying up an east coast newspaper. we do need to recognize the health and vitality of these companies is very important. marketsto foreign making sure they are not treated unfairly. the french are posing a technology cast -- they can subsidize airplanes but they cannot seem to come up with one for amazon. my feeling is that we need to be careful to distinguish between establishing equity within our -- not in the process failing to stick up for our national champions when we go abroad. it is a delicate balance. i don't know that seeking better market access for pharmaceutical companies solves our pharmaceutical problems.

i don't know that seeking a treatment for amazon, facebook and twitter, all of those guys orin europe here the monopolization problems here. it's important not to campaign on the following basis. privacy is a problem. it only stands to reason the twitter, google and the rest make their money selling your private information but i've got a plan that only works inside of our borders. he's wearing a red tide today -- we wearing a blue shirt today we are on the same team. host: thanks for the conversation, both of you. reporterbloomberg tax

laura davis and we will look at campaign 2020 looking at tax policy and proposals by both the president and democratic candidates. we will have that conversation. ♪ >> in 1979, a small network with unusual name. let viewers make up their own minds, c-span opened up washington policy for all to see bring you unfiltered content from congress and beyond. a lot has changed but today that idea is more relevant than ever. on television and online, c-span is your unfiltered look so you can become your own. brought to you by your cable or

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government. >> washington journal continues host: continuing our conversation taking a look at issues concerning campaign 2020 when it comes to economics and tax policies. laura serves as a tax reporter for the publication, good morning. the president talked about the possibility, floated the idea of a middle-class tax cut. what did he talk about? caller: -- guest: he mentioned this before the midterm election and doing another tax cut specifically for the middle class. at one point he floated a 10% tax cut. this is a political tax cut for the president saying if you elect republicans to the house and keep them in the senate, then you have a united republican government we will deliver another tax cut. that is certainly something possible if they win back the house, but difficult. even under a divided government

that is certainly not likely to happen before the next election. host: is this an effort to help at least with the economy as it stands or are there other factors besides politics involved? guest: politics seems to be the driving factor behind this trump has floated this is a way to get voters on his side and say the democrats are going to raise them, i will lower them. but also the issue of whether we will have a recession or some sort of slowdown is a point of contention the white house. you of the president talking abut a tax cut last week. saying it's great, there was a lot of mixed messaging in the white house is trying to decide whether the economy is strong and nothing is needed or maybe there is a recession and there needs to be some sort of stimulus. >> what was the net effect of the last tax cut, particularly for middle-class -- middle-class families? guest: most people did get a tax cut in the 2017 law.

it was a lot smaller for lower income and middle income people, corporations i large cut in toward the upper end of the income spectrum there was a larger tax cut. for many people it wasn't noticeable because it might've been only 20 or $30 in their paycheck and when you think about all the factors that go in to whether you are paying more for health care, whether you are diverting more to your retirement account, it wasn't as much as people were expecting to see and because of the way the treasury managed how they built -- told that out, they withheld less from people's paychecks and got the tax cut. a lot of people realize the refunds were smaller that they had been in years past. it was a tax cut without people seeing it in their paycheck. guest: what was -- host: what was the result of the tax cuts on the economy overall? guest: it was about in terms of what it cost it's about a one point trump -- $1.5 trillion tax

cut and about $2 trillion is what they're looking at in terms of the federal budget. we seem great corporate growth, stock market gains very strong. a lot of them bought back their own stocks, stock prices. what we haven't seen is a lot of business investment. there was a provision that gave companies great deductions if they invest in new equipment, machinery and that was a thinking if you give them the ability to buy the equipment, they will expand businesses, we haven't seen that as much and that's where some of the concerns about a coming recession are coming from. not seeing businesses take advantage of these tax breaks because businesses are wary about where the economy might be going. >> if you want to ask a question about tax policy, particularly when it comes to 2020 and what both sides are presenting, 202-748-8000 per republicans,

--202-748-8001 for republicans, 202-748-8000 free democrats. how much of this is related to the trade between china and the u.s.? guest: it's hard to take any of these one factors and extrapolate them. right is the tax cut went into effect in the beginning of 2018, this was the start of the trade war with china and others. companies are having to totally redo their supply chains in some cases. they are looking for other suppliers, trying to weigh out how long the trade war last for. about 18 months in, it doesn't look like we are necessarily close to getting a solution so companies are trying to figure out can i take the hit of paying traditional tariffs, do i pass this on to the customers and this uncertainty leads to a lot of inaction on the parts of companies, they are going to wait and see to make that initial investment even if there is a tax benefit.

host: for those democrats running for the presidency, what have they said particularly about how they would change the tax cuts this administration and what would they add in terms of tax policy? >> pre-much every democrat across the board as opposed to the law the republicans past. good want to wipe it off the books and start over. that might be difficult because there are things in their people there are some tax cut the do affect middle class and lower income people and so that's where you see people at elizabeth warren with a lot of different tax proposals out there. tax, thehe wealth focus on people who are very wealthy. $50 million and above. it goes up if you're a billionaire. that would be a real policy shift. we don't have anything like that

on the federal level. she is looking at sort of expanding this, this could raise trillions of dollars whether it's increase childcare access or other sort of programs redirecting that money. send giftitancy the should remain a republican, what about the community of those who represent the wealthy community, what kind of hurdles my it face if she does push those proposal should she become president? >> you have some people, those who are saying abigail disney, the heir to the disney fortune, warren buffett saying we should pay more taxes, we are saying give us a wealth tax. it's my patriotic duty. i want to give back in that way and this is how the system should be structured. then you have other saying wealth tax is a bit too much. howard schultz was exploring a

presidential run saying i agree the wealthy should pay more, but a wealth tax is a bridge too far. that's where you will see kind of a division in democratic hands, you could see there being support of this getting through. the issue is is it constitutional. when you look at the taxing powers congress has, it's not clear they can do this. it's very likely this will be challenged up to the supreme court. host: if you go to our website and you want to learn about the candidates, particularly what they are saying and what they have said well on the campaign trail concerning tax policy, you can go to the website their and go to the box on the top there and type in tax policy 2020 candidates. you can see every thing dave said and a lot more. that's available to you at c-span.org. offy in minnesota start us on the line for democrats.

go ahead. >> this goes back to your previous guests and the current one. talking about tax cuts for the middle class is ridiculous. we should be talking about a raise for the middle class. ansing the minimum wage $15 hour. you can't do it overnight, you have to do it gradually so demand stays -- supply remains ahead of demand. , thise main thing is doesn't cost the taxpayer a penny. and it will raise the demand area and suppress economic -- in suppressed economic areas and take the pressure of the cities. so until we have increased demand and -- in depressed areas, nothing is going to happen in this economy and that so-called professor you had talking about moving more people to cities which would make the situation 10 times worse than it

is today. host: laura davidson, go ahead. guest: one of the things we are hearing from the people is not only the tax burden but also as the caller mentioned, the wage growth for the middle class is very much stagnated. decade, that past has not grown where as you've seen a lot of income distribution shift up that way. that's where policymakers are combat income to inequality. that's we are hearing from elizabeth warren and bernie sanders were looking at an array of proposals that would help get the u.s. more in line with other countries that have much less income inequality essentially that are talked about. host: if you are off of twitter says if you want higher taxes, you want corporations to be less competitive with others in the world, is there a sentiment among corporations there? guest: before the republican tax

law, the corporate was 35% which was very high in the world. we cut that all the way down to 21% and that puts us in the middle of the pack. democrats would've agreed to a corporate tax cut but not as far maybe 28 or 29%. ifs is really the question we had back three or four years ago, u.s. companies were leaving and going overseas because of corporate tax rates here. a lot of pharmaceutical companies also went over to ireland with a tax rate is 12.5%. 2017 andress did in they didn't hit the quite right balance is they try to make company stay here and manufacture. have their research and develop and tear but some say with republicans was too much of a giveaway and still gives them incentive to go overseas. a lot of democrats are talking about how to be increase some rate but also make it possible for american companies to stay in america. host: let's hear from tracy in

maryland. i'm worried about the deficit and the debt. why isn't the president addressing that? guest: this has been an interesting thing. the president has come up several times again spending and timeeficit, but time after is different spending deals and budget deals have passed congress. we've seen these have been record large deals. this is kind of the perennial issue you see. whatever party is in power, they seem to forget about the deficit and debt and whoever is in the minority is complaining. of the biggest complaints about the 2017 tax cut is they didn't have enough offsets, it doesn't really contribute to economic growth and that would be one of the biggest arguments democrats make against another round of tax cuts, especially under present trump's tenure saying this is a political tactic used to

persuade voters, it's not anything that will help grow our economy or deliver the kind of economic change we are looking for. host: democrats line, hi. hello. my question is not exactly what you were just talking about, but i'm the only person i know who said all for the tax information . side of the 1040, it has categories with the different amounts that you deduct. it gives you a category for 1954e born before january but it does not tell you what the amount is to deduct. it sends you to the information

book on page 34, there a big blank space where they have taken out evidently omitted the onlineph and i had to go to find out it is 13,600. the people who print the tax forms and the instruction book to correct that mistake. i am a widow, i've been married and i hate that i have to pay more and more taxes when the president doesn't pay taxes. host: thank you. specificallyt know on your situation of what deduction you should or shouldn't take but this has been an issue with the irs in the past year and a half, they had to redo all of the forms the

agency puts out in the past tax season the irs realized there were some problems with the instructions, they weren't clear. they are in the process of redesigning several of these, so next april when you are filing, make sure you are getting the most recent one, the instructions have likely been updated. it's a consomme involving -- it is a constantly evolving process. host: another viewer says quit blaming tax cuts for the -- it's the spending cuts. guest: paul ryan, who quit after realizing he wasn't going to be able to make the cuts to medicare and medicaid, it's difficult to do politically speaking. people of medicare and social and those are basically ballooning costs, but how do you

do that, something the readily every voter will be brought down on. that's when you see people saying i don't like the debt, but at the same time they are unwilling to make cuts to the sacred cow programs. host: the tax cuts thanked on 3% growth in gdp. is that happening, what happens if it doesn't happen? guest: we've seen several strong quarters into the tax cuts but it's unlikely, some of these estimate look at 3% to 5% which is incredible. that would be off the charts. so what is likely is these tax cuts will not pay for themselves. more in theg growth 2%, two point 25% range. we are already seeing signs of slowing. if that becomes a reality that could add -- these cuts could add more to the deficit. host: our republican line we will hear from daniel in jackson

heights. i'd like to get to a fundamental issue about what taxes are for. give 12 years we of public education to children and we assume those 12 years are necessary for them to be functional in our society however it turns out we feel that one today needs a college education so we have a student loan program that is a windfall for banks and most people go into college. after that we have schools were you acquire your professional skills. does not existea in the rest of the world because once you finish or 12 years of public education, you go onto your professional education and so the question for me is if we are paying all of these taxes, what is it that we are paying for?

we are paying for somebody else to manipulate for profit. are we paying them to do something functional for people putting or are we just them in for a rainy day? it has become very confusing situation. why do we have health care for elderly and we don't have health care for overpopulation. host: thank you. guest: the caller brings up something that is kind of two hot button issues. cost of college education, the explosion of college debt or tuition as well as having to move to some sort of medicare for all system. what we are seeing here is really that debate among democrats of should college be free, you have some who say this is not feasible, we can't do that and then you have others, who are making this essentially part of their campaign and really the question is how does this get paid for, what sort of

taxes do you need to offset this and that is really kind of a dividing line and that's what we are seeing play out between the different candidates and that will be an interesting thing to see where the party lands. host: someone on twitter with another irs question saying what happened to the idea of completing a tax return on the size of the postcard? guest: that is something the republicans promised going in, they sort of achieved it. they had it on a half sheet of paper but there were all these different attachments if you had any sort of minorly complicated thing, you had to fill out all these additional forms. the irs said we are just going to make it back to more of a two-page form like in the past. .nd have everything most people are filing online anyway but they headed in one place. the postcard is no more. host: charles is next, independent line.

caller: just a comment first off curve didn't-side work in 1947, it didn't work with reagan, he raised taxes more than any more non-war president never prayed use the effective rate to raise taxes and now we are seeing this play out again and look where we are. main building.ng another thing i want you to comment on is we have a debt and deficit, we understand the deficit, in majority of that is for medicare and medicaid and things like this, but on the other hand we have to raise money to pay the debt, now with most of americans only having $400 in their bank account, where you going to get that money? this is why i agree with elizabeth warren, let's take

five cents of every dollar and also, china is going to graduate more people this year with masters degree than our whole country is going to graduate people with degrees. we need free college, we need to be able to compete. guest: this is really kind of where things are headed in terms of what are all of the things we could do as a country and what are our priorities. when you look at something like medicare for all, the cost of that over a decade is about $30 trillion which is a massive some, it could be done, it would likely need tax increases for everyone, not just the wealthy. but that's an amount of money that could be raised when they talk about this saying yes your taxes would go up but when you take out the cost for premiums and out-of-pocket costs and all of that that you would come out better ahead, when you run the

numbers a kind of depends on who you are and what kind you have and what you are paying. but that is a cost that could be if you look at the numbers, you could come up with that. looking at free college tuition or childcare or things that have a smaller price tag. versus $30 trillion. if you're looking towards a larger social safety net, those would be the entrees into that. somethingook at kamala harris or joe biden have talked about as a public option. those are also less expensive proposals that you could try and forces, thaty the would be a way to transition at which is ansive cost little bit of a way to test out some ideas going forward. host: joey from -- were public in line, hello.

caller: good morning. the so-called lie of tax cuts for the rich is baloney. i make six to $5,000 a year on retirement and now i'm getting $44 a month more take-home which was my money to begin with. i'm happy with the tax cut and as far as income inequality, i've got a 29-year-old girl living ups there's who won't go to work. there will be income inequality if you don't get off your but and go to work and listen, you don't need a college education. i was a union ironworker for 41 years, made a lot of money had no college debt because i didn't want to go to college. so many people don't belong in college, they are not mentally able to pass the courses. so go into working. he sees he is getting 42

extra dollars every month which is about in line for a middle people,but for a lot of personally i don't check my pace of every couple of weeks and see that, but to that point about did get a tax cut. host: stephanie in pennsylvania, independent line. caller: thank you. theuestion is is it true tax rate on overseas earned profits is 10.5%? but.: yes, the way the tax law works says if you operate in the u.s., your tax rate is 21%. if you make some thing in the u.s. and sell it overseas, you basically get a deduction so it lowers it to between 12% and 13%.

overseasif you operate and have facebook has a lot of algorithms and ip's in ireland. in that case you have to pay if you are in a zero tax country of the pay 10.5% to the u.s. government. if you're in a country that has a low tax but not zero, you have to pay tax to that country as well as a certain amount to the united states to get you to that 12% or 13% range. this is what has been criticized heavily, people saying look, companies are able to find games and loopholes to pay less when they are operating outside the u.s.. host: did you have a follow-up? caller: yes i do. first i think that is ridiculous , but my follow-up is the small businesses who hire the most people in this country should get the lowest tax rate and i think their tax rate should be

capped at 10.5% and for the other companies, i think the tax rates should depend on how many -- on the percentage of the u.s. citizens that they hire as compared with the total companies and make sure you adjust for them hiding people as independent contractors. the caller- guest: brought up the pointer small business is getting lower tax rates and this is one of those things that's kind of a no-brainer. we should tax them lower than larger businesses but it's really hard to do technically because most small businesses aren't corporations, i pay my taxes to government, the way a lot of small businesses are structured, say you have three owners, they each divide the profits among themselves and pay those on their personal return. so they are basically paying small business taxes through the individual side of the code and so the tax rate is whatever

their personal income tax rate is. so the tax law gave them some of the tax cut. depends on what tax rate you are paying is a small business owner. so that could be as high as 37% or as low as 10%. as percent deduction. this proved for congress to be the hardest thing for them to accomplish because it was difficult. people owning truly small businesses and summer hedge fund equity private equity managers making millions of dollars a year, so how do you make those groups. host: she is a tax reporter. let's go to mike in dallas, north carolina. caller: i've got two comments. my first one is on social security. social security would have been great if the government would cap their hands out of it.

my second thing is is there anything stopping warren buffett and all these millionaires are saying we need to get the tax rate, is there anything stopping them from voluntarily paying off taxes towards paying say the federal debt? guest: so no there is not and that goes for anyone. if you feel so inclined you can send the treasury a check and they will accept it. where the conversation is coming from, the patron millionaire group saying tax us more is maybe you have a handful of people that say i want to put this down payment on the debt or pay for info structure project, but in terms of long-term sustainable growth in terms of where is the tax money going to come from they are saying we have to make it a law, we can't just volunteer or some sort of charitable thing needs to be set in stone. host: what does the irs defined

as wealthy and how many of those types of people exist in the united states? guest: they don't put a definition well -- wealthy or small business. someone in new york, someone earning $200,000 is kind of middle income. but for that you are one of the higher income earners. that is really difficult thing, but where the top tax rate kicks in his $500,000 a year. as we are paying that 37%. you look at taxpayers. i don't know how many tax returns are filed at that level, but if you look at is very much an expert into line and there are very few people earning $1 million or more. able to go down. sometimes and you go through the data they have to redact things because there are so many people at the top levels to figure out that persons tax information because there's only a handful of people who file returns. host: line for democrats, hello.

is the taxquestion cut did not work for all people, what you have is you give corporations so much money they modernize their industry and then they eliminate jobs so it is not creating jobs. if they do create some, it's and it isnizing temporary jobs. so what is going on is we have big businesses who do not want to contribute to their own hard forwhich makes it everyone else in the deficit goes up. it's like we sold our country to rich people and everybody else does not matter anymore. guest: this has been this one of these issues and the criticisms.

as a corporation you can fully write off if you buy a more efficient machinery for your factory floor, maybe you needed five or six workers and i you need one, they are able to get a full deduction on that in the first year. in years past he might've had to write that off over seven or 10 years. some people are saying we are incentivizing people and on the flipside we haven't seen businesses take advantage of that. companies are skittish about spending money. they are worried about a trade war, potential economic slowdown. there's this counter wind saying maybe i will hold off. for the short term maybe those workers keep their job but in the long term we are seeing companies are able to do a lot more with fewer workers particularly in the manufacturing sector. it's not so much jobs being outsourced, that is one thing

happening go to mexico or china, but also companies just don't need as many workers as they did 20 or 40 years ago. host: republican line. caller: good morning. i wanted to make it basic point that without campaign-finance reform, getting money completely , we talk about and everything else, as long as these politicians are going in with an average of $200,000 and coming out with 6 million. nothing is going to change. it needs to go back to the way it was previously where it just off sales tax and such. people know the history about progressives, you can look this up, a pbs documentary called prohibition. the progressives and the ku klux klan which were married the hip wanted redistribution of wealth

and the federal government said wait a minute, 89% of our revenue comes from the production of sales distribution and purchasing of alcohol, what will we do? they said income tax. but let's take all the money from the middle class. my point is it needs to be with sales tax. if you are a poor person paying sales tax at the register, at the end of the year they make a system where if you make a certain amount, you get it back in rebate. will person who is rich pay a lot more taxes in sales taxes because they are buying more. they're making transactions on wall street. the people that are rich don't pay income tax, why are we talking about it? they have a capital gains tax. host: thank you very much. guest: the caller brings up something that we are seeing a lot in european countries. moving away from corporate income taxes and individual income tax into a value added

tax. this is a tax on every step of production. you have the widget and to add another widget, that's a tax. and he goes to the end seller. republicans proposed a version of this, there was a lot of opposition in their own party. democrats have been looking at this for a long time as a way to tax consumption versus income. which is more of an efficient way to raise revenue. republicans in general are largely opposed to this to really expand government looking at shrinking the size of government, that's not something -- we see in europe especially corporate income tax rate on this value tax. in terms of a straight sales tax, democrats don't like that because it hits your lower income consumers.

could funnel that into programs for lower income people. laura davidson, thanks for your time this morning. for the remainder of our show we will talk about the question we started with about your outlook on the economy. is it optimistic, pessimistic were not sure. optimistic 202-748-8000, pessimistic 202-748-8001, if you are not sure, 202-748-8002. we will take those when washington journal continues. ♪ >> tonight on "the communicators" cybersecurity reporter kate on her book "kingdom of lies" about the world of cybercrime. we want to understand why all

these things are happening to us, whether it is the exploitation of the algorithms that run twitter and facebook in order to help the russian intelligence agencies influence an election or the ransomware that has taken down big cities like baltimore and atlanta, we have to understand the people will wear behind these things and all of them are different. >> in the wake of the recent shootings in el paso, texas and dayton, ohio, the house judiciary committee will return early from a summer recess. which include banning high-capacity and emission magazine, restricting firearms by those deemed in preventing -- from purchasing a gun.

live coverage begins wednesday, begins wednesday, september 4 at 10:00 a.m. eastern on c-span and c-span.org and if you are on the go, listen to our live coverage using the free c-span radio app. >> washington journal continues. host: your idea about the outlook on the economy. optimistic, pessimistic or you are not sure. if you're00 optimistic, 202-748-8001 if you are pessimistic. if you're not sure, 202-748-8002 .a recent poll asking these kinds of questions when they took a look at the economy, 38% of those responded saying they were optimistic about the future. 27 were pessimistic and percent say they are unsure. those were optimistic saying it was the job market that pointed them to being optimistic.

37% saying it was the economy overall. they asked about personal finances for americans of those who were old. 40% of those say finances were the same as two years ago, 29% saying they are better than two saying they were worse than two years ago. the competencet of the economy, 53% of those attributed to president trump. 25% saying that the tweets from the president increase confidence. that was from the cbs poll. you along the same lines what you think about the economy and whether you're optimistic, pessimistic or not sure. florida is where we will start,

david says he is pessimistic. david, tell us why. caller: thank you very much for taking my call. we be optimistic when we are racking up a debt that is a trillion dollars a year. under president clinton we and wetaxes on the rich are going to pay off the debt. now we have taken and done a tax rich and we are really going into debt. thank you. host: let's hear from ben in indianapolis, indiana, shows a sign of optimism when it comes to the economy. caller: i've been around a few

years and it's been up and up and up. struggling because of the trade wars, we are going in the right direction no matter what your political views are, we've got to sit down and figure out what's left and a lot of people have a lot left. i'm optimistic. it's up to us to keep it going. host: are there specifics you look at to see the country is going in the right direction. everybody pays money to eat and consume. you go to the grocery store. it balanced with the income levels in my opinion and increases with the income and the cost of what you are getting .n the household with spending it is balanced out and going in the right direction.

host: giving us his thoughts this morning. we will hear from robert next in maryland. go ahead. i am pessimistic about the economy. china, i saw poverty there that was unbelievable. we had everything going good here, but the roles have become reversed. what i see is when you've got people who can get totally free education, when you have people with free health care and when you have the government controlled these corporate inters where you have them our country controlling the government.

everything i'm seeing about my country, these banks, people have to work half their lives to pay their loans back to go to school. that's 21st century slavery. from the very impoverished country to the second-biggest economy in the world. we are not going to be to those people because they are practicing what we used to preach. host: that is robert in maryland. one thing he brought up his china. also talking about current negotiations with china over tariffs. >> i think anything is possible. much moreing talks meaningful than i would say at any time and i think for the most part we are doing very well, china is a great country.

and he is a great leader, they are losing millions and millions of jobs, going to other countries. in the meantime the united states is taking in tremendous amounts, billions and billions of dollars and frankly no inflation and most of these haven't gone up because china is able to manipulate and put in the system. otherwise it would be a competitive product. but they lost a lot of jobs. it's a really good chance. we are in a much better position now than in any time during negotiations. >> represented will hurt in the pages of usa today. he announced he is retiring from serving the 23rd district of

texas. he says the first step in this new war with china is to focus on policy and incentivize structural changes it with its treatment of foreign investors. instead of attacks on our consumers and businesses. we should have a -- as investors are unable to do something in china, chinese companies and investors should be unable to do those here. then venture capitals chinese capital should not be allowed in the american ai industry. if u.s. companies off rating in china must turn over intellectual property to the government, chinese companies must reciprocate in america. he goes on from there. you can find in the op-ed pages of usa today. conference, sos started yet and we are waiting

for it to start. when it does you can catch it in its entirety on c-span two up until 10:00 for this site on c-span we are talking about your viewpoint of the economy. in thed shows pessimism economy, go ahead. caller: good morning. thepessimistic because was very bad.007 global markets helped, we were able to get through that and it was tough and so the economy did improve. i'm sorry to say but our president is not a negotiator or cooperator in the g7 is a great example. he is trying to wall us off from china which is the fourth population, a quarter of the population in the world, if the second largest economy. i'm from a farming area.

i just saw all my relatives in the midwest, bankruptcy out there, we have climate change haslems with floods and he no science people in the white house executive ranch. all the facts that would address even just our own situations and now he has enabled. we are entering but i think is the dow showing signs in this whole treasury business going down. let's hear from charles in west virginia -- charleston, west virginia. joe says he is optimistic. optimistic.very all these people, my goodness gracious fighting and strong. people came into office, , it seemed like things were looking up and these people and

outlets, like the news they absolutely want a recession because they hate this man so much. the woman talked about china, yes they are making all that money because we are giving them a ton of money to sell our products in their and if they would get out of his way we could really go. montana --phoenix in from missoula, montana. caller: hi there. because thetic american people just do not understand the monetary system. because of that we keep running around with our head in the sand. had dr.s ago bloomberg randall wray on one of their programs getting him explain

monitored monetary theory. how it works and it's nothing like will think. you have a caller calling in saying my social security will be safe if the government had kept its hands out wrong. soone understands the system it's all talking smoke and mirrors. host: so what is the indicator for you as far as pessimism of the economy? createdben bernanke, he trillion dollars to bail banks trees out -- bankers out. jeff $20d 20 told trillion to bail the economy and we are saying wondering how we will fill potholes. we don't understand the system. them you to please have on. host: thanks for the suggestion. aaron in maryland up next.

done,: what america has it has drained its savings , one point $5 trillion in lottery ticket with a bowl of credit cards and we need a roof over the house. infrastructure. we have turned into a systemype capitalistic with banks as the loan sharks are the pharmaceutical companies are the cartels and the insurance companies are the protection racket. we are doomed. host: rick in nashville tennessee, optimistic about the economy. caller: i'm very optimistic. 40 years ago i moved to nashville, tennessee. i've lived in l.a., all over the country and i've never seen a state. in tennessee you go to memphis,

areville, knoxville, they democrat mayors. but the state is a republican state. when i lived in nashville there were two skyscrapers downtown and they were 30 stories tall. you come now and there 15 skyscrapers downtown. give to the last caller, those buildings are basically banks and insurance companies downtown, but i was always raised you can't fight city hall , but let me tell you something, president trump has done but the republicans couldn't do, what the democrats couldn't do and if we don't structurally change the way we operate in the world, china is going to have the industry, no one will buy from us and we are going to be the third world country you are already seeing it in rural america and urban cities. jobs are leaving

the country. that cannot be sustained. it's no different from the house. if you make 100 grand a year and are living off of that and all of a sudden you lose your job and are living off nothing, life changes as you know it. that's the new america if we don't let donald trump do it. i would vote for him for anything. thank you. host: we've included a line for those were not sure. from massachusetts, hello. i would just like to say i don't think it matters who wins. it doesn't matter if you are democrat or republican, we are either way spend too much money on these some of that money keeps disappearing and going into research programs or space

programs. i think the main reason we have is all these unnecessary, trillions and trillions of dollars in wars. i just think all of these wars taking all of our money and that's what we are in debt. from you very much host: michigan, optimistic about the economy. hello. caller: hi there. i am optimistic. i think president trump is doing a wonderful job. i think we need to get some onple in congress and people both sides, democrats and republicans that can work together again.

optimistic when you have so many people fighting each other, i think he is doing a wonderful job. i do think the media has a lot to do with what's going on also. i don't know what their agenda are doingthe russians this to our media. i don't know, i think that's where the investigation should be is why the media is so one-sided host: robert and green -- so one-sided. situation itnk the is plain and easy to see. he has a whole bunch of grifters in their and they are literally piece andt piece by deal by deal and it is always -- as long as he is

in office, our future is doomed. thank you. host: from george in jacksonville, florida. optimistic about the economy. i think the problem is in congress. i kind of did a thing with my father, i work my way through college. 10th and 11th grade -- won't have this debt going to college. it's it we don't have hurricanes because there is dust from the desert going on. so many little things they can do. give them 1% of the amount of spending that they cut.

just pay them like an industry and i think it will find ways to deal with problems. host: mention during the president's conference that will take place as he finishes up the g7. he said today he was likely to alter next year's summit at his resort meaning you'd per jeff personally profit -- he would personally profit during a leading dutch meeting of world leaders. they love the location of the hotel, he said adding he hasn't found anything close to competing with it. you can be there in a matter of minutes after you land. ron and oklahoma city, oklahoma. next up. caller: thanks for having my call. i'm optimistic and this is a ,erson who did support trump but i actually don't beyond what

they tell me and some of these other am radio stations. i'm actually looking at his tax policy, which has doubled our deficit and who he has put in charge. he ran on getting wall street and lobbyist out of the oval office so they will work for the people. go look at steve mnuchin and how many billionaires are on his cabinet. so i have hope and optimism we can get him replaced with bernie sanders who actually will do what trump promised. trump has become the king of the swamp. i am pessimistic because i don't think people really look at politics and what is really going on in our government. there was a caller just a few days ago that said she doesn't like dark money in politics so she is voting for joe biden. joe biden couldn't be more dark money so we need someone who has never taken the dirty money and that would be bernie.

host: that is ron in oklahoma city, oklahoma. he will be the last call for this program. the president is expected to address the g7 at a press conference, you can stay close to c-span 2 for that. and other events you have missed for the day. we invite you to go to the website. ♪

announcer: tonight at 9:30 a discussion about the future of representative democracy and how it influences the effectiveness of government. speakers include a former republican white house advisor karl rove. the personal relationships between the president and the ,ongress, even with members most importantly with members of the opposition have to be aimed at cordiality. the president cannot get drawn into this. he has to rise above it and be the adult in the room and take whatever is hurled his way, kennedy of massachusetts said in 2003, bush lied and he knew that was alive. he looked at the same intelligence that bush had and gave a speech in georgetown, and said that this needs to be removed by diplomacy, but he was

the guy who kicked it off. that did not keep bush from holding his tongue and trying to set the record straight without getting personal and working closely with kennedy for the following years. the president has to be that person and it is not an easy job. i've met her one time i got a call from harry reid, and he said he gave a speech and did not read it before hand, and i called bush a liar and a loser, and i did not mean to do that. will you tell him i am sorry? i said, i've got his schedule right here, and he doesn't have anything on his schedule, why don't you just talk to him yourself. click. that is the job of the president, whether they like it or not, the personal relationships matter. also eric cantor and former gove'